Articles
Please note, the following work is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without express written consent from the author.
To Write or Not to Write is Not the Question by Pat Oplinger
Where the Poppies Blow by Nancy Thatcher Cerny
So That's a Road Runner by Nancy Thatcher Cerny
Confessions of a Temporary Yard Clerk by Phil Emery (Vintage Rails Magazine, No.14, September/October, 1998)
Just Because He's a Bird Doesn't Mean He's a Bird Brain by Susan Varno, (Buzzwords, Spring, 2003)
Welcome Foreigner by Susan Varno (Ozarks Magazine, April, 2004)
TO WRITE OR NOT TO WRITE IS NOT THE QUESTION
By Pat Oplinger
I write because I have no choice. If I don’t write, I’ll either choke or drown.
There’s a lake of language deep within me fed by underground streams of syllables and hidden springs of emotion. The waters gush with great force and flow with exceptional speed. There’s no escape. Experience has taught me not to dam this cresting river of words. Damming it results in flooding of the worst kind.
Words, phrases, and paragraphs bob to the surface of my personal Nile and float there for just so long. Then they must spill onto a page. If I don’t let them overflow, I hear gurgling. Off they go seeking refuge downstream, mingling with the other ideas churning in my mind. When they reach the whitewater of daily routine I rarely find them again.
Occasionally I am lucky enough to retrieve a few of them only to find they have changed. They are not the same words I ignorantly watched drift by on my current of thoughts.
If, on the other hand, I attempt to swallow the well of words within me, it is far worse. Swallowing words inevitably causes story reflux. The acrid taste of suppressed ideas nauseates me. It causes IBS, irritable babble syndrome.
My head pounds. My blood races to my fingertips. Scenes and plots crescendo within me. I gasp for air. I stagger to my computer. I must give birth to these sentences or drown.
Friends, it is far healthier for me to listen to my heart, to scribble madly or to let words spew themselves onto a blank screen as I type along in delirious delight.
Thus choking and drowning are both avoided. I survive to write another day. My soul rejoices, my muse whispers a thankful prayer and all is well with the world . . . ‘til tomorrow.
Nancy Thatcher Cerny
There was a war, it seems so long ago, more inclusive of the geographic world than any war before it, and so it is called a World War – "The War to End All Wars."
The warfare was modern and mechanized, causing more death and destruction to more people and places than any previous war had done - as this was a clash of 20th century technology and 19th century military tactics. Human casualties, surviving or dead, soldier and civilian, numbered in the millions. History insists many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during this first world war. Some human casualties found their way to medical facilities, called ‘dressing stations,’ where doctors with 19th century skills attempted to deal with 20th century injuries.
One Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, although he had experienced war and surgeries in battlefield hospitals in Africa and Europe, could not get used to the noise, the suffering, the screams, and the blood – especially during the horrific battles in northern France and southwest Belgium known as Flanders and Picardy in the spring of 1915. Historians claim, "The destruction from the battles reached towns and roads of the area and all plant life, leaving only mud." At Flanders, the doctor spent 17 days treating injured men. He later described it as "Seventeen days in Hades!"
One death particularly affected McCrae. His young assistant and friend Lt. Alexis Helmer, age 22, was killed by a shell burst on May 2nd. McCrae performed the funeral ceremony as Helmer was laid to rest in the veteran’s cemetery outside his hospital dressing station. The following day, while sitting on the back of an ambulance and looking out over the cemetery, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem:
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
-Lt. Colonel John McCrea, MD 1872-1918
In Flanders Fields was later published in the London-based magazine ‘Punch.’ It was subsequently reprinted in many allied countries and languages. John McCrae’s poem popularized the use of red paper poppies as the symbol of sacrifice by veterans; poppies were used to solicit donations on their behalf – a tradition which has continued into the 21st Century. A portion of Flanders Fields poem is printed on Canadian $10 notes and schoolchildren throughout North America and Europe memorized the poem. McCrae, in 1918, died of pneumonia, a common killer of The Great War’s soldiers. He was 46 years old.
Where did the gravesite poppies come from? They were the seeds that laid dormant for years in large areas of Europe, blooming only when plowed up – or otherwise disturbed. In 1915, huge numbers of poppies flourished, blanketing acres of red blood-soaked battlefields and newly dug graves in blood red poppies, including the fields of Flanders.
Poppies are the "Flowers of Eternal Sleep’ in The Wizard of Oz. They are the symbol of Life, Love and Death in wartime. Blood red poppies represent and commemorate the sacrifices of our military veterans.
19May09 – June writing assignment-TwinLakesWriters – nktc
published Family History News 2009 \\
By Nancy Thatcher Cerny
A Road Runner was spotted in Kingswood Estates about the middle of May this year. Several residents who live on the main road have seen him walking up the street, and through their yards. The silly bird was so bold as to stare at one man who had stepped out of his house one morning, before it disappeared, like a flash, into the man’s lilac bushes.
When I finally glimpsed him for myself, he was standing right plum in the middle of the street, his bushy black feather-cap rose to attention when he heard my car approaching. Bent forward, his long legs carried him with deliberate strides onto a freshly mowed lawn where he stood watching, unafraid, as I drove slowly past him.
I understand the attraction of blue water, open fields, acres of woodlands and the serene quiet that is foreign to city living. Every summer somebody or something new comes to live in this little Ozark community of houses with native and not-so-native species residing in harmony. As one of the latter, a Roadrunner, state bird of New Mexico, is usually found in the desert or scrubby country, but is rare to this part of Arkansas. I wonder if he is lost. We have never before seen one of his ilk here.
The bird was seen walking the roof ridge of a nearby house. He is capable of flying but not one person has seen this particular bird in flight. Some neighbors will concede, however, he can run as fast as their golf carts can go. He is a handsome bird, even if he is a Cuckoo. Unique in his shape and behavior, he looks just like Warner Brothers' drawings but he sounds nothing like the Road Runner's "Bee-Beep" we heard so often in cartoons. He calls out with a strange dove-like coo – almost a barking "Koo."
A Roadrunner doesn't keep people awake as the whippoorwills do or screech and scream like the Barn Owls and Blue Jays. He hasn't startled residents the way the Bobcat that lived in our community last summer did. This Roadrunner, even though he walks atop our houses and runs across our lawns, has been an interesting, friendly, unique visitor. We have enjoyed his unexpected company and he is welcome to stay. But if he decides to move on, we will miss him and remember 2006 as the year the Roadrunner came to live in our town.
Post script: The Roadrunner continues to reside here a copse of evergreen. We rarely see field mice, lizards or snakes since his arrival; that’s good. But, we do, occasionally, find the remnant feathers of a titmouse or gold-finch as a reminder he continues to live in Kingswood Estates. nktc-2009
CONFESSIONS OF A TEMPORARY YARD CLERK
By Phil Emery
Just out of the Army, back home and killing time during the extra-hot Kansas summer of 1957, I learned that the Chanute, Kansas office of the Santa Fe was looking for someone to work as a yard clerk while the regulars took some vacation. I could only guess what a yard clerk did, but thought, "Why not give it a try?"
I was interviewed by the stationmaster and soon found myself working from 4 p.m. to midnight. I liked the idea of going to work at 4 p.m. after three years of Army 6 a.m. reveille.
I worked under a crusty old yardmaster, who some years before had lost an arm between the couplings. I soon learned the routine. The yardmaster filled out ruled manila cards with car numbers, destination numbers, car type, etc. Santa Fe towns and destinations were numbered, and as I recall, the numbers represented distance in miles from Chicago. I used the cards to type up a list of cars, in correct order, that made up departing freight trains. The yardmaster used a mushy soft-lead pencil, and to make matters worse, he obviously had never won a prize for penmanship. Also, I will admit, perhaps he had lost his good writing hand along with his arm.
Fortunately, I was a pretty good typist and made few typos (it was hell erasing all those carbons). The big problem was deciphering the yardmaster's numbers. After numerous trips across the room to ask him about some of his numbers (which resulted in his grumbling, groaning, and rolling his eyes), I gave up and "decoded" them as best I could. This lack of communication between us eventually led to bigger problems.
In addition to the typing, I recorded the 5 p.m. temperature of an outside thermometer and sold a few passenger tickets (learning in the process that the clergy got a discount), Also, I loaded the mail, and sometimes boxes of baby chickens, from a steel-wheeled cart onto the northbound Tulsan. Later in the afternoon I put bundles of the local newspaper into a nearby "way car." On the Santa Fe, they informed me, a caboose was a "way car." I don't know where the way car with the papers went, but where ever it was, they apparently were not in a hurry to read the news from Chanute, as the way car was always still there when I left at midnight. In the evening I often sealed boxcars with ICC seals and operated a scale to weigh freight cars.
But back to the crusty-grumbly yardmaster and our lack of communication. One evening he gave me an extremely indecipherable bunch of cards, and somehow I typed up a train in reverse order (way car behind the engine, etc.). This caused some comment, but no one, including the yardmaster, seemed upset. Could he have made a mistake on the cards? I'll never know. He just grumbled something.
Anyway, I was embarrassed and concerned. I wondered - as I watched the train depart - would it arrive in Kansas City with the cars arranged backward, or did my paperwork cause them to think it was backward, when perhaps it was not?
During my three-week railroad "career", were cars lost due to my typing incorrect destination and/or car numbers? If so, where did they end up? Are lost cars - some with cargo - still sitting out there, rusting away on old weed-covered sidings? Who got all those carbon copies of my lists, anyway? It seemed to me that it was one "hell of a way to run a railroad." I have read that the Santa Fe (now Burlington Northern - Santa Fe) is one of the best -run railroads in America, and I guess it is - in spite of the three weeks I may have helped them lose cars.
END
JUST BECAUSE HE'S A BIRD DOESN'T MEAN HE'S A BIRD BRAIN
(appeared in BUZZWORDS, Spring, 2003)
By Susan Varno
Tying lengths of brightly colored yarn to the tiny seedlings I just planted, I noticed several small black birds were following me. Yarn hung from their mouths, and my future dogwoods were naked.
"Get away from my seedlings," I hollered, flapping my hands at them. "These are going to be trees. For you birds."
A mother bird spit out her fuzzy mouthful. "This yarn will make such lovely nests for our babies."
"If you leave it alone," I said, "you'll have branches to sit on, berries and nuts to eat, shade."
A larger bird, probably the leader of the flock, strutted closer and planted his feet in front of me. "Do you really thing these little bits of yarn are going to protect these sticks from the monster lawnmower? I assume the kid with the shades and the Walkman will be hotrodding all over the yard like he usually does. The other day he was popping wheelies. He missed the apple tree by this much." The bird lifted one leg and spread his toes so I could see just how close my son and the garden tractor had come to oblivion.
"I'll tell him to be more careful," I said.
The lead bird wasn't impressed. "You know how long before these trees are big enough to do us any good? You're lucky to get twenty, maybe thirty, leaves the first year. What good is a stick with a few leaves on it? We're talking two or three years before they even look like trees, minimum that long before there are any berries." He sniffed a stick. "And I don't think we like the fruit from these trees. Don't those clowns that sing all the time like to eat these?"
Plum, dogwood and hazelnut trees, the Department of Conservation called this their 'Songbird Mix'. My visitors were starlings. When they sing, it sounds like someone scraping the inside of a rusty can.
"Then," he continued, "it's even longer before the branches are strong enough to hold a nest. Do you have any idea what our life expectancy is?"
I was beginning to wonder if I'd live long enough to see these seedlings grow into something I could recognize. "How long?"
"If we don't freeze to death in the winter or smash into the grills of the cars roaring down the road or get eaten by..." He eyed my cat lurking behind a mulberry tree. He sighed. "We need nests now. You're talking about who-knows-when."
"Aren't you concerned about your children's future?"
He glared up at me. "If we don't get some nests built, there won't be any children. Are you getting the big picture, lady?"
Reaching into my scrap bag, I pulled the rest of the yarn pieces out and spread them on the ground. "Take your pick."
He whistled to his cohorts, and the sky came alive with starlings. They swooped up the multi-colored yarn.
Back in the house, I took a waterproof marker and printed 'This is a TREE' on a hundred 3 by 5 cards. I poked a hole in each card and slipped each one onto a future tree. Not only did most of my seedlings survive, but so did most of my 'TREE' signs.
By Susan Varno
(abridged reprint from OZARKS MAGAZINE, April, 2004
see entire article at ozarksmonthly.com)
Have you been invited to a "come and go"? Ever been terrorized by a "mud dauber"? Have you heard someone "shelling down the corn"? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're probably a "foreigner" which is what the natives call immigrants to the Ozarks. They don't mean people coming here from other countries. They mean people who moved here from other places in the United States.
If you're a "foreigner" like myself (We moved from Illinois to Dolph, Arkansas, in August, 1999.), you may find the following information helpful.
The Rules
1. A "come and go" is an open house, "mud daubers" are wasps so called because they make their nests out of mud, and "shelling down the corn" means inspired preaching.
2. Fish and game wardens outnumber sheriffs and deputies, police and state troopers combined. "Deer Day" is a state holiday.
3. A snow emergency is declared if it's snowing in Kansas or Oklahoma or it might snow in either of those places. School is dismissed, activities are canceled, and the natives fire up their generators.
The Food
1. Meat is never served naked. It's always covered in breading, gravy or barbecue sauce. Pie is considered a food group with fried pie a subgroup.
2. In the Ozarks, canned corn is used as bait but crawfish are steamed and served with hot sauce. We foreigners put things the other way around.
3. Ozarks food is wonderful. Be on the lookout for dumplings, buttermilk pie, hoecakes, venison sausage, chocolate gravy on homemade biscuits and anything made with sorghum molasses. The natives insist sorghum is good for your blood.
The People
1. Drivers grip the top of the steering wheel with one hand so they can wave two fingers at people in other cars or along the side of the road. It's unneighborly not to wave back.
2. Dirt and gravel roads are often blocked by two cars (make that two pickups) parked side-by-side so the drivers can talk. Most conversations begin with "Seen any deer?" or "How high is the lake (or river)?"
3. If your car breaks down on the highway, everyone who comes by will offer to help. One directs traffic, another calls for help on his cell phone, the rest pop the hood to study the problem. For sure, someone has the tools needed in the back of his truck to fix whatever is wrong.
4. Family is important, and even death doesn't end a family connection. Throughout May and into June, Memorial Day is observed on a different Sunday at each area church so families can decorate all the cemeteries where their relatives are buried.
5. When we vacationed here, strangers would start friendly conversations with us at the grocery, on the street and in restaurants. Now that I'm getting acclimated, I sometimes started these conversations myself.
6. When people ask how you're doing, they really want to know. Everybody hugs you, even people you've just met. Men hug each other.
The Churches
1. At Ozarks churches, fellowship means food; men's breakfasts, ladies' salad suppers, meals after church service, pie auctions, baby and wedding showers, and "dinners on the ground" (picnics).
2. Being an uptight Chicagoan, I was embarrassed to find myself swaying and tapping my foot to Southern Gospel music. Lately, I've been known to lift one hand during particularly spirited passages. The congregation knows the hymns by heart. At a service we attended, the power went out; but everybody went on singing as if nothing had happened.
3. The "Bible Belt" means a church every few blocks in town and at the end of many country lanes. The parking lots are full on Sundays and often Wednesday nights, too. Social life revolves around church activities; concerts, revivals, turkey shoots, fund raisers. Here, people live what they believe offering to help anyone in need, helping without being asked.
Welcome to the Ozarks. We're glad to have you.
