Writing, Reading and Story Telling

Up at my usual 4 a.m. to start the day in a my usual stupor.
I worked, sort of, doing foundational stuff on the Stacy Letters, but there are so many decisions I have to make regarding the formatting that I gave up, spent some time staring into space, then read a murder mystery instead of working.

I should not be so hard on myself… There is an old Shoe cartoon in which he is sitting at his typewriter staring out the window when another bird comes by and says, “Why aren’t you pounding that keyboard”?

To which Shoe replies, “Typists pound keyboards; writers stare out windows”.

Our daughter Eve came over this evening for a delightful supper with us. I was too lazy to cook so I called Ginny who brought in a rotisserie chicken. Lemon pepper. Delicious!

After supper, the three of us tried to get the tape recorder working to make a podcast program for Donald to air. The program is to be Miss Eve’s Story Hour. I set up the recorder and Eve began telling one of the stories she relates to kids at her library.

I was so impressed!

She assumes a professional stance and demeanor, her voice changes. And with her very first sentence I realized that I was no longer listening to “my little girl” but I was in the presence of a professional story teller. Enthralling.
She told two great stories.

Of course the tape machine didn’t work! Ginny and I figured it out that we bought if at a yard sale, maybe six years ago and we have not used it for maybe three years… Practically brand new. Why wouldn’t it work? Cheap piece of crap.

We got to talking about old Florida Cracker tales and I remembered one of my favorites:

Jessie had this pit bull that he’d take to the dog fights. And ol’ Cubie would just tear up any other dog in the pit. Jessie was right fierce proud of that dog.

So one day he goes awalkin’ in the park and meets up with this fellow with a little low-squat ugly yellar dog on a lease. So Jessie sets his pit bull on this little yellow dog just to show off. And that little dog opens its mouth wide and just eats the pit bull up in one bite.

Dumbfounded, Jessie says “What the hell kind of dawg is that?”

The fellow says, “Well, before I cut his tail short and painted him yellow, he was an alligator”.

Thus endeth today’s reading. Amen.