Luck is where you find it

One summer a few years ago, I experienced the good fortune of having a stalactite drip a bit of water on me.  After a pleasant weekend in East Tennessee seeing the sights with my eight-year-old son, we climaxed our mini vacation with a visit to the Lost Sea. This huge cave with an underground lake is near Sweetwater, Tennessee, just this side of the Great Smoky Mountains.

As part of the cave tour, Phillip and I, with a group of other tourists, boated around the lake while the guide directed our attention to various points of interest. We gazed at rock formations on the lake floor that appeared to be only inches away when actually they rested in forty feet of water. As we marveled appropriately at this wonder of nature, a bit of liquid hit me on the face. I looked at Phillip as he studied the splash of water on his arm. The guide explained that the drops were from the stalactites on the ceiling of the cave. Active stalactites emit moisture from time to time. The guide assured us that this was a very fortunate happening. Stalactite drops bring seven days of good luck

Wow! Good luck! Magic words for a child. Phillip anticipated aloud the prospect of the good fortune awaiting us during the upcoming week. For extra insurance, we rubbed the bear claw rock at the cave’s exit, since that also is said to guarantee a happy future. But as I found out later, luck is in the eye of the beholder.

We left Sweetwater Sunday morning in plenty of time to reach Nashville by early afternoon. We planned to stop for lunch and gasoline at the halfway mark on the Cumberland Plateau. About 45 minutes from Sweetwater, where Interstate 75 merges with I-40, a truck crowded me and I found myself on the opposite end of the Y – headed in the wrong direction.

Irritated, I pulled off at the next exit into a travel-mart, deciding to fill the gas tank before making a turn-around. I pumped approximately $2.00 worth of gasoline – then suddenly realized my purse was still in Sweetwater. Scrounging through the car for change and borrowing a dollar from Phillip still left me a little short, but the kind station attendant understood my predicament.

As I returned to the car and started the motor, Phillip commented he was glad we had rubbed the bear claw stone for extra good luck. Weren’t we lucky the truck crowded us so we left the highway and stopped for gas earlier than we had planned? Because that happened, we didn’t have as far to backtrack when we discovered my purse missing. And weren’t we lucky that Phillip didn’t spend that dollar the day before, as he had really wanted to do? While not in complete agreement with his outlook, still I was happy our luck held and a quick phone call assured me the pocketbook was lying where I had left it, waiting to be retrieved.

That evening, when the same purse was snatched in the parking lot of a Nashville grocery store, Phillip’s belief in our good fortune was tested again. But, when the police officer said I was lucky the purse was not over my shoulder (or I might have been dragged across the parking lot), and lucky I didn’t lose my keys, and lucky I had only $17.00 cash in my wallet, and lucky I was able to cancel my bank card and checks right away, Phillip’s confidence was restored. The next day, my purse was returned with all my ID intact and he was convinced the drip from the stalactite and the magic of the stone were responsible for things turning out so well.

Actually, Phillip’s way of thinking has merit. How much better to go through life expecting the best. Maybe good things don’t really come from a weeping stone, a rabbit’s foot or a lucky charm. That doesn’t matter. The truth is: blessings in life abound if only we recognize good luck whenever it comes our way.

(I wrote this essay in 2002. It won 2nd Place in an essay contest at the Arkansas Writers Conference, and is included in the book Every Day a New Day and other short stories. ©2006. Phillip is now 24 years old.)

LEAVE A REPLY

Fall Literacy Festival

I have been invited to read at Harding University’s Fall Literacy Festival this Thursday, September 12. This is a celebration of literacy that happens every year when faculty, students and guests share their writing. I am honored to have been asked to read in the past and always feel as nervous as an ingenue on opening night.

Other readers invited from the White County Creative Writers group are Christine Henderson and Debra Wantulok.  Both are accomplished writers, holding awards from recent Arkansas Writers Conference and White County Writers Conference.  They each will be reading a piece from their award-winning works. As will I.

This event is open to the public and if you love literacy and enjoy listening to readings from both established and emerging authors, come to Harding University Heritage Center, 7:00 pm Thursday.

For more about Christine and Debbie visit their sites: Christine Henderson and Debra Wantulok

LEAVE A REPLY

Wonderful Writers’ Weekend

“You become a writer by writing. If you write, you are a writer. This is true of no other profession in the world.” So said Susan Kaye Quinn at White County Creative Writers Conference in Searcy, AR yesterday.

I so concur. In fact, just a few hours earlier, I had said to the group, “Don’t you dare say you’re not a writer just because you haven’t been published.”

Of the crowd gathered in the Heritage Center at Harding University, several were there for the first time, some write family stories that will never see publication, and at least one came “to see if he could be a writer.” The others were more seasoned writers, there to learn more about what they love to do, to see old friends and be supportive of the newcomers.  A highlight for all the writers is the contest awards luncheon.  One first-timer, who had not even entered a contest, commented, “That was so exciting!”

A couple of years ago, we decided to add a Writing 101 component to the conference to benefit the newer writers and to refresh everyone on the basics of the writing craft.

This time it was my turn, so I spoke on “How to Improve Your Short Story … going from B- to A+”. Some of the items I covered were:

1. The benefits of belonging to a critique group.

2. Read your prose and poetry aloud to check for errors.

3. Show something of the character of the time and place of your story.

4. Be aware of being too wordy when you are telling or showing the reader something about your characters. (Kidding! I just used 18 words when 3 would do.)

5. Don’t explain your jokes (as I just did).

6. Don’t over do . . . anything . . . ever.

Susan Quinn, author of several teen and young adult novels, is an excellent speaker who shared with us words of encouragement and support as well as writing and story-telling tips. Her afternoon presentation included information about indy publishing and the e-book market. For more about Susan and her exciting (and clean) books go to www.susankayequinn.com.

Tommy Hancock, our third speaker, has a vast amount of knowledge about a re-surfacing genre, pulp fiction. If you don’t think this genre is returning to the markets, just look at the list of super heroes in movies and books today. Many are knock-offs of the pulp heroes of the early Twentieth Century dime novels. Even those of us who will never read or write in this genre were captivated with his presentation.  For more about his pulp publications visit prose-press.com

LEAVE A REPLY

This Time Together by Carol Burnett

Carol Burnett and I are the same age. Well, she’s a few months older, having had her birthday recently and mine is not until October.

I have always admired Carol for her creativity and humor. Her comedy shows and specials brought me many hours of pleasure. During the Seventies, Saturday night television was filled from 7:00 to 10:00 with shows that today are classics. All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and The Carol Burnett Show. This was “must see TV” twenty years before an ad man created that slogan (and on a different network).  The Carol Burnett Show, a variety show that featured musical numbers, dance routines and comedy sketches, ran for 11 seasons and won 25 Emmy awards.

The other shows in that historic line up were sold into syndication and can still be seen on cable channels. Carol Burnett and her husband, Joe Hamilton, owned the rights to her show and they chose to package it into DVD collections to sell. For Mothers Day I received a set of DVDs of skits from Carol’s shows and a copy of her book, This Time Together.

Her first book, One More Time, written in 1985, covered the more personal side of her story. This Time Together is really a memoir of her show biz life, the amazing people she met, worked with or just happened to run into.

I like her style of writing, she has a real knack for telling a story in an interesting way, no meandering or digressions that memoirs often fall prey to.  What comes through is that she is just as spontaneous and funny (and self-depreciating)  in real life as she was on stage. And totally able to laugh at herself as she told of meeting James Stewart and later Cary Grant, her childhood heroes, and being tongue-tied and klutzy because she was so star-struck. Or the time she scared off a mugger in New York City by giving the Tarzan yell long and loud.

The sub-title on the book cover is “Laughter and Reflection” and that’s what it is. Carol takes us along on her rise to stardom on Broadway and television and it’s a wonderful ride. It’s a delightful book and I highly recommend it.

The DVDs are good, too.

LEAVE A REPLY