Violence in America

Memorial in front of the Edmond, Oklahoma, Post Office

image from wikipedia.org

At 7:15 a.m., August 20, 1986, I drove south on Broadway in Edmond, Oklahoma, on my way to work. Just north of the Post Office, firetrucks blocked the street. Police cars blocked eastbound Edwards street. Local television station news helicopters hovered overhead.

I had to get to work. I took Ayers east to Boulevard and turned south. Ambulances sat waiting along Edwards and Campbell toward the Post Office.

I couldn't imagine what was going on. Edmond, my hometown, was a suburb north of Oklahoma City. Population? Maybe thirty or forty thousand. Ten to fifteen thousand souls bigger when the local college was in session.

As I passed the old Edmond Junior High School building, several people accompanied by police officers ran across the school yard  away from the Post Office .

Even now at nearly 90,000 people Edmond has very few murders. By that I mean one or two  annually and some years none. On that day, I knew of no murders in Edmond during my lifetime. Maybe there were some, but they were so long ago that I didn't know about them.

Domestic gun violence was not something with which I was intimately familiar. President Kennedy was murdered on my 16th birthday. That shattered my sense of security in one way. But that was twenty years earlier and 250 miles south in Dallas, Texas. I'd lived through daily television doses of violence out of Vietnam. But by 1986 those were a decade and thousands of miles away.

That day in 1986, I turned on my car radio and heard that someone was shooting people in the Edmond Post Office. Thirteen people died there including the shooter.

And now, almost thirty years, multiple work-place shootings, multiple school shootings, and a theater shooting later, it's happened again. Two days ago a man shot and killed nine people and wounded nine more at his school in Oregon.

Gun-control activists and anti-gun-control activists are back in the news advocating everything from no guns at all to everybody armed.

I think these mass shootings are a symptom of our society's predilection for violence. There are many more domestic violence based killings and gang-related killings in our country than these school shootings. They're symptoms, too. And we all know that treating symptoms while ignoring underlying disease does not cure.

Led by politicians and entertainment personalities, we passionately take uncompromising sides on the "gun issue" to the exclusion of the many other factors contributing to our problem. Mental health issues, people exposed to violent entertainment from a young age, our schools failing the most vulnerable of our children, our society's addiction to easy fixes. (We seem to forget that addictions don't solve problems.)

How about we enlist and listen to recommendations from our mental health care communities, our educators, our law enforcement communities? I know we'll get conflicting answers and it won't be possible to just point to the answer we want to try. (Easy fix again.) But somewhere in there, there will be legions of solutions that will work.

We might even try listening to the people around us -- our own children, our workmates, our playmates, that guy revving his engine at the stoplight -- and respond. Maybe respond by offering to make their lives a little more pleasant, a little easier.

If they need more than a smile and kind word, be willing to step up. Ask how that child got the bruises on her face. Ask that young adult wearing cuffs to hide evidence of self-harm. Recommend professional help. Report them to the appropriate authorities. And if you don't know what kind of professional help to recommend or which are the appropriate authorities, find out.

Afraid that would put you at risk? Aren't we at risk anyway, if we go to work or school or the movies?

You and I, working as individuals, can't stop wars or gang violence or world hunger. But we can offer to do what we do well. Offer a little free time to that over-stressed mom and maybe prevent an instance of child abuse. Volunteer to help that little league coach and show a child that they count. Be the kind of parent that says no to a request for the latest single-shooter video game and explain why. Encourage your son or daughter or the person at work to step away from an escalating personal conflict. Step away yourself.

Try to make a difference from the bottom up. We've been deferring to the folks trying to make a difference from the top down. And it's not working.

Let's wake up in the morning, put on a habit of optimism, and make a difference -- one person at a time, one day at a time.

Rita the Danish Television Show -- A Review

image from shaulaevans.com

As far as I'm concerned, Rita is a five-star TV series. It is available streaming from Netflix.

It is funny and sad and touching and raucous and different from anything available on American TV. It is, however, not for people with tender ears or delicate sensibilities. I'd rate it M -- for language, sex, smoking and other drugs, and controversial themes.

The series is in Danish and in Danish the F-word sounds the same in English. So you hear f*** and (since it's subtitled for those of us who are Danish-challenged) we also see it written out. Oddly enough the Danish word "troll" is translated in the subtitles as "ogre." "Okay" is "okay"; for our "yes" they say "ja" with J's pronounced like Y in "yes" which sounds very like the English slang "yeah"; and "yeah" in English  sounds like "yip" or "yips" in Danish -- probably spelled with that Y-sounding J.

Enough with the quote marks, already!

Rita is a dysfunctional mother from a dysfunctional home. Her own children have their problems, but function reasonably well, considering. She uses insensitive language in socially sensitive settings, has indiscriminate sex with unlikely and politically incorrect men, and does most of her introspection while smoking in her school's girls' room.

Did I mention that Rita is a school teacher in a small Danish school? Teaching is the main point of this series and the one place where Rita gets it right.

She's the right teacher for children who need the right teacher. And the right friend for people who need the right friend. Sometimes her advice is a questionable, but things always turn out right --  
sort of.

I love this series and I am sorry there are only three seasons available. There is speculation about a fourth season, but nothing concrete on that front yet. Here's hoping!

Flying Coyote -- flash fiction reprise from 4/15/2014

image from syracuse.com

“Always we remember your great grandfather. His name was Flying Coyote, and he was a very brave man and a fine leader. You are called Little Coyote because your father loved his father, your grandfather called Flying Coyote.”

The old woman stirred the fire and continued her story.

“When he was younger than you your grandfather fell from his father’s pony and hurt his leg very bad. It made him sick and the old ones feared to lose him.” She filled the horn spoon and blew softly across the liquid. “Bear With A Sore Tooth sang prayers for him and his old grandmother boiled willow bark and gave him the water to drink as I do you.”

“It’s not so bad,” he said swallowing. He cuddled the small coyote cub, he called Little Brother, close to him under the robes.

“I have been told it was this time of year – the time of the Full Pink Moon. The little pink flowers bloomed in the grass and the snow and the sun argued over who would have the land. Some mornings The People would wake to a deep blanket of snow, but by afternoon the sun would have eaten it.”

“Like yesterday?” he asked.

“Yes.” She filled the spoon again. “Like yesterday.”

She and the boy were outside the lodge so the rest of the family could sleep. A full moon hung in the black sky, so bright that only a few stars shone near it. The air outside the tipi was cold and still and fresh.

Little Brother squirmed out of the robes. Little Coyote grabbed the struggling whelp and held him tight by one hind foot.

“Little Coyote, you must let him go.” The old woman gently opened the boy’s fist.

They watched the pup caper and scamper around them.

“He’ll get cold and come back,” she said. “You’ll see.”

A red shadow began its slow march across the moon, but the boy did not notice. He watched the coyote pup.

“Your grandfather got weaker and weaker. He did not want to live.” She filled the spoon again and held it to the boy’s lips. “Does your foot still hurt?”

He stretched his leg, testing it. “Not so much.”

“Flying Coyote’s father went out onto the prairie to also pray. He played his prayers on his flute.”

An ember popped out of the fire and Little Brother stopped to sniff it.

“Will it burn him, Grandmother?”

She laughed. “No. His nose can feel the heat. He will be careful.”

She looked up at the moon, slowly being covered with red shadow. Little Coyote followed her gaze.

“What is happening?” Little Coyote asked in alarm.

“I have seen it before,” she said. “Some stories say that a great mountain lion is eating it.” Seeing his concern, she hurried on. “But I do not think that is what is happening. I have seen this before. More than once.”

Little Coyote could not take his eyes away from the changing moon.

She helped the cub back under the robes. “Soon the shadow will move on, and you will see your old friend the rabbit on the moon.”

Satisfied that his grandmother knew about things like mountain lions eating the moon he asked, “Did Flying Coyote get better?”

“Flying Coyote’s father was playing his flute under a moon just like this one. As the red shadow passed away, a bigger shadow flew across him. It was as big as he could reach.” She held out her own arms as far as she could. “And he was a big man.”

Little Coyote’s eyes grew big and round.

“Flying Coyote's father ducked so hard that the next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees. And something landed on the ground right in front of him. A ball of fur dropped from that shadow in the sky.”

Swallowing hard, Little Coyote held his own wiggly cub close under his chin.

“It was like Little Brother – a baby coyote. And its only wound was a broken leg.”

“What did Grandfather's father do with it?”

“His took it home to your grandfather and told him the Owl Spirit had sent it as a gift. And now he must care for the little flying coyote.”

“What happened?”

“Since your father is here and you are here, then of course he got well. And that is how your Grandfather came to be called Flying Coyote.”

On Reading

image from grammarly.com

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have time (or the tools) to write."

                                                                                                -- Steven King

Reading and writing are kinda like the chicken and the egg for me. Not because I wrote before I could read. But I'm sure I told stories before I could read. So the gift of writing just made it possible to tell stories whether or not I had an audience.

When it comes to reading, I think people read according to their need. If you are considering buying a car, you read for information -- collecting facts, comparing them, and considering them. If you are on a spiritual journey, you read with the heart, seeking enlightenment. If you are tired and need to
relax so you can sleep, you read to be taken away from the day that has pushed you and pulled you into such knots and grotesqueries that you do not recognize yourself. Reading frees you to drift into Shakespeare's "Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care."

And then there's assigned reading for a grade in class; reading recommended by a colleague or friend so you can share thoughts and opinions; and, maybe best of all, entertainment -- purely entertainment. To scare you with things that go bump in the night. To thrill you with a high speed chase, with high decibel explosions, with a death-defying leap from a rocky cliff. To break your heart with lost love or failed dreams. To exhilarate you with love found again and dreams realized.

But, if you're a writer, you may have become an analytical reader -- someone who parses formats and language use and rules of style.

Dull! you say. Then you are not a writer. I have in this later part of my life come to enjoy discovering formats and language use and style in those books that I particularly like.

I used never to reread a book. Any book. No matter if I liked it and certainly not if I didn't like it.

First, I learned to watch movies more than once. If the movie was done well, I almost always got caught up in the story the first time I watched. I could not then and cannot now appreciate the structure. Indeed, if it is done well, I can't even see it. I do not hear the words as word choices the writer puts in the actors' mouths. I do not recognize the nuances the directer catches and keeps -- the framing of a scene; the lighting on the main character's hair, sometimes beautiful, sometimes disheveled; the color of a ribbon; the way an actor walks, shoulders upright and proud or collapsed in on them self, defeated. The first time through, I am unaware of all the intentional components used to draw me into the story, to help me experience it as if it were first-hand.

I watch it again looking for those intentional things.

Now I read that way, too. First for the story. Then, if it works, I read it again to see how it's put together. What is it about this book that generates thought, that inspires emotion? What is it that keeps me turning pages and wanting to see how it ends? That makes me care what happens to the characters? These are the elements and strategies I want to employ in my writing.

The hard kind of analytical reading comes when I don't like the book. Whether I like or dislike a book seems not to be dependent on how revered the author is or if it's on The New York Times Best Seller List. And it is the book I don't like that I must explore without the comforts of enthusiasm and admiration. I must identify why I don't like it?

Is it inaccessible? The James Boys come to mind -- James Joyce and Henry James.

Is it the story's premise? Steven King whose books I cannot finish before dark and can't read after dark. Tom Clancy who starts wars in altogether too believable ways. Both, by-the-bye are excellent writers. I just don't like such terrifying stories.

Poorly written books by people I like. I always want to give them the name of my writing teacher and encourage them to hire a good editor -- not just a line editor, but content, too.

These are the books that may very well improve my writing the most. These document the places I do not want to go and the manner I do not want to use to get there. I want to write books people can read reasonably easily. Books that will be exciting enough, but without the danger of nightmares. And books that will not jar them out of the story because of poor craft.

Writing is hard work that requires I study the craft. That's what reading is -- analytical reading is studying the craft.

To the barricades! Into the trenches! I raise my clinched fist and shout, "Read on!"

Signs, Signs -- a rant

Bachelor Elk Herd and tourists July 29, 2015

Sorry, y'all, but this post is a rant. See this glorious view of the Front Range Mountains. My daughter Grace took this picture from the car window as we drove easterly on Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park. As you can see there is a group of elk taking their leisure in the high mountain sunshine and an even larger group of humans endangering themselves, their children, and the fragile tundra plant life to get close to these wild animals. Wild animals, I might add, with full-grown antlers that they very well know how to use.

Signs all along the highway remind people to park only in designated areas. With a rise of more than 4,000 feet to its 12,183 foot high point, its many hair-pin curves, and its abundant unfenced wildlife, the highway is dangerous enough without cars parked hither and yon and people wondering back and forth willy-nilly across it. How can a traveler enjoy the grand vistas while they're worried about running over somebody's poorly supervised four-year-old? Or maybe running over that thoughtless somebody?

The signs warn against approaching wildlife. It's exciting to see marmots and chipmunks and pika and mountain goats and big horned sheep and elk and mountain lions and bear. But even the little critters bite. The big ones can do you much more harm. And if they do, they can be, and too often are, killed by the authorities.

The signs advise people to stay on the trails. Above tree-line the ground is not barren. It is covered with beautiful and fragile alpine tundra plants. Now these plants are amazing survivors. They must tolerate extreme weather conditions. They've evolved to survive grazing and trampling by the native animal population. They haven't had time to adapt to the more than three million humans who visit from June through October which is when the highway is clear of snow enough for human travel and the earth is clear enough for these plants' growing season.

These signs are not posted for their artistic qualities nor to provide practice for an apparently reading-challenged tourist population. These signs are to protect lives -- of the tourists, the other animals, and the plants.

Trail Riding with Scott in His Toy

   

                                            Before                                      After

Some while ago my husband Scott decided he wanted a 4-Wheeler. He asked if I might be interested in riding the mountain trails with him. If my answer were "yes," he would buy a side-by-side ATV. If my answer were "no," he would buy the standard motor-cycle style 4-wheeler.

As you can see, I said "Yes." It was a good answer when he asked me to marry him and it was still a good answer for riding with him in an ATV.

When he first got it, it was what you see in the Before picture -- It had four wheels, two seats with seat belts, roll-bars, a flat bed, head lamps, a steering wheel -- the standard stuff. Turn the man loose with his tools and it's got a roof, a windshield, side rails on the bed, heavy-duty front and rear bumpers, a winch, serious back-up lights, overhead spot-lights, and ways and means of attaching everything you could possible need out back of beyond.

In July, he took it for a shake-down run by himself to see how it did. Last Wednesday he took me with him. (I guess to see how I'd do.)

Everything went fine. We took I-70 west through Idaho Springs then turned off on Chicago Creek Road, a road I'm familiar with because we use it to get to Mount Evans, my second favorite 14er. (If it had a restaurant at the top that made high altitude donuts, it would move ahead of Pike's Peak.) That road is a well-maintained, paved, two-lane highway. We were trailering the Toy behind my husband's pickup. And all was going well.

Our goal, however, was Saxon Mountain, so we turned onto Cascade Creek Road. Well-maintained, not paved. And one-lane. It is curvy, with trees and/or the mountain coming right down to the road's edge on my side and the creek at the bottom of a drop-off on his side. "So," I wondered silently. "What do we do if we meet someone coming the other way?" Backing that truck and trailer down a narrow road with no forgiveness on either side could not be a good idea. And there were no lay-bys.

As it turns out, I never found out what we would do, 'cause nobody came the other way.

We unloaded and buckled up. He set the way-point for where we were starting, consulted his map, and entered the coordinates for the first place he wanted to go into his GPS. It was like space travel will be, set the coordinates and go. Of course with space flight, you won't have to worry about switch-backs or mundane obstacles. You know -- falling rock, streams, downed trees. I figured our way would at least be free of rogue asteroids and meteors.

After our first switch-back we came to this abandoned mine.

Gold was discovered here in 1866. After gold, they discovered silver. So Saxon Mountain is pocked with mines. Most of the mines are collapsed and filled-in vertical shafts. This one goes into the mountain horizontally, at least as far as we could see, looking through the gate. The second structure is across the trail. I believe it housed the stamp mill.

   

                                             and this was the miner's home-sweet-home.

While doing a bit of research on mining in Colorado I happened onto the website for Mountain Magazine with an article that includes a first-hand account of mining in Colorado's high country in the 1890's from Carl Fulton. It's not long and it's worth taking the time to read, if you're interested in what life was like back then.

We saw a bachelor herd of Mule Deer. They'll soon be seeking the does for fall breeding season, at least the ones who are old enough. There were several spikes with the more mature bucks. We saw Clark's Nutcrackers. They're Corvidae like crows and jays. And I saw my first grouse in the wild, a Dusky Grouse. And, that old standby, the robin.

There were beaucoup chipmunks and little dark-colored squirrels. Sorry, no photos of wildlife. The ATV on that trail was too energetic to allow photography and when we'd stop, the wildlife fled.

               

In the mountains, it's all about the light.            And just because we're in the back-

               Still photography doesn't do the Aspens           country, that doesn't mean there's no

               justice. Any little breeze sets the leaves            civilization. There were street signs.
               to fluttering, flashing now silver, now
               green.                                                                                                                               

                               The meadows were still sporting their wild flowers.

  

Indian Paint Brush and Dwarf                       Silvery Lupine        

                              Golden Aster                                                                                  

 

Ahhhh, but the summit. It's over 11,000 feet. That's where the vistas and wildflowers are breathtaking. Down in the valley -- 3,000 feet down, to be more precise -- is I-70 snaking around to the right. And the buildings and things more to the center of the picture is Georgetown.

A Bristlecone Pine

The yellow blooms are Nodding Groundsel and the pale purple are Alpine Daisy

We came down different trails than we used going up. They were even more extreme. We had one scary, near-rollover which my husband handled by going pale and telling me, "Lean that way!" I responded with "I already am!" We held steady tipped like that for three hours or a fraction of a second. He let the Toy settle itself and we went on our merry way.

It was a 20-mile, six hour trip. I got home exhausted, My arms hurt from holding on. At times it was like shooting the rapids on a river. It was thrilling and I know exactly how Rose Sayer felt on the African Queen.

I learned some very important things. The Toy is both powerful and very stable. My husband is a capable, prudent man, and my life is safe in his hands.

There Are Days -- another Essay on Editors

Yep, it was a day just like Alexander had. And I'd been looking forward to it -- nay, anticipating it. It was going to be wonderful. I would win the lottery. I would be the teacher's pet. My editor would congratulate me and tell me I had done it. I had written the most perfect YA short story.

If your mother did not read Judith Viorst's Alexander stories to you when you were little or you did not read them to your children when you were big, I must tell you you must. They are wonderful and true and, without a doubt, they are your stories, too. That morning I did not wake up with chewing gum in my hair. I have only one brother and his name is neither Nick nor Anthony. And he hasn't pushed me down in the mud in many years. But that day I understood Alexander's pain.

My daughter, who is also my editor, has been trying to get me to write something YA for a number of years. For those of you out there who are not writers (bless your hearts) YA stands for Young Adult, probably the most salable genre in fiction today.

Because YA fiction needs to be focused on something and someone young adults can relate to, the most obvious element is a young adult protagonist. The Young Adult Library Services Association defines young adults as being between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Wikipedia states that authors and readers of YA literature more generally accept the age parameters as sixteen to twenty-five. 

This year has been the year for me to expand beyond my comfort zone into nonfiction and now YA fiction. I never thought I'd like nonfiction because it's so limiting. I mean the story has to be, you know, true. And I'm here to tell you I have a long history of embellishing true stories, adding a flourish here or there, maybe a bit of embroidery around the cuff. I mean, with a little imagination you can always make a good story better. But I did it a while back.

On to YA fiction. I've always read what is now called YA fiction -- Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, etc. But I write in a somewhat understated way. I have to trust my readers to bring their own intensity to my work. I guess I have never trusted young people to have enough life experience to have their own intensity.

Silly me. It's because they don't have enough life experience that they have not lost their intensity. At my age, I know the sun will rise tomorrow. That having survived the dangers of today and yesterday and the day before that that I will be able to meet the challenges of tomorrow. They don't. Every moment is make or break. Every challenge is world-changing either as the greatest victory or the most abject failure. Intensity is what they do best.

Realizing that does not help. How do I write a fitting intensity? Can I do it in my normal low-key style or must I morph into a slam-bang Marvel Comic Book writer?

Then there's the question of topic. High school dating? No. Werewolves and vampires? Impossible! Super powers? Not likely.

Wait a minute. Super powers. Why not?! My character wouldn't have to be faster than a speeding bullet or able to start fires with her mind or foretell the future. I figured out a super power that I could accept as plausible. Well, not really. But close enough. And Grace liked it when I pitched it to her.

Then a situation that a YA reader could relate to. Yep, got that, too. And I could relate to it. Else how could I write it?

And I wrote it. It was great. Intense. Suspenseful. Engaged all the senses. (Not smell, but teens don't seem to have an effective sense of smell anyway. Think about the gallons of scent teen boys slather themselves with. And it doesn't seem to dissuade teen girls from hanging out with them.)

I was so pleased with myself. I emailed it to my editor and waited for her response. Of course she has a life, so she couldn't read it fast enough. I mean she did it when she could which was not fast enough. But she did. Finally. And called.

"It's not YA," she said. 

Nobody loves me.

Then she added, "It's a good story. Well written. Clean. Flows well."

Everybody hates me.

"If you were reading this story, who would you say was the main character?" she asked.

I didn't have to guess. It was the father.

Think I'll go eat worms.

"The daughter should be the main character," she said.

Editors! Who needs 'em?! 

Obviously I do. Not just to check my spelling and punctuation. Not just identifying continuity problems or pointing out the use of the same action verb too many times. Or passive verbs that should be action verbs. Or eliminating expository writing. Or avoiding non sequiturs. Etc., etc., etc.

I needed her to point out the most painfully obvious error. The daughter should be the main character in a YA short story.

Okay.

I don't like worms.

I am a writer. I can do this. Rewrite!