I Used to Live Here

          SMALL TOWN LIVING—EADS COLORADO STYLE

                          

                                                 by

                                 

                                         Pat Zabriskie 

Everybody knows you

There are no secrets

Drivers wave at every passing vehicle

Neighbors bring you tomatoes and zucchini

Everybody knows when you’re in hospital

                                                   in trouble

                               and what your kid did

  

Most small towns have a variation of Faye Barber

You bake an extra loaf of bread for a widow

The Art Gallery used to be Betty’s Donut Shop

The annual Christmas Cantata is sung by county residents

Everybody goes to school sports events because they are

     parents

        grandparents

           aunts, uncles

              cousins

A Crow still runs the Stop and Shop

High school football is a 6-man team

Church congregations get together to pray

Most small towns have a Rich Hockett

Thursdays on Maine: Eads answer to the old five & dime store

Newcomers welcome—you can fit in if you want to

Rodeo/Horse Trailers/Pickups

Only very special small towns have a Doris Lessenden

Lifetimes shared

Where 50 years ago is like yesterday

Fond remembrances…

   like Philomene Lieson’s talent shows

A small town is a place where

everybody might be anybody’s cousin

and anybody might be everybody’s cousin

Where life is good

And there’s always something to do

     (the seniors are playing cards on Wednesday and

        Assisted Living is sponsoring a sock hop…)

A small town is

   a good place to retire

     to grow old

         to die (cemetery plots are only $60 bucks).

God bless the journalist!

God bless the journalist!  I don't think I could do what they do.  They have to cover the fun stories and they have to cover the sad stories.  If there is an accident in the area, they have to go cover it for the local news.  What a tough thing to do!  We all enjoy writing about the good stuff and the fun stuff but then there's the darker side where they have to uncover all the hurts that people are feeling.

This kind of came to my mind today when my husband and I visited the local nursing home.  I belong to a group of quilters who make lap quilts for anyone who needs one.  It may be due to a divorce, a death in the family, an illness, spiritual unrest or emotional trauma.  Some people want a quilt just to feel that someone has prayed for them.

We went to the nursing home to take a quilt to a lady we have known for some time.  We haven't spent a lot of time with her but my husband and her husband have been co-workers and friends in the past.  This lady has had several strokes and is nothing like the person she used to be.  I handed the quilt to her and she took it in her shaky hands and the tears started falling from her eyes.  She held the quilt to her face and cried.  I could barely contain myself.  I explained to her that every time we tie a knot in the quilt, we said a prayer for her and her family.  I knew she understood what I was saying but she couldn't answer back.  She simply held the quilt to her face and cried.

We didn't stay long.  I was having a hard time holding my emotions in.  Her husband thanked us profusely as we left them sitting there.  We walked out with heavy hearts, knowing that she will never be able to go back home and be with her family again.

As a writer, I am always on the lookout for things I can write about.  I could never be a journalist and cover some of the sad stories they have to cover. Today was hard enough for me.

Karen Sperra

HEADING INTO THE SUNSET

                                                                                               Pat Zabriskie

Well, Pardner, we’re jest about thar.

Oh, excuse me, I’m getting a lil dippy about this point in the game.

This coming week brings my friends and I to the end of our first draft. Some of us won’t actually be done in 30 days, but it won’t take long now to do those last pieces. We had to face the reality of events at home beyond our control. But we didn’t give up. Somehow we continued plugging away.

Isn’t that how the writing gets done anyway?

We’ve all learned a tremendous amount about putting a book together.

Thank you, Karen Wiesner, author of First Draft in 30 Days.

We’ll put it aside for now, as recommended, and revisit it in a couple weeks.

Then we’ll firm up the final draft. After that, we write the book. That’s something some of us got hung up on—that we were not writing the book at this stage. We were merely gathering all the pieces and getting them in a semblance of order. I found where I did not have enough content in the middle. But then, I realized I hadn’t been pulling the subplot threads through all the chapters.

I learned some other things, too, which will help in my freelance career.

I learned that I can work. After sickness all last year, I wasn’t sure I had the stamina to put in the hours necessary, or if my body could handle the physical part. For me that’s typing all day with crippled hands. But I surprised myself—I worked mornings with short breaks and no phone calls.

Some days a nap was necessary, but I found I could work several hours more in the afternoon. I averaged 6-7 hours four days a week. That bodes well for my next book and those articles I want to write.

Don’t ever think you can’t do something. At least try. There are limits—that’s the reality. But you will probably find you can go beyond the limits to a new place. 

That’s all fer now, Pardner, I see the spring water flowing and hear the dinner bell clanging. C’mon along, there’s plenty fer all of us.

Paper or Computer?

Happy 4th of July to everyone!  I'm a little late getting that out.  My question to you all today is do you use paper for your writing or your computer?  The other gals who are using Weisner's book to write their first draft in 30 days all tell me how wonderful it is to use the computer for their writing.  So I decided to give that a try.  I've always been a person who likes the feel of a pen in my hand and that notebook on my lap.  I finally set up my laptop (which was bought for me strictly for my writing) and got to work.  I've tried copying and pasting and making spreadsheets and you name it to no avail.  Everything I try has to be deleted because it simply won't work. 

I sat down a few days ago and started working on a rewrite of my first chapter.  I decided I would put it on the laptop then put it on a disc, bring it in to the desktop computer and print it out.  I love having that hard copy in my hand and folder and wherever else it might end up.  I worked all day and got the first chapter rewritten and saved on my laptop.  Today I decided to print it out and start getting my hard copy into files.  After trying for over two hours to get it from the computer onto the disc, I called our son and asked him how to do it.  He told me, I wrote it down and went back and tried some more.  Still nothing.  I ended up with some pictures on the disc and nothing else.  I have no idea where those pictures came from.  They were strange ones with elephants on one side of one page, lilies on another and some symbols that I haven't seen before.  So much for that!

My husband cooked supper tonight and I sat at the laptop and hand wrote every word of the first chapter and the two pages I had done of my second chapter.  When supper was ready, he didn't even bother to tell me because he was afraid to interrupt me after listening to me blast that computer with a few choice words all day!  We ate when I got everything written on paper.

I have decided that even though I'm not very good at the computer and I really don't like writing my book on here, I'm still a writer and I will accomplish as much as anyone else. It will just mostly be handwritten!  And that's okay because it takes all kinds of people to be a writer and I'm certainly one of a kind.

Karen Sperra