“SING, OR GET OUT!”

 

From Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist

Sadie was a single woman, and she had been single for a lot longer than she had been not-single. There was a husband way back in her youth, and three other men who came close to landing her in their marriage bed—nevertheless, Sadie had remained single. She had lived alone for the biggest part of her 85 years, and it suited her. Whether contentment with it came naturally or as an adaptation to her circumstances, Sadie didn’t know, and what’s more, she didn’t stew over it. A fretful mind had been a troublesome quality of her youth that she had got the better of with time.

          It came to pass that Sadie could no longer live alone, however. She could move in with her son or her daughter. In both cases, she would have a room of her own and the rest of the time would live in the midst of their noisy lives. Sadie opted instead to take a quiet and private one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living facility for seniors such as herself. It was just the right fit for the independent-minded and self-sufficient Sadie.  

Adjustment to her new surroundings came easily and quickly to Sadie. Course-correcting was another skill she had mastered over the years. One of her favorite mottos was that by not allowing endings to occur, we don’t allow beginnings to form. She looked for opportunities within the structure of her new home to fill her time and to make friends. Toward that end, she joined a group that advertised itself as the Mid-Ohio Senior Chorus that met twice weekly in the recreation room of the facility. The chorus’s current agenda was to rehearse a selection of Christmas Carols as part of a holiday program for the entertainment of the residents and their guests. The show was scheduled to take place on the eve of Christmas Eve that year.

At her first meeting, Sadie slid into the only empty chair at a long table nestled among a total of three long tables in the rec room. Elder women of various descriptions occupied every other chair of two of the tables. The third table was crowded with elder men, two of whom Sadie knew to be single like herself. The other six men were married to six of the women in the group. A few minutes later, a quavering female voice broke into a trilling rendition of ‘Joy to the World’ and immediately was joined by a unison of female voices. The men took no notice of the singing that was underway around them, and they continued in their talking and joking among themselves, a noisy state of affairs that drowned-out the female voices. At the completion of the song, Sadie bent to the ear of the woman seated to the left of her and asked if the men were there to sing in the chorus. The woman replied that she didn’t know for sure.

Sadie’s hackles began to rise like an angry junk yard dog’s. She pulled to her feet at the precise moment the first words in a wobbly female voice took flight in the next song on the itinerary. The voice stopped. Along with Sadie’s independence had come a penchant toward opening her mouth and speaking her mind. “Gentlemen!” Sadie piped up. “Are you here to join in the singing or not?! And if not, then I suggest that you either decide to sing or get out!”

A deathly hush descended on the room. All eyes clamped on Sadie’s ramrod figure. Presently the women began to twitter meekly among themselves and the men’s necks swelled and their faces reddened in disdain for the mouthy woman who had the audacity to denigrate their dominion over that and any and all other proceedings. But soon, the atmosphere began to change. Sadie’s friend Sylvia rose to her feet and said, “Yes, Gentlemen! If you aren’t going to sing, then get out!” Chairs scraped loudly and some toppled over as all the women in the room found their feet. “Sing, or get out!” rang through the space as female voice after female voice joined in the mantra.

Stunned red faces blanched white and Adam’s apples in deflated male necks bounced up and down like loose ping pong balls. Two of the men wrestled to their feet in ready to vacate the room. Neighboring burly hands reached out and pushed them back down in their chairs. Tension coiled to near snapping. The anxious moments ticked by, and then at the furthest end of the men’s table, a melodic baritone gave forth: “Silent night, holy night, star so high, shining bright….”

All twenty-four members of the Mid-Ohio Senior Chorus struggled to their feet and the room filled then with the wondrous harmony of female and male voices come together in a common cause.

Enjoy! And Happy Holidays.©

***

The above story is a fleshed-out reenactment of a dream I had last night. -Linda Lee Greene

Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase on Amazon.

#ChristmasCarols, #Christmas, #JoyToTheWorld, #SilentNight, #SeniorHousing, #ChoralMusic, #MidOhio, #LindaLeeGreene, #AuthorArtist

POPPAW’S ROCKING CHAIR

 

From Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist

 

That Christmas Weekend of 1952, there was a radio somewhere in the farmhouse of my maternal grandparents, tucked away, gathering dust. It hadn’t been turned on much since World War II when the family was anxious about the fate of their eldest soldier-son in battle with the Germans. By 1952, television had taken the place of radio in most homes, but such a “newfangled machine” hadn’t yet found its place in the farmhouse. The local newspaper held on as my grandparent’s major source of information, and by way of it, they knew that Harry S. Truman would hand over the keys to the White House to Dwight D. Eisenhower the following month; that Elizabeth II had succeeded her deceased father to Great Britain’s Royal Crown; and that war was on yet again, but in a faraway place known as Korea. That Christmas Weekend while my parents and my little brother and I were at the farm, the bulky and black rotary-dial telephone that sat on the stand by the front door of our own house eighty-five miles north of the farmhouse, could ring off the hook for all we knew. No answering machine or voice mail would alert us to missed calls upon our return home. Such conveniences were as yet to come into existence. Like the television, the telephone was another “newfangled machine” that Poppaw scoffed at and Mommaw wanted but wouldn’t get until several years later.

          Christmas was like any other day on the farm: the cows still needed rounded up and fed and milked; the hogs still needed slopped; the chickens still needed fed and their eggs gathered; and the outdoors dogs and cats still needed attended to, as well. That morning Poppaw was agitated over a fox that was menacing the chickens. His .22 in his broad and brawny farmer’s hands, he had slogged across the nearby soupy fields in hunt of the fox, but the wily creature had outsmarted Poppaw again.

          Discarding his muddy boots at the back door and propping his rifle in a corner of the entryway, Poppaw traipsed in his stocking feet to the coffee pot on the kitchen counter. He poured a cup of the steaming brew, lightened it with the heavy cream skimmed from the milk of his best milk cow, loaded it with sugar, and chugged it. And then he trudged to his rocking chair in the front room and draped his coat on its back. Poppaw always kept his coat within arm’s reach and his footwear at the back door, because there was no telling what awful things could happen out on the farm. One of the horses could lose its footing on an icy bank of the creek and plunge in to freezing ice-capped water way over its head—especially Old Roger. “That horse ain’t got the sense he was born with no more. He’s jist gitting too old and simple,” Poppaw often complained. Or that crafty fox could get into more devilment. He could sneak back in the henhouse and send the chickens scurrying and flopping and squawking into the farmhouse yard and up on the porch just as soon as Poppaw was out of the way.

Poppaw’s rocking chair was perpetually pulled up as close as possible to the chugging wood-burning stove. The farmhouse was abuzz with the voices of Poppaw and Mommaw’s several visiting adult children and their spouses and their children. I was in hog-heaven because being with my grandparents, my uncles and aunts and cousins was my favorite thing. I was champing at the bit to get Christmas morning underway. In my hands, as always, was my mother’s camera with which I would memorialize my family’s Christmas in black and white images. After what seemed an eternity to my fidgety cousins and me, Poppaw lowered his Abe Lincoln frame to his creaky rocking chair. It was our signal to begin our Christmas celebration.

My mother had stewed over what to get Poppaw for Christmas as she had done every Christmas of my nine years of life at that point. And as usual, she settled on two flannel shirts, two pairs of wool socks, and a couple packs of Mail Pouch chewing tobacco. Just about everyone else had decided on flannel shirts, wool socks and chewing tobacco for Poppaw too, and by the end of the hour, Poppaw had enough of them for an army. I snapped the photo of Poppaw opening the first of our gifts to him, and now I share it with you. Happy Holidays to you and yours. May it be as happy as ours was on that Christmas of 1952.

Oh, and Poppaw! I hope yours is a rocking good 125^th birthday up there in Heaven today.©

                                                                        

***

Several years ago, I wrote a novel about Poppaw and Mommaw, their kids, and extended family titled GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS. The novel is a blend of fiction and nonfiction and includes transcriptions of actual letters the members of the family wrote to one another over the years and provide a poignant glimpse into the lives of a particular strata of American people during the twentieth century. Among the catalog of my books, GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS is my favorite. The act of writing it brought me home again after decades of rootlessness and alienation from my authentic self. It is a novel written from my heart more than any before then or afterwards. If you feel inspired to read the book, it is available for purchase at  http://goo.gl/imUwKO.

                                                                         

#Christmas, #1952, #HarrySTruman, #DwightDEisenhower, #QueenElizabethII, #WorldWarII, #Americana, #FamilySaga, #GuardiansAndOtherAngels, #LindaLeeGreene, #Author/Artist

 

AT WATCH IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD

 

From Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist

As the daylight hours grow shorter with the natural rotation of Earth, and even more so with the resumption of standard time in my neck of the woods, the landscape has turned from luminous hues of summertime greens to radiant shades of autumn golds and burgundies, and too soon, to winter’s promise of its black and white contrasts. More than likely, farmers in the Midwest USA have harvested their corn fields by now, but Google says that the foot-draggers have another week or so to get their crops gathered and stored or sent to market. If that is the case, the slowpokes will be picking frozen corn. Plump and fresh corn is of particular interest at this time of the looming high-holidays, and while it is a welcome side dish on dinner tables and pretty models for my watercolor painting (shown below), those things are not the only essential features of corn.

 

If we have paid attention, we are aware of corn’s silent presence in an almost endless array of consumer products. But I wager that a lot of lay persons know very little about corn’s shaggy stalks beyond their prominent place in fall decorations and as sentinels over the farm fields in which corn will reemerge next year. Savvy farmers understand the enormous role that corn stalks play in the entire growing process of the plant, and they must decide whether their removal at season’s end will impact positively or negatively on the health of the soil and the environment. For the good of the soil and the connective tissue of the ecosystem, typically only every other row of the stalks is baled and hauled away to be used in other ways such as bedding for farm animals and as a supplement to the livestock’s customary feed during the long and cold Midwest winters. An example of the every-other-row harvesting technique is shown in the photograph by my friend Rae Penn. This field of stacked corn stalks is in Adams County, Ohio, USA.

 

            Why leave any residue at all of crops in fields? Eons ago, farmers were apt to clear their fields entirely following the harvest. This was because the soil was still full of natural substances that provided nourishment essential for its health, which gave forth admirable yields. With the passage of time and the penchant of some farmers to overwork and overplant fields without replenishment measures taken, the soil became barren of the vital nutrients. With time and experience, workers of the soil figured out that leaving decomposing corn stalks in the fields fed the soil of necessary organic material to keep it viable. The corn stacks also act as a cover crop that help to hold back soil erosion during inclement weather conditions.

A second replenishment method is to reuse the corn stalks that served as bedding for livestock after it has been composted with the winter’s accumulation of the animal’s manure. This produces a nutrient-dense fertilizer, which is spread onto the fields.

The farmer’s system of recycling for purposes of frugality and mainly of replenishment ecology brings me back to my thoughts about the high-holidays before us. Among my family and friends, holiday gatherings are sources of emotional and spiritual replenishment for us just as surely as the corn stalks are nourishment for the farm fields that feed us.©

                                                               ***

 

BASKET OF CORN, watercolor by Linda Lee Greene

 

HOW TO COOK CORN IN THE HUSK

I am advised that cooking corn in the husk is the best and easiest way to get corn on the cob ready to plate. Its fans swear by it and will never struggle with the messy job of husking uncooked cobs of corn again. And be assured that once the corn on the cob is cooked, for some reason, the husks come off easier and cleaner than on raw husks. The next question is whether to grill, bake, boil, or microwave the corn on the cob, all of which can be done with the husks still attached to the cob.

 

If opting to grill, the husk actually protects the corn from burning. Place the cobs of corn in their husk directly on the grill for 15 minutes. Turn the cobs fairly often.

To bake corn on the cob, place them in the husk on a baking sheet in a preheated oven at 350F. Roast for 30 minutes.

The stovetop method requires bringing a pot of water to a boil and then placing the corn in the husk in the water. Boil for 10 minutes.

Based on my research, the hands down favorite method is to microwave corn on the cob in the husk. For 1 ear of corn in the husk, nuke on High for 4 minutes; 2 ears will require 7 minutes, 3 ears need 9 minutes, and 4 ears will need to nuke for 10 minutes.

Whether grilling, baking, boiling, or microwaving, allow the cobs to cool enough to handle, and then one by one cut off the very bottom of the husk at the place it is attached to the cob. Grasp the husk by the top, pull, and it will slide right off.

***

Multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene’s GARDEN OF THE SPIRITS OF THE POTS: A Spiritual Odyssey is a novella in which ex-pat American Nicholas Plato relocates to Sydney, Australia to escape the mental torture of devastating losses back home. Strange encounters in Australia’s outback with an Indigenous potter reveal to Nicholas unexpected blessings and a new way of living. The novella is available in eBook and/or paperback. Just click the following blue link and it will take you straight to the page on Amazon on which you can purchase the book. https://www.amazon.com/GARDEN-SPIRITS-POTS-SPIRITUAL-ODYSSEY-ebook/dp/B09JM7YL6F/

 

#Farming, #Corn, #CornStalks, #CornStacks, #CornOnTheCob, #CornInTheHusk, #Harvest. #CornFields, #Thanksgiving, #Christmas, #HighHolidays, #Recycling, #SoilReplenishment, #LindaLeeGreene, #GardenOfTheSpiritsOfThePots

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD

 

From Linda Lee Greene, Author/Artist

 

How much easier it would be for me to fulfill a commission to write an article titled ‘Christmas Around the World,’ if I were actually free to travel, but I do not have that freedom for various reasons. Therefore, I call on my crafty Muse to settle on my shoulder and whisper in my ear an imaginary tale of travel, one in which I call on a number of women in faraway places, each of whom is immersed in high holiday celebrations unique to her culture. I am giddy over the prospect of beginning my make-believe trip with my Muse depositing me smack-dab in the presence of a Native American sister.

Paulette welcomes me into her kitchen and then very graciously explains to me that embracing the Christian tradition is a thorny issue for many of her people given the injustices that America’s indigenous people have faced under white domination, both in the past and the present. Even so, the good spirit of the season permeates her culture in admirable ways. “You showed up just in time to catch me before I leave for a meeting of the Partnership with Native Americans (PWNA),” Paulette informs me. Responding to the quizzical look on my face, she continues. “We spread holiday cheer in the way of blankets, nutrition and education services, medical screenings, and more to over 30,000 of our Elders, children, and families in approximately 110 reservation communities here in the Northern Plains and the Southwest. Winter is brutal in these reservations and rural communities, and we work hard to come together in the spirit of giving at this special time.” Upon making my exit into a frozen morning, I drop a couple of Andrew Jacksons into Paulette’s PWNA donation basket and cringe at the gruesome symbolism of that particular face being imprinted on those U. S. $20.00 bills.

I suppose my Muse took pity on me and decided to defrost me, because in the blink of an eye, I am stretched out on the blinding sand of a beach in Melbourne, Australia. I am clad in a bathing suit, and the unmistakable aroma of seafood sizzling on a grill within smelling distance floods my mouth with saliva. Jingle Bells, the jolly Christmas song, rings out from an electronic device. The incongruity is not lost on me as I push to my feet to the greeting of a scantily-clad blonde goddess waving a barbecue fork in her hand. “We thought you were dead to the world, myte,” she says to me. “Come on and git yerself a plyte. It’s prawns on the barbie, stryght from Dad’s boat this mornin’.” Kathryn is the name of this supernatural being, and she is only one of many just like her in her large circle of beach party buddies. Someone thrusts a frosty bottle of beer in my hand and I recoup my senses enough to inquire, “Jingle Bells?” “What else?” Kathryn replies. “It’s Christmas! Eat up! Drink up! The day is jist gittin’ started. You don’t want to miss Carols by Candlelight tonight.” “Carols by Candlelight?” “Yeh, you know! The big charity evint to help out the needy in the community.” To get in the spirit of things, I chug the cold beer and pretend the hot white sand squishing between my bare toes is bone-chilling snow.

 A strong scent reminiscent of home that I am powerless to resist lures me away from summertime Melbourne to a cozy dining room in Tokyo, Japan. A table laden with buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken is occupied on all sides by a young Japanese family comprised of a mother, father, and two children. Apparently I am the only dinner guest at what Aimi, the lovely mother, explains to me is their “hidden Christmas”. While the stigma of what in Japan is mainly a secular event is dissipating thanks to ubiquitous Western influences wrought through television and social media, influences such as America’s KFC as the food of choice for Christmas Day in Japan, still many people whose leanings remain Shinto or Buddhism, observe the day on the quiet. “It ruffles fewer feathers that way,” an otherwise very Japanese Aimi tells me in ironical American terminology.         

Muse is anxious to send me further into my whirlwind tour, and next, and for a minute or two, I wonder if Muse has time-slipped me back to America’s Old West as the gentle steed on whose back I ride trots me beneath a wide, wood archway that spans an opening in split-rail fencing on both sides. The fencing wanders and then evaporates into what appears a boundless, misty landscape. A carved sign in wood at the crest of the archway proclaims, “LET’S GO GREEN!” And then I know I am in current time, the ominous Climate Change time that does not withdraw to a voiceless corner even on Christmas Day. Great plumes of crystalized breath billow from the nostrils of the horse, and my own frosty breath hazes the lenses of my spectacles. I am in cold, cold country—not quite to the Arctic plain, but close enough, I am pretty sure. No level treeless tundra is this, though, for there are evergreen trees, evergreen trees upon evergreen trees as far as the eye can see, planted in deliberate, neat and regimental rows, like line upon line of locked-arm chorus girls frocked in frilly green. Donned in blue-jeans and a fleece-layered black-and-red-plaid flannel shirt, a Paul Bunyan-like figure materializes out of nowhere suddenly. “Welcome to Saskatchewan’s Evergreen Tree Farm. We’ve been expecting you. I’m Anne,” this burly Canadian female greets me. “You look like you need a warm-up. Come on up to the house. There’s a rum and brandy hot toddy there with your name on it.”        

A profusion of Christmas decorations, evergreen garlands, and twinkling lights at every door, window, and eave forms an almost impenetrable obstacle course to the entrance of the place. In the wake of my hostess, I step across the threshold and enter a winter wonderland, a plethora of all things Christmas. A steaming mug of the hot toddy beckons me to the table upon which it rests, and on the stovetop, the valve on the lid of a pressure cooker dances up and down. The aroma emitting from it is heavenly. “Have you ever had frontier bison stew?” Anne asks me. My stomach drops to my toes and I shake my head. I feel my enthusiasm wilt to a point of no return. I am not so sure my belly is ready for frontier bison stew. “I thought bison was an endangered species,” I state, my mouth going desert-dry in my unease. “Our First Nation people have taken the herds in hand and are bringing the numbers back to almost double now,” Anne explains. “The grazing habits of the herds are also reestablishing the indigenous grasses that are much better carbon capturers than non-native plant-life that was introduced in colonial times. With their bison and my trees, the First Nation people and I are working hard to do right by Mother Nature.”

Don’t get me wrong. My gratitude for all of Anne’s hospitality is as mammoth as the woman herself. This big-hearted female had a hot toddy waiting to warm my icy bones. And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she had grabbed that bison by its horns in her immense lumberjack hands and wrestled it to the ground all by herself, and then saw to all further machinations to get it into her pressure cooker just in time for my arrival at her tree farm this Christmas Day. And while I also appreciate all the laudable environmentalism, suffice to say that my main motivator at the moment is finding a gracious way of sidestepping Anne’s looming offer of a bowl of that bison stew. I send a private, silent message to my Muse that I am ready to move on to the next spot on my journey. Muse hears my plea and at mach-speed, I turn up in Jerusalem of all places, which I am to learn is planet Earth’s ‘City of Three Christmases’.

While terrorists are wiping out Christians far and wide in the Middle East, the Jewish state of Israel is the one place in the area in which Christians can practice their religion freely. Their number is small: only about 2.5% of the total Israeli population, but Christmas celebrations are large. I meet up with Susan in a library on an outskirt of Jerusalem. She leads me to a table on which lays an enormous tome. She invites me to sit next to her, and she opens the book and I follow along as she spins an intriguing and complex story of Christmas in Jerusalem, the index finger of her right hand tracing the lines on the pages like a sightless person reading braille. Now and then, her head lowers to within mere inches of the book for a closer look at the ancient, fading text, and a crucifix suspended from a silver chain around her neck drops forward and drags across the pages. It seems a confirmation, of sorts.

“The Christmas story took place in Israel,” Susan reminds me. “But through the centuries, and for a variety of reasons, the different factions of Christians have not come to a meeting of minds on the actual date of the birth of Jesus. So you see, Christmas in Jerusalem is not a one-day affair. Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians celebrate the day on December 25^th. Orthodox Christians do so on January 6^th, and Armenian Christians on January 18^th.” Susan implores me to stick around and partake of an array of dazzling festivities commemorating the holiday, but by this time, I am more than ready for crisp air and fluffy snow and a bona-fide traditional Christmas as I recognize it to be—a Midwest America Christmas of time spent with family and friends, of sharing food and memories, of gift-giving and receiving amid the ambience of a gorgeously adorned Christmas tree and sparkly mantel and tabletops aglow in candlelight. As ever, my Muse reads me and transports me back to my home.

My wise Muse arranges my return trip to be a bit slower than my arrivals had been, to give me time to reflect on all I had experienced. The impression most indelible in my memory is the evidence of Creator’s handiwork in those places, of the sights and sounds and aromas, and in the people and their talismans for good, such as Paulette’s donation basket, Kathryn’s barbecue fork, Aimi’s KFC bucket, Anne’s trees, and Susan’s crucifix. And I wonder now, what’s in store for me on my next go around!?©

                                                             

Image: CHRISTMAS ON MITHOFF STREET, watercolor painting by Linda Lee Greene

***

Multi-award-winning author Linda Lee Greene’s GARDEN OF THE SPIRITS OF THE POTS, A Spiritual Odyssey, a blend of visionary and inspirational fiction with a touch of romance, finds ex-pat American Nicholas Plato in Sydney, Australia, a relocation that pits him against parts unknown both within his new home and himself. It is a quest that in the end reveals to him his true purpose for living. The book is available in eBook and/or paperback. Just click the following link/URL and it will take you straight to the page on Amazon on which you can purchase it. https://www.amazon.com/GARDEN-SPIRITS-POTS-SPIRITUAL-ODYSSEY-ebook/dp/B09JM7YL6F/

                                                                     

#Christmas, #ChristmasAroundtheWorld, #Christianity, #PartnershipWithNativeAmericans, #PWNA, #Australia, #Tokyo, #KFC, #Saskatchewan, #Jerusalem, #GardenoftheSpiritsofthePots, #SpiritualOdyssey, #LindaLeeGreene

OH JOY, CHRISTMAS MORNING!

 

From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

In keeping with best Covid-19 practices in the United States, I was alone on Christmas morning; masked-up and socially distanced, my children arrived later in the day for our hurried gift exchange. As it turned out, though, I was not entirely alone before then—Muse stopped by and presented me with a most amazing gift. She slipped into my brain an idea for a new novel. With this one, I fear I will attempt the impossible, but there I have to go because a writer must follow Muse’ lead. It will require loads and loads of research and reading, and for that reason, I cannot possibly anticipate a publication date for another year or more. Between then and now, I have other finished manuscripts in the hopper that are chomping at the bit to see the light of day, one of them to be published next month. In the meantime, Muse tells me that the title of my new story on which I am currently hard at work is THE BRONTË SISTERS AND YOUNG BOY GREEN, An Alternative History. Below is a little teaser for you:

                                                                                   

 

~Introduction~

 

I was confined to London during my one trip to England two decades ago, a trip I was forced to cut short because of a flare-up of a chronic illness, as well as to attend a funeral back home of a beloved family member. Side trips to Cornwall and northern parts of England were unfulfilled as a consequence. I was left having learned nothing of value in the later tracing of my ancestry. Of particular interest in my origin story is Thornton, West Yorkshire, England, best known as the home of the Brontë sisters. As it happens, it was also the place from which 17 year old, Stephen Green, my paternal grandfather five times removed sailed to the United States in either 1776 or 1777. Whether or not he was a citizen of Thornton is a mystery to us. Thornton might very well have been merely his point of embarkation.

As far as my family and I know, the whole of Stephen’s American history unfolded in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and for that reason it is safe to suppose that his ship landed at one of the Chesapeake Bay ports, and in the thick of America’s struggle for independence. That he was caught up in the turmoil is probable.

            You might have taken note of the variance in the spelling of our surname. For a reason unknown to anyone else, my grandfather and one of his brothers conspired to add the extra e at the end of the name. My siblings and I have ruminated on the motivation for the change, and none of them are laudable. Was it done to outsmart debt- or tax-collectors, or to align somehow with their religious beliefs? As of this date, the justification for the third e remains in the realm of speculation.  

While it is likely that Stephen’s American story was one of danger, intrigue, struggle, and triumphs, all of them advantageous elements around which to build a story, I find it much more intriguing to imagine his early life in England. I credit my interest to my love of all things British. I am an incurable Anglophile. There is no doubt that the British in my DNA fuels the engine that is the essential “I.” If the BBC ever stopped transmitting to the United States, I would have little use of a television set, and the shelves of my home library would be practically bare.

In reality, the lifetimes of Stephen and the Brontë sisters did not coincide. Stephen predated them by more than a half century. However, for the purposes of THE BRONTË SISTERS AND YOUNG BOY GREEN, I portray them as compatriots. My story will no doubt be judged as a sacrilege to Brontë sisters purists. I hope so very much that it passes a test of acceptability to those readers at least in some way good enough to make up for my blasphemy. And by the way, Happy New Year.©

–Linda Lee Greene, Columbus, Ohio, USA, Christmas Day, 2020

 

Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase at Amazon.com.

 

#Covid-19, #Christmas, #LondonEngland, #Cornwall, #ThorntonWestYorkshire, #BrontëSisters, #CharlotteBrontë, #EmilyBrontë, #AnneBrontë, #VictorianEngland, #CommonwealthofVirginia, #ChesapeakeBay, #AmericanRevolution, #TheBrontëSistersandYoungBoyGreen, #StephenGreen, #LindaLeeGreene

STRIPPING WOODWORK AND HANGING WALLPAPER by LINDA LEE GREENE©

STRIPPING WOODWORK AND HANGING WALLPAPER by LINDA LEE GREENE©

Columbus, Ohio, USA, March 30, 2019…I was a born-photographer before I knew I was also an artist and a writer. The instrument at the end of my grubby hands was my parent’s kid-friendly Brownie camera. In what was termed “Fly Town” in my family’s blue-collar days and has graduated to the current smart moniker of “Harrison West” in Columbus, Ohio’s near Westside, I gave our Brownie camera a workout, as did kids of most every other nearby household. One of my early endeavors, taken in December, 1953, is the photo featured with this posting.

In terms of composition, the photo leaves much to be desired, but its contents are what are so precious to me. Pictured are my father Lee, my mother Roma, and my brother David, who was eight and none too happy to stand still yet again while his big sister snapped another picture. In my mother’s arms is the newest member of our family, my baby sister Sherri. I was ten at the time, and I remember it like it was yesterday. It was our first weekend outing as a family since Sherri’s birth—our destination was the Christmas gathering at my maternal grandparent’s farm in Peebles, Adams County, Ohio. We would also spend part of the weekend with my dad’s family who lived in Adams County, too.

Almost as dear as the people in the image, is the story its background tells. When my parents bought our house at 507 West Second Avenue, all of that gorgeous woodwork was painted over, and not merely in the area pictured, but throughout its first and second stories. My mother, bless her heart, working alone, stripped every inch of paint off the woodwork in that house, including three gas-burning fireplaces. She stripped it, sanded it, and then stained and varnished it. (There were no water-based paints, stains, or varnishes in those days.) It took her years to accomplish, but she did it. And see that wallpaper on the walls? She hung it, all by herself, while at the same time seeing to every other physical and spiritual need of our family.

The Greatest Generation?! You bet! And I have the photos and stories to prove it.

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Multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene’s books are available worldwide in soft cover and eBook formats on Amazon and other online booksellers.