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.

http://booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/ 

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

       

THE DAY I SAW MY PARENTS CRY by LINDA LEE GREENE©

I was a teenager then, slugging it out in every waking moment with the emotional turmoil that being a teenager brings, and on top of that, my parents had moved me that year from the inner-city neighborhood, friends, and school that I loved, and had plopped me down in “Hee Haw“

country where I stuck out every bit as prominently as did Elly Mae on the “Beverly Hillbillies,” which crossed our TV screens a few years down the road. The push and pull; the black, white, yellow, and tan faces; the scents of exotic cuisines through open windows; the narrow, brick streets lined with parked cars on both sides for as far as the eye could see, that had been my 507 West Second Avenue in Columbus, Ohio home, and the trade-off in the wide-open spaces of suburbia wasn’t hitting my sweet spot. And then one morning when I walked in the kitchen of the new house my parents and their siblings had built for us with their bare hands, I caught my parents sitting at the table crying.

            There isn’t much of anything more arresting to a child than witnessing the “first” argument between his/her parents. As I was to discover that morning before I boarded the bus that would cart me off to the battlefield of my new school, beholding ones parents wrapped up in each other arms swaying in utter grief is similarly earth-shattering. “What did I do wrong?” was my first thought. “Are we losing our home?” was my second.

            At the time, my dad worked nights as a punch-press operator at the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company in Columbus. Like the inner-city neighborhood from which we had moved, the company had been the staple of our family’s existence since I was a young girl. But that day, and for a few, uncertain others to come, it was our punisher, for dad had lost the end of his middle finger to the punch-press machine that night. The accident was the source of my parent’s tears, not so much because dad was in pain, but because of their fear over what it would mean in terms of his job security. Would he be able to continue with his current job? Would the company place him in another one if need be? Would he be let go?

            Within a day of two, dad did return to work. I do not remember if to his old position or to a new one at the plant. Other than that incident with his losing part of his finger, I do not remember my dad ever missing work due to illness. I am reminded of a statistic I once read. It stated that most of the people of the world go to work every day sick, or wounded, or even dying. That was my dad, and my mother, too. That was the kind of people they were.  

           

That’s three or four-year-old me in the photo, peeking around my mother’s hip. Dad worked at Jeffrey Manufacturing even then.

http://booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/  

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

MY BLUE-COLLAR FAMILY BY LINDA LEE GREENE©

When my little brother David and I were students at Michigan Avenue Elementary School at the corner of Michigan and West Fourth Avenues in Columbus, Ohio, USA, our dad worked nights at Jeffrey Manufacturing Company. We lived at 507 West Second Avenue, a multi-storied structure reminiscent of the house in the popular holiday movie A Christmas Story. I took the photo shown here of my parents Roma and Lee in the backyard of that house sometime in the late 1950s.

Our dad was a machine operator, a punch press operator, I seem to recall. He and my mother are both gone now, and there isn’t anyone left in the family with whom I can verify whether or not I am accurate on that score. By the time David and I were home from school in the afternoons, dad had been home from work for hours and was in bed. And when we were in bed for the night, dad was up and out of the door for work. One of the mother-sounds I hear so often in my memory’s ear is, “Shhhhhh, your daddy is sleeping!”

                Because of his work schedule, dad was a weekend dad, and most of his home time was in the garage. If we wanted to spend any time with him at all, we stepped into the garage, more than likely. Or, we caught him on the run between the house and garage on his bathroom and coffee breaks. Dad was either working on his car, or the car of one of his brothers, or of our mother’s brothers, or of a friend’s. He was handy and generous in that way.

Our family structure was not unlike so many other blue-collar families across America in the mid-twentieth century, a hardworking, do-it-yourself father; a hardworking, stay-at-home and do-it-yourself mom, and their little nest of children. The balance of power was pretty well equal in our home. I think my parents were a good match in that regard, and their children benefited from it. For that I am grateful.    

                 

http://booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/

Columbus, Ohio, USA, and multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene has authored and published four books. All of them are available worldwide in eBook and soft cover at online booksellers. Her latest novel, CRADLE OF THE SERPENT (goo.gl/i3UkAV)  was designated as a finalist in the 2018 American Fiction Awards Competition. It was also awarded a 5 Star Review by Readers’ Favorites. In addition, she was the winner of the 2018 Peter Hills Memorial Writing Competition. Scheduled for release in early 2019 is her novel, A CHANCE AT THE MOON. It will be available in soft cover and eBook at Amazon.com. An extensive exhibition of Greene’s artwork can be viewed at www.gallery-llgreene.com

NATURE'S SECRET IS PATIENCE

                                                             By Linda Lee Greene

March 6, 2019, Columbus, Ohio, USA—I sliced an entire bag of soft apples into quarters last week, and tossed them into the ground cover that borders my patio and anticipated the crowd of squirrels and birds they would draw. The squirrels paid no attention to them whatsoever, and neither did the birds at first. Apparently, my apples were no competition with the seeds my neighbor puts out for them in his feeder. But yesterday, two robins took note of them, big fellows sporting rotund, orange breasts, enormous from their winter feeding grounds in some perpetual summerland south of us here in the frozen north.

            One of the robins was slightly larger than the other, and a bully. I watched amused for a good long while as the two of them battled each other for the sweet fare, the smaller and more passive one waiting his chance to dive in and grab a morsel when the tough guy showed any sign of distraction or weakness. I was reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to “Pace yourself as nature; her secret is patience,” a reminder that was particularly meaningful for me, and helped to calm my anxiety over an issue with my health that has caused a delay in publishing my next book.

http://booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/

Columbus, Oho, USA, and multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene has authored and published four books. All of them are available worldwide in eBook and soft cover at online booksellers. Her latest novel, CRADLE OF THE SERPENT (goo.gl/i3UkAV)  was designated as a finalist in the 2018 American Fiction Awards Competition. It was also awarded a 5 Star Review by Readers’ Favorites. In addition, she was the winner of the 2018 Peter Hills Memorial Writing Competition. Scheduled for release in early 2019 is her novel, A CHANCE AT THE MOON. It will be available in soft cover and eBook at Amazon.com. An extensive exhibition of Greene’s artwork can be viewed at www.gallery-llgreene.com. 

SPRINGFIELD OHIO BOOK FAIR

 

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Only 1 Day Until The 2019 Winter #SpringfieldOHBookFair - at Mother's Stewarts Co-hosted by #HenHousePublishing 

Chat with local authors and pick up an autographed book for yourself or your special someone.

https://www.henhousepublishing.com/2019-winter-book-fair.html
#Winter #Books #Authors #Gifts 

 

COMING SOON TO ALL ONLINE BOOKSELLERS

Was it chance or destiny’s hand behind a man and a woman’s curious encounter at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas? The cards fold, their hearts open, and a match strikes, flames that sizzle their hearts and souls. Can they have the moon and the stars, too? Or is she too dangerous? Is he? Can their love withstand betrayal?! Can it endure murder?!

Amid the seductions of Las Vegas, Nevada and an idyllic coffee plantation on Hawai’i’s Big Island, a sextet of opposites converge within a shared fate: a glamorous movie-star courting distractions from her troubled past; her shell-shocked bodyguards clutching handholds out of their hardscrabble lives; a dropout Hawaiian nuclear physicist gambling his way back home; a Navajo rancher seeking cleansing for harming “Mother Earth;” and from its lofty perch, the Hawaiian’s guardian spirit conjured as his pet raven, conducting this symphony of soul odysseys.

http://booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/

Columbus, Ohio, USA, and multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene has authored and published four books. All of them are available worldwide in eBook and soft cover at online booksellers. Her latest novel, CRADLE OF THE SERPENT (goo.gl/i3UkAV)  was designated as a finalist in the 2018 American Fiction Awards Competition. It was also awarded a 5 Star Review by Readers’ Favorites. In addition, she was the winner of the 2018 Peter Hills Memorial Writing Competition. Scheduled for release in early 2019 is her novel, A CHANCE AT THE MOON. It will be available in soft cover and eBook on all online booksellers. An extensive exhibition of Greene’s artwork can be viewed at www.gallery-llgreene.com. 

ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVED©

ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVED©

By Linda Lee Greene, February 3, 2019

 

On West Second Avenue between Oregon and Perry Streets in Columbus, Ohio where I lived as a kid, many of its people were still connected closely to their immigrant roots. They wore their forebears like an extra coat of skin. It was undeniable in their eyes, their hair, their body movements, and in their language. While the broken English of their first-generation immigrant ancestors had been replaced with second- and third-generation, Americanized English, still there remained a not-quite-faded-away influence of their old country’s native tongue, especially in their usage of colloquialisms and idioms characteristic of their foreign origins.

“Mama Mia,” sailed almost hourly through the open summer windows from the house on the corner of the alley across the way from us. Like ours, it was a tall, white, multi-storied, frame house, but unlike ours, it was bursting at the seams with three generations of beautiful olive-skinned and brunette persons of Italian lineage. Immediately following his high school graduation, the oldest male-child of the family disappeared one day into a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood. My naïve Protestant eyes watched agog from my bedroom window that overlooked the roof of our front porch when on some weekends he was home to visit in his crisp, black clerical-garb and newly-acquired bent-headed air.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” was more commonly heard on the nimble lips of our Irish neighbors. In them I saw fragments of my mother and much of her kin: red hair, pale skin, rugged individualism. Not only did our Italian and our Irish friends share the same religion, but they also increased the city’s population year upon year upon year. Rather than outdoor chairs and tables like those on our front porch, theirs overflowed with baby carriages and strollers that bloomed seasonally like flowers in a perennial garden. Saint Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, a comfortable walk from us, was their anchor to our neighborhood. Its religious services still draw worshippers to it from both near and far. Those people with their strong sense of family and connection to their church left a profound mark on me, one that shapes me to this day.

An enormous brick monstrosity on the corner of my street one block west of us housed a beer bottling operation and was a mooring of the German people among us, those historical brewers of beer who in large part had created Columbus. We were reminded of just how oppressive living in the air-space of a brewery can be as minute-by-minute it spewed its noxious fumes into the atmosphere. The sound I most identify with my German friends-of-old is the “Oom pah pah,” of their folk music that pumped aggressively through the airwaves of our neighborhood. When I hear that sound now, I want to jump to my feet and dance, as I did back then on the sidewalks fronting their houses.

Across the back alley from us lived a family in which the mother and father were deaf and therefore unable to speak, while all of their many children had perfect hearing and speech. That phenomenon of biology fascinated me, and bewildered me at the same time. I just couldn’t reconcile in my mind how offspring could emerge so unlike their parents. While their life was underpinned by silence in many ways, they were a joyous and yes, a chatty group, their quick fingers flicking noisily in the parent’s mysterious sign language.

On the street where I lived, mystery abounded in the diversity of its people. There was always some intrigue to unravel, a weird and wonderful culture to experience, a fascinating tradition to appreciate, and never was there discrimination of any kind among us. We were just people living among people, and it was a good thing!       

http://booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/

Columbus, Oho, USA, and multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene has authored and published four books. All of them are available worldwide in eBook and soft cover at online booksellers. Her latest novel, CRADLE OF THE SERPENT (goo.gl/i3UkAV)  was designated as a finalist in the 2018 American Fiction Awards Competition. It was also awarded a 5 Star Review by Readers’ Favorites. In addition, she was the winner of the 2018 Peter Hills Memorial Writing Competition. Scheduled for release in early 2019 is her novel, A CHANCE AT THE MOON. It will be available in soft cover and eBook at Amazon.com. An extensive exhibition of Greene’s artwork can be viewed at www.gallery-llgreene.com.