An Evening with Mark Twain

This is an old one, but one of my favorites.

I was asleep; at least it felt like sleep.  I was awake too.  I was not dreaming. 

I sat up and standing at the foot of my bed was a man dressed in a white suit with an unruly head of hair the color of the suit.  He was smallish, and had a mustache that covered his upper lip.  I could smell cigar smoke.  Training and practice dictated that I reach for a weapon, but something stopped me.  It didn’t seem right to shoot Mark Twain.

I laughed at the thought of shooting a dead man.  He smiled at my laughter as if we had shared a joke.   I then thought, “What do you do with a dead man in your room?”  I laughed, and again, he joined me.

Since it was clear that killing him was futile, I determined to talk to him.  “What are you doing here?”

“You invited me,” he said with a twinkle in his eye that told me he knew more about the situation than I did.

“I did not,” was my brilliant retort.

He smiled again, reached into his right suit pocket, and took out an apple.  I watched as he turned it in his hand.  It looked solid.  I couldn’t look through it and see his hand as if it was a ghost apple, nor could I see the apple through his fingers. 

Mr. Twain, then put his left hand into his pants pocket and took out a small penknife.  As he opened the knife’s blade, he spoke, “You were reading Letters from the Earth, and you called me.”  I did not speak, having sounded dumb enough with my first attempt.  He nodded, “You said, ‘I wish I could meet the mind who wrote this’, so here I am.”

“Nice to meet you.”  I said, “Nice to meet you”!  How lame?  I embarrass myself.  To recover, I added, “I love your War Prayer.”  Another smile.   

My attention was drawn back to the apple because his was.  I watched as he started to cut it.  I had always seen and cut an apple on its north-south axis, into slices, removed the core and ate them.  Mr. Twain was cutting the apple around its girth.

The apple spun deftly in his hands as the small blade incised an arc through the heart of the fruit.  He split it, and held two halves, one in each hand.  I smelled fresh apple in the room over the fading cigar smoke.  He held the two halves, fruit side out for me to see. 

There were two stars, one in either half.  I had never known that splitting an apple that way would reveal stars and was delighted with the discovery. 

I looked at him smiling.  The twinkle in my eye matched his as he said, “Look beyond what you know and see the stars.  Things are not as they seem.”  He then took a bite of one-half and held the other toward me.  I reached for it, but as I did, he faded and was gone. 

I got up, raced to the kitchen and grabbed an apple, ran back to my room, got my knife and cut the apple as Mark Twain had done, looked at the stars, laughed, took a bite and swore I smelled cigar smoke. 

You may say the visit was not real, and you may be right, but I know this, things are not always as they seem.  If you look into the heart, you might find stars.

A Writing Class

I am taking a writing class.  Some of you reading this are saying, "It's about time."  Others of you are asking, "Why?"  In answer to both the statement and the question, I offer this, I am taking it to learn. 

I do this once, or twice a year, take a class, or attend a writer's conference.  It is great fun when I speak, or teach, because I learn by doing so, but I always try to attend other sessions because in my experience, everyone, and I mean every individual in that class, or session knows something I do not.  If you think about it, that is very exciting. 

In a previous life, I taught automotive technology, and I had done the same classes so many times, I could do them without notes.  I really knew the stuff, and it had become a challenge to teach these classes because it was becoming mundane.  There was a point that I thought I just might know it all.  Wrong, I knew very little.  If I listened, the individual in class who had the least experience always knew something I did not, or had forgotten.  The key word is, listen.

If there are ten people in the class, then there are ten things in that room that I do not know.  The trick is to get the things I don't know out of the ones who do.  How, do you do that?  You get them to talk, but since it is a writing class/conference, you first get them to write.  Writers love to write, or they wouldn't be writers.  The saying is that writers live to write, while authors write to live.  I guess I am both, but whichever the case, I need to learn.

A writing class is to write, so this column is part of the class.  I will turn it in as an assignment, killing two birds with this stone.  You will see what the class gave me, and what I learned in two days.

Dr. Kevin Rabas was the guest lecturer for, as he labeled it, the Intensive Creative Writing Workshop, offered by the University of South Alabama, Baldwin County, and I do mean intensive.  The term "lecturer" is a real misnomer.  Kevin was more of a masterful drill instructor as he led us from one creative exercise to another.  There was much time allowed for sharing and discussion, but when it was time to move on, we moved.

The class was challenged to write in multiply genres including poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, play writing, and the writing of plays for the screen.  No genre was left unexplored.  I found myself, whose taste in poetry runs more to the, "Roses are red, violets are blue…" class, tempted into wanting to try my hand at free verse.  I have not, not yet, but I am tempted.

I did learn where a short story or two of mine could be adapted to ten-minute plays.  I've never considered such before, but now I am an aspiring playwright to go along with being an aspiring columnist, and novelist, and let us not forget poet.

There were eight in the class, which was a surprise to me that so few would take advantage of such a wonderful opportunity right here in Baldwin County.  The real surprise was that of the eight, four others were my age, or older.  I had expected a much younger crowd, but the vast and diverse pool of experience from those who have live life, loved, and lost, was something we all gained from swimming in.

The class being small was to my advantage, because it allowed for much sharing of written work and critique from fellow students.  These sessions were the real pearl of the oyster for me.  This is where I gained my desired diamonds of wisdom from everyone, and I did.  When I wasn't flapping my gums about my work, knowledge gained from writing and life's challenges poured from my fellow students. 

It is hard to write and not put some of you into every piece, it just kind of flakes off like DNA at a crime scene.  Our writing leaves bits and pieces of who we are scattered wherever we are read.  Souls were bared and experiences shared, and we were all strengthened by having come together and shared ourselves.  I came out feeling enriched and rejuvenated.

There were only two men in the class, which, I thought at first, said that women were more creative than men are, but as I re-think it, I'm guessing that women are more willing to share their life's experiences than men. That is such a shame, because we all have a story to tell.

My first novel, Where the Mockingbird Sang, exist because my great-great-grandfather kept journals.  He told his story.  If he had not thought it worth telling, our family would have been deprived of a wealth of family history, and our getting to know him. 

We ALL have a story to tell…tell it.  It doesn't have to be published, but it needs to be told.  Someday, you too will have great-great-grand children.  Will they know who you were?  Not if you don't write it down.  Tell us your story, enrich us…we're waiting.

My Life Revolves Around a Refigerator

An appliance controls my life.  I am so ashamed, but it is not because I can’t stay away from it, it is because I rely on it.

           Sunday afternoon, during a nice chin-on-chest nap in front of the television, the Norse god Thor with his hammer paid a visit to the internal workings of the refrigerator compressor.  It was a gosh awful racket that got the reposed Admiral off her favorite recliner to run to the kitchen, push me aside, grab the offending appliance, and shake it while yelling, "What's wrong with you?"   

       We say the strangest things when jolted from a deep sleep, and I only tell this embarrassing moment, which she will deny, because her actions and words set the tone for the coming week.  I did not know my life revolved around the refrigerator, but I was soon to learn.    

      The first thing to do was to get all the food out of the dead fridge's freezer.  The chest freezer is full to the brim, making me wonder how it is that we never have anything to eat around here.  Maybe if the Admiral bought more chocolate doughnuts and diet Dr. Pepper, and less good-for-you-stuff, we'd have room.     

     The freezer in the "Dr. Pepper" fridge (I don't drink, so it can't be a beer fridge) in the garage is stuffed too, so break out the ice chests.  We have two very good ones that keep ice and food cold for five days.  "We won't need that," I tell myself, "we'll have a new refrigerator on Monday, Tuesday at the latest."  Ha!  How can someone my age be so naïve?     

     Monday, I determined that fixing the old refrigerator, would cost an arm, but if I added only one leg, I could have a new one, so I started to shop.  I was confident that we would have a new refrigerator by Tuesday, and I could put my diet Dr Pepper back into its designated unit in the garage.  Hope springs eternal.  Ha!  I scoff at thee, thou gullible fool!

      I begin to shop websites.  You must be kidding me!  Whatever happened to the $500 ones?  To get one the size I want, with the features I am convinced are necessary for survival, such as through the door ice and water, I will have to pay an arm and a leg-and-a-half.  It took me a few minutes of ranting and raging, but the more I surfed, the more I knew that would be the price.  I was willing and still hopeful for Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.  Ha!  I declare again.     

       I found the one I wanted, so off I went to the store.  To my surprise, they had it, and the price was the same as the internet price.     

     "I want this one," I told the smiling, prepubescent clerk as I wondered how someone yet to shave could know anything about refrigerators, but then I've been shaving for over fifty years, and I don't know anything about most things.     

     "That's the first one you’ve looked at," he said.     

     "Yes," I replied, "this is man-shopping." 

      He looked at me funny. 

      "You see what you want; you buy it and go home."  I could tell he wasn't married.  "You'll understand someday." 

      He smiled weakly, and we went to check out.     

      As he was doing his magic in the computer, I asked, "Do you have one still in the box?"    

      "No, we'll have to have it shipped from our warehouse."     

     "O.k., I'll take the one on the floor."     

     "I can't do that.  If it was a close out item I could, but we're selling a lot of this model."     

     "How can you be selling a lot of this model, and not have one in stock?"    

      "We don't keep an inventory of large items.  They all come from our warehouse."    

      Tuesday isn't going to happen, and Wednesday is a fading possibility, but I ask, "Can you deliver it?"     

     "Yes sir, let me check a date for you."     

     "I can tell you the date, it’s tomorrow."    

      He reddened as he tapped keys, ignoring me.

      I sighed and groaned.     

     "What was that?"  He asked.     

     "That was the sound of hope for Wednesday leaving the building."  He didn't get it and I didn’t explain. 

     "We can deliver it Friday," he said, triumphantly.    

      I stared at him in shock.  It is Monday and I have to live until Friday without a refrigerator?  The gods laugh and mock me!  It was at that moment that I realized how an appliance controls my life.     

     The days until Friday were filled with longing, worry, and confusion.  I would forget, and go to the dead, empty unit with my glass for ice and water.  It's silence mocked me too.  Really, am I supposed to drink iceless, unfiltered tap water?  The indignity of it, and to top it off, all the diet Dr. Pepper was sitting on the floor of the garage, hot.  My heart aches for electrically generated, refrigerated air contained in a box.     

     Friday arrived and I sprang out of bed like a kid at Christmas.  The promised delivery time of 9:30AM was still hours away, but I was ready.  I had the mocking victim of Thor pulled out ready to haul off, the space for the new unit was cleaned and scrubbed, and a new water line was made ready.  I paced the floor.    

      I was so nervous.  It was like a first date.  "Will the new unit like me?"  I wondered.  "I hope she's as pretty as the pictures." 

      The designated time arrived.  The old unit was taken away, and the new one installed.  What a magic moment for me when the technician plugged it in and I could hear the quiet hum.  I nearly wept, I tell you.     

     Like a schoolboy with a new toy, I stood in front of it, running glass after glass of water through the filter to clean it out as instructed.  An hour or so later, I heard the first ice cubes hit the bottom of the tub and I shouted for joy.  Another hour passed and the wonderful sound of complete silence fell over the kitchen as my new refrigerator cycled off.  It was now cold enough to accept food.     

     I ran and emptied the bottom shelf of the garage refrigerator, rushed the stuff into the new one.  Next, the Dr. Peppers on the floor went into their proper place.  The freezer stuff in the ice chests was next, and the world began, once again, to go around in greased grooves. 

    What is wrong with me, why all this anxiety over a refrigerator?  What would happen to me if the car died?  Well, that's why I have two.  Maybe I should have three refrigerators.