Hurricane Fall-Out

September 14 is a bad date for hurricanes. On September 14, 2018, Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina. Ten years earlier, on September 14, 2008, the remnants of Hurricane Ike caused wide-spread flooding in Northwest Indiana and wrecked havoc on our own house.  

Last week I wrote about Hurricane Florence and how it was affecting my cousins. Since then I’ve learned that the ones in Wilmington are safe and should be close to normal soon. My Topsail Island cousin returned to a home still standing but significantly damaged. It will take her longer to get back to normal.

I know how that feels. Ten years ago, the remnants of Hurricane Ike took less than 24 hours to drop ten inches of rain on Northwest Indiana. The Little Calumet River overflowed its banks a few blocks from our house, and we fled north to stay on our sailboat at the Hammond Marina. It was a week before we could get to the house and two-and-a-half before we could move back home. Even then, we were reduced to living in half the house for several months while reconstructing the rest.

The water came up about five feet on the lower level of our tri-level home, practically destroying the laundry room, the second bathroom, and the family room. Our family room was lined with bookshelves, and Roland likes to joke that he filled a dumpster with the books he had to throw out. A heart-wrenching circumstance for booklovers. The water rose almost a foot in our office, the garage, and the rooms behind them that we had been using for storage. But the living room and kitchen were raised slightly and didn’t have any damage. Neither did the top floor with the bedrooms and the other bathroom. So we returned home as soon as the town cleared the house for habitation.

The first picture shows the rubbish piled along Jackson Avenue as people cleared out their homes. And that’s AFTER the dumpsters had been taken away. The next picture shows the stairs down to the lower level as we gutted the ruined parts of the house with help from church and other friends. I don’t know what we would have done without them.

We were very fortunate to have great friends and good flood insurance.

But I feel for everyone who has suffered from Hurricane Florence.

A Prayer

Less than two months ago I was on Topsail Island in North Carolina for a reunion with my paternal cousins. Roland and I stayed at a hotel, as did another cousin and her husband, but everyone else stayed with my cousin Gail. The photo shows her house as it looked on July 28.

Who knows what it looks like now.

Gail evacuated to her brother’s house in Richmond, Virginia, and officials aren’t letting residents back on the island yet, so we don’t have a damage report. On the positive side, the photos I’ve seen on Gail’s Facebook page seem to indicate that most of the houses on the island came through without major damage.

Then there are my two sets of Wilmington cousins. One couple was out of the country at the time, but the other was at home and didn’t evacuate. The last I heard they were safe but without power and low on cell phone battery.

So my blog post today is a simple prayer for all who have been affected by Hurricane Florence.

Dear Lord, thank you for your protection during Hurricane Florence and for your promise in Isaiah 43:2 to be with your children as we go through disasters of any kind. Comfort those who lost loved ones in the hurricane or its aftermath. Give the residents of the affected areas rest and strength to rebuild, and help us all to help our neighbors. In Jesus name.

Amen.

High School Memories

Fifty years? Really?

I attended my fifty-year high school reunion at Lake City, Michigan, on Saturday. It isn’t the high school that I would have preferred to graduate from, but I still had some good times there. If you want to know what I looked like then, I’m second from the left on the bottom row in the first photo.

We moved right after my sophomore year, so I didn’t grow up with these classmates. That happened at DeTour Village, Michigan. If I’d had my way, we would have stayed there until I left for college, but it wasn’t my choice. Many of my Lake City classmates did grow up together, and they are sharing those events and photos on the reunion Facebook page. I can’t related to those experiences, but here are some of the more memorable ones I did have in my last two years of high school.

Senior English with Mr. Leemgraven occurred in the same time slot as reruns of the television show “The Fugitive.” Somehow, we convinced him to let us watch the 2-episode finale in class.

I played an old maid in the senior play and enjoyed it immensely. (That’s me on the left in the second photo.) The entire experience was fun, but one particular evening practice—or actually before it—stands out. As a general matter, I either walked the ten blocks to school or drove over early with Mama, who taught in the elementary wing. So my classmates didn’t automatically connect me with our Volkswagen. But Brad Stanton had a similar one, and he drove it all the time. One night I drove ours to an evening practice and spun it around on the ice close to the school. Brad was also in the play, and he took a merciless ribbing. He must have been very confused, and he denied it vehemently. I probably told people the truth when I found out they thought it was Brad, but the memory has stuck with me.

The biggest advantage of Lake City over DeTour was that Lake City offered more extracurricular activities. I was in Senior Chorus my junior year, and it put on an annual operetta. I was just part of the chorus, but that was still fun. I would have loved to have been in it my senior year, too. Unfortunately, it conflicted with physics, and physics won out. I did do debate and forensics that year, however.

Then there was the one and only time I visited the guidance counselor. Mr. Ferguson was new, and he decided to start the school year by asking each of the seniors to come to his office and discuss their plans for after graduation. That was his job and he was trying to be helpful, and even then I knew I wasn’t being singled out, but at the time I was insulted that anybody thought I needed help from a guidance counselor. In what was probably the shortest session he ever had, I informed him that I had everything under control and had already been accepted at the college of my choice. I’m sure my words were respectful, but I don’t remember my tone . . . .

At the reunion, people made two main comments to me. The first was, “I remember your long hair.” The other was, “you and Cassie should have been valedictorian and salutatorian” (without specifying the order). Cassie said the same thing, although she accepted it more calmly than she did at the time. Dave (valedictorian) and Susan (salutatorian) had both been transferred to Lake City High School at the beginning of our senior year after their small country school closed, and their earlier grades transferred with them. That’s what I would have expected, but apparently there was some controversy about it. In any event, I felt at the time, and told people at the reunion, that I thought Dave was qualified to be valedictorian. We were in all the same classes senior year, engaged in friendly competition, and came out neck and neck grade-wise. So I never questioned that choice. I knew less about Susan since she was not on the college-prep track and we shared only one or two classes. But losing out on one of the top two slots didn’t affect either my college chances or my career progress, so it never really bothered me.

The final photo shows what fifty years does. (I’m in the back row in the blue-and-white stripped top.) We had just over sixty people in our graduating class. Although people who left before graduation were also invited and several came, this is still an impressive turnout.

I enjoyed the reunion, and I’m glad I went.

But it can’t have been fifty years.

Out for a Walk

We have several good bike trails around here. I walk them for exercise and listen to an hour’s worth of Great Courses lectures at the same time. That’s been my routine for years, and it still is. But I finally entered the 21^st Century.

In the past, I listened to the lectures on an early generation I-Pod. I took identifying information and emergency numbers, but it was too much trouble to carry both the I-Pod and my cell phone, so I couldn’t make emergency calls or take pictures. Every time I came across a good photo opportunity, I regretted that I couldn’t take advantage of it.

For me, photography is a serious hobby. When I’m traveling or on a hike looking for pictures, I take my Canon DSL, which gives me more options and better quality than a cell phone. But the Canon is a little heavy to carry when I’m primarily walking for exercise. So I finally gave in and bought a special case for my cell phone and figured out how to stream the lectures.

But now I have another problem. Walking for exercise works best when I keep a steady pace, and stopping for all those photo ops defeats the purpose.

I have included several photos that I took while walking last week. I recognize the Monarch butterfly, which is common around here at this time of year, but I need help identifying the flower and the other butterfly. Do any of my readers know what they are? (I think I can name the flower, but I’m not positive and I don’t want to influence anybody by telling you my guess.) The dark butterfly is also common around here, but none of my books have been any help with identification. Maybe that’s because the wings appear ragged and torn. It isn’t dead because I saw it flying before it landed on the leaf in the picture. I suppose the butterfly might be close to the end of its life, but I’m not sure about that, either, since it isn’t the first of its type that I have seen in that condition. So I would appreciate your help identifying the subjects of those two photos.

Too bad you can’t also tell me how to walk and take pictures at the same time.

A Tour of My Bulletin Board

I like to be organized, and having a dedicated office makes it easier. I use a bulletin board as one of my organizational tools, and where would I put it if I had to write in a coffee shop or even at my kitchen table? Yes, I also have notes and lists and research materials in binders, but I like having crucial information a glance away.

Maybe a bulletin board would work for you, too. It’s something to think about, anyway. And if you need ideas, here is a tour of mine.

The upper left-hand quadrant lists my monthly writing goals. I have three goals for August: to send my just completed manuscript out for editing, to work on the second draft of my current work-in-progress, and to send an earlier manuscript to the next round of agents. I’m currently right on track, but I might not be without the list in a prominent place to remind me.

The upper right-hand quadrant has two items. The top one is a copy of my Indiana Registered Retail Merchant Certificate, which is a sales tax registration that basically authorizes me to sell my books out of the back of my car. It reminds me that writing is a business as well as something I enjoy doing. The second item is an inspirational quote from Hebrews 12:2.

The bottom left-hand side has the outline for my current work-in-progress. I’m somewhere between a plotter and a pantster, meaning that I work from a skeletal outline and change it when circumstances warrant. My outlines are a one-line summary of each chapter and include the day of the week and the date for each one. If I get lost, I just glance up and find myself again.

The content on the bottom right-hand side changes with the manuscript. My current WIP takes place in the real town of Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863, and I want to get the location details right. A significant portion of the story occurs in a cave built as a multi-family bomb shelter that also serves as their dwelling. Although the particular cave is fictional, the layout needs to remain the same throughout the book. So this month that lower right-hand quadrant contains a map of Vicksburg as it looked in 1863 and a diagram of the cave. When I was writing about the Great Chicago Fire, that part of the bulletin board was covered with a map of the fire’s spread. For a story that follows the seasons, I post a copy of the calendar for the relevant years. In every case, however, that portion of the bulletin board contains information that I consult frequently while writing.

Every writer has a different routine and a different way of organizing to write, so what works for me might not work for you.

But feel free to use my bulletin board ideas if they help.

The Changing Face of Political Correctness

Recently, a friend was reading Desert Jewels and asked me about the authenticity of a passage explaining that the protagonist’s Japanese American father and Caucasian mother got married in Indiana because it was illegal in Chicago. While the book is fiction, the scene is based on the real life experience of Nakaji and Eleanore Torii, who married in Crown Point, Indiana in 1930.¹  To add to that story, apparently the FBI tried to pressure Eleanore to divorce Nakaji in 1943 but she refused because he was a good provider. Although this is pure speculation, I would like to think that the real reason she refused was because she loved her husband. However, saying he was a good provider was an answer more people would likely understand or accept.

In 1930, mixed marriages were not politically correct. And during World War II, it wasn’t even politically correct to have Japanese American friends. Entire families—including many American born children—were incarcerated simply because of their blood line.

Then there are my current works-in-progress, which take place in the South before and during the Civil War. In that time and place, it was politically correct to support slavery and politically incorrect to oppose it.

These days, very few people would argue that mixed marriages are wrong and that the Japanese American incarceration and slavery were right. And it isn’t that the rightness or wrongness changed with the times, although many people who held those now outdated political beliefs did think they were morally right. Political climates and beliefs change, but right and wrong never do.

So don’t expect me to be politically correct if I don’t believe it’s right.

__________

¹ Images of America: Japanese Americans in Chicago, by Alice Murata. See pages 9, 15–18. 

The photo at the top of this post was taken by Dorothea Lange in San Francisco, California during April 1942, while she was working for the War Relocation Authority. It is in the public domain because it was taken as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government.

Own Voices v. Other Voices: Why Not Both?

The “Own Voices” movement started as a hashtag created by Corinne Duyvis to encourage authors from diverse/marginalized groups to write about the groups they belong to—whether that be a particular race, disability, or sexual orientation—and to promote those books. That’s an admirable goal, and I’m fully behind it.

In this “politically correct” atmosphere, however, many people go farther and condemn works by voices writing outside their culture. (This is not where Corinne Duyvis takes it, as you can see from the Q&As at www.corinneduyvis.net/ownvoices/.) The restrictive view of acceptable authorship is short-sighted and, I believe, counterproductive.

First, some background. I’m about as WASP as you can get, but the protagonist of my first middle-grade book, Desert Jewels, is not. Here’s the blurb.

Twelve-year-old Emi Katayama is half Japanese, but she is all American. Then Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, and she suddenly becomes the enemy.

I wrote Desert Jewels because the Japanese-American incarceration is a part of our history that often gets ignored, and I wanted to change that. I could have used a white protagonist who lives outside the camp, as Kirby Larson did very effectively in the Dear America book The Fences Between Us, but I wanted to get closer.

Research is key. Since I didn’t live through the experience, my research relied significantly on the voices of those who had. Memoirs have always been my favorite resources, and the Japanese-American incarceration generated a number of them.

No matter who writes the story, it is important to get the facts right. While the experience is primary, knowledgeable readers may stop reading if the details are wrong. And this is just as important for members of the in-group as it is for writers from outside the group. Unfortunately, I have read several books written by Japanese Americans that have gotten the facts wrong. As an example, many of these books merge the so-called “no no boys” with the draft dissenters and treat them as if they were the same group. The “no no boys” were Japanese men who answered “no” to two questions supposedly designed to test loyalty, while the draft dissenters answered yes to each question. (You can read more about the Heart Mountain dissenters in my June 2, 2014 blog post.)

The biggest problem with the restrictive view, though, is that it limits both the offerings and the audience.

First and most obvious, it limits the offerings by narrowing the number of people who write those books. I understand the very realistic concern about other voices getting it wrong, and this is where publishers can and should be gatekeepers. But some other voices get it right. And if you want people to read own voices, those must be quality works. So while I support publishers prioritizing for well-written own voices, they shouldn’t automatically discard other voices.

Second, restricting stories to own voices also limits the audience. Some people outside of a group feel that people within the group have a bone to pick, and these readers discount own voices books as biased. (It is the perception rather than the accuracy of the claim that is important here.) The best way to reach this audience is through white voices writing outside their culture and getting it as correct as possible.

So yes, publishers should be gatekeepers to ensure that all voices portray people accurately and with sensitivity. Sometimes that means giving priority to well-written and well-researched own voices.

But restricting it to those voices is short-sighted and counterproductive.

__________

Desert Jewels is available in paperback and Kindle versions from amazon.com and in paperback from Barnes and Noble.