The Pen is Mightier Than the Riot

 

If you want to convince people that lives matter (black, brown, white, or whatever), you can demonstrate and you can riot. Or you can write a book.

I don’t usually plug books on this blog, but I just finished Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson, and her contribution to the conversation is as powerful and more compelling than any demonstration or riot.

Here is the description from Amazon:

Jacqueline Woodson’s first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories.

It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for “A Room to Talk”), they discover it’s safe to talk about what’s bothering them—everything from Esteban’s father’s deportation to Haley’s father’s incarceration to Amari’s fears of racial profiling and Ashton’s adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives.

This isn’t just a story about the children we normally think of as minorities. The group includes a white boy who is bullied because he is the minority in that school. Woodson’s story shows you can’t judge any person by the color of his or her skin, but sometimes other people’s prejudices create negative experiences that children—and adults—must figure out how to handle.

Although the book is billed as a middle-grade novel, I would recomment it for adults, too.

With Harbor Me, Jacqueline Woodson proves that the pen is mightier than the riot.

A Covid-19 Story Idea

 

Earlier this year, I had begun planning a summer research trip to New England to visit lighthouses. Then Covid-19 closed everything down. I kept hoping I could get the trip in, but by now it’s pretty clear that I will have to wait until next year.

New England’s Covid restrictions are a big part of the problem. My plan was to visit lighthouses in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, with the largest number in Maine. But Maine’s Covid-19 travel restrictions—which are similar to those in other parts of New England—would make for a frustrating and futile trip.

Maine’s travel page states, “It is mandated that all out-of-state travelers coming into Maine, as well as Maine residents returning to Maine, complete a 14-day quarantine upon arrival.”  Quarantined individuals must stay at home or in their lodgings the entire time. They may not even leave to go to a grocery store, so unless they bring enough food for two weeks, everything must be delivered. Obviously, this also means no sightseeing.

There is an exemption for anyone who has had a negative Covid-19 PCR test no more than 72 hours before entering the state, but this has its own logistical nightmares. If you get the test done in your own state before leaving, will you have the results within 72 hours? And in the case of my lighthouse tour, which would go from one state to another, we would likely need to be tested more than once to meet their requirements.

The Maine instructions say that if you haven’t received the results by the time you arrive in the state, you can quarantine “in your lodging” until you receive the results, but in the unlikely event of a positive test, the entire trip will have been wasted. Or you can quarantine in your lodging for 14 days, but who is going to spend the bulk of their vacation cooped up in a hotel room just so they can get a little sightseeing in afterwards?

But, you ask, how will the authorities know? The Maine rules require hotels, campgrounds, Airbnb hosts, and so on to obtain a Certificate of Compliance signed by each guest. Cars with out-of-state license plates are probably targets for police checks. And I’m guessing that rental car companies are required to collect a Certificate of Compliance, too. A traveler who violates the travel restrictions can receive up to six months in jail, a $1000 fine, and an order requiring that person to pay the state’s expenses.  

So I was concerned when I learned that a good friend planned to travel to New England this week. She was going as companion to a friend who wanted to do some sightseeing there, and I’m guessing the woman was making the arrangements and hadn’t thought to check out any travel restrictions. My first reaction was to warn my friend—and I did.

But my second reaction was to imagine the story possibilities. What if a clueless family traveled to New England and discovered they couldn’t get a hotel room without signing a Certificate of Compliance? Would they lie, and what would happen if they did? Would they turn around and go home? Would they tell the truth and quarantine in a hotel room until they could get tested and receive the results or even for the entire 14 days? And what kind of craziness would result from being cooped up together in a tiny froom without even the chance to take their St. Bernard outside for a walk? Maybe the story would even be the basis for another blockbuster comedy movie like National Lampoon’s Vacation or Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.

Or not. I have so many projects on my desk now that I may never get around to writing the story. I also won’t be traveling to New England anytime soon.

Because I’d rather experience it in fiction than in real life.

Writing the Storm

 

As I mentioned last week, I recently read finished re-reading David Copperfield. When I came to Chapter 55, titled “Tempest,” I was swept up in Dickens’ description of a powerful storm. The highest praise I can give him is to reproduce excerpts here for your reading enjoyment.

To set the stage, these first passages occur while David Copperfield is traveling from London to Yarmouth on the evening mail coach.

It was a murky confusion—here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel—of flying clouds, tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as it, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. …

But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely over-spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle.

…

As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had it stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings.

Upon reaching Yarmouth, David took a room at an inn and went down to the shore for a closer look.

Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag back.

…

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rendering and upheaving of all nature.

I wish I could write like that.

__________

The painting of the storm at sea is by Robert Witherspoon, a 19th Century British artist. It is in the public domain because of its age.

Remembering High School English

 

I just finished reading David Copperfield for at least the second, and possibly the third or fourth, time. But it’s the first reading in high school that sticks out in my mind. I was particularly struck by these two passages describing David’s stepfather after David’s mother died.

Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair.

. . .

[He] took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to and fro in the room.

The teacher asked us to write a character study about somebody in the story, and I chose Mr. Murdstone. Most readers consider him to be a mean, hard-hearted man, and he is, but my paper concluded that he had a soft side and deserved to be pitied because of the strength of his grief.

I don’t remember what grade I received on that paper, but it was probably an A since that was my normal achievement in Mr. Leemgraven’s junior and senior English classes. I remember another paper for the specific reason that I received only an A- on it. The assignment was to critique an article from The New Yorker. I don’t remember anything about the content except that it used exaggeration as a literary advice and I didn’t think it worked. My problem was that I used “exaggerated” or one of its other forms several times, always spelling it with one “g.” Mr. Leemgraven marked me down for the spelling, and I wasn’t happy. I argued that at least I had been consistent, but I still ended up with that A-.

By my senior year, I had decided I wanted to be a lawyer. So when Mr. Leemgraven assigned a research paper, I chose the case against Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists who were convicted of murdering a guard during a robbery. I especially enjoyed reading through the court transcripts. I didn’t know if they had done it, but I concluded that the guilty verdict was a miscarriage of justice because the state had not met it’s burden of proof.

Mr. Leemgraven was a good teacher, and I learned a lot from him. I don’t remember ever telling him how much I appreciated him as a teacher before he died in 1985.

But I wish I had.

__________

The image at the top of this page is from the original 1849 serial publication of David Copperfield and is in the public domain because of its age. I didn’t find a reference to the cover illustrator, but since the interior illustrations were done by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), I assume he did the cover as well.

Photography Club Technology

 

I belong to the Calumet Region Photo Club (CRPC), which is a member of the Chicago Area Camera Club Association (CACCA). Covid-19 has been as hard on us as on other groups, but things are getting better. And a lot of that has to do with advances in technology that we didn’t even anticipate 20 years ago.

CRPC hasn’t met in person since March. We used to meet three Tuesdays a month—one for an education program, one for mentoring, and one for competition. Some of the other clubs have been holding Zoom educational programs and inviting us, and I did attend one of those, but we haven’t hosted any ourselves. In June we resumed the mentoring via Zoom meeting. And now we are getting ready to start the competition meetings up again using software developed for that purpose by a member of another CACCA club.

I sat “Zoomed” in on a demonstartion of the software last Tuesday, and I was impressed. Club members upload photos competition photos, review them, and can—until the closing date for entries to that competition—remove and/or replace them. When the competition date comes around, the judges will rate the entries online and the software will do the rest.

The biggest difference is that there will be no more print competition, at least for a while. It will all be done online, which means only DPIs can be entered. But within each of the two classes (advanced photographers and the rest of us), there will be categories for monochrome, color, and a special monthly theme. That’s at the club level.

The best images from the club competition go on to a CACCA competition. CACCA also has additional categories for individual entries in nature, photojournalism, portrait, and creative.

In the past, I’ve submitted some DPIs but never entered the print competition because of the logistics. Since the new system is limited to DPIs, I will probably enter more often.

Winning a competition is always nice, but that’s not my primary reason for entering. It’s more a way to get feedback on how my photos compare with other photos. But the new software sounds like fun.

And I’m excited about using it.

__________

The picture at the top of this post is a screen shot of a software page for reviewing uploaded photos. This one shows a photo I took of Diamond Head on Oahu.

The Pandemic Kidnapped my Beta Readers

 

My middle-grade historical fiction is aimed at girls in the 4^th to 6^th grades and at 3^rd grade girls who read above their grade level, so I use students from a local school as beta readers. I ask the school for volunteers—preferably two girls from each of those four grades—and rely on the principal and the teachers to select the right individuals. I was almost ready to send out the manuscript for my Erie Canal novel when everything stopped. With schools scrambling to change their format from in-person to online, it was clearly the wrong time to ask for their help finding beta readers.

So I put the book on hold waiting for a better time. Originally, I assumed that things would be back to normal by September and I could return to my customary practice.

Wrong.

Schools are still adjusting to new ways of doing things. Although the one I use is holding in-person classes now, the staff is facing different challenges trying to implement the protections that come with that system. I’m just not sure this is the right time to ask for their help identifying the next group of beta readers.

Even when I do, the process may change. In the past, I have dropped off hardcopy manuscripts, questionnaires, and parent permission letters and the school has distributed them for me. That way, the girls didn’t have to use their own printers and supplies to make a copy or to use the less effective method of reading the book on a computer screen. But now they may prefer PDF copies sent by email. That’s actually easier—and cheaper—for me but harder on them. And they would still have to print out the questionnaire and the parent consent letter to complete and return to me.

The principal has told me that the girls enjoy being beta readers, and I’ve gotten that comment from several of them, as well. So they may welcome the oppoutunity. But more importantly, their feedback is extremely valuable and has resulted in significant changes to each of my manuscripts. Beta readers are crucial to the quality of the completed book, and I don’t want to continue without them.

But I’ll have to let the principal tell me when the timing is right.

Keeping Up with the Cousins

I never cared about keeping up with the Joneses. But to give the phrase a different meeting, I am interested in keeping up with the Page cousins. In other words, I want to keep alive the connection that we re-established at funerals when my father and his siblings started dying.

Two summers ago, we all met at my cousin Gail’s house in North Carolina less than two months before Hurricane Florence hit it. Then last fall some of the cousins came to our area and spent a couple of days each with my younger brother and me. My older brother, Donald, wasn’t able to make that one because he was already deep in the throes of Parkinson’s Disease and dementia.

So it seemed fitting to include him one last time and have this year’s mini-reunion at his interment in Michigan. His ashes were buried in the family plot, which includes my parents’ and grandparents’ graves. The Michigan location also made sense because several of my cousins live in the area. Two came from the East Coast, but the other three (also on the East Coast) couldn’t make it. That’s why I call it a mini-reunion.

Roland and I started the trip by meeting one of his Navy buddies and wife at a restaurant in Paw Paw, Michigan. After a good visit with them, we went on to my cousin Ann’s house near Kalamazoo. The storm rolled through while we were there but had calmed down before we left for our hotel.

Everywhere we went there were reminders of the pandemic. Even small children were wearing masks at the rest stops. The hotel required masks in the public areas and had attached a paper seal to the door indicating that the room had been sanitized. The included breakfast had fewer choices than usual, but there was enough of it to fill us up as we ate in our room.

Tuesday was a nice day. The cemetary at Fruitport was a little farther north than Ann’s house, so I don’t know if it had rained there at all, but the ground by the grave was dry. Afterwards, we had a meal at the clubhouse in my cousin Lawrence’s complex, then drove on home.

The photo shows the cousins in our masks just before Donald’s interment service. It may be hard to tell, but even Donald is wearing one over the urn. He would have appreciated the humor.

Although the picture shows only the blood cousins, the gatherings included spouses and several people from the next generation. The Covid-19 precautions created some logistical difficulties, but it was a great visit anyway.

And keeping up with the cousins was just what the doctor prescribed for our mental health.