Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

April 15, 2006

Today’s Queue Stories

~**~**~

My friend on an Island sent me a letter from their paper about some writer whose name was ''Stein. ''And afterwards I just had "Memories" that came tumbling out . I will now give this a title I will call it

 " Ramblings and Other Bits and Treasures."

Anne Glover

My Dad had a cousin in the War whose name was "Clayton James" He brought a sea shell back to his Grandmother. He was in the Army and killed when he got back with his unit.

Then she gave it to me.. I was 4 years old.. My mother put it on a shelf with some other trinkets.

 I have it now in my china cabinet along with the other things I have thought to be a keep sake for my children. Grand children and special nieces and nephews. 

 I always tell them a little bit about how I acquired it.

The crystal lamp base  was open and I took the bottom bolt loose and turned it upside down.

 I then put some shells inside; they are from oceans and our walks along the beach.

 I have a journal where I keep things wrote down that I hope some day some of them will read a bit of it.

When we were in Holland walking along side the row of wind mills, they were near the North sea,

I stepped on something and thought it was a rock, looking down I saw that it was a seashell, it had a bluish gray color.

 I wiped it off with a napkin and then after the mud was cleaned off I wrapped it in another napkin and put it in my bag.

It was about 6 inches long and a perfect spiral.

Clayton was a pilot and was shot down over Japan. He was a nice looking young man, with wavy black hair, his father was in the dairy business and he had several brothers and sisters.

I give the young people a boost when they think taking a foreign language here now is not what they care to do.

 I tell them it is very Important because things I read about in school were something I would never have any need to know about.

My youngest Daughter tells me, "Mom" do you know I have seen five oceans,? I tell her yes ,also several languages too.

We even stayed in a hotel in Italy where they are having the Olympics.

 Our destination was going to Venice, and we had to ride a water bus to get there from Chioggo where we stayed  in a hotel.

The kids were shocked to know it was an Island. They had not read where we were even going.

I was the chaperone for six in our group three boys and three girl .

It was something else for me when I was in charge of their money.

We had German Marks, Swiss Frank,. Italian Liras,  and American dollars. They were able to change their money in Innsbruck, Austria for shillings, as they had a bank with an ATM machine.

We all had a wonderful week. The children were all in junior high and high school.

Written by Anne G./

@Luci Glover

luci6558 @earthlink. net.

I am sixty-six years old and chased my husband all around the world to raise our three children who got a well rounded education.

We live near Tupelo ,Ms as my Husband retired after twenty five years of service in the Army.

~**~**~

Unforgettable Memories

Dianna Doles Petry

Nearly every small community has had at least one family that inspired stories and sparked imaginations for several generations. This is especially true if you lived up a "holler." Life there revolved pretty much around just the people living there during the time when transportation wasn't as easy to find and mass communication consisted of telephone, telegraph and tell your neighbor. Here is a little history from one of those small communities in West Virginia known as Kanawha Run.


I'm not going to use the real names here but one of the families that lived there was very colorful indeed. For the sake of the story, the parents of this family will become Goldie and Roscoe Wright.


Roscoe never really worked a hard day in his life and his travels were limited to the few small towns directly surrounding Kanawha Run. He was however, quite a storyteller. In his tales he had traveled great distances, taken on great missions, and studied at every opportunity. Without ever leaving his home area he had somehow managed to meet some of the most famous people of his time and his opinions were always very detailed, offered to any willing ear and on more than one occasion, an unwilling ear if he could trap someone into conversation.


Goldie was well known for her cleanliness. She would scrub the floors in her house every day and when she had cleaned the house as well as she could, she would come outside and actually sweep the front yard. Her eight children never had fancy store bought clothes to wear but they were always very clean and well kept. Very often there would be patches that covered other patches on the knees of their britches but it was the very best that she could do for them. The children were all just as proud as anyone else that had much more.  Goldie was known to tell a few stories herself but unlike Roscoe's, hers were meant to frighten her children away from things that might harm them. Her idea was that if they stayed close to home she could watch them better and what better way to keep them close to home than by making them fear "outsiders."


I'm sure that most of you who grew up in West Virginia knows what a switching is about. Let me just say that Goldie and Roscoe were the king and queen of switching and I do not mean trading places. When one of their children would get out of line, or they assumed that the kids were going to get out of line, they would send them to find a switch and carry it back to them. The switch would be used to punish the children by giving a few swift licks with it across the buttocks and upper legs. I know this sounds horrible but believe me, it only stung a while and you never did again  whatever it was that got you the lickings.  Now the thing here would be that if logic took over and your parents asked you to go "fetch" a switch, certainly you would find the smallest and weakest one you could right? Someone should have told the oldest Wright boy about logic! One day he came down off the hill with the longest and most sturdy switch he could find because he hadn't seen one like that before. I'm sure he regretted his fascination with it about five seconds after he saw the smile on Roscoe's face!


My dear friend told me about an evening when his brother frightened the eldest Wright son and caused him to get a "switching." It seems that one of the things Goldie taught her children to fear was the dark of night. Roscoe had gathered his family together in the main part of the house to give them his views and insights on whatever happened to be going on in the world at that time. The son needed to go to the outhouse very badly but each time he got up, Roscoe or Goldie would motion for him to sit back down. Finally the urge was far to great to wait and he got up without looking for either parent and headed for the door to go outside to the outhouse. Just as he was going out the door, my friend's brother was passing by on the dirt road beside of the Wright house. Now the eldest Wright son, Elmer, was in a bad spot. He had to pee very badly but it was already dark outside. Even if he got to the outhouse, there was no light inside and even the moonlight wouldn't help in there! He quickly decided that since the rest of the family was all inside and there was no one to see, he would just relieve himself from the front porch.


My friend's brother saw his dropping his pants and stepped into the hedges along the side of the house. Being very quiet he got closer to Elmer until he could reach out and grab his shoulders from the side while making an animal kind of growl. Poor Elmer never looked to see what had him. He grabbed for the old screen door to run inside with pee still flowing and his maleness hanging out of his pants for the entire world to witness. Roscoe and Goldie had no idea of what had happened and were upset that their son was now mumbling incoherently while he was more than half nude. By this time his pants were around his ankles and both parents would lash at him with a switch as he tried to get through the house. The other children didn't know whether to laugh or to run and of course by the time they could get any sense out of him there was no animal (or neighbor hood prankster) to be found outside.


Another thing the Wright children had been taught to fear was Gypsies. It seemed that no town wanted the Gypsies to make camp in their area. Everyone believed that they would steal, sell themselves to women's husbands, and take over the minds of anyone that would come to their camp. Goldie had upped that belief by adding that they would steal children to use them for slaves. One day one of the younger Wright boys was killing time along a fence that he was supposed to be repairing. He had found all sorts of things to do that had nothing to do with the fence such as throwing rocks, climbing trees, and trying to catch a glimpse of the only decent looking girl in the community as she walked past to her house. Now what should appear but a horse drawn buggy with a short dark-haired, man with a mustache for a driver. Immediately the boy imagined a gypsy and just knew that he would grab him. Not being much of a worker, he wouldn't have made a good slave so most likely they would skin him alive, or so his mother had told him! He made a leap into the old wooden fence to climb through it, but wouldn't you know it, he tried the only place in the fence that was tight and repaired! He was stuck fast with his backside on the side of the dirt road and his head pointing towards the house.


He let out a scream that should have arisen the dead and at just that moment, the "gypsy" grabbed a hold of him to pull him out of the fence. He was kicking and screaming so hard that the man dropped him and his feet were already in a running position so he took off for the house. During his struggle as the man freed him, his pants had been ripped by the fence. He wasn't about to tell his mother that a gypsy had actually had his hands on him so he tried to make up something that she would believe. You guessed it; he got a switching for ruining his good britches! The next day he got another switching when his father found the bad place in the fence he was supposed to have been fixing when he saw the gypsy. Even worse, he found out later that the "gypsy" was really just a suitor for the one good looking girl in the community.


Neighbors in Kanawha Run lived no closer than about one half mile. Some of them were two miles apart. There was no neighborhood grocery so most families made a monthly trek to a neighboring town like Rock Cave to stock up on flour, canned goods, sugar, and anything else the family might need. Very few families had automobiles at their disposal so in between trips meant a long walk for someone if it was a necessity the family needed. Needless to say, families got very creative with ways to stretch out the supplies and they also got creative about ways to get them when they needed them.


One way the Wright family and others that I know of used was to send a store list with the oldest child that went to school. A bus picked them up but it was about a two mile walk to the bus stop, and of course, the same two miles back in the late afternoon. The child would use his or her lunch break to get the supplies and then carry it home on the bus. If there was more than one child in the family they might take turns carrying the package. Very often a package of flour that started out as five pounds was down to about three by the time it got home. The paper wrapping would be worn out in the corners from being rubbed so much against the clothing of whoever was carrying it.


Life was different then but it was also better in ways. Children never doubted their parents love for them. Parents tried to instill pride into their children, and children respected their parents. Families were really families; they ate meals together, played together, and used their abilities to make life better for the whole family. Just hearing about the adventures of Kanawha Run make me wish I'd been there. Besides, I hear that the Jones boys that lived near the Wrights were fine looking young men!

©Dianna Doles Petry

Dianna59@charter.net

2/21/2006


http://diannapetry.tripod.com
http://members.tripod.com/~poemsbydianna/PoetryofLife.html
www.womenwithauniquesoul.com

~ ~**~**~

Can You Walk the Walk? ~

Joyce C. Lock

Can You Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk;
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is?

    We’ve all heard phrases that challenged us to greatness.  But instead of being challenged, what a difference it could make if we challenged ourselves ... if, every day, we awoke to hopeful expectations; searching for another mountain to climb and obstacle to pass while actually looking forward to the ruff spots (knowing they’ll only help us grow stronger), to be "all that we can be" and then to be totally contented there, to be determined to make a difference and be the difference, to reach out to our fellow man, and to look forward to every breath of life God has given.

    We’d soon discover that our entire world had suddenly changed.  And when we’d look around to see how such a miracle had happened, we’d discover the miracle took place inside.

© by Joyce C. Lock

http://our.homewithgod.com/heavenlyinspirations/

~**~**~

Poetry Section

~**~**~

The Night Before Easter

Dianna Doles Petry

It's the night before Easter and all through the house,

The boys have been lurking as quietly as a mouse,

Patiently waiting for chocolate to appear,

What a surprise, there is none this year!

They wanted clothes so new jeans I bought,

They don't need toys, they don't use what they've got,

They've outgrown the egg hunt and the Easter Bunny,

The gift they cherish these days is extra pocket money.

I'll still color the eggs they hunted until this year,

Looking at old photos causes more than one tear,

They've grown up so fast, I miss the little ones,

Eagerness always made the occasion so much fun.

They wore a suit to accompany me to church tonight,

One of them combed his unruly hair without the slightest fight,

The oldest made sure I had the perfect seat and sat beside of me,

The three of us there together formed a perfect family.

I left the church filled with inner peace, I felt good inside,

Watching my two young men had filled my heart with pride,

Life sometimes throws me problems that make me want to cry,

But it also gives me happiness that I cannot deny.

I know I stashed some candy bars, I'll find them right away,

Easter just wouldn't be the same without some candy for the day,

A golden egg worth five dollars, I'll hide out on the lawn,

I just hope they aren't out there looking for it at the crack of dawn.

©Dianna Doles Petry

4/2006

http://diannapetry.tripod.com
http://members.tripod.com/~poemsbydianna/PoetryofLife.html
www.womenwithauniquesoul.com

dianna59@charter.net

I am a lifelong resident of the state of West Virginia and the author of Memories...Stories of real life in the mountains.

I proudly acknowledge that I am a member of the West Virginia Writers and the West Virginia Poetry Society.

I very much enjoy sharing my short stories and poetry with others. My work tends to tell you the way it was, or is, or should be and can sometimes be brutally honest and embarrassingly funny. It is the only way that I know how to share this journey through life with my readers.

I appreciate any and all feedback on my work.

~**~**~

  God's Art

 Linda Ann Henry

linda11231949@aol.com

God painted the skies in the morning sunset

It takes my breath away

I see the golden sun

Rising from the earth today

The heavens are purple, yellow, green and pink

When I see this beauty,

I cannot help but think 

I imagine all the fish of many sizes 

In the sea forevermore

The dolphins are flying in the air,

Is that what make the water so deep

I am sure I saw a mermaid waving to me

All these things are a gift

God has given anyone to see

As I walk along the walkway,

I can smell the flowers

I must take a look, there are roses, tulips, daisy's

The colors of the rainbow.

The redbreast robin, the meadowlark at play

The nightingale, all sing so lovely in the day

I feel the grass, beneath my feet

It feels so good as my toes go in so deep

I watch the falling leaves as they float without a sound,

Yellow, brown, and green flying above me

Until they touch the ground

God's art is the greatest masterpiece

I have ever found

I am so glad He let me share the sunset

With the colors of the night

I live in a world God made for us

So much to make us happy and keep us calm

The beauty a picture of God's art from above

Given to us made out of love

Linda Ann Henry

Do remember me

The people's poet      

~**~**~

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET

Linda Ann Henry

linda11231949@aol.com

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET

THERE ARE THINGS I MUCH NOT ASK

HOW CAN I HELP IT

THEY ARE PART OF MY UNKNOWN PAST

ARE YOU A PART OF ME

AM I A PART OF YOU

I LOVE YOU BUT I WONDER

WHO'S NAME DO I COME UNDER

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET

FROM SO LONG AGO

JUST WHO IS MY MOTHER

DOES ANYBODY KNOW

I AM A SECRET

I LOOK BEYOND MY SIGHT

I WISH I KNEW JUST WHO I AM

I WISH IT WITH ALL MY MIGHT

CAN YOU HOLD MY HAND

CAN YOU HELP ME STAND

WHY IS THERE MUCH I DO NOT KNOW

WHY DID YOU KEEP IT SO

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET

I AM GROWN, I MUST STAY CALM

I WILL STAY WITHIN MY SOUL, I WILL LET NO ONE KNOW

I WILL NO LONGER CRY

HOW CAN I FOREVER MORE ASK WHY

LINDA ANN HENRY

DO YOU REMEMBER ME

THE PEOPLE'S POET

"LIFE CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD BACKWARDS, BUT IT MUST BE LIVED FORWARDS"

~**~**

Readers Feedback

Carol,
   I hope that everything is going well for you my friend.  I have been
keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.  You are amazing the way you have
been keeping Storytime going so well even with all that you have gone
through.
    Thanks for putting my new article "Clocks" in today's mailing.  I hope
that all of your time is joyous
today.  God bless you always. Joe~

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