Lynn Hesse's Blog: Book Signing, page 4

Patriotism, My Version

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Fort Smith National Cemetery, Fort Smith, Arkansas – photo by Dean Hesse

I took a research trip last May through multiple states from Georgia to Missouri and traced my ancestors through cemetery after cemetery. My maternal and paternal lineage fought in the Civil War on both sides. I came from many adventurous and hearty Europeans: Carvers, Redmons, Tharps, Whitlocks, Shavers, and Tindells. They came to a new land seeking religious freedom and economic prosperity. It took many generations to achieve mediocre success. They persevered against the odds of poverty and despair.

I think of them as I work for social justice and against the blight in my community, South DeKalb County. When I dance at the Decatur Arts Festival, or any venue as a Dancing Flower for Peace, I am aware of who I represent. Emulating my forefathers and foremothers, I consider myself a warrior for peace. The responsibility of maintaining peace, working for equitable solutions, and recognizing the need for a strong defense to protect my family, my neighborhood, and my country confuses some of my friends. It makes sense to me.

If you were in life-threatening danger, I would put my life on the line for you, not because I am a hero, but because the blood in my veins requires it. The prepetuation of our species requires it. Democracy requires it. My ancestors require it.

On Memorial Day I remember all the people who died to protect our nation, and I thank those who have served and are serving in the United States Armed Force.

Holy Expletive! When to Use Four-Letter Words

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https://www.thoughtco.com/robins-oddest-holy-exclamations-from-the-batman-tv-series-3896999

I’m preparing to speak about writing dialogue to a group of writers in Monroe, Georgia at their monthly meeting in June. https://www.meetup.com/Walton-Writers/events/251013852/ If you are familiar with my crime fiction Well of Rage, you already know I’m not shy about using cuss words if it’s appropriate for the character and the plot. I don’t like censorship. It’s not American.

When my editors and I butted heads over what I thought was mild expletive usage for drug dealers, drug addicts, and murderers in Another Kind of Hero, I rebelled. However, rereading Hillary Waugh’s Guide to Mysteries & Mystery Writing reminded me that the pendulum swings to the extremes and back again in what is acceptable language even in literary fiction.

I doubt I’ll ever write Treasure Island-type family stories, or a character like Robin who would exclaim “Holy Oleo,” but I want my characters to be timeless. I hope in twenty years people will still read my fiction. It’s a balancing act of taste and skill.

The Great Speckled Bird’s Fortieth Anniversary

 

If you look closely, you will see Dean and me in the the video.

In 1976 I was in Indianapolis, Indiana with a bad marriage, a small child, and co-running an economy motel, or as I referred to it “the workhouse”. I wasn’t a flower child, and after my divorce it took all my energy to start over and raise my child. I didn’t have a degree and potential employers could ask you personal questions during the interviewing process–like if you were on the pill. I went into law enforcement because I wanted to do my bit for God and country, raise Aaron, and get an education through the Law Enforcement Education Program (L.E.E.P.). I finally graduated in 1996 from Georgia State University. I paid out-of-pocket for most of my education and never applied for welfare or food stamps, but now when I look back, I’m glad others were protesting, writing leftist articles, and going about the business of being watchdogs. Some of the founders of The Great Speckled Bird are now politicians. Refer to the article. https://www.ajc.com/news/local/what-ever-happened-atlanta-alt-weekly-the-great-speckled-bird/PELQLKlYkHdy0b4zm1HfRI/?ecmp=intownatl&utm_source=intown_fb&utm_medium=social

Now, I work as a community activist and performance artist trying to make my community better by doing clean ups in my subdivision and encouraging people to vote.

Sometimes, I do get down when people steal the plastic push pins out of my community sign. But…

Life is strange, and it takes all of us: conservatives, moderates, and liberals working for the betterment of mankind. May we preserve our country together.

Community Events – Labor of Love

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I am a long-time resident of South DeKalb. I watched them build my house on Downs Crossing in 1986. My children grew up here and attended Redan High School. I’m a retired public servant. I am invested. Now, a new community organization, Connecting Neighbors and Neighborhoods, is budding based on conversations at a neighborhood coffee. I am learning a lot about my neighborhood and neighbors as I listen.

My To-Do List for the upcoming meeting includes mundane things like packing registration forms, name tags, and candidate information concerning the upcoming local election, buying refreshments, making coffee, and carting the items to the Stonecrest Library for tomorrow night, 6 pm. I know people will be hungry because some of them will come from work. I want them to be able to concentrate on the Police Athletic League (PAL) Youth Program speaker, Lieutenant Fred Walker. He will be speaking about the athletic and arts program for children and teens this summer offered by DeKalb County Police Department. Idleness can breed crime.

I hope to book a speaker in July to address another big concern expressed by the people on NextDoor.com and at our previous meetings about the juvenile justice system and how citizens can be involved in the restorative justice process with our youth.

A dear friend is coming from the West End of Atlanta on MARTA to help me play break-the-ice games InterPlay style–curious?–and build trust and respect before we discuss the candidates in the second half of the meeting. Without trust and respect we can’t move forward, a reminder from a wise woman Ms. Taylor on NextDoor.com.

Many thanks to the Beverly Mitchell, my next-door neighbor, who helped me get the word out, put out flyers in mailboxes, and dropped them at surrounding library branches.

I’m excited to hear what you want to say about the candidates to help inform others. If you aren’t with us at Stonecrest Library, I expect you’re paying it forward somewhere else.

Our next meeting TBA will be in July at the Redan Recreational Center on Phillips Road.

 

 

White Female Renews Driver’s License

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The Georgia DMV website advised me to bring certified copies, or the originals:

Driver’s License

Social Security Card

Birth Certificate

Divorce papers from 1977

Marriage certificate to Dean

Two utility bills – proof of residency

For the unlucky folks who didn’t fill out the short-cut form on the website, their waiting line at the DMV branch at Rockbridge Road and Hwy. 124 was a long one. I guess they didn’t have access to a personal computer. Dean picked up on the important sentence at the bottom of the page about the form. (By the way, I read English, but most government sites are cryptic to me, and library funding is fading for public access to computers.)

At the DMV a Hispanic female and I spoke and navigated the kiosk where we pushed the right graphic photo and a paper ticket with a number magically appeared.

My number was called in less than 5 minutes.

The Hispanic woman’s husband arrived, and I think they were called a couple of minutes after my number.

The clerk looked at my social security card, my driver’s license, and my marriage certificate. She asked me if I still lived at the same location on my present driver’s license. She ran a wanted check on me. It took less than 5 minutes. She took an awful photo of me. I paid thirty some-odd dollars and received a paper license good for less than a month. I should be receiving the real license in the mail.

My sister told me her non-citizen Hispanic friends need to pay between 2 to 4 hundred dollars every 3 years or so for their consulate driver’s license. (I tried to fact check these details online and could only get a rough estimate.) If their American born children wish to drive before the age of 18, their parents must have this consulate driver’s license. Many immigrant families can’t afford this cost and the children don’t drive, work outside the home, attend extra-curricular school functions, or if they drive, they drive without a license until they are eighteen. If there is an accident, the consequences are very expensive for them and everybody else on the roads. Impacting the family’s economic struggles further, their college applications have huge blanks under work record and community achievements.

Car insurance is a separate bureaucratic mess. Remember, I speak and read English, and I own a computer.

I have lived in the same house for over thirty years, a luxury, made possible by the work of my great-great-great grandfathers and grandmothers and their children who moved a lot from state to state seeking work in the fields, prospecting for gold, lumber jacking, working on oil rigs in California, ironing, mending, and mining coal in the Midwest. They lived temporarily with family, friends, and in boarding houses. Their education was minimal. My Scottish ancestors spoke with a brogue, and they were banned from many establishments.

I remember my roots, and I don’t take my lifestyle for granted.

As I left the DMV parking lot, I wondered how long the Hispanic woman and her husband would wait, and if they would need to return with more documentation.

Nix The Free Monkey Grass

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I thought pick a Sunday afternoon, Earth Day, and invite people on NextDoor.com to drop by and dig up some of my out-of-control monkey grass.

Easy peasy. People were interested in swapping plants until it rained.

Now, I keep receiving questions and calls to book appointments for the monkey grass dig fest. “When do you close?” one lady asked.

You might say, “Simply don’t answer the phone,” a sound idea in theory.  In practice it gets complicated.

When an elderly lady on Friday before the advertised drop-by day on Sunday is on her way to visit a friend at an old-folks home, and she wants to give her friend some grass, oops I mean primrose, your sweet husband gives in and digs up the plants for her and puts it in a plastic bag.

It does sound like “suspicious activity on Downs Crossing…” Digging holes, again. I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

 

Memorial Gardens

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On first glance I don’t see the flowers in my garden as an array of beautiful colors that bring me peace, or even metaphors for life. I remember the people who gave me the flowers, or a start from their garden.

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My mother-in-law didn’t give me many happy memories of her, but she gave me deep purple irises to plant in my front walkway, and the monkey grass I can’t seem to keep under control. (She didn’t drive. She would argue over a penny and disappear for hours in a store when you only had ten minutes to buy the ingredient you needed for supper.)

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My mother gave me the angel statue and flowers surrounding it. They bloom early in the spring along with the crocus my neighbor, Linda, gave me.

(The thrill of the first blooms reminds me to make the most of every day.)

Linda gave me the gorgeous azalea bush in the first photo and many other plants. Linda hails from the Philippines, and over the years each succulent dish she prepared and brought to our door with her shy smile, we gobbled up.

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This tree my dad gave us for an anniversary present after our weeping willow tree died in the front yard. He had given us the start of the willow when we moved into our home in 1986. The above tree was hit by lighting and the top half died. Dean cut the top trunk off, and it grew as you see. (The children in the neighborhood love climbing this tree.)

The tiger lilies, orchid-colored irises, mint, and many other flowers in our garden came from our retired postwoman’s garden in Madison, Georgia.

(I still miss the hollow sweet gum tree we cut down a few years ago.) It shaded our front bedroom from the evening sun for thirty years.

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The mother and baby statue was kicked and broken by my step granddaughter, Alexandria, when she was about ten. (She is a senior in college now.) Dean fixed it before I got home from work, DKPD.

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The statue of the woman being held by hands was broken in a storm by a fallen branch, and Dean fixed it with concrete caulk. The statue was purchased on one of my many trips to see my parents on their twenty-five acres, or “the farm” in Forsyth, Georgia. Sometimes, I would drive the back way down Panola Rd. to Hwy. 155, to McDonough, then I-75 South. Halfway between Stone Mountain and Forsyth, there was a statuary place with goats hanging out on the roof where I bought the lady statue for my stone garden.

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The jasmine on the back fence was a mother’s day present from my daughter, Nikki. The original gift was planted on the side of the deck, but I moved it after a couple of years to its current location. It needed more shade. I sympathized.

 

“The Gutsy Girl”

“The Gutsy Girl” by Caroline Paul

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/01/gutsy-girl-caroline-paul/

I wish I’d written this book because Ms. Paul, a former firefighter, is so right about our culture emphasizing physical perfection for girls over the importance of developing grit and inner strength.

I was lucky. My mother and father wanted me to grow up and be a lady, but only to a certain practical point.

One spring my dad bought me a used bicycle and painted it red for my eleventh birthday gift. The bike was too big for me, but I wanted to learn to ride. All summer I fell, got up, and tried again. I took dance lessons and my balance was excellent; I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t ride that bike. My knees were continually bloody or scabbed over. Mother was sympathetic and bandaged my knees the first, second, and third times I fell, but her interested waned as the summer wore on.

I washed my own skinned knee, put on the red Mercurochrome, stuck a Band Aid on the ugly mess, and continued my stubborn attempts to ride on the gravel streets. It never occurred to me to bother mom or dad about the wretched process. Dad was busy in the television repair shop, and mom was teaching Vacation Bible School at Westside Methodist Church and dealing with some judgmental woman’s cutting remarks about Mrs. Twyla Tharp’s lack of commitment to God or the church. I never got the entire story because mom covered the phone receiver and told me to leave the room.

I am thankful my parents were too busy to protect me from the adventure of taking a risk and going for it. I learned valuable lessons about bravery and independence that summer. I learned to ride a bike on my own, gained confidence, and I survived. Later, the scars on my knees would be proof I was a gutsy girl long before I became a “spunky” policewoman. The wonderful freedom of riding that bike, the air blowing past me, and being in control of where and how fast I wanted to go was intoxicating. Heaven.

 

Small Gestures

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Connecting Neighbors and Neighborhoods of South DeKalb, CNNSD, a new community organization I’m part of, is a challenge for me. I’m a planner, but some people aren’t. I want to forge ahead, experiment, get things done, and some people want to discuss, visit, and see what happens. What I am learning is trust takes time in community and small gestures mean a lot. People need to be acknowledged and a random act of kindness makes an indelible mark.

The old-fashioned welcome basket for new neighbors was mentioned during the last CNNSD meeting as an idea to foster community. My mother taught me how to be hospitable and welcoming. It usually involved cooking or cleaning.

I remember the days – way before texting, but it doesn’t need to be complicated. A small basket of blackberries or a card could work. Cards make me smile. Thank me, celebrate my birthday, share a holiday moment, or an anniversary with me, I love it. Even the Elvis stamp on one of the envelopes is cherished. A person takes time to think of me and tell me. What a boost!

I digress: My dad could motivate people to work on a project beyond anything I’ve ever experienced since I left home. Charisma and leading by example were his stock in trade. People instantly liked him, his gift of gab, and his dimples. Guilt and religious zeal worked brilliantly for mom with my siblings and me.

Anyway, many good, wonderful people are in my life. I am grateful. I’m still learning how to be part of my community. I need their patience; I guess I should be more patient with them.

Flying Low and Slow

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I went to Forsyth, Georgia to see my sister yesterday. As I turned on Roberts Farm Road a hawk swooped down in front of my Outback. The bird in full wingspan and gliding through the airwaves allowed me to see its claws, the cornucopia of brown and red hued feathers along with its spotted markings under the wings. I slowed to take in the bird’s magnificent beauty. To my surprise the hawk floated in front of me, guided me, and we traveled the same speed for several seconds. I listened.

When the hawk banked right and flew away, I felt blessed.

(I saw hawks circling at both my father and brother’s funerals. They brought me peace.)