Joe Palmer's Blog, page 2

Sand Dollars Make A Rich ManIt’s coming up on summer agai...

Sand Dollars Make A Rich Man

It’s coming up on summer again. It’ll be here before you know it. I’m going to start telling more stories from my newspaper column, Cup of Joe, that ran for ten years in the local newspaper here. Most of them are heartwarming like this one.

Eleven years ago, I wrote this column after a summer afternoon with my kids playing in a tide pool with our grandson. Did you ever play in tide pools as a kid? If not, you really missed something special. Many years ago, it seemed like they were everywhere along our beaches – long, narrow lakes of cool, clear seawater. When I was a kid like my grandkids now, I can remember playing in them for hours with my brother and other kids. Sometimes, the outgoing tide makes a current in them and you can lie on your back or a raft float from one end to the other.

Some days, we barely ventured into the surf at all because we had so much fun entertaining ourselves in tide pools. All you needed was a friend a sibling or two, a sand bucket, plastic shovel and sieve, a little raft or inner tube to float on and you had all the fixings for an amusing day on the beach. Way back when but not so much these days, tide pools were a haven for all kinds of interesting sea life. Hermit crabs in colorful shells of all shapes and sizes patrolled the sandy bottoms like sentries. Every now and then, one of them would decide it liked its neighbor’s shell better than its own and it’d snatch the other one out of its shell and confiscate it, leaving its neighbor temporarily homeless. But not for too long because the evicted crab would soon decide a house swap with another neighbor was in order.

Sand dollars were more plentiful then, too. Sometimes you could just barely see their partially buried circular outline in the clear water. Other times, you had to inch along and feel for them with your fingers or toes. The greenish, prickly skin live ones were plentiful. A rare find was a big dead one, bleached bone-white by the sun and perfectly shaped with no dings or broken pieces missing. I remember finding one that was dang near as big as a tea saucer. I wish I still had it, although maybe it wouldn’t really seem that big now. If I had a real dollar for every sand dollar I scooped up as a kid between ages 6 and 11, I’d be a rich man today. Come to think about it, I guess I am rich because I have such a treasure trove of all these wonderful beach memories from childhood.

When we tired of playing in the tide pools, we walked along the shell line, scouring the beds of sea shells for interesting and unusual specimens. I haven’t seen olive shells in abundance like we used to find in ages. Where’d they go, I wonder? There are no shortage of the ubiquitous cockle shells, even now. I remember picking up some bigger than ash trays. Or maybe they just seemed that big to the eyes of an 8-year-old boy from South Georgia on vacation here. I’ve found a few huge ones here and there but nowhere near as many as I used to.

We came every summer and stayed a whole week. Back then, it seemed like a month. My family was poor and a week was all my dad could swing on his salary, and this in a day when weekly beach house rentals – Georgia folk called them cottages – could be had for as little as $25 to $30 a week. I recall daddy grousing when they went up to $30 to $40 a week. I fell in love with this beach before I was old enough for school. I met my first sweetheart here when I was, what, 14? Every summer, we kids made new friends among other kids from the beach not from our hometown and promised to be forever friends. Then we went home and began breathlessly counting down the long autumn, winter and spring months until our week on this once magical strand of beach rolled around again. Overdevelopment has left us only with memories of that magical place it used to be.

When I got out of boot camp in the summer of 1972, this was the first place I wanted to visit again. I needed to get some peace of mind and recharge my batteries before giving the US Navy the next four and a half years of my life. The beach went through a spell where weekly rentals were curtailed but that’s pretty much changed now. I’m glad. I wonder how many others are out there like me are here today as aging adults because our mamas and daddies and grandparents, aunts and uncles staked out a claim on the beach here for a week every summer? I’ll bet there are tons of us. And I’ll bet their memories are as delightful as mine.

When I was growing up, I always wanted to live here. It’s so close to Waycross, Georgia where I grew up that by the time we were in high school and had wheels, or friends who did, we used to come on weekends and holidays. Heck, I remember just up and skipping school to come down, knowing full well I’d answer for it when I got home. We started meeting local kids our age who lived here and envied them that they actually lived here.

I guess tide pools are as magical as they ever were. They seem to be making a comeback. Maybe it just takes the eyes of a child to see the magic. Standby for my blog next week about me teaching my adoring granddaughter about the secret language of sand dollars that not everyone can hear.

The post appeared first on Joe Palmer.

Disciplinarian, Mentor, Friend

The older I get, the more I think about the people who had the biggest influence on my development as the adult I’ve become and where I am today. In my case, and perhaps for many others, those individuals are educators. They were the English teachers who taught us how to use the language and writing skills, even the dreaded sentence diagramming. The literature teachers who opened new worlds for us through the best of fiction and poetry. Band teachers who taught us to play instruments and to appreciate good music, be it the stirring marches of John Philip Sousa, the haunting sweetness of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, to the cannon firing, rousing finale of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

They were the coaches who taught sports, team unity and self discipline. The shop teachers who taught students to work with their hands, providing livelihoods for those not college inclined. History teachers who taught us about everything from the Greek City States to the Vietnam War. Geography teachers who introduced us to the world. Science teachers who taught us everything from biology to zoology. Drama teachers who introduced us to the theatre. And, if we were in the military, those we served under. I could continue but the list is endless.

There were others, from parents to preachers and all points in between. But sometimes lost in the endless list are those whose jobs it was to maintain discipline among students, in particular the teenagers of junior high school and high school. As I look back, I realize that being a Vice Principal in a junior high or high school was more than just a job, it was a calling. Any teacher could be promoted to the position. But, like the Marines, only the few were up to the task. Being the vice principal entailed the fine balance act of handling young adults raging with hormones, besotted with angst, possessed of hot tempers or beaten down by the cruel mechanism of domestic violence which, at least in my day, was a secret kept in the home. A vice principal was the education system’s railroad conductor who had to keep things moving smoothly, and the doctor who stepped in when things needed fixing.

Maybe some of us remember those men and women. I’ll wager to say that most don’t. In my case, I do. His name is Ted Walden and he’s still with us, albeit now in his eighties. We thought he was an older man in the late 1960s and early 1970s, even though he wasn’t even what today we’d call middle-aged. I reconnected years ago with a beloved high school literature teacher, also my creative writing teacher, who I attribute to kick starting my muse and the journey that eventually led me to writing a novel and now working on another one. But, over the past year or so, I’ve often wondered about Mr. Walden. Is he still alive? If he is, is he still possessed of his faculties? I wonder if I can find him? So, a few days ago, I set out to do just that. Two days ago, for the first time in nearly 50 years, I had the great pleasure of having a long telephone conversation with him. There will be more, and I will see him again.

He’s still living in Waycross, Georgia where I was raised. When I called his home number, a land line, of course, and he answered the phone, I was dumbstruck at the sound of his voice. It didn’t have the crackle and weariness of a man in his eighties, but the smooth, quiet tenor of the Mr. Walden I remember. It hasn’t changed a bit. I told him my name. I hoped, naively, that he’d remember it, but he admitted he didn’t. I mean, honestly, why would he? There’ve been thousands of us. I wasn’t one of those students who ever did anything memorable, and he couldn’t remember the names of some of those who had. But he was anxious to talk with a former student and share stories and memories with his special brand of humor. At some point in the conversation he said it’s sometimes helpful when he sees the face and the lightbulb goes off. And honestly? Isn’t that the way for most of us these days?

One of the things I most remember him for is his being the first person to offer me a job when I was in college. I saw only a rare few of my former educators again after graduating high school in the late spring of 1972. Mr. Walden was the exception. I joined the Navy right after graduation. When I came home on leave, I’d sometimes drop into the office to visit Mr. Walden. He’d been in the Navy, too. By the time I was in college after I got out of the Navy, Mr. Walden was the principal of Waycross High School.

I dropped in to see him one day in my senior year at the University of North Florida. I was an English major, minoring in literature. I was telling him all about it when he asked me if I had post graduation plans. By then, I was planning to be a newspaper reporter, but I told him that, in my heart of hearts, I’d love to teach high school or college literature. Well, he said, when you graduate, come see me and I’ll hire you. I was touched and grateful but didn’t want to live in Waycross again. As the old song goes, “How ya you gonna hold ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen gay Paree?” As a former small town kid who’d also joined the Navy and seen the world, he understood. I seem to recall making a wisecrack about the TV series, Welcome Back Kotter. We bade each other farewell and I never saw or spoke with Mr. Walden again. Until two days ago.

He was so pleased and proud of me to learn that I’d at last been able to realize my dream of being an author. I said to him, Mr. Walden, I never did anything terribly wrong as a student that got me sent to your office. I got busted for chewing gum in class a few times. There was one time I stupidly sassed our irascible band teacher. And I skipped school. It was the disrespect toward Mr. Rigney, the band director that landed me in Mr. Walden’s office. I told him how scared I was that I’d be harshly dealt with, even though that wasn’t his reputation. I told him. Mr. Walden, here’s what I recall about your way of disciplining a wayward student. It’s something that bears telling you. What I recall was the heart-to-heart talk, the wisdom and the guidance. Helping me understand my error. I then told him that I’d come from a horribly abusive family life and I’d never get that sort of counsel from my father. What I’d get was screaming and yelling, followed by a beating. I think he was moved by the revelation.

We spent a half hour or so laughing about and recalling our mutual recollections of other teachers, students and events of the day. He talked briefly about the growing anti war sentiment that was just beginning to seep into the minds of students even in little towns like Waycross. A couple, in his recollection, were a bit radical about it. I confessed to him that I was one of a small number of students there who were not only anti war and questioned our involvement in Southeast Asia, but who also had widely differing opinions than the prevailing ones about politics, race and social justice. Rather than risk scorn within our homes and in the community, we held our opinions close to our vests and talked about them only among ourselves. There’s a core group of us today still this side of the dirt and, thanks to the wonder of social media, we’ve found each other.

I thought my revelation would surprise him but it didn’t. Not in the least. He said it didn’t. It gave me peace of mind to know that. A different kind of school official than Mr. Walden might’ve held you in low regard for that. Their discipline of you might’ve been harsh. Instead of the wise counsel to a troubled teenaged boy who feared his father worse than any horror he’s faced since, it might well have been condemnation. Kids like me thought no one knew the pain and fury we carried because it wasn’t talked about outside the home, not even among friends. But I truly believe that there were people like Mr. Walden who intuitively knew such things about their young charges. A ten minute heart to heart talk with a vice principal like Mr. Walden leaves a positive lasting impression on a young mind. A savage beating only leaves pain, anger and long lasting trauma.

Even though at age sixty eight, now an old man myself, I’ve probably earned the pedigree to refer to him as Ted, but he’ll always be Mr. Walden. He’s earned that, too. We made plans to talk again, have a visit. I can’t wait. Maybe when he sees my face, he’ll put a name to it. If not, that’s okay, too. I’m sure the meeting will be enjoyable for both of us.

The post Disciplinarian, Mentor, Friend appeared first on Joe Palmer.

The Wild Geese Of Florida

They’re all over the place. I’m sure you’ve seen them. This state has a large population of them. The ones with wings that stroll across parking lots in single file, taking their sweet time and making us all laugh at their, well, goosey antics. And I’m sure all of us are at least somewhat familiar with the ones without wings, too. Some of them might even be your neighbor. Heck, you could even be related to one. Maybe you are one.

I’m betting that most of you are sitting there thinking to yourselves, “What the dickens is he going on about? Geese without wings? My next door neighbor? My kinfolk? Has he lost all his marbles? The answer is no. I’ve not lost my marbles, nor am I battered, as the Irish call being drunk. I’m just playing around. I’ve messed around long enough and now it’s time to let you in on the joke. I think many of our Irish friends and relatives know where this is going already so I guess it’s time to let everyone in on the gag.

I’m not talking about these ubiquitous Canadian geese that seem to have taken up residence everywhere in Florida. We have to go back to July 1690, when Irish forces were defeated by King William III (William of Orange) at the Battle of the Boyne. Without going into a lot of fascinating Irish history, it boils down to this. After their defeat at the Boyne, the Irish forces were given two choices – immediately accept the primacy of the the king or leave Ireland. Thousands of them chose to leave. They called themselves “The Wild Geese,” in the belief that their exile would be temporary and that one day, they’d get to return to Ireland. But that didn’t happen. Other Irish fled and also became known by the same name.

Flash forward three-hundred and thirty-two years. Today there is a website, called TheWildGeese.Irish Social Network “that archives tales and recollections from the men and women who are descended from that diaspora, as well as those who are still in, or have returned to Ireland.” But more importantly, it’s also a place for all those of us who are either Irish or Irish blood, to learn more about our ancestors and to share stories, do research on our Irish roots and enjoy the company of one another.

But the story doesn’t end there. A week or so ago, a Facebook group called Irish in Florida popped up in my news feed. I immediately joined and was delighted to see all the names and places where Irish people and people of Irish blood like me live in the Sunshine State, and elsewhere. We even have a few people from Ireland right here in our community, Sarah Burnley of Celtic Charm on Centre Street being one of them. We’ve all been sharing stories and having loads of craic (pronounced crack), the Irish word for good times and shared laughter and humor. So, you see, when I say The Wild Geese of Florida, these are the people I mean. They’re as ubiquitous as those dang Canadian geese every where. But that’s a good thing.

I’m going to end this blog with a riveting tale. An Irish woman named Olivia Connolly saw my first post in Irish In Florida, where I’d mentioned being an author who’s written a novel in which Ireland is featured. She quickly replied to me what a small world this is and shared her story with me. Turns out Olivia is also an author. When I heard her story, I nearly fell over backward. And if you’re a fan of the series, Father Ted’ and of Dermot Morgan, the late actor who portrayed him, this’ll probably leave you gobsmacked, too. Olivia, Dublin-born and bred, actually attended college with Dermot Morgan at University College Dublin.

During her first year of college, which was Morgan’s final year, Olivia and the zany Morgan struck up a friendship on her first day of classes that blossomed into totally whacky courtship dance by him until she finally agreed to go out with him. She and several of her pals became part of Morgan’s comedic act he assembled called Big Gom and the Imbeciles. He’d already done two previous ones. There was also a musical part in the act Olivia was in, which parodied different famous bands and musicians – including some country music and Elvis Presley – by their band, also called Big Gom and the Imbeciles. Even after Morgan graduated college and pursued his career, he and Olivia remained friends.

In December, Olivia published a book about this time in her life called The Incidental Girlfriend. It’s a quick read chock-full of delicious, and oftentimes wicked and naughty stories told in that rapid, quick-witted delivery that Dubliners are famous for. Olivia delves into the staid Dublin of the 1970s, her determination to be a liberated hippie in a still parochial country, and all the attendant hilarity and pratfalls, including a pair of ten-inch stack shoes, which she refers to as coffins, that sent her for many a tumble. All this with her constant efforts to outwit a watchful and strict Irish mammie (mother) whose prying eyes seem to be everywhere at once. If you’re looking for entertainment that’ll keep you wheezing with laughter, clever turns of phrase the Irish are renowned for, and an insider’s look at the birth of the comedic genius of Dermot Morgan, who died too soon in 1998, you have to read this book.

It’s a self published debut but I predict that this first effort, which is already catching the eye of Irish readers and critics, and just landed her a spot this week on the Shop Irish Readers Friday Feature, is going to propel Olivia Connolly into the ranks of current, well known Irish authors. And I’m delighted that we now count one another as friends.

And so I say Slainte! to the Irish In Florida Facebook group for introducing one new author to another. It’s my great pleasure to share the link for Olivia Connolly’s amazing book.

The post The Wild Geese Of Florida appeared first on Joe Palmer.

When Autumn Leaves Start To Fall

Since autumn is my favorite season, I’ve decided to continue to muse about it for the next couple of blogs. So, if you love fall as much as I do, let’s embrace it while we can. Soon enough, the weather will sour on us and it’ll be winter.

When I was working at a regular job before deciding to become an author and work even harder, I was driving home from work late one evening with the windows down so that I could enjoy that first crisp embrace of autumn weather. I caught a whiff of leaves burning somewhere. The mellow, woodsy smell was intoxicating, and the deja vu that accompanied it took me back to the autumns of my childhood.

I grew up in a tiny Southeast Georgia town. Everyone raked their yards and piled up the leaves and burned them. For some reason, it seems that this little ritual most often occurred in the early evenings. Maybe it’s because the winds are usually calmer or absent that part of the day here in the South. But being something of a romanticist, I tend to think of such things if a different light. A memory of lingering smoke of burned oak or pecan leaves trailing like incense into an evening sky that was a patchwork of pastel orange, blue, purple and red, is one of those handholds I reach for sometimes when I need to ground myself. It’s a quick, free trip back to a time that was kinder, gentler and a lot less complicated.

The evening burning of leaves in my neighborhood was a communal event. Someone would pile all of their leaves by the side of the road and set fire to them. About the time that the embers matched the color of the setting sun, other neighbors would be starting their evening routines. Our dads would just be coming home from work. Our mamas would be putting the finishing touches on supper and the smell of pot roast or pork chops and baking biscuits or cornbread would drift from windows everywhere and complement the smoky aromas outdoors like the sweet and inviting scent of apple pie warms and complements hearth and home.

Kids ran around screaming and yelling and playing hide-and-go-seek in the gathering shadows or contented themselves tossing a football in the street. Walter Cronkite’s calm, assured voice blended into the mix from neighborhood television sets, and, every now and then, a burst of laughter, high and merry, rose from a house nearby. A fragrant, wispy veil of smoke connected it all.

Old Mr. Williamson, our next door neighbor, built huge leaf burn piles. He was a dapper, formal-looking old gent who always seemed dressed up, even when going to work as a carpenter each day or doing yard work. Although he pretended to loathe children and dogs – “Pssssht!” he’d snap. “Get that dog away from here before I trim his tail right behind his ears.” – you could always see his eyes light up when kids ventured over in the evenings to hang out beside his fire. Silly questions like, “Mr. Williamson, whatcha doin?'” were apt to prompt responses like, “Just gettin’ my fire hot enough so’s I can roast me some of you young’uns and dogs.” And everyone would grab their dogs by the collars and Mr. Williamson would chortle like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

Before long, someone would produce a double handful of grimy marshmallows they’d been carrying in their pocket all evening just for the occasion. And then, like a magician, Mr. Williamson would come up with just the right number of wire hangers. He patiently worked the wire into straight spears and instructed us on how to impale the marshmallows, and how close to the fire to hold them so as to achieve the precise amount of golden crunchy on the outside and molten, creamy white inside.

“And don’t get too close to that dern fire. And get a’holt of that there dog right now before I dock his tail right behind his ears.” When someone invariably showed up with a few hotdogs to roast, Mr. Williamson waited until we were feasting on the juicy, flame-roasted franks to inform us that hotdogs were made from the tails of dogs that’d been nipped off right behind their ears. “Why d’ya think they call ’em hotdogs?” he’d tease. And we’d fall for it every time. Occasionally, someone would bring a handful of sweet potatoes wrapped in foil from their mama’s kitchen and toss them on the fire. Mr. Williamson would bank the hottest embers around them and, before long, they’d be good to go.

Dying embers and Mr. Williamson’s tall tales gave way to full dark, and Miz Williamson hooting from the kitchen window, “Yoooohooo! Supper’s ready!” A pregnant harvest moon rose above the treetops and we told stories about witches and haints and Halloween right around the corner until, one by one, our mamas called us home to supper and the end of the day.

Now I’m almost as old as “old” Mr. Williamson was then. You can’t burn leaves outside without someone calling the fire department or complaining. A citation for illegal burning takes all the fun out of it. But occasionally I catch their scent in the evening air and I think of him and smile. It’s said that the sense of smell evokes the sharpest memories and emotional responses in humans. I suspect it’s so. Today I’m 67. But sometimes when I catch a whiff of leaves burning somewhere in the evening, I’m nine again.

What memories do they bring you?

Have you read A Mariner’s Tale yet? Grab your copy in print or ebook today!

The post When Autumn Leaves Start To Fall appeared first on Joe Palmer.

Trick Or Treat, Smell My Feet!

Remember when Halloween was an official kids’ holiday? It started on the school bus that morning and ended late that night after you’d eaten so much Laffy Taffy that you barfed in Technicolor.

Halloween was rushing home from school, actually doing your homework, then bolting down supper so quickly that it made the dog envious. Halloween was purple dusk with a hint of smoke in the air and a fat, golden, harvest moon just peeking over the horizon and peering in your window as you smeared your face with greasepaint and imagined that you really were a pirate or a hobo or Frankenstein’s monster or some other equally creepy creature from last week’s episode of The Outer Limits. Halloween was your buddies hollering at you to hurry before the big kids hogged up all the good candy and people started turning off the porch lights. Remember? If so, you’re probably as old as Howdy Doody.

Halloween sort of fell on some tough times there for a while. It nearly faded away into the mists years ago when urban myths about LSD, crack and razor blades in candy made the rounds. Then some churches campaigned against it as sinful and devil-worshipping and turned it into “Autumn festivals,’ as if it didn’t amount to the same thing, since it was always on Halloween. In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, who never quite got over Linus’ with The Great Pumpkin: Good Grief!

The official holidas of ghosties, goblins, witches and other things that go bump in the night, not to mention Superman, Cinderella and the entire cast of Star Wars, is finally recovering from a dry spell when Americans were so scared and paranoid about the “dangers” of the holiday that they practically jumped out of their skins if someone shouted, “Boo!”

But the past few years have thankfully seen a resurgence to its heyday when Roy Rogers, Zorro and Cruella DeVille reigned supreme and every neighborhood street in America was mobbed by kids toting colorful goodie bags or plastic jack-o-lanterns from door to door chanting, “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!”

There’s a pecking order to Halloween. Just before dark come the toddlers and tykes dressed as bumblebees and fairies. A few visits to neighbors’ homes and then off to bed so that mom and dad can eat most of the loot. Then come the shuffling, giggling hordes of grammar school kids looking like central casting for Disney. Next come Halloween’s merry pranksters, the young teens and ‘tweens with Freddie Krueger and Jason masks. Gypsy girls and female punk rockers. Groups of grommet surfer dudes in baggies and flip-flops, board tucked under arm, goodie bag clutched under the other.

This coterie comes in groups of six or eight or more and each one of them rings your doorbell five times. When your open the door, they all smile like Eddie Haskell at Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver and hold their bags out while they try to stare around you into your living room as if you’re hoarding a truckload of Snickers and holding out on them. When they head down the steps, they glance back at you, elbow each other and snigger like co-conspirators and you wonder if they’ll go around the block, switch costumes and come back for more. And some of them do, thinking they really fooled you.

But the ones ya gotta beware of are the older teens. They dress in unsettling fashion with fake knives ostensibly penetrating their skulls from one side to the other, Grim Reapers so realistic that your check your pulse to make sure you’re not really dead, or ashen-face undertakers towing a casket with one of their party dressed as a corpse with coins over their eyes. They’re sullen and smirking and give the impression that if you don’t hand over the more expensive sweets that they might come back after midnight and TP your entire house – or worse. When they leave, you check to make sure that your lawn gnomes are still there. And not posed in, ahem, rude poses. Mmm-hmm. Been there, done that. Heard the neighbors laughing at me when I tried to separate them from their compromising positions before I could go to work.

My wife and I have worked hard to keep the Halloween tradition alive. I’m especially diligent because, and I’m proud to admit, I am a case of nearly 70-years-old arrested development. We line the walkway with jack-o-lanterns with candles inside, each sporting a different hideous grin. We greet every princess, troll or Batman and admire their costumes and let them select their own candy because I always buy wayyyyyy too much.

A few years back, recalling a sweet, little old lady in my own neighborhood who did it, we started making candy and caramel apples on Halloween, although I finally gave up on popcorn balls, which always ended up tasting like scorched corn syrup. Our initial fears that parents wouldn’t allow their kids to eat them proved wrong. Now the “candy apple house” is an annual Halloween hit. We even set aside some for the parents.

And because part of me still wishes he could go trick-or-treating and not get the cops called on him, I take my delight in pranking the kids. One year I dressed like a scarecrow and sat on the porch. My outfit was convincing that kids though it was just a dummy dressed as a scarecrow. I had a large bowl of candy on my lap and most kids treated the honor system accordingly. But just before I was ready to call it a night, a group of older teens tried to filch the entire bowl. I grabbed the candy thief by the wrist and snarled, “Don’t be greedy!” I didn’t know a Wookie could vault a porch rail so nimbly, run so fast or scream so loud.

One year, we were eating supper when a group of young elementary school kids came a-calling. I carried my plate to the door and announced, sadly, “I’m so sorry, kids, no candy left. But I do have some mashed potatoes, a porch chop, a little broccoli and corn on the cob.” They looked at me with sad puppy eyes and shuffled their feet. Before I could say I was just teasing, a solemn face dragon held out his bag and sighed, “Guess I’ll just have the corn on the cob.” They laughed along with me when I gave them each a full-sized Milky Way bar.

We anxiously await the annual parade of trick or treaters. I’d be depressed beyond words if it ever got canceled. Our candy and caramel apples will always be delicious. The candy abundant and varied, with none of the unpopular fare. The jack-o-lanterns will always be lit. And just in case the candy really does run out before the fun is over and the kids stop calling, the corn on the cob will always be crisp, fresh and sweet.

The post Trick Or Treat, Smell My Feet! appeared first on Joe Palmer.

The Hallelujah Chorus of Summer

One of my favorite musical arrangements has always been Handel’s Messiah. Years ago, I sang in a church choir that performed it every year at Christmas Eve mass. It was a thrill hearing all the finely intermeshed voices working their way to the soul-stirring and dramatic part of the arrangement we all know as the Hallelujah Chorus, which extols the risen Christ’s victory over death. It gives me goosebumps when I put my vinyl album of it on the turntable every year during the Christmas holiday season.

But we here in these parts are in the midst of another kind of Hallelujah Chorus. Just as Handel’s masterpiece is the coda to “Messiah,” the frenetic and escalating chorus of cicadas, crickets and frogs offering up their rendition of it is the coda to the final days of summer, which are ebbing as surely and methodically as the tides. Like “Messiah,” it’s all part of the cycle of life, death, promise and fruition which is celebrated by the inexorable march of the seasons.

My wife and I are fortunate enough to live next to a marsh and tidal creek on our little island home here in the low country of Florida. Our little neighborhood abounds with oak trees, some of them as old as our nation. Our back deck is like a symphony hall this time of the year. Each season has its own sound. Autumn happens to be my favorite. The songs of finch, sparrow, cardinal and wren seem more insistent and emotional as the dog days of summer slink off toward their wintertime kennels. The quorking sounds made by Great Blue Herons that stalk the shallows of the marsh and creek, sometimes until after dark, will cease once the damp and chilling nor’easter season lays its cold hands on us again. But for now, it’s all about celebration, the grand wedding feast after the wedding, after which the musicians will decamp and the hall will fall silent for a while. But in the meantime, every living thing that’s able to sings a song of late summer and early fall.

In addition to my love for the imagery and majesty of all these creatures, I’ve also had a love affair dating back to childhood with the lowly cicada, which we called locusts when I was a child. The thumb-sized, iridescent-winged creature is born, mates and dies in short order, playing its own funeral dirge as its abbreviated life flashes by. Though not a large creature, its valediction rivals that of a chainsaw in the volume it produces. And as the summer edges into autumn, it becomes more insistent with each passing day. But unless you’re paying close attention to them, their trilling sounds like one mad skirling of legions of bagpipers. Only when you sit quietly and really focus, you’ll notice that it’s not a uniform sound at all.

All of which brings us back to the Hallelujah Chorus. Those who are familiar with it hear distinctly its rapidly growing and unrelenting melody. But there’s more to it than meets the eye, or, better yet, the ear. For if you really open your ears and listen to it, you will notice that its a lyrical revolving door of voices ranging from bass to soprano, constantly entering and departing so seamlessly and with such precision that it gives the illusion of all one voice. And thus it is with the katydids, cicadas, tree frogs, crickets, peepers and all the other creatures that, when woven together, create such a seamless tapestry of sound that it all seems like one garment unless you stop, silence your mind to other earthly and mental distractions and pick apart the numerous, intricately woven threads. It ends in a stirring crescendo signaling the close of the day, and impending shift of the seasons. As darkness cloaks the marshes with its meadows of spartina grass, now taking on the hue of wheat ready to be harvested, the glens, forests and pastures, only the tree frogs, katydids and crickets remain in the great hall at night, singing their drowsy, sleep-inducing lullabies.

We live in a grand symphony hall where every arrangement is an opus rendered by the loving hands of the grand masters of the art. Whether their instruments are played by the fluttering of wings, the rubbing together of spiny legs or the contracting air sacs in their thoraxes, they are the composers and musicians of nature. We’re merely their captive audience/

The post The Hallelujah Chorus of Summer appeared first on Joe Palmer.

Getting my stoke back

Several days ago, I did a Facebook post about my determination to paddle out into some sloppy but forceful waves on my surfboard after a three-year surfing layoff. I love surfing. Admittedly, I’ve never been one of those surfers that crowds line up to watch and surf photographers drool over. I ran a bunch of surfing competitions in the old days, but the only time I came even anywhere close to winning one was a third place trophy in a heat with two other old guys. And that’s been donkeys years, as the Irish say, ago. But what does surfing have to do with a Southern fiction author’s blog, you might ask? Well, I’ve a story to tell and it was Pat Conroy after all who said, “The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.'” It’s all about the storytelling. And I didn’t think much about my story until I was riding my bicycle on the beach and stopped to watch a bunch of people, mostly kids, surfing.

I talked to a few other adult surfers while I was there. One of them, a guy quite a few years younger than me, left me with some words to chew on. I’ll get to those directly, in my usual meandering fashion.

I didn’t grow up with a surfboard tucked under my arm. I mean, about the only way to surf in Waycross, Georgia would’ve been for someone to have towed you behind a boat in the lake at Laura S. Walker State Park. It’s called wake surfing today but I’m not sure if anyone did it back then. And although we spent a lot of time here in Fernandina Beach, the closest I ever came to surfing as a kid was when one day my brother and I rented a big old log that was so heavy it took both of our skinny butts to haul it back up the beach where we were staying. It was a short-lived and ugly effort. After getting knocked around and nearly drowning, we gave up and lugged the ancient gun back to the rental stand and turned it in. I didn’t touch another surfboard until I was thirty-four years old when my wife and kids and I moved here to Fernandina Beach, Florida. Our oldest son, who was in second grade, decided right away that he was going to be a surfer. And his excitement made me want to learn, too. We learned how to surf together, but by the end of that summer, he was pretty good and I was just okay, and some folk might say even that’s a stretch. But that summer was magic, and I started to meet guys my age who were born with a surfboard, or stick, as they’re often called, under their arms. I got “the stoke,” as surfers call it. What’s the stoke? Well, it’s pretty much like any other sport or pursuit. You get so excited about it that it’s all you can think about on some days. You’ll hear surfers talk about being “stoked.” It just means they’re fired up about surfing, or going surfing, or “talking story,” as our Hawaiian surfer brethren say, about the surfing they’ve done or the waves they caught. I definitely got stoked. Like I said, I was never all that good but I loved it and went every chance I got. I confess to even skipping work a few times and even sneaking in a session on my lunch hours. Okay. I admit this, too. I checked my son of school a couple of times when the waves were good because he had “a doctor’s appointment,” and the two of us enjoyed an illicit surf with the other dads and their kids who also had doctor’s appointments that day.

I remember the glory days of waking up at dawn for the sunrise session, the “dawn patrol” as we called it, or, depending on how sleepy you were from surfing the day before, the “yawn patrol,” when a van full of your buddies pulled into your yard, blew the horn and woke you and all your neighbors up yelling those magic words, “C’mon, ya lazy bum! There’s a swell!” We’d surf until we were starved, make a mad dash to the nearest quickie stop and buy Doritos, Snickers Bars and Gatorade, devour it on the beach and rush back into the water. Cramps from going back into the water on a belly full of junk food? Not when you’re stoked, dude. If it was halfway good, we’d surf till late afternoon, take another break, run home for a quick bite of supper and then head back to the beach for that enchanted, pastel-colored hour right at dusk we called the evening glass off. It’s when the summer southeast breeze finally calls it a day, the slop and chop is off the water and the waves are glassy again like they were at dawn and the smell of the late evening sea is so good that you wish you could bottle it and get drunk on it that night. Then you’d talk story with your buddies all the way home, dream about surfing and, if possible, do it again the next day, even if you were sunburned, knackered and your arms felt like boiled pasta from paddling so much. Why? Because you were so damn stoked.

I kept surfing until a few years ago when my body, which I admittedly treated shabby a lot while trying to grow up, finally began to get even with me for the abuse I heaped on it. Both of my shoulders wore out and I developed rotator cuff tears in each, which necessitated three surgical repairs. But still I soldiered on. Then it was the onset of cervical disc disease in my neck that made it difficult to lie flat on my board with my head titled up so I could see where I was going. But I gulped down pain pills and anti-inflammatory medications, did physical therapy and kept surfing. Then, in the spring of 2006, I had my first heart attack and got stents. My cardiologist was unyielding in his edict that I not surf for at least six months, which would mean winter surfing, which he also nixed because the insult that sudden cold water immersion can have on a wounded heart, even if you wear a wetsuit. I was sidelined and couldn’t surf. All I could do was go to the beach and watch other surfers and be miserable. But it wasn’t just one heart incident. The dang pump tried three times to serve me with divorce papers. Three summers ago, I decided it was high time to get back in the water. A local surfboard shaper built me a new longboard. But before I could paddle out, another heart attack landed me in the operating room for double coronary bypass surgery. By the time all this mess was over, I was so out of shape and body-weary that it was depressing. My new surfboard hung dejected on the wall in my writing room and silently pleaded with me not to give up. Sadly, I pretty much did for a while. Two summers ago, I felt well and strong enough, after six months with a personal trainer, to paddle that new board out and do it again. Then, one day while hauling a beach seine for mullet with my sons, I completely blew a lumbar disc. I lived in excruciating pain and the neurologist gave me two choices: Wait for it to heal or have surgery. I took door number one. It’s taken all this time, and, in the interim, I got fat and out of shape again. And then along came Covid-19 and things got worse. Hell, the beach was closed for a good long while.

In January of this year, I decided it was now or never to get back into shape enough to make one last effort at the surfing I missed so much. I started riding a bicycle so often that the new tires I put on it are already getting bald from my four or five times a week, fifteen to twenty-mile rides. I started shedding pounds, sixteen of them since winter, and inches off my belly. All of a sudden, I felt energetic again. And then I started thinking about surfing. At first, it was just a notion. But the notion grew until, in the past month or so, I think about it all the time. I made the decision that, by this summer, I’d be surfing again. I made my first effort earlier this week on a gnarly day with fifteen-mile-an-hour northeast winds and heavy, choppy surf. I knew, while standing on the beach with my board strapped onto my ankle, that I didn’t stand a chance in hell of doing any actual surfing. But my goal was to paddle out through the churning mess and at least make it outside the breakers. If I could do that much, I would know that my strength and endurance was returning. I succeeded in doing that much but a big, surprise wave clobbered me and my ten-foot, two-inch nose rider shot out from under me, got caught up in the wave and dragged me back to the beach facedown and gagging on seawater. I hauled myself out of the water and was just about to get down on myself and then I realized that, despite the sloppy ending, I’d accomplished, after all, what I set out to do. Walking back to the car, a flame rekindled in me. If I could do that much after all I’ve been through without my heart bursting in my chest like a rotten melon, I could relearn to surf. The stoke had returned. I’m going to do it. I know I’m going to. It won’t be pretty for awhile. Hell, it’ll probably never be pretty, but I will do it. I can feel it, the feeling you get when you paddle a couple of strokes into an oncoming wave and feel the moment that you’ve caught it, when its own force takes over and you begin to glide and then all you have to do is get on your feet and do something with it, whether it’s cut and slash like the hotshots or just draw the line, walk out onto the nose, ride a big, glassy shoulder all the way to the beach, step off, raise your two fists over your head and hoot in ecstasy.

When I started writing this piece, I told you that a surfer on the beach today gave me something to chew on. I was telling him about all that’s happened to me, how it’s kept me out of the water for so long and all I can do is just dream about surfing again. I told him I’m so embarrassed by what I know will be ineptness and clumsiness that I’ll just go surfing in a spot where no other surfers are until I finally get my groove back. But I’m determined to do it. It’s been all I can think about these past few days. I took my board off the rack day before yesterday and propped it up in the corner where it stands waiting for me. Tomorrow or the day after or the day after that, I’m going to strap it onto the roof racks, haul it to the beach and go surfing. I’m determined to. I know I can do it even though it’s gonna take one hell of an effort. And one helluva lotta wipeouts. Before this summer’s over, I’m going to be out there with everyone else, sharing in our mutual joy at participating in what the Hawaiians call the sport of kings. I remember one day when I was a younger surfer being out on a day when there was a really big swell. A hurricane passing far offshore created big, glassy waves, some of them ten to twelve feet. I was surfing at a beach just south of St. Augustine with my son and a friend of his. I saw a big, lazy roller coming my way that just got bigger and bigger. I decided to go for it and caught the biggest wave I ever surfed, easily twelve feet. I eased my longboard into it and rode it gracefully all the way in. Nothing fancy. No tricks. No show-off hotdogging, just a long, languid soul ride. A group of people applauded. I’d like to have just one more of those before the fire goes out for keeps.

But here’s the thing the younger surfer told me today. The thing that caught like ten feet of fiberglass covered foam on a candy-sweet wave on an even sweeter day: “But you’ve still got the stoke, brother. For all you’ve been through, you still haven’t just given up. And now you’ve got the stoke again. You need to share this story for other surfers to read.” Then he strapped his leash onto his ankle and headed toward the water. He turned and looked back at me and grinned and gave me the “shaka” sign, the hang loose sign one surfer gives another and said, “See you in the water, dude.”

And I will. I know I will. Because I’m stoked. And this is my story.

The post Getting my stoke back appeared first on Joe Palmer.

This Is Our Real Southern Pride

When I hear the words “Southern pride,” the first thing that comes to mind isn’t a divisive piece of cloth that an ever-increasing number of we Southerners wish would just go away. What leaps into my mind is the South’s rich literary tradition.

As Southerners, we have much to be proud of – our weather, our beautiful scenery, our legendary geniality and good manners, our cuisine and an easy way of living and enduring sense of time and place in a world where that particular commodity is in short supply. But it’s our literary tradition that is the crown jewel in our throne, a jewel nearly unrivaled in the rest of this nation.

That many faceted gleaming and perfectly cut stone is the verdant tradition of storytelling and classical literature that’s sown throughout the fabric of the South like the painstaking, colorful threadwork in one of our grandmothers’ hand-stitched quilts. I have my own theory about this. Vast numbers of our ancestors were Celtic folk – Irish, Scots or a heady combination of both.

Most of these early settlers were illiterate. But, from their bogs, glens and villages, they brought with them the oral tradition of storytelling that goes back eons. Our indigenous people, the Creek, Cherokee and Seminole, like most indigenous people, have stories, myths and legends that reach far back into the mists of time.

And although our African-American brothers and sisters were tied to the brutal yoke of slavery, they brought with them their own stories and embraced and nurtured spirituality in worship and hymns which, aside from lamenting their condition, offered a promise of hope and deliverance that carried forward in their culture and customs.

The deep-rooted storytelling tradition of the South is still around today and even seeing a resurgence with so many new authors, playwrights and poets entering the literary bloodstream of our region. Southerners love a tall tale. So it really isn’t surprising that we draw out our conversations about everything from Auntie Bobby Sue’s dental appointment to the supernatural like we’re pulling taffy.

Oh, might I digress for a moment? If you remember taffy pulls, your shelf life groweth nigh. And if you’ve never been to one, well, bless your heart. We lay on our most casual conversations as thick as cane syrup on cornbread.

Our native authors incorporated these traditions and created a genre that is specific to us, Southern Literature, one forged in the crucible of yarn-spinning Dixie that best defines Southerners. Our orchards burst with the ripe fruit of such literary gods as Maya Angelou, William Faulkner, Harper Lee, James Dickey, Charles Chesnutt, Walker Percy, Pat Conroy, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Wolfe, Harry Crews, Ralph Ellison and so many other lofty denizens of rich exposition, ubiquitous as honeysuckle in the spring. From the black loam of the Mississippi Delta to the stark poverty of Appalachia to the languid Lowcountry of South Carolina and down into the sweltering heart of cracker Florida, the South’s literary traditions rival and even surpass that of any other part of the country.

This is who we are. This is the banner we ought rally round and pass down to our children. Our heroes are the best and the brightest and are worthy of our boasting to the rest of the world. This is the royalty of the South, those whose names ought to grace schools, statehouses, city squares, and courthouse chambers. Their words should be etched in granite and laid as the cornerstone of every school and library.

This is who we really are, not the remnants of a fatally flawed misadventure. It is in this that we should link arms and stand tall, our chests bursting with pride.

March 4th marked the fifth anniversary of Pat Conroy’s passing. Conroy once said, “The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.'” Southern Literature is a tour de force of words that reveals our deep sense of place as both character and muse. There is nothing else quite like it. It’s an atavistic calling.

In it, we lay claim to the ages.

Ready for a distinctly southern story, full of hope, redemption and lush southern settings? Read A Mariner’s Tale!

The post This Is Our Real Southern Pride appeared first on Joe Palmer.

Ode To A Wintry Beach

I chose a raw-boned, gusty day for a beach walk a few days ago. Summer beaches are festive and lighthearted – family gatherings, chubby-kneed little kids running squealing in and out of the crackling surf under the watchful eyes of their parents. Teenage boys being cool. Teenage girls in gaggles laughing and trying not to be too obvious watching the cool boys. Someone flying a kite. A group of men standing shoulder to shoulder on the sand, laughing and telling fishing lies while their wives sit in lounge chairs behind them sipping illicit wine coolers and rolling their eyes behind sunglasses. Sunburn and Coppertone and the fruity, tropical smell of surf wax. Sitting on a blanket nearby, a guy plucks an old Gibson guitar and draws an audience of admirers.

Mother Ocean laughs and smiles and bathes them in her warm breath and water.

A winter beach is different. I needed a walk on one a few days ago. I loaded our huge Great Dane, Harley, into the minivan and headed down the road a piece to my happy place, the spot along the beach where I’ve been hanging out since I was a little kid. I’m glad for the chill and the twenty-five knot north wind that roars in my ears when my face is due north into it. A summer beach won’t do on such a day.

On days like these, I go seeking the chilly, bare bone ruggedness without the crowds or laughter and smells of suntan lotion. I walk a couple of miles, Harley and me, and encounter less than a dozen people. We all give each other our space, each of us seeking the same thing – solitude. The wind turns the waves a muddy gray-green, shot through with white foam on every crest and in every cold trough. Piles of spartina wrack driven ashore by the relentless surf lay drying landward of it, smelling enticingly like hay cured in molasses.

Harley whines and frets because I wouldn’t throw his ball into the rough surf, so he contents himself chasing the scudding sea foam and attacking the spartina wrack.

The wind has scoured the sand into s-shaped rows that reminded me of Arabian dunes and I pretend I’m a giant striding among them. On such a day, it’s easy to find good seashell specimens to take home because except for the most diehard of shell and shark tooth hunters who prowl the beach in hunched over postures, most folk eschew the beach on days like these. I pick up huge cockle shells and arcs, some as big as my hand and in varying hues. The winter brings the pen clam shells – dull, greenish brown on top but shining like an oil sheen when wet. I find angels wings, whiter than a saint’s soul and as flimsy as a fading summer daydream. Black oyster shells worn glossy smooth by whatever artists toil beneath the waves, some of them so intricate they looked like shellac masks from a medieval ball.

On the way back, I come upon a large scattering of angels wings, most of them broken, as if shed hastily by the angels who wore them, and I’m reminded of the final verse of Raglan Road, an old Irish song I love: “For I have wooed, not as I should, a creature made of clay. When an angel woos the clay he’ll lose, his wings at the dawn of the day.”

I walk on to the car with my hands in my pockets, happy that I thought to wear a bulky sweatshirt. Harley runs ahead of me, cavorting and anointing. And I can’t help but wondering about all those angels that fell in love with mortals and lost their delicate and broken wings on a cold beach in their passing. I lick the taste of the wintering ocean’s kiss from my lips and head home.

The post Ode To A Wintry Beach appeared first on Joe Palmer.

Ready, Set, Launch… Patience!

Including the actual writing of my novel, all the research I did that went into it, having a slew of trusted readers go through it for their comments and suggestions, obsessively editing and obsessing over excess word count, studying and navigating the dizzying maze of industry standards, reading blogs and do’s and do nots from editors, publishers, literary agents and other assorted professionals in the publishing word, editing, editing, cutting, revising and more editing, querying agents for representation, yelling at my computer and begging techy friends for help with it, hiring a professional line editor to go through my manuscript and then having it proofread, and making two more cuts of things that were just clutter, I finally got my baby in front of a publisher five years after I wrote the opening sentence.

I thought, geez, this took forever, only to be told by a few people in the know, “Nahhh, it took so-and-so (famous author) seven years to get his/her next one done.” As Charlie Brown would say, “Good grief!”

The homily at church yesterday, the first Sunday of Advent, was about patience. And let me tell you something. If there’s one word that best describes writing a novel and seeing it through to publication, it’s Patience, with a capital P. Because if you aren’t, you’re liable to lose your wits, chuck the whole thing and give up.

But I had patience, although it was frayed and ragged some days. Marly Rusoff, Pat Conroy’s literary agent, who became a dear friend of mine through the annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival in Beaufort, SC, constantly praised me for it, while counseling me to have more.

Although she never became my agent (she was no longer taking new clients) she believed in me and my novel and shepherded me through the process, which culminated in leading me to my publisher, Koehler Books, an awesome indie publishing house that picked me up and took me to me to my release date on October 25.

Along the way, I retained the services of my genius of a publicist and marketing guru, Shari Stauch – who, by the way, designed this cool website – who then began to school me in the knowledge that the really hard work lay ahead of me. Whaaat? After all I’ve been through? Yep. This book ain’t gonna get out there and sell itself if you don’t put in more sweat labor before that launch date comes. Be patient. And nearly every day, it’s something else. I had to learn how to forget being reticent about self-promotion and become a salesman for myself. Along with Shari’s help. And so far – fingers crossed – it seems to be working.

On October 26, here at the Amelia Musical Playhouse in conjunction with Story and Song Bookstore Bistro, I finally got that launch party I’d been waiting for since January. And what an exciting day it was! My hands shook and my heart fluttered when I signed the first copy of my debut novel.

A few days later, Story and Song asked me to come over and sign a few more. And since that day, I’ve lost count of how many I’ve signed, not only as sales, but as gifts to so many friends. But my proudest moment was getting invited to be a special guest panelist at the Pat Conroy Literary Festival, every one of which I’ve attended since the first one. What an honor! While I was in Beaufort, I had yet another bookstore signing at locally famous NeverMore Books (What a cool name for a bookstore!). The next day, it was back in the car and off to Summerville, SC, a bedroom community of Charleston, where I had another signing event at Main Street Reads, the bookstore that Shari owns.

The following week, I was back here on the island for yet another event at The Book Loft downtown on Centre Street, which has invited me to return for still another one this Sunday afternoon.

And as I write this, Shari is working on getting me events in Savannah and maybe a few other locales in the coming weeks. I’ll take a few days off through the Christmas Holidays and then Pam and I will drive up to Ohio to spend a week with our youngest son and his family. And while I’m there, I figure I might as well see if I can’t do a signing at one of their stores, assuming Shari can arrange it for me in the meantime.

Meanwhile, I obsessively monitor my reviews, sales figures and ratings, where my book is being sold and how many people are buying it and, in between, trying to get at least some work done on my next novel, which I’ve started. Some days, when I obsess too much over stuff, I have Shari there to take my calls, listen to me, counsel me, cheer for me, praise me for how things are progressing and constantly remind me of that capital P word. Patience.

So, it’s been ready, set launch and now I’m finally doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing – selling my novel, meeting new people, celebrating my fledgling success, which I hope will continue, and reminding myself every day just how fortunate and blessed I’ve been. Christmas is almost here. And I’m still a kid who kinda sorta believes in Santa Claus.

So what do I want for Christmas this year? Well, if he can stuff enough of it my stocking and pile a bunch of it under the tree – more Patience – and a whole lot more of this fun to go with it.

The post Ready, Set, Launch… Patience! appeared first on Joe Palmer.