Decatur Book Festival, September 3rd - 5th

Have ya'll heard about this festival?

The Largest Independent Book Festival in the Nation

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented by DeKalb Medical is an annual, free book festival that takes place over Labor Day weekend in Decatur, Georgia at several venues located in and around the downtown Decatur Square. Conceived in 2005 and launched in 2006, the festival brings more than 300 authors to Decatur for the holiday weekend. The authors give readings, talks, and panel discussions. The event is free and open to the public.

So, what is the Decatur Book Festival?
• It’s a bunch of people bouncing from book signing to poetry slam to cooking demonstration all in one afternoon; It’s a fun-filled program of your favorite authors, children’s parades, and writers workshops. It’s monster madness: the return of Bookzilla to crash the party. It’s a tribute to all the best Decatur venues. It’s a massive, explosive celebration of written and spoken word.

Who goes to book festivals?
• Your favorite authors, literature junkies, comic book fans, aspiring writers, avid readers of all ages, the curious, the adventurous. Everyone’s welcome - all events are free and open to the public. Expect a relaxed, happy atmosphere.

Why should I go?
• In just four short years the Decatur Book Festival has become an Atlanta-area Labor Day tradition: Each year over 70,000 people flock to historic downtown Decatur for the largest independent book festival in the nation. Be a part of one of the fastest growing literary communities in the country.

When is it?
• September 3-5, Labor Day Weekend.
• On Friday afternoon, AJC-DBF hosts a special series for local elementary school kids. This Friday field trip sparks imaginations and sets an exciting tone for the weekend.
• On Friday night, National Book Award winner Jonathan Franzen officially kicks off the weekend with a keynote address at Agnes Scott College. The AJC-Decatur Book Festival is Franzen’s first stop on tour for Freedom, his first novel since The Corrections.
• All day and into the evening Saturday and Sunday expect 150+ authors giving talks, panel discussions, and book signings at a few key locations around downtown Decatur.
• During the day, both Saturday and Sunday, you’ll find a hoppin’ bazaar on Decatur Square with over a hundred vendors, booksellers, novelties, games, and food…all for your enjoyment.
• All day Saturday and Sunday use your mobile phone to join in the special DBF version SCVNGR trek. The game leads players through the festival grounds, quirky local landmarks, and some of Decatur’s best hotspots and hangouts. You get points for each challenge you accomplish. Prizes for different point levels will be awarded at the conclusion of the weekend.

The author list is HUGE! Idgie's going to try very hard to make it this year.

Go here for ALL the details!

Close Shave

Close Shave

I was next in line for a haircut, four more were waiting. It was good to see the shop busy again. Dreyfus Miller was sitting next to me, talking up a storm but saying little of nothing. He was too busy flapping his gums to notice that I was only half listening. He waved a wrinkled newspaper at me and said, “Look here. You seen what them politicians been getting up to in Montgomery?” I raised my eyebrows and shook my head which was enough to set him off on another sermon.

The three sitting across from me were all Davis boys, come off Stouts Mountain for haircuts and farm supplies. The whole family was a quiet bunch, busy in their own heads. They sat with crossed arms and pinched brows, looking out the window at nothing and everything all at once. Tom Ford was in the chair. He owned Ford Feed & Seed which had been in his family for three generations. Rumor was that he had eyes for the new barber and I don’t suppose anybody could blame him. His wife passed near two years ago and the new barber was plum pretty.

It took the men in town a while to get over Sim Whitlock selling the barber shop to a woman. Some swore off the place and drove all the way to Corbel for a haircut. They didn’t want any woman putting up frilly curtains or dousing their necks with smell good or replacing the hunting magazines with beauty rags. Of course, there was more to it than that but that would have been down right impossible for the regulars to express so instead they said things like ‘ain’t no skirt gonna come at me with clippers’ and ‘what kind of skint head you reckon we’ll get when she’s all puckered up over her time of the month’. But Sim Whitlock was dead set on giving Connie Pickett and her son Bryce a chance.

She was a soft-looking woman, a talker. She could go on and on about a broken truck axle or a bolt action shotgun just as easy as she could about shelling peas or frosting a cake. She painted herself up more than other women in town but I put that down to her line of work, dealing with the public and keeping up appearances. She was more than pretty. She was a right wizard with a pair of clippers and she graduated from Barber College top of her class. Hear tell, not a moment too soon. Wouldn’t nobody think that being a single mother, going to school and raising a teenaged boy was easy but to make matters worse her ex-husband stopped paying child support. There wasn’t a thing the courts could do because he up and moved overseas to Saudi Arabia. Contractor work doing God knows what with God knows who. I think Bryce must have taken after his daddy. There wasn’t even a hint of Connie in that boy.

Connie was shaving Tom Ford’s neck when Bryce came back with lunch. She was making the boy work in the shop to pay off some trouble. Word was that Bryce was a downright menace. Ever since they’d moved to town he’d been trying it on with the police, breaking windows, painting the fountain and, of all things, throwing toilet paper way up high in the trees out front of the Court House. And even though there was no proof, everybody suspected he was responsible for Lollie Beattie’s three cats turning up dead and the theft of Avery Kemp’s rifle that he’d toted around in the gun rack of his Chevy pickup for nigh on twenty years. There was nobody else in town brave enough or stupid enough to take anything off Avery Kemp. He’d been a special case ever since he got back from Vietnam.

Dreyfus Miller stopped talking long enough to have a good look at the boy. That set him off on another rant about baggy jean, unlaced shoes and what politicians should do about the youth of America. I shrugged my shoulders and tried to turn in my chair so that my leg didn’t rest right up against the heater.

Connie stopped and watched Bryce in the mirror. “Did you get everything?”

Bryce dropped the food on the counter and started toward the back room.

“Bryce, I’m talking to you. Did you get everything?”

“Yeah.”

Tom Ford winced and shot the boy a fierce look. He said, “Yes ma’am.” He’d been counseling Connie on what it took to raise a boy proper and even though Tom didn’t have any children of his own, he was a firm believer in corporeal punishment. He was convinced that a boy of fourteen not brought up to say ‘yes ma’am’ and allowed to go around killing cats was a prime candidate for the state penitentiary, or worse.

Bryce looked at Tom and in a girly voice, exaggerated the words, “Yes ma’am.” I thought to myself right then and there, oh please boy don’t sass Tom Ford.

Connie said, “Hey Mr. Smartypants put my change back in the register.”

Bryce ignored her and went to the back room.

Connie smiled at Tom. She brushed hair of his shirt and said, “Don’t look at me like that. He’s a good boy.”

“He needs discipline. You aren’t doing him any favors.”

“It’s just a phase. He’s taking all this real hard.”

“Life is hard, Connie, but that boy needs a swift kick in the behind and if you don’t get a hold of him, you mark my words, one of these days he’ll do something can’t anybody fix.”

Tom stood up and Connie motioned for me to get in the chair. She said, “Sorry to make you wait, Dennis, I reckon you’ve had about enough of the soap opera around here.”

I said, “Don’t you worry about it Miss Connie. I don’t mind, not a bit. There’s nothing but a long honey-do list waiting for me back at the house.” She tried to smile but I could tell she was close to tears.

Tom was at the counter going through the bag of food that Bryce brought from the café. He took everything out and was opening containers and unwrapping sandwiches. He wasn’t happy. “Connie, I thought you told that boy to get two ham and two tuna. There isn’t but one of each in here.”

By then Dreyfus Miller had hushed up the political tirade and was watching Tom carefully. Even the Davis boys had given up their stoic stare out the window, perhaps sensing a change in the atmosphere, like animals gone skittish just before an earthquake.

Connie yelled for Bryce. She yelled for him again and again. On the fourth try he emerged from the back room looking sullen. She said, “Bryce, can’t I trust you to do even the simplest thing? All that lunch order you brought back is wrong.”

“It’s not my fault they got it wrong.”

“There isn’t half of what I told you to get. You put my change back in that register right now or you’re grounded for a week. I haven’t got the money to fund all your bad habits, Mister, and don’t you think I don’t know you been smoking down by the bridge.”

Tom rolled his eyes at her attempt to discipline the boy and he refused to step out of the way so that Bryce could get behind the counter, made him go around the long way. Bryce pushed buttons on the till, banging the drawer to get it open. Connie patted my shoulder and said, “Dennis, it’s your lucky day. We’re giving away fourteen year old boys with every haircut.”

I said, “No thank you, I got a mule at the house that gives me a nip every time I turn my back, don’t need no fourteen year old boy doing the same.”

Tom gave a laugh and that was all it took to send Bryce into orbit. He said, “This piece of shit register won’t open. Here just take your damned three dollars. You act like it’d be a crime to pay me something for busting my ass around here.” And with that, he threw the money at Connie.

Connie shouted, “Language!”

But Tom had a hold of Bryce and I thought, that boy’s gonna get a taste of it now. He said, “Don’t you talk to your mother that way.” He got Bryce by the scruff of the neck and pushed him down toward the floor. “You pick up that money and hand it to her proper.”

Bryce did as he was told but his face was red as fire. He pulled free of Tom and said, “Just because you’re trying to get into her pants don’t make you my father.”

Tom started toward him but Connie got in between them and said, “Bryce, you apologize to Mr. Ford right now!”

But Bryce did something none of us expected. That boy grabbed hold of the cash register and lifted the thing clear off the counter and right there in front of everybody, he threw it. He threw it hard as he could and I’ll be danged if it didn’t go straight through the plate glass door. Connie’s scream fractured the air and for a second, it looked as if Bryce had even shocked himself. But his wits came back soon enough and he took off running.

One of the Davis boys stood up and shook glass out of the cuff of his overalls. He said, “Lord, you reckon that boy’s got Avery Kemp’s stole rifle stashed somewheres?”

Tom gave Connie a menacing look. She nodded. Tom took off, boots crunching through sharp debris. He was right after that boy. Connie walked to the door with clippers and a comb still in her hands. She looked both ways, up the street North towards the soda shop, back South towards the Dollar General but there was no sign of them. She brushed a lock of Tom’s hair from her shirt and whispered, “Don’t hurt him.”

________________________________________

Author: Amy Burns

Amy Burns is originally from Birmingham, Alabama but makes her home in Scotland where she is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow. Her poetry and prose has been published in print in Biscuit Short Story Winners' Anthology 2009: The Possibility of Bears, Let’s Pretend (InFidelity) Anthology, Green Muse, QWF, unbound press and online at 971 Menu, Clapboard House, From Glasgow to Saturn, Brown Williams Journal, Short, Fast, and Deadly. She has worked as an editor/publisher of the literary journal unbound press and is now the editor of Spilling Ink Review.

The Quilting Frame

The Quilting Frame

Among my earliest childhood memories were times when my cousins and I would play beneath my Mothers quilting frame while she and my Grandmother sat sewing quilts. As a three or four year old child I had no concept of quilting frame construction only the fact they made great tents for playing and hiding under. Guess, for the non quilters it would probably be a good idea if I give you a brief description, of which I learned in later life, how the frame was made and used.

The frame was hung from the ceiling by way of small ropes looped through screw type eyelets. These eyelets were screwed through the lath and plaster, and in some cases the wooden ceilings. Sometimes during the actual sewing of the quilt, the frames were left hanging full length until the quilt was finished. Other times the frame was raised by way of pulling the ropes through the eyelets in the ceiling and tying them off at the frame.

The frames themselves were made of four hardwood slats larger than the width and length of a normal quilt with holes in each end of the slats larger than a sixty penny nail – the nail being approximately six inches in length. Length wise there was only one hole in the ends of the slats, however the end or width slat had nail holes about six inches apart along the entire length of the slat. Finishing nails or brads approximately one inch in length were nailed across the full length of each slat about one inch apart with approximately one half of the nail remaining out of the slat. These were used to attach the edges of the top and bottom materials used for the quilt with the cotton batting laid in between.

When ready for use, the frames hung just about chair height making it easy for my mother and grandmother to slide their chairs comfortably under the frames for sewing. Depending upon the stitch they were sewing, most of the work was done along the length of the quilt. As they finished a full length of sewing, they would just wind the quilting frame with the finished part wrapped around the frame and reinsert the end nails back in the slats and keep sewing until they finished the quilt. The border or edges of the quilt were sewn to finish after taking the quilt from the frame.

It sounds like I was an expert on quilting frames, but the only thing I was really expert at was swinging on the frames themselves. Not known to my mother - the frames holding a non finished quilt made a great trampoline…good thing four year olds didn’t weigh much. In the annals of frame playing it was great sport to run full length under the quilt jumping up and bouncing my head into the bottom of the quilt – even as my mother sewed. Needless to say this sport never lasted very long!

With the end spikes (nails) sticking through the slats at the ends, play could be hazardous – as proven by my cousin Billy. Seems, he forgot to duck as he ran under the frame and received a two inch gash in his scalp. Another incident happened when a neighbor’s son, who just happened to be seven, swung on his mothers frame and pulled it from the ceiling. Too many ice cream cones!

I recall one evening when my devilish cousin Pete was over and had quickly volunteered to play with us younger kids. This usually meant bad news for us little kids. Pete was nine and seemed to know all the tricks of the trade when it came to being devilish. He also knew how to lower my mothers quilting frame - and he did just that before suggesting we play tag. Seems Pete had turned the lights off in my mothers sewing room and when the game began my friend James and I made a mad dash for the sewing room. Little did we know Pete had lowered mothers quilting frame to only two feet off the floor. As we ran into the darkened room, we went sprawling on top of mothers quilt ripping the material from the small nails along the rail. Needless to say, we had made a mess of mothers quilt along with cutting our legs on the small nails holding the quilt in place. Lucky for us, but unlucky for Pete mother saw through his prank and let him reap the rewards of his miss deed.

In terms of my quilting frame days they were short, but great fun, and after all said and done I guess I most enjoyed just lying on my back under the frame watching mother sew - just trying to guess what design she would make with her needle and thread next.

----------------------------------------------------

Author: Joe Spearman

I was born in a small Northern Alabama town by the name of Cullman. Spent all of my childhood and teen years in Cullman until my senior year of high school, at which time moved to California. Received my Bachelors Degree from Fresno State University. Taught at both the secondary and post-secondary levels of education. Moved to Dallas, Texas in '81 to open a business...sold business eleven years later and returned to teaching at the secondary level, and retired as a High School Administrator in 2002. You can take the boy out of the South, but it's impossible to take the South out of the boy. Dearly love my southern roots.

Penguin turns 75!

Celebrate with Penguin as they turn 75 on Friday, July 30th. Go HERE to see their dedicated site.

Angels

Angels

I’m awakened by the sun’s light slowly filtering through my curtains. My sleep has been dreamless and deep. I can’t remember what day it is. As my brain fog lifts, I remember that it’s Saturday. I stir under the sheets, bothered by the thought of something I need to do today. Ah, yes… photographs. My fortieth birthday approaches…is it two weeks from today? My daughter has asked me to pull together some photos she can use to create a presentation for my party. She’s excited and I know that my procrastination is breaking her heart. After my first cup of coffee, I’ll head to the attic to find the cardboard box that holds everything from my dreaded naked baby photos to my big hair prom photos, sorting through those that I can bear to have others see.

I do some stretching exercises and head downstairs to the kitchen, drawn by the scent of cinnamon coffee. God bless this husband of mine, who has left my favorite mug beside the carafe of his freshly made brew. He knows I’m not a morning person anymore. As I recall, that happened sometime in my early thirties, along with the beginning of crow’s feet around my eyes. I prefer to call them laugh lines and I’m rather proud of them. I believe they are proof that my life has been good.

Thankfully, the attic is cool today and relatively neat. I’m sure my husband has been up here rearranging things. He’s placed an old wing chair by a lamp for my comfort. I guess I’ve been complaining enough about this birthday presentation. He wants to make my job as easy as possible.

I sigh. I pull the cushion off the chair preferring to sit on the floor, then dump the entire box of photographs in front of me hoping that perhaps twenty will immediately catch my eye and I can make quick work of this project. Here’s the prom picture…good …here’s me in the baby bath with a big pile of soapsuds on my head…excellent! This is going to be easier than I expected. In the corner of the messy pile, I see a photograph that stirs a fond memory . It’s a Polaroid of me in my favorite plaid short set, hair in a messy ponytail, squinting and standing next to a boy with spiky black hair. The boy is too thin. He’s smiling, though the photograph has captured a sadness that takes me by surprise. I touch the photo lovingly, close my eyes, and whisper his name…“Jimmy”…

Jimmy McPherson was my best friend, my first crush. We were ten-years-old, thrown together by fate and the long distances between our other neighbors. I guess I would have been lonely if not for Jimmy, who was as smart as he was funny. It was no matter to him that I was a girl and I certainly never felt challenged by that fact. I could do just about anything that he could, sometimes, I could do it better. He nicknamed me “Peach” because my family grew the sweetest, drip-down-your-mouth-juicy, Carolina peaches in the county.

Summers were busy on our farm. My five tanned, muscular brothers helped my father with the work. The peach orchards were tended with a special care adding hours of work to an already busy dairy farm. Under the pretense of not wanting me underfoot, my mother would pack a big brown bag filled with ham biscuits, peaches, cookies, and sweet tea and drive me over to the McPherson’s farm. I never exactly told her, but I suppose she knew that I was helping Jimmy with his chores. His father and older brother carried most of the load at their farm. They had one or two hired men, but it always appeared to me that farming was more difficult for the McPhersons than it was for my family. I was happy to help.

When our work was done, we’d walk to our favorite spot for lunch. A peaceful place, a tiny cave inset with stones that were almost like chairs, with an overhang standing above a small pond. On hot summer days, when the air was thick and sweat flies buzzed around our faces, we’d cool off by the water. Jimmy would practice diving.

In this little world, far from the smell of cows and fertilizer, we talked about the future. Jimmy wanted to be a pilot and join the Air Force so that he could see the world.

I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to marry Jimmy. I could see that we’d have a good life on the farm. Of course, I couldn’t tell him. I’d say that I didn’t know what I wanted, afraid that our future plans would not connect.

One day, he pressured me for an answer. So, I told him I wanted to be a nurse. I couldn’t think of anything quickly.

“You as a nurse? I can’t really see it, Peach,” he laughed at the thought. “Nurses are all sweet and rosy. I picture you as maybe...let’s see…how about an archeologist, discovering hidden tombs or a stash of treasure somewhere?”

“What’s wrong with farming? I like it here!” I hoped to influence Jimmy’s thoughts.

“Nothin’s wrong with it for now. I just wanna do other things. Don’t you?”

It was on one of the hottest days, in the middle of another discussion about what I should become, that Jimmy decided he’d teach me to dive. While I was a good swimmer, I hated the thought of diving, preferring instead, to enter the water with some sense of deference. I tried to explain that to Jimmy. He shot down my protests.

“Come on Peach, once you do this, you’ll be hooked, I promise.”

He grabbed me by the hand and took me to an edge of ground, not too far above the water.

“Diving is the greatest thing, it’s as close to flying as any human can get. The trick is to plant your feet firm, let your toes feel the edge of the cliff. Then spread your arms to the side and think of an angel. You want to soar through the air, then move your arms in front of you. Enter the water soft, just like an angel landing from the sky. Hold my hand and we’ll jump together.”

“I’m not ready!”

“You are, Peach, now come on and try!”

Our arms were stretched out one on either side, our hands joined in the middle.

“We’ll jump on three. One… two…three…”

And for a few moments, we were angels. I felt the air surround me like the breath of God. We entered the water with a quiet splash. In turn, the water embraced and welcomed me.

Jimmy was right about diving. Now that he had a partner in flight, he seemed even happier about our daily trips to the pond.

He was wrong about me. I never left Carolina to find ancient tombs or buried treasure. I never strayed far from my beloved farm. I married, not long after college. My husband and I took over for my parents when they could no longer manage on their own. My brothers came and went, working until something better came along. The McPherson land changed hands many times, finally coming to rest with us when we bought the land to expand our orchards.

Much to my disappointment, Jimmy left and never came back. I know that he became the world traveler he wanted to be. We wrote to each other for a time. He invited me to London to visit him but I think I was too busy at college to go, or at least, that’s what I told myself. We lost touch as childhood friends tend to do when they are not joined by some commonality.

I look at the photograph in my hand and wonder what he would think of me now. In my heart, I believe he would think of me as a failure because I’ve lived a small, centered life. I’ve never had the desire to travel far from home. I’ve never discovered anything of worth, except my own happiness. I placed the photograph back in the box, deciding to keep this memory to myself.

On the morning of my fortieth birthday, I walked alone to the little cavern by the pond. I closed my eyes, counted to three, and flew from the cliff, just as Jimmy taught me. I imagined that we were holding hands and that once again, we were angels.

__________________________

Author: Nina Roselle

The Night we Called the Owls

The Night we Called the Owls

New lovers in a new country,

we drove the moonlit cedar road,

through rolling farmland, green and rich,

to the silent bottom, hardwoods, river,

we hid the car, walked softly under

White Oak snags, raw silhouettes,

swamp watchers on the hill, and I

surprised you when I gave

that single cry to the ringing woods,

that breaking call you didn’t know I

made. You squeezed my fingers; somewhere dark

the answer rose, a question in the owl-man’s code.

I teased by waiting, offered out my falling

note; it spoke again, the distance halved,

and from all corners of the chilly woods they rushed,

In the tree tops now, I said—

wings beating, here they flew

loud cackly harsh, smooth hollow piercing,

music and insane laughter too, their

ice-rich chords from different dreams.

Could they attack? I nodded,

One’s been known to carry off a child.

You shuddered at the spirit choir of

clear note-bending souls, their chaos rising and we

hurried through salt cedars to the waiting car,

our wilderness moment edging wrong but

gifting a fine beginning in the living land, that

chance we would not feel again.

______________________

Luke Wallin

Bio: Luke Wallin holds an MFA from Iowa and teaches in the MFA program of Spalding University. He has published stories, essays, books for children and young adults, books on nature and culture, poems, and songs. Contact at: Luke Wallin, PO Box 12341, Wilmington, NC 28405; 401-864-4854; threebuckwoods@yahoo.com; visit at lukewallin.com.

The Fifteen Minute Window

The Fifteen-Minute Window

By Cappy Hall Rearick

“Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.” —Matthew 24:32.

The fig race, normally begun in mid-June, is late. Every year at this time what it boils down to is: them or us, man against nature. Fig lovers have a fifteen-minute window of opportunity before an army of black birds dive-bombs every fig tree in sight. After gorging on the tender ripe fruit, the birds fly away en masse, winging their way straight to a recently washed vehicle. Nothing is left on the fig trees save the fat umbrella-like leaves, a colorful reminder that early birds go after more than the lowly worm.

As I pull into my driveway I notice there are plump, magenta colored figs on the neighborhood tree, which makes me hope the birds have taken a wrong turn this year. The tree is so heavy with fruit it looks almost Biblical.

I can hear my mother’s voice. “Cappy, go out there and pick those figs before the birds get ‘em.” Mama never knew my St. Simons Island neighbor, Ed Cheshire, aka the Fig Filcher. I once saw him out there picking only a fig leaf. Knowing Ed, he probably had plans to wear it. If Mama had ever met Ed, she'd have amended her warning about the approaching birds so as to include the Fig Filcher.

When I was growing up, we always lived in a house with a fig tree in the back yard. It was the first thing Mama planted whenever we moved. Now, as I look at our neighborhood tree, I am reminded of when back yards were playable, trees were climbable, hopscotch was hoppable, and if any cement could be found, it provided a perfect surface on which to play Jacks.

We ran so hard. Ran till we were out of breath and had to stop and hold our aching sides. “Time Out!” we yelled if we were being chased in a wild game of tag. We drank sugared, thirst-quenching Kool-Ade in frosty aluminum tumblers, ate Cracker Jacks for only one reason: the prize in the bottom of the box, usually a plastic monkey with its tail curled into the shape of an “O.”

I wonder how many times I said, “Oh, shoot! I got a gnat in my eye!” We grew up with gnats, mosquitoes and houseflies. We didn't use “Off” to keep them away. Insects coexisted (with an occasional swat) alongside children tumbling onto stretches of dirt at the bottom of a sliding board, or kids looking for the elusive four-leaf clover in patches of green not yet planted with St. Augustine.

We skinned the cat on tree limbs big enough to hold us, and small enough on which to wrap our skinny legs. We even climbed fig trees, once the birds had come and gone.

The birds! I totally forgot about them! I need to take a detour off Memory Lane and get cracking before they pick that tree clean.

I park my car, unload the groceries and think all the while about the bulging fig-laden tree just outside my door. In less than twenty minutes, I am there, scanning up and down Butler Avenue for either Ed the Fig Filcher or the swarm of expected black birds. Happily, they are nowhere in sight. My window of opportunity appears to have been extended beyond the fifteen minutes, which makes my heart pound in expectation.

I continue to gaze at the sky and down the street while moving stealthily with plastic grocery bags in both hands. As soon as I reach the tree, I am thunderstruck. There is but one fig left. One! And it’s hiding underneath a fat leaf way in the back.

Damn those thieving black birds! Not only did they strip the fig tree bare, but they stole my fifteen-minute window right out from under me.

I shake my fist and yell Just wait till next year at the few remaining birds hovering over the roof of my recently washed car.

“And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves.” —Mark 11:13

Mississippi Rain

Mississippi Rain

In the summer, I don’t always welcome the rain; not unless there’s a drought. The tropical downpour leaves the earth saturated in so much steam that the transplant swears the earth had boiled like a pot of peanuts just minutes before. After the rainfall, I’m a rebel mermaid, breathing vapor through gills while the transplant chokes and bemoans her frizzy curls.

That day in July when it got cooler after a Mississippi rain was the day the transplant and I went for ice cream: LuVel’s Caramel Turtle Pie. Between bites of salty pecans and sweet caramel, I suspected climate change was real.

________________________________

Author: Avery Oslo

"I was raised by nomads and am a native of nowhere (but also of everywhere!). This makes me Southern not by birth (or the “grace of god” if those bumper stickers everyone has on their trucks down here are to be believed) but through choice. I’m currently working on a YA novel set in Nashville. You can find me over on my blog (http://averyoslo.wordpress.com) or on Twitter (http://www.Twitter.com/AveryOslo). Hope to hear from y’all soon!"

The Rugged Outdoorsman

The Rugged Outdoorsman

I have long fancied myself a woodsman. Growing up in a small town, my classmates dreamed of escaping to the cities, Atlanta, Baltimore, even New York, while I read accounts of pioneers and mountain men of the nineteenth century and fantasized about becoming a latter day version of the same.

In high school, while they cruised the parking lot of the first fast-food joint to appear in the county seat, I rode the back roads. While they watched ballgames on weekend afternoons, I wandered the forest. So it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream when, approaching the age of 50, I moved to a cabin on a forested hillside in Kentucky.

A neighboring piece of property was offered for sale recently. I acquired a key and drove to the site. The house was underwhelming, but I was more interested in the land, anyhow.

Snow still covered the ground as I began my trek up the hillside to investigate. Behind a barn that was tucked away on a remote plateau, I found tracks I didn't recognize. The paw print of a bear, perhaps? The black variety were rumored to haunt these parts. Or maybe a panther. I took a photograph and continued on my jaunt.

The land was more farm than wild, I decided. Some nice acreage, but not suitable to a outdoorsman such as myself. Returning down the hill, I spied an owl perched on the chimney of the house. I moved closer. I stopped and took a picture, lest my approach spook the creature and I be left with no record of him. From directly behind, I took several excellent shots. Then I circled the home to approach from the front.

I felt certain my appearance would cause the bird to take flight. Perhaps I could capture an image of his ascent for my blog! I held my breath and walked on tiptoe. Rounding the corner, I raised my camera... and took the picture shown. I had stalked a plastic ornament someone had placed atop an unused chimney.

I made a 180 degree survey of my surroundings. No pedestrians were nearby. No traffic passed on the road below. Holstering his camera, the rugged woodsman hiked back to his Nissan and drove home on roads scraped clean by county workers.

The paw prints proved to be those of a large dog. Perhaps a coyote, but who knows? Tonight I think I'll stay inside and watch a movie.

___________________

Author: Randy Lowens

Author Bio: Randy Lowens lives and writes near Berea, KY. Since this
peice was written, he has learned that the plastic owls are intended
to discourage birds from building in chimneys.

FOLKS IN CALIFORNIA ARE A BIT WACKO, THEY SAY

FOLKS IN CALIFORNIA ARE A BIT WACKO, THEY SAY

"What about my chickens?” Grandma Oma asked in response to my aunt Mouth persuading her to attend our farewell. "You know I don't go nowhere without my chickens."

Now I knew where we stacked up against chickens.

“It's just an airport, Mama!" Mouth argued, yanking the clothes off the clothesline. She tossed them to me to wad and throw in the basket. We had a system. “Besides, dem chickens ain’t the ones you need worryin' about. Ain't you scared they'll die in a fiery plane crash?”

Mouth earned her name because her big mouth contrasted with her small body. Grandma said the name Melba was Indian for Little Big Mouth. My sister, Beth, said because of Mouth's notorious failure to be quiet, someone slammed the door on it—her mouth, that is.

On my grandparent's farm, where livestock were considered pets, where groceries were delivered to your doorstep, where the sheltered Kellyville Okies dwelled oblivious to any world outside the county line, my grandma fed the chickens for the third time inside an hour.

Her chaotic chickens ran every which way, plucking at the ground and pecking others within thieving range, amnesia stricken to their sudden windfall of three consecutive meals, showing no signs of slowing down. With red-rimmed eyes, Grandma muttered angry epithets regarding being a chicken prisoner. Grandma grabbed another handful of chicken feed from the deep front pocket of her large housedress. The other pocket held a worry list she called her prayer request, and a water gun to fend off her evil geese.

The screen door slammed and I knew it was my mama. You always heard her before you saw her. Her speech, her gait, her manners, all suggested a faulty valve stuck on full throttle. She barged down the porch steps with another basket of laundry to hang and passed a frost-damaged rose bush. A goose emerged from the leafless, twiggy thatch and lunged for her leg. Mama, without a break in stride, catapulted it into the air like a feathered football. Grandma reached for her water gun faster than Clint Eastwood can make someone's day.

"Dutch devil!" Grandma hollered. She chased and squirted Mama around the barn as feathers settled down around the clothesline. "Yer meaner than a Dutch devil."

Mama hooted and laughed evilly as she out ran Grandma, who had to stop on account of needing to refill her gun. By that time, Mama was long gone and Grandma cooled off, as she always did, and returned to her chore of feeding chickens and worrying. And her combative goose trotted off for a denser cluster of bushes, waiting for someone to bite.

Perhaps it was her sudden adrenalin spike, but Grandma, still panting from the exertion, stopped her task, straightened her posture, and positioned her hands on her wide hips. "What fiery plane crash?" she asked Mouth.

Yeah, what fiery plane crash? I mind-questioned to AJ, an empty Aunt Jemima syrup bottle, which served as my water bottle, personal advisor, and imaginary friend.

I scooted next to Mouth who now sat on the wooden fence, positioned AJ between us, and watched my older brothers out yonder. Russ pushed Eddie over the low rolling hills of the pasture in a wheelbarrow, zigzagging through cows, laughing. I wanted to laugh and have Russ push me too, but I had serious end-of-life concerns to contemplate.

"Never mind the plane crash." Mouth winked at me. "They might die tragically when California sinks into the ocean. Right, Patty?" I nodded. She was referring, of course, to the "Big One," the catastrophic earthquake that would kill us violently and was the subject of many a hushed conversation amongst the relatives—and a stress rash for me. But AJ put that fear to ease when she reminded me I couldn't expire via the "Big One" if I were to perish in a fiery plane crash.

"California's gonna sink in the ocean?" Grandma clutched her heart. "Oh, Sweet Jesus, no!"

“I’ll pray at church on Sunday when I get saved,” Mouth reassured her. With emphasis on "when"; every Sunday at church when the preacher called out for the unsaved to come forward, to accept Jesus Christ as their almighty savior from eternal damnation, Mouth would head up the aisle as if for the first time. So caught up in the sermon, she would nearly trample the first timers in her path to the altar, calling, "I'm coming, Jesus."

“I'll pray too,” Grandma said, meaning with the televangelist she watched in lieu of church.

On departure day the following morning, Grandma hobbled over to my dad and declared: "Morris, I prayed 'bout it all day yesterday and called Oral Roberts on the tell-phone, and Oral says it's okay for y'all to fly to California."

"Well, that settles it then, Oma.” Daddy flashed my mom an amused glance. “Thank you for your thoughtful prayers and for alertin' ole Oral of our travel plans." He and Grandma Oma hugged.

Relatives, ranging from those who pronounced airplane as arrow-plane to those who weren't aware the airplane had yet been invented arrived in droves at Daddy's request for airport transportation, which resulted in a family reunion-like excursion.

Grandma finally relented, agreeing to see us off at the airport on account of her annual Easter tradition to visit the beauty parlor—for her baby chicks. She rarely left her farm, afraid of riding in a car, she saw death at every turn. She made only one exception: the four-mile trip into Kellyville to have her chicken's feathers dyed at Vera's. They came out in pastels.

"Don't worry, hun," she told me. "They'll still have all their colors by the time you get back."

Actually, my concern was would she accidentally kill the blue one like she did the year before when she knocked a two-by-four over onto the top of it. Not fully dead, Grandma had to wring its neck to end his misery. I looked in the box sitting on Grandma's lap: six. Better be six chicks when I return, I thought.

We spread out in different vehicles—from automatic and manual transmissions to crank-up or push 'till the engine roared to life. Plus a bit of musical cars as well when Grandpa Floyd drove our Edsel, which contained Uncle Earl who was—after his usual moderate intake of alcohol—sprawled asleep in the backseat. Daddy drove Earl's Cadillac, roomy enough for five.

We squeezed Grandma and box in the back seat between Eddie and me. Grandma's black hair was without a single curler or bobby pin. I always wondered what sort of occasion would merit the unveiling of her hair.

Grandma peered out the Cadillac's rear window and burst into tears when a mournful pig gave her a nod and a snort from the side of the gravel drive. We drove convoy-style through Kellyville's small town of redbrick establishments, causing pedestrians to stop and stare at the motor parade that comprised our extended family anxious to see advanced technology featuring flying transportation.

The radio played "Crazy" by Patsy Cline as we passed the Ma and Pa Market and Feed Store. I'm crazy for tryin' Crazy for cryin'… We dropped off the box of Easter chicks at "Vera's Beauty Shop and Bait and Tackle, where you can get your hair done while the fish ain't bitin'". Worry Why do I let myself worry … After which we cruised town slowly enough for folks to say hello. “My chickens, my geese …,” Grandma sobbed to anyone within earshot of the car.

Clearly, Grandma's upset bothered my brother Eddie, because he went straight for the big guns: his armpit-fart music. A one-man band, making the best-orchestrated use of his body parts, he conducted the fart version of "Yankee Doodle Dandy." He seemed unfazed that we were going to die tragically or even that Mama turned up the radio. I, however, had developed a nervous habit of peeling the dry skin off my lips until they bled, which was what I did to a duo of "Old Mac Donald" by Eddie and "Soldier Boy" by Shirelles. Eddie then took requests. He arm-farted to "Jesus Loves Me" and "This Little Light of Mine."

At the airport, Mama prohibited his flatulent symphony. "Knock that noise off and act like civilized folk."

After the civilized entourage parked their Chevys and Fords, they piled into the Departures waiting area, clustering in a knot around Daddy and Mama, looking unsure about the swarms of travelers bustling about the terminal. Except Uncle Earl who, unaware of the airport rules concerning open containers of alcohol, was detained by airport security and taken away for questioning.

Mouth harassed a cowering family. "Would you mind takin' our picture? The whole family." She motioned, spreading her arms out. "Can you fit the whole family?"

"O—okay," said the perplexed husband, "but where's your camera?"

"We'll just use yours."

Meanwhile, my mom's two other sisters, Opal and Georgia, snagged a newspaper out of the garbage and poured over the horoscopes. "You're having a five-star day, Reba," they reported to my mother. "But you, Morris, you're not so good. You might not make it."

After an amplified boarding announcement, Grandpa Floyd bellowed an even louder announcement about dangers besides earthquakes and air tragedies. "Be careful, Morris," he warned. "California’s swarmed with certain folks to avoid.” He leaned in and grabbed a hold of Daddy's hand to shake it, lowered his voice to about 100 decibels, and divulged. "Atheists, liberals, and homo's. All of who a man of good citizenship will rub elbows with ever'day."

Passersby's faces reacted in horror at Grandpa's announcement, confirming that I should indeed be petrified.

A loud explosion boomed nearby—Eddie—the unmistakable sound of a gumball machine shattering to the floor and thousands of tiny gumballs scattering on the dirty linoleum. Usually, I was easily startled by loud noises, but this I'd heard on numerous occasions. Mouth, who was unprepared for it, hollered, "Run for your lives!" causing some folks to panic. Security had my eight-year-old brother Eddie tight by the collar, marching him in our direction, and using language shocking to a child. They knew he belonged to us.

"I didn't do it. It wasn't me," said Eddie with a mouth full of gumballs. "I swear!"

Twelve-year-old Russ found a seat some distance away. His head turned toward another family, as if by seating himself beside them, he could inhale their normalcy.

Throughout the years, Russ and I were labeled as shy. I define shy as someone afraid the world is looking at them, judging. With us, they really were. And Russ and I were fully aware of it.

And my unwelcomed gift of aware became my curse. And Aunt Jemima's.

"I don't want to go," sassed AJ. "I won't."

"You will or I'll bust you over my knee." Mama cut AJ a stare so fierce, she hid her cold, hard body in my shirt.

Russ, still in hearing distance, reunited with his real family once more. "Don't encourage her," he said to Mama, and to anyone else caught conversing with the syrup bottle. "It ain't right in the head."

Grandma resumed crying at the impending doom that waited. "Lord, keep the plane from crashin' and burnin'. Keep California 'bove the water during the "Big One." Keep Reba, Morris, and my sweet grandbabies safe with no harm in their direction … ."

At least for now, the thought of us dying held us a rung above her chickens.

______________________________

Author: Tricia Sutton

Tricia Sutton never recovered from being a wild Okie. Part of her therapy is to write about it. The result is a full-length novel almost ready for the world. The jury is still out as to whether the world is ready for it, all at once. Bits and pieces can be found published or forthcoming in The Rambler, Halfway Down the Stairs, Hazard Cat, Turtle Quarterly, The Shine Journal, and The Short Humor site. She welcomes visitors to her writing blog at http://dfmil09.wordpress.com

Rescue

Rescue

by Joan Pedzich

The third morning after the storm – or maybe it the fourth - four helicopters went by, mostly taking pictures. Like that was doing anybody any good. The Coast Guard one dropped us water and a box with graham crackers, a flashlight and the meals in plastic like they eat in the service. The wings on those birds of theirs are every kind of scary, beating the air so you can’t have a thought, whipping the water that was still rising. But it was those boys leaning out of their birds, only ones from the government made themselves useful, aiming for us with gallon jugs. Myron caught the water, arms out, raised up like he’ll do in church when the choir lets loose. He pulled the cap off and made our boy Shawn have the first drink. We told him go, drink, take yourself a long pull. Myron made me go next, and we traded off, the two of us trying to keep it to little sips, swirling what we took on our tongues, savoring the pure cleanness of it, leaving most for Shawn.

The box they dropped had a piece of paper in it saying rescue was coming and to stay put. Where’d they think we’d go if we didn’t? Now there was a long night, the one after the water drop, when rescue was promised but not there, when the helicopters stopped and all we could hear was dogs. All night. Frantic, starving, mixed-up dogs. Dogs that got left or trapped. Dogs howling and mooning. Dogs barking until they were hoarse, from roofs and attics and the tops of cars. The wail of them reverberating off the waters caused Myron to wish for his pistol saying he’d put them out of their misery if he could. I told him it was just as well the pistol was drown in the drawer downstairs, as there’d be no knowing where to stop once he started with mercy killings.

In the morning at just light the distant blow of those rotating wings shut the dogs up. We said a prayer they was headed for us and the other folks needing rescue. And for God’s tender mercies. We shared one of the military meals and some water, and I can testify how good freeze dried meatloaf can taste in 90 degree heat. We even tore open the little foil packets of ketchup and licked them shiny. After the meatloaf, we gave Shawn the graham crackers and small tin of peanut butter that came with the meal. He spread one for each of us. Wouldn’t hear of eating his until we each had a bite.

When they finally came, the white helicopter with the orange stripe on its tail lowered a rescue basket, dangling us one at a time over our drown house before hoisting us into the belly of that thing. They got us all on, and in the air I watched our home and the rest of the street float away from us. A dog in the water was trying to get up on our roof, straining for a foot-hold, bawling weaker each time he slipped back in. I didn’t look down again. There was only the woozy blur of the wings, and Shawn and Myron holding on to me for dear life.

---------------

Author Joan Pedzich's work has been published in Lake Affect, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Six Sentences.

Remember Me Home

Remember me Home

These hills are made of magic.

They spread their rolling greenness

into the corners of your heart

like the tentacles of Kudzu.
Twining with the memories of my youth

they etch themselves into the mind’s retina.
The lone tree above
a pile of rocks

in the middle of a sloping
cow pasture,
my great-grandmother's house

the cherry tree out front

the mound of earth

covering her carved out pantry

where we used to play king of the hill
the ball field

where I slid into home plate.

I see them now
from the driver's seat
of my little red Nissan
pecking along these winding country roads
but my heart sees them
from the back of dad's
pickup

his words reminding us to search

the hills for the Indian the signs warned of

Watch for Fallen Rocks

the wind swirling my hair into tiny whips
that beat at my face

until it was numb

As I pull in Dad’s driveway

I realize

I have remembered me home.

_________________________________
Author: LeeAnn Patrick

LeeAnn writes: "My Name is LeeAnn Patrick I live with my husband, five children and one grandchild in King NC. Most of my poetry involves my family as dedication, subject or inspiration. After finding the market for teachers non-existent, I found a part-time spot at a retail store. My work has appeared in tinfoildresses and The Saint's Placenta."

Sippin' Whiskey

Sippin' Whiskey


What I do is art; I make sippin' whiskey.

The other guys buy cheap corn and

throw in everything. Their idea of makin'

whiskey is too make as much as you can.

My stuff ain't for rednecks: it's for real

Southern gentlemen.


I take my sweet time to find the right

corn; sweet and mature but not too ripe.

It ain't about the volume, it's about

making it right.


I don't know how people drink that

rotgut stuff. I guess for them, cheap

is good enough. I don't put my stuff in

fruit jars or ceramic jugs. It goes into

wooden casks. It ages four a couple

a weeks.


There ain't no want for business. My

stuff sells as soon as it comes of age.

There are plenty of folks who love good

sippin' whiskey and are willing to pay

the price.

_________________________

Author: Mike Berger, Ph.D.

Mike Berger, PhD is bright, articulate, handsome, and extremely humble

Southerner's Outlook

You know the more I fish the more I think of fishing, the more
I dream about fishing the more I fish, the more I fish the more
it consumes me. ESPECIALLY when you do it with a long rod
baby…

What is it about the fly rod that turns some of us into uncom-
promising fish bums and fish heads??? THe rhythm? THe
beauty? The challenge? All of them? Maybe the lifestyle? Stomp
around a campfire in the mountains, beer and brats on a fall
line river, cold mornings throwing streamers for reluctant
trout, nicotine rushes to get you thru the night floats? Yeah
that must be it.

Why do we pursue fish with feathers and flash? Why do we flail
into our days with tiny tippets and bad back casts into, over,
and under trees, rocks, and cussing guides? Cuss like drunken
sailors when we snag something and can’t wait to do it all
again telling our wives how much fun we had while not bring-
ing anything home not even a picture. Maybe deep down we
are all masochistic. Maybe we have a screw loose. At least I am
sure that’s how my friends and family look at my travels and
pursuits…

My dreams consist not of beautiful beaches and women but salt
flats filled with fat redfish chasing mullet, 10lb browns crash-
ing top water flies, smallies leaping in the fall sunlight, large-
mouths busting a deer hair fly at dusk. Beautiful rivers cut into
the mountains with high canyon walls and limestone outcrop-
pings. Sunsets on the marsh. The scream of a good reel with a
good fish in the backing. The beauty of a bent rod.
Tattoos, nicotine, and unkempt hair are more common among
my fishing buddies than Phd’s, MD’s or God help us lawyers. A
few friends have spent more on rods than on cars. A few even
houses…

Personally I think it is a lifestyle. Not just a hobby. I had almost
forgotten how much I love the feel of a fly line laying out in front
of me. The sight of a popper landing under an over- hanging
branch. It has been a great year of rediscovery for me.

Man cannot reach perfection. I am a Presbyterian leaning, Scot-Irish,
and mountain (half of me anyway) bred fellow so I believe like
in the movie that “Man is a damn mess” but thru fly fishing we
can gain a little bit of perfection. The other half is just an anti-
establishment un-reconstructed confederate from Atlanta who
just does this to be different…

Maybe just maybe it’s the places, the people, the experience of
fly fishing that I love and chase. Trout do not live in ugly
places. Shoal Bass don’t either. In fact can you fish in an ugly
place? Or once we reach the water does everywhere become
beautiful?

In any case that’s my ramblings and thoughts for a night… A
week of a couple of good fishing trips. Only a few fish but a lot
of good companionship.

Can’t wait to do it all again.

______________________

Author: James Pressley

Consensus

Consensus

__________________________

My parents were junkies. Not the kind of junkies that you see in movies like Trainspotting or My Own private Idaho. It wasn’t heroin or anything like that. They were JFK assassination junkies. They owned every book ever written about the assassination of JFK. I was hauled to conferences around the world.
It was the center of our universe and I never quite escaped it.

We Lived near belt Line Road in Dallas for the first 10 years of my life. They built a mall there in 1979. But I was shy and wasn’t great with conversations that didn’t involve talk of a grassy knoll or Bullet projections. My attempts to make friends started something like this;
Me, “So, do you wanna be friends? I’ll play the lone gunman and you be the mafia.”
Still, I managed to make a few friends in those days. We spent a lot of time dressing my Barbies
in slutty outfits we made out of toilet paper and rubber-bands. I was happy enough. We sold lemonade in the summers and in the winters we made snow ice cream and pulled icicles off of the Crape Myrtles out front.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of paper that used to cover our kitchen table. I was lucky to find a place in front of the television to eat my fast food burgers. My mom didn’t cook. My dad didn’t complain. We ate out of cardboard and plastic. I never thought it should be any different. I watched Sanford and Son while my parents debated the Warren Report.

After that period in my life we moved around to various rent houses in the Dallas area because both of my parents had quit working. They no longer had the money for conferences. I no longer needed a passport. We always seemed to live near a liquor store. My first job was at a McDonalds. I was 15 and learned to clean the shake and fry machine. Sometimes I brought home leftovers so we could eat. My manager asked me out so many times that I finally gave in and we went to a heavy metal club called The Basement. I called my parents from a pay phone but they couldn’t hear a word that I was saying. I heard my dad screaming “don’t drive drunk” but by then it was too late. I lost my virginity In the parking lot.

After that it seemed like a long parade of boyfriends with mullets. I spent a lot of time away from home because I couldn’t find room in my life for Oswald or Jack Ruby. I couldn’t talk to my parents. I had no one to trust. I worked my way up to store manager and started dating a drummer. He had a German Shepard that he seemed to adore, except for the times when he blew marijuana smoke in his face. Truth be told, he was kind of messed up. I liked that he played drums but I couldn’t deal with his emotional immaturity.

I wanted more for my life. I aspired to higher things. I wanted to dance on MTV videos. I wanted an apartment in Times Square. I wanted health insurance, and a waterbed. I figured these things out too late. I found out I was pregnant.

Strangely enough, my parents were thrilled. The father of my child, the drummer, had disappeared.
I heard from some of his friends that he had formed a band in Oklahoma City, but I never tried to contact him.

Time passed. My stomach got bigger. I was eating for two, and sometimes for six.
My parents told me they were on the verge of discovering something huge about the JFK assassination, but I ignored them because I was so sick of hearing about it. I was sick of their obsession.

I had a boy. He is the light of my life. In his early years we realized he had a real talent for percussion instruments. My parents started trying to get in touch with the director of the CIA while I was trying to get my son into a local preschool. I got a full time job.

My parents disappeared one morning as they took a walk around the block. It took me a long time to figure out what had happened. I know the answer, but if I told you I might disappear too. I can’t allow that to happen. My son needs me.

I stay close to homenow. I have an excellent security system. Have you ever seen that movie Scarface? Well, it’s better than any security system Tony Montana had. I sleep with a gun. I have strange dreams. In one of them, I’m watching television with Oswald’s Widow. She gets up to turn down the sound and turns around to face me. She whispers something but I can never hear what she says. One of these days I will figure it out.

One day out of the blue I got a call from my son’s father. He didn’t know he had a son. He was in total shock and asked me to marry him right there over the phone. I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no either.
He said he was a drummer for a band in Tupelo, Mississippi. He said he was never in Oklahoma, that it had only been a weird Rumor. I have a lot to consider. I didn’t want to be married to a pot-head the rest of my life, but I didn’t have anyone in my life besides my son and I was really lonesome. I’m not sure I can trust him though. I’m carrying around an important secret. It is possibly the biggest secret in American history. You have to take precautions.



________________________

Author: Melanie Browne