NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-32 North Carolina
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NEXT TIME: My Book World, White Rage By C. Anderson
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the thirty-first post of fifty. South Carolina (1990-1992, 1994) R. Jespers, Brookgreen G., 1994 Because Ken’s nephew and wife lived in Myrtle Beach, we were able to visit a number of interesting places: Brookgreen Gardens at Murrells Inlet, Myrtle Beach State Park, and an overnighter in Charleston, one of the nation’s oldest cities, where we visited several historical homes being renovated following Hurricane Andrew, in 1992. The specter of slavery still looms large in places: plantations and slaves’ quarters. Then there is the human specter, descendants of those slaves, some of whom still struggle to achieve equality with whites. During those four summer visits, we also spent a great deal of time just enjoying ourselves at places like Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach. South Carolina is eighth of the thirteen original colonies and also celebrated its bicenquinquagenaryin 2013. Historical Postcards & Trunk DecalsIf you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link: NEXT TIME: My Book World, White Rage by C. Anderson
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-31 South Carolina
My Book World Anderson, Carol. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. Unspoken indeed. Professor Anderson takes readers through the long yet decisive history of White Rage. It is a history that has lain directly beneath the noses of all Americans but one that has been covered up, ignored, or outright distorted, as well. Anderson revives for readers the five primary events in US history which incite and keep alive White Rage. First, following the Civil War, former Confederates refuse actually to take Reconstruction seriously, and the North ignores the South’s refusal. Two, as a direct result of this action, freed African-Americans migrate north, only to find they are no more welcome there than they have been in the South. In places, rejection is even more hostile, more vitriolic. Three, White Rage is incited with the Brown vs. Topekadecision to integrate American schools, and at least two decades are spent in fighting or rolling back provisions of this decision—making most school districts as segregated as they ever were. Four, the author delineates how Ronald Reagan’s white-rage leadership reverses, insidiously, the Civil Rights gains of the 1960s and 1970s. And last, Anderson reiterates what contemporary readers have witnessed for themselves, how the election of an African-American president, Barack Obama, once again incites White Rage, a backlash that results in the questionable election of Donald Trump. Anderson’s book reinforces the recent writings of other black authors, Ta-Nehisi Coates, for one. She doesn’t mention reparations, but my thinking is that our country will never be at rest, can never truly hold its head up among nations until it has, in more than a symbolic manner, attempted to make reparations to the descendants of slavery. It won’t be difficult to determine who qualifies. The government will be able to use the same visible trait it used to discriminate, and that is the color of one’s skin. Anyone with African-American lineage should qualify for funding for free education, help with daily living expenses until one is independent. Not only that, but the trillions of dollars that were accrued by this nation during slavery off the backs of black men and women, should be multiplied to, in some manner, make it up to our dark-skinned brethren. Their ancestors were captured on their native soil, mauled, maligned—treated more harshly than work animals—and the surviving generations of victims of White Rage deserve recompense. The one percent will have to pay their fair share to ensure that this happens, along with the rest of us, but it must be done. And it must be done with an amount of good will and love. The fires of White Rage must be quelled forever. Only then can we heal. NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-32 North Carolina
My Book World Weinman, Sarah. The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World. New York: HarperCollins, 2018. Weinman takes two narratives—one, the actual kidnapping case of Sally Horner, in 1948, and two, author Vladimir Nabokov’s shaping of his 1950 novel, Lolita—and weaves them into a single, seamless story. About halfway through the Weinman’s book, Sally Horner is rescued by the FBI and returned to her mother. Two years later, Sally dies, at fifteen, in a car accident, and I wonder, In what direction could the author possibly now take this book? All along, Weinman has woven the saga of how Nabokov writes Lolita with the story of Sally Horner, providing textual proof by way of his notecards and other documents that Nabokov was indeed influenced by Horner’s story. To what degree foments a debate between Nabokov and the literati that Weinman covers extensively. She also develops the idea that Nabokov has long been fascinated by the narrative of pedophiles and the children to whom they are attracted; in Lolita he finally produces the right combination of elements, one of which is the deployment of an unreliable narrator to steer the reader away from what a sinister crime he is actually participating in. Weinman skillfully stitches together these two narratives and provides a long, relaxed denouement tying up all the loose ends: relatives affected by Sally’s premature death, the imprisonment of her captor, a discussion of the abuse of young girls and women, and more. Because of her unrelenting research and attention paid to detail, Weinman provides a satisfying read combining the genre of true crime with serious literary discussion of Nabokov’s novel. It is one of the few books I’ve read this year that I have not been able to put down once started. It’s that good. NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-31 South Carolina
NEXT TIME: My Book World, The Real Lolita
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the thirtieth post of fifty. Georgia (1990, 1991, 1992, 1994)The first trip of four that Ken and I made to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, we flew into Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta airport was touted as being one of the world’s busiest, and I had no argument with anyone about that, as we busted our rears to get to our gate. Our fourth trip we motored from Texas and drove through a bustling Atlanta, a city I would like to see more of. I would like to visit Savanah. I would like to see where author Flannery O’Connor lived. I would like to see free and fair elections in Georgia before my life ends. That's when I may return to Georgia. Georgia is fourth of the original thirteen colonies and celebrated its bicenquinquagenary in 2013. Historical PostcardsIf you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link: NEXT TIME: My Book World, The Real Lolita
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-30 Georgia
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-30 Georgia
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twenty-ninth post of fifty. Hawaii (1977, 1996)  I first visited Hawaii in 1977, my most momentous journey since I’d begun teaching in 1974, the ten-day vacation being the first I’d ever spent alone. I borrowed $750 from the credit union, and I figured I would do a lot of sightseeing and reading at the beach. On the third day, however, I met a number of young men at a bar, Hula’s, and we palled around for the remainder of the trip.           The second time, in 1996, Ken and I celebrated our twentieth year together by taking a cruise among the islands. The now defunct cruise line had purchased the SS Independence and SS Constitution. The Independence held about six hundred passengers, a crew of three hundred. It may have been the most carefree trip we’d ever taken in our lives. Once aboard the ship, you had few worries, few decisions to make. You could stay on board during all the stops, or you could take excursions. At the end of both trips, I felt as if I never wanted to go home. I imagine that many visitors and residents never want to leave, as well. Hawaii became the fiftieth state in 1959, when I was eleven years old. Historical Postcard If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link: NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-30 Georgia
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-29 Hawaii
My Book World Ginna, Peter, ed. What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2017. Ginna has amassed a large number of essays by editors and agents, or those who used to be one or the other. He organizes their pieces around broad topics such as acquisition, editing process, and publication. But he also includes a section concerning memoir and one about careers in publishing. Writers have heard ad infinitum what editors want when they attend workshops, but somehow, when one is suddenly on the other side of the desk peering through the eyes of those editors one begins to understand. One begins to change how one might structure one’s book or write a book proposal. One suddenly sees what is important. One sees what editors do not want to see. I found three essays to be particularly helpful to me, but I imagine that each reader of this book may find others more attractive precisely because they have different priorities than I do. 1. “The Other Side of the Desk: What I learned about Editing These essays are ones that I shall refer to again and again as I attempt to maintain a writing and a publishing life. Perhaps the reader might like them, as well.
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-29 Hawaii
NEXT TIME: My Book World, What Editors Do by Peter Ginna
A WRITER'S WIT MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twenty-eighth post of fifty. Iowa (1976, 2000, 2001)My more memorable trips to Iowa came in the summers of 2000 and 2001, when I attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. For me those two sessions provided a resuscitation of my writing career. I was in my early fifties, and I felt if I were going to make anything of myself I needed to take the skills I’d acquired in my thirties and hone them further. Exposing my work to many who were younger than myself, I workshopped short stories in both classes and made great connections. Both instructors were fairly recent graduates of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and provided me with meaningful feedback on my writing. I drove the first time, and I recall the verdant, rolling hills of Iowa farmland, such a contrast to the flat, sometimes desolate landscape of West Texas. In Iowa City, I lodged at a hotel on the edge of the IU campus. I was impressed with the pedestrian mall, where one could purchase almost anything, impressed with a triplex theater, where, one night, I postponed my required reading of manuscripts by attending a showing of The Golden Bowl, a film based on Henry James’s novel, screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. I didn’t regret it. Iowa became the twenty-ninth state in 1846. It celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1996. Historical PostcardsIf you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link: NEXT TIME: My Book World, What Editors Do by Peter Ginna
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-28 Iowa
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-28 Iowa
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twenty-seventh post of fifty. Minnesota (1976) In 1959, I mailed a fan letter to children’s writer, Maud Hart Lovelace. She answered in kind and included what I thought at the time was a generous gift: a pamphlet about her books. I spent many an hour reading her oeuvre which featured Minnesota in the background, almost, at times, as another character. In 1976, Ken and I spent the night in Rochester and the next day passed through Austin and Albert Lea. I would like to return one day and see Minneapolis/St. Paul. Rochester, where the Mayo Clinic is located. I always refer to the May Clinic Web site when searching out medical information. I’ll always envy Minnesota for being the home of F. Scott Fitzgerald, although I think he had mixed feelings about his origins. I sometimes believe it was his voice speaking, and not Daisy’s, in The Great Gatsby, when she says, “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated.” Said with such irony and sarcasm for I don’t think she, or he, felt sophisticated at all. Minnesota became the thirty-second state in 1858 and celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2008. Historical Postcards & Trunk DecalsIf you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link: NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-28 Iowa
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-27 Minnesota
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twenty-sixth post of fifty. Wisconsin (1976) Mary was a rookie teacher I worked with on my first assignment. When she attended the Christmas party, she brought a white elephant gift in the incarnation of an old candle in the shape of half a football. The colors—green and gold—were faded, but across the side were printed the words “Packer Backer.” It was one of those gifts that kept getting passed off, rather appropriately, like a lateral. We, after all, lived in Dallas Cowboy country. I liked Mary a lot. She often spoke of Wisconsin wistfully, and, although she had attended college in Denver, she wound up moving to Seattle with her Texas-born husband; I never spoke with her again.  In 1976, rather than follow the perimeter of Lake Michigan to head west, Ken and I put our car on a ferry and sailed from Frankfort across the lake to Wisconsin, a four-hour trip in those days. On the boat I met a young man about my age, who was in the process of divorcing his wife. From his flirtatious attentions, I got the feeling that we could have hooked up. When Ken and I met up for lunch in the bowels of the sad little ferry, I told him about the guy I’d met. Wisconsin turned out to be nothing more than a conduit to Minnesota, where we would pick up I-35 and take it south to Kansas to stay with my parents in Wichita. I would like to return one day. Wisconsin became the thirtieth state in 1848 and celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1998. Historical PostcardsIf you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link: NEXT TIME: TBD
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-26 Wisconsin
I recently had the privilege of attending a high school reunion in which we celebrated the fact that we were all born during the 1947-1948 span of time, which now makes us SEVENTY years old! Below I feature a slideshow of a few of the photographs I made of our Class of '66 reunion. On Friday, October 12, we met at Minisa Park in Wichita, and on Saturday, we were fortunate enough to gather at the home of one our very own, who happens to live in a dwelling known as The Castle Inn Riverside (or the Campbell Castle). For years it was a B&B run by classmate Paula Langenberg Lowry and her husband, Terry, but it is currently up for sale, should anyone be interested in acquiring a home with real history. Thanks to Paula and Terry for their generosity. Wichita HS South Grads Turn 70Sights of Wichita 2018My Other Alma Mater, SouthwesternNEXT TIME: My Journey of States-26 Wisconsin
NEXT TIME: Turning Seventy, Yikes!
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twenty-fifth post of fifty. Michigan (1976) R. Jespers, Lighthouse, Lake Michigan, 1976 My only encounter with Michigan came in 1976 when Ken and I traveled to the upper Midwest to see his friends who lived in and around Kalamazoo, where Ken had taught for several years. We were there over the Fourth of July holiday, and the weather was so cool and rainy most of the time that we wore jackets and long pants. I’d never seen such lush gardens, so many aged and massive trees. One of the graduating classes that Ken taught sponsored a reunion every five years. Actually, it was a group of people that had rather adopted Ken and for a while they all lived in a large house they called the Pleasure Palace. Ken has attended several of these reunions. Michigan is the twenty-sixth state and celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1987. HISTORICAL POSTCARDS & Trunk DecalsIf you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link: NEXT TIME: My Book World
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AUTHOR
Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA. See my profile at Author Central:
http://amazon.com/author/rjespers Archives
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