Happy Beginnings ~ Inspirations and Celebration from Havenwood Tales

Warm Winter GREETINGS to Fans and Friends!

from D.J. Houston, Author of Havenwood Tales

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HELLO! HAPPY 2014!!

Yes, I’m still wishing friends Happy New Year! And yes, I’ve truly missed getting to “see” YOU more often with updates from Havenwood Tales.

TRUE CONFESSIONS: The arduous task of MOVING (on top of pursuing key studies) has lately put life for this author on hold. That’s my excuse, anyway — that and waaay too much stuff to unpack, despite tossing what must have been roomfuls before the move! But I’m guessing you already know (too well) how moving goes 😉

As a saga of preparation continues for release of the Havenwood Tales trilogy, our heroine Trudie McAfee’s fans will be happy to hear that more surprises and secrets from the opening novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings are heading your way again SOON.

Meanwhile, feel free to enjoy a walk down memory lane in the HAVENWOOD TALES ARCHIVES section at the bottom of our blog menu. And I hope this fun photo helps WARM YOUR WINTER and brings you an extra SMILE!

Hang in there — Spring happens 🙂

May your fondest dreams come true,

D.J. Houston, Author of Havenwood Tales

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American Literature Treasures – Inspiring Stories – Visionary Fiction – Life Lessons – Mystery Novels 

Copyright©2014 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

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Happy 4th of July from Heartland America – 20th Century Freedom

HA P P Y  4th of  J U L Y,  AMERICA !

Enjoy a look back at AMERICA from the coming novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings by D.J. Houston

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Faith In America by Donald Zolan

Before the second half of 20^th Century America happened to her citizens, most kids who weren’t beat up too much for their choices were fairly capable — able to focus their attention on the world in front of them long enough to finish a task and get something done on their own.

Even in the cities, even during wartime, people looked out for each other’s kids . . .

As for what happened to the nation and to the minds and morals of her people in the decades that followed  . . .

C L I C K   H E R E  to READ

“Common Sense Freedom – Heartland America”

Copyright©2007, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Mystery Novel – Historical Fiction – Intrigue – Social Commentary – American Literature Treasures

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Celebrate Spring in the Magical Mystery of Havenwood Tales

HAPPY SPRING from HAVENWOOD TALES !

“Rejoice in all that is glorious!”

— Author, D.J. Houston

Mystery Novels – Inspiring Stories – Historical Fiction – American Literature Treasures

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St. Patrick’s Day Celebration – Havenwood Tales – Irish Blessings and Mysteries Solved

Luck O’ The Irish to Ye from Havenwood Tales!!

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‘Tis said that St. Patrick’s Day brings out the Irish in everyone 😉

A holiday originating in Ireland over a thousand years ago, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in many countries around the world each March 17th.

But who was this fellow Saint Patrick? Why celebrate?

And why Saint Patrick’s Day, anyway? . . .

For FUN FACTS about Leprechauns, the history of Saint Paddy’s Day, Shamrocks & MORE:

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C L I C K   H E R E

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HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY! 🙂

D.J. Houston, Author of  HAVENWOOD TALES

Copyright©2011, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

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Irish in America – Inspirations from Havenwood Tales

“I wondered if God might not have gotten sick of watching that blizzard stir up so much trouble down on earth, and decided to just suck up the last of it into the Milky Way . . .”

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 HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings  by D. J. Houston

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My father’s camaraderie with his able-bodied, Irish-minded brothers was always a source of luck and light to the McAfee clan.

Their jovial triumvirate pulled Daddy out of his pensive moods and raised everyone’s spirits around them; together, they made us all feel more playful and safe. . .

When the three Irish brothers teamed up for a challenge, it was “God between us and all harm.”

Anything was possible . . .

CLICK to READ

“Life Lessons – Mysteries of Snow”

Copyright©2007, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Mystery Novel — Inspirations — Historical Fiction — Nostalgia Stories — Paranormal

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American Family Life ~ English Christmas Dinner Humor ~ What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Christmas 1946 ~ HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

Secret Reporting after-the-fact (… by Trudie McAfee of Havenwood Tales, but please don’t tell anybody)

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by Norman Rockwell

Being from England and therefore born eccentric, of course it should have been predictable that Aunt Julia would serve weird  food. . .

If the classic English nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence” comes to mind, common sense would have to suspect it contained the remains of four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie — even to a six-year-old like me . . .

C L I C K  for our Wild Celebration 🙂

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Copyright©2010, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved. 

Holiday Stories, Celebration, Nostalgia – Mystery Novel – Historical Fiction Books

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Hay Rides and a Brother’s Desperation – The New World of Havenwood School

New peeks at HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

by D.J. Houston, Author

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This excerpt is CONTINUED from “Humorous Stories – Baseball Rules – American Tall Tales”  – Missed Part I ? – CLICK HERE

I don’t know who the heck Timmy thought he was fooling . . .

Anybody with an ounce of sense and eyes in their head could figure it out. Ever since the preacher’s niece from Poseyville, ten-year-old Josie May Redding, had blinked at him on a hayride, he’d been praying she was a cradle robber.

The last thing he needed was flirty Miss Josie May thinking he was some kind of sissy babysitter for his dumb little sister.

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American Tall Tales – Humorous Stories of Bribery and Havenwood School

A favorite from HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

 Author, D.J. Houston

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You can call it bribery if you want to, I don’t care.  Other than the possibility of getting to see pickled brains in a jar, I was looking forward to going to school about as much as slopping hogs for the rest of my life . . .

But I was pretty sure God would forgive me   . . .

–C L I C K  H E R E  for  “SCHOOL RUMOR HUMOR”

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Copyright©2008, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

American Tall Tales – Humorous Stories – Mystery Novel – Historical Fiction Books

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Native American Stories – American Ancestry – Havenwood Secrets

~ from the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

“Curiosity might kill a cat eventually, but I was incorrigibly willing to risk such things . . .”

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Apparently, the gods of curiosity were destined to call upon me again — only this time to investigate a different class of enigmatic stuff.  But it quite enchanted me.

So off I flew, into what was left of my summer of junk and treasure, to excavate signs of an ancient world — like arrowheads and beads of shell and little, carved hardwood totems.

Sometimes I’d find a rotting weapon handle or a fishing spear or such, washed up in the mud of a creek bank.  And always clay vessels and pottery shards with faded, pigment markings and whatever Native rarities I could scrape from the hills and fields of Havenwood or reclaim from the secret woods that nestled our community. . .

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4th of July – Social Commentary – 20th Century Heartland America

HA P P Y  4th of  J U L Y,  AMERICA !

Enjoy a look back at AMERICA from the coming novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings by D.J. Houston

–

Faith In America by Donald Zolan

Before the second half of 20^th Century America happened to her citizens, most kids who weren’t beat up too much for their choices were fairly capable — able to focus their attention on the world in front of them long enough to finish a task and get something done on their own.

Even in the cities, even during wartime, people looked out for each other’s kids . . .

As for what happened to the nation and to the minds and morals of her people in the decades that followed  . . .

C L I C K   H E R E  to READ

“Common Sense Freedom – Heartland America”

Copyright©2007, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Mystery Story – Historical Fiction Books – Intrigue – Social Commentary – American Literature

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Father’s Day Memories – American Family Life – WW II

FATHER’S  DAY MEMORIES

from HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

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“I was letting the strength of his quiet nature spread slowly around me, like calm on a morning pond.”

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He reminded me of a sycamore tree with his tall, lean build and sturdy limbs.  His skin was white when he rolled up his sleeves to wash his hands in the wintertime.   And his hair was as shiny black as a raven’s wing, only curly.

He had a sort of handsome face, I thought, with a high forehead like Timmy’s and hazel eyes like mine.  But I was just beginning to see him as more than some stranger who’d been smart enough to marry Mama . . .

C L I C K  H E R E  for  STORY

“Victory for America – Home and War”

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From the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings by D.J. Houston

Copyright©2006, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Historical Fiction – Mystery Novel – WW II – American Family Life

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Mystery Novel Memoir – World War II – Heartland America

Excerpts from HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

by D.J. Houston

~ Honoring My Father on Memorial Day  ~

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My first pearl appeared the summer I turned six, not long after Daddy and Uncle Arthur returned from the Second World War . . .

It was a time of new necessity for Man.  For despite any halt to the march of evil, that war had turned humanity inside out when the white-hot specter of an atom bomb shocked and awed a pre-dawn New Mexico desert and twice carried death to Japan.

Yet no one could begin to grasp the consequences; it was too impossible to confront that such a thing as an atom bomb could ever happen in the first place.

Even after the war, top-secret scientists kept right on with the military to convince each other, time and again, that bombs do, indeed explode, while regular Joe civilian had no clue of such experiments.  And anyone who might have been aware felt powerless to stop them.  So they did nothing.

Post-WW II Heartland America

Families were reunited with their military loved ones the world over, and did what they could to reorient them to whatever became of their lost years at home.

Most made the transition; all were scarred.  But I’d like to think it was easier for the battle-weary to recover in a place like Havenwood . . .

Livestock and chickens and barns and crops and bank accounts needed tending, leaving little time to ruminate about the war.  And with new enterprises springing up as manufacturing shifted to producing wares and gadgets for the new Consumer Age, earning opportunities outside the home soon grew abundant for adults and young folks alike.

Not that play wasn’t fun and important to youth back then; if anything, a crippling Great Depression with a Second World War on its heels had led Americans of every age to value their freedoms and pleasures more than ever.

But work is its own reward.  If you don’t believe me, ask someone who has none.  And with more choices that come to a freer people, we could enjoy work more than ever, too.

All the kids I knew did chores, before and after school.  And those who had already proven themselves as volunteers for war efforts on the home front had a long leg up when it came to getting hired for the paying jobs.

With no TV screens to spectate at for hours on end, and decades yet before the advent of ubiquitous shopping mall arcades, video games, and personal phones and computers, young people tended to play hands-on at the game of growing up.

They practiced the real deal with real people, in an insular world without internet . . .

~

Author, D.J. Houston

Copyright©2007, 2014 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Historical Fiction – Memoir Novels – Life Journey – Coming of Age – Social Commentary

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Mother’s Day Inspirations from Heartland America

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to Moms  Mums  Mamas  Mommies and Mothers everywhere!

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– photo by D.J. Houston

How fitting Mother’s Day arrives when Spring is in full bloom!

A very Happy Mother’s Day to Mother Nature, too!

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 Havenwood Tales protagonist and narrator, Trudie McAfee, whose stories I write for you, forever celebrates her Mama Birdie and the mothers and grandmothers of her ancestry.

And as always with the Art of Motherhood, Trudie’s mother was her first special teacher.

For always it is true:

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“That best academy, a mother’s knee.”

– James Russell Lowell, poet

Mama Birdie McAfee was a great cook, too!

Trudie might say this was true of her:

“A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.”

– Tenneva Jordan

But this classic “fond remembrance” reminds Trudie most of Mama:

“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.” 

–  Mark Twain

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We remember and honor our Mothers in countless ways . . .

You may be familiar with time-tested rhymes like this one:

“Nobody knows of the work it makes
To keep the home together.
Nobody knows of the steps it takes,
Nobody knows but Mother.”

– Anonymous

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Here’s a fresh, modern look at the ancient wisdom of honoring one’s parents that may be NEW to you:

What a relief it is to know that our lucky children and grandchildren have these common sense inspirations to help guide them through their coming-of-age!

View the entertaining video “Honor and Help Your Parents” from The Way to Happiness book:

CLICK HERE

~

To Treasured Friends and Fans:

As I prepare to launch your ultimate gift of HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings – the first novel of the Havenwood Tales series – please know:

Your loyalty, feedback and the fun YOU bring to the party are valued and appreciated more than ever!

Have a very Happy Mother’s Day!

D.J. Houston, Author of Havenwood Tales

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Copyright©2013, 2014 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Inspirations – Celebration of Life – Nostalgia – American Literature Treasures

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Paranormal Mystery – Adventures of Mother Nature – Fire and Storm

A 2-part glimpse at the Dark Side of HAVENWOOD TALES

D.J. Houston, Author

 

Mother Nature does a lot of things right.  But this was most decidedly not one of them . . .

No sooner had a warm spring wind chased the last traces of snow into the forest floor than a lightning storm whipped up off the Ohio River and rumbled over us, like an irate god, without a drop of rain.

Then the fire broke out at Jasper Peterson’s Salvage Yard, threatening to burn the whole place to the ground and a century of trash and treasure with it . . .

There was no time to brace myself!

–C L I C K   H E R E

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Mystery Novel – Intrigue – Paranormal Stories –  Adventure – American Literature

Copyright©2008, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

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The Miracle of Mister Walling

“And predictable as cycles of the moon, you’d feel very alive and fortified, imbued with a capacity for some new understanding — if not of what had happened, then certainly of things to come.”

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Mister Walling was a world of his own.  And he was different from anyone anywhere I’ve been since the days of Havenwood.

Truth be told, I rarely ever saw him.  It can happen in the course of living, you know, that the journey itself will absorb you more than your quest for truth.  And yet Gabriel White Cloud Walling became an indelible part of my life, as necessary as my dreams and the ground I walked on.

And so what, if he glowed in the dark?

C L I C K  H E R E

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Inspirations from HAVENWOOD TALES by D.J. Houston

Copyright©2006, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Paranormal Stories – Intrigue – Visionary Fiction – American Literature Treasures

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Christmas Tree Inspirations – Heartland America

~ The World’s Most Beautiful Christmas Tree ~

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It was the first time I can remember ever having a Christmas tree — and a real one, at that.

When the idea of saving the forests first came into vogue, we tried using a silver tinsel one.  Then one of those phony white ones with the “snow-flocked” branches for a while.  And years of “realistic” plastic green ones I never liked, either.

I never knew when I’d remember my last Christmas tree.  So I thought it fitting to commemorate that first one now, and the imprint it left on my life. . .

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CLICK to READ:  Inspiring Christmas Story

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From the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings by D.J. Houston

Copyright©2008, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Inspirational Stories – Historical Fiction – Social Commentary – Heartland America

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Thanksgiving Humor – Eight Hundred Pounds of Vegetables

PILGRIMS and INDIANS

~ Thanksgiving 1946 ~

Maybe my next big break in life would be on the stage.  Maybe it wouldn’t.  But it promised to be a hallmark moment for Havenwood . . .

To entertain our parents, siblings, other family, friends of family, friends and family of their friends, teachers, older students and their entourages and anyone else we could recruit, my classmates and I scrunched together on a platform stage in the school cafeteria —  under a huge, hanging, paper mache’ cornucopia stuffed with eight hundred pounds of real vegetables — and put on a Thanksgiving play . . .

CLICK HERE to Attend the Play 😉

~ Excerpts from the coming novel HAVENWOOD Tales Beginnings

Funny Holiday Stories – Fantasy Fiction – Historical Fiction Books – American Tall Tales

Copyright©2010, 2012 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

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Funny Thanksgiving Story – The Havenwood School Thanksgiving Play

PILGRIMS and INDIANS

~ Thanksgiving 1946 ~

Maybe my next big break in life would be on the stage. Maybe it wouldn’t.

But it promised to be a hallmark moment for Havenwood.

On the Friday night before Thanksgiving, to entertain our parents, siblings, other family, friends of family, friends and family of their friends plus teachers, older students and their entourages and anyone else we could recruit, my classmates and I scrunched together on a platform stage in the school cafeteria — under a huge, hanging, paper mache’ cornucopia stuffed with eight hundred pounds of real vegetables — and put on a Thanksgiving play.

The invitations read:

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You Are Cordially Invited

To Attend

The First Annual Thanksgiving Play

Havenwood School Cafeteria

Fourth Friday of November

The Year Nineteen Hundred Forty-Six

Seven O’Clock in the Evening

~

I was cast as a Pilgrim woman cradling a baby doll that was swaddled in an itchy Indian trading blanket.

I even conceded to wear a Puritan dress with a huge, white, stifling collar and a bonnet tied under my chin, just to please Miss Greenlee. It was completely out of character for me, of course, but at least I didn’t have to pretend to have a husband.

I wished she’d just let me play Squanto, though. Nobody else came close to looking like him. And thanks to Miss Greenlee’s research, we’d grasped the sense of honor it must have taken for Squanto to persuade all the tribes to help the Pilgrims, considering how he’d been tricked away to Spain to be sold into slavery and then had to escape, and finally returned to America only to find his own people gone.

But his was another story . . .

Nobody played Squanto, we just said good things about him. So I sucked it up, tucked my braids inside my bonnet and held my tongue . . .

Clifford Buck wore some beaded moccasins and his granddaddy’s fringed-sleeve buckskin jacket, beating a ceremonial tom-tom while the audience gathered, to pay his tribute to Squanto and the Indians. I was grateful to see that.

Little Betsy Alcorn played a Pilgrim child standing next to a lanky farm boy named Percy Miller, who was happily dressed as a minister, collar and all.

Clayton Cox played a turkey posted next to the cornucopia. He’d been stuffed into a burlap sack filled with tissue paper, and had a red-beaked mask on his face and tree twigs sticking out the back for an avante-garde tail feather look. Since he couldn’t see with his mask on, his not-so-secret admirer, the Indian Princess Prissy Schwartz, kept inching closer to center stage, trying to get next to Clayton despite his bulky costume.

Other classmates wore more Pilgrim and Indian costumes. And Miss Greenlee had even let Bobby Blackstone and Teddy MacDougal be Indian braves, so long as they agreed to wear pants, left their tomahawks at home and checked their war cries at the door . . .

And when the lights were dimmed, we knew we’d waited nervously and long enough.

It was SHOWTIME !! 

As we streamed single-file onto the stage, the whole place erupted in cheers and applause, so when I crossed through the glare of the spotlight, I forgave Miss Greenlee completely for not casting me in such a prominent role as Squanto.

Since she hadn’t let Bobby and Teddy wear war paint, none of our Indians looked particularly savage, and I didn’t see any old veterans in the audience to get riled up about it if they had. I figured the churchgoers could favor the Pilgrims, regardless, and nobody would be reluctant to bow their heads for the Thanksgiving prayer. Surely family and friends would still like us, no matter what happened.

Prissy and Minister Percy served as the narrators. Others had their lines. All I had to do was to not drop my baby doll, say “Dear Lord, we appreciate all the help these fine Indians give us,” on cue, and remember to smile at the end when Bobby and Teddy started dancing to Clifford Buck’s tom-tom.

We were good to go . . .

Most of the vegetables stayed in the cornucopia. The cornucopia stayed more or less where it was, except for when blind turkey Clayton got his tail feathers caught in the rope while he was wiggling around trying to scratch himself.

But the audience finally quit gasping and holding their breath as soon as the cornucopia stopped swaying, and nobody ran from the stage. Nobody got hurt and nobody sued, nor would they have thought to back then. And hardly anyone forgot their lines — if they did, Miss G was right there in the wings to remind them before they ever had a chance to feel embarrassed.

The show was a hit! Our Thanksgiving play would be remembered, hands down, as the highlight of Havenwood School’s Novembers for years to come.

And as teachers go, I wasn’t the only one who wondered that night if Miss Lucinda Greenlee might be the best kept secret in America.

~

From HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings 

Magical Mystery by D.J. Houston

Copyright©2010, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Funny Stories – Social Commentary – Historical Fiction – American Literature Treasures

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Autumn Dreams – Life Lessons – Truth in Nature

“Sprinkled with shadows of leftover leaves in the bare autumn branches that filtered the sunlight above us, we soaked in the splendor of that golden afternoon together. . . “

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I hadn’t pictured my mother away from her home and work routines since the factory days of the war.  But this peaceful, natural setting seemed to suit her to her core.

And I realized she’d brought me here for a reason . . .

CLICK HERE –

Excerpts from HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

Copyright©2010, 2012 D.J. Houston.  All Rights Reserved.

Literary Fiction Novels – Mystery Story – Intrigue – Nature’s Beauty – Inspirational Stories
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4th of July – Common Sense Freedom – Heartland America

Happy Independence Day, America!

Happy 4^th of July!

from Author, D.J. Houston

Spirit of ’76 – Archibald M. Willard

Celebrating Liberty. . .

“Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.” –  Louis D. Brandeis

What happened on July 4, 1776?   Why celebrate?   

As Americans, we celebrate the fact that our God-given rights to live free of tyranny from any government were demanded and penned by key Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence.

Click for FUN FACTS

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Wisdom & Humor from America’s Founding Fathers

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“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.” 

– Thomas Jefferson

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” 

– Benjamin Franklin

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“. . . it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.”

– George Washington

“In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.” 

– John Adams

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From HAVENWOOD TALES:

“Before the second half of 20^th Century America happened to her citizens. . .”

Enjoy:  Inspiring Story – Common Sense Freedom

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A Note from the Author to her Fans and Friends

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“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.” 

– Erma Bombeck

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Thank you for enjoying this Celebration of Freedom with me!

I love sharing sneak peeks and updates with you from HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings — the first novel in my HAVENWOOD TALES trilogy.

D.J. Houston, Author

Spunky young Trudie McAfee, whose story I write, assures me subscribers are in for many “intriguing treats” to come 🙂

THANKS for all your friendship, inspirations and encouragement on our journey together!

Happy 4^th of July, America!

–

Your Freedom-loving Friend,

D.J. Houston

–

Copyright©2011, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Inspiring Stories – Historical Fiction Books – Courage and Wisdom – Heartland America

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Valentine for Uncle Chester – Inspirations of Auld Lang Syne

~ from the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

by D.J. Houston

New Year’s Eve had come and gone to the tune of Aunt Julia’s piano and a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne, while the grownups held up their glasses and Timmy and I toasted all their toasts with mugs of hot chocolate and root beer.

Our house was almost done mourning the departure of its Christmas tree. Mama was back to baking for Birdie’s Kitchen and school had just gotten good and started again.

Then, on the 30^th of January, a roaring blizzard slammed its way out of Canada like a bull shot loose from a rodeo pen, pummeling everything south of it from Michigan to Texas and east to the ocean. Havenwood’s countryside looked like something out of a Russian fairytale by morning.

In a place that’s lucky to get two feet of snow in a whole year put together, that storm left more than a calling card under the solid white blanket that smothered the rolling landscape. All the roads had disappeared, the well was frozen over and drifts around our house were sloped so high, you could have walked right off the edge of the porch with no place to fall.

We were loitering over breakfast, contemplating how to dig out, when the clarion cry of “Man alive!” sounded in the yard.

By the time Daddy and Timmy and I could scramble to the front door, ever optimistic Uncle Arthur was tromping in, stomping his snow-caked boots on the rug and rubbing his hands together like two sticks praying to kindle a bonfire, hollering, “Nothing like a little cold snap to clear a fella’s head!”

by Ian Wilde

Behind him, a deep voice grumbled beneath a bundle of woolen mufflers topped by Uncle Chester’s red nose and a brown leather aviator cap with humongous, sheepskin-lined ear flaps.

Once Uncle Chet pulled the mufflers loose, we could hear him saying, “That’s the doggoned awfullest mess I ever seen. You got drifts clean up past your window sills, Ben. We better git to work.”

Extreme weather — or any challenge, for that matter, so long as it was tractor, truck, food, fire, flood, Act of God or gun related — seemed to bring out the best in men of their ilk. 

With telephone lines down across the Heartland and the roads too buried in snow to be located, much less traveled, Uncle Chet had been rolling along on a beeline since well before dawn, determined, on his big-wheeled tractor. He picked up Uncle Arthur in Rainbolt Hollow. And damn the torpedoes,  the two had arrived to help out their family at our house, shovels in hand.

We were grinning and grateful for their efforts, needless to say.

“Where in tarnation did you find that hat, Chester?” my daddy teased.  “Come in, come in!”

A quiet cloud settled over Uncle Chet’s face, and we realized at once that Aunt Rose must have given him the hat and made him promise to wear it in inclement weather, before she passed on.

The McAfees were a close-knit bunch; tacit rules of engagement for generations had kept us so.  Even Timmy and Rowdy Dog fell silent, and my daddy’s question about the hat was respectfully dropped.

Mama emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She slipped past the group of us gathered in the foyer, helped Chester out of his coat, then stood patiently by as he heaved a sigh and carefully placed his hat over the last empty hook on the hall stand.

“That husband a’ yours leave any hot coffee on the stove, Birdie?”

He was grumbling again. But he thanked her kindly with his eyes and laid a big, gentle hand on her shoulder. The rest of us picked up gabbing where we’d left off, happy to see each other, while we followed Mama and Uncle Chester into the kitchen.

I always did have a soft spot in my heart for Daddy’s older brother, especially when he had a hangover after pining for his delicate Rose.

And I figured if he was grumbling, it had to be better than singing sad songs to his own guitar all night out on the farm, with nobody to talk to but his flop-earred hound and the howling coyotes . . .

~

by D.J. Houston, Author

Copyright©2010, 2014 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

An excerpt from HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

Photography by Anna Laura Livinal Belanger

Mystery Novel – Life Lessons – Historical Fiction – Inspirations of Heartland America

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Mystery Novel – Inspirations – Christmas Sleds and Country Music

Warned by a tipsy Aunt Julia that they must let their dinner settle before any sledding or they’d suffer life-threatening stomach cramps, Timmy and the cousins made a sugar-headed dash for the yard, where they managed to keep themselves occupied sailing well-aimed snowballs at Aunt Julia’s fat cats. At least until she caught them in the act, confiscated their slingshots and shooed them, sleds and all, off to the hill.

My pleas to join the boys ignored, I was sentenced to “Be a good young lady, Trudie dear, and tidy up the dining room.”

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Halloween Art – School Nostalgia – Funny Stories

Sometime around mid-October, with lots of spookiness and a hint of mirth in her playful voice, Miss Greenlee made a terribly important-sounding announcement.

“Halloween is coming! It’s Halloween! We must prepare!”

Naturally, none of us farm-country kids who’d come up during the war years had ever even celebrated Halloween. We didn’t have a clue where to start. But Miss Greenlee’s exuberance was, as always, contagious as the pox, and the whole class went saucer-eyed.

My own ideas were limited.

On Halloween night the year before, Mama and some of her women friends from the Sand & Gravel plant drove Timmy and me to a harvest festival on a farm way out in the boonies.

We played at dodging shadows and bobbed for apples floating in a big washtub along with some other kids, while the grownups traded pumpkins and baskets of corn and nuts and such around a roaring bonfire in the dark. But other than sensing somebody watching me from behind a tree and the hair on my arms standing up, it was pretty uneventful.

As for the idea of trick-or-treating on Halloween, it usually got too cold at night by late October for kids to be running around outside begging candy from Havenwood folks. Nobody had kept extra candy during the war and the habit stuck, and the houses were too far apart for any big hauls if they had any.

But in that freer world of 1946, nothing said we couldn’t celebrate at school . . .

Spiders, Bats and Hump-Backed Cats

With the able tutelage of Miss Greenlee, our gang launched into the spirit of things and learned as we went along.

After a titillating, quick study of the history of Halloween in the Old Country, we created a host of orange and black construction paper silhouettes for decorations, American style. Hairy spiders, hump-backed cats, witches on brooms and flying bats and toothy jack-o-lanterns got traced and cut and tacked around the classroom walls to leer at anyone who dared to look.

The boys from Shop Class brought in a ladder and hung some from the ceiling, dangling from lengths of feed sack string that let the creatures sway and swirl whenever a draft blew in under the door.

And there were times when they moved all on their own – I know it’s true, I saw it happen with my own eyes. And I wasn’t the only one.

Tales about the figures moving on their own, however, were classified as top secret, and could only be embellished amongst ourselves. That was the rule.

So our whole class had to swear a pact of secrecy. We swore in the Shop Class boys and Miss Greenlee, too, for good measure. And with abundant giggles, loud shushes and plenty of bad acting, we pretended the source of all those spooky decorations was surely “a mystery.”

“Gee, they were just here when we got here.”

“We have no idea.”

“Honest.”

And so the story went for any outsider who might inquire, especially the older kids who thought we were cute and would drop by before their classes to play along. And our impishness and those innocent thrills only fueled further collusion, as the camaraderie between us swelled like a fearsome juggernaut.

The Halloween Muse

The Halloween Muse had sequestered our lives and rendered us unstoppable — a force to be reckoned with.

We kept cranking out spooky artwork until we ran out of the whole semester’s supply of construction paper.  Without skipping a beat, Miss Greenlee assigned us to gather up all the fabric scraps we could scavenge and bring them to school. And from every description of colorful cloth, we proceeded to cut out strange-looking trees shapes, people and animals and their various habitats, gluing them onto long panels of brown butcher paper with homemade flour and water paste.

Prissy ran the glue factory crew at a table hidden in the trees behind our building, keeping us well supplied with buckets of yeasty-smelling paste. And while others cut and I designed, the old hardwood floor of the classroom protested our messy business in grumpy silence.

Hand-painted touches were added to make the whole scene look more Halloweeny with hoot owls, ghosts and gravestones. Sketches of skeletons, scary skulls and three pairs of glaring wolf eyes, courtesy of the hooligans Bobby Blackstone and Teddy MacDougal, completed the work. And panel by panel, the kaleidoscope final mural depicting our very own Halloween Village — our masterpiece — was spread across the windows, wrapped around the walls and covered both sides of the door.

We were beyond elated! Life was a Halloween party!

The rest of the school would have killed to know what we were up to. And predictably, the whole happy scenario infuriated the dickens out of dreadful old Miss Hickey.

~

From the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

by D.J. Houston, Author

Copyright©2008, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

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American Tall Tales – Magical Mystery – Funny Stories – Nostalgia – Fantasy Fiction

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Havenwood School – Dream Teacher, Witch and Artistic License

“For those who would squash dreamers and their dreams, God had surely sent Miss Greenlee as the antidote.”

–

Miss Lucinda Greenlee was utterly, completely beautiful from head to toe, and then some.

I could tell right away she loved being a teacher because she smiled freely and often, like sunshine in summer. And kids couldn’t help but smile right back at her.

She didn’t look at all like the other teachers in their plain, prim dresses and drab catalog-order suits. Miss Greenlee wore lovely, smart blouses from sophisticated foreign lands, and skirts splashed with patterns of butterflies or colorful birds or bold, bright stripes running down them — or big flowers you could almost smell like a flow of perfume from the quality fabrics.

Sometimes she even wore handsome slacks with a fitted waist, like the women who’d worked in the factories during the war. Only Miss Greenlee’s slacks were soft and butter colored, like a movie actress might wear. And her shiny, blond hair spilled long and glamorous past the back of her open collars, offsetting her clear, blue eyes.

On the opposite end of the food chain, however, I was shocked to discover one teacher at Havenwood School who was certifiably, pure awful . . .

She was old and sour, with withered skin as blanched as baking flour. And every day wore the same depressing, dark crepe dress that reeked of mothballs, with her sparse, slate-colored hair trapped in a twisted knot at the back of her neck.

Her nose was shaped like a wilted carrot, her mouth an unforgiving slit. And her narrow, hateful eyes were black and gleamless.

Naturally, I figured she was about as friendly as a rattlesnake with rabies.

Artistic License

I’d been going to school for less than a week when I spied the old woman out in the schoolyard, planted stubbornly under a hickory tree with her hands on her bony hips, hurling disapproving scowls like javelins aimed at Miss Greenlee’s classroom.

I watched in awe as she sputtered and spewed the-devil-only-knew-what grievances to our handsome, well-groomed principal, Mister Attabee, while he stood there and took it like a saint.

When she finally stopped to gasp for breath, Mister Attabee removed his hands from his trouser pockets and raised them, ever so slowly, to his chest. Then he hooked his thumbs behind his suspenders, cleared his throat and ended that conversation once and for all.

“Ahem!  Pardon me, Miss Hickey, but Miss Greenlee has artistic license.  Don’t you have a Latin class to teach somewhere?”

And away she huffed with her pruney face screwed up so tight it practically swallowed her warts — plotting a lonely revenge, no doubt.

Dream Teacher and Witch

Timmy and Mama had warned me about Miss Hickey; they just hadn’t told me how ugly she was. 

She’d been terrorizing Havenwood School, droning Latin grammar at snoozing students with her witchy voice and a willow switch hidden under her desk, for as long as anyone could remember.  And having witnessed her encounter with Mister Attabee, how she managed to keep her job was a mystery to me.  But I concluded that he must have had his reasons to allow it. 

One thing was sure: He was right to defend Miss Greenlee. 

I imagined she had her artistic license framed somewhere at home, too, because she let us paint pictures of whatever we wanted, She encouraged us to render our art as we saw fit and never questioned our choices.  You could draw conclusions in the dirt and call it art, for all she cared . . .

For those who would squash dreamers and their dreams, God had surely sent Miss Greenlee as the antidote.

It was on my first day of school, as I was gazing out the window and across the distant hilltops toward Silver Bear Lake, when she floated like a whisper past my desk and murmured, “Daydreams are like butterflies.”

And her words set instantly in place a precious and unspoken bond between us.

~

From the coming novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

D.J. Houston, Author

Copyright©2008, 2013 D.J. Houston. All Rights Reserved.

Spirit Of The Butterfly by Carol Cavalaris

Fantasy Fiction – Intrigue – Historical Fiction – Inspiring Stories – American Literature Treasures

 

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Humorous Stories – Baseball Rules – American Tall Tales

From the novel HAVENWOOD TALES Beginnings

by D.J. Houston

Baseball Wisdom . . .

Timmy was pacing the front yard like a penned up billy goat with his teeth clenched, slamming a battered baseball back and forth with a stinging hand against his stitched-up catcher’s mitt while he muttered out loud to himself.

He was suffering his own walloping case of doubts about my having to go to school.

In the first place, it was his school. And the idea of his naïve, snot-nosed little sister attending that same school would never fit in with his master plan, if he had one. But it was the only school around, so he had no choice:

It was time to lay some ground rules.

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