Record crowd at Writers' Group at B's Condo - Part One

Bear with me, as Felicia Kelly used to say when we worked together at the Record newspaper in Horsham.

Gotta lot to talk about here,

  Monday

When I went to the Giant to buy a roast beef sandwich due to the power of suggestion, I asked a couple people if it were gonna snow anytime soon.

If so, was gonna buy a carton of eggs. No one knew, but there's a 20 percent chance on Monday. Here's the weather channel I use.

Every single person in our writing group is abundantly talented.

Drove Judy to Beatriz's condo. She had to wait 45 minutes for me as I was doing the second draft of my short story.

Judy's story NO SOLID CRYSTAL (I have no idea what the title means) was about an encounter at a Roy Rogers' roast beef palace. (My term)

If I'm not mistaken my kids and I used to go to one on County Line Road and York.

Written in the third person, one Stuart, age 16, is told by his mother to eat healthy foods. She names some foods fit for an octogenarian. Stuart goes over to Roy Rogers where he sits with an old man with crinkly skin around his blue eyes who looks a lot like Roy Rogers.

They discuss the old TV show, Dale Evans, Trigger, but not Buttermilk, Dale's horse.

BTW, I'm not looking at my notes. Too lazy. Am trying to finish quickly so I can go over to Scott's.

Rem and someone else knew where Roy's restaurants are located. Harrisburg, PA. I just liked it on FB.

  In the car I'm listening to The 60 greatest old-time radio shows of the 20th century [sound recording] / selected by Walter Cronkite.

Am pretty sure Roy Rogers will be coming up. Just listened to ESCAPE, a weekly story program. Tonight's show was about an invasion of Black Ants in South America. Quite exciting. William Conrad, who played Cannonball on TV, was the man charged with destroying the ants.

Very exciting. He was bitten and his bones showed thru but he made himself stand up and fight on.


Using my notes now, Stuart tells his mom he likes the fried chicken and biscuits at Roy's. If that doesn't make you lick your chops I dunno what will.

Beautiful story, Judy, that made me go over to the Giant. I am so stuffed now! Bernadette made me a very thick sandwich - I remarked about this on FB - on rye with thick slices of marbled-with-fat roast beef and Havarti cheese, spicy mustard and mayo, tomatoes, lettuce, spichwe-nichwe, onions and that's it.

Ate it in the beer garden, while looking at the Classified section of some newspaper. Gotta find a job.

Went on bike for 20 minutes after getting home. Spoke to Mom the whole time and told her the PJs she sewed are just fine.

Am wearing em now, as you can see.

Bought em a few yrs ago along with the tiger Richard Parker.

Bob McGlinscky,  Donna's brother, brought a short story called Summer Vacation.

It was the best thing he ever presented. He wrote it in a composition class in college where his teacher said he had a lot of potential as a writer. He revised it and it was quite simply a well-wrin story with a lot of surprises.

What's the worst thing that can happen on a summer vacation.

You can die. That's what happens to the main character. He had a heart attack. In a nice touch at the end, his wife taps him on the shoulder and says she forgives him for dying, instead of being angry at him.

We all respond differently to death. Anger is a common emotion.

"Don't you dare die on me now!"

GONE was Donna's poem. She wished she were gone b/c of the horrible feelings of her depression. A series of six shock treatments brought her back from the dead.

That was one good poem, we'll use it in the Compass.

She also read a letter wrin by Jenny, her boyfriend Denny's daughter. That young woman sure knows how to write a wonderful get well letter. She puts no pressure on Donna to get well and stay well. She knows it's a process. Of ups and downs. Donna will get further treatment at Collaborative Care. Rem approved. 

Temporary floor-sitter Allan Heller read a couple more chapters of his dark fantasy novel The Village of Blood and Stone. I particularly enjoyed a scene where one of the main characters, a gnome, nearly disappears in quicksand, after pulling down his trousers to do his business.

That alone is awful but the fact that he's sucked under is very embarrassing but fortunately his buddies pull his free. His business can wait until the morrow.

Allan was kind enough to refill my coffee cup about 17 times.

A Starbucks house blend. Beatriz was strong enough to make coffee for us - thank you Beatrice!!! - and also to write an excellent true story. See the wrapper of the turtle I ate from Whitman's.

Oh, said Mom, when I was talking to her on bike, in the yellow box? Yay, 93-yo Mama.

BTW, my sugar was low.... 73.... so I'm eating trail mix.

B's true story Twin Brooks of Yesteryear traced the history of her condo. It was so named due to the convergence of two brooks once teeming with wildlife, but not so much anymore.

Muskrats have been seen in the pond.
   

Jeez, it does look like a rat. Let's take a Wiki look at the mammal. 

Native to North America. I feel very proud and you should, too!

Donna began singing The Muskrat Ramble.

After ECT, your short term memory is impaired, but she was really sharp at the meeting - really sharp - offering good comments and wholeheartedly taking part in the group.

See how good our minds are when we feel like ourselves!

Beatriz wrote about the Lenni-Lenape, members of the Delaware nation of early Americans, before their culture was destroyed by Europeans and they were banished to barren lands in Oklahoma and Dakota.

She wondered if perhaps an Indian doll - made of corn husks - might be buried underneath her bedroom. And if, below the surface, relics are to be found.



 

 Judy said that years ago she volunteered on a North Dakota Indian reservation where conditions were horrible. Terrible land for growing crops and no clean water.

Please move on to Part 2 of this blog.