Part 2: Dancing with one who danced with Pavlova

Left: Alexandra Baldina (Kosloff) was a member of the Bolshoi Ballet and later a principal dancer with the Ballets Russes, along with Anna Pavlova and others. Eventually, she came to the United States.

Photo courtesy of Susan Tyne, U.K.

Scroll to the bottom to see a video of Alexandra Baldina and Theodor Kosloff / Koslov performing.

"Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days." Ecclesiastes 11:1

Writers knead together assorted words, shape the mass into one form or another, bake it under the heat of scrutiny and revision, and -- sometimes -- release it upon the tides of publication. Most often the words are carried away -- perhaps lost in the vast ocean of words, perhaps run aground on a sandbar somewhere, or perhaps washed up on a remote shore, never to be heard from again.

But once in a very great while . . . .

In 2011, almost eight years ago, I wrote about being part of a long-ago ballet class conducted by Alexandra Baldina, then in her eighties, at a dance studio in Tustin, California. I was not-quite fifteen, growing up in an era of "Hey, Jude," "Born to Be Wild," and "Mrs. Robinson," and I only partially comprehended what an extraordinary opportunity it was.

Baldina had been one of the four principal dancers -- the other three being Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Tamara Karsavina -- who first performed Mikhael Fokine's Les Sylphides as part of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1909, in an era of radical change in art and in world politics.

Students doing floor exercises at Montmarte School 
of Imperial Russian Ballet, owned by Miss Irene Wilson, 
in the late 1960s. The wooden room in the back corner is 
where we changed into our leotards and tights. The 
seats and dais were used by the Tustin City Council 
when they held their meetings.

Photo courtesy of Paula Hoffman. 

Miss Irene Wilson, the owner of the Montmarte School of Imperial Russian Ballet where I attended in the late 1960s, had studied under Baldina many years prior, and Baldina had visited her studio on a day my class was scheduled. Quite literally, we were, in that lesson, dancing with one who had danced with Pavlova.

In the process of writing the post about the class, I searched for links to articles about Miss Irene and about Alexandra Baldina and especially for a picture of her. Eventually, I traced one to Susan Tyne, at the time a Grades Examiner for the Royal Academy of Dance, whose grandmother also had been a student of Baldina's. Susan sent me a digital copy of a photo Baldina had given her grandmother, and I included it in the blog post, published on February, 25, 2011.

And that was that. The words floated away, and they never came back.

Until July 2, 2014, that is, when an Anonymous someone left a comment on the post that she, also, had been in that class and had Baldina's signature. I responded and left my email address, but didn't hear anything further until August 2015, when the same person left another message, this time with a name: Paula Hoffman.

Hoffman wrote, "I studied and taught with Miss Irene for years, and I am still using what she taught me all the time. Had a class tonight in fact, and a chat with my teacher after the class about my training and how it intertwines with his teaching. I also had classes with Nana Gollner, also a Kosloff student, and Paul Petroff. Amazing, we were learning the real thing."

Again, I responded, but there was no further reply.

I understood. Email hackers and cyber frauds abound. Neither of us had any assurance the other was legitimately who we claimed to be.

In January 2017, out of the blue, another reader emailed me the link to the video below, which he said had just been posted to YouTube. The video features Baldina and Theodore Kosloff, who later became Baldina's husband during a short-lived marriage, in a joyful pas de deux. This time, I was the one who dropped the ball by neglecting to even thank him for sending it. The email sat there, unacknowledged, until I began writing this post.

Baldina's signature endorsement on the back of the check 

Paula Hoffman used to pay for the lesson that day.

Photo courtesy of Paula Hoffman.

This post began just before Thanksgiving 2018 when another woman, Roberta Patton, left a comment saying she had studied with Miss Irene for years and that she thought she remembered Paula. Patton also mentioned she had just been talking with someone about her past ballet experience.

Patton's comment prompted Hoffman to email me directly, as well, and to send the two images included in this post--a picture of students doing center work in the studio and a picture of Alexandra Baldina Kosloff's signature endorsement on the back of the check Hoffman used to pay for the class that day, April 27, 1968.

The cost of a lesson with one who had danced with Pavlova and Nijinsky? $3.50.

The words I wrote in 2011 had floated out into the blogosphere where at least two other people who had occupied that same place and time fifty years ago had read them. The three of us had, in the strength of that memory, reconnected and had celebrated Miss Irene and Madame Baldina. We were older than Miss Irene was at the time of the lesson, though not as old as Baldina. But still we danced, sometimes with our bodies, always in our hearts.

Such is the power of dance and of words . . . and of words about dance.

Postscript: In my searching for information about Alexandra Baldina, I also connected with Patricia Kaye Dienhart, adjunct dance faculty at BYU in Rexburg, Idaho. Dienhart's CV says she studied under Baldina from 1962-1971 and toured during that time with the Fremont City Ballet under Baldina's direction. I also discovered that my original post had been linked to a page about Baldina on The Dance History Project of Southern California's web site. I had had no idea.

To pick or not to pick

My fingertips are tender; my left shoulder is aching.

After playing a two-hour jam session yesterday, and four hours today, I guess my fingertips and shoulder have a right to complain a bit -- especially as it has been almost two, maybe closer to three years since I have played that extensively. Nevertheless, I am exhilerated!

Something happened this evening as I played with a bluegrass group called Willow, a group kind enough to invite me to sit in and play and sing with them every now and then at their Gospel Opry. For ten years, they have played mountain gospel tunes on select Saturday nights at a church in Seminole. Most of the songs I had never heard before, but these musicians grew up hearing them sung at church and at home -- and I have learned some poignant tunes.

So what happened this evening, you ask? Or maybe you're not asking, but I'm going to tell you anyway! :-)

For the first time, and after playing guitar for almost 40 years, I played my guitar with a pick.

That's it?!? You drew me this far into this rather lame post to tell me you played your guitar with a pick?!?

OK -- before you click off in disgust, please hear me out.

To pick or not to pick is just the surface question. It's not just a matter of preference, although I do have a tendency to prefer bicycling to motorcycling and kayaking to outboard motorboating. Maybe I started strumming with my right hand fingers because I didn't have a pick. The tiny town we lived in when I first started playing didn't have a music store -- it was so long ago I don't even remember.

But I do remember trying a pick a time or two. Aside from the fact that I'm not terribly coordinated -- so the pick usually ended up flying through the air or inside the guitar itself -- there was another matter.

Playing with a pick made the guitar sound VERY LOUD!!! Much louder than I was used to playing.

So loud, in fact, that I was afraid somebody might actually hear me play. 'Cause, see, I'm not a perfect player. Sometimes we play by ear or with lead sheets that are in a different key than we're playing in so I'm having to transpose and play and sing. And I mess up -- a lot. So it has been safer to play, but not to play loudly enough that anybody but me -- and God -- could hear.

That doesn't mean nobody has ever heard me play. I used to play for kids' church and for an occasional women's group. I used to play when I was a library story lady and I used to pull the guitar out and play and sing at home quite a bit. But somehow those times were different -- and my rather quiet guitar strumming matched my not very strong voice. So.

When I have played with Willow, it has been more a time for me to reconnect with my guitar than to actually add some sound to the group. They're all amped; I'm not. My guitar isn't even miked, 'cause I like to move a bit when I play. Nobody could really hear me play. I couldn't even hear me play.

Tonight all that changed. I bought a couple of different kinds of picks, and ended up using the one shown above. See those little diagonal lines? They're actually raised ridges that act as grippers so the pick can't fly away as easily.

This particular pick is the lightest one made, so it's very flexible. Even so, I could feel my right arm tiring sooner than during yesterday's practice.

But -- I could actually hear myself play! And I didn't sound half bad.

There's more to this little tale. My writing has been the same way. My voice has been heard in the publishing field -- I've had a number of children's magazine stories published, have written for a couple of newspapers, have a travel book and some church plays published. But, so far, it has been a rather softly strummed voice. I have a feeling -- just a feeling, mind you -- it's about to pick up in volume...pun intended.

Maybe I'll even get an amp before too long.

:-)

Of Gifts and Talents and Proclivities

Left: Our granddaughter's interpretation of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Photo and stylization courtesy of Jane Cato Studio. What you can't see is the makeup and tousled hair of her zombie princess alter ego.

Years ago, I read one of those how-to-live-a-blessed-life kind of books in which the author spoke of the time-released capsules she believes God builds into each of our lives. Sudden discoveries and realigning of circumstances had released new and unexpected creative energies in her own life. God doesn't give everything to us all at once, she wrote. He lets us discover, in His time and as we go along, the gifts He planted in us from the beginning.

I have thought about the phenomena of implanted time-released capsules often these last few years. My husband touched clay for the first time three-and-a-half years ago, and one of those extra-fast-acting time-released capsules burst open.

For me, however, the first sense I had that I could be a "real" writer came in my 20s. But circumstances didn't align themselves for me to explore that in all of its fullness until I was in my 50s -- a slower-acting capsule, as it were.

One of our responsibilities as parents, says Proverbs 22:6,  is to "Train up a child in the way he (she) should go." Most people interpret that in terms of religious teaching. But it also speaks to paying attention to the individual personality, abilities, and talents each child has -- and to the times they are released in their lives.

One of our sons was assigned in seventh grade to write a computer program for a game. This was in the Commodore 64 era when we played Atari's Pong at home and kids played that newfangled game, Pac-Man, in arcades. I don't even have the vocabulary to describe the game he created, but it was intricate enough that we had to buy additional external memory to hold it all -- and even then I think he only scratched the surface of what he had in his mind. Today he's the IT guy at a Colorado ski resort -- where he can also make the most of another time-released capsule called snowboarding that exploded in his life a couple of decades later.

Another son absorbed everything he could learn about fishing and hunting from his father and from other people and from books. Beginning when he was about eight years old, he often fished the neighborhood ponds after school when the other kids rode bikes and played kickball. One day when he was 13 or so, my husband and I were visiting my parents in Spring Hill when he called to tell us he had snagged a barbed treble hook in the top of his foot while fishing from a bridge not far from our house in Seminole. My husband walked him through the process of backing the hook out, which he did successfully -- and then went back to fishing. He explored the professional fishing tournament circuit for a time before circumstances limited his time. Today he's our go-to guy when we have questions about Florida flora and fauna . . . and fish, of course.

A third son would spend days in character -- Huck Finn was a favorite, corn cob pipe and all -- and he also learned to love the physical labor of building things. His second grade teachers commented on his "showmanship" when they filmed him doing a science experiment. When he played the Jack of Hearts in a fifth-grade production of Alice in Wonderland, the advisor suggested he consider a theater program  in high school. He did, but turned to building sets and running lights and sound in the technical theater program instead. Today he's the go-to guy at a major corporation, responsible for maintaining much of their physical infrastructure and equipment. And he's a backstage dad for his children.

Of course, our sons explored other interests along the way. They played baseball and soccer in the local leagues. They each learned to play more than one musical instrument -- one still plays around with music quite a bit. One has learned the art of selling. Two of them still enjoy reading books. All three are good writers, when they have a use for writing. They all learned how to cook and to use hammers and saws and wrenches and what not. Sometimes they still call their dad for a how-to walk through, but sometimes he calls them for the same.

Now our children watch their children walk in particular paths, or -- for three of our grandchildren, at least -- dance down particular paths.

Our oldest grandson was two, maybe three, when he started asking to wear my "clap shoes" when he came to visit. They were just my wear-to-the-office 1-inch heeled pumps . . . but he liked the clapping sound they made on our tiled entry way and on our concrete kitchen floor. By the time he was four, all he wanted for his birthday was a pair of tap shoes. His mom, a dancer herself and married to our theater son, enrolled him in tap lessons. From his first lessons, he exhibited an innate ability to follow the steps -- and, when he made a mistake, to correct himself back into the rhythm. Last night, I got teary-eyed watching him rat-a-tat-tat across the stage . . . and also perform a very sensitively danced lyrical number.

His brother was barely two when he memorized the score and choreography from the Wizard of Oz. He couldn't articulate the words, but the on-pitch melodies and voice inflections were there. He couldn't match all the steps, but he had the timing of Scarecrow's loose moves down pat.  Before long, he followed his brother into dance classes. Last night, I lost count of the number of dances -- solos, duets, trios, group dances -- to which he had memorized the choreography and inserted his own personality.

Little sister was just four when she saw Michael Jackson's Thriller video and started teaching herself the choreography, including the moon walk. Her reaction when Michael Jackson died? "But he's still alive in Thriller." Last night, she performed a solo version (a 5-year-olds' recognizable rendition) of Thriller at the DanceMoves Studio's final program. She can turn respectable cartwheels and has a lovely toe point.

Their parents have poured lots of time and money into helping their children follow these paths to date. What does the future hold? None of us know. They could wow them on Broadway or a different time-released capsule could take them down new and unrelated paths. For now they have learned the disciplines of working hard at something, of working consistently at something, and of sharing what they have learned with others. I suspect they have learned to walk hard, walk long, walk joyfully in whatever way they find themselves down the road.

Everything else is icing on the proverbial cake.

Insiders' Guide to the Greater Tampa Bay Area

Yesterday was the official release date for my new book (how good it feels to say that!), Insiders' Guide to the Greater Tampa Bay Area: Including Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater.

Check out my new blog by the same name to keep tabs on IGTB and on the Tampa Bay area. There's also a Facebook page -- if you become a fan, you'll get an update most days as to what's happening around Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties.

Here, I'll put the answers to a few questions people have asked about the writing itself.


How long did it take you to write the book? From initial contact to release date was just over a year. From contract date to the finish of the text was a tad over ninety days. That's three pages-plus a day, seven days a week, of research, writing, and revising. After that, I also had to proofread/revise the entire text twice, plus help create the maps.

Is this a self-published book? No, the book is published by Globe Pequot Press, a subsidiary of Morris Communications, LLC. 


How did you get this job? Short answer: It was a fluke. A writing friend passed along an email she had received that included info about GPP looking for a writer from the Tampa Bay area to write an IG. I sent in my resume and clips, and they contacted me. Long answer: There are no flukes. Seven years before, I had quit my job as a business manager and devoted myself to writing -- childrens' stories, I thought -- full time. Six years before, I started freelancing for Tampa Bay Newspapers. Four years before, I went back to school and earned by B.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eckerd College, where I did more writing in 18 months than I think I had done in my whole life up to that time. Six months before, I had graduated from the University of Alabama with an M.A. in Community Journalism, where I doubled the amount of writing I did at Eckerd. As part of the program I spent a year in the newsroom of the Anniston Star and explored just about every facet of community life through a journalist's eyes. Having lived in this area for more than 30 years, I had the background. Having taken the writing journey I did over the last seven years, I was in shape to get the job done. Even longer answer: In the beginning, God . . . 

Have questions about the writing process? Ask! In the meantime, help me celebrate! Ready?? 1-2-3 . . . WAHOOOOOOO!!!

Now available in bookstores and at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc. 326 pages. Softcover. ISBN: 978-0-7627-5347-5

Home Again, Home Again Jiggety-Jig

It's been a busy week in Lake Woe . . . oops, wrong show. Apologies, Mr. Keillor.

But it has been a busy three weeks in Writer-ville. A statewide conference in Sarasota -- I'll tell you all about it and, yes, that's a mustachioed me! -- a week in North Carolina and all the catching up to do once we returned home.

PLUS our church Christmas program is this coming Sonday, December 13, at 9 and 11 a.m., which means a bulletin and PowerPoint to prepare and all the last-minute costumes, mikes, and props to pull together.

Then there's my day job.

"Are you working?" people ask me. What they mean is, "Have you found a job working for somebody else yet?"

OF COURSE I'M WORKING!!!

I'm a freelance, self-employed writer who works at least 40 hours a week and often more. I write ad copy, I'm in the second round of editing a travel guide to the Tampa Bay area, and I write short stories and articles, some of which get published and paid for. Other work I do is along the lines of promoting myself and my work through involvement with a couple of different organizations, and still other work is volunteer work for our church and elsewhere.

But it's all work and I work hard at what I do. I also happen to love what I do and working.

So . . . the next few posts will be to catch up my faithful readers on my whereabouts and activities as I've been gallavanting, cavorting and otherwise carrying on for the last few weeks. It's been a circus -- and more!

Fit as a Fiddle?

No, I don't really use 10-lb. weights -- those are courtesy of Lee. I use 4-lb-ers . . . but they don't look as impressive in a photo.

See that logo? "Jazzercize Fit Club."

That top is my reward for having Jazzercized my little -- OK, not so little -- buns at least 150 times since January 1.

More than three times a week, which was my goal.

I started J-cizing almost three years ago and lost about twenty pounds and almost two pant sizes. I've regained ten of the pounds, but am still wearing the smaller size. Not quite as loose, but hey.

The main thing is that I can sit at the computer most of the rest of the day without my legs going on strike and walking out on unfinished work.

Who knew being a writer meant having to negotiate with one's own body parts? My legs' contract stipulates a workout 3-4 times a week and a walk on alternate days, my eyes get periodic breaks from the computer screen (they've also demanded an increased 'Zoom' ratio lately), and one arm sometimes throws a hissy fit until I slip on one sleeve of a flannel shirt . . . think of a blanket thrown over a race horse so it doesn't catch a chill.

Ah well. Things are tough all over, right?

In any case -- anyone out there looking for a good workout? Jazzercize combines aerobics, yoga, Pilates, kickboxing, and free weights and an hour of Contemporary Culture 101, as it's all choreographed to (mostly) pop music.

So maybe I'm not quite fit as a fiddle -- maybe a cello?

Twenty Years, Twenty Plus Stories

"Just Kidding," the lead story in this month's issue of Pockets® magazine for children, a publication of Upper Room Ministries, is by yours truly and marks twenty years since my first children's story was published -- also in Pockets®.

I can still feel the envelope in my hand. Not thick with a returned manuscript of several pages, but thin.

I can still remember reading the letter advising me that a story I had submitted to Pockets® magazine for children had been accepted for publication. Sign the enclose contract card, the letter said, return it, and they would send me a check. Not at publication, but now.

I can still remember thinking, "Maybe I really can can be a real writer."

Since then I've had more than two dozen children's stories published, most in Pockets® and a few in other magazines. The first dozen appeared between March 1989 and October 1991, and were written while I worked with my husband in a construction business we owned.

Then we closed the business, I went to work elsewhere full-time, our three sons hit their teens, and our parents' health began to fail. Writing children's stories went by the wayside.

Writing didn't, however. I wrote/edited a weekly newsletter at work for seven years, discovered drama, and wrote vignettes and plays for church programs.

As I neared age 50, I decided it was now or never if I was going to be "a real writer." I quit my job, went back to school, and went back to writing. I sold some of my dramas to CSS Publishing and began writing for a local newspaper. My second round of children's stories began appearing in 2003, exclusively in Pockets®.

Why Pockets®?

Because they take children seriously. They take God seriously. And they take their publication seriously, meaning the stories are well-written, the illustrations and graphics are top-notch, and the magazine is full of thoughtfully planned content.

There is very little that is "cute" in Pockets®. God is not "sweet."

Instead, Pockets® presumes that children face the same questions we all face: Why am I here? How can I get through today without messing up? What's in it for me? Does God really care about me -- even when life doesn't go the way I think it should?

Pockets® presumes children are spiritual creatures, as well, who talk to God and who listen for God to talk to them.

I deliberately targeted Pockets® magazine for children when I started writing children's stories. Over the years, I have written about:

• a child who has to repeat fourth grade because of a learning disability
• a girl who has her head "in a bait bucket," as her older brother says, because she's so focused on a Saturday fishing trip she misses the things that happen "this day"
• a child with a rambunctious dog
• a boy who realizes that, if Jesus needed a step-father, maybe it's OK for him to have one, too
• an immigrant girl whose brother died during a war
• a boy who doesn't know how to pray for his very ill coach
• a boy who wonders if God watches TV
• a child with an alcoholic mother
• a boy falsely accused of stealing something
• a child who grumbles that God mustn't want us to have any fun because there are so many rules--things like never cut another kid's hair and never throw food in the cafeteria
• a child in a group foster home who wonders whether God knows he's there
• a child who thinks "just kidding" is a good enough excuse to cause mischief
• a child whose best friend steals something from him

Real children, real world, real God.

It's been a privilege to be a real writer.

Best Advice I Ever Got: Know When to Quit

I can’t pinpoint a particular source for this piece of advice. Maybe that’s because it’s one of those maxims applicable to a variety of situations and circumstances.

Eighth grade Home Ec, for instance. I remember making a fruit salad that was held together with whipped cream. In the days before tubs of pre-whipped artificial fluff, that meant beating heavy cream until it thickened and held its shape.

Beat it one turn of the mixer blades too long, however, and the cream separated into butter and whey. No turning back, no turning back. The only thing to do was to start over with a new batch of cream.

Art can be like that, too. It’s tempting to work and rework a painting, a poem, a play before we let go of it. Just another few brushstrokes here, rework a scene there, and it will be perfect, right?

But work it too long and art suffers. Maybe not quite so visibly. But somehow inspiration and technique separate, and we lose the impetus that drives us to share our work. And isn’t sharing our work part of the point of creating it?

Quitting too soon, of course, isn’t good either. Cream not whipped enough returns to its liquid state, resulting in runny fruit salad. Half-baked plots result in stories that fall apart.

Knowing the point at which a creation is ready to be presented to the world is an art in itself. Not too soon, but not too late, instead of being hidden away under the pretext of not being quite finished.

I wrote this for the August/September 2009 "Hoot O' the Owl," the newsletter of the Clearwater Branch of the National League of American Pen Women. Enjoy!

Lazy, hazy days of summer . . .

. . . are coming to an end. Kinda sorta, anyway.

The autumnal equinox doesn't happen for another almost month, but school started today in the Tampa Bay area. And even though I haven't sent kids off to school in more years than I really want to acknowledge, the start of school is still, to me, the end of summer.

I only hope it's also the end of the "could care less, just leave me alone" lethargy that hits too often this time of year.

Maybe the fact that I'm actually posting a blog entry is a good sign!

Catching Up

More than a month since my last post and only one -- gentle -- reminder from my editor.

That's because he knew what I'd been working on. Day and night. Night and day. Marathon writing at all hours to get it done.

What is it, you ask? Well . . .

Check out Amazon.com.

I'll get back to Kalends and Ides, I promise.

All the World's a Stage

. . . and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his lifetime plays many parts." Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene 7

La-a-dies and gentlemen! This Saturday, I direct your attention to Stage Right, aka R. E. Olds Park's Art-in-the-Park in Oldsmar, Fla., where, at 10 a.m. renowned Safety Harbor ceramic artist Lee Anderson presents Formed and Fired, a display of vessels from his prize-winning Pegasus and Therapeutic Pot Smoking series. Also appearing at Art-in-the-Park will be Safety Harbor writer Anne W. Anderson and her NLAPW cohorts displaying their artistic wares and reading selections from their published writings.

On Center Stage at 1:45 p.m., we present Christian and his Red Sox teammates battling the White Sox at the North Brandon Little League Field. Little brother Jackson leads the cheering from the sidelines, while parents Brian and Kristina keep things moving backstage . . . a stage within a stage, as it were.

At 3:30 p.m. on Stage Right, it's Tyler, Caleb, Raelin, and Devon with their Dancemoves friends tapping, jiving, and hip-hopping, by invitation, at the Festival of States' FamilyFest in St. Petersburg's North Straub Park, all under the watchful eyes of parents Jeremy and Jessica.

But wait! There's more!

On stage at Ruth Eckerd Hall this Sunday at 3 p.m. the 100-voice Clearwater Chorus, including alto Anne Anderson, presents Carmen to Candide: A Treasury of Musical Favorites from Opera to Broadway Musicals. It's gonna be GREAT!

Whatever stage you find yourself on this weekend, may your performance be heartfelt and full of joy.

Sweet, Subersive Li'l Ol' Me

A few mornings ago I deliberately and with premeditation defaced a store sign.

Inside the store.

I had gone to the store -- which shall remain nameless -- for my biweekly load of apples and broccoli and assorted other items that disappear from our pantry shelves with methodic regularity. Nutmeg. Steel cut oats. Instant coffee.

Even though I carried a list, I strode up and down each aisle, glancing right and left on the lookout for unexpected bargains. Purposeful. Focused.

Stopped short by a laminated sign crookedly hanging above an empty shelf.

"Due to high demands," the sign read, " we are having manufactured out of stocks."

Hullo, I thought. "Manufactured out of stocks" must mean someone is deliberately manipulating the supply system.

Journalist that I am, my investigative reporter mode began to kick in. What nefarious supplier might be plotting to create panic among an already nervous populace by deliberately manufacturing shortages of groceries?

Or maybe, my more cautious and objective internal editor posited, there has been a resurgence of punishment by confinement in stocks and the demand from those so sentenced has created a market for an escape mechanism. But why apologize? Who would be inconvenienced? Unless the empty shelves meant the manufacturer was hoarding the item to inflate the price desperate prisoners would be willing to pay.

I began making a mental list of people to call, sources to hunt down, Web sites to scrutinize.

Then I read the rest of the sign: "sorry for the inconvenience"

No capitalized 's' at the beginning of the phrase and no period at the end.

Was the sloppy script a ruse to distract me from a more sinister economic scheme?

Puh-leeze. My jaded news-consumer self rolled her eyes. Are you that desperate for your definition of front-page news that you have to see plots and perpetrators under every stone?

With that, jaded news-consumer self marched on, turned the corner and resumed hunting down best-buys.

You can't just ignore that sign! shouted investigative reporter and stalwart editor. At the least, there's an entire educational system to take down: Teachers ripping off taxpayers by taking paychecks without fulfilling their contracts to cram grammar and usage skills into their students! Administrators failing to properly oversee teachers ripping off taxpayers!! Legislators funding administrators who fail to properly oversee teachers ripping off taxpayers!!!

You're right, my jaded news-consumer self agreed, halting our progress toward the produce aisle. Something must be done.

So I pulled out my pad of yellow sticky mini-notes from my purse and scribbled a few words. Then I wheeled my cart around and returned to the scene of the partially mutilated phrase. As I passed the offending sign, I reached out as though grabbing something from the empty shelf and affixed the glaring yellow paper bearing this strident demand:

How about apologizing for the bad writing instead?

So far, they haven't caught me.

Anne is talking back to her editor.

My editor tells me I'm not adhering to the spirit of the blog.

That line will sound familiar only to the most devoted of my many readers. That's how I started out my Just A Bloggin' Along post back in September, 2007.

Short, daily posts, he told me then and told me again last night. This whenever-you-feel-like-it stuff has got to stop.

I tell him that's what Facebook is for.

And I remind him that HE doesn't have a Facebook page. So there!

Doesn't matter, he says. Blah-blah-blog it.

Hmmm . . . I think I just did.

Every Living Thing . . .

...is the title of one of James Herriot's many books about his lifetime doctoring farm animals and pets in Yorkshire, England.

I came across this paperback while cleaning out cupboards and closets this past week. I don't remember how it got in the laundry basket full of yard goods -- and, no, that doesn't mean potting soil, cultivators, and petunias -- shoved in the back of my clothes closet waiting for desire and opportunity to merge under the needle of my sewing machine . . . which is shoved under the bottom shelf of a bathroom closet.

Nor do I remember how I acquired Herriot's book. No matter.

Suffice it to say not as many closets got cleaned out as intended. Instead I savored Herriot's stories of colicky horses and persnickety cats, of staid farmers and eccentric assistants.

Mainly I marveled at how neatly Herriot told his stories. Swift incision inserting the reader immediately into the scene, exploratory rambles among the inner relationships between man and beast, then out the same way as in, stitched neatly closed with a pithy observation or tug-at-your-heart thought.

You say you've already read them?

Oh, go ahead. Read them again. Some things are just as good the second time around.

Coming Soon . . .

. . . a new look, a new direction.

Coming in September!

Bye-Bye BAMA BLOG

After today, it's officially over.

Today I can still say I AM a Knight Fellow in Community Journalism at the University of Alabama and The Anniston Star.

Tomorrow the verb changes to WAS. Grades have been posted (4.0, thank you very much)and the diploma gets mailed next month.

Already I've been shut out of the UA electronic library system. That hurt.

Yes, I left Alabama almost three weeks ago. Turned in the final version of my master's project (Title: Community Journalism and the Community's Youngest Readers: A Study to Determine the Extent of Newspaper Content Directed toward Readers in Grades 2 through 8) on July 24, packed up, shipped off, yard-saled, and gave away the rest on the 25th & 26th, and left on July 27. Took a side trip to North Carolina and arrived home on August 3.

It was a really good year.

But now it's over.

Today's StoryPeople story reads:

I used to wait for a sign, she said, before I did anything. Then one night I had a dream & an angel in black tights came to me & said, you can start any time now, & then I asked is this a sign? & the angel started laughing & I woke up. Now, I think the whole world is filled with signs, but if there's no laughter, I know they're not for me.

So now I'm listening for laughter, ready to start any time now.

Anyone need a journalist out there?

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

"Once upon a time, there was a community nestled against the foothills of the mountains of northeastern Alabama.

The community had a long and varied history.

It had music and art. It had hiking and biking trails.

What it didn't have was a lot of high-paying jobs.

It used to have Industry. But then times changed, and the foundries and mills and factories shut down and moved to a place called Out Source."

So begins my editorial series, published in today's Anniston Star.

What you won't see reading it online is the layout. Full front page of the Insight section -- wow! Pardon me for a moment while I turn a cartwheel or two -- figuratively speaking, of course.

This wasn't just an assignment to me. As I've spent the greater part of a year here, I've heard wistfulness in people's voices ... a yearning that Anniston, and many of its surrounding communities, could somehow regain its former "Model City" status. I've heard more about the area's problems than its potential.

That's not to say there aren't problems. But every community, every person, has problems. You can let them consume your life, or you can develop your assets and trust that the problems get resolved in the process. Mostly they do.

Calhoun County, with Anniston as its heart, has so many assets on which to draw. Maybe they've just been taken for granted -- like heirloom silver service being used for everyday breakfast but never being polished up and used to serve company. Maybe my outsider's eyes will help this area see that "what might be" might be even better than what once was.

I thought of this as my gift to a community about which I've grown to care a great deal. They've helped me make a home away from home, and I'm grateful.

Who Woulda Thunk It?

'Tis the season to be jolly well into getting the tax forms filled out and sent off to the IRS.

So I'm compiling and posting and figuring it all up. And sorting through bills and papers so everything for 2007 gets put away neat and tidy for posterity.

Part of the process is putting all my published or produced writing for the year into a binder. And this year of 2007, I've discovered, was a bit remarkable for me as my work was published in four different genres and in six different publications, including three different newspapers, a children's magazine (short story), a literary review (poem), and an anthology(worship services). Also did some advertising copy writing and learned to write historical research -- a different style than regular academic work, which I also did this year.

I can remember reading a "How to Be a Writer" kind of book in the Pinedale, Wyo., library when I was barely 20 and thinking, "I can do this." I can remember taking a Journalism class and a Literary Magazine Production class at St. Petersburg Junior College's Clearwater Campus a few years later and thinking, "I'd love to do this."

But making a living at it was another matter -- or at least I thought it was -- and so instead of making books I kept them (the financial kind) and, and, and.

And kept writing a little bit at a time. School newsletters. Letters to church vestries and politicos and writers I disagreed with ("Not another letter," my husband would say. "I feel sorry for whoever's getting this one." They were nice. But they were forceful and to the point.) Church skits and plays.

Until here I am 30 years later getting paid to go to school and write!

"I alone know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "Plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 ... a combination of Today's English Good News Translation and the New King James Version.

Amazing.

Editorial Leadership

That's the name of one of our classes this term. And, since some of my many fans have asked for samples of my writing -- OK, OK, in my dreams they have -- here's a recent assignment:

Punctuate This

No wonder we can’t figure out complicated problems like health care and Social Security. We can’t even figure out how to punctuate Presidents Day.

Northerners of a certain age remember making stovepipe hats out of black construction paper near February 12, eating cherry pie on February 22 and having two days of no school.

Pity our children and grandchildren. The Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 moved Washington’s Birthday, as it had been called since 1885, to the third Monday in February. One holiday instead of two.

Side note: George Washington might not have minded the switch. A change in calendar systems during his lifetime shifted his birthday from February 11 to February 22.

The 1968 bill also proposed renaming the holiday “Presidents’ Day” (apostrophe after the ‘s’) to honor both Washington and Lincoln. But that part of the bill got lost, and it wasn’t reinserted in 1971 when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act was passed.

President Nixon proclaimed it “Presidents’ Day” in 1971, in honor of all presidents, but a presidential proclamation is not the same as an executive order.

Technically, we celebrate one president’s birthday (apostrophe before the ‘s’) because the holiday is still listed in Federal statutes as Washington’s Birthday. State statutes are another matter.

In Alabama, for instance, on the third Monday in February we officially celebrate George Washington’s birthday and Thomas Jefferson’s birthday – although Jefferson was born in April. Alabama Department of Archives and History officials were stumped as to why we honor Jefferson, saying only that it “slipped into the code” in 1907.

“Presidents Day” (no apostrophe) has become the officially preferred designation, in an attempt to honor all presidents, even though “President’s Day” is the p.c. – punctuationally correct – version and even though the Chicago Manual of Style and many dictionaries prefer “Presidents’ Day.”

And even though, officially, it’s still just Washington’s Birthday.

With the latest round of presidential candidates riding into their respective Jerusalems so convention delegates can raise the palm branches and shout ‘Hosanna!’ we should acknowledge the peculiar combination of destiny and drive that has drawn fewer than 50 people – very different in parentage, in education, in religion, in character, in conviction of what was best for this country – to occupy its highest office.

We should also acknowledge that we among the nations of the earth can most truly say to our children that any of them might grow up to be President of the United States.
We should not take either of those peculiarities for granted, regardless of whether we agree with the current occupant of the office or not.

It’s time to make it official. Presidents Day.

No apostrophe. Honoring our past. Keeping faith with our future.

If we can do that, maybe there’s hope for resolving health care and Social Security.

Just a-blogging along...

My editor tells me I'm not adhering to the spirit of the blog.

This is supposed to be an ongoing conversation, he tells me. Letting weeks elapse between postings doesn't cut it.

Mind you, sometimes weeks go by without my hearing from my editor.

Be that as it may, I guess I just don't feel the need to let it all blog out. Maybe it's the word blah-g. As in blah, blah, blah ... and is anyone really interested in what a 50-something has to say?

Maybe that's why I'm drawn to journalism. I like writing about other people--what they do, what they say, what they think. It's why I like writing children's stories, too. I can hide behind my characters. I can be any of them ... or all of them ... or none of them. And who would ever know?

So here you are, dear editor. A new posting in the spirit of the blog.

What? You mean I have to do this again tomorrow?!