ALL THE MONSTERS IN MY MIND: Short Fiction

Currents in the Stream of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:51:00 +0000

Currents of the Whiskeyrye and Other Creeks are stories based around the area where I spent most of my boyhood. These stories reflect places I knew and are built around things that happened. It is subtitled "Stories of Hope and Hope Lost". There is a little of each in the tales. (You can go to the Currents of the Whiskeyrye by clicking the title of this post.)

The first entry occurs during the Christmas season as does the last. You might say the first story is hope lost and the last is hope found.

The first entry is called, "Child of Snow". It was originally written in 1962 when I was twenty-one. It was a typical miraculous Christmas fable about a couple who couldn't have children, but made a snow boy who came to life.

Yeah, I know. I think it came from a dream I had.

But it quickly was turned into something else.

There is a story within the story about a witch who cures a boy of his warts. That part of the story is true, except in real life I was the lad. One night I was sitting on the porch steps of the girl next door (well there was afield between her house and mine, but she was the next house on the street). This woman came along who had the reputation of being a witch. We were a bit scared of her (or at least, I know I was; I can't speak for my friend). What occurred was pretty much how it was described in the story. The next day my warts magically disappeared.

I have arthritis, but I didn't get it as a young man and it didn't start in my thumb or finger where the warts had disappeared. It actually began in my toes, just like the character Rusty.

But out of such odd occurrences in the streams of our lives do stories ripple forth.

I guess I should disclose that the witch mentioned as living in the hut up in the woods was in actually a different witch. I can remember that old hut high up a hill on the northwest edge of town. I never met that particular witch.

CURRENTS OF THE WHISKEYRYE STORY TITLES

WINTER

Child of Snow

Passing

Ground Dog Day

SPRING

To Steal an Apple

Portrait in the Park

Kaleidoscope

SUMMER

Day of the Roller Coaster

Henry

Pour Out Your Life at the Old German Tavern

AUTUMN

Brown II

Modesty

Terror and the Librarian

WINTER AGAIN

Along the Climbing Way

Nellie and "Passing"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:59:00 +0000

Nellie was my mother's dog. She was the first pet I knew and my first experience with death. We held a funeral and buried her in a suitcase.

The death of Nellie happened before the time period in which "Passing" is set, while we still lived in a town.

The real Nellie was never put outside. She remained an indoor dog to the end.

Nellie and me 1942 She "passed" the next year.

Story behind "Ground Dog Day"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:45:00 +0000

"Ground Dog Day" is one of my most autobiographical stories, despite the fact the main character is female. It is fairly factual otherwise, with a few exceptions. There was no Petey Lentz who froze to death and I never borrowed any one's trumpet to scare ground hogs out of the ground.

The description of the house was accurate. My dad began driving long distance after returning from World War II. At that time he pulled tankers filled with milk. The company that hired him gave him the house to live in, actually rent free, because he was a returning veteran. It set way back off Route 30 down a long lane half surrounded by a swamp. Just as the story described, there was a cow pasture to one side and a hill behind where corn grew in the summers.

We lived there two years. The place was pretty isolated. There were some places up the highway and there was one family with children around my age, three boys and a girl. The girl was the youngest. They were only there in the summer. Their father was dead and they went to the Hershey School most of the year. One summer day they were visiting me and their little sister was hit by a car and killed on their walk home. One of the brothers had seen some wild flowers across the highway and went to pick them for their mother. One boy held the girl's hand, but she bit him, he let go and she ran out into traffic. Very sad, it has always bothered me because they were going from visiting me.

The story of the pups is true. I saw them sledding, was chased by the mama dog, a German Shepherd. The daddy dog had been a collie.

The SPCA came and took away the mama dog and left the pups to die. I have had a negative view of the SPCA ever since.

My dad did dig the pups out after we put dog food down the ground hog holes for a few days. We gave the pups to friends, except the runt of the litter, which I kept and named Topper.

Topper was a gentle and beautiful dog. he had the

coloration of a German Shepherd, but a more elongated face, like a collie. i wish I had more pictures of him.

Me with Topper, 1949

Apples and Home Towns

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:36:00 +0000

The postcard of my one time home town when I was a boy was taken not so many years before the time frame of the story, "To Steal an Apple". You can see the scene described in the tale, the fruit stand beneath an old bank turned State Store (the state run liquor stores in Pennsylvania).

I believe you can figure out the inspiration for the story. Would it help if Jerry's name was Adam?

Days in "Battle" Park

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:17:00 +0000

My grandmother use to say, "better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it and remove all doubt". I adopted that as my life motto, although as a writer I probably don't keep my thoughts shut and probably am a fool.

(My grandmother and me in "Battle Park".)

Of course that is the theme of "Portrait in the Park". "Battle Park" is fictitious, sort of, at least that isn't its real name. It is based on a park from my childhood where I played a lot. All the parades in town ended up in the park and there was a sesquicentennial of the town that I used for the story.

There were pools of water in the center of the park, stocked with giant gold fish. They had little artificial waterfalls, but there was no obelisk or portrait in that park. There was a bent, elderly caretaker I remembered from my boyhood and I used him for the model of the one in the story.

(All dressed up with my date for the "Wilmillar" Sesquicentennial Ball 1959)

Colors in a Tube

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:05:00 +0000

Why Kaleidoscope?

For all those, like myself, who have some talent on display in corners here and there. Those who never make the big time, the big stage, who spend a life of performance in the local dinner theaters, the street corners, the bookstores and bars. Those, who for what ever reason never reach the limelights, aren't pestered by paparazzi or interviewed by Leno. Perhaps they aren't quite good enough, or perhaps they are unlucky. More likely they haven't the look or the connection or the resources to get that far.

It doesn't matter.

They have their fans, their followers, even if small groups at best.

There are people who look forward to hearing this one sing or that one read a poem, who appreciate a Boardwalk portrait painted, enjoy a live band over drinks or a story read with their coffee. And there are those who will never see a live Rolling Stone concert or have a portrait done by Andrew Wyeth or hear Seamus Heaney read his own poems, but there are those who may hear Big Suspenders play or have a portrait by Tracey Landmann or hear a poem by Dallas Kirk Gantt, and smile nonetheless.

Thank you all you semi-anonymous, talented performers who have made the days of my life so much more enjoyable and lively.

Behind the Roller Coaster Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 02:12:00 +0000

"Day of the Roller Coaster" is another very autobiographical story. I think I might have been younger that 13, the age of Toby in the story, when the events behind the story happened. I wasn't as aggressive as Toby in Sunday School either. I didn't like going and I sulked a lot about it, but I never tried to be a nuisance or made a fuss in class.

I did like going on the picnics to the amusement park, though, even though, as in the story, I usually wandered around alone. It was a small park with just the limited rides I listed.

There were two events which happened to me at this amusement park that I included in the story. They didn't actually happen on the same day. One is the three rides on the roller coaster and the other is the making friends with Harvey.

I was, and am, an agoraphobic. I am less so than I once was, but far from completely over it. It has been a problem many times in my life and it pops up as a problem for characters in a number of my stories. (It will in the next story in this collection as well.) I was scared even thinking about riding a roller coaster, but one day I did, at that little amusement park. I got on and rode it in a car by myself and I did it three times in a row. That was the first and only time in my life I have ridden on a roller coaster.

The story of Toby and Harvey happened on a different trip to that amusement park. Its told pretty much the way it was. I don't know what ever happened to "Harvey" in life. Sadly, after all these decades, I can't even remember his real name. But I can remember how he was treated in those days when we were both boys and that I had been taught to be afraid of him. I remember being so surprised to find he wasn't all that different from me once I knew him.

I don't know exactly what malady "Harvey" suffered from. I know in our so-called enlightened, politically correct age, the word retarded is frowned upon, but that was what "Harvey" was, retarded. The word means slowed down or hindered. I hate this hiding from words rather than facing the difficulty. It is easier to slap an euphemism over something and pretend you have done something than to deal with the problem. "Harvey" was retarded, there was something in him that slowed down him down and hindered his mental age from keeping up with his physical age. I also believe he had epilepsy, which is why he "took fits" as people called it then.

It didn't matter what "Harvey" had, it wasn't catching, but friendship was contagious when we really contact the inner person. "Harvey" was saddened by his rejection by others, but never bitter about it, which is more than I can say for my own rejected feelings back then. In that way, he was far more mature than I was.

Truths from "Henry"?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:19:00 +0000

There are a number of autobiographical references in the story, "Henry".

First of all, there was a Henry. I believe that was actually his name. When I was boy I often saw him wandering through town. He was strange and I was a little boy, so I was afraid of him. I was also curious about him, but no one would really talk about the man to me. They would seem embarrassed when I asked and dismiss him as "not all there".

I was a bit "not all there" myself in those days. We had lived in town, and then we lived out in isolation behind a swamp for two years. We moved back to town when I was 81/2 years old, but I was somewhat out of sync with the other kids my age by then. I had a hard time making friends and those I made were a bit outside the inner circle themselves.

The soft drink Upper Ten was popular in those days. It was like 7-Up or Sprite. My grandfather bought it all the time, probably as a mixer. I drank it a lot from a fairly young age, very much pre-school. I called it "wootie". It was a clear liquid, except for the carbonation bubbles. To my toddler eyes it looked like water and "wootie" was as close to that word I could get. I never did learn to say it right. We had some kind of accent in the family and I am one of those who to this day pronounces it 'wadder', just like milk comes out "melk".

The fair was an annual event I looked forward too. I was very lucky on those chance wheels as a child. I always won a box of chocolates every time. Hillbilly bands were common at fairs in those days. My dad was a country music fan and we saw a lot of these performances. Almost all had a comic spittoon gag. There was some kind of tricked up cuspidor on stage and at some point one of the band mate would turn it over and this water would pour out. But it never emptied. It would be turned over regularly and water would always flow.

The photo here and with the story on the currents of the Whiskeyrye Blog was taken by R. W. Tipton, who ahs the "Retired in Delaware" blog. I used it because it shows the bridge talked about in the tale. (Well, it is the bridge as it is today. It was quite different in those days as I describe in "Henry" and I was always nervous walking across it because of the wide openings. The story of them redoing the bridge and the board across the creek is true. I mentioned before my acrophobia.

There was no Mister Keltz. There was a hedge along one property that the home owners didn't like kids trying to squeeze through. The character of Mister Keltz was based on a neighbor of my wife and I when we first married and lived in our first home. He wasn't as mean as Keltz, but was just as fussy about his lawn. He would get down and sight across the ground making sure every grass blade was even. I guess my rather haphazard lawn care drove him crazy.

The ridicule and harassment of "Henry" happened, but not to the real life Henry, nor to me. I witnesses such an encounter against some other unfortunate kid one time. This kind of cruelty was all too common, I fear.

My Life and the Old German Tavern

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:23:00 +0000

The tavern I had in mind was not called, "The Old German" and the picture accompanying the story in Currents of the Whiskeyrye is not that place either. The photo is of another eatery that went to seed more than a decade ago.

The model for the tavern in my story was sold by the German family that owned it. It is still a tavern, but has a different name, different facade and probably a different style. The rest of the countryside described in the story still remains pretty much as it was 50 years ago, but I don't know how much longer. Everything else along that pike has changed.

Pammy was a reflection of a girl I went with in my teen years. She was a pilot and she went for a while before me and again after me with a guy who ended up flying helicopters. Although I used that situation somewhat, the guy never lost an eye. Brook's story was true, including driving himself to the hospital, of another friend of mine in those days. Dramatic license, you know, and I wanted the irony of when Pammy loses an eye.

Brook's scar and his explanation of being busted up by a break-away tire rim happened to my father.

That was pretty much the fate of that old girlfriend. She lost an eye and suffered a lot of other damage after a motorcycle accident. It wasn't as bad as Pammy. She wasn't left having to be cared for constantly with no memories.

The near air crash was also a true account of something that happened when I was dating this girl. As I said, she was a pilot at 16 and we would go up in a small plane on weekends and fly around. She stalled the plane and everything in the story told how it was except for one vital difference. Since my girlfriend was underage, even though she had her

pilot license, she was not allow to fly without an adult co-pilot. It was the co-pilot that managed to restart the plane and keep us from slamming into the woods below. Didn't make it any less scary for us in that plane. especially for me with my fear of height.

Other than those things, everything else is pure fiction.

(The author and his pilot girlfriend 1959.)

My Childhood with "Black II"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:06:00 +0000

"Black II" is the story of my childhood. For the most part, only the names have been changed. But the history of Blackie's family is true of my mother's side of the family. The narrator's boyhood hanging with Clarence on fox hunts and country bars is mine. The only real differences in this story between the narrator and me are I don't smoke cigars or anything else and i don't hang around in taverns drinking and crying over juke box songs.

I do have some recordings of the song "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train", and I do tend to cry when I play them because the lyrics do remind me of my grandfather in my youth.

The photo at the top of the story is of my grandfather back in the time of the story standing in front of an underground tank at the Iron Works. the photo was before he shattered his leg and his life.

The photo on the right is me in 1946. I am in one of the several doghouses alongside one side of my grandparents home. These were for my grandfathers Fox hunting hounds. you can see one of them in the foreground.

The picture above is of the author in 1943 with his grandparents. This is about 13 years before his accident and about 15 before his death. the dog you see in that photo was Nellie, my mother's pet.

A Certain Immodesty to "Modesty"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:51:00 +0000

Once upon a time I asked a girl to a high school dance. Like many teenage boys, I was shallow and selfish. I was also shy and didn't have the best self-image. I knew this girl wasn't one of the "popular" ones. She wore glasses, was slightly heavier than the ideal and considered plain-looking. I asked her because I figured she was probably available. She said yes and the next thing you know, she and I were "steadies".

We dated regularly for most of a year. Then one day my best friend asked me to double-date to a dance at his school. (My best friend is now known as "Retired in Delaware" in the Blogospere.) But his school had a rule that you could only bring a guest from another school of the opposite sex. "No problem," my friend said. "I'll take your date in as mine, and my date will take you in as her guest."

But when we went to pick up my friends date, she seemed under the impression she was my date. She took my arm as we left, jumped into the seat next to me in the car and she didn't switch over to my friend once at the dance.

This might not have been a big problem except this shallow teenage boy I was really liked this girl. She was pretty, a dark brunette. I spend the evening fawning over her and neglecting my "real" date.

It was not a pleasant ride home after I dropped my friend and this new girl off, but it was a long one.

My "steady" status no longer applied. I did date that new girl for awhile, but my old girl ceased to even talk to me.

And then at the ten year high school reunion of my class I walked into the bar to get drinks for my wife and self and there was this beautiful, sexy blond sitting on a bar stool...well, read "Modesty" and you will know the rest of the story.

Last Along the Climbing Way

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:41:00 +0000

"Along the Climbing Way" completes the collection, Currents of the Whiskeyrye and Other Creeks.

The story is fiction except for the bit about the middle where the couple get into financial trouble and the husband goes to the government for aid. There he gets turned down because he owns a truck and is told to sell the truck and when the proceeds of that sale are used up to come back and apply for aid. The truck was their livelihood and all they were seeking was a bridge until he could get loads and get back on their feet. It is stupid to say sell your one possession when that is also your work.

If you feel this doesn't ring true, that the government wouldn't do such a stupid thing, then think again. That is the one section of this story that is fact. That is what happened to my parents one time when they hit a real bad patch.

WINTER

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Meredith) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:45:00 +0000