Thursday, July 23

Thurs July 23rd... Writing is hard...writing is fun...writing is giving...AND, Elusive too.

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Many times I sit before the computer, staring blankly at the screen or perhaps off into space and possibly, remain as such for as long as an hour. Sometimes people can’t understand that material doesn’t just come, as the sun appears every morning. Although the sun can be expected to rise on time every morning and you can bet that it will never miss that rendezvous with dawn, a writer can not expect any guaranteed that he will receive material to place on paper regularly or with any consistency. Some days I complain to Vick that I cannot come up with anything of interest to write about and she replies with her usual optimism and tells me to be patient and a subject will emerge to write about. Usually, she is correct and all’s well. Sometimes, she is elsewhere, doing other things and I suffer alone without my material subject appearing for awhile.
My blog writing has been especially sparse lately, I guess, because I have returned to my biography entitled, “Life In the Barren World”. It is a compilation of childhood stories and memories of growing up in the Scotia Barrens, of Central Pennsylvania, in the late fifties and early sixties. That was back when gas was 22¢ a gallon and soda was a nickel a bottle. Cigarettes were 23¢ a pack and had two pennies taped to the pack, as change for your quarter, dimes or nickels you inserted in the old vending machines. There were no convenience stores back then, so you went into neighborhood grocery stores or service stations, which were almost always family owned. The age of franchises had just been born, with the likes of A&P markets and Jewell Tea Co., but as yet were still rather sparse in our rural area, so we as youngsters enjoyed riding our bicycles to Guyer’s Service Station. It was a five mile excursion by bicycle in one direction. Many times I would leave home with a quarter and by remaining alert along the way, I would retrieve enough Pop bottles from the berm of the road, to more than double my money. In those days, everyone knew everyone and youngsters treated their elders with respect, because if you didn’t, you would have a shellacking awaiting you when you returned home. I remember getting a shellacking from a neighbor, along with their child for doing something wrong, and then receiving it again when I got home. We did have phones you know, and word like that traveled fast, so you could never beat the bad news home. This is just a small sample of the memories I am writing about in my book, but you can see now that I spend a little time with my eyes closed, relaxing and remembering those events. I then jump to attention and type the information I’ve just recovered from my memory. It’s pleasant and one of the more enjoyable ways to write a book... but it sure steals your time from a blog.


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