The Boxcar Children and Me

Everyone has a story about how he or she was hooked on reading. Looking back at my youth, I believe most writers concur that there is a certain memorable time in our lives when our interest in reading was inordinately piqued with a book or series of books. I believe that many adult writers were curious children who were fascinated with reading at an early age.

For me, it was when my second grade teacher, Mrs. Bernice Robbins, introduced our class to the Boxcar Children series. Religiously, every afternoon, Mrs. Robbins made it a point to read aloud a chapter or two of the series, by Gertrude Chandler Warner, author and a first grade teacher as well. The original work was published in 1926, then reissued in 1942. Gertrude Warner wrote the first nineteen stories while other authors continued the series, updating them with present day settings.

What is so special about this particular series? It’s an adventurous story of four orphaned children who create a home in an abandoned boxcar in the forest. They are forced into this situation after they seek permission to stay overnight in a bakery, but overhear the baker’s wife say she'll keep the oldest three, but will send Benny, the youngest, to an orphanage. The children are afraid of their grandfather and legal guardian, James Alden, erroneously thinking him to be cruel old man.

The Alden children, ranging in ages from fourteen to six years old, furnish their boxcar with items retrieved from a local dump. They also befriend an injured dog with a thorn in his paw who Benny names Watch. Henry Alden, the oldest, is able to keep the children together and fed by working at odd jobs in a nearby town. The girls, Violet and Jessie, are skilled in cooking and sewing.

Ironically, many librarians of this time felt that the children in the series were having too good a time without parental control, but Gertrude Warner believed that this was the reason children were attracted to the stories, many of which were written as mysteries and many of which the Alden children, as amateur sleuths, were instrumental in helping to solve. I tend to agree with the author. As a seven year old, I felt it was both exciting and scary to be on your own, hidden away in a rail car that’s furnished only by your own ingenuity. My personal fear that the children would somehow be discovered and sent back to an orphanage kept me intrigued and hanging on to every word in every sentence. Later, the mysterious plots and antics of the (unsupervised) children were the invisible threads that kept me engaged in their lives and in reading.

If you have not read any books from the Boxcar Children series, I encourage you to pick up a copy and do so. Find a young person and share the story with him or her. If you have read any of these glorious tales, drop me a note and tell me your favorite title or your favorite character. Or tell me the moment you were hooked on reading!

Why Do We Write?

Why do we write? I asked myself that the other day as I tried to put together a compilation of short stories and realized that I wasn’t having any fun. It had become a painful chore. But it had become a chore because I was weary of reading, re-reading and editing the same pieces over and over again until I could repeat them verbatim in my sleep.

So off I went to find an activity that would temporarily wipe out the hard drive in my mind. Naturally, the first logical diversion is to take a walk. But you can easily walk and think. A half hour later, I found I was mentally crazy glued to the project worse than if I were actually sitting in front of my laptop and even more thoughts were now swirling through my head.

Later that afternoon, I convinced my husband that we needed to go the driving range and hit some golf balls. I can sheepishly admit that I was so distracted and performed so poorly that I considered selling my clubs to the first person who showed any interest in buying them.

So how did I lose my focus and why did I feel distraught?

It took me all day until I was able to face my dilemma and realize what the problem might be. I was past the pleasure phase. I wasn’t having any fun because I was past the creative part of the process. I was no longer able to escape into the lives of my characters. I was finished designing my settings, dreaming up plots, and crafting new ideas and situations.

  

Yes, I was into the dreaded, painful editing process consisting of all the menial chores like verifying facts, names and spelling; confirming continuity of the various plots; rechecking grammar; and making certain every story was set-up in the same uniform format.

A writer friend of mine said that now is time when you need little rewards and incentives to nudge yourself toward your final goal of producing a complete, clean manuscript.

Oh, please, tell me she was referring to chocolate, jewelry, shopping or a good bottle of wine.

Ten 2012 New Year’s Resolutions

I will strive to. . .

Live each day to the fullest and allow the activities of that day to take me on new, winding journeys I never expected. “Ninety-five percent of the people who died today had expected to live a lot longer.” --Albert M. Wells, Jr.

Be more patient with people, family, processes, my writing, distractions—even slow elevators. We must learn that, like the farmers, we can’t sow and reap the same day.

Exercise more, listen more, laugh more. . . and let the future come one day at a time, as it always does.

Enjoy my home to its fullest, despite the work, dust and menial chores that surround me which often gobble time set aside for writing. After all, home is where you hang your heart.

Dream . . . or rather allow myself the luxury to dream. Dreams are the heart of creativity. “The poorest of all men is not the man without a cent, but a man without a dream.”

Handle criticism graciously.  “If it’s untrue, disregard it. If it’s unfair, keep from irritation. If it’s ignorant, smile. If it’s justified, learn from it.” --Anonymous

Be grateful for the doors of opportunity. . .and for friends who oil the hinges. As writers, we need our family, our friends and other writers who understand the trials and toils of the writing process.

Help find and better define truth in the world. We have lost sight of the importance of truth and honesty in our lives. Our media and people today have failed to delineate the difference between fact versus opinion. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”-- Aldous Huxley

Understand  and accept that peace does not mean the same thing (or have the same definition) for all the people who inhabit our world. Therefore, as part of a U.S. military family, I will pray for a peace that will remove all our men and women from combat in foreign lands and bring them home to the safety of American soil. “God blesses those who work for peace, for they shall be called the children of God.”   Matthew 5:9

Reiterate my daily mantra in the New 2012 year to all who will listen:

  

             “Never let anyone steal your  joy.”                                          

 

Lighting My World and Dimming My Patience

After a lengthy conversation about paring down the decorations for the holidays, my husband and I decided we’d only use five strings of miniature lights this year on our outside bushes. After all, what did we care that most of the houses on our block looked like a remake of National Lampon’s Christmas Vacation? We were going to be different. We were going to be minimalists this year.

For those who have a burning desire to test their patience during the Christmas season, I would recommend miniature (micro) lights be put on your list. Be sure to get those tiny, eco-friendly LED ones that cost an arm and leg at your nearest hardware store. And, be certain you purchase the ones that are advertised as the easy, low maintenance ones that are guaranteed to stay lit even through hundred-mile-an-hour winter winds.

We decided the easiest and most practical way to go about our task was to arrange some greens with white lights in our upright flower box that stands on the stoop, then drop two strands of colored lights on each of the two rhododendron bushes beside the door. What could be more simple and hassle-free? Five strands of lights total. Ten minutes flat to deck the bushes in magical colors. Fa la la la la! All done.

I should mention that my husband is the eternal optimist with a merry and bright sort of attitude during the Christmas season. His minimal holiday lighting effort looked terrific, understated and festive . . . for one night. Then a ten-light section on two of the colored strands, one on each bush for matching frustration, went out.

According to the package directions, this was not supposed to happen. However, I knew it was futile, on short notice, to try to locate the Chinese factory worker, Inspector-Packer Number RJ12, who was responsible for assuring eager buyers that the lights were in perfect working order. The toll-free number on the box was answered by a recording that put me on hold, playing Christmas music in my ear and finally winning the battle on who could be really be more tenacious and patient this holiday season. I caved and hung up.

However, the longer Scott and I pondered our lighting dilemma, the more plausible our conclusions became about why only ten consecutive lights on a parallel string no longer worked. I have to admit, I thought it was a result of the excessive rains we’d been having. My husband surmised some fuses in the two strands were blown.

So off came all the lights from the bushes. Minutes later, when Scott plugged them into the garage socket, he watched in amazement as all the strands lit up. “Ho, Ho, Ho!” he said cheerfully, “Christmas wishes do come true!” (Did I tell you he’s an eternal optimist?)

Actually, there was no logical explanation to this Christmas miracle except that taking them off had shaken the bulbs in their sockets. Thus, Scott made sure all bulbs were tightened and, with a jolly, “Let’s try it again,” he plodded off to the front of the house to return the lights to the bushes.

He had no soon arranged everything back on the rhododendrons, connected them to power, when all the strands magically lit up. . .then one dimmed and a ten-light section flickered and died. Again.

It safe to say that the particular string of lights is now residing in the depths of our  garbage can, replaced by a new one. After all, even the rhododendron bush was getting weary of being manhandled.

But I ask a favor of you. On your forays into the world of outdoor decorating, if you happen to run across the Inspector-Packer Number RJ12 of Brighter than Bright Lights, would you please let him know that I’d like a word with him?