Santa Claus and some of the rest of us are tired.

The sun has set on December 25 once again. Most of the presents have been unwrapped, we've played with all the children in the family, we've overeaten, and everyone has had some good laughs. Nothing's left under the tree, and the refrigerator is full of leftovers. I pray your Christmas has been blessed, and I hope you are not exhausted.

PST The Dream Bucket Sale

The Dream Bucket is scheduled to go on sale today for 99 cents at 8 AM.  That is on PST, Pacific Standard Time.

Price Slash near End of Year 2018—Temporary

Put The Dream Bucket on your bucket list.

Limited time special: 99 cents

In appreciation for all the reviews of The Dream Bucket and to all you who have read it, I’m slashing the price TEMPORARILY to $.99. The sale begins December 23 on Amazon.com

This program, sponsored by Amazon, is new to me. I’m not sure when the price will return to $2.99, but it will happen before the first of 2019.

If you’ve read the book already, you could tell a friend to download it at this special price.

Set in the deep South at the turn of the century, it is the story of characters who, according to its readers, come to life. 

Ten-year-old Trudy loves Papa more than anybody else until she hears him slap Zoe, her mother. She is so angry at him she wishes he’d die. When he accidentally sets fire to the family mansion and dies in the fire, she is not prepared for the shock.

William has cautioned Zoe not to pry into his financial arrangements. She wants to know where he keeps his money in case his life should end. How will she survive as a widow? The family has nowhere to call home except a sharecropper’s shack.

99 cent sale, child's picture book

Who? Bubba, the Firedog.

What? A bargain price on a child’s e-book.

When? Beginning December 24, 2018, and ending about a week later.

Where? Amazon Kindle.

Why? Christmas price reduction.

How? Go to Bubba, the Firedog, Kindle Edition

Bubba, a happy dog, lives in a friendly village in Texas. His humans give him affection, treats, and love. They take him on walks. He becomes a firedog, who helps his owner, a volunteer fireman, by guarding the tools and by being a friend to the other men in the fire department.

Sometimes he is frightened, but he relies on his human mommy and daddy to make everything work out right. Sometimes he gets into mischief, but most of the time he is well behaved. He likes to play with his toys.

Free Christmas Book--Brother Star, Sister Moon

Brother Star, Sister Moon--free as Kindle Book

December 21-23, 20018

Brother Star, Sister Moon  

Brother Star, Sister Moon is a children’s story of the star that traveled to Bethlehem to shine light on the Christ child. Along the way the star asked his sister, the moon, to help him light the way. It’s an imaginative story illustrated by the whimsical art of Christie Marie Underwood. At the end of the book is a recipe for sugar cookies.

It would be fun to download this book, read it with a child on an electronic device, and make some sugar cookies to decorate. 

Overstock Problem

Could you help me, please? 

The Dream Bucket continues to be a popular selection. It is a sweet historical family love story.

Here’s my problem. Facing the end of the year, I have too many paperback copies of The Dream Bucket in my inventory. The space where I store books is bulging.

I will be available today, December 17, 2018, through Thursday, December 20, 2018 to receive your request for a free book. If you would like to receive the book, just drop me a message at MaryC888atYahoo.com. I will autograph it and mail it next week. Consider it a late Christmas gift.

Oh, one more request. I need to be able to reach the ones by e-mail who receive the The Dream Bucket so I can reach you with future offers and announcements. By supplying your e-mail address I am assuming that you’d be willing to hear from me.

After you read the book, if you feel you’d like to review it on Amazon or Goodreads, you will give me a wonderful blessing.

Natchitoches Christmas Festival 2018

Saturday evening, November 24, 2018,  my husband John and I went with two of our adult children, Christie and Brandt Underwood, to Natchitoches, LA, to see the Christmas lights. The city had blocked off the downtown street, which was packed with people.

Some features of the beautiful old city full of joyful visitors could not be caught by our cellphone cameras, or by any camera. It isn't possible to show the ancient brick streets, and no picture can show the joy of the happy crowd.

After a short walk, we arrived at a glorious canopy of multicolored lights, topped by a large red fleur de lis. Christie captured an interesting
shot.
 Maglieaux's,  one of our favorite Natchitoches restaurants, is located  next to the pretty lights. Saturday night, a live band was playing on the sidewalk with tables of patrons loving the concert. We walked to the inside of the restaurant and arranged to be seated outside after a short wait.

While we waited we had mini meat pies, which were the best Natchitoches meat pies I've ever tasted. We also had spinach-artichoke dip. Our foods included shrimp etouffee,  corn bisque, a hamburger, and a shrimp poboy. All the food was delicious. Oh, they gave us some excellent fried okra as lagniappe. The bowls of shrimp etouffee were so big and the servings were so generous that we couldn't eat all of it.

We sat outside next to the Cane River, which had an abundance of lighted objects along the river banks. Other years when I've gone there, I rode with groups of  people, such as Sunday School classes, along the streets to look at these, but this night we enjoyed other attractions. The blocked-off streets were full of people walking up and down. No one seemed to notice the sudden drop in temperature. Wide-eyed children, happy lovers, and many other sorts of people seemed to have enough warmth in their hearts to keep them warm.

From the outdoor court, we were able to see the fireworks, a magnificent display with more intensity than others I've seen in the past.  When we finished eating, we walked down the main street.

Everywhere we looked we saw something pretty or

something interesting. I loved the lighted renditions of reindeer next to the big light canopy.

Some of the shops were open. Christie bought some fleur de lis cookie cutters to place on a Christmas tree. 

We enjoyed seeing the three horses with long buggies taking visitors for rides. 

The loveliness of the full moon surpassed all the man made lights. I tried to photograph it as it rose above the concert given by Chicken on the Bone band. 

Go to my author Facebook page,  Mary Lou Cheatham, Author to see some more pictures and my Facebook page, Mary Cooke (MaryLouCheatham Cooke) has a few more pictures.

(Natchitoches is pronounced NAK uh tesh.) Special thanks to Brandt for driving us. John and I snored all the way home from Natchitoches to Shreveport. Oh, the joy of being a senior citizen!

Christie purchased a Natchitoches Christmas shirt:

Here's a little history lesson copied from a Bing Search Page:

Natchitoches is a small city and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the indigenous Natchitoches people.

Fast Paced

DEAD SEA RISING is a fast-paced, easy-to-read book, written in the currently popular style of using multiple timelines.

It’s a novel with interconnected stories that excavate buried secrets and hidden treasures in order to provide an understanding of behavior in later times based on the events of earlier periods. In DEAD SEA RISING, Jerry Jenkins links three stories from different eras.

The contemporary story is a portrayal of the attempts of a young highly-educated woman who wants to take charge of an archaeological excavation in Saudi Arabia to get permission to proceed with her work. This part of the novel gives the reader an inside look into the practices of the New York Police Department. Also it’s entertaining to see how benevolent rich patients receive special care in hospitals. This story is like LAW AND ORDER in that it provides a sea of red herrings. I guessed the wrong culprit. Up to the last page, I thought someone else had committed the crime.

Another story presents a look into the Viet Nam war. The scenes are realistic, and the events are tense. The tie between the main characters in today’s New York City and those in Viet Nam decades ago are the natural outcome of the circumstances in the last half of the twentieth century with some surprising twists in the plot.

The earliest story gives insights into Ur of the Chaldees, the home of Abram (Abraham), the patriarch of three of the most influential religions of the world today. Engaging in a covenant with the one living God, he laid the foundation of Judaism. Christianity, which results from the fulfillment of Jewish beliefs and prophecy, also claims him as a father. In Islam he is a revered prophet. DEAD SEA RISING shows life in a realistic way as it was in the time of Abram without violating any details found in the Bible. The character Terah, mentioned numerous times in Genesis, comes alive from the pages of DEAD SEA RISING with the help of Jewish traditional beliefs and Jerry’s imagination.

The concept of changing the relationship between Jews and Arab Muslims by “connecting the pieces of an ancient puzzle” (quoted from the back cover) is large and ambitious, perhaps more than can be achieved in a single book. DEAD SEA RISING is the first book of a series.

Jenkins tells the story in small chapters with carefully selected minimal details. He flips from one time frame to another by alternating the chapters. The reader will notice occasional parallel action, just enough to make it interesting but not often enough to make the novel seem contrived.

An impressive characteristic of all the Jerry Jenkins novels I’ve read is the extensive research of historical events. The selected details help me visualize the scenes, and I realize I’m learning history as I read.

Video of an Excerpt of #DeadSeaRising

Now's the time to go to Amazon and order your copy of Dead Sea Rising, which will be released on November 13, 2018. In the meantime, enjoy this video of a scene selected from the book:

#DeadSeaRising

Mary Lou Cheatham Interviewed by Hallee Bridgeman

Hallee Bridgeman, who writes action-packed romantic suspense, has sold more than half a million Christian novels. She recently interviewed me, and I am honored today to be featured in her blog. Here's a link:


Hallee Bridgeman's Blog

How many souls can fit in a tiny church?* (Answer below.)

Drumheller has a tiny church. Let's go there.

I haven’t traveled there yet, but I’d love to go see the quaint little Alberta, Canada, town that took its name from a coin toss between Samuel Drumheller and Thomas Greentree to decide who would name the town. Sam won. 

Photo of one of the beautiful
windows in the little church.
Vandalism has been a problem.

It takes less than two hours to drive from Calgary to Drumheller when the weather is good. Wouldn’t it be an enriching experience to fly into Calgary and drive in a rented car to Drumheller?

What’s in this remote town of 8,000 people to see?

Known as the dinosaur capital of the world, it’s a place to see dinosaur artifacts.

And coal mines.

In the Badlands, Drumheller has intriguing geological formations, known as hoodoos. 

What are hoodoos? 

Odd rock formations up to twenty feet tall stand like sentimental overlooking the region.  Blackfoot and Cree believed the rocks were petrified giants that came to life at night and hurled rocks at intruders. These soft sandstones gained their bizarre shape from erosion. HTTPS://WWW.ATLASOBSCURA.COM/PLACES/HOODOOS

Photo of Hoodoos. (Pixabay)

What else?

Drumheller’s Little Church is a must see. If we don't see anything else, we can't miss this.  Go to Drumheller's Little Church Facebook Page to see what people do there.  Be sure to like this page. It's a place to have a wedding, renew vows, celebrate an anniversary, take some amazing photographs, or spend the afternoon meditating about the joy of the Lord's presence in our lives.

I messaged this page, and someone responded immediately giving me permission to use the pictures included here. 

Below is a quote from the Canadian Badlands website about the church:  “Drumheller's Little Church, seating 10,000 people - 6 at a time. This church was first erected by local contractor Trygve Seland, in cooperation with the Ministerial Association in 1968 and was reconstructed by inmates of the Drumheller Institution in 1991. It was designed as a place of worship and meditation and not just a tourist attraction. Located on the North side of the North Dinosaur Trail between the Royal Tyrrell Museum and the Golf Course.”

*Answer: 10,000 souls, 6 at a time. It is estimated that 10,000 people have visited to Drumheller's Little Church.

Additional links: http://www.dinosaurvalley.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drumheller

Burden of Proof: A Nail Biter

What books have you read lately?

Here's one I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed: Burden of Proof

The cover caught my eye.

I'd like to share my review of it on Amazon:

Burden of Proof will cost you sleep. The two main characters, Jason and April, don't sleep much, and neither will you until you finish reading it. Be careful--this book is a nail biter. The tension starts at the beginning and goes through the last scene.

It has bonus effects. The opening scene made my heart race with its reality. The sensory authenticity caused me to smell the blood, wonder how the stains would be removed, feel the barbed wire, hear the sirens, taste the smothered liver and greens at the east Texas diner, and feel the softness of a baby girl's cheek. I bought it in Kindle form so I could listen to it and read it at the same time. Listening to it made it come to life. For me, an important test of a good book is dialogue that pleases my ears. Burden of Proof met that requirement.

Another bonus effect is the humor included. I could imagine a thirty-something petite FBI agent swapping clothes with a little senior citizen. April, the FBI agent, runs from a Texas Longhorn named Romeo until she tears the elderly lady's long dress, loses the borrowed shoes, and squishes her bare toes into the soft black soil found in a cow pasture.

I bit my nails over the suspense of this thriller, but what kept me reading was the romance.

If you haven't read a DiAnn Mills novel before, this one is an excellent starting place. It's her best book yet in my opinion. Also, it's the first book of a new series.

Have an enjoyable time reading Burden of Proof.

Liza Yates Too

Liza Yates Too

Free short story in Kindle version. Free for a limited time only.

Only the names have been changed! It is not part of any movement, but it set someone's heart free from pain.

Forty years is a long time....

Beaufort, North Carolina

On Labor Day, 2018, we visited Beaufort, North Carolina. We enjoyed looking at the sailboats and riding around to see houses built in the early 1700's. There are approximately 150 historical plaques. As we rode along the streets, we had fun calling out the years listed in front of the houses.

The town of Beaufort was first founded in 1709 and incorporated in 1723. I'm glad we had the opportunity to see this historic town before Hurricane Florence paid a visit.  It has a rich history. In the 1600's, it was first called Fishtown. Later the name was changed to honor the Duke of Beaufort.

Early industries included fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, and farming. These days it is primarily a tourist town.

We spent a leisurely evening dining in an outdoor restaurant. 

For a fascinating summary of the town's history, go to this link and scroll down the page:

 A Brief Summary of the History of the Town of Beaufort, North Carolina

We captured the sunset on our phone cameras.

 I saw a picture of Beaufort on the Weather Channel. It appeared that all the sailboats had been removed.

Beaufort has survived a long and rich history. With time it will surely recover from this latest Hurricane.

Source: Town History

Water Moments at Emerald Isle, North Carolina

Last week we came home from a long, relaxed stay at Emerald Isle. The pictures in this video are shots of Indian Beach and other spots nearby. Tonight we're feeling concern for those who reside on Emerald Isle or who have scheduled vacations there as Florence threatens to rip through the island.

TRAVELS, NORTH CAROLINA. Cape Lookout Lighthouse.

The Cape Lookout Lighthouse 

Monday (Labor Day 2018) some family members and I went to Cape Lookout Lighthouse. We loved  the boat ride to the seashore. I'm researching the material readily available online about visiting the lighthouse. The National Park Website lists different ways to reach the lighthouse. Here's the link:

https://www.nps.gov/calo/planyourvisit/ferry.htm 

If you plan a trip, visit the main National Park Service site.

We took water and grapes, since there's no concession stand or drink machine. We rode three miles to reach the barrier island of Cape Lookout National Seashore. On the way we saw some of the wild horses. (I'll tell you more about them another day.)

As we approached the lighthouse, we had the feeling of being on a boat with the lighthouse towering above.  The view is magnificent with the lighthouse sticking up like some kind of needle into the clouds. The water is pure blue with no evidence of pollution and no garbage on sea or land.

In the United States, we have only one lighthouse with diamonds in the design, and that's  Cape Lookout. I always thought the different designs of lighthouses were whimsical, but no, they are painted different ways to help ships and boats traveling in the daytime to know where they are. 

The diamonds also serve another important purpose. The points of the black diamonds point north and south, while the white diamonds point east and west.

Here's the view from the ramp:

We walked off the boat onto a ramp and followed the path to a little covered rest area with a gift shop close by. Then we sat and enjoyed our snack of grapes and cool water. 

The path to the lighthouse and the nearby museum is fascinating. In the direction toward the ocean, the sea oats are like frills of lace. The stately loblolly pines with their long lush needles reminded me of the loblollies we used to have on our farm in Mississippi. 

I asked the guide for permission to photograph some pictures inside the museum. She encouraged me to do so. Since the text in this photo is difficult to read, it is shown below:

A flashing light pierces the darkness hiding a hazardous shore, and a ship regains its bearings.

From early in the nation’s history the lighthouse beacon was the pulse of an evolving national system of coastal lighthouses and Life-Saving Stations.

To those who staffed them—keeping the lights burning rescuing the victims of shipwrecks—thousands owed their lives.

I took this photo with my cellphone from the base of the lighthouse. From not far away, it looks smooth, but up close it is possible to see it's made of brick. In fact, a small square had lost its paint, and we could see the red brick.

A group of younger tourists sat on the ground near the entrance as the guide instructed them about climbing to the top of the structure. Since it was a hot day, we decided not to climb the 207 steps. Maybe we can return some day when the weather is cooler.

An interesting Wikipedia article tells the history and technical aspects of the lighthouse. Cape Lookout Lighthouse
Go here to read about the early technology and the modern method of shining light to ships using electricity.

Cape Lookout Lighthouse offers help to save ships and lives in an area called the Horrible Headland, and the entire area is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

.

Mary-Cooke.com

Here's something I'd like to share with you: my new website, Mary Cooke, Author. Please go check it out. It has the book covers and descriptions of my writing and some trailers I'd like to share with you.

If you want to drop me a note, look around for the Contact Mary Page. I will be able to answer you in your email from my email. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Understanding the Roma

Roma people are from Northwest India. Historians have known this fact for a long time, but now a DNA study has confirmed this truth.
"Roma people in England are traditionally known as ‘Gypsies’ because of the medieval belief that they originated in Egypt.  More recently it became established that they actually originated on the Indian sub-continent, but, in the absence of archaeological evidence and written records, nobody knew for sure.  Now, a new DNA study published this week, has pinpointed both their ancestry in northwest India and the timing of their departure from the region to around 1,400 years ago." Quoted from Abroad in the Yard:https://www.abroadintheyard.com/dna-study-finds-european-gypsies-left-their-ancestral-home-in-northwest-india-1400-years-ago/

A study led by Indian and Estonian academics, including Dr Toomas Kivisild of Cambridge University, has confirmed their origins in the Indian sub-continent, and even identified the location and social background from which they emerged.

The findings have been welcomed by Britain's Gypsy Council, which said it would help to promote understanding of Roma people throughout Europe. "We are Britain's first Non-Resident Indian community," said council spokesman Joseph Jones.

The study, which was published this month in the journal Nature, examined Y chromosomes in DNA samples to compare the genetic signatures of European Roma men with those of thousands of Indians from throughout the sub-continent. Quoted from The Telegraph:
European Roma descended from Indian 'untouchables', genetic study shows

Travelers in Painted Wagons on Cohay Creek by Mary Lou Cheatham and Sarah Walker Gorrell, a historical novel based on the migration of the Roma people from northern India all the way to the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, gives insights into what their lives could have been. 

x

Bear Thoughts

Today, my husband and I were thinking about bears. They keep coming up in our conversations. John is watching The Revenant, which has one of the scariest bear scenes imaginable. “Come see this, Mary.” He called me into the den to watch a grizzly and Leonardo DiCaprio fight until one of them dies. It is an interesting scene—I don’t know why we enjoy so much conflict…John likes it better than I do.

Grizzly Bear, Pixabay 

It brought to mind the eight-foot-tall bear that stood a few feet from the van we were traveling in about twelve years ago. I was with a group on a mission trip to Lethbridge, Canada. It was fun day, when we crossed back into the United States to the Rocky Mountains National Park in Montana. We sat in line waiting to go through customs when the bear looked up at us from the berry bush where she was having lunch about fifteen feet away. Some of the teenaged guys ran over to get a closer look. They teased the bear, while I prayed with more earnestness that moment than I did the rest of the entire time on the mission trip. The bear just looked at us and went back to her berries. I suppose we didn’t smell as tasty as the berries.

My daughter Christie and her husband Brandt have recently returned from a trip to China. They

Panda Bear, Pixabay

enjoyed visiting the panda bears and brought back some fascinating pictures. They looked sweet, but no bears are sweet except toys.

Except for teddy bears, we don't need to move too close. 

In The Dream Bucket, Zoe had an encounter with a black bear. It scared me when I wrote it. Zoe was brave until she thought about it later.  Then she collapsed. 

The only encounter I’ve ever enjoyed with a bear was with the paisley bear I made Christie when she was a toddler. She still has it.

So what are bears good for? All the animals and plants of the earth are valuable to our ecology. Even if we don’t have a specific reason, all creatures great and small are vital to the well being of the planet.

Louisiana Black Bear, Pixabay

Recycling Facts Guide offers an excellent explanation:

Grizzly bears are terrestrial predators. This means that they affect the ecosystem from the top down. When they are no longer present in the ecosystem ungulate populations can grow out of control and alter the vegetation structure in an area. Another reason why Grizzly Bears are so important to the ecosystem is that they assist the vegetation by doing a lot of digging and foraging. This helps to mix up the nutrient level in the soil which helps to increase the ammonium and nitrate levels of the soil which helps other plants species. This helps the ecosystem where they live to be more biodiverse and have a more even equilibrium.

So why are Grizzlies important to the ecosystem? Really there are many reasons. One important reason is that the scientific community uses this type of bear as an indicator to determine the health of an ecosystem. A strong and flourishing Grizzly Bear population usually means a string and flourishing ecosystem with a thriving flora and fauna landscape

Source: https://www.recyclingfactsguide.com/grizzlies-ecosystem/ 

Uncle Albert's Baby Brother

My father, Robert, was Albert's youngest brother.  

School Supplies and Books

When young Robert started each school year, his mother gave him a tablet of coarse paper and a stubby pencil. She told him not to waste. These supplies had to last him all year. She had an income, which would have allowed her to purchase more paper and pencils for Robert and his siblings, but she didn’t spend her money that way. His handwriting, as well as his sense of punctuation and capitalization, were substandard.

And yet…

The man Robert, my father, could read a three-hundred-page book…anything I checked out from the library and brought home for him…in a night. The librarian wouldn’t let me check out a book until I’d finished the one I already had. She usually expected each student to read a book in a week. I felt bad because I wanted to bring more books home to Daddy. If I rushed and read the book faster, she’d say I was probably neglecting my other work. It was a hassle to check out another book before the passage of seven days.

I asked him, “How can you read that fast?”

With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “I don’t know. I just do.”

He never walked through the doors of a public library. In the summer my mother let me go to the library. I usually checked out three books a week. He finished all of them before I could read half of one.

By setting this example, he taught me to read fast and enjoy books.

He graduated from high school, which consisted of grades one through eleven with no kindergarten or senior year. Then he attended a summer session of normal school, which qualified him to be a teacher.

He never taught. All his life he farmed. The only work he loved was farm work.

Uncle Albert, the Newspaper Hoarder

The Newspaper Hoarder

Uncle Albert read the newspaper every day. The Clarion Ledger came to his mailbox one day late. On warm afternoons he sat on his front porch. When the weather was cool, he built a fire and sat by it to read.

He was a newspaper hoarder. In the front room, no furniture took up space. Instead, stacks of newspapers neatly arranged by dates clockwise lined the walls. In the middle of the room, newer copies occupied the space. He left aisles between the stacks so he could bend over and select papers from his archives when he wanted to refer to some article.

When my brother John Edwin became involved in Mississippi politics, the Clarion Ledger monitored his activity. (Albert and most of the people we knew in Taylorsville called him Edwin, but the Marine Corps and almost everyone he met after returning to civilian life called him John.)

Reading about Edwin’s activities, Albert sometimes disapproved of what was going on.

Once Uncle Albert, dressed in his best straw hat, clean overalls, and a blue chambray shirt, rode to Jackson on the Trailways bus and went to his nephew John Edwin’s law office to offer counsel to the young lawyer.

Even though Albert seldom left his farm, he was capable of leaving whenever he felt the need.

Over the years my brother changed. He was upset because his uncle showed up dressed as a farmer. A few years later John would have been amused.

The newspaper room changed in one way. As time passed, the piles grew higher. And then Albert died of cancer.

~~~

What do you have in your closet? Garage? Bookshelf? I’m asking myself the same questions.

My First Fish

My First Fish

Robert seldom took time away from farming chores to go to the creek. After he acquired two ponds on his farm, he still didn’t have time to fish. It is ironic that Tom and I have memories of fishing with him.

The Sand Banks of Cohay Creek.
Photograph by David Dees

“Can we do it now?” I shook the shoulders of the two sleeping bodies. 

           “Go back to bed, sweetheart.”  Mama read the alarm clock. “It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

          We went on a camping trip when I was a tiny girl, no more than four. I can remember myself with two ponytails, rosy cheeks, and freckles. This was the only time my father went camping during my childhood. 

          After carefully rigging our equipment–poles, lines, sinkers, hooks, and corks–we joined the group. Several friends, neighbors, and uncles loaded their families into trucks.  Everyone took cane poles, earthworms, wieners, Nehis®, sardines, cold fried chicken, blankets, and pillows down along the gentle rolling hills of the Powells’ place. We were invited to camp out on the sandy banks of the curved creek that flowed through Old Man Powell’s land before emptying into Cohay Creek.

They set up camp in a clearing where the sandy banks dropped low and the water ran gently. After a half day of delight, I turned into a restless, sunburned, chigger-bitten whiner. My cousins and I walked from one group of fisher-persons to another.

“Come here, Littlun’.” Pa couldn’t suppress his twisted grin.  “I’ll help you catch your first fish.”
Even though I could feel the pole moving and see the line going all over the little pool of water, I played along with him because I wanted to believe him.

“Be careful, Littlun’.” My father placed his hands firmly on the cane pole.  “Look at that bobber. It went all the way under. Now come on and pull your fish out. Pull hard! No, not too hard. Gentle.”
It was the most beautiful fish in the world–a huge bream with red-orange sides. 

Pa strung him onto a forked stick for her.

“Stay away from people who are being quiet and still, Baby. Don’t upset any serious fishermen. The fish can tell when you’re walking on the bank,” Mama said.

Careful not to go too close to the grouches the rest of the day, I carried my fish around and showed him to the people who were laughing and talking. Periodically I dipped him into the water to get a drink, but eventually he became stiff. I did not comprehend or accept the fact that my fish was dead.

That night Mama put my older sister Ruth and me, along with two of our cousins, to bed in a pickup truck with sides on it. She strolled away holding hands with Pa to a secluded spot where he had parked. Mama would sleep with him after dancing horizontally in the back of their flat-bedded 1937 Chevrolet truck.

The world was a wonderful place. As I lay in the truck bed and waited to go to the land of Nod, I found three things amazing:

(1)   The scratchy brown-striped blanket under us that my Pa’s mother, who claimed Native American ancestry, made using a spinning wheel, loom, and black walnut-shell dye to fashion the fleece she sheared from her own sheep into wool

(2)   The endless stars telling secret stories from above as they all talked at once

(3)    And most of all my magnificent fish, the biggest bream anyone had ever caught, lying on the running board of the pickup truck.

The next morning the fish was gone. 

Pa said, “The bream started missing his mommy during the night.  I took him back to her.”

Travelers in Painted Wagons on Cohay Creek