O Christmas Tree!

How could I ever forget the memorable trees of Christmases past?

     Cutting a fragrant cedar at our old homeplace in the mountains and tying it on our car roof in blustery winds. Sipping hot chocolate, singing carols, hanging thin glass ornaments, one of which often shattered and left my fingertip bleeding. Or the cedar’s vengeful needles seeming to jab all the way to the bones in my fingers.

     The deluxe aluminum tree Mama placed strategically in front of the living room’s picture window so passers-by on our country road could enjoy the majestic beauty of shimmering silver branches illuminated in bright colors by the electric wheel turning beneath them.

     The petite tree Mama set on the drum table in the living room. My little brother knocked it over.

     The stately fir my husband and I found at a convenience store. We newlyweds brought it home, placed it in a stand, watered it, and draped its boughs with lights and gold satin ornaments. That fir brought visions of feathery snow falling softly in wintry forests. In reality, Decembers in West Georgia were anything but snowy. We wrapped our gifts and placed them under the tree. Only a few days remained until Christmas morning. As we settled down to watch holiday TV shows, we heard distinct sounds of needles dropping.

     The next day after work, we discovered more needles scattered on the gifts and on the carpet. We realized that, at the current rate of needle droppings, the tree would be naked by Christmas Day. The only time in fifty-two years of marriage, we gave up and pitched our fire-hazard fir out the backdoor while other families were still eating their holiday turkey dinner.

     After years of arguing about twisted strings of light, we needed to find a winning solution. We bought a pre-lit artificial tree we could enjoy until Epiphany. As we began the sentimental process of undecorating the house and placing ornaments in storage boxes along with our Christmas memories, we sighed. Even fake trees shed needles.

O Tannenbaum!

Published in the December 2023 issue of Holiday Cheer, an anthology published by Tom Davis, Old Mountain Press.

The Boy Who Wanted a Bicycle

       On Christmas morning in 1957, my sister and I discovered a surprising gift, one which neither of us remembers ever asking Santa Claus to bring us. There, under our Christmas tree, stood a girl’s bicycle. We noticed an immediate problem: Was it a size 26, 27, or 28 inch bike? I don’t remember, but it was far too high for me. It may as well have been size 50.

       My sister and I rolled it out on the front porch. It was the dead of winter. Not a good time for me to learn to ride. Not January or February either—or any other month. The bike was impossibly high. There was no way I could sit on the seat and reach the pedals at the same time.

       Why did my parents buy a bicycle that was too big for a third grader? It wasn’t the same as purchasing clothes for a child, choosing a size bigger dress and sweater, and allowing the child to grow into them rather than buying clothes that fit.

       We lived in a rural area. Maybe they couldn’t find the right height. Maybe it was on sale. Maybe it was all they could afford at Western Auto. But why such a big bicycle that a child has to learn to ride it standing up, growing into it like it was one of my older sister’s hand-me down dresses.

        I walked around the bike on the porch, longing to be able to ride it, but I didn’t know how. So there it stood for months on its kickstand. Finally, in the summer of 1958, I took the beast by the horns. It was the summer before fourth grade. I led the bike down the front steps and out into our dirt driveway, put one leg over on the left of the bike, gripped the handle bars, and put one foot on a pedal. Then I tried to add the other foot.

       How many times did I fall that day? Every day? I always got up and tried again. I had to force myself to ride my bike standing up. I couldn’t sit on the seat because my feet still wouldn’t reach those pedals. There was no way to adjust the seat much lower. My sister tried once, fell, and gave up on the spot. She went back in the house to read a book. She never learned to ride a bicycle. I was the family tree-climbing, bike-riding tomboy.

       One night, I was getting into the tub to take a bath. My mother was at the sink, and I heard her gasp. My hips and backside were covered in bruises I received from bumping the horn of the bicycle seat. My best friend had died of leukemia after our first grade year. Her early symptoms appeared as bruises. She was only seven years old when she passed away. There was not much that could be done for childhood leukemia in 1956.

       I assured Mama I was okay. I explained to her why I had the bruises. I was determined to master that bicycle, no matter what.

       Success at last. I rode that bike every day. I looked for every bump in the yard to ride over, to feel the exhilaration of a brief moment of lift and speed. I never could ride in my grandmother’s yard next door. Her dirt driveway was full of sandy spots and loose stones, along with an occasional copperhead. In the evening, I rode to our backdoor steps, put down the kickstand, and headed inside for supper. In the mornings when I didn’t have school, I hopped on the bike after breakfast.

       Sometimes Daddy came outside and joined me in the driveway. I wasn’t really sure if he could ride at all, but he was over six feet tall so he could ride a few yards before coming to a stop, his long legs giving him balance. I can still see him sitting on the bicycle in our driveway, trying to ride with the front wheel wobbling. I will never know if he’d ever learned how to ride one.

       It was only as I grew older that I heard this story from my grandmother.

       Daddy was born in 1920 outside Bullochville, Georgia, which is now Warm Springs. He spent his early years in what we call “up in the mountain” in Harris County near the tiny town of Shiloh. Times were indeed bad. He was a child during the Great Depression. Day-to-day life was hard for his parents. My grandfather had become deaf as a young man during basic training for World War I. Booms from heavy gunfire had damaged his hearing. He had to return home, and the family lived off farming and hunting.

       As a boy, my father asked for a bicycle. My grandfather refused. They couldn’t afford one. Ten years later my grandmother told my grandfather that Daddy’s little sister really wanted a bicycle. My grandfather put his foot down.

       “No! We didn’t buy one for her brother, so we’re not buying one for her either.”

       As I thought back to Christmas 1957, the truth  slowly dawned on me. My father wanted to give his children something he always longed to have, something we took for granted until much later. He bought Santa’s surprise, not only for us, but for the boy who always wanted a bicycle.

To a Daffodil

All around me in my world of the North Georgia mountains, I see daffodils blooming along roadsides and in yards. Some of those roadside daffodils were planted by an unknown gardener in a homeplace years ago. Many of my memories of childhood include daffodils, whether at my grandmother’s house or at our old homeplace in the mountain. I remember picking a few to put on my grandfather’s grave. To me, daffodils personify spring and resurrection. I don’t believe in picking daffodils, or flowers in my yard, only to throw them into the trashcan when the flowers are spent. I have reverence for them.

To a Daffodil

blooming among your sisters

along the roadside, in years past

a trail of dirt and dust,

now a black ribbon of asphalt.

Once upon a time

in an old homeplace,

someone dreamed of what

you would become.

You were not like the others

bearing single trumpets,

growing farther down the hill.

Your stem carried a flower

dressed in layers of petals

so heavy the stem bent.

You wept as your face lay

in the damp soil near a ditch,

your hopes for spring dashed.

I could not leave you there.

Your fate was worse than death.

So I plucked you from your sisters,

your destiny found in the crystal vase

on the counter by my kitchen sink.

I loved the soft scent of you.

Your elegance and grace

brought life to a dull world

of kitchen grease and dreams

swirling down a drain.

You lifted yourself

in golden yellow glory.

You raised your face

as far as you could

before your soft petals

turned crisp and opaque

like tissue paper.

It was time for you to go—

     not into the trash bin,

     not into the weeds.

I lifted you from silky water,

 carried you in my hand

like a royal scepter,

and plodded along in sadness

until I reached your home

by the roadside—

near a roll of unused black cable

and a telephone pole

that smells of creosote.

Beauty in spite of circumstance.

Sleep among your sisters now

until their time comes to an end.

Your life was ephemeral

as is true for all of us.

Carroll S. Taylor

Bullies by Any Other Name Still Stink

In both of my young adult novels, Chinaberry Summer and Chinaberry Summer on the Other Side, one of the recurring themes is bullying. Spud McKenna is frequently the target of bullying from all directions. A new bully torments him every year in school, his teacher Miss Maude Jones loves to humiliate him in front of the class, and his great-grandmother Pearl delights in her withering, preachy criticism of Spud. Of course, in Sunday morning church services, Pearl’s self-righteous, judgmental self is seated in a pew as she sanctimoniously acts as if she will be raptured to heaven any minute.

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – Shakespeare. A bully by any other name would still stink. (Yes, there was a bully in Romeo and Juliet—his name was Tybalt. Bullies abound in literature.)

At the inner core of a bully is a trembling coward. One who appears strong, who struts and preens to appear powerful because no one will stand up to the monster. On the inside, the bully fears people will discover the weakling he really is. He alone bullies his victim or relies on cronies to do his bidding, to double-up and amplify the harm aimed against his chosen victim or victims, whom he often blames.

Schools have launched programs to stop bullying, as they should, but the truth is that there will always be bullies. In the military, in our workplaces, in our churches, in athletics and sports teams, in our families, and, sadly, in our schools—whether it’s students, teachers, or administrators. As an educator, during my career, I have worked with students, teachers, and principals who were bullies. They do exist.

Bullying is everywhere in politics, from the bottom of the scale to the White House’s former occupant who continues to insult and bully others without remorse or consequence. Bullying is in television programs and movies. It’s everywhere in social media. Twisted perceptions fill the Internet. Some gleefully encourage and support bullying, so long as it’s not directed at them. Some find bullying funny.

Bullies all have a common denominator: a perceived feeling of self-justification for mistreating other people because they believe themselves as somehow superior, despite their weaknesses and fragile egos. For them, the end justifies the means, and the” means” is a code word for unlimited power to do as they wish, other people’s lives be damned. What is spousal abuse if not a form of bullying? On a grand scale, Vladimir Putin is a bully.

Yes, we create groups to try to end bullying in schools, yet younger and younger children are taking their own lives because they can’t tolerate the constant harassment anymore. They are hounded by endless social media interactions, day and night. Many parents refuse to monitor the interactions of their children on the Internet. In some cases, parents encourage their children to be bullies. There have even been discoveries that it is the parents themselves masquerading as their child to bully a classmate on Facebook.

As adults we need to take a long look at ourselves. Fat shaming. Judging people by their gender, skin color, nationality, religion. Dividing people into two groups by choosing those who meet our approval and those we classify as “others.” Refusal to believe that we all have the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Somewhere along the way, we have lost sight of the word evil. We make excuses for bad behavior and try to explain it away or to justify it. We try to sugar coat it in psychological terms, as if we’re giving the predators a pass for their bad behavior. However, there is no excuse for bullying. There is no excuse for evil. Each of us has one life to live, and it should not be lived under a dark cloud of bullying.

Indeed, we will never rid our society of bullies. They are the unwelcome weeds in the flower gardens of life, growing there only for the purpose to exist and sap the life out of the beauty around them. They feed on their narcissism and the approval of their supporters. Many gardeners have given up trying to pull out the weeds. They have given up on joy.

Yes, we should try to eliminate bullying in schools, but as a retired educator, I also believe we should equip students with life skills to deal with bullies. Those skills will carry students forward from school days to university or technical school, to the military, to the workplace, to marriage, to the annoying relatives who show up at Thanksgiving only to try to force their politics on family members who dread to see them every year.

Bullies are like chickenpox and shingles. They cause days of misery and frequently leave scars. Now we have vaccines against those two ailments. What is our vaccination against bullying? Resolve.

In Chinaberry Summer on the Other Side, Spud grows a backbone. He has finally had enough of his great-grandmother Pearl, whom Sissie compares to a snapping turtle. At the age of twelve, he stands up to Pearl and chastises her for her constant bullying, even though he knows he will likely face punishment. He has no choice. The adults in his family know what’s happening yet refuse to confront Pearl and defend him against her.

Adults need to face the truth. Belittling children, teaching children to be prejudicial, abusing children in any way, abusing co-workers, demeaning women, holding oneself as superior to others—those behaviors are clear forms of bullying. It’s time for those behaviors to stop. It’s time for families to say, “This behavior in our family stops now. We will not pass it down to our children and grandchildren.”

I’m reminded of a wonderful meme I shared on Facebook a while back. There were chess pieces, which hold, of course, different social standing on the game board. The words read, “When the chess game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” [Exact origin uncertain]

Bullying is not a right afforded to anyone of any age, ethnicity, or social status.

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the ultimate bullies, Nazis, on April 9, 1945, at the age of 39, said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

It’s way past time for us to speak. It’s time to call evil by its name.

Beneath the Sky and Waters

When I moved to Hiawassee full-time in 2016, I had one published young adult novel, Chinaberry Summer, and I was in the midst of completing my second book, Chinaberry Summer: On the Other Side. I can’t leave out Feannag the Crow, who hatched here in my mind.

Over the years, I’ve dabbled a bit in poetry, beginning in my teens, but I never imagined that I would discover a great love for writing poetry. I credit the beauty of our Appalachian surroundings and my sweet husband’s patience while I focus on writing and appear distant sometimes—because I’m writing in my head. I also must give credit to North Carolina Writers’ Network-West and my amazing friends here who support each other. Our NCWNW director Glenda Beall has encouraged me, as well as countless other writers, to improve our craft.

A few weeks ago, I was part of the first of four Scribes on Stage events at the Peacock Performing Arts Center in Hayesville. N.C. I was set to work backstage with the stage manager, but we had snow that day. My poet friend was scheduled to read that night, but she was snowed in at her house in the mountains. I volunteered to step in for her on the program. Never in my life did I imagine that one day I would stand in front of an audience in a theatre and read my poetry. Yes, we grow older, but how wonderful it is to discover something new about ourselves in the later years of our lives.

I have now ventured into a whole new realm. Our second Scribes on Stage event, A Night of One-Act Plays, is set to hit the stage at the Peacock on April 2. You guessed it. I’m one of the playwrights. My friend and collaborator Raven and I researched and wrote Beneath the Sky and Waters, a brief history of Clay County and Hayesville, NC. We’re also skimming the surface of the deep and beautiful history of the Cherokee in Clay County. More on that later in my journals.

It's no accident that the words journal and journey are related.

Onward and upward!

Peanuts for Breakfast

Every day my crows hear the loud beeping sound my red golf cart makes when I put it in reverse, and they watch me from the trees. One of the crows begins to caw faster to alert his family. He's the watcher. He knows what’s coming.  When I pull up to feed them, in all of the entire meadow, they choose to deliberately fly over the cart. When it's sunny, their shadow passes over me. I think it's a salute, their way of saying, "Thank you!"

          Friday morning two of my four crows were waiting in a poplar tree near the porch, perched together on a limb, looking into the window to let me know they were ready for their peanuts. I was trying to drink my first cup of coffee, but they sailed into a fly-by past the porch to make sure I saw them. It was 32 degrees outside that Friday morning. The crows didn’t care.

          The next Tuesday morning a landscaper came to our house with a grinder to grind down a number of troublesome old stumps, one of which is in the area where I feed my crows. The grinder was noisy, but my crows had already let me know it was past time for their peanuts. I knew they wouldn't fly near that loud machinery. I decided to take a chance and scatter peanuts in the driveway. I soon regretted the decision because I realized I needed to leave on an errand, and I figured I'd have to sweep up the peanuts. What happened next was a comedy. In about five minutes after I tossed out the peanuts, my crows swooped down. They were picking up at least two peanut hulls in their beaks at a time. One tried to carry three, but he ended up having to drop it and come back for it a few moments later.

          My crows don't eat the peanuts where they find them. They fly off, eat, and fly back for another peanut. Sometimes they pass each other coming and going. That day it was as if they had found a treasure. In minutes, the driveway was picked clean.

          Yesterday morning, I had an appointment, and I didn't have time to feed my crow family before I left. Hugh was outside on his tractor when, suddenly, a crow flew down and landed in front of him fairly close. The crow began to jump up and down and caw with a loud voice. Hugh yelled, "She's not here. She'll feed you when she gets back home." Now I have my husband talking to the crows, too! The tractor was loud, but the crow refused to move before finally giving up.

          When I returned home, I scattered peanuts later than usual. There were no crows at the feeding spot, but there were blue jays and squirrels. Blue jays are corvids, too, and they're greedy, so I'm not sure how many peanuts the crows managed to find when they finally flew in.

          This morning, I guess all was forgiven. I received a fly-over crow shadow passing by my cart when I tossed out their peanuts in the usual place. Sometimes it's tempting to stay in bed on cold mornings, but my crows give me a good reason to get moving. We'll see what tomorrow brings for my little feathery friends. They always look so sweet, flying off, satisfied, carrying at least one whole peanut hull in their beaks, maybe more, their little legs and feet hanging down as they fly. That's the only crows' feet I like.

Arachne

Arachne built her web in the corner of the porch on my husband’s workshop. Every day for weeks I watched as she added more strands and expanded her kingdom. She appeared to eat well. One day she was munching on an unlucky katydid that was bigger than she was.

Then she began to write, expressing herself in zig-zags. She was a natural geometrician with instinctive skills, a wonder to watch as she sat quietly in her web, waiting for lunch to fly in.

Today I discovered her web empty. Her body was lying on the concrete below. It broke my heart. I cried.

This has been a difficult year. We took our calico cat Peaches to the vet in early January for her yearly check-up. As I was going out the door to leave for the vet‘s office, my sister called me, in tears. Her daughter Kim was being placed on a ventilator. Her COVID-19 infection had turned deadly.

At the vet’s, we discovered Peaches was dying of lymphoma. We had no idea. She crossed the rainbow bridge on January 29. A few days later, my niece passed away on February 2.

In September, we lost another loved one on my husband’s side of the family. Our niece lost her young husband to COVID-19.

Perhaps it’s silly to cry over a dead spider. Spiders die all the time, but Arachne’s death was that one small event that seemed to trigger my grief. It also reminded me of the fragility of life.

No person, pet, or critter is insignificant. Spud McKenna knows that, and so does Sissie Stevenson.

Every living creature is part of our natural world. We are connected together.

I came back inside and jotted down this poem for Arachne.

Arachne

She’s gone.

Her home is empty.

Her slender body,

with its perfect pattern

of yellow and black, lies

lifeless below on concrete.

The writing in her web

she left behind,

like a poet

who never finished

her life’s songs.

Her legs,

like thin ink pens,

will never write again.

Perhaps she succumbed

to the frosty night air

or she reached the end

of her cycle of time.

We placed her body on

a dried brown leaf

and slipped her

back into her web

to rest in peace,

surrounded by her work,

until storms blow

and lift her on their winds

to return her to nature.

"Who do you think you are?"

When I published my first book, it wasn’t just a book. It represented three simple words on my bucket list: Write a novel. I had already planted the seed for my book with a short story I wrote in 1974 for a creative writing class in grad school. I titled the story “Chinaberry Summer.”

Within the story’s few pages, I imagined two eleven-year-old cousins, a girl and a boy, trying to survive a long July homecoming and family reunion service in a country Baptist church in rural Georgia, all while the girl suffered from the heat in the sanctuary and the infernal scratching of her new dress with its stiff lace trim and the elastic smocking in the back of her slip rubbing red marks across her shoulders. The boy suffered from an itchy cast on his arm that was broken in a bike wreck during a bully’s chinaberry attack. I tried to capture the essence of growing up with a perfectionist Southern mother who always worried about “what people will think.” Probably nobody was thinking about anything except hoping their fire and brimstone preacher would hurry up and quit yelling at them so they could hurry to their family reunion and eat dinner on the grounds.

Years later, as I approached retirement from my teaching career, I continued to think about my dream of writing my novel. I had read countless student essays and taught creative writing and journalism over the years. I left my high school teaching days behind me and moved on to a part-time teaching position at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. Even more essays to grade, but I found a second part of my career that I really enjoyed—teaching college-aged students as well as nontraditional students who were older or who were either active duty military service members or military veterans.

I began to plan my book. Where would I start? Then I remembered “Chinaberry Summer.” Over the years, the short story was lost, but I knew the story line, so I rewrote it. And there they were— my two main characters, Sissie Stevenson and Spud McKenna.

There are those who may find me strange for this belief, but fiction writers understand my logic. Sometimes a writer must stand aside and let her characters write themselves. I added characters that I never imagined when I wrote that first book (and the next one, too). They wanted to be born. They had things to say. They wanted to be heard.

Like my character Sissie, I love reptiles and amphibians. I appreciate spiders. (Sorry, Spud, I don’t love them, but I value them.) Through Sissie and Spud, I was able to create a story that provided an opportunity to include my critter friends as characters in my book. Orb weavers and black widows are important in my writing. Turtles and snakes round out my list of creatures who, like so many humans, are subjected to needless suffering caused by people who refuse to acknowledge their worth.

I wrote and rewrote, polished my manuscript, and asked my husband to read each chapter. I let an eleven-year-old girl write the book, Sissie Stevenson—as my character, not as the adult me. The more I worked on the book, the more I felt compelled to speak up for those who have no voice. Not just for animals, but for children who are victims of school bullies, verbally and physically abusive family members, and, sadly, some teachers who see nothing wrong with humiliating students.

At last, the book was ready. The publishing process, filled with rejections, seemed to go on for years until I discovered a university colleague and friend, Johnny Summerfield, who owns New Plains Press in Auburn, Alabama. I will forever be grateful to him for believing in me.

Then came the excitement of the book launch. One of my favorite places to visit is Columbus State University’s Oxbow Meadows. I had visited there before, and I loved walking among the snakes and turtles or visiting with the alligators and tortoises. What better place to launch my new book. I reserved the venue and invited guests.

As the launch date approached, nagging questions ran through my mind. “Who do you think you are?” “Why would anybody be interested in what you have to say?” I wasn’t a published writer. I wasn’t a literary giant. I whispered, “Lord, send me a sign. Please.”

On the Saturday morning of my book launch, I needed money to make change for my book sales, so my family and I stopped by a branch of our bank on the way to Oxbow. The bank stood among a number of brand-name stores in a busy shopping complex. Behind the shops, new apartments were nestled in a wooded area near a small creek surrounded by a lush, manicured lawn that extended out into the shopping area. And there, in the middle of the lawn, was a large turtle, out for a morning stroll in the sun.

I had my answer. I could no longer worry about what people might think of me or my writing. I had found a purpose. I must speak for those who have no voice. I must advocate for kindness and ecological concern for reptiles and amphibians. And spiders. And I would do that through the voices of two children, my fictional characters in Chinaberry Summer.

Many people came out to Oxbow for my book launch, and they visited with animals enclosed in the safety of their animal habitats. I sat on stage and read to children and adults in the audience. I was wearing an orthopedic boot because, in the midst of everything, I’d had surgery on my left foot. I signed my books surrounded by all sorts of snakes in their glass enclosures. Children and parents had the opportunity to learn about snakes and why they are so important to the health of our environment, not something to be feared and killed.

After that book launch at Oxbow Meadows, I decided on the spot that writing one book wasn’t enough. I had much more to say, and so did the people and critters who inhabited my first book. I had to write another one. And another book was born.: Chinaberry Summer: On the Other Side. And in that book, more characters came to life. I let them speak.

But I didn’t stop there. I wrote a children’s picture book called Feannag the Crow. Through Feannag’s story, the young crow and his new critter friends help children learn to be kind to animals and to make diverse friends.

Often, we are our harshest critics. We must be the ones to turn off the negativity and self-doubt inside our own minds. No one can accomplish that task for us.

Who do I think I am? I’m a writer.

Now on to more books!

Found in a Furniture Store

I entered the world on a cold April morning. At least that’s what my mother said. Well, at first, she said it was a cold day, but over the years her story morphed into a snowy day. I will never know the true circumstances of the weather during my birth, but I’d like to be believe my appearance brought a little light into the world in 1949.

Mama said she wore a heavy coat to our doctor’s office and delivered me in his small office building. We lived in a rural area, and his office had two hospital beds for mothers-to-be in the community. My birth was quite different from my sister’s coming into the world. She was born in a bedroom in my grandmother’s house, delivered by a country doctor who believed in using ether. Mama didn’t know she was in the world for hours.

Four years later, she wanted a different experience and a different doctor. She wanted to be awake, with my father by her side. My father was present for each of our births, which was quite unusual then. Usually, fathers were relegated to a waiting area (exit stage left) where they remained and paced the floor while their wives labored. But there he was, my father, holding Mama’s hand all through the delivery.

Then came the time to fill out my birth certificate. My mother wanted to name me Merry Carol. I guess she was a bit preoccupied with post-partum exhaustion and a red-faced, red-haired crying newborn. She let Daddy take care of filling out my birth certificate.

Daddy took care of the birth certificate all right. He named me Bobbie Carroll – Bobbie after my mother and Carroll after…after whom? What brought that on? Did he secretly want a son? It was years later, after my father passed away and my mother moved to an assisted living facility, that my sister and I sorted through papers in their desk. We found an old receipt from “Carroll’s Furniture Store.” Did that sheet of paper somehow inspire my father to give me my name? The dated receipt had been under papers, in the bottom of a desk drawer, for over fifty years.

Little did my father know the confusion his decision would cause in my life. There was no kindergarten in our school in 1954. My mother and my sister taught me to read, write, and spell before I started first grade. I also learned something else: to spell my name C-a-r-o-l, which was the way my mother wanted me to write my name. And Carol stayed with me from first grade to twelfth grade.

I look back and wonder: Why did my mother spell my name wrong? Why didn’t she correct my spelling or inform my teachers? Surely, the teachers saw my birth certificate when my parents enrolled me in school. I think it was a passive-aggressive technique for spelling my name the way she wanted it spelled. Why didn’t my father object?

As for me, I gave up. It was a useless, endless fight. My teachers spelled my name Carol. It was printed on twelve years of report cards. Even in all of my yearbooks, my name is spelled wrong. I tried to spell it correctly in high school, but people continued to misspell it, as so many do even now. When I attend class reunions, on my name tag, my name is spelled Carol. I draw a line through Carol and spell my name correctly. I sometimes wonder if my former classmates think I’m being hoity-toity, that maybe I’m a writer living under my pen name.

Toward the end of my senior year in high school, I went into the office to see my principal, Walter Gunter. I will always remember him and appreciate his kindness.

I asked, “Mr. Gunter, can I please have my name spelled correctly on my diploma?”

He responded right away, “It’s already taken care of.”

Over the years, my name has been misspelled in so many ways: Karol, Caroll, Carole, Carrol, Carolyn, and a few other creative ones. The topper was the time I received a piece of official mail addressed to “Carnal Taylor.”

Through all my past years of school and work, I have met only one or two women named Carroll. Usually, I see it used only as a surname. I cannot possibly count the number of times I’ve received (and continue to receive) mail for Mr. Carroll Taylor.

For me, the origin of Carroll will continue to be a mystery. Was I named after a furniture store? One thing is for sure: I will never find my name on keychains or trinkets for sale in a tourist shop, but I will always be the woman my father named.

Not Everyone Gets the Glory Jobs

Take, for instance, the dung beetle.

I remember seeing one in the pasture on my grandparents’ farm. He was rolling, rolling, rolling! The common name for the insect is dung beetle, but growing up in the South, we kids called them tumble bugs. They are members of the scarab beetle family. Yes, ladies, those were stones shaped like dung beetles in your pretty, multi-colored scarab bracelets that were in fashion years ago. I wore one of the bracelets in college.

Egyptians worshiped scarab beetles. They believed the insect represented a god moving the Sun.

I’ve done some research on these little critters. Yes, really, I did research on dung beetles. That’s what I do if I intend to have a dung beetle in my next novel with all the other critters I will describe. So I did what many high school and college students do: I went straight to Wikipedia.

There are three kinds of dung beetles: tunnelers, rollers, and dwellers.

Tunnelers bury the dung wherever they find it. They dig tunnels to hide their treasure. Rollers roll dung into a round ball to be used for food and breeding. Dwellers call it a day and enjoy their new home. Researchers say the beetles have a keen sense of smell. Who knew?

Intrigued, I needed to know more, so I turned to National Geographic.

It’s beetle-mania out there in pastures, with occasional fights breaking out over the merchandise. Males create a ball of dung and roll it away in a hurry from the other ecstatic beetles, aka “potential thieves.” Often as a male is rolling the ball away, he picks up a female along the way and carries her while he’s rolling. Together they bury the dung and start a family. That gives new meaning to eloping and setting up housekeeping. And multi-tasking.

The beetles are filled with delight when they find fresh dung, but they are afraid someone else will steal their bounty. They must work fast to avoid theft of their prized possession. And dung beetles navigate fairly fast unless they’re wearing hats.

But in order to get away from the other beetles in a hurry, the tumble bugs have to move in a straight line, not wander in circles. How do they do that?

Researchers conducted an experiment. They put little hats on a few dung beetles so their eyes were covered. (Cue: I would have loved to see the little hats—and the researcher putting the hats on the tumble bugs’ heads.) The little critters wandered aimlessly when their eyes were covered, but once the researchers removed the hats, the dung beetles were good to go.

But here’s where things get really interesting. The researchers made an astonishing discovery: The humble little poop rollers have a piece of high-tech equipment on board. They don’t just wander around to find any old spot to enjoy their treasure. They navigate according to the Milky Way. They follow the light from the stars!

I can’t do that! Can you?

Home, sweet home! What’s for dinner? Yum! Well, that’s not all. The ball of dung fills many needs: a place to lay eggs, a place to live, food to eat, (exercise?).

All critters have that certain something which makes them unique. In the case of dung beetles, in addition to their out-of-this-world navigational ability, they don’t harm anyone and they truly live off the land—or pasture, making the soil more fertile.

Hats off to tumble bugs!

If you want to learn more about dung beetles and see them wearing hats (You know you do!), you can check out this website:

Dung Beetles Navigate Via the Milky Way, First Known in Animal Kingdom – National Geographic Society Newsroom

 A “hairy coo” in Scotland (May 2019)

Rainy Day Diamonds

In order to appreciate the beauty of nature, we often look up at the clouds, the mountains, and the trees; we enjoy watching butterflies and birds in their surroundings. We are amazed by nature's majesty or the complexity of its designs. We love the changing colors of the leaves or the beautiful melodies of the songbirds. But sometimes we need to look down, for that's where we find the wonders of reptiles and amphibians, insects, rocks, fish, and mammals—among other earthbound wonders too numerous to mention.

On a cold afternoon I headed out to our woodpile in the edge of the woods. It was time to build a cozy fire in the fireplace and have a cup of hot tea. It had been raining profusely and, thankfully, the woodpile was covered with a tarp. I needed to make several trips from the pile to my front porch, each time carefully carrying a few large, splintery split pieces of oak that would become my warmth. I had to be careful, though, just in case some little denizen of the woods had previously decided to nestle down between the pieces of firewood. I was especially on the lookout for those obnoxious little critters known as scorpions.

Trip after trip in the bitter cold I walked to the front porch, and each time I missed the beautiful work of art that was stretched from the grass to the bottom of the brick step. Not very big. Not very big at all. But it was a masterpiece. When I paused from my work and discovered what I had previously failed to notice, I hurried to get my phone so I could take a picture. It was too beautiful to simply entrust it to my memory.

A small, unknown creature, one who possessed the natural mathematical knowledge and dexterity that we humans long for, had spun her web in an ordinary place. As the rains tumbled down, drops fell on the silky thread that a spider had so carefully woven. No algebra class. No geometry class. Just touch and instinct to create her web without any desire to impress another living creature. I didn't see any signs of the spider; she wasn't home. Yet her web remained, and Mother Nature worked her special magic. The rain drops that were scattered across the complex design of that web combined with the afternoon light to create suspended droplets of water. They sparkled, so I called them "rainy day diamonds."

Yes, sometimes we need to look down. And we need to pause a moment in our frenetic pace of life. We need to take a deep breath and look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.

The Quilt

As a newly minted United Methodist minister, my son Zachary moved to the Pacific Northwest to serve as an associate pastor in Washington State. He was trying to make his new apartment a home by adding his own personal touches which often tend to be more contemporary than traditional.

I asked him if he needed a bedspread. He quickly replied, "Actually, I'd like to have that old quilt that your great–grandmother made." I was delighted to send him that quilt. I was even more delighted that he asked for it because, in a sense, that quilt represents the fabric of our family. A traditional touch.

I was not privileged to meet my great–grandmother Ella Smith. She died about a year after she finished the quilt. However, based on stories passed down to us,  she  was a midwife who knew a bit about wildcrafting as well. She was a "cradle-to-grave" kind of woman. She birthed seven children of her own. Giving birth created a sort of sisterhood because she lived in a very rural area where doctors were scarce. Drawing from her own experiences, she helped other sisters in the community give birth. She knew how to gather leaves and roots to make medicines and teas, and some families called upon her to help dress their relatives for burial.

Although Brother Snow is most definitely a fictional character in Chinaberry Summer, I couldn't resist allowing him take a moment of "personal privilege" to give a nod to my great-grandmother Ella in a pivotal moment in the story. We don't get the opportunity to meet many people like her anymore. They don't really exist in our modern world of hospitals and corner drug stores. (Thank goodness for hospitals and corner drug stores.) Unfortunately, we modern folks have lost much of our independent American spirit of knowing how to live off the land.

Now about that quilt. Ella stitched her name and the date, 1933, in one square, but she didn't stitch her given name on the quilt. She signed Mother Smith because she knew the quilt would be handed down to the next generations of her family, and, to her, it was more important to be remembered as a grandmother.

That quilt had been hanging in an honored place on a quilt rack in my home for a very long time. I’d had it for over twenty-five years. Sometimes we see something so often that we forget to notice it. How easy it would have been for my son to forget all about the quilt, but he didn't, and so it winged its way to Washington State by way of our local post office.

That old quilt has great significance for me. Of course, I never knew my great-grandmother, but I am part of her. It's not a beautiful quilt, but it's her work. She cut the squares, triangles, and other shapes; and the stitches were made by her hand. It is most certainly unique, one of a kind.

The design may not appear special, but each shape of the patchwork  is made of fabric from her daily life, maybe leftover scraps from dresses she was making or, very likely, pieces of flour sacks from her kitchen.  

I'd like to think that on a cold winter's night in Washington State, my son will snuggle under that quilt to get a good night's rest. And as he does, he'll be covered by love passed down to him from someone who almost ninety years ago carefully stitched her chosen name and passed along a gift that required enormous work. A benediction of sorts.  A remembrance of a grandmother for a  great–great–grandson she would never know.  

An Afternoon Adventure

An afternoon adventure: On the way home from the grocery store, we saw this snapping turtle in the middle of Hooper Branch Road. I was so afraid he'd get hit by a car. I decided to nudge him with my umbrella to make him cross to the side of the road. He wasn't having it. Each time I touched him with the tip of the umbrella, he turned and lunged at me---fast! He was fairly aggressive. I wasn't about to try to pick him up because he was heavy and a serious biter. My husband was in the car encouraging me: "You're gonna get hit by a car!" I hurried home for a wooden oar, but when I drove back a few minutes later, he was gone. "Slow as a turtle" does not apply to snapping turtles. Trust me, he was huge. Grandpa Stevenson would have been impressed.

Normandy, Omaha Beach 2003

In 2003, I had the privilege of visiting Omaha Beach, Normandy, France. I wrote this narrative poem about my experience there, and I’m sharing these words because this year marks the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. My poem is in memory of American patriots who lost their lives there in service to their country. And for those who survived that day and are still with us today, God bless you for your service!

Normandy, Omaha Beach 2003

I stand on sacred ground.

All around me is silence,

save the endless tidal flow  

of salty, gray waves and foam

sweeping in across the sandy vista

before rushing back to the depths.

Day after day, year after year, they

appear to wash away all signs of history,

as if to cleanse and bring healing in their wake,

though in scattered places

chunks of rusted metal

rise above the water's surface,

defying us to forget.

The sky is dark with low, slate-colored clouds.

The air is cold; it permeates my jacket

and chills my skin.

If I listen to the waves,

I may hear the din, the fray,

the anguished voices

drowned, not so much by water ̶   

though some were drowned beneath the waves,

silenced forever, still wearing

their heavy gear and metal weaponry ̶

but the voices of those whose youthful dreams

were met with heavy gunfire and explosions.

Heroes who reached the shore in a hail of bullets,

patriots dreaming of home and family

yet offering their lives to a greater cause

despite the uncertainty of lives cut short,

who dared to stand against a relentless foe.

I imagine I can hear the shouts, the orders,

the sounds of boots crunching on the sand

wet with saltwater and warm blood.

The sounds of guns fighting back against

unknown faces of strangers lying in wait,

strangers who hated their enemy

though they had never met.

Humanity against humanity,

young men against young men,

running across the sand

into the teeth of artillery,

into the face of their destiny.

I linger in silence, listening.

Perhaps if I am still enough,

I might hear echoes of desperate

voices, fighting to survive,

lifting their sorrow-filled prayers.

But, no, I am standing on sacred soil.

My visit to this land

comes many years after.

To hear their desperate voices

would be to intrude.

To listen to the private anguish

of dying young men

who laid down their lives

for their country's freedom

would be my own invasion.

I stoop down, scoop up a bit

of wet sand, and pour it into

a plastic bag. No messiness.

It will fit neatly in my suitcase

with my socks and souvenirs.

I decide to pick up a random

pebble lying on the beach.

It will rest with my sand

in a glass bottle on a shelf

when I return home.

The sand will remind me

of the shifting tides,

the vagaries of life,

but the pebble—

the pebble will remind me

of the constancy

and bravery of the human spirit,

of those who stood firm

against the menace of the enemy,

against their own fears of mortality.

I slip my bag of sand into my purse.

I push my cold hand into my pocket.

I hold the smooth pebble in my fingers

and feel its weight drop into the fabric.

I must not listen for the voices.

They would be a burden too great to bear.

I will return to my home across the

waters of the Atlantic soon enough.

I look around me once again

to gaze at the quiet ocean shore

that once was not so quiet at all.

As I walk away from this sacred place,

I hear only one voice—

a low, whispering voice.

It is mine.

It is a prayer of thanksgiving.

Carroll S. Taylor

Irises

My poem "Irises" was published among ten Poems of Merit in the 2020 edition of The Reach of Song, the annual anthology of the Georgia Poetry Society. I'm honored to share it.

Irises

Emerald blades rise like jagged swords

along the marble edge of an old family plot.

Perhaps irises flourished here years ago,

but what color will they be

if they decide to bloom again?

 Barely surviving now, neglected,

they once graced this shady spot

where a dozen family members

lie forever in peace.

No one remembers who planted them

or when their flags first appeared.

There is no one to ask.

Perhaps the planter rests among the others

in this garden of death.

The blades are flat and fan-like.

Some rhizomes are buried,

entombed far too deep to send up stems.

Others are lying half-buried on the ground,

their tubers never piercing

a hole in the dark soil,

yet resting easy, believing their roots

will continue their work.

We dig up a few to take home to our yard.

No one will mind.

There is no one left to mind.

We will plant them in memory

of relatives who went before us.

But what color will their flowers be?

My sister guesses white.

Passing months will tell us for sure—

if the roots choose to take hold

in the garden of the living.

Carroll S. Taylor

Circling Magic

I was honored to have two poems published in the Georgia Poetry Society's 2020 anthology, The Reach of Song. I wrote "Circling Magic" for my cat Magic who crossed the rainbow bridge in 2019 because of severe health issues. No food I offered him seemed to satisfy his hunger. After I wrote the poem, I thought about how much humans are sometimes like cats.

Circling Magic

Round and round he goes,

circling the kitchen island,

a miniature black land shark

in a wild feeding frenzy.

He doesn’t care that

I’m trying to brew

my morning coffee.

It doesn’t matter

that I just fed him

and there’s food in his dish.

He opens his mouth to meow,

but no sound comes out.

That’s his signature move.

I get the point.

He’s not hungry.

He just wants me to

give him something better.

I’m not sure he knows

what he wants,

but there he is,

with his yellow eyes

and his silent meow,

reminding me he wants

more of something.

I drop a thin piece

of roast beef in his dish.

He lifts it with his teeth,

shakes it as if he’s killing prey,

and devours it in tiny bites.

Then his rounds begin once again.

Circling Magic, a furry, gentle predator

with his finicky, gourmet taste,

always wanting more of something.

C S Taylor

How Feannag Was Born

Fact: Crows hatch from eggs. At least, that’s their usual route. But not Feannag.

He hatched from my brain, and his birth was a complete
accident. Sort of. Maybe it was more a perfect case of serendipity. And his
place of birth? Upstairs in my mini office. He nested in my computer.

Some poets and writers have days of feasting on their latest project, typing away as
their ideas flow from mind to fingers. My writing style is more like bone-picking.
Searching to see if I can find that one elusive idea that stirs my inspiration
to spend hours in front of my computer being a productive writer. I have a
hopelessly long list of possibilities for my writing—poems, short stories, novels,
young adult novels, screenplays, pipe dreams. Sometimes that potential list overwhelms me
and makes what I’m actually working on even more difficult. The OCD behavior of
a writer: Oh, look, I could write about that!

Which brings me to my two sources of inspiration for Feannag: corvids and Scotland.

I will always remember the beauty and intelligence of the ravens at the Tower of London
when I visited there. I also love their friendlier relatives, crows. They seem to be everywhere.

I’ve been feeding crows for quite a while now. Every morning I step outside my back door to feed my little crow family, rain or shine. Sometimes three, sometimes five, and sometimes seven of them. I scatter shells of roasted peanuts for them If they’re there. Even when I don’t see them, I  know they’re out there.

They’re in the woods across the meadow, waiting. I call to them. In crow, of course.
Caw! Caw! Caw! Ca-caw! I think it must translate to “Food” because I’ve heard one of them,
the watcher, make those sounds to his family when he sees the peanuts tossed in the air.

I must have mastered fairly acceptable crow language because they answer me now.
I hear their raucous caws as they fly in. I love the way they circle and then
spiral down to land softly on the ground, on target. Sometimes they hop from
peanut to peanut, take one shell in their mouths, and fly off to a distant tree branch
to eat their treat before zooming back to get another one. Mannerly birds, unlike
the forceful  blue jays who arrive in a squadron, gorge themselves, and screech at their friends, making every effort to snatch as many peanuts away from the crows as possible.

And then, there’s Scotland. I made an overnight trip to Edinburgh in 2014, so, of
course, I had to go back to see more. When I returned there with my husband in May 2019, I never
imagined how fully connected I would feel to the beauty of the country, the kindness of the people, and the spirituality of the Highlands. I  have some Scottish ancestry, so I felt at home there. Scottish heritage runs deep here in the Appalachians, and I felt the strong connection between where I now call home and the lochs and mountains I visited in Scotland. As for Feannag, his name is Scottish-Gaelic for “crow.”

I didn’t intend to write a children’s book. In fact, it’s my first one ever. I think Feannag, who is a pushy little bird, wormed his way onto my list of writing ideas. He wanted to be born. And once he hatched, he bypassed the usual route of fledglings and their preparation for flight. Feannag was born ready, and his adventures remind us that we should “always, always have friends.”

When you read my book to your children and grandchildren—or to yourself—look for a thistle. It’s my wee nod to Scotland. And take time, especially now when you should have lots of time staying home, to look around you. If you see crows, observe them. They are crafty, highly intelligent birds.
They learn to recognize faces—of those who mistreat them and of those who are kind
to them.  If you are kind to them and give them treats, they will call to you every morning—and come back for more. Show them benevolence and learn from them.

Sometimes when you feed crows for a while, especially near a tree stump or a small outside table, they will leave you a gift—a stone, a button, or any small, shiny object they find. They leave the gift for you to show gratitude or reciprocation. My next book about Feannag will teach another important socialization skill for young children (and adults): showing gratitude and learning to say, “Thank you.”

If crows can learn to reciprocate kindness, so can we!

____________

You can find Feannag the Crow at http://www.csabooks.com. Check out their official website: http://www.spiritofappalachia.com/ as well. See what the wonderful creative spirits there are doing to preserve Appalachian heritage.

Meet Feannag!

Feannag the Crow will be flying in soon...

I’ve been a wee bit busy the past few months. Feannag the Crow will be flying in soon, tentatively in mid-March. I’m no stranger to writing young adult novels, short stories, and poetry, but it’s been quite an adventure writing my first children’s book. I’ve learned a great deal, which is always a good thing.

I’ve been blessed to meet two amazing women, Doreyl Ammons Cain and her sister Amy Ammons Garza. Doreyl is a brilliant illustrator/mural artist, and her sister Amy is a multi-talented layout and design artist and storyteller. Receiving Doreyl’s update emails containing her latest illustration has been a treasure. And now, after receiviing layout galleys of my book, I am delighted to watch little Feannag and his friends come to life. It’s a sort of birth experience for me to see my story come together with critters from my imagination who find their way to printed pages.

Feannag the Crow is the first in a series of two or three books I’m hoping to write to help young children learn socialization skills. This book is about Meeting New Friends.

In the spirit of Chinaberry Summer, I’ve included some of my favorite critters. (No spoilers!) I think both children and adults will enjoy reading about Feannag and his friends. Children will like the vivid, colorful illustrations. So will adults!

More journal entries will be coming soon, I promise.

My book will be available for sale at csabooks.com (Catch the Spirit of Appalachia). I will announce the release date as soon as I know it. There is still more possible editing to do on the proof copy when I receive it, but I hope there will be no more edits.

I will be scheduling book signings in the upcoming weeks. There will also be pre-ordering opportunities. You can check out muraltrail.com to find more information about Doreyl and the historical murals being installed in Appalachian towns to commemorate mountain history.

Meanwhile, we wait.

One Small Bag

One small bag

was all she brought

to spend the night at my house

I peered into her room

She sat in silence

                on the foot

of the bed

She had been there

                for almost an hour

                dressed in her khaki pants

                and flowery pullover shirt

Each time I checked on her

she was still sitting there

sorting through items

                in her little bag

                over and over

pondering each item

as if to make sense of it

A comb, a brush, her precious lipstick

(Every Southern lady must own a lipstick)

                a change of clothes

                undergarments

                a light cotton nightgown

a sweater

She was always cold

no matter what the season

I convinced her to change into her nightgown

She seemed to linger forever in the bathroom

Half an hour to change into a simple gown

Half a year to change into a different person

When at last she opened the door

and appeared in the hallway

                dressed for bed

a soft perfume followed her

Lavender and jojoba

                from my bottle of lotion

on the counter

She’d rubbed some

on her hands and face

I hope it brought her comfort

and gave her peaceful sleep

 Even now I keep

                the half-empty bottle

on my writing desk

Sometimes I open the bottle

to release its luxurious scent

                and for a moment

                its fragrance brings

                her back to me.

Published on Facebook

Mother’s Day

May 12, 2019

Published here today for Sarah