A Depression Era Story

A Good Man is Hard to Find

My current WIP is out in a very rough draft form so I've paused from it and given my brain a little respite from story-telling.  With time on my hands, I pulled out my scrapbooking supplies and made progress on an album that tells the story of my grandparents, Margaret and Ellis, both deceased.

I don't even know the date they got married (I'm guessing it was around 1948) or how they met (no one thought to ask those questions until it was too late), so the story comes in spurts, supplied by information gleaned from Ancestry.com, or stories heard and remembered over the years. 

What I do know, however, I'm preserving so that the story, such as it is, can be passed down to my kids.

I tell the story of my grandma here, what little I know.

As much as I tried to rest my brain as I cut and glued and captioned and embellished, the story-teller in me came alive as I studied those old black and white photos and tried to set the scene that was just outside the scalloped white edge.

My grandma isn't here anymore for me to ask (she would have been 90 this year) but I think if there was ever a hero in her life, it was a man named Harry Campbell.  He was just the local bus driver and my grandma was one of dozens of kids he saw every day.  All of them probably poor, being rural Missouri in 1938.  All of them probably with similar stories of pain and sadness and abandonment.

One day my grandma, a young, slender 16 year old, didn't get off at her usual stop on the way home from school.  I wonder if Harry noticed right then, or if he was surprised to look up at the end of his route to see her still on his bus.  I wonder if the conversation went something like this:

"You missed your stop."
"I know.  I can't go back home."
"Why not?"
"Daddy and Flossie said I'm old enough to take care of myself.  They told me not to come home from school today."
"Got anywhere to go?"
"No."
Pause.
"You can come on home with me.  My wife'll fix you some supper."

I don't know if she cried that day or if she accepted the abuse of her biological father with rugged stoicism.  I also don't know if Harry was reluctant.  It was asking a lot to take a person in during the Great Depression.  I don't know if he did it out of a purely generous spirit, or if my grandma promised to work in return for the shelter he could provide.

I don't know if he was like a father to her, or if his childless wife was like a mother to her (her own mother died when she was 3).  I'd like to think they were but life was hard then, and sentimentality was rare.

Harry Campbell's drivers license, his bus, and his obituary, which describes him as leaving behind a daughter.

She stayed with the Campbell's that night.  Maybe they discussed the situation the next day. Or maybe they just went on without feeling the necessity to speak of it.  What was there to be said?  How could Harry turn her out now?  She stayed with the Campbells every night thereafter for ten more years.  When she graduated high school, they took her with them to California to try their hand at picking peaches.

That's where Harry died, not yet knowing how drastically he had changed the trajectory of my grandma's young life.  It makes me sad to think he died still poor, maybe thinking he failed young Margaret.

With nothing keeping them in California, his widow took my grandma back to Missouri and within a year of Harry's death, my grandma met my granddad and married.  Her difficult childhood was behind her.  By now it was post-war America and young people had no trouble finding work.  My grandparents purchased a home in Kansas City and my grandma, truly a woman ahead of her time, put herself through cosmetology school, and opened her own business, a successful beauty shop, which she operated until she retired.

Harry did not make my grandma's life perfect, but his act of sacrificial kindness set her on a course for a good life.  I wish she was still here so I could ask her if she ever wondered what her life would have been like if Harry had told her to get off the bus, if she would have been totally abandoned, or if she would have been forced to crawl back to a father who didn't want her and beg him to let her stay just a little while longer.

A good man has always been hard to find but my grandma found one on a school bus in 1938.  He would probably deny it, but he is a hero in the story of my family's life.

Are there stories of simple, every day heroes in the life of your family?  Men or women who didn't set out to change anyone's life, but through the sheer goodness of their heart, doing what, unquestionably, had to be done, changed the trajectory for someone you love?

The Emmaus Road and Bible Study

Easter is behind us now and because I like to look at the crucifixion and resurrection as a historical event in addition to a spiritual experience, I've been looking at the scriptures that describe the days after in Luke 24:13-34.  They were awful days for people who put their faith in the man, Jesus.  They didn't understand, even after everything he had been telling them, that he would rise again.  Even the disciples hid in fear and confusion, disbelieving the reports that Jesus had appeared to witnesses here and there.

On Sunday Jesus made an appearance to two despondent travelers on their way out of Jerusalem after what had to have been the most bizarre and violence-filled Passover in history.  The men didn't recognize Jesus as he walked with them, and they described to him the horror that had transpired over the weekend.  They said, "We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel."  They must have seemed so disappointed.

"Then Jesus said to them, 'You foolish people!  You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures.  Wasn't it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?'"

Jesus probably could have stopped there.  The men would have been familiar with Psalm 22, when David prophetically described the anguish of crucifixion hundreds of years before the Romans would invent that form of execution.  And Isaiah 53, which describes the Lord's servant--despised and rejected, pierced for us, beaten, whipped, led like a lamb to slaughter.  There are so many more.

Maybe that should have been enough for these men.

But Jesus didn't take for granted that they could connect the dots on their own because sometimes we just need things spelled out for us.  Even when we've seen events with our own eyes, they don't always add up.  We are often left confused and disappointed when things don't turn out the way we expect them to.  It can take years--sometimes a lifetime--for us to be able to look back on the events of our lives and make sense of them.  Sometimes we die bitter, still confused.

Jesus wanted these men to know that nothing that happened to him was by accident.  In the same way, nothing that happens to us is by accident.  God will make things clear and Jesus gave these men on the road to Emmaus the same tool that we have at our disposal today.

"Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."

When I study this story, I see it as a teaching for me, right where I am, in my humble little life.   It is God's way of saying to me, "Is something not adding up, dear one?  Are you confused about the crooked path you've been on?  Open up your bible.  I will make all things clear to you whose eyes are open to my teaching."

After Jesus made himself known to the men, and then disappeared from them, they said to each other, "Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?"  Every single day I can walk that Emmaus Road with Jesus when I lay my bible open on my lap.  My heart can burn with the same exhilaration of discovery as I search the scriptures to understand where I am in redemptive history, why the world is so screwed up, how deeply the Father loves his creation, and yes, to make sense of my own crooked path.

It's all in there.  Let us not neglect it.

Being a Good Wife: Recipe for Apple Turnovers

"Be All The Wife He Needs!" it says.

Choke.  Sputter.  Gag.  Cough.

I know.

Husbands are supposed to be the butt of jokes today.  They are never right; they make us roll our eyes at their ineptitude.  Have you ever seen a commercial where the husband knew more than the wife?  Or the kid?  Start paying attention while you're watching TV.  You'll notice the trend.  They're always sitting on the couch, screwing something up, or just not smart enough to figure out what the wife knew all along.

Here's one.

Here's another one.

And another.

There are dozens more.

Why should we respect men?  We don't need men anymore.  We can work, we can raise the kids (or pay others to do it), we can call a repair man for things that break (better do it before hubby gets his hands on it-HA HA HA).  When they get too grating we just get rid of them because marriage is disposable now.

What a grand "empowered" society we've created for ourselves.

There was a time when men were needed.  In all their imperfections, we couldn't live without them because they brought into our world something that could not be found anywhere else.  It wasn't just money to keep the lights on, although that was a big part of the equation.  They were strong and unemotional.  They slayed our dragons, and kept the bogyman away.  They went out and killed something and drug it home and yes, it fell to the woman to cook it for him.

And why shouldn't she?  She got to stay inside where it was warm and safe (because he made it so), teaching and raising her own children (because he did what he did, giving her that luxury).  She did those things with joy and was grateful to her man.  He did those things with joy because providing for his woman and children gave him something to live for, to be strong for, to be the best version of his masculine self for.

Tell me...why did we unravel that perfectly woven marriage tapestry?  Why did we think it would be better to emasculate our men?  When did we stop seeing the nobility of making a house a home and bringing our children up in it?  When did we stop being grateful for it?

I'm not always a "Good Wife" but I am grateful to my husband.  He has done so much to give us the life we enjoy today.  I respect him.  I want him to be a "Happy Husband."  I want him to look forward to coming home in the evening.  I don't think it makes me oppressed to go out of my way to fix him something I know he likes.  Even if it takes a couple of hours from start to finish, and makes a huge mess in the kitchen, and requires a trip to the store because I don't have all the ingredients.

A few days ago my husband said apple turnovers sounded good.  I don't make them often for the reasons just stated.  They are my, "I want you to know I love and appreciate you." food staple.  I made them for a birthday once, I packed them in tupperware, and drove them all the way from Kansas City to San Antonio so that he could have them for Thanksgiving while he was in AIT.  I made them last Friday even though it's our designated "Sheet Pan Pizza and a Move Night" and I already relegate myself to two hours in the kitchen making pizza from scratch (here is the recipe for that).  All because he said they sounded good.

Call me old-fashioned, but when he walked in the door after work, saw them cooling on the counter, took one, flopped down on the couch without even taking his boots off, and mumbled, "These are so good," it was totally worth it.  And I'm fairly certain that in that moment I was "All the Wife He Needs."  *wink, wink*

Apple Turnover
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 T. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into little squares
1/4 cup cold shortening, cut into little squares
1/2 cup cold water
Put dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse to combine.  Add butter and shortening.  Pulse 10 or 12 times until you get a sandy texture with chunks of fat no larger than a pea.  Slowly add water while you continue to pulse.  Let it whirl until it forms a ball.  Dump it out onto a floured surface, divide in two, wrap in plastic (it will be helpful later if you go ahead and flatten it out as you wrap it up).  Stick it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
*You can also make the pastry in a bowl, by hand.  No need to break out the appliances (less to clean later!)

3 cups chopped apples (2 granny smiths and 1 smallish red delicious work well together)
1/4 cup orange juice (usually half of a fresh orange produces enough juice)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 T. butter
Combine ingredients in a large nonstick pan.  Bring to a boil, cover and let it cook for 3-4 minutes.

4 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 T. water
Stir to combine, add to apples, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.  Let it cook one minute more, then remove from heat and let cool.

Roll one of the pastries out to about 1/8" thickness, as close to a square as you can get it.  Trim edges with a sharp knife, divide into four squares.  Place a heaping tablespoon of apples in a square, fold over to form a triangle, seal edges with a fork. Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar.  Repeat with other squares.  Do it all over again with your other chunk of pastry.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes at 375.

Takes some practice but once you get the hang of it, they come out nice every time.

Here's a pic of mine.  Not the most beautiful things in the world but *meh* he likes 'em.

Friday Night Movie Night: Sheet Pan Pizza and homemade sauce

I love a family tradition.  Especially when it means I don't have to rack my brain, figuring out what to cook for dinner.  Every Friday we have a movie night and we eat the same thing with it every time.

And yep.  The whole thing is from scratch.  If you've already got flour, yeast, olive oil, and garlic salt on hand (please tell me you do) it will cost you roughly:
$1.89 - mozzarella cheese
$2.00 - pepperoni
$1.00 - can of tomato crushed/chopped/sauce/whatever's on sale.  You can even adapt the recipe for varying size cans.

(That's if you're shopping at the Commissary--might cost a little more at the regular civvy grocery store)

That's less than $5.00 for 24 slices of thick, crusty, crunchy-on-the-bottom, cheesy, greasy, Friday night goodness.

I got this out of a Cook's Country magazine that has been splayed out flat on top of my microwave so many times it's all dog-eared and stained.  For the most part, I stick to it but I've worked in my own little quirks the way home cooks do.

Before you begin:
Take out your bottom rack and put it in the lowest possible position--right on top of the heating element.  Turn your oven on, then after a minute, turn it off so it's nice and warm.

Here's what you'll need:
5 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp yeast
2 tsp salt
Combine these ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer and give it a whirl with the dough hook to mix them up.

In a 2 cup glass measuring cup combine:
1 3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T. granulated sugar
Pour water mixture into stand mixer while the dough hook is spinning on low.  Let it go until the dough comes together and then bump it up to medium to smooth out the dough.  Shouldn't take more than about 5 minutes.  Dump it out on a floured counter and knead it slightly with your hands to get it into a neat little ball.  Put it into a large oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel, and set it on the bottom rack in that warm oven.

While that's rising (it will sit there for about 30 minutes) get your sheet pan ready by pouring in 1/4 cup of olive oil and spreading it over the bottom.  I know it sounds like a lot but trust the Cook's Country folks.  They know what they're doing!  That's what makes it so crunchy on the bottom.  Don't skimp.

You can also start your pizza sauce (it's got to simmer for a good long while).  Start by heating up a sauce pan.  Add a couple T. of olive oil, 2-4 crushed garlic gloves (or garlic powder), 1/2 -1 tsp of dried basil, and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Let it heat up and release it's yummy aroma.  When you hear it start to sizzle, add a big healthy dollop of tomato paste (I skip this if I don't have any on hand but it's really better to add it).  When it's heated through, dump in your can of tomato product.  If you're using crushed or sauce, you're good to go.  If you're using diced, you can just take a potato masher to it and take care of those big chunks.  If you're using a large can, obviously, double the spices and aromatics and only use half of it on the pizza (I use the other half next Friday, or for spaghetti sauce, lasagna, etc).  Let it simmer until you're ready to use it, stirring occasionally. The idea is to get most of the water out of it so you don't end up with a soggy crust.

After 30 minutes, punch the dough down, turn it out on the floured surface again, and use a rolling pin to get it into roughly the shape of your sheet pan.  Pick it up and transfer to the oiled pan (this is tricky--I roll half of it onto the rolling pin and pick up the other end with my bare hands.  It's pretty sturdy--I haven't stuck my finger through it yet!).  Press it with your fingers so that it fits but don't worry if it's not all the way to the rim.  It'll fill out as it rises again.  Cover it with plastic wrap and set it on top of the stove burners you're not using.  You're going to preheat to 450 now so that will give it a nice warm place to sit and rest.

You can use this time to prep your other ingredients: grate the cheese, chop the onions/peppers/olives/toppings of choice.

After about 20 minutes, your dough should be well-proofed.  Dimple it with your fingertips, leaving an edge of crust all the way around.

Sprinkle it with Parmesan cheese and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes (this begins browning the bottom and since the top has to cook at the same time, you're giving the sauce something to hold onto).

After 10 minutes, spread your sauce over it and bake for another 10 minutes (this continues the browning process and draws even more moisture out of the sauce--when you pull it out, it will be all steamy!)

After 10 minutes, take it out and top to your heart's content.  We are purists and go for pepperoni and mozzarella.  I also brush the outside edge with extra olive oil and sprinkle garlic salt all the way around (that part is so yummy, even my kids eat their pizza bones).

The fully topped pie will bake for about 15 to 20 minutes.  Take it out, let it cool slightly, and either slice it in the pan (if you're not worried about getting lines in the pan) or turn it out to slice it.  I use a giant white plastic cutting board so that I can carry it to the living room and eat off of the board while we watch our Friday night movie.

Just look at that crusty goodness!

This will take about 2 hours from start to finish and you pretty much have to stick with it the whole time.  It's a bit of a labor of love--but it's FIVE DOLLARS!  Throw in a redbox movie and you've got a family tradition for around 6 smackaroos.

Here's the full ingredient list:
5 cups flour
4 tsp yeast
2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup warm water
About 3/4 cup olive oil, combined
About 1/4 - 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese (the good old green can stuff is just fine)
1 T. sugar
1 can of canned tomato product
2-4 garlic cloves (or garlic powder)
1/2-1 tsp basil (or you can sub fresh if you want to splurge)
pinch red pepper flake
1 T. tomato paste
Mozzarella cheese
pepperoni
garlic salt
toppings of choice

My Greatest Desire as a Writer

The more I write and the more I think critically about what I'm reading, the lower my threshold for bad writing.  I can spot it almost instantaneously when I see the words, "derisively," "sardonically," "prettily," "languidly," or any such cringe-worthy, superfluous adverbs.  I also cringe when I come across short sentences such as, "She stiffened."  Or "His eyes pierced hers." 

Yuck.

I hate to say it but often times, this is the case with Inspirational Fiction, a genre that is close to my heart, but which I can hardly stand to read anymore.

It didn't used to bother me until I started taking note of what makes good writing good.  I began to see that wonderful, literary authors never do those things.  Good writers balance simple sentences with complex, they use interesting words but not in an arrogant way.  They describe just enough to let my imagination take over.  Their writing is so fluid, so fast-paced, so free from unnecessary clutter, that my fingers begin turning pages without realizing it.  I become lost in the world they have created without remembering that I'm supposed to be paying attention to their writing techniques.

That's such a wonderful gift, isn't it?  When the black and white, flat, hard object in your lap morphs into a world that you can smell, feel, and taste?  

I was reading a wonderful book this week that I was completely lost in. The writing was wonderful, the setting was historical and authentic in every way, the story was full of tension, the heroine was sympathetic and I ached for her.  It wasn't a Christian-themed book but it was clever and well-done, and I was enjoying it immensely.  

And then the most annoying thing happened.  In one awkward paragraph, the story became lost in a modern feminist issue.  I have been struggling to get through the second half of the book but I've completely lost interest in the story and I'm so totally disappointed.

This has happened to me so many times.  It seems that the best and brightest women authors happen to also be highly educated, intellectual elitist, feminist liberals.  Yes, I said it.  Their writing is spectacular, smart, funny, filled with the most artful, subtle, delicious similes and allegories.  I can begin and finish a mammoth book by one of these authors in one or two days of constant reading and I always feel smarter for having read them.  

But I'm also constantly barraged with women's politics: abortion, gay issues, equal rights, and on and on.  

Blah, blah, *yawn.*

I wish I could be a dissonant voice in the literary world.  This is my great desire as a writer.  Greater even than being published.  I could die happy never being published if I knew with confidence that my writing was smart enough to stand up to the great women authors of my day, telling stories that help young readers see that it's okay to want to be rescued.  It's okay to desire a man who is capable of rescuing you, and to admire the dignity in that man who would lay down his life for you.  It's okay to feel as if being married and having children is synonymous with living happily ever after.  It's okay to describe religion in a respectful and helpful way.

Those are the kinds of stories I write and as of this moment, I write them when no one is looking and they lurk in the shadows of my computer, rarely seeing the light of day.  I haven't had the guts yet to submit anything for publication--partly out of fear of being criticized (I think that would be worse than being rejected--it's strange how fragile my confidence is when I have enough of it to keep me typing for 80,000 words). 

But it's partly because I have a gut instinct that what I've written really does kind of suck. I mean, it's better than a lot of fiction out there, but it's not great either and SO WHAT if I can self-publish, if it's unreadable garbage? The whole point is to draw readers into a story that helps them know God better. If I'm unable to do that, what's the point of self-publishing?  Who would read it?  Who would want to?

I read books by great authors that are completely antithetical to faith and I think, "God, I want to do that in a way that glorifies you but I don't know how." Three years after I first starting writing fiction, I've improved a little but not much and I feel tapped out on what I've been gifted with. I can only do so much with what I have.  Somehow, against my better judgment, I've stayed encouraged and continued writing, but I struggle sometimes with the question of whether I should keep trying to make it better, or just accept my limitations and move on to something more fruitful.

More than anything, I struggle to understand why God would gift so many people who hate his truth while people who love him just can't compete artistically.  

Please tell me I'm not the only one.