Many years ago when I was involved in writing mystery plays I came up with a fictional character I called Parson Short. He was mentioned in a couple of the plays as a fictional character and then made an appearance as an actual character in one play. He was intended to be both real and fictional, sort of like Ellery Queen who was the supposed writer of the series of Ellery Queen mysteries of which he was a character as well.
I thought of the character as a sort of take off on other characters I was reading at the time. Ministerial types were hot for awhile back then. Father Brown, Sister Mary Helen, Rabbi David Small and others. Parson Short was conceived as a small time private investigator. He wasn't an actual minister, his first name was actually Parson. I gave him a stock rejoinder to questions, "Parson's the name, not the occupation!"
We had fun making up fictional books that the fictional character would have appeared in, all titles with the word "Short" in them, like "Short Stories", "Murder for Short", etc. That was from our "Reunion with Death" script, and as I said, Parson Short made an actual appearance as a living character in the script for "Play Dead."
As I was planning my current rural mystery series in progress I thought of having Parson Short be a resident of the town as a reclusive mystery author. Wheels within wheels.
Parson Short has popped up again, though. I am taking a Creative Writing: Plotting class with Fleeta Cunningham in Bastrop, Tx currently. As the main exercise of the class we are plotting and writing a short story throughout the class. Therefore, I have resurrected Parson Short to be my protagonist! Look for the new adventure to appear here when finished!
Onward!
I'm not talking about those uninformed souls.
When I moved to my grandparent's house at age 4, they had just finished building it. It was a two-story house with living quarters over the gas station at Seward Junction. The stairwell being more or less central in the house created some interesting closet spaces. There was an understair closet on the ground floor that was used for various camping and other equipment storage. There was also a hidden space behind it I didn't find till much later.
It is a bit difficult to explain how it was, but the stair had a landing and switchback to the second floor. A small storage closet was built on the second floor where my grandmother kept the ironing supplies and similar things.
At some point I discovered the best part of that closet. It had bookshelves on both sides! When my father had moved away from his parents years before he had left several of his books behind. There were several mystery novels, a few World War II adventure novels, and a wonderful set of the Book of Knowledge from about 1940. I remember it had the annual update volumes up through the late '40's. There were also other books my grandparents owned, or had been given.
The floor of the closet was about four feet off of the floor. For a very long time it was much too high for me to get into. Not long after I began reading, I discovered the treasure trove of books within and I hounded my grandmother to let me explore them.
I made use of a small step-ladder for several years. I moved things to one side so I could crawl up into the narrow closet, nestle myself between the shelves, and stay for hours. We found a small light made for a sewing machine that I could clamp onto a shelf. I would swing the door somewhat closed, so that it wasn't a hazard to passersby, and hibernate with my books. Not unlike Harry Potter under the stairs, I suppose, although this was my voluntary retreat!
I always loved the smell of old books. I know now that it is the smell of the books decaying and moldering, but to my young nostrils it was fine incense. I would sit there between the shelves for hours on end, flying sorties with Dave Dawson at Guadalcanal and Dunkirk or sailing with Captains Courageous.
I loved browsing through the Book of Knowledge. The layout was wonderful for browsers. It was quite onerous in later years to try and look anything up directly. It was necessary to utilize the index, and generally pull several volumes until you found what you wanted. However, for random browsing it held my interest very well.
It was not unlike the news feed today in Yahoo! or Facebook. You never really knew what you stumble over next, but it was likely to be interesting, and you could take the thread and follow it.
For a few years that closet was my reader's world.
In the mid '50's through the mid '60's the school in Liberty Hill had all twelve grades in one old two story brick building. It was built in 1929, the year my grandfather, W.K. Seward graduated, and torn down in 1969, a year after I graduated. For most of those years the school had no central library. Each class-room had a few bookshelves with whatever books had collected there. Many were no doubt donated by the individual teachers.
I devoured every book possible in all of those classrooms.
Liberty Hill had no public library. I'm not sure I knew what one was until I visited my mother and step-father in Loving, New Mexico in 1957 and she took us to a library there. I thought it was amazing! You could take books home and read them, bring them back and get more. You could browse to your heart's content, and it was free! I spent all of that visit reading those new found books.
It wasn't until the mid '60's that I had that experience again. My father was living in Conroe, Texas, and the library was only a couple of blocks away from his house. I visited in the summer for a couple of weeks and re-discovered libraries.
In my Junior year of High School, the school finally pulled all the books together into one central school library. I finally was able to find a few of those books that I hadn't read before, books that must have been in classrooms I wasn't in.
I was in the school library a lot. I met my first wife in there. It was a small school, of course, everyone knew everyone, but it was in that library that we actually started talking to each other.
Liberty Hill lost its school for a few years after I graduated. I went to college, married, moved away. I actually became a card carrying library member in the Austin Public Library, then the Round Rock Public Library. I was even a library volunteer for many years. I also have to number among my libraries the college library at Central Texas College in Killeen and the complex of libraries at University of Texas and Austin Community College. All wonderful.
Librarians are so cool! I've been in love with one or two!
Finally, another marriage and much mileage later I returned to Liberty Hill. I was lucky enough to become a founding member, and then an elected Trustee of the newly formed Liberty Hill Public Library. Awesomeness! I even got to be evening librarian at LHPL for a time.
I no longer live in Liberty Hill. I use the libraries in Bastrop, Elgin and Giddings.
My own, much trimmed down library of books now has a home in my office trailer. It is my current version of that small book closet from my childhood. I even still have a few of those old books around me. Old wonderful friends.
Old friends are the best friends.
One of the projected novels in my series located in Central Texas features a long hot summer. Guess this one will do! We've had, I believe, over a hundred days this summer of temps over 100 degrees. A couple of days in Bastrop reached 112 F.
There we were, evacuating EarthSong Retreat, our new home, and on our way to Austin, not knowing if we would lose everything or not. As an added incongruity, Cat witnessed a motorist tossing a lit cigarette out of a window onto the pavement, sparks flying. It made her very angry, as it did me when she told me about it later. What an IDIOT! In the next couple of days fires broke out all around Austin and another in Bastrop. Some of those fires were accidental, others were apparently arson. In the midst of all of this, other instances of smokers tossing lit cigarettes out of windows were witnessed by friends. The stupidity was mind boggling.
Amanda and her family welcomed us to their home and rental unit, we moved in and started the wait. It was very comfortable, a beautiful place just off of Barton Springs and Zilker Park in Austin.
We used the wifi to follow the news and updates on the fire. More and more people were pouring into the evacuee shelters in Bastrop, making us glad that we had come on into Austin. It took us several days to get through the busy phone lines and register ourselves as evacuees so that we might be notified of changes.
More and more businesses in Bastrop and Austin were helping out the folks who were waiting. We were treated to a free dinner at La Fonda San Miguel in Austin, free to evacuees. It was a fabulous meal, in a place we would normally dress up to go to. The staff was wonderful, the food was great, and they offered us the full menu. Our server, David, had been an evacuee from Hurricane Katrina. That meal was such a bright spot in a dreary waiting game! We were also constantly getting calls and messages from friends and relatives who were checking on us. That meant a lot as well!
We were constantly watching updates and monitoring the Bastrop County Office of Emergency Services page on Facebook for news. KXAN News was a good source, as were the Facebook pages of "Texas Storm Chasers" and "We Are Okay in Bastrop", and others. Several pages had sprung up on Facebook for groups monitoring the fire, most had some good information. A lot of it was also on Twitter.
Finally, on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, the news came out that folks in some areas were being allowed to re-enter. Ours was one of those areas. Another good friend, Maria, and her family, who live North of us had already returned. They had gone by our place and reported to us that all was well. The fire maps we had seen all indicated that the fire hadn't come as far west as us, but it was great to have confirmation. Of course, we also had concerns about looters. A few weeks before the fire we had already suffered some vandalism. When we got the news about re-entry we were ecstatic, we couldn't get loaded fast enough. It was great on another level, as the rental we were using was booked for the weekend. We needed to be out anyway. We had received offers from other friends of places to stay, but going home is SO much better!
Everything at home was okay, other than some wind damage from the blustery norther. It seemed very quiet in our area. A lot of people have not returned. Just a couple of miles away families have lost everything. My cousin lives four miles away and was burned out. At this moment the count is nearly 1400 structures burned. Most of those are homes, with a few barns, offices, and other buildings. I believe there have been only four human fatalities so far, but innumerable animal casualties. The fire is still only 30% contained now, but it has moved further south. At latest count close to 35,000 acres has burned. This includes almost all of Bastrop State Park, parts of other parks, and so many neighborhoods. A huge blackened area is visible by satellite.
This is the satellite picture. We are located just above Lake Bastrop seen on the left side of the map. This is a shot from a French satellite, processed by UT.
In our area, however, the continuing northerly winds carry the smoke away from us. We smell very little of it here. Air quality is down, but not too bad. The smoke is not even visible from here.
We were so lucky!
For those who may be interested. Check out the beautiful vacation rental we stayed at. It is called "Wren's Nest" in Austin, Tx. It can be seen on www.homeaway.com , listing #293833. Phone 512-788-1044. Tell Amanda that William RainCrow sent you!
