Somewhere in Time...

I recently came across some valuable advice regarding the writing of historical fiction. The cautionary note indicated that the writer should not get lost in the research.  Luckily for me, I am one of those people who like the process of creating something; the journey is fun and I do not really want to get to my destination. This may explain why I often sit in my car in the driveway when I am returning home from a trip to the market. History should never be top heavy in the story; it should be there, but not in the way. What we want to see is how the characters react to the changing times, not to read about every last parliamentary procedure, or tiresome debate in the Senate. We need to have a light hand with that ingredient, yet it is just as important as butter is to a good batch of shortbread cookies.One fantasizes about writing the definitive work, and the writer wants to know every single last significant detail about the time, but then it has to be as a thick, velvet curtain at the back of the stage.

When I set out to write a story set in 1630, I  wanted to capture, for myself most of all, what it would have been like to live in back in Boston when Europeans were new to the continent.  I read everything written on the subject and then some. Due to the fact that my characters traveled back to England in the midst of the civil war, I had to cover that as well. Once I began to grasp the enormity of losing every safeguard put in place, and seeing England fall into a military dictatorship, I did want to cover it in great detail. Too much history came the response from my first readers, and so I had to chop and chop. Still, the story of the struggle remains.

While I am not a big reader of the genre known as historical fiction, I do love reading a gripping tale when I feel as if I have been transported to another place and time. To me, that is the key.

Last evening, we set out in the boat from our dock here at the southern end of Lake Coeur d' Alene. Given that we were after hours to some degree, and needed to fill up on gas, we decided to try the town of Harrison. Having always been a fan of the place, I was happy to go over and take our chances. We were told to go up to the bar and find the man who could help us. It gave me time, while standing and holding the boat, to think.

 Harrison has all the makings of a place that time forgot. Handsome brick buildings suggest that it was a town on its way to becoming a small city back in 1890, when a branch of the O.R. And N. railroad put in a stop. A large sawmill, moved up from St.Maries, meant that a substantial operation had begun. However, a large fire broke out at the same mill, in 1917, and  destroyed most of the town. When the steamships discontinued service, they were all but cut off and the town ended up having a different future. It is one of those places, where when looking at it from the water, you sense that you knew what it was like to live there one hundred years ago. As I stood on the dock,  waiting for my husband to return from One Shot Charlies, the bar where the man who could pump the gas happened to be visiting, I thought of potential stories regarding the town and how I always feel that way when I am there.

An enchanted place can often spark the impetus to write historical fiction. Those wanting to know more about the era, will often be drawn to the story.

In the movie, Somewhere in Time, the late Christopher Reeve plays a man who being stumped in his efforts at writing, decides to take a small trip and travel to the famous Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan.  Once there, he becomes, captivated and obsessed regarding a photograph in the lobby. Desperate to know the hotel in its hey day and perhaps meet the person capturing his imagination, he accomplishes time travel and returns to 1917.  Of course, this is a metaphor for all writers and are we not lucky, that we have an imagination and picture what that may be like.

Time is running out to enter our contest here at writingnorthidaho. For details, read all about it in the sidebar.A picture can inspire 500 words.

No Small Potatoes

There has been a movement afoot in literature to focus on one commodity, and make a book of it. People have written about salt, wine and chocolate. This led me to wonder if anyone has written about what the great state of Idaho is known for, namely, the potato.

How did this come to pass? How is it that when a person from Idaho travels, he or she is inevitably asked about potatoes. It turns out that Idaho was a trail blazer in this regard when in 1937 the Idaho Potato Commission was founded. This body, funded by a tax paid by potato farmers, set out to advertise on radio and later television, to create a brand identity from a single crop. A seal was fashioned and customers were encouraged to look for that mark when purchasing what was to become our famous potatoes. Lots of other states grow the crop, but the affection and identity formed by the commission created a market for thirteen billion pounds of spuds, one third of all those sold in the United States.

On St. Patrick's Day, a dear friend by the name of Mary, told me about a book she had just read by Mary Pat Kelly. Entitled, “Galway Bay,” the novel is an actual oral history passed down from one generation to the next. Told primarily through the women, it is the tale of one immigrant family and their travails from Ireland to Chicago. While it is not about the potato famine, called An Gorda Mor in Gaelic, it is the great catalyst of the tale.

“They tried to kill us, but we didn't die.” This is the thread of the story handed down through the ages; it is one of incredible hardship and then survival.

When I was in school in Toronto, I recall the day the teacher told us that the famine was caused by a lazy population who stupidly lived on one crop because they could not be bothered to grow anything else.

"When that crop suffered a blight they starved," she told us, with the implication that they should have known better hanging in the air.

I remember looking out the window, trying to wed that story with what I knew about my own family, all of whom are avid gardeners and farmers. At home, I asked if the story were true and heard that food was exported to England all through those dark days. Imagine having to take the harvest to market, load a ship and return home to a house of desperate want. As the "croppies" were only given a scant bit of land to cultivate for private use, the "pratties" gave the highest yield and provided the greatest nourishment.

These are the facts: 750,000 were confirmed dead of starvation. Bearing in mind that many more died in the coffin ships landing in Montreal and Boston, this would be a severe underestimation. Without the hospitals, or the man power necessary to deal with the influx, the sick passengers arriving in Quebec were put on an island in the St. Lawrence and left exposed to the elements. Promised, land, cash and food upon arrival, they arrived to find nothing and no way home. The bit of land they left behind on the dear, old sod had been exchanged for the price of their passage. Cecil Woodham Smith reported that during the famine years, 257,000 sheep were exported to England from lands held by absentee landlords. 480,827 swine went over as well as 186,483 head of cattle. Not even mentioning other crops, the picture is clear.

Yet there is a happy ending to this tale. The Irish flourished in both the United States and Canada. Reading “Galway Bay” prompted me to look up the history of my maternal grandmother, Rose Cahill Gaudette. One of ten children in her family, I learned that her mother was the oldest in a family of ten. Going back through the generations, my blood ran cold when I saw the date. In 1848 Thomas Cahill arrived in Montreal. Famine. Coffin ship. Most of the passengers died and their bodies were tossed over. Of the living, it was decided to send the Irish on a barge to Toronto. The sun blazed and the fair skins burned. Once again they were placed on an island off shore. Yet the good people of the city, rowed out in small boats and volunteered to tend the sick, risking their own lives in the process. The Cahills made their way to the gorgeous Ottawa valley, carved a life in the wilderness, and flourished.

Because of “Galway Bay” and in memory of all the times my grandmother served her famous Boxty, the potato pancake, I planted a crop in my garden. Yesterday, I harvested the first of my bounty and served it with dinner. It is true. There is something about Idaho. I am proud to report that the potatoes were entirely delicious. Because of "Galway Bay," I will plant them every year from now on.

From one noun a great story may unfold.

Poetry Is Story

Poetry looks  both inside

and out,  filled with emotion

and  introspective thought, it

tells a story of nature

and  high adventure,  faith in God,

and ancient  history. It relays a

tale, and helps  one relate ,

contemplate justice versus injustice;

 Romantic  love, parental love,

childhood memory, and hopeful

endeavor.  It can be blank verse,

free verse,  a limerick, sonnet,

allegory, cacophony, ode or

ballad.  And matters not the

type or style  - metaphor, simile,

falling meter, feminine rhyme

poetry can make us laugh, make

us cry , make us think, lift our spirit , and

warm our heart. 

In a  book I purchased last week ,  The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline  Kennedy Onassis , Selected and Introduced by Carolyn Kennedy,   my  spirit was lifted and my heart warmed  by many  of the poems she had chosen  -  some I had read before , and some for the first time ,  like  Mother to Son  by  Langston Hughes:

Well, son, ’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,

It had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare .

But all the time

I’se been a—climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s ,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So, boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you find it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still  goin ‘, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

I  get it that Hughes is writing  from  a black woman’s experience ,  and  about the many  difficult challenges  people of color were subjected too, but I can’t help but think of  his poem in broader  scope,  relating it to all women  in general , and how difficult it once  was for them  before laws changed.    I remember  when my parents divorced in the early 1960’s,  after my father left,  our landlord told mom she would have to move as  they didn’t rent to divorced women.  It was a shock , not only to my mom, but  also to my brother and me , as we had lived in  our duplex for several years. It was  sad thinking we’d have to leave the neighborhood , and friends we  were so familiar with.  When  mom  went house looking, and inquired about another rental ,   she told the landlord   there  would be  three living in the house.  He asked , “ You, your husband, and child ?”   She replied , “No, me and my two children”.  The landlord  didn’t hesitate a minute before saying  , “ I’m sorry  I don’t rent to divorced women. They have wild parties”.     The point I’m trying to make is ,  life can sometimes be hard, and poetry  like  what Hughes writes , speaks for us, and helps us become aware, and by becoming aware, we  begin to understand, and grow , and are encouraged.

In her introduction, Kennedy writes  “ Sometimes, knowing that someone else liked a certain poem can cause us to take another look at it, puzzle over why they might have liked it,  and before we know it, be captivated by  it ourselves. Poems often express  what we believe to be our  thoughts alone, and poets can become our companions as we journey into new worlds   of  imagination, feeling , and possibility.”  How true it is.

** Carolyn Kennedy's latest compilation of poetry  She Walks in Beauty, A Women's Journey Through Poems, can be found at most books store , and on line at Amazon.com

** For more information about Langston Hughes and his poetry visit http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83