Building An Idea Story

Some stories are characters. Some are ideas. Some are setting. Some are events.

When I get an event story idea I have to search for characters to participate in the event. When I get a character idea I have to find something for the characters to do and a setting in which to do it.

Most recently, I started a story about dead people voting (idea). I needed characters and setting. I thought of Huey P. Long's quote, "When I die I want to be buried in Tangipahoa Parish so I can still vote."*

The setting had to be an isolated town. There could be no government to solve the town's problem with napalm or a tactical nuclear weapon. And some characters in the story had to be fanatical enough to vote on anything and to abide by what Alexis de Tocqueville called "the tyranny of the majority."

I started in Huey P. Long's depression era Louisiana in the cypress swamps of Tangipahoa (TANJ ih pah HO ah**) Parish along Lake Pontchartrain. I researched the area and found a Confederate training camp.

The U. S. Civil War would make a good setting for the story, except that Tangipahoa Parish was not organized until after the war. I could set the story in what would later become the parish.

On the other hand, a Civil War cemetery would be especially helpful in the story and there were no battles in Tangipahoa Parish. Savannah's Colonial Park Cemetary has Confederate tombstones that were defaced by Union soldiers. I liked that!

But Savannah surrendered to Sherman so that he would not burn it. There was not much conflict in that history and I would like a bitter past for the story.

I could lift the idea of soldiers defacing other soldiers' tombstones, but move it from Savannah back to Louisiana. Since there were no battles in Tangipahoa Parish, I decided that perhaps the battle of Mansfield in the Red River campaign was suitable. And Mansfield, in De Soto Parish was across Nachitoches Parish from Grant Parish, where the Colfax Massacre occurred.

The Colfax Massacre! That generates bitterness. Dead soldiers taken home to be buried after the Battle of Mansfield. Union troops in Reconstruction Era Louisiana sent to hunt down the White League for murdering 150-200 blacks.

Confederate tombstones defaced in the backwoods of Grant Parish. Hate and bitterness and dead soldiers fanatically devoted to majority rule. A backwoods community caught between Union troops and the White League. That was the setting.

And I know about plenty of backwoods characters like Wiley.

Bullseye!

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*In Louisiana, counties are called parishes.

**The natives do not pronounce the last syllable

Domo Arigato! Do You Want Fries With That?

A Japanese restaurant opened this week in my touristy mountain town. My wife and I went to celebrate the end of our move; or to celebrate father's day; or just to eat some sushi.

As we ate and discussed the experience, I kept coming back to this comment. "It's not that kind of Japanese restaurant."

I knew things were wonky when I stepped up to the counter and said, "Table for two," and the "hostess" replied, "For here or to go?"

I had never been asked that question at a Japanese restaurant. Perhaps that is my small town orientation. When we go to a Japanese restaurant, nobody asks McDonalds questions.

The walls were painted in orange sherbet. The entree was on a styrofoam plate. The sushi was in styrofoam to-go boxes. Plasticware. Most of the sushi was bland. The shrimp was almost good--it did not taste like freshly cooked shrimp. The tempura was good, though.

On the plus side, steak and shrimp generally costs $18 bucks or so at the usual restaurant. They cost about $8 at this place. So in my town we now have disappointing Japanese food at low prices.

About Godboxing

After I began writing poetry a friend (also a poet) and I had a conversation about a bumper sticker that infuriated her. She felt it was really smug. It said, "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven."

She viewed the bumper sticker as saying, "I do not care how badly I act, because the rules do not apply to me." She may have been right about the folks that had that bumper sticker. I never talked to any of them.

More than that, she viewed the bumper sticker as saying, "I know God. If you do not agree with me, then you must not know God." She did not like when people said, "God is this way, and not that way."

I consider myself a tolerant and polite absolutist. A Hindu friend (not the poet) once said to a small gathering around a professors' lounge table, "John gets along with everyone because his religion views all beliefs as equally valid."

He had me all wrong. I had to break that to him later.

I am an absolutist. My religion believes that "we know." We understand that some people of other faiths disagree with us and believe that they know. But we know they're wrong.

That was obnoxious! How can I be so intolerant?

The key lies in my Hindu friend's confusion. I am very tolerant, but not accepting. However, modern sensibilities often confuse tolerance and acceptance.

I love to learn about other beliefs. I love to compare and contrast their beliefs with mine. I feel no compunction to continuously say, "But I am right and you are wrong."

My poet friend objected to being told that by the bumper sticker. So we wrote Godboxing.

Some of the people with whom I discuss my beliefs are also absolutists. Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how anyone can hold non-absolutist religious beliefs. To me, "non-absolutist religious beliefs" is an oxymoron.

This brings me to my kung fu fist of death argument regarding absolutism. If you hold non-absolutist religious beliefs, then you must believe that I, as an absolutist, am wrong. But people who say that they are right and others are wrong are absolutists.

You intolerant bigot!

Godboxing

You Found It
(Godboxing: A Dialogue)

Is it the function of art
Or just the urge to kill
That causes you to limit,
To collect specimens,
To pin me and God,
Wriggling, to the wall?
"Something there is that doesn't love"
A box.
I don't know about God but I want
Out.

I am confined as you
By flesh and bone,
Tied to what is, and escape
Only by creation.
But creation involves loosings
And bindings anew--
Confinings anew?
Each surrounding wall
Has two sides.

Propositions:
In the box I don't mind
Darkness so much.
In the box there are surfaces
(Up, down, floors, ceilings, I don't know)
On which to lean.
But I've burned my boxes
And can't go back
Inside
(such a garden as it was).

A loosing and a binding,
The ultimate confinement
Outside walls which can't be broken.
In a different box, I am
Bound by my words
Which I have given you.

Incorrect

The reason that I am thinking about boxes is that I have found myself in a box that I did not know existed. In the past, I held some world views that were not in the mainstream of the political sensitivities of that time. However, they were reasoned world views, based on a mainstream reading of history, so I viewed the political sensitivities, not my views, as illogical.

My views have not changed. So why have I been using the past tense? Political sensitivities have changed. I now find my reasoned views characterized as evil. I feel that society has built a box around me and erroneously labeled it.

This will be a cryptic rant (a cryptic rant--just what you would expect from an academic), because I do not want to reveal myself as one who holds my now-maevolent ideas. Here is what I will tell you. The basis of my own evil view is this reading of U. S. history. At one time thirteen states joined a compact known as the United States by signing the U. S. Constitution as a voluntary association.

Nuff said.

I'll go polish my swastickas.*

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*Note: The previous line is a joke. I do not own, nor have I ever owned, Nazi memorabilia. I, in no way, sympathize with coercive movements of any kind, including, but not limited to, Nazism. My views are quite the opposite--individual freedom is the greatest good that mankind can work toward with regard to political aspects of this world.**

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**Further note: I believe that people should have the freedom to own Nazi memorabilia if they choose. Further, I do not view someone as sympathetic to Nazism simply because they study the history of the Third Reich and/or own Nazi memorabilia.***

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***Further note: I do not believe that someone who says, "Hitler was a charismatic leader," or "Hitler was a pursuasive orator," or "Hitler made the trains run on time," is necessarily sympathetic to Nazism. I think these views can be held by those who love freedom, but also read history.****

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****Two notes in one: (1) Will Smith, the actor, was once taken to task for saying that Hitler believed that Hitler was a good person--a statement that I would be willing to accept without proof. (2) I have no direct knowledge or detailed secondary knowledge of railroad efficiency in the Third Reich.*****

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*****Final note: My original rant has nothing to do with Nazi Germany. If Nazism had never existed, my rant would be unchanged except for the last line, which was a joke. Remember?

Boxes

A story arc of Scott Adams's Dilbert comic strip had Dilbert captured by aliens, taken to their home world, and put in a zoo. Finally Dilbert is released and returns to his cramped cubicle, thankful that he is no longer confined. The irony, in case you missed it, is that the cubicle that Dilbert returns to is materially inferior to the zoo he was in.

My reading of the strip is that we can be in spiritual prison or we can enjoy spiritual freedom, depending on our world view. No, this does not mean that I would just as soon be locked up in San Quentin as be on the outside. But I have seen plenty of people in a spiritual prison of which I had no understanding.

I recall a married couple that I knew in college. She was a sweet country girl that was pleased to leave school and marry a bright/brilliant, considerate, loving (from all appearances) guy. She had a job overseeing a warehouse. She felt trapped because she had preferred marriage to high school. She thought she would have had such a great career if she had not got married when she did!

My view was that she hated school before and was pleased to get away from it, so she probably still hated school. She was nice, but not naturally bright. She was earning a good living at a good, albeit limited, job. She had a husband who treated her exceedingly well. I saw her situation as one in which she could easily consider herself fortunate.

My mom had a similar story, except that mom was bright/brilliant; she had the 4.0 average and the academic achievement medals to prove it. But she got married at 17 to the man she loved (No, she didn't have to get married! I came along 7 years later.)

Mom occasionally wondered what she could have achieved if she had not got married, but she did not dwell on it as my friend in college did. Both women were confined by previous choices and my honest appraisal is that mom had much better prospects for career achievement than my friend in school. But mom was happy living in the box she made for herself, while my friend was not.

Our past actions build a little box in which we live. If we are not happy in our box we can, often with great effort and some risk, build a new box. But so many people in spacious, opulent boxes are miserable while those in more humble boxes are happy.

One of my favorite song lyrics, as I previously posted, is by Tom Tom Club. "Happiness is emotional habit." I believe that we make the choice to be happy or to be miserable. I understand that my belief is an axiom--an assumption that I cannot prove.

When I see someone who is unhappy living in their excellent little box, I am dismayed. Well, I am not crushingly dismayed. After all, that would mean that I am not happy in my box.

Wiley

My dad knew my maternal great grandfather. That was common in rural areas early in the last century.

Americans had settled down. Almost everyone was farming. Technology dictated that you would not hear of many jobs that were beyond a few miles walk and even if you did, you could not commute more than a few miles. So most people stayed in one place and married someone that lived close by.

Dad said Wiley was peculiar. He wore a white suit and carried a parasol when he went in to town. He fixed watches and shoes, which was unusual in an age where almost everybody farmed. And if you visited him, he would tell you, "I had my gun on you from back when you turned off the main road."

Wiley had reason to watch the road and keep his gun handy.

The first man Wiley killed owned a big sugar cane field near Wiley's home in Mississippi. The man rode up on his horse and found Wiley walking by the field with pocket knife out chewing on a stalk of the man's cane. The man said, "That's my cane."

Wiley replied, "I'll pay you a nickel for it."

The man said, "That ain't good enough. I'm going to get off this horse and give you a beating."

Wiley said, "If you get off that horse, I'll kill you."

So he did.

As far as I know we have only Wiley's word on the particulars of the incident, but relatives on mom's side attest that Wiley killed the man about some sugar cane.

Wiley's knife, mutual threats, and walking down the road also led to Wiley's second killing. Wiley was walking by a plantation where a party was being thrown. The owner's dogs came out and threatened Wiley, so he pulled his knife.

The owner saw the commotion and told Wiley, "If you hurt my dogs, I'm going to kill you."

Wiley said, "Call your dogs off or I'll kill them, then I'll kill you.

The man did not call off the dogs. Wiley killed them. Then he killed the plantation owner.

It is bad form to kill rich people, so Wiley had to leave the state in a trunk in the back of a wagon. That is when he moved into my dad's neighborhood.

One of Wiley's daughters was seeing a man that Wiley did not approve of. At one point the man was meeting her to take her into town and Wiley told her, "If you go up that road to meet him, I'll kill you."

She did. The bullet that Wiley put in her back did not kill her or permanently injure her, but her wound was serious.

One of his sons-in-law named Dertinger got Wiley arrested--nobody remembers what for. I am not sure if Dertinger was the man that Wiley nearly killed his daughter over. When Wiley got out of jail, he stuck his finger in Dertinger's face and said, "You're a dead man."

Months later, Dertinger disappeared. Wiley spread word that Dertinger told him that he was going to Florida to pick oranges.

My paternal grandfather visited Wiley some time after that. Grandpa had been hunting on Bear Creek and found a mound of dirt that looked like a grave. Grandpa told Wiley, "Mr. Edwards, off the Bear Creek trail I saw where someone had buried a man."

Wiley leveled his finger at Grandpa and said, "You ain't seen nothing, Lonnie. You understand?"

Grandpa said, "Yes sir, I sure do."

Grandpa never told the story until after Wiley died. He was not interested in moving to Florida to pick oranges.