On the road to Magnolia - Part 1

The whole thing started out as a self-indulgent tale based on several pieces of dreams which had floated into and out of my head over the past thirty or more years. The primary character was named Scott Jensen. He was a well-known radio talk show host based in Dallas - his production company in danger of taking him over and spitting him out.

The story hits Amazon.com here in the next week or so as Saving Magnolia. It has nothing to do with Scott Jensen, or a radio talk show based in Dallas or of a production company. Radio is still a major component in the story as is Dallas, as is Chillicothe, Ohio. The story has changed considerably and has expanded from roughly 35,000 to over twice that many words.

In this and another blog or two, I'm going to trace some of the threads which have eventually led to the story in the physical book, as well as some background on Magnolia and a few other characters which will be introduced in some succeeding books (The Magnolia Chronicles - The Magnolia Connection - The Secret of Possum Hollow).

WRITING -

I've stated elsewhere that I have always written. Storytelling is in my DNA. My maternal Grandfather was one of the best story tellers I have ever encountered. He was full of them from experience. For instance, he had vivid recollections of his involvement in WWI. My father once stated that Leo Eddy never told the same story twice - a creditable achievement since the gentleman would have been excused for doing so in the later years of his life.

My father told stories more than once, but they were repeated as command performances, not as senile ramblings. It was not until nearly 20 years after my father's passing that I received a packet of stories he actually wrote down on paper. One of them, a short story Death and Llewellyn may make it to a collection of short stories I am contemplating publishing. Despite what I see as a time frame error, the story is charming and funny in its own way.

I picked up on telling stories somewhat early in my life. The older I got, the larger the repertoire. It got to the point where I needed to put some of my stories down on paper in preparation of becoming the senile old man who spends most of his time chasing the neighborhood kids off of his lawn.

When I was in college, I took a class in script writing. We were given a form and an assignment to come up with a half-hour television script. In that assignment, I sowed the seeds which would eventually lead to Magnolia, Ohio and one of the characters in Saving Magnolia, Steve Mulligan. The script was a situation comedy I called Chuck's Bargain Center. Steve was a worker in a small store in a small southern Ohio town. The proprietor was an Italian immigrant (working on a stereotype, here) who spent his days trying to make an honest living despite Steve and Steve's girlfriend, Katy. The script contained a lot of slapstick and a lot of "Mamma mia!", but it did earn me a B for the project and the course.

Chuck's Bargain Center was based on the Piketon Bargain Center, an ill-fated venture by one of my bosses to take over and run a small run-down grocery store. My boss's name was Tyrone Hemry - one of my fellow employees at the radio station where we worked imagined radio commercials for Tyrone, calling him Tyrone - just call me Chuck - Hemry. Chuck stuck, as did the name of my co-worker (Steve) and his girlfriend, later wife, later ex, Katy. Those characters and the script stuck with me for over 25 years, as did memories from working at radio station WIBO in Waverly, Ohio.

When I started pulling the final scenarios which eventually became Saving Magnolia, I took a look back at Steve, Katie, Chuck and The Bargain Center to be part and parcel of my story. Steve became an assistant football coach to Coach Chuck - a character based on a coach and health teacher I had been familiar with when I was in high school. Katie and The Bargain Center were gone. I explained what happened in a short story which is integrated into The Magnolia Chronicles. Steve Mulligan is too good a character not to have in a story set in a small town in southern Ohio - and too important a character as it ends up, to relegate a role in only one story. 

Katie and Chuck return, too - but The Bargain Center is long gone - victim of neglect and the building of a different kind of general store later in the series.

Back to the chase.

In the years between being a student at Ohio University and deciding to write a long-form story, I got a lot of experience writing in thirty to sixty second bursts. Those bursts were radio commercials.

Now, radio commercials are not as easy to write as one might think. For one thing, one has to put a lot of information into a short amount of time, so, the key is more repetition of key points than it is going over a laundry list. The second thing to remember is that the person paying for the ad wants to be proud of what he is buying so that he'll buy more in the long run. I'm proud to say that I have been able to write and produce radio ads which not only attracted attention from the audience, but kept clients happy that they were getting results.

Still, while writing successful advertising, I had the idea of writing in long-form rattling around in the back of my head. I needed a catalyst. By 2010 I had that catalyst and was ready to give it a try.

This is a good stopping point. I will be back with more later, tracing Scott Jensen, old girlfriends and the point at which I decided to make a self-indulgent story into something resembling a real novel.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Almost There...

Months, nay, years ago I had this notion that I could write a novel.

Not just a short story - a novel.

The notion had been bubbling in the back of my head for quite some time. I'd tell stories to friends and co-workers and they'd tell me that I should write a book. Maybe they were attempting to humor me or keep me from talking too much.

Well, here in the next few days, you will be able to purchase a novel with my name on it. It will be nice to be able to have something to curl up with, or at least take up space on your bookshelf. Here's the description:

He came to say goodbye…

An incident at work convinces Glenn Michaels that life is short – and that he needed to make some radical changes. He decides to drive from his home in suburban Dallas to Magnolia, Ohio (Population 2442) to wrap up loose ends on a life he intends to leave behind forever.

When he arrives, he is offered a legacy with one string attached. If he refuses to accept what is offered, he may be condemning Magnolia to a slide into oblivion where it would become just another small, forgotten southern Ohio town.

While Glenn tries to rationalize leaving and heading back to Texas, he embarks on a journey where he learns to love, laugh and live again – saving himself while Saving Magnolia.

Mind you, a lot of work has gone into that novel. If it goes over well, it will be nice. If it doesn't, well, I'm still ahead. The way I look at it, I've just done something other people dream about but never accomplish.

Saving Magnolia - Available soon. Real soon.

Two sides to every story...

Today I'll direct your attention to one of the stories contained in The Magnolia Chronicles. Much of the story revolves around something called Heritage Day - a celebration held at the end of July to celebrate the heritage of the fictional Magnolia, Ohio. It revolves around an event - an event which demonstrates mercy, love and forgiveness for a stray soldier tired of the war he had been convinced to fight:

The Blue and The Gray

Elizabeth Bell saw him dragging up the lane from the direction of the river on the next-to-last day of July, 1863. He was wearing what passed for a uniform. It wasn’t blue, it was butternut. He was a Rebel.

She ran inside the house built by her father to inform her mother of the invader. Martha Bell grabbed the rifle which she had used less than a fortnight ago when Morgan’s Raiders came storming through the county, intent on raising havoc on Union territory… avenging recent rebel losses in Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

By the time Martha Bell had armed herself to confront the invader, the Rebel soldier had nearly made it to the house.

Elizabeth came up behind her mother to witness the confrontation.

“What are you doing in these parts, Reb?” Martha barked at him.

“I was hopin’ to have a drink of water from your well before I moved on.” 

He looked to be no more than a boy. He wore no shoes; his butternut uniform was tattered and torn. He was thin as a rail – his face pleading for relief from his situation. 

The rebel had already slipped his rifle from over his shoulder. He had cast it on the ground and then took three steps back.

“Lizzie, take his gun while I decide what to do with him,” Martha snarled.

Elizabeth was scared. She stepped past her mother while keeping an eye on the boy, expecting him to grab her and make her his hostage… a last desperate move of a desperate man.

He sat on the ground when she approached. She saw in his eyes that he was as scared as she was. 

“I have half a notion to kill you, boy.  One of your kind killed my husband in Gettysburg,” There was anger in Martha’s eyes while she barked at the soul at the receiving end of her rifle.

The young man closed his eyes. A tear trickled down his cheek. “Do what you will, ma’am, if’n it would please you.”

Elizabeth expected to hear a shot, with the body of the young man lying lifeless before her.  He would pay for the sin of killing her daddy with his own blood in the middle of the lane leading to her daddy’s house. Justice would be served and the Bells would be able to go on with their lives, poor but proud.

Martha’s angry eyes started to tear up. She laid down her rifle and went over to comfort the invader. 

“Makes no sense to pay a killin’ for a killin’,” she told the soldier.

Elizabeth put down the boy’s rifle. All three of them clutched each other to cry a river of tears until well after sunset.

-----

The boy’s name was Noah Elston. He was part of the raiders who had come through less than a week ago. He had been part of the War of the Rebellion for just over two years, joining the cause so that he could avenge the honor of his family and of the South. It was going to be a Grand Adventure. Instead, it became the most miserable part of his life so far. He wanted out, even at the cost of his life.

The Bell women took him in.

“I was a straggler,” he told Elizabeth, “I followed the raiding party out of Cincinnati losing two, three miles a day till I come here. They forgot me, I guess, or maybe they didn’t much care. I’m findin’ out that war’s pretty much like that.”

-----

After a few days of rest and restoration for the reluctant rebel, Martha Bell decided that it was time that the authorities were contacted and the boy sent to a camp to sit out the rest of the war. Elizabeth pleaded with her mother not to do it. In the little bit of time she had spent with him, she had gotten to know him. Besides, she pointed out to her mother, he would be handy to help bring in the crops and prepare the farm for the coming winter.

            Martha relented due to their family’s situation. There was work to be done and hired hands were few and far between. Noah Elston agreed to remain at the Bell farm as a substitute for her missing husband, sharing room and board and a portion of any profits from the farm. His origins would remain a secret until after the war was over.

It wasn’t long before Noah Elston’s former status as a rebel soldier became one of the worst kept secrets in Magnolia. He worked hard to repay his debt to the Widow Bell, a trait which endeared him to the other farmers in the area who hired him when they occasionally needed an extra hand. The County Sheriff and the Village Constable discovered the secret, but looked the other way. They saw Noah’s dedication. They also saw that Elizabeth was growing quite fond of the man she first saw on that hot summer afternoon dragging up the lane.

-----

“The war is over, Mr. Elston.”

Martha Bell made the pronouncement at Easter Dinner, 1865.

“You are free to go wherever you may wish to go. Elizabeth and I thank you for your dedication and for being the perfect gentleman.”

Elizabeth had a sinking feeling in her heart. The boy who had arrived a little less than two years ago had become a handsome young man. She had fallen in love with him. She had other suitors, but the man she desired the most was the newly freed man sitting with them at the dinner table.

“Ma’am, I thank you for my freedom and for my treatment while I have been in your care. While part of me wants to head back south to Kentucky, part of me wants to stay here, at least until the summer crops are harvested.”

“You do not need to be loyal to me or to this household,” Martha Bell declared. “There are other men in the village now available to do the chores you have done so faithfully.  Would there perhaps be another reason you would want to stay?”

“Yes, ma’am. I would like to say quite plainly that I desire to stay here to spend more time with Miss Elizabeth. I have fallen in love and I desire to marry her.”

Elizabeth’s heart jumped for joy.  “Mother, please say yes.”

Martha Bell needed no further convincing. She had seen her Elizabeth with the young man and had become convinced that the two of them could take over the farm and relieve her of the burden imposed on her when her husband died at Gettysburg.

-----

Two years to the day when Noah Elston came dragging up the lane to the Bell house, Elizabeth Bell married the young former soldier to become Elizabeth Elston. From that day forward, the “Bell House” became the “Elston House”.

Noah and Elizabeth Elston prospered. Martha stayed to help raise the five Elston Children. The eldest, born on March 16, 1868 was named Joshua in honor of the grandfather he would never know. In 1874, Noah established a dry-goods store so people wouldn’t have to travel all the way to the county seat in Prentiss for the supplies they needed to keep their farms and homes running.

Eventually, Noah Elston became Constable, then Mayor (from 1884-1904), relinquishing control of the family farm to Joshua on the occasion of Joshua’s 20^th Birthday.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Noah donated a portion of his farm to the town of Magnolia for use as a school.

The Elston family multiplied. As the family grew, the house grew. Noah’s son Joshua had a son, Charles, who in turn married and was father to Elizabeth. The birth of the great-granddaughter was an auspicious occasion in July of 1936. It had been seventy-three years to the day since Noah Elston came up the lane to the house where the first Elizabeth would live the rest of her life. 

They called the great grandchild Lizzie. She was properly raised and, at the end of it all, was the last of the line living in the large, rambling house on South Street. All other possible heirs had moved away through the years, leaving her alone, until her eldest nephew, Richard, came to live with her with the idea of turning the house into a bed and breakfast. Plans were made and the conversion went along through the spring into early summer. The official announcement of the opening of the new bed and breakfast, “The Blue and The Gray”, would occur on the thirtieth of July at the Heritage Days Luncheon which would be held in a tent erected in the parking lot of the Community Baptist Church. It would also mark Lizzie Elston’s seventy-fifth birthday.

For an acquaintance and a friend. A sample chapter from Saving Magnolia:

Spit-Take

Glenn pre-planned every aspect of his trip to Ohio, from where he would stop to refuel to where he would stop for meals.  It was an old habit he picked up from his days as a radio announcer. Good timing was good planning.

“Forest City, Arkansas, exit here,” he said to himself at around lunch time on Saturday afternoon. The low fuel alarm on his car made its “ping” just as he pulled into the off ramp of the Interstate. “Timed it just right.” He was smug about the accomplishment. The car’s clock confirmed that he was ahead of his ETA, swelling his head even further.

Memphis, Nashville, then overnight in Bowling Green. 

Glenn went to bed somewhat later than he expected, but went to sleep quickly. He woke up in the middle of the night after having had a dream skirt the edge of his memory. He recalled sitting on a bench, holding a yellow rose, then being approached by a woman he felt that he knew. She sat down next to him. He handed her the rose. She took it and put it aside before she whispered in his ear: “C’mon, we have work to do…”

After settling back down, Glenn caught a few more hours of sleep before getting up and heading out. He took advantage of Sunday morning to cut across Kentucky to approach Magnolia by way of Lexington. 

It was almost precisely three o’clock eastern time when Glenn pulled up to a familiar three story brick building in the middle of Magnolia. He looked across the street to see Jessica Collins getting up from a public bench to approach him. She was holding the yellow rose.

“Welcome back home, Glenn,” Jessica greeted him as he got out of his car.

Glenn gave the old woman a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “It’s good to be back, at least for a little while. How’s Zeke?”

“Still holding his own… right now he’s taking a nap. He left strict instructions to have you meet us at four-thirty to go to dinner.”

“Still as feisty as he ever was, eh?” Glenn smiled.

“Still feisty. Maybe even a little more ornery than usual.”

“Has he found his replacement, then?”

Jessica nodded her head. “He’s kept files all these years. He has his replacement in mind, but he hasn’t asked him yet.”

Glenn opened his car to unload the gear he needed to take up to the apartment on the third floor of the building. Jessica walked back to replace the rose before going back to let Glenn in the front door. Instead of using the elevator to go through the radio station, they went through the restaurant to the back of the building. There was a set of stairs near the back entrance which served all three levels of the building as well as the basement. Actual access to the back stairway was by pass-card only. The second floor housed the offices and studios of the radio stations, WZEK AM and FM. The side elevator went directly to the lobby in the middle of the building. The broadcast studios were facing the street; the offices for the salespeople and Zeke were toward the back of the building. The third floor was occupied with a large, one bedroom apartment which was used by the Collins family for chosen guests.

“You go on ahead and get yourself settled in,” Jessica told Glenn when they reached the base of the stairs.   

“Any more I’m good for only one trip up to the third floor per day and I’ve already reached my limit.” She handed him a pass-card before going out the back door, through the breezeway and into her house.

The apartment was pretty much like Glenn remembered it. The suite was broad and airy with a good western view of the river and hills beyond the town. Glenn noted the various touches Jessica had completed before his arrival, including leaving an assortment of radio trade magazines, fresh towels and linens and an empty vase next to the night stand. 

-----

At precisely four-thirty, Glenn punched the doorbell of the back door of the Collins residence.

“You’re fifteen seconds late, Michaels,” Zeke growled as he opened the door.

“I’m on Central Time, Zeke… that makes me fifty-nine minutes and forty-five seconds early.”

Zeke laughed and gave his protégé a hug. “As I say, there was a time I would smack you for that, young man!”

Jessica made her way past the men to open the green Buick she intended to drive to the Town Lake Club. “Are you going to stand there or are the two of you going to get in?”

The drive up was slow, but uneventful. Zeke filled Glenn in on some of the latest gossip which passed for news in this little corner of the world. When they arrived at the Club, the lot was mostly empty. It was still a little early for Sunday supper. They were greeted at the end of the hall leading to the restaurant and promptly escorted to a table by a window on the upper level overlooking Town Lake. 

The Club was a throwback. It was the type of restaurant where many of the patrons were regulars with particular preferences of where they sat or what they would order for their meals. And never, under any circumstances, would any of the servers refer to a group of patrons as “you guys”. It was just that sort of place.

“Ah, Mister Collins and the lovely Miss Jessica!  How lovely to have you this afternoon!” The server was a young man who appeared to be in his mid to late twenties.

“Hello Thomas,” Zeke replied. “We have a guest this afternoon; Mister Glenn Michaels from Dallas, Texas.”

“Very good,” Thomas replied, handing out the menus. He took drink orders before leaving them alone to read the bill of fare.

“Michaels, I have a problem,” Zeke said after they had ordered their dinners. “I have a Doctor who tells me that for some reason he can’t cure old age. As I say, I may not have too very much longer to be on this side of the grass.”

“Zeke, not yet,” Jessica urged. “Can you at least wait until after dinner to have this conversation?”

“I may not have until after dinner, woman, and you know that.”

Jessica looked at Glenn and rolled her eyeballs.

“As I say, I’m glad you’re here, Glenn. I’ve decided to give you the radio stations and the restaurant before I die.”

“Excuse me?” Glenn sputtered, thankful that he didn’t have a mouth full of water with which he would have sprayed on his host.

“Zeke…” Jessica glared at her husband.

“As I say, you are the best person to carry on the business when I’m gone. Since I have no children, I am naming you as my heir.”

Glenn took a deep breath.  “Oooookaay…” he said as he gathered his thoughts. “I, uh, came up here just to play co-host for a part of a morning and to say goodbye to Magnolia one last time. That’s it. I have a life in Dallas.”

“What’s tying you down, boy? Your woman? Since your divorce, my understanding is that you’ve fucked your way from bed to bed.”

“Zeke… language!” Jessica scolded him.

“So you make some money at that job of yours. What do you do with it? As I say, money is like manure, Michaels. It’s useless unless you spread it around.

“Your kids are grown, you have all the skills that you need and, besides, you need a change in scenery. That idiot you work with, the coke head… he’s bad news.”

“He’s dead, Zeke. He shot himself a week ago last Friday.”

“I read about it; and good riddance, too. Problem solved. Go get your things next week and come back up to take over the whole shebang.”

Glenn looked over to see Jessica covering her eyes and shaking her head.

“Zeke, I’m… flattered. Seriously. But the business has changed. I’ve been out of it for fifteen years now. I can’t go back. All I want to do is to play for part of a morning to show my ex that I can still do radio, take care of some other business and head back home.”

Zeke gave Glenn a hard look.

“How soon are you going back?” he asked.

“I was going to be on my way back to Texas on Friday morning.”

“Before you say no, I want to have a long talk with you. Can you at least let me talk with you on… say, Tuesday?”

Glenn thought for a moment. “I can do that much for you,” he finally told the old man.

Dinner came and talk shifted over to some of the usual minutiae of day to day living. At one point, Zeke excused himself to go to the men’s room.

“Is he serious about his offer?” Glenn asked Jessica when Zeke was out of earshot.

“Most definitely,” she answered. “If you don’t take his offer, I’m told that some big company which doesn’t give a damn about our town will come in and take the place over. I’ll be okay. If he goes right now, I’m set for the rest of my life, but the radio stations and the restaurant will be at risk. There are a lot of people depending on both of them, Glenn, and if you should decide to walk away, Magnolia as you know it may just wither up and die.”

Fiction Collides With Current Events.

There's been some nasty business going on in and around my old haunts in Chillicothe, Ohio. Without knowing about it, I started writing a story some months ago which touches on some of what are now current events. Here's a chapter from "The Secret of Possum Hollow" in case you are interested.

October, 2012

Tricia Michaels was happy to be able to drive with the top down on her Mustang on her way home from a trip to Jackson. Opportunities to do so became considerably fewer in October than they were between mid-May and mid-September. She had time to kill, so she decided to take a trip over some of the back roads in the southeastern portion of Fuller County so she could take in the color painting the nearby hills.

She turned off the highway to head south on Possum Hollow Road, hoping to explore Possum Hollow Cemetery at the head of the hollow. While going up the road, she wished that her husband was with her. They enjoyed exploring some of the old Fuller County cemeteries together, especially on warm and sunshiny October days like this. On the other hand, if he was with her, he would have known about the gift she had ordered for him to mark their anniversary. She could have saved a trip and ordered the gift from the internet, but she decided that on a day like this it would be a shame to waste the day by not going somewhere.

The cemetery gate was open when she arrived. Tricia thought it unusual, considering some of the problems other cemeteries in the area were having with trespassers. She parked outside of the enclosure before slipping inside the gate which she closed behind her.

After wandering several minutes, she discovered a woman sitting on a bench facing a set of headstones with the family name Brown written on the primary marker. The woman paid no attention to Tricia’s approach.

She appeared to be in her mid to late sixties. The woman wore a simple house dress over an old yellowed undershirt which seemed to comfort her on those few occasions when the warming sun went behind a cloud.

The occasional light breeze made a rattling noise caused by the brittle leaves of the nearby trees. Tricia deliberately made little noises to attract the attention of the old woman so as not to startle her. Still, the woman made no indication that she knew that she had company until Tricia was just a few feet away.

“You got a cigarette?” the woman asked when she finally acknowledged Tricia’s presence. “Left mine back at the house.”

She did a quick visual examination of Tricia before narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

“Sorry,” Tricia replied. “I never took up the habit.”

The woman smiled as best she could. The missing teeth and the crows’ feet testified to the fact that her tobacco habit had aged her prematurely.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Tricia observed, hoping to initiate a conversation.

“I suppose it is,” the woman replied. “I never paid much attention.”

The woman’s gaze went back to the stones. Tricia looked down to see the inscriptions:

                        James Alvord Brown – 9/25/36 – 10/5/67

                        Nadine Alicia Brown – 10/17/37 – 10/5/67

“Relations?” Tricia quizzed.

“My Mam and my Pap,” she replied.

“Your parents?” Tricia sought to confirm. “Sorry to hear that.”

Looking at the stones again, she realized that the woman was marking the anniversary of her parents’ death.

The woman shook her head. “I was only thirteen when they disappeared. They walked out the back door and was never seen again.”

Tricia did some mental calculations placing the old woman about the same age as her husband.

“If it weren’t for them goin’ away and for David, I’d a been married to Johnny Ross.”

Tricia looked at the stones again and made a note of a third marker:

                        David Brown – 11/1/52 – 11/21/67

She noted another, fresher yet unmarked grave inside the bounds of the family plot. “Another member of the family?” Tricia asked.

“That’s Evan,” the woman replied. “He killed his-self back a year and a half ago. The Deputy what found him said he tried it before. I di’n’t knowed he was still alive until he come up dead.”

“Were there other siblings?”

The woman nodded. “They was Rose and Timmy – They was the youngest. Jim Junior is said to be in jail and they was one other sister. Cain’t remember her name. Just as well. She most likely dead like them other whores they took away to work.”

“What do you mean?”

Tricia smelled a story going much deeper than that of a lonely old woman sitting on a bench in a rural graveyard.

“I need a cigarette,” the woman announced while getting up as best as she could.

Tricia noticed that the woman had the beginnings of a widow’s hump, offset by a bulging midriff. Her steps were slow, giving the impression that the very act of walking was a painful chore. She paid no attention to Tricia, heading toward the cemetery gate as quickly as she could manage.

“Could I offer you a ride somewhere?” Tricia offered.

The woman continued to ignore her, walking right past the Mustang and on out the gate without missing a beat. She headed toward a farm house less than a hundred and fifty yards along Rattlesnake Ridge Road then disappeared.

Tricia thought a minute about following the woman but decided against it. “I must have hit a nerve,” she thought.

She went to her car to get her tote and her camera, returning to take pictures of the Brown family plot for future reference. After taking notes, she got in her car and headed back to Magnolia by way of Rattlesnake Ridge Road, taking care to close the cemetery gate behind her.

When she drove past the farmhouse where the woman disappeared, Tricia noticed that the house and the nearby barn appeared to have been abandoned. “Maybe she was a ghost,” she thought, stopping the car to take a few more pictures. Her idea was dismissed when she remembered how much the woman reeked of tobacco smoke. After taking a few more notes she drove off toward Magnolia – this time at a much faster pace.

-----

Tricia almost thought about bypassing Magnolia to head directly home. Instead, she decided to stop at The Blue and the Gray to see what, if anything, Lizzie Elston knew about the Brown family. She arrived to find Lizzie out on a swing on the front porch of the bed and breakfast enjoying the warmth of the October afternoon.

“So you’ve been up to Possum Hollow Cemetery,” Lizzie remarked after Tricia told her about her encounter. “This being the fifth of October, the woman you encountered was Sally Brown. Sally very seldom leaves her house on Possum Hollow Road – but every year on the fifth of October, she goes up to the cemetery to sit and stare at her parents’ graves.

“Mind you, the graves are empty. Jim and Nadine Brown simply disappeared back in nineteen sixty-seven before their kids woke up that morning. They disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again, leaving behind seven children; three girls and four boys. There was an extensive search covering a three county area with no clue at all about where they went.

“David, the oldest of the children, took the family car to search on his own and wrecked it on the highway just north of Portsmouth. He died in the wreck. Johnny Ross and Lou Gilbert felt sorry for the family and paid for the plot and the markers up at the cemetery at the top of Possum Hollow.

“Johnny Ross was the Sheriff, you see,” Lizzie continued. “When the Silver Bridge collapsed over by Point Pleasant, Johnny claimed that the Browns were somehow on that bridge and were trapped in the wreckage. Problem was that nobody believed Johnny Ross. They figured that he was a bigger liar than the Granger boy – Fred, I believe is his name. The whole incident cost Johnny Ross the election, the following spring. Most folks think that somehow Johnny crossed Lou Gilbert by putting some of the blame on Quinton Russell. It’s said that Lou rigged the primaries and Johnny Ross went up to his house to retire.

“When the parents disappeared, there were rumors going every which way. There was some speculation that they just walked out because they couldn’t support all of their kids. There was also talk going around that Johnny Ross and Lou Gilbert were somehow responsible.”

“Sally said something about her being taken away to be married to Johnny Ross,” Tricia pointed out.

“It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if that was the truth,” Lizzie smiled. “Johnny and Lou ran some of the shadiest deals ever seen in this county for nearly twenty years. There’s talk that some of their business dealings are still going on today.”

 “I noticed another grave up at what I assume was part of the Brown family plot,” Tricia remarked. “It was unmarked. Sally told me that it belonged to a brother named Evan.”

“Evan was one of the Brown children, yes,” Lizzie told her. “He died unexpectedly about eighteen months ago.”

“Sally told me that he was a suicide.”

“I figured as much. Death notices and obituaries seldom mention suicide as a cause of death. It can tear some families apart if they know.”

“What do you know about the other children?” Tricia asked.

 “As I said, there were seven of them in all,” Lizzie answered. “Aside from David, Sally and Evan, there were Rose, Francis, Jim Junior and Tim. Sally still lives at the family house with her common-law husband, Earl. The others scattered like the wind. One of them is in prison, I think.”

Tricia sat for a while deep in thought for a while. Lizzie continued to swing.

“What do you think about Sheriff Roy finding the Wherry girl this morning?” Lizzie asked, breaking the silence.

“This morning? I hadn’t heard. I went over to Jackson just after Glenn got off of the air to get him an anniversary present,” Tricia stated. “Betty Wherry’s been missing for over a year, hasn’t she?”

“She disappeared just after school let out in Prentiss a year ago in June,” Lizzie confirmed. “She was only fifteen. The family was said to have been broke and struggling at the time.

“When they disappeared, Jim and Nadine Brown were said to have been broke and struggling at the time.

“One story behind the Browns’ disappearance was that they ran away to avoid their obligations, much like some parents did at the dawn of the twentieth century. Maybe the Wherry family was having trouble paying their bills as well… at least until recently. There may be nothing to it.”

Tricia smiled. It appeared that Lizzie was giving her a hint. Perhaps the disappearance of Betty Wherry wasn’t quite the accident people thought it might be.

Lizzie kept pumping back and forth on her porch swing in a steady rhythm.

“Back in the day, a girl in the hills would fetch a pretty fair price for someone wanting to marry,” she finally told Tricia. “Girls as young as eleven or twelve would find themselves as brides to much older men who wanted to produce offspring to continue their line. Ask your husband. That’s what happened to the Smith girl he was so interested in at one time. She was sold to that preacher – just like her sister was sold just before Hannah Smith died.”

“Hannah Smith had a sister?” Tricia asked. “I can’t say that I knew that.”

“There was good reason. She ran just after Hannah’s funeral. The fuss her mother made about Hannah and Glenn and the woman’s subsequent death eclipsed the sister’s disappearance.

“There are answers out there, Tricia Michaels. Some people may not be happy if those answers were ever uncovered, but there are answers out there.”

Lizzie Elston dragged her feet to stop the porch swing.

“Sally Brown, the Smith girls and this Betty Wherry. They were all the same victims of the same sort of crimes committed in the name of tradition. Maybe you need to go out and find out some more about what’s been going on and write about it, young lady!”

Lizzie got up from the swing to head to the front door of the bed and breakfast. She paused a moment and chuckled.

“I gave up teaching – now here I am,” she told Tricia, “giving out a homework assignment.”

She walked back into the Blue and the Gray without another word while Tricia sat and wondered how good a grade she might get from the former teacher.

Back Cover

I've been quite busy with a number of things, including this idea for the back cover of Saving Magnolia:

“Glenn pulled the pin on the hand grenade…

… after counting to three, he lobbed it into the crowded café. A blinding flash and it was all over. The essence of the town of Magnolia was now nothing more than a twisted mass of flesh, metal, and glass. Blood, coffee and biscuit gravy dripped from the ceiling on to the wreckage. “Vengeance is mine!” he crowed while calmly walking away from the tragedy he created.”

If that’s the type of book you want to read, you’ve come to the wrong place. While Glenn Michaels and a café in Magnolia are present in this book, hand grenades are strictly out of the equation.

There is some gunplay, a couple of suicides and a grisly murder involved (along with a car bombing, a kidnapping, nudity and a seduction), but other than that, there’s not much out of the ordinary in this story concerning the small southern Ohio town of Magnolia.

The quick synopsis?

A man has to both overcome and embrace his past in order to maintain the spark which keeps the small, southern Ohio town of Magnolia thriving.

What do the critics say?

“I read it till I stopped” - I.P. Freely of the Faux News Gazette and Tattler

“G’wan! Beat it! Scram!!” – The cranky old man living next door.

“Rife with all sorts of errors. Don’t quit your day job.” – K. Shor, Editor – Saving Magnolia

“Helps my goats get to sleep, there beddy!” – J.P. Smegma – Goat World Magazine