Alabama childhood magic by Steven M. Quackenbush (Me, as a Child Poetry Series)

Alabama childhood magic
by Steven M. Quackenbush

It was red dirt and pine needles
It was the smell of fresh rain on hot tar roads
It was clean air made fresh by hundred-foot-tall pines
It was diving into a lake and swimming down till the water was cool
Alabama childhood magic
It was Hope Hull lazy afternoons smelling hay and decay in that big old      barn
It was banana spiders huge black and yellow filling half-open barn doors
It was fresh honeycomb from the Theisens
It was honeysuckles and morning glories
Alabama childhood magic
It was a two-wheeled freedom given by that perfect bike
It was riding down to the community center or a friend’s house
It was freedom from a world of worries
It was throwing that skunk-fighting dog in the stock tank
Alabama childhood magic
It was red dirt roads announcing visitors from a mile away
It was that Spanish terracotta roof on the house next door
It was green everywhere you looked and swimming holes at the end of      every trip
It was old cars and old people at old grocery stores
Alabama childhood magic
It was visitors like my brothers and uncles come once in a while with      stories of travels
It was big metal high round roofed pickup trucks
It was adventure through screen doors crashing shut
It was lightning bug chasing and sweet tea tasting
Alabama childhood magic
It was simple and enough
It was safety in a world so rough
It was the perfect Petri dish for my growth
It was magic because it was wild and free
It was Copperfield and Kreskin but no illusion
It was Alabama childhood magic

PHOTOGRAPH: “Ahhhhh Alabama” by JC Findley. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Steven M. Quakenbush was born Montgomery Alabama, in 1966, and attended elementary, junior, and senior high school there. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he attended Auburn University of Montgomery. He moved to central Texas in 1991, became a carpenter and later an ironworker/welder, then started a career with Federal Express for the last 12 years. In 2014, he started writing poetry and performing it at various venues in and around Austin, Texas, and has been the featured poet at a Sunday night Austin, Texas, staple called Kick Butt Coffee.

A Christmas Memory, story by Truman Capote

A CHRISTMAS MEMORY (Excerpt)

by Truman Capote

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning…Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar.

A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable — not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. “Oh my,” she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, “It’s fruitcake weather!”

…”I knew it before I got out of bed,” she says, turning away from the window with a purposeful excitement in her eyes. “The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear. And there were no birds singing; they’ve gone to warmer country, yes indeed. Oh, Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat. We’ve thirty cakes to bake.”

 It is always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: “It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch the buggy. Help me find my hat.” 

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

A CHRISTMAS MEMORY (Excerpt)

by Truman Capote

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning…Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar.

A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable — not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. “Oh my,” she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, “It’s fruitcake weather!”

…”I knew it before I got out of bed,” she says, turning away from the window with a purposeful excitement in her eyes. “The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear. And there were no birds singing; they’ve gone to warmer country, yes indeed. Oh, Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat. We’ve thirty cakes to bake.”

 It is always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: “It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch the buggy. Help me find my hat.”