Do you think you
could beat me up?
The Letter Parade
News and Notes January-April 2003
A terrible winter has passed. Congratulations to all of you who have survived the bitter temperatures, the colds and flus, the darkness. Christopher’s ma Mary Ledoux died (see obituary below), as did the dog Nightmare, whom we buried her in Susanna’s woods, just below the workshop. One big red rooster didn’t survive the winter and ended up frozen to the concrete floor of the barn for a month. Dental surgery has loomed for yours truly. My darling Christopher went into a dark room, actually built himself a darkroom which we’re calling The Lab, and has invested in several strange old cameras (Rolleiflex 3.5, Mamiya RB67) which attract the attention of passing photographers everywhere he carries them. The donkey Jesus has taken an unhealthy interest in his mother, and will be castrated by the time you read this unless he is issued a last minute reprieve, which he won’t be. And please heed the following warning. Q BREW WARNING. Bottles of Q Brew are beginning to explode throughout the nation. Bottles of Q BREW, the official beer of the novel Q ROAD are meant to be drunken not saved, and as Kraftbrau does not use any preservatives in the stuff, it doesn’t keep indefinitely. Bottoms up!
Our brother Mikey wrote about the cold from his trailer park: My cold water pipe almost froze solid in the kitchen. I turned on the faucet and only got a slow drip. The drip got faster and faster until small chunks of ice came out. My mistake was keeping the doors in front of the sink closed. Now I can keep my thermostat as low as 50 degrees without trouble... I had to break down and buy a winter jacket. I have three with broken zippers and the fabric falling apart. I haven't bought a winter jacket since the late 1980s. I also had to replace my winter boots. Both had splits so long that duct tape couldn't hold them together or keep the snow out. I think I got a mild bit of frostbite on my smallest left toe. I don't mind if my trailer gets cold. I figure that warm clothes and dressing in layers is much cheaper than running a less than efficient heater in a 35 year old mobile home. It's the same as living in those cold bedrooms at Mom's. Am I sentimental or what? Brother Geo has great news, about his GED test results. Not only did he pass, but compared to the broad swath of graduating Michigan seniors, he scored in the 99th percentile in reading skills (as good as or better than that percentage of ‘em), in the 96th percentile in Science and Social Sciences, 84th in writing skills, and even his lowest score, mathematics, put him in the 66th percentile. We knew you were smart, Geo, but we didn’t know you were going to show off so much. Great job!
Melissa Fraterrigo (who is, by the way, getting married this fall) writes from Erie PA: Happy first day of spring! Right now all the piles of snow are grey and slush and looking rather out of place. I found my first worm today--it was a spindly little thing, more blue than red (although wouldn't you be after that winter!) but such a sight for sore eyes! I love it when the worms multiply and you can smell them everywhere you go and you have to watch where you walk! Those are the worm days.
From Peter Brakeman in Kalamazoo: Remember the bright red Jeep I had, for about six weeks. And how, on March 17th, two years ago, it got totaled, I mean absolutely smashed, stomped on, chewed up and spit out 30 feet down the street? If you remember that, you may well have thought “hey Einstein, bet you won't park on the street anymore.” But please remember, there are approximately 97 other people who park on that same street every night, and they have for many, many years. After a while, the strange, freakish hit-and-run accident with the Jeep fades into memory, and one finds oneself (that is to say: I found myself) parking on the street again, along with my 97 fellow parkers. So last night (Saturday, March 8, 2003) I had just drifted off to sleep when there's a knock on the door. I look out the peep-hole to see a cop standing in the hallway. I step out and she says 'do you own a dark blue Honda Accord, parked on Lovell St.? I answer in the affirmative (it's hard to identify in specific, let alone spell, the affirmative response that comes out of the mouth when you just got roused out of sleep). She says “I think you might want to come down and take a look at it.” I know you're way ahead of me already, and yep, you're right: absolutely smashed, stomped on, chewed up and spit out 30 feet down the street. And I think: I'm glad I took the “Sudsy Monchik” signature series racquetball equipment out of the trunk. I'm glad I didn't schedule the $500 CV boot replacement for last week instead of next. And I'm glad I don't sleep in my car.
Gina Wilkins writes from Detroit: I am working, working, working……. I have a dumb corporate job but I will be supporting my mother soon, as she is ill and can’t work much any more. That’s okay, I just have to pay off the ole student loans and start paying for her medical care and stuff. So poetry is on the back burner, kind of, though I write every once in a while. Speaking of which, I wrote a first chapter of a novel, and I kinda like it. I wish I could write more of it (I’m much more interested in reading fiction than poetry, so why not write it too?), though it’s difficult to find time with my horribly time-consuming and mind-numbing job. I am also seriously looking for the wealthy, twice-divorced middle-age man who just wants a young wife for sex and trophy. I’m fine with that, really. Once that’s done, then writing here I come, full force! Goulash Tours news: Wayne Beebe writes from OK: We didn’t take a bike tour this year, although we tried to get on one. But it was full-up. I’m getting too old anyway, and have to walk up many hills. We took two cruises, one in winter to escape the cold for 10 days in the Caribbean, the other in August to the Ukraine. The 1st time we’ve been in that part of the world. We flew to Kiev, and from there went up the Dnieper River exploring islands and cities. One of the islands was the home of the Cossacks, and they put on a show for us and let me ride one of their horses. We had a great five piece orchestra that played Russian music for us like Kalinka, Moscow Nights and Koraberska, and even went with us on picnics. There was lots of caviar and vodka, as well as wine. We had much fun. After the river we went on the Black Sea to Sevastopol—off limits to most tourists. A lot of what remains of the Russian Fleet is there. Then on to Yalta, the Czars’ Summer Place where the famous meeting between Churchill, Stalin & Roosebelt took place. We finished in Odessa. We got into this tour because I read about a river tour of Romania, and it was in the former dictator’s yacht. I tried to get us on there but again no room. But they ran a River boat cruise in the Ukraine and had room on it. There were 23 of us Americans. We had an English speaking tour guide who was with us all of the time, a very nice lady. Also there were 75 Swedes and their guide. They were friendly and fun-loving. The boat was Russian owned. We were told it was the only one allowed to stop in Sevastopol. Wayne also reports: Walker Reid wrote that he had had gall bladder surgery, and was going to California to see a recently widowed old flame, from 1949.
Note from Nate, Tijuana: It's a hot day, 88 in the shade. I'm almost done here, the last thing I have to do is find a podiatrist. Then I'll take the bus to the express line at customs, pick up my stuff at the Marriot and at the train station, and head up to Solana Beach. The water is fine. I'll Check out UC San Diego tomorrow, the extension program in Bioinformatics, Pharmacology, Not yet sure at what point I'll return to Boston, but classes at UCSD begin the 1st week in January. I can stay in a decent hotel for $100/week while I look around and decide where to live. Maybe by the beach, more likely close to the border crossing point. The Autonomous Technical University in TJ may be autonomous enough that I could take computer courses without big administrative hassles. I went to the Museum of the Californias (Baja) today, and found that Baja California is far more interesting than I had imagined. There's quite a lot to do and see.
From Pat & Sybil Herlihy’s year-end newsletter: ... The culmination of months of talking and planning was to be a November visit to Indonesia, to Bali, Lombok, Java and back via Singapore to catch up with Fr. Fabian, our first Sacred Hearts priest in Daventry in the 1970s. However, we were put off by the Bali bomb and the unsettling aftermath and decided to postpone until another year. In a last minute rush, instead, we headed to The Gambia for a week. And it was hot! We landed to 35C. And began to wilt immediately. But we learnt quickly to get up early and do our exploring before coffee-time. We took taxis into the Banjul market, the Abuko Nature Reserve and the Bililo Forest Reserve, where we saw colourful birds and red monkeys. We also had a wonderful visit to a local church—two white faces in a sea of black. Everyone was so friendly and the music just soared up to the high tin roof.
We have both recently become involved with the Sacred Hearts Lay Association, after being intrigued with the quality and the mission of the priests who have served us in Daventry. This year we took on the writing of the Newsletter—Pat with the ideas and Sybil the experience of School Magazines to draw on. Pat has also continued to compose, and Sybil to type, his Ballyvourney 3501(2). This is an exploration of the possibilities that the families with our name recently living in Ballyvourney in Co. Cork are the direct descendants of the very first settlers who cleared the forest lands in the Late Bronze Age about 1500 B.C.
Carla Vissers writes about the weather, politics: I guess we'd better enjoy it while we can, since it's supposed to turn cold again this weekend. I've become so cynical and angry about the weather, which is stupid, I know. I think I'm actually displacing a lot of my rage against the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration. Come to think of it, despite the fact that I'm a voting citizen in this great democracy, I feel right now like I have as much a chance of controlling what goes on in the atmosphere as affecting what goes on in Washington. I'm trying not to give in... I'm in one of those slumps which causes me to stalk zombie-like from one required activity to the next with nary a pause for the things that bring me joy. (Well, I guess I do glance at my family and my dogs occasionally). Speaking of dogs, I took Zoe to the vet today because suddenly she has all these bumps under her skin in various places on her body. The biggest is right in the middle of the cute black spot on her belly. The vet says they're fatty cysts--not harmful, though he did seem alarmed by the number of them. I'm supposed to monitor their size. Zoe loved the visit because she got to lie on the table and have three different people simultaneously run their hands all over her. What a little slut.
Heidi Bell writes about work: Today is a milestone for me as a writer. This morning I had to explain the term "cameltoe" to the editor at the Women's Review of Books. Neither she nor her boss knew what it meant. Maybe the real milestone is that the word will appear in the Women's Review at all (it's in a quote from the book I reviewed), possibly sending many Ivy League-educated women rushing to their dictionaries.
I'm at a middle school right now waiting for students to be done with lunch. The more time I spend in schools, the more I hate the educational system. These kids are supposed to work for forty minutes on a worksheet about the Czech Republic and Slovakia that is as dry as the desert. "To the north and west lie mountains in which there can be found plentiful spas and natural resources." Who the fuck cares? I can barely bring myself to give it to them, but they dutifully fill in the blanks. I certainly don't stop them from copying answers from each other's papers because they're not really learning anything even if they do the worksheet. Our school system and textbook publishers have succeeded in making a turbulent and colorful history as interesting as sawdust
You should never ask me about my cats because I will go on and on. Pancho and Lefty are nutballs. Last night I brought home a small mouse wrapped in polyester rope that they've been going apeshit over. Lefty picks it up by its tail and flings it over his head, sometimes hitting himself in the face. He's not too bright, poor guy. Lefty has colitis and is bleeding from the ass. Not life-threatening, I'm told, but not something to ignore. So we've changed their food, cut out the treats, and it seems much better. Today I was looking up what plants are toxic to cats and found that all of the plants I have are toxic. And Lefty has been chewing on one of them. Sigh. I'm a bad parent. Time to spray all the leaves with cayenne pepper. Also, Lefty has litter box problems. The worst kind of problem. Yesterday, Adam said, "He's lucky he's so cute." And he doesn't even have to clean up the pee.
Writing news: Q Road will be in paperback in July, with a new red-barn cover. At the Barnes & Noble 2003 Discover awards ceremony in New York I was given honorable mention for the top prize; author Tony Earley said nice things of my book: “In Q Road Bonnie Jo Campbell gives glorious voice to people we might dine among in a restaurant without giving them a second glance, whose homes we might glimpse in the distance from an Interstate without considering, even for a moment, the lives lived there. By writing with extraordinary empathy and grace about an odd handful of people in a place so small that it's all but invisible to everyone except those who love it, Campbell raises to our ears a sound not heard often enough in these dangerous times: the heart-rending cry of the human heart in all its flawed complexity.” Rachael Perry’s collection, How to Fly will be published by Carnegie Mellon in December 2003. Alicia Conroy’s story about the midwestern mud mermaid will be published in the emerging writers issue of Ploughshares. Donna Sparkman attended the CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication) in New York this year; she also writes from Kentucky: in an act of desperation and an attempt to jumpstart my creative spark, I went to the local beauty shop and had my hair highlighted. Highlights are subtle, right? Why does (my nephew) Evan say I have purple hair? I'm afraid to look in the mirror, really look -- I glance and run!
LEDOUX, Mary, Kalamazoo, formerly of Boston, Montreal
Nascar Ate My Brain
There are certain things, like garlic mustard or the phrase “y’know,” that start out small, but once insinuated into the fabric of life, are impossible to eradicate. NASCAR racing is one of those subversive things, and it’s creeping into my air ducts, courtesy of my obsessed significant other, Stockcar Chris.
It’s a silly pastime and beloved by millions. The season is a soul-crushing 8 months, and makes me bless the invention of VHS. NASCAR is the acronym for the stock-car league, which these days is more like big corporate bucks than “Dukes of Hazzard.” A race goes like this: Hill-billy rendition of national anthem. Not-very-stock cars covered with sponsor logos drive in circles VROOM, VROOM for three hours or more. Pass, make pit stops, crash. Winner burns rubber, digs donuts in infield, swigs his sponsoring beverage; thanks the car’s owner, sponsors, God, and his crew. That’s pretty much it. Meanwhile, the NASCAR merchandising machine is churning out league-sanctioned toys, Christmas ornaments, bars of soap ...
The dark side of NASCAR is its mind-numbing addiction, akin to the powers exerted on the female populace by “General Hospital” or “Survivor: Married to Bachelor Millionaires.” Obsession Exhibit A: 1996, Boston, a wedding reception; bulldog-faced man harangues a stranger that “the best athalete is the NASCAHHH drivuh, because he’s up against fi-yah!” (That’s “fire” to Midwesterners.) Even Chris, a devout tree-hugger, has been brainwashed into an obsession whose ties to the oil industry rival Dick Cheney’s. Cornered with this logic, Chris says he’s hooked on the soap opera: who’s hot, who’s switched to Chevy from Pontiac, whose new crew chief is Fatback McSwain; take that, Erica Kane or J.R. Ewing! See? This is a biased account from an amused outsider, and even the outsider is starting to throw names around.
Chris’s race experience actually begins days before the Sunday-swallowing event. He has to tinker with two “Fantasy NASCAR” teams, so rosters not only fit under “salary caps” but also counter the picks of his buddies. He’ll either watch the race with The Boys (not one under 40), or repeatedly phone his alter-ego Mark to gloat, complain, prognosticate (“Junior’s a punk--on the apron!” “Not Busch, he’s getting’ squirrely on the turns”). Pit-stops and caution flags are hard on his cuticles. I have witnessed some jumping and screaming and play-calling, and the rare celebration dance, modeled on the sandhill crane’s.
However, just as pesky garlic mustard might be turned into a tasty pesto, there is some entertainment to be found. As with any sport, I enjoy mistakes: a car leaving pit row with a gas can affixed. I most enjoy the commentators, who out-Yogi Yogi with their non sequiturs, their excited Southern twangs that sometimes become gibberish to northern ears. (You never hear a Brooklyn or Minnesooota accent in the booth.) It’s like “Hee-Haw,” only funny. Then there’s the gearhead gear: driver-commemorative Cheerios boxes on Chris’s kitchen plate rail, Matchbox replica cars atop the TV for good luck. His green, #18 race regalia, honoring his fave, Bobby LaBonte, meets fan-geek attire in any pro sport. Of course, the greatest entertainment is seeing the gawky spectator dancing in his living room when Bobby wins.
All in all, it’s a silly pastime. I’m quietly trying to convert him to a more athletic, eco-friendly, down-to-earth sport -- something like, say, football. Go, Vikes!
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For the family and friends of Bonnie Jo
April 2003
Mary Theresa Catherine Ledoux died Thursday morning March 13 at Bronson Hospital. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Dec. 10, 1927, she graduated from McGill University in Montreal and was married for seventeen years to John Magson of Bedworth, England. She is survived by children Christopher (& wife Bonnie) of Kalamazoo, Leslie Magson of Hudson NY, and David Magson of Kalamazoo. She spent most of her adult life in and around Boston, after living in Pasadena CA, Ottawa ONT, Huntington NY, and Narsarsuaq, Greenland. In 1996 she moved to Kalamazoo, and here she enjoyed the companionship of her friends at Crosstown Parkway Apartments. Mary was a clever conversationalist and cared deeply about correct grammar and pronunciation in both English and French, though it must be said she played fast and loose with the rules of Scrabble. We will miss her wit and style.
Alicia Conroy writes from Minneapolis