The Guitar

Copyright © 2008 Judith J. Bentley

Back in the '70s when I was teaching gifted students at Sandy Springs High School in Atlanta, Georgia, when students actually wanted to learn whatever their teachers had to teach, one of my students surprised me with a gift she had made herself--a small macramé bag with lots of beads that hung down at the end of streamers beneath the bottom of the bag – it had a very ‘60s hippie look to it. Another student gave me a beautiful silver compact and mirror from Thailand. I was embarrassed that any student would give me gifts, but I knew I would hurt their feelings if I refused to accept them.

I loved my students and taught with my heart as well as my head. I was a poet-in-residence at one school and used to enjoy teaching poetry especially as well as other forms of creative writing. I was not much older than my students then - maybe by four or five years - since I had just graduated from graduate school with my master's degree in English and Public Speaking in 1974. Some of my students were extremely gifted artists, others were musicians, and a few were very good writers. I think they inspired me more than they claimed I encouraged them.

Then one summer evening at the end of the school year, I heard a knock at my apartment door. I opened my door to find standing before me one of my senior students who had just graduated. He held in his hands his guitar on which he had often played for special school functions to everyone's delight. He would accompany his girlfriend too and students would beg her to sing popular Beatles' songs like "Blackbird." Curtis was a poet himself and an even better guitarist who could play the blues and jazz by ear though he was also classically trained. His favorite recording artist was Christopher Parkening. I was shocked that he had found my apartment because I had an unpublished telephone number and kept to myself at home since my divorce so I wasn't expecting a visitor and thought maybe it was my older brother who lived nearby.

I stood at the door without inviting Curtis in curious as to why he had come by. "I want you to have my guitar," he said as he held it out to me.

"What? Curtis, I cannot take your guitar!" I exclaimed in exasperation.

"Please, I want you to have it."

"Well, for Pete's sake! What am I going to do with your guitar? I can't play a guitar!"

I had been his English teacher during his junior and senior years.

"Well, maybe you could learn." He had absolutely insisted and wouldn't take no for an answer in spite of my protests. No sooner had he placed it in my hand than he had turned and was gone.

I was sad because I knew I would never be able to play jazz or the blues or that "Blackbird" song on any guitar, much less his, and I knew I would never again hear those sweet sounds that he could call forth from those strings. I was an amateur musician with a good ear, but what was I going to do with his guitar for crying out loud?

It sat silent in a corner in my apartment for several weeks until I couldn't take it anymore. I called the local guitar studio and signed up for lessons. I figured it couldn't be that hard since I could already play the piano pretty well. Boy, was I wrong. After a few lessons, my left wrist developed cramps from wrapping it around the neck of the guitar, my left hand fingers hurt from having to hold them in various contorted poses over the strings, and the fingers on my right hand were sore from plucking the strings and were developing calluses. I had to file my finger nails on an angle so they would grip the strings like picks. I didn't think I'd ever get to the point where playing even simple tunes would be "fun." It was hard work. I practiced some each day but not enough and after six months of lessons, I quit, but I had developed an appreciation for guitarists I would otherwise never have had had Curtis not given me his guitar and I had not guilt-tripped myself into taking lessons. I never saw or heard from Curtis again.

When I moved from Atlanta to Richmond, Virginia, I heard about a young classical guitarist in town named Cory. I began attending some of his concerts at VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University). It wasn't long before I got up my courage to introduce myself to him and told him I had a folk guitar I didn't know what to do with that one of my students had given me back in Atlanta, and he could have it if he wanted it. I figured he'd put it to some good use. He was giving guitar lessons at a guitar studio in Carytown at the time, and he told me later that he used that guitar in teaching his students and really enjoyed it.

I tried to find Curtis on the Internet after I gave his guitar away just to let him know it was in very good hands of another fine guitarist, but I didn't have any luck. He would be in his 50s by now, I guess, that is, if he's even alive. I say this because I know I have survived some of the students I used to teach.

In Plain View[1]

Copyright © 2008 Judith J. Bentley

There is a garden
hidden in plain view
a sister soul
had invited me to.

Being free to all,
it welcomed me,
a traveler who
found solace in
its shady silence.

When I meet
any passer-by
who wonders why
I’m propelled by joy,
I simply say—

There is a garden
hidden in plain view
a sister soul
had invited me to.

Being free to all,
it welcomed me—
it welcomes you.


[1] I wrote this poem after visiting a meditation garden in Richmond, Virginia. I used the image of the garden as a symbol for the Spirit of Love which is always present even when, because of our own blindness, it may sometimes seem hidden from view.

Capitol Park

Copyright © 2007 Judith J. Bentley

Beside a bed of purple pansies
she found a folded poem
tossed on red cobblestone
where pedestrians passed on their midday stroll
and squirrels dug down in the moist green grass
for last season’s buried morsels.

She tucked the poem into her pocket
and read the daily news instead--
City Council scandals
and downtown demolition plans
for ornamental street lights, wider sidewalks
and blue banners pointing the way.

A homeless woman gathered her bedding and liquor bottles
and headed to the parking deck stairwell
safe from the falling night rain--
and a young man cycled
past Main Street’s mergers and acquisitions,
wearing three silver rings in his nose.

Guide Dog

Copyright © 2008 Judith J. Bentley

Loyal companion from Labrador,
harnessed friend
whose soft brown ears hang
close to his head,

He gently guides his lady
over hot August asphalt,
avoiding pot holes, pausing
for passing cars.

His strong, muscular body
carries at his sides
in small satchels
all her necessaries.

He halts at the curb
and quietly waits.
A door swings open
and he leads her through.

Jitterbug Perfume

I'm going to read some books by novelist Tom Robbins because I need to laugh, to work on my metaphors, and to read some wisdom--all of which I can do by reading Tom Robbins. He was born in Blowing Rock, North Carolina (1936). He's known for novels such as Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994), and most recently Villa Incognito (2003).
He says that when he starts a book, he does not know what the story will be. He does not outline and he does not revise. He perfects each sentence, sometimes for more than an hour, and then he moves on to the next one. He said, "I'm probably more interested in sentences than anything else in life."

He also said, "Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature."

A reviewer wrote of Jitterbug Perfume:

This book has just about everything I could ever ask for in a read: amazing, memorable characters that are so strange and unique that they feel all too real; dialogue lovingly rendered for each character; a wild ride across the globe, through history, customs, food, clothing, mating rituals, social class, and mythology; an amazingly intricate and creative plot that eventually ties up in the end; and finally, a grand theme that serves as the foundation to this whole wonderful, wild, imaginative, freeing ride.

One gets the feeling that Robbins had a grand time writing this book. I was laughing out loud on one page, underlining passages of exquisite wisdom the next. Everything flows so naturally; the feel of this book is LIGHT, airy, featherweight. Yet like a drone or mantra, its rhythm and texture winds its way into you until you have been relaxed by Robbins' prose into another mindscape: HIS, or perhaps, yours, expanded.

Robbins is a master of metaphors. And comedy. And when he combines the two, you WILL be re-reading passages wondering "how did he do that?" Robbins is truly a master and has a strong, unique, comedic, wise, wild, creative voice. Highly recommended.

Menninger on Mental Illness

Known as the "dean of American psychiatry," Karl Menninger, was born in Topeka, Kansas (1893). His ideas about mental illnesses and how to treat them were revolutionary for his time—and many of the approaches he advocated and developed became instituted in modern psychiatric treatment centers.

Menninger built on some of the foundations that Freud had established, and some of his achievements rest in explaining Freud to the general population through magazine articles, books, and letters. But he also diverged in many ways from the founder of psychoanalysis. Where Freud believed in treating individuals through set therapy sessions, the Harvard-educated Menninger advocated a total immersion experience to help mentally ill individuals get well. He-co-founded with his father and brother, who were also medical doctors, the Menninger Clinic in Topeka. It was inspired partially by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, which Karl's father had visited many years prior and had come home to report, "I have been to the Mayos, and I have seen a great thing."

The Menninger Clinic started in a farmhouse with only 13 beds for patients. At first, local citizens sued to stop the opening of a "maniac ward" near them. The clinic expanded greatly and eventually grew to 39 buildings on 430 acres—and to a staff of 900 people.
In addition to disagreeing with Freud on the best approach to therapy, Menninger had differing notions as to what caused mental illness. While Freud attributed mental illness largely to conflicts within a person's mind, Menninger thought that societal influences played a large role in an individual's mental health. He believed strongly that mental sickness often came about because of a lack of parental love during childhood. (emphasis added)

Also, he thought that criminal behavior was often a stage of mental sickness and that it should be treated accordingly. He was a lifelong advocate for prison reform, believing the current system did nothing to help stop antisocial behavior. He told Congress in 1971: "I sometimes feel as if I would like to scream out to the American public that they are squirting gasoline on the fire. The prison system is now manufacturing offenders, it is increasing the amount of transgression, it is multiplying crimes, it is compounding evil."

He often said that it would help anyone "to be getting three square meals a day and to know that there is opportunity ahead—things to be done, land to be turned, things to build." Once, when someone asked him what to do if a person feels he is about to have a nervous breakdown, Menninger replied, "Lock up your house, go across the railroad tracks, find someone in need, and do something for them."

He wrote more than a dozen books, including several best sellers. His works include The Human Mind (1930), Love Against Hate (1959), Man Against Himself (1956), Whatever Became of Sin? (1988), and The Crime of Punishment (1968).

--from The Writer's Almanac, by Garrison Keilor

FAY by Larry Brown

If I'd been born in Mississippi, this could easily have been my story too. I certainly tried to run away from home, but Fay, unlike me, was successful at it. Like Fay, I did find my way to New Orleans in the '60s.

Larry Brown's dedication page reads: "For my uncle in all ways but blood: Harry Crews."

Larry Brown is considered by an increasingly large and vocal group of admirers to be one of a small handful of great American writers working at the end of the 20th century.

Synopsis:A beautiful, naive, and good-hearted woman, 17-year-old Fay is fleeing home and her father's sexual advances, only to encounter a series of men all too willing to take care of her. As she makes her way from the woods just north of Oxford to the beaches of Biloxi, leaving bodies in her wake, Fay emerges as one of the most captivating heroines in recent fiction.

Another snyposis from the publisher about the novel FAY, by Larry Brown...

"She's had no education, hardly any shelter, and you can't call what her father's been trying to give her since she grew up 'love.' So, at the ripe age of seventeen, Fay Jones leaves home. She lights out alone, wearing her only dress and her rotting sneakers, carrying a purse with a half pack of cigarettes and two dollar bills. Even in 1985 Mississippi, two dollars won't go far on the road. She's headed for the bright lights and big times and even she knows she needs help getting there. But help's not hard to come by when you look like Fay.

"There's a highway patrolman who gives her a lift, with a detour to his own place. There are truck drivers who pull over to pick her up, no questions asked. There's a crop duster pilot with money for a night or two on the town. And finally there's a strip joint bouncer who deals on the side.

"At the end of this suspenseful, compulsively readable novel, there are five dead bodies stacked up in Fay's wake. Fay herself is sighted for the last time in New Orleans. She'll make it, whatever making it means, because Fay's got what it takes: beauty, a certain kind of innocent appeal, and the instinct for survival.

"Set mostly in the seedy beach bars, strip joints, and massage parlors of Biloxi, Mississippi, back before the casinos took over, Fay is a novel that only Larry Brown, the reigning king of Grit Lit, could have written. As the New York Times Book Review once put it, he's 'a writer absolutely confident of his own voice. He knows how to tell a story.'"

Fay is a novel that could only have been written by Larry Brown, whom the Boston Globe called "one of our finest writers — honest, courageous, unflinching."

Review:
"[H]is most powerful novel yet...[B]y the end the reader is mesmerized, waiting for a gun to go off, but praying for a miracle. There are no miracles, of course, but the raw power of this novel, the clear, graphic accounts of both humble and perverted lives (in the bars and strip joints of Biloxi) is a triumph of realism and a humane imagination." Publishers Weekly

Review:
"For years, Larry Brown has been known and respected as a writer's writer. But now, with Fay, this profoundly Southern novelist may win the broad readership he so richly deserves. Spellbinding." William Plummer, People

A documentary, "The Rough South of Larry Brown," premiered at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in the Spring of 2000.

All Good Books

Today is the birthday of Ernest Hemingway, born in Oak Park, Illinois (1899). His first important book was the collection of short stories In Our Time (1925), and he followed that with The Sun Also Rises (1926) and the book that most critics consider to be his greatest novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929).

Hemingway said, "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was."

9-11-2001

On Wednesday, September 12, 2001, I received a "Daily Email" from the Times-Dispatch requesting stories of survivors of the attacks on the World Trade Center the previous Tuesday. The Times-Dispatch printed this story, along with others, in its Sunday paper, September 23, 2001, at page A8.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS.

My daughter, Juanita D. Hanley (age 26, graduate of Huguenot High School and Hampton University with a degree in finance) was until last Tuesday, September 11, 2001, an auditor with the NASD in Manhattan. She routinely walked through the World Trade Center every morning on her way to her building, One Liberty Plaza, right across the street from the twin towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, she caught the 8:15 a.m. train (called "the Path") into the World Trade Center as was her usual custom and had planned to work in her office that day instead of being at other firms conducting audits. She arrived at the World Trade Center at 8:50 a.m., her usual arrival time. Unknown to her, however, the first plane had hit the first tower at 8:48 a.m. Once inside The World Trade Center as she was ascending the escalator, she smelled something burning. When she got to the upper level of the Center, she immediately saw people running. She asked no questions but began running too.

Outside the World Trade Center glass, metal and all kinds of debris were flying all around her as she ran down Fulton Street toward the seaport. Other people were also running to the seaport. She heard women crying and screaming. When she was about two blocks away from the World Trade Center, she heard the second explosion and turned around to see the twin towers on fire and people jumping from windows to their deaths. Terrified that the entire City of New York was under attack, she continued to run the additional 7 blocks to the seaport which was the only way she knew out of the City--the subways, tunnels, trains all having been immediately shut down.

I received the first call from her near the seaport. "Mommy, God has spared my life," her voice was trembling and she was sobbing.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Somewhere on Water Street. I can't talk long, Mommy, because there are so many people standing behind me to use the telephone too." She promised she'd call again.

She remembered that a ferry ran to Staten Island and it was her intention to go there; but once she got to the seaport, she learned that other ferries were going to South Jersey. She boarded one of them with two of her colleagues who lived in Brooklyn and could not get home. She invited them to go home with her. She recounted that from the safety of the ferry they watched in horror and disbelief as the two towers fell. She said that for the entire ferry ride, she clutched the arm of one of her colleagues while praising God for having saved her life and crying for those whom she had seen jump to their deaths.

She made her way by bus to Weehawken, then on to Hoboken and finally to her home in Rutherford, New Jersey. From there she called me a second time saying she had turned on the TV and that NYC "looks like a third world country" and that both towers were gone. Her two colleagues stayed with her Tuesday until a friend could come and take them safely back to Brooklyn. She was unable to remain in her home but spent the next few days with a colleague who also survived the attack. She returned home Saturday evening, went to church Sunday morning, and had a friend with her Sunday afternoon.

When we spoke this weekend, she said "I just want to get my mind back." She said she couldn't concentrate, was very forgetful, and was having difficulty breathing, had some chest pain, could not sleep and had lost her appetite. I had wanted to travel to New Jersey to be with her but she begged me not to come for fear that something would happen to me.

"It's not over yet. If anything happens to you, what am I supposed to do?" (I had raised my daughter as a single parent since she was 5 years old. She remains in contact with her father, however, who resides in Atlanta, Georgia.)

Later I learned that she was correct: two other groups of terrorists had been apprehended by the FBI and both groups had attempted to board a commercial airline and, in fact, one group had already boarded when the FBI stormed the airplane and detained the would-be terrorists who had pilot licenses from Florida and were also carrying knives.

Today, Monday, September 17, 2001, she was to report to the NASD office in Woodbridge, New Jersey to receive information on trauma counseling. She will not be working the rest of this week. Her continued employment at the NASD is uncertain at this time.

Sylvia Clute, Esquire

Sylvia Clute[1]
Lawyer, Bank Founder, Author, Recent Graduate Student, Political Candidate,
Legal Architect-Inventor, Wife and Mother

Presented by Judith J. Bentley


A BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONOLOGY

Sylvia Lanabeth Clute was one of four children born to Francis Hector Clute, an inventor (1905-1968), and Elva Lois Long (1908-1985) in Rocky Ford, Colorado. Her life’s work and focus is a testament to the fact that she did indeed inherit her father’s mind, for she has become both an inventor and a pioneering architect in the field of law. She has been bent on replacing existing laws with better ones, using her ingenuity and knowledge of law to reform the legal system in Virginia.

Of necessity the “inventor” personality is iconoclastic and tends to be seen as such so she “can get into a bit of trouble with the elders, who usually are not all that pleased to see their tried-and-true tools, operations, and enterprises blithely set aside for her better mousetrap.”[2] Of course, the “architect” is not merely a designer of buildings. “There is the architect of ideas (the philosopher), the architect of number systems (the mathematician), the architect of computer languages (the programmer), and on and on. In short, abstract design is the forté of the architect and coherence is the primary issue.”[3] Sylvia has become an architect in law.

The ’60s.

It is not surprising that Sylvia had actually wanted to be an architect but her high school counselor told her she couldn’t because she was a woman. Her mother steered her toward teaching or nursing, both traditional women’s careers. Then in her sophomore year in college, her mother astonished Sylvia by urging her to travel alone to study in Paris when a unified Europe was a distant dream. From 1962 to 1963 she studied at the Institute of European Studies in Paris, France. That was a formative experience for Sylvia as she watched President Charles de Gaulle urging his country to be economically entwined with the rest of Europe and with Germany. His example of leadership and vision of unity influenced her life.

She graduated from the University of Colorado in 1965 with a B.A. in Political Science, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal,[4] teaching English as a foreign language (1965-1967), married fellow Peace Corps volunteer Eric Johnson in 1967,[5] and got her first Master’s Degree in Public Administration in 1968 from the University of California at Berkeley.

The ’70s.

In 1970 she entered law school with a 2-month-old child. When she was pregnant with her second child, she obtained her Juris Doctor degree from Boston University School of Law in 1973 and moved to Richmond. Although she had passed the bar, she was unable even to get an interview in a Richmond law firm since there were still quotas on the number of women and minorities admitted to law school and it was difficult for a female law school graduate to find employment in an established law firm in the South. She became the first female attorney and the first pregnant attorney to be hired by Reynolds Metals. In 1975, when her third child was 5 months old, she left Reynolds and opened her own private law practice as a trial attorney. This was during a time when child care was not available.

She began organizing what became The Women’s Bank, the South's only Women's Bank specializing in services for business and professional women. The Bank opened in 1976, with Sylvia as co-founder and Chairman of the Board (1976-1985). A decade later it sold for a profit and merged with other banks. In its Annual Report of 2003, the Virginia Historical Society noted that “through the courtesy of Sylvia Clute” the board of directors of The Women’s Bank donated to the Society their records from 1976 to 2002 to the Virginia Historical Society.

She was a member of the Goochland County Planning Commission from 1976 to 1979 and was a Hearing Officer for Virginia Department of Health Professions from 1976 to 1993.

The ’80s.

I first met Sylvia Clute in the early 1980’s when I had decided to leave the teaching profession and a vocational counselor/psychologist had recommended I consider a career in law. Sylvia was the only female attorney in Richmond at that time that was being written about in the local paper. I was interested in meeting her especially because she had been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal and I had been an Appalachian Volunteer in the hills of Eastern Kentucky during my undergraduate years at the University of Kentucky. I got up my courage to call her, and she immediately invited me to attend the Women’s Bar meetings as her guest where I met other women attorneys who were former school teachers. When she learned that I was interested in attending law school, Sylvia invited me to read law under her supervision instead. Virginia is one of the few states in the United States that allow students to earn a law degree by apprenticeship and thereby become licensed to practice law. I gratefully accepted, being by then a single parent without sufficient funds to pay the law school tuition fees, and from 1981 to 1983 Sylvia supervised me as a Virginia law reader, requiring that I read the same law books that law students enrolled at T. C. Williams were reading. Under Sylvia’s supervision and tutelage, I studied civil and criminal law and procedure, constitutional law, partnerships and corporations, and real property law.[6]

Sylvia was practicing “family law” (a legal euphemism for law that deals with the dissolution and destruction of the family) but was also involved in legislative reform affecting marital property rights of women. In addition, she often served as an administrative law judge.[7] In her law office, I assisted Sylvia in drafting pleadings, summarizing depositions and conducting legal research. I worked part-time in another law firm to support myself because the Virginia Bar did not allow any law reader to earn income from a supervising attorney. I also accompanied Sylvia to court, to her administrative law hearings where she served as an administrative law judge, and to the early morning sessions of The Women’s Roundtable, a group of women legislators and lobbyists who met each Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. during the General Assembly sessions to comb through bills affecting women and children and lobby for those they supported. It was no surprise to me to learn that Sylvia had founded and organized this group of women in her own living room with the help of two other women. The Women’s Roundtable still meets regularly each year during the General Assembly sessions to review legislative issues affecting women and children.

As part of my law study curriculum, I sometimes accompanied Sylvia to the Virginia General Assembly where she bravely lobbyied the Senators and Delegates on behalf of women and children. During those years, women were not particularly welcome in the Assembly’s hallowed halls and were sometimes even mocked. Sylvia was the primary Promethean force behind women organizing across the Commonwealth to change unfair laws affecting women, such as the marital property distribution law. That law as finally enacted required judges from henceforth to consider the non-monetary as well as the monetary contributions of each spouse so that women homemakers rearing children while their husbands were out in the work world could not be left completely destitute and abandoned to poverty upon the dissolution of marriage as was the case prior to the enactment of this new law. She also worked to have property settlement agreements incorporated into a divorce decree. Prior to this revision, parties to a divorce, with attorneys present, would argue hours into the night about who got grandma’s cactus plants. I witnessed one such ordeal which lasted until midnight while Sylvia had three school-aged children waiting for her to come home.

About her experience practicing law in Virginia, Sylvia has written:

“When I began my private practice of law in Richmond in 1975, Virginia's laws still included many common law principles based on men's role being dominant and women's place being decidedly limited. I immediately set out to work with others in modernizing these laws. I have spoken many times before legislative committees, hundreds of organizations, etc. and traveled the state to solicit grass-roots support for such reform. I learned that it is possible to change the system from the bottom up, despite entrenched interests that oppose you. Through the efforts of many, Virginia's laws regarding the rights of women and children are now updated and in some instances more progressive than her sister states. I know, through the same process, our laws can become more holistic, in harmony with Natural Law.”

In 1982 YWCA of Richmond chose Sylvia as one of Virginia’s Outstanding Women.[8]

From 1982 to 1994, Sylvia served as Commissioner of the Virginia Public School Authority where she served as Chairman Pro Tem in 1990 and Vice Chairman 1990-1994.
From 1986 to 1987 Sylvia Clute served as the President of the Virginia Women Attorneys Association[9]. By this time, Sylvia had established her own law firm, Clute and Shilling, in Old City Hall composed of all women attorneys. In the Fall of 1986 under Sylvia’s leadership, and with the co-sponsorship of the League of Women Voters of Virginia, the VWAA launched its First Women’s Roundtable Legislative Conference[10] attended by representatives of over 100 organizations and featuring panel discussions and workshops on teen pregnancy, the legislative process, day care, child abuse, marriage and divorce issues, inheritance, budget issues and political strategy. The organization also created the Virginia Women Attorneys Association Foundation, a Section 501 (c) (3) charitable organization committed to educating the general public about the legal status of women and authorized to accept tax deductible donations was approved. On December 23, 1986, with the issuance of a charter by the State Corporation Commission, the Foundation became a reality.
In 1987 President Sylvia Clute called for the creation of local VWAA chapters and set up the mechanism for two pilot chapters. In addition, VWAA held its first CLE. co-sponsored with EX-POSE (Ex-Partners of Servicemen (women) for Equality), titled "Military Divorce Seminar" presented in Norfolk and in Arlington.. In the Spring of 1987 VWAA members participated in a Bicentennial Admission to the United States Supreme Court Ceremony held in Washington, D.C. and sponsored by the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations. At the Virginia State Bar’s Annual Meeting in June 1987, the VWAA was honored by the Conference of Local Bar Associations and presented with an Award of Merit for service to the community for its sponsorship of the First Women’s Roundtable Legislative Conference. Another highlight of the State Bar’s Annual Meeting was the debut of the Virginia Commission on Women and Minorities in the Legal System which had been organized in 1986 by its member organizations: the VWAA, the Virginia State Bar, the Virginia Bar Association, the Old Dominion Bar Association, and the Virginia Conference of Local Bar Associations.

Although I was not working directly with Sylvia after 1988 when I pursued an opportunity in another law firm, I learned that she had begun representing sexually abused children. She successfully lobbied for reform of the child sexual abuse laws to extend the statute of limitations so that an adult who was sexually abused as a child could file a lawsuit for damages against his or her perpetrator.

In 1988, Sylvia tried one of Virginia’s first civil incest cases and advocated for the extension of the statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual abuse. She assisted Senator Joseph Gartlan, a Democrat from Fairfax, in drafting legislation to extend the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual abuse. Gartan’s bill passed and was signed into law in 1988. That same year, Sylvia wrote an editorial for The Lawyer’s Weekly that stressed the need to extend the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Until that time Virginia had allowed abused or injured children only until their 20th birthday to file a civil lawsuit against their abuser after which they were forever barred.

The ’90s.

In 1991 Sylvia was named among Richmond's Best and Brightest Attorneys by Style Magazine.

In 1991, Sylvia filed a civil lawsuit in Hampton Circuit Court in a child sexual abuse case, but the Circuit Judge dismissed it three months later. She appealed the lawsuit to the Virginia Supreme Court, which affirmed the Judge’s ruling in June of 1992. The Court maintained that the molester’s civil rights would be violated by the lawsuit because Gartlan’s legislation had not been in effect at the time of the abuse. After the rebuff on the civil side, Sylvia’s client and other women abused by the same man charged him criminally. The 64-year-old pleaded guilty in 1993 to six felony charges and was sentenced to 39 years in prison.

In 1993 in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, a journal for the research, treatment and program innovations for victims, survivors and offenders, Sylvia published an article on “Adult Survivor Litigation as an Integral Part of the Therapeutic Process.”[11]

When the new law that Sylvia had helped Senator Gartlan draft was ruled unconstitutional by the Virginia Supreme Court, Sylvia was undeterred and urged the Senator in 1993 to sponsor a measure to amend the Virginia Constitution which he did. The narrowly drawn amendment would apply only to individuals and would not allow lawsuits against churches, clubs or other organizations. It passed with 11 dissenting votes and passed again in 1994, qualifying it for a referendum. The proposed Constitutional amendment allowed the Virginia legislature to retroactively extend the statute of limitations when an individual intentionally injures a child. It was endorsed by various groups including the Medical Society of Virginia and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association as well as by numerous newspapers.[12]

Sylvia Enters Politics

Sylvia ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in the 1994 primary. Then Senator Charles Robb won the nomination. She mobilized grassroots social-justice activists for her ambitious reform platform, which called for a moratorium on the death penalty in Virginia, as well as implementing treatment alternatives to imprisonment for nonviolent drug offenders.

“I got into this race mainly to address what I consider injustices that are taking place in the criminal-justice system because the politicians are using marketing tools…rhetoric, sound bites that have translated into being progressively more punitive and building more prisons. And as a result, the bias against the poor people and minorities who don’t have the money to wind their way through that system is being magnified.”

In 1995 she was selected as a Fellow of the prestigious Virginia Law Foundation, established by the Virginia State Bar and the Virginia Bar Association, which is to date composed of 330 members, only 25 of whom are women. This distinction is limited to no more than 1% of the membership of the Virginia State Bar, in recognition of service to the community.[13]

In 1996 Sylvia wrote a “friend of the court” brief (Amicus Curiae) on behalf of the Virginia Women Attorneys Association, et al. in the case against Virginia Military Institute for excluding women from admission to its military school. In United States v. Commonwealth, 116 S.Ct. 2264 (1996),[14] the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, holding that the supposed military style program set up at Mary Baldwin College “was not an adequate remedy for the equal protection violation. Justice Ginsburg, writing for the Court, found “no ‘persuasive evidence’ in the record that VMI’s male-only admission policy furthered a state policy of diversity” and that Virginia had shown “no ‘exceedingly persuasive justification’ for withholding from women qualified for the experience premier training of a kind VMI affords.” The Court remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded the case “to require Virginia to formulate, adopt, and implement a plan that conforms with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as applied in this case by the Supreme Court.”

For several years, Sylvia had been a student of A Course in Miracles. She began participating in retreats using Vipassana meditation,[15] an ancient Indian self-observation technique that has been preserved for over 2,500 years to reduce conflict and enhance teamwork, increase efficiency, patience and self-dependency and progressively eliminate such negativities as anger, jealousy and depression. She has described how Vipassana has helped her combat stress:

“I am not attached to the actions of others, so I don’t create conflict by responding negatively.”

Vipassana is taught in residential courses from a 10-day regimen to 45-day and 60-day courses for advanced students. Completing a course demands discipline, will power and following such rules as not communicating with fellow students and the outside world for the duration of the course. The rule of silence is to clam and quiet the chattering mind and turn attention inward. No fee is charged for Vipassana courses, not even for board and lodging. Expenses are met solely through voluntary donations and services of previous students. Meals are vegetarian. Besides an annual retreat, Vipassana students are required to practice at home twice daily for an hour each. One student commented that Vipassana is an art of living through continuous self-improvement. It helps the student in adverse conditions, in being tolerant of others and taking positive action as opposed to blind reaction.

In 1997, Sylvia published her first novel, Destiny. “As the novel begins, Christi Daniel, an attorney in the civil litigation department of a large Washington, DC law firm well known for defending claims brought against their insurance clients, faces the prospect of defending two disturbing clients – one, a plastic surgeon charged with medical malpractice and fraud in a reconstructive post-mastectomy case and the other, a child molester – in addition to warding off the unwanted advances of one of the married senior partners in the firm as she leaves for home one night. Increasingly distraught over the dysfunctional legal and governmental systems, she begins a search to find a better way. Through her journey she learns that America was founded upon secret spiritual truths rooted in ancient Egyptian and Kabalistic traditions. From there she learns about new ways of seeing reality and about the seven spiritual principles for government.”

“Destiny is a novel based on America’s secret spiritual past—and future – and Christi’s struggles reflect everyone’s quest for peace and harmony in a complex and demanding world. In her novel, Sylvia sets out seven spiritual principles for governing a people.”
Fear shall never be used to manipulate the people
Justice shall be delivered without judgment
The equality of every citizen shall be honored
The power of the people shall be inviolate
Change only comes from within
Love is the only source of power
E Pluribus Unum - the many are one
The 2000s.

In 2001, despite no campaign funds and only volunteers on her staff, she sought but lost the Democratic nomination for Virginia’s attorney general. She ran on an ambitious drug court reform platform, which called for treatment alternatives for non-violent drug offenders. The one Republic candidate and all 3 Democratic candidates had announced that they were “get tough on crime” candidates. Sylvia’s was a different voice in the campaign and she explained why “get tough on crime” was bad public policy.

Democrats debate Va. Leadership
Attorney General candidates discuss issues for November's election
Justin Bernick, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor
Sylvia Clute, Sen. John Edwards and Del. Donald McEachin (left to right) agreed on most issues in last night's debate.
As part of the Democratic Primary Debate Series, three of the four candidates for the Democratic attorney general nomination met last night in the Chemistry Auditorium in a debate sponsored by University Democrats.
Consensus on many key issues characterized the debate. Candidates Del. Donald McEachin of Henrico County, Sen. John Edwards of Roanoke, and Sylvia Clute of Richmond participated in the debates. Del. Whitt Clement, who is also a candidate, did not attend. The four candidates are competing for a position on the ticket that will include Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner.
The candidates debated a broad spectrum of issues including gun control, abortion, the death penalty, the war on drugs and genetic privacy.
Clute commented on the growing problem of the Commonwealth's response to crime.
"I am concerned about our response [to crime] that is increasingly punitive."
Clute stressed the need to increase the scope of "drug courts" given low costs and effectiveness at deterrence. The debate moderators, led by Alexander Theodoridis, chief of staff of the Center for Governmental Studies, questioned candidates regarding the role of current Republican Attorney General Mark Earley in the car tax reduction and the ensuing budget freeze at institutions of higher education in Virginia.
"The attorney general is the person who can set standards of accountability," Clute said. She said the office of attorney general should be more responsible to the people.
2002. In November, Jonathan B. Wight, Professor of Economics at the Robins School of Business, University of Richmond, lectured at Unity of Richmond Book Club on “Adam Smith and Moral Transformation.” Sylvia was the moderator and host.
2003. In 2003, Sylvia entered Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government to begin work on her second Master’s Degree in Public Administration. There she studied the European Union whose birth she had watched de Gaulle predict more than four decades earlier. In October of 2003 the Harvard Crimson News reported on Doris Haddock, better known as “Granny D,” a 93-year-old woman who walked across the country from 1999 to 2000 to advocate campaign finance reform. Harvard was her first stop on her second journey in the name of a political cause—a 14-month tour through cities and towns across the United States to encourage greater voter participation. Sylvia was quoted in that article, ‘Granny D’ Rocks Vote at Harvard, as saying that Haddock an inspiration. “I look at her and I realize I have at least 30 years to make use” of.[16]
2004. In the Fall of 2004 in Letters to the Editor of The Citizen, the Kennedy School’s newsletter, the Senior Associate Dean wrote:
“Dear Editors:On behalf of the Degree Programs Administration, I would like to thank all who worked to make the recent KSSG elections successful, especially Stephanie Cohn and Sylvia Clute. Notwithstanding various critiques of the election process offered in these pages, the elections required a great deal of work and planning and, in my view, produced a good result. Stephanie, Sylvia and the other members of the Election Committee have performed a valuable public service to the Kennedy School.Sincerely,Senior Assc. Dean Joe McCarthy”[17]
2005. Sylvia completed her second Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

From a press release, Family Members and Friends of People Incarcerated March on Washington, DC: August 13th, 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Lafayette Park:[18]


Family members and friends of people incarcerated from all over the country will travel to Washington, DC and join together on Saturday, August 13th, from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM at Lafayette Park (north side of the White House) to be heard regarding the need to focus on responsible justice that is no longer merely ‘tough on crime’ but also ‘smart on crime’ at the same time.
(PRWEB) August 8, 2005 -- Family members and friends of people incarcerated from all over the country will travel to Washington, DC and join together on Saturday, August 13th, from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM at Lafayette Park (north side of the White House) to be heard regarding the need to focus on responsible justice that is no longer merely ‘tough on crime’ but also ‘smart on crime’ at the same time.The United States imprisons its citizens at rates three to ten times higher than other democratic societies and holds 25% of the world's prison population. Racially discriminatory mandatory sentencing drug laws and 'get tough' policies have made prisons crowded, dangerous and places where international human rights laws are broken every day. US prisons are guilty of torture of men, women and children housed there and do not contribute to a safer society. The impact of continued bias in employment of former prisoners, lack of voting rights and affordable housing adds stress to poorer US communities and families.“The March on August 13th is intended to send a message to US leaders that violation of international law, the continued use of the poor and bodies of color as a business commodity and the current arrest, sentencing and prison procedures are no longer acceptable. Leaders of the March note that the US must stop relying on incarceration as a first resort, provide young people with an equitable education and provide our communities with the means to equal opportunity. Abuse flourishes in US prisons, and the punishment industry is dependent on bodies of color and the poor, similar to the dynamics of slavery.” – Roberta Franklin, Director, Family Members and Friends of People Incarcerated (FMI).“When you truly consider the most recent data that indicates close to 85% of those in prison are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses and over 60% are first-time, nonviolent offenders, it compels you to look for methods of responsible justice that are no longer just ‘tough on crime’ but also ‘smart on crime’ at the same time.” – Judy Freyermuth, Executive Director, Federal Prison Policy Project.“Our prison system has become like a cancer patient being treated by removing one part after another until the whole is no longer able to survive.” – Sylvia Clute, Author of Destiny“We can hate the crime without hating the individual and seeking merely vengeful justice. Instead, we should pursue constructive rehabilitative justice that will benefit everyone in the long term, especially those families impacted.” – Paticia A. Dilts, Treasurer, AdvoCare, Inc.“We must protect the moral fiber of this country. However, simply handing out harsher prison sentences is proving to be more damaging to families and our communities than we ever imagined. Therefore, it is essential that a ‘Smart on Crime’ policy be the center of discussion across the country.” – Keith Wm. DeBlasio, Director, AdvoCare, Inc.Website: http://www.journeyforjustice.org/Family Members and Friends of People Incarcerated (FMI)Roberta Franklin, Director2243 Ajax StreetMontgomery, Alabama 36108Phone: 334-220-4670; 334-834-9592 or 334-868-0312

2006.

When Sylvia learned that Sue Williamson, Director of the Master in Public Administration (MPA) program at the Kennedy School, was battling cancer, she wrote her on February 9, 2006.
“Sue;It's hard to imagine going from healthy and vigorous to the diagnosis you received. I know it was huge to incorporate it into your reality because, as you see, it is hard for those of us who grew so fond of you and welcomed your joyful nature into our lives to take it in. My prayers are with you. You indicated that you enjoyed my novel, Destiny. I have spent the time since my graduation in June until now revising it to bring it into the post 9-11 era. I believe it is far better than the first. I hope to have it published by April or May. In the meantime, if you have time to read and would be interested while you undergo treatment, I will send you a copy of the manuscript. If you don't feel up to that, I will wait and send you a copy when it is in print. Please keep a strong outlook, and we will do the same. That seems to be an important factor in the outcome. Be well!”[19]


A Brief Sketch of Sylvia’s Trial Career



Sylvia practiced law for 28 years during which time she was a pioneer in Virginia’s legal reform on behalf of women and children. She was appointed to legislative study committees for issues such as domestic violence. She fought for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and for expanded divorce and sexual abuse laws.

For 11 years, Sylvia Clute served on the Board of Commissioners of the Virginia Public School Authority. She also served on the Goochland County Planning Commission.

In her career as a trial attorney, she found that clients often came to her with broken relationships, looking for solutions in a legal process in which justice means vengeance. While she did not handle many criminal trials, she became well aware of our criminal justice system’s feeding frenzy of vengeance, a system that incarcerates a greater proportion of this country’s citizens than any other nation on Earth. That this vengeance model permeates much of our world in foreign policy, politics, corporate culture and even our family life has been especially disconcerting to her.

Sylvia has written: “Ours is a fundamentally flawed system built on ‘an eye for an eye,’ with a carefully constructed system of beliefs that discredit the Golden Rule as ‘weak.’” Throughout her legal career, Sylvia was continually faced with the question, If not this system, then what? Just as in the 1980s she campaigned with another female attorney across the Commonwealth to change the laws relating to women and children, now in the 21st century, she has teamed up with Jana Usry, a mediator certified by the Virginia Supreme Court, for a speaking tour across the Commonwealth, mobilizing grass roots folks to change the laws relating to criminal justice. Sylvia is on a mission to reform the criminal justice system where justice often means vengeance. She joins others who are working for a restorative justice model which heals victims by having their losses acknowledged and allows offenders the opportunity to acknowledge the harm they have done and make reparations not only to the victim but to the community at large. Her passion today is healing and peace through public policies that further those objectives. Her motto is “We can do this!”

Citizens of the Commonwealth and advocates for positive criminal justice reform in Virginia drew up a petition and recommended Sylvia for the position of Chairperson on the Virginia Parole Board to then Governor-Elect Tim Kaine.[20]

Sylvia’s second novel, Destiny Unveiled, soon to be published, distinguishes between the worlds of love and fear and how they apply to law and public policy. She is currently writing a guide to help people discuss its subject, restorative justice, and she frequently speaks to churches and other community groups on restorative justice.

Sylvia is founder and CEO of Meta United, “where grass roots people meet to foster laws that benefit the people, strengthen democracy and advance human rights.”[21] On the Meta United website, she and others will be organizing around particular policy issues, using the Golden Rule model as the public policy foundation to be supported in each policy area.

Sylvia currently seeks opportunities to speak and teach regarding a Holistic Approach To Law And Government based on her in-depth (11 years) study of A Course In Miracles, delving into quantum physics, exploring the spiritual roots of our Nation. With her experience as a trial attorney for over 26 years and her formal education, she is able to approach this subject from several perspectives--speaking about the Seven Spiritual Principles for Governing a People that she set out in her legal novel, Destiny. She can explain how public policies can be adopted that are consistent with spiritual principles, about holistic law and government as it relates to the quantum field, or approach the subject from the aspect of history and the spiritual symbolism our Freemason Founding Fathers incorporated into the very form of our Nation. This can be as keynote, workshop leader, seminar, conference or other format up to two weeks in length. Organizations of diverse types, churches, educational institutions, conferences, etc. are all welcome forums.

Sylvia Clute speaks softly but carries a very big stick.
She lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia.

Research for this biographical sketch has been taken from numerous sources, including my own observations of Sylvia and conversations with her over the past 26 years as well as from news articles and the Internet. I can attest only to her words and my own observations and experiences and do not attest to the accuracy of any other sources.

[2] Please Understand Me: Character & Temperament Types, David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, 1984, at p.72.
[3] Ibid, p. 71.
[4] http://peacecorpsonline.org/

[5] Sylvia’s husband is her opposite and is “humorously and preposterously different” from her. He is “the meaning-giver, the mystic, the oracle and perhaps the conservator of [her] soul, a sort of messiah, and a rescuer from the vultures from Hell.” From Please Understand Me, at p. 72.
[6] At the beginning of what would have been my third year of law study after having taken the bar review course in preparation for the bar exam in 1983, I met with Sylvia in her home and told her I had decided not to continue. My daughter had contracted Reyes Syndrome on the heels of an outbreak of chicken pox while a 3rd grade student at John B. Cary Model School and was subsequently diagnosed with a learning disability, requiring nightly tutoring and frequent meetings with her teachers to plan her IEPs (Individual Educational Plans). I completed my paralegal studies and began working full-time in law firms as a paralegal.

[7] Sylvia and I occasionally had discussions as to what area of law I wanted to pursue. I told her I wanted to be a child advocate because I was a survivor of child sexual abuse and I wanted to help other children and adults who had been sexually abused. Like all other good lawyers, Sylvia had been prepared in law school to “go for the jugular,” and advised me that if I didn’t like to see blood, I shouldn’t think of practicing law. She further counseled that since children didn’t have any rights, I wouldn’t have any cases or make any money. This was a major but necessary blow for which I am today extremely grateful though it was very painful to hear at the time.
[8] Http://www.ywcarichmond.org/honorees.html


[9] Sylvia asked me if I would serve as the executive director of the Association. When I told her I did not know how to be an executive director, she said “Well, I don’t know how to be president; we’ll learn together.” And we did.

[10] http://www.vwaa.org/history.htm

[11] Sylvia Clute, “Adult Survivor Litigation as an Integral Part of the Therapeutic Process,” Journal of Child Sexual Abuse: Volume 2: Issue 1, 1993.

[12]“Sex-Abuse Victim’s Fight for Reform,” The Virginian-Pilot, November 7, 1994.
[13] http://www.virginialawfoundation.org/fellows.htm

[14] http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/

[15] “Vipassana Changes the Spirit of Business,” Asia Times, July 30, 2003.
[16] http://www.thecrimson.com//
[17] http://www.ksgcitizen.org/media/storage

[18] http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005

[19] Sue Williamson died May 27 at her home in Watertown after battling cancer for several months. During her nearly twenty years at the School, she was legendary for her enthusiasm, optimism, and personal commitment to students. She was sixty years old.

[20] http://www.petitiononline.com/CluteVPB/petition.html

[21] http://www.metaunited.org/

Dirty Work

I read this novel Dirty Work (copyright 1989) by Larry Brown about the Vietnam War.
Brown dedicated it to "Daddy, who knew what war does to men." One of the 2 main characters got his face blown off in the war. The other one was a quadraplegic - lost his arms and legs. The ending of this novel left me gasping in shock. I forced myself to read it, remembering my cousin, Dexter Bentley, a Vietnam vet, who was my same age. He died alone in his house somewhere in Asheville, North Carolina in October last year. The local sheriff found my name in Dexter's address book and called me to ask me what to do with the body. His ex-wife had long since left him, taking their two boys with her. Most folks thought he was crazy. He would make you feel uneasy - on edge - just being around him - like he might explode any minute. He used to visit me sometime--drive all the way from Roanoke to Richmond by himself. I accepted him and I understood PTSD. His father (my father's brother) worked on the railroad. His mother was deep Southern Baptist religious, and I guess she was the first one that messed him up. He talked incessantly about Jesus. He was never "right" after he got out of the service. We were kissing cousins in our teens.

Critiques from various newspapers:

"A powerful and original work all its own that moves along in short, staccato chapters with indisputably authentic language." - The New York Times

"Not only one of the best books about Vietnam but also one of hte most powerful anti-war novels in American literature. -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"[Brown] has created two fully realized, believable--and often very funny--characters....No one who reads this book is likely to forget them." - Houston post

"Stunning power...Dirty Work makes the human cost of war achingly real." - USA Today

"Courageous...It's hard to imagine a more powerful effect than the one Brown creates with his attentive, unsparing prose." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

a few favorite passages...

"Bursts with power and humanity." - Chattanooga Times

"A marvelous book...Brown's swift, intuitive dialogue explodes like a land mine and leaves the reader dizzy with shock." - Kansas City Star

a few favorite passages:

"I woke up, just wide awake. I was leaving that day. Boarding a plane at Memphis, going for orientation and weapons fire before we jumped off. What we called jumping off. Jumping off the world. I had all that in head of me and I woke up in my mama's house with her cooking biscuits for me. Smelled the same way every morning. Always smelled the same. She never woke me. Didn't have to. Biscuits woke me. I heard her tell people, That child can smell them biscuits in his sleep and when he smells em he wakes up. My mama was so good to me.

"I laid in there that morning. Had my uniform hanging up in there. Soldier of them ost powerful nation in the world. And all I could think was Why, you know, why? I didn't even understand the whole thing. Just went cause it was my duty. I'm sure there was plenty who went didn't understand the whle thing. Just went cause it was their duty. This my country, I'm gonna fight for my country. Sentiment was strong for God and Country, young boys, listen up. Everybody's daddy had been in World War II. Some daddies, anyway. Now they telling us we won't never be in another one like that one again. That one taught us a lesson. We ain't having no more futile wars. Til we have one in the Middle East. Or down in Nicaragua.

"Ain't no need in having a war lessen they just bomb the hell out of you like Pearl Harbor or something. Then all you can do is just bomb the shit out of them right back, and fight, and get a whole bunch of people killed and finally not accomplish a goddamn thing except get your economy ruined forty years later.

"Everything just pisses me off. The world gets worse all the time. Had one man one time that would have stopped it. Of course they had to kill him. And then things just went to shit."

--pp.23-24


"...people has been fighting since God made the first one and they always going to. Nothing don't change but the reasons, man. All you can do is love the ones close to you and try to do right. That's all God expects. God can't be blamed for what happens to me. Ain't God's fault what happened to you, to your daddy, or what happened to me. Fifty-eight thousand of ours was lost. Think about it, Walter. Each one thought it wouldn't happen to him. You oknow how many friends I lost? Seventeen. I mean friends. People I was tight with. Seventeen. i don't have to tell you. I mean you get to know a man, you get to talking to him, he pulls out some pictures sometime and show you. Show you his little girl. His crib. His mama and daddy. He alive to them. Theya ll taking about him at home, wondering when he gonna come back. Is he gonna come back. And then he be dead two or three days before they even know it. They don't know you, but you know him, and you the one have to put him in the bag and zip it up. I done that seventeen times.

"World don't change for no man. World gone keep going on. Don't make no difference what you do, what I do. World keep turning. God got a plan for everything. Man may suffer in this world. But God got a better world waiting. I been waiting to see it twenty-two years, Walter. You ain't no man if you don't do this for me. I tired, Walter. I tired and I want to go home. Want to see my mama. She waiting, too.

"You think you got trouble? You don't know what trouble is. Trouble when you laying in a rice paddy knowing both your arms and legs blowed off and are they gonna shoot the chopper down befoe it can come and get you. Trouble when they pick you up and you ain't three feet long. The people in my fire team started to just let me lay there and bleed todeath. Cause they knowled I'd wind up like this if I lived. Knowed I'd lay like this no telling how many years. They ever one of em has come to see me. And they each said the same thing. You know what that was?

"We wish we'd left you, Braiden.

"You been sent to me, Walter. You been sent and I ain't gonna be denied."

p. 225-227

"That joke I was gonna tell you. They were having preaching one Sunday morning in this black church and they had a new piccolo player playing along with the choir. Well, they played two or three songs there and somebody all of a sudden hollered out in this real deep voice, The piccolo player's a motherfucker. Everybody hushed. The old reverend was up in the pulpit and he looked out over the congregation. He was just shocked. He said, Who was that called my piccolo player a motherfucker? Nobody said a word. Everybody was looking around to see who it was. The old revered stood up there for a minute. Said, All right. I want the man who's setting next to theman who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. Nobody said a world. The old reverend was just getting madder all the time. He said, All right. I want theman who's setting next to the man who's setting next to the man who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. And hell, nobody stood up. Nobody said a word. The old revered stood up there and just got pissed off as hell. Then he hollered, All right! I want theman who's setting next to the man who's setting next to the man who's setting next to the man who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. Finally there was this one little bitty guy in the back who stood up. And everybody was looking at him. He said, Reveren, I ain't the man who's setting next to theman who's setting next to theman who's setting next to the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. I ain't even the man who's settingnext to the man who's setting next to the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. And I ain't the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. What I want to know is, who called that motherfucker a piccolo player?" pp. 128-129

Larry Brown's Big Bad Love

I've just finished reading a book of short stories by a really good Southern writer, William "Larry" Brown, from Oxford, Mississippi ( also home to William Faulkner and John Grisham), who died in 2004 unexpectedly of a heart attack. I didn't like all of BIG BAD LOVE but there are a few gems that made me laugh out loud - "Falling Out of Love," "The Apprentice," "Waiting for the Ladies," and "Big Bad Love." (That one was made into a movie in 2001). His characters are from the blue collar life of hard living, plenty of drinking, sex and relationships gone sour. He has been compared to William Faulkner, Raymond Carver and Earnest Hemingway, and his prose has been described as simple and direct. I loved most his ability to make me laugh out loud!

His life story should give hope to any aspiring writer. His father was a sharecropper and his mother was the postmaster and owned a bookstore. He flunked senior high school English and had to attend summer school after which he enlisted in the Marines. When he was discharged after serving 2 years, he worked odd jobs that show up in his writing - especially house painter - but also hay hauler, fence builder, lumberjack. Finally in 1973 he joined the Oxford Fire Department and worked there for 16 years, serving as captain. It was during those years he taught himself how to write and read Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Cormac McCarthy and Faulkner. In "The Apprentice" his male character is married to "Judy," who wants to be a writer. Through a hilarious account of her struggle to write about "The Hunchwoman of Cincinnati," which he said was boring as hell, he made fun of his own early efforts to write all those stories that were rejected, especially one about a man-eating bear in Yellowstone Park. When he described her, he was really describing himself:

"She wrote a novel first. Blasted straight through, seven months, night and day. I'd be in there on the couch watching old Hopalong Cassidy or somebody and hear that typewriter going like an M-60 machine gun in the bedroom.... She'd be sitting at her typewriter when I left, and most of the time she'd still be sitting there when I came back in. ... I never saw anybody so obsessed. Her appearance went to shit, and she'd dress in the first thing that came to hand. Sometimes she wouldn't even get dressed, just sit there and work in her nightgown.

"And then she started getting published. One story here, another one there. The first acceptance was a great event, and we were happy for a few weeks, and she wanted to throw a big party and invite all our friends. But some of them didn't show up, I guess because so many of them felt that they had been left by the wayside. I understood it. I told Judy that you couldn't keep friends like a can of worms and just open the can whenever you needed them. I said that to her after everybody had left, while we were standing in the kitchen after cleaning up the mess.... Success for her isn't a matter of if any more. It's just a matter of when. Once in a while, just for fun, I pull out 'The Hunchwoman of Cincinnati' and read it. It's got to be the worse damn thing I've ever read. But I'm sort of beginning to like the dog." The hunchback had a son who was a cripple and a "damn dog you didn't even know about until the last page, and the dog had some rare disease that only this vet in Cincinnati could cure.... I damn near puked when I got through reading it." p. 18
"The Apprentice," BIG BAD LOVE, p. 18, 28-29.

Finally, he got one published in 1982 in a biker's magazine, Easyriders. It was 5 years later before he published anything else - this time in the Mississippi Review, a literary journal - a short story titled "Facing the Music." An editor from Algonquin Books read it and that's how he got his big break. He was married for 30 years to the same woman who survives him along with their 3 children.

Larry Brown...I wish you were still around. One thing he was quoted as saying is, "There's no such thing as a born writer. It's a skill you've got to learn, just like learning how to be a bricklayer or a carpenter."

One reviewer wrote of Brown's short story collections that they are all "dedicated to the proposition that folks born south of the Mason-Dixon line are biochemically altered by this accident of geography. It predisposes them to overheated lives of hunting, boozing and hopeless love... [Brown] enrolls [his] male chroniclers in Hemingway's 3-F club of fishing, fighting and fornicating.... Southerners since the 1800's have always promoted the notion that they are a tribe apart."

His novel FAY, a "Southern-fried Odyssey," chronicles the haphazard wanderings of his heroine, a beautiful teenage girl, who hitchhikes from Oxford toward Biloxi and meets mostly jerks. I'm reading that one next since I've met a few myself--that is, after I read DIRTY WORK, his first novel, which is based on stories he heard from Vietnam veterans. My cousin Dexter Bentley, who was my same age, was a Vietnam Vet who died alone in his house in North Carolina, his wife having long since deserted him, taking their two sons. Most folks thought he was crazy because he was strange. He used to visit me sometime--drive all the way from Roanoke to Richmond by himself. His father (my father's brother) worked on the railroad. His mother was deep Southern Baptist religious, and I guess she was the first one that messed him up. He talked incessantly about Jesus. He was never "right" after he got out of the service. We were kissing cousins in our teens. One of the 2 main characters in DIRTY WORK got his face blown off in the war. I'm not sure I'll be able to read the whole thing.

The Intellectual Eye

I had a dream the other night that I had this eyeball (the "Intellectual Eye") which I shared with my soulmate whom I have yet to meet in the flesh in spite of 2 failed marriages, an assortment of boyfriends and one fine lover, but he definitely shows up in my dreams. He's a lot younger than I am but he seems fine with that. He says he prefers older women because they are wise. We are like one person except that we walk around in two very different bodies. In this episode, I had to fill out a form certifying that he could use my Eye whenever he needed to. Apparently, his use of it required approval from some higher authority, whoever that was. I guess I was the keeper of the Intellectual Eye and he'd borrow it when he needed it. Likewise, I would let him know when I needed it and he'd pluck it out of his eye socket and hand it over.

When I shared that surreal dream with an attorney friend, he suggested I read Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Carl G. Jung's autobiography, which this attorney just happened to be carrying around in his briefcase, because Jung had an eye dream too except that in his dream there was this eye perched atop a gigantic phallis and he was scared to look at it. Well, now, I must have a look at Jung's eye dream the next time I'm at the public library!

High Living: More and Bigger are Better?

In the last 50 years we Americans have doubled our living standards, added a full month to our annual work hours and tripled our per capita spending. We are on the work-and-spend treadmill which our culture promotes, requiring us to work more hours to pay for our spending. We typically define “success” as wealth, power, and status. Our businesses worship economic growth. Even our President himself told us it was our patriotic duty after 9/11 to spend our money so our economic growth would not be disrupted. However, our business and political leaders have finally come to realize that our planet cannot survive to the end of the 21st century if we continue this highly materialistic lifestyle that not only depletes our resources but interferes with our nonmaterial needs.

Research studies on happiness show that once our basic material needs are met for food, clothing and shelter, the keys to happiness are found in relationships, community, meaningful work or purpose, spirituality, and connection with nature.[1] Some of us have rejected the cultural conditioning that more and bigger are always better. We have voluntarily chosen to reduce our consumption, spend less that we earn and live a simple lifestyle which means living only with what we truly need or genuinely cherish. Our choice not only helps to preserve our planet’s resources but saves personal time and energy required for acquiring, storing, maintaining, insuring, and eventually disposing of our possessions. The result is that we free up physical and emotional energy that we had devoted to maintaining our possessions and have more time for personal relationships, fulfilling work, creative pursuits, community service, and enjoying nature.

[1] Linda Breen Pierce, Simplicity Lessons, p. 10.