I Talk Slower Than I Think
Readers and Writers are Welcome
Welcome to C. D. Bonner's page, where writers and readers of all genres can share ideas and talk about the experiences, stories and favorite activities that make you interesting writers and readers. Grab a biscuit and a cup of coffee, and dive in. Being Southern is not a requirement, and discussions go beyond an appreciation for Lewis Grizzard, Ferrol Sams, and The Varsity.
There is a blog for open discussion, tickling each others' imagination, and authors can mutually support each other's publishing efforts. Click on the Blog link at the top of this page, and post your own work to stir interest and discussion, or share a funny link. Talk about the things that make you interesting. Maybe you are a gold prospector, or have lived in interesting places. Our experiences make us the authors and readers that we are. I will post a new story each week on the Blog (link is at the top of this page).
"I Talk Slower Than I Think" is Faring Well in The Writer's Got Talent Contest
There is a blog for open discussion, tickling each others' imagination, and authors can mutually support each other's publishing efforts. Click on the Blog link at the top of this page, and post your own work to stir interest and discussion, or share a funny link. Talk about the things that make you interesting. Maybe you are a gold prospector, or have lived in interesting places. Our experiences make us the authors and readers that we are. I will post a new story each week on the Blog (link is at the top of this page).
"I Talk Slower Than I Think" is Faring Well in The Writer's Got Talent Contest
Win a Boatload of Books for Superstorm Sandy Relief
I have re-posted the call to action from The Boating Times Long Island to gather support for Superstorm Sandy relief:
More than 30 authors have contributed their books to aid Long Island’s rebuilding after Sandy, and we’re raffling them all off together! Proceeds will go to the Long Island Volunteer Center (LIVC), which has opened the Long Island Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (LIVOAD) Volunteer Recovery Center in Bethpage. The Volunteer Recovery Center provides logistical support and coordination for disaster volunteer groups providing Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts on Long Island and actively recruits volunteers for these disaster groups.
The LIVOAD is a coalition of non-profit, government, and for-profit organizations in Nassau and Suffolk Counties committed to working together in the areas of disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. The Volunteer Recovery Center has become a hub of activity from training and equipping volunteers teams to perform muck outs, to in-kind donations management, to planning for coordinated recovery efforts between disaster relief agencies.
To enter the drawing, visit the Boating Times Long Island web page here:
http://boatingtimesli.com/NY/win-a-boatload-of-books-3/
"I Talk Slower Than I Think"The short story collection, I Talk Slower Than I Think is in print and e-book editions. It is a collection of Southern family humor coming of age stories, most humorous, but with a few tragedies thrown in.
The Amazon book page contains an overview of the contents and a bit about the author: http://www.amazon.com/Talk-Slower-Than-Think-Helicopter/dp/098579500X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346229854&sr=8-1&keywords=i+talk+slower+than+i+think Available on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Talk-Slower-Than-Think-ebook/dp/B0094QSNN2/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1346529438&sr=8-3-fkmr1&keywords=on+ipad+%22I+Talk+Slower+than+I+think%22 On Sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Talk-Slower-Than-Think-Helicopter/dp/098579500X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346229854&sr=8-1&keywords=i+talk+slower+than+i+think Buy it at Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-talk-slower-than-i-think-c-d-bonner/1112671788?ean=9780985795009 Available at Tower Books: http://www.tower.com/i-talk-slower-than-i-think-antidote-helicopter-c-d-bonner-paperback/wapi/123325210 Available on Amazon UK:Thank you, Kate at Parker House Antiques in Wedowee, Alabama for all you do to support local authors, and accepting my book for consignment.
Marsha at Lake Martin Flowers and Gifts in Dadeville, Alabama: your call with good news on books sales, and your enthusiasm about further promoting the book, made my whole month. I'll be by on Monday with the additional books you requested today. Lee at Lake Martin Pharmacy: Thanks for taking a chance on a new author in your gift shop selections. I'll stop in on Friday to see how sales are going. 
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This Week's Reading
"Seeking Asylum" my latest story post, is a true story not included in the book. It is a darker story, but not quite tragic in my mind. I hope you enjoy reading it.
2013 Local Author Expo Birmingham, AL February 2nd, 2013I had a great time at the Expo, and met some great fellow authors, and publishers, including T. C. McKinney, head of PDMI Publishing. This year's event featured two speakers: Carolyn Maull McKinstry is the author of While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement, a poignant and gripping eyewitness account of what it was like to grow up in the Jim Crow South. Her book covers everything from the the bombings, riots, and assassinations to the historic marches and triumphs that characterized the civil rights era. Fourteen-year-old Carolyn McKinstry was just a few feet away from a bomb, which had been planted by the Ku Klux Klan, before it exploded at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in September 1963. Four girls were killed. In her book, she shares how racial relations have evolved over the past five decades and gives an incredible testament to how far we've come, and how far we have yet to go. BPL librarian and author Jared Millet presented a workshop for aspiring writers titled Show, Don't Tell: How to Breathe Life Into Your Writing. "Show, don't tell" is the most common piece of advice that beginning writers get from professionals, teachers, and industry insiders. Millet clarified what "show, don't tell" actually means and demonstrated how to use writing to give readers a strong emotional experience. The Local Authors Expo is presented by the Friends of the Birmingham Public Library, a nonprofit association that supports Birmingham Public Library special needs by providing volunteer and financial resources. Link to event, including the list of authors: http://www.bham.lib.al.us/programs/LocalAuthors/#2013_Authors |
Seeking Asylum
Seeking Asylum
(c) 2012, C. D. Bonner all rights reserved
Sometimes we seek asylum. Other times it seeks us. Mother took it hard when I nearly bled to death from stepping on a Coke bottle bottom, and she checked herself into the hospital to get help. I guess she felt she’d not been watching closely enough to prevent it, and had it not been for the calm sewing skills of a lady who lived near Mundy’s Mill where I was injured, I would have bled out in a few minutes.
I was three when Mother went away to the state hospital at Milledgeville. Mother was only twenty-four. She had three small children and had grown up as the mother hen guarding her siblings. She claimed that her own mother had been “drafted” to work riveting airplanes at Atlanta’s Lockheed plant during WWII by WACs who patrolled the neighborhood in jeeps collecting idle stay-at-home mothers. At five years old, she was put in charge of her younger siblings, along with the cooking and cleaning. By fifteen she was married, and at seventeen, she delivered my older sister. She lost herself in taking care of others.
We kids didn’t accompany Mother when she first went to the hospital. We visited after she had settled in for a couple of months. To reach her, we turned past the teachers’ college and a military school and cut through a corner of a residential neighborhood of neat frame houses framed by well-pruned trees. There was a gate across the wide entrance, but I never saw it closed. The state hospital grounds were open, inviting, and peaceful.
Mother was herding a half-dozen children when we arrived in front of the small brick building where visiting was done. She beamed and hugged us tight beneath short maple trees out front. She described her progress, and said she had been made a trustee of the kids who lived there. She was open and honest, not sugar-coating anything. While others visited with her, she let my brother Jake and I look around. She told us that in the basement in back there was a barbershop where the patients were prepared for their shock treatments. We asked her if we could look, and she said, “Yes, but don’t bother the ladies who are getting their haircuts.”
Jake and I skirted the building to the back, where the basement opened out through several doors that were flung wide. From the open double doors, we saw three ladies towering over us in the three barber’s chairs. They talked jovially among themselves about getting better and about going home to their families. Jake and I watched in wide-eyed fascination as the barber sheared them.
“Why do they have to shave your head?” Jake asked them. The ladies were very open, as Mother had been, about the treatments. “They put a metal cap on for the shock treatments,” a lady replied with a smile. “So the electricity can get through. It needs to touch your scalp.” “Does it hurt?” I wondered aloud. “Not really, but you have to bite down on a rubber block so you don’t bite your tongue. You kind of black out, but you feel better after, calmer.”
Jake and I wished them well, and the ladies smiled and waved as we wandered back to the benches in front of the building. Someone had taken charge of the kids Mother had been herding, and we spent a sweet hour with her.
Mother gradually got better. We visited several times, and she was allowed several trips home for a weekend. She was also allowed to take other patients into town to the drugstore soda fountain. The doctors and nurses were very kind to her. As luck would have it, my college roommate, John, was the son of her doctor.
I accompanied John to go see his Dad at he hospital. Fifteen years had changed nothing about the place. I immediately recognized the building where we had visited Mother. John drove me through the grounds and we spent an hour visiting his Dad and the nurses in the same building where Mother had been treated years earlier. His Dad didn’t discuss her case of course, but he and Nurse Bunny remembered her fondly. Bunny was an attractive brunette who had earned her moniker as an actual Playboy bunny before she entered nursing. She was nice, and very pretty. Twenty years after she’d hung up her ears with a satisfied smile, Bunny could still make a college kid blush.
Since Mother had prepared us by being brutally honest about what went on at the hospital, nothing at the asylum frightened us. But the trip down and back in Pawpaw’s borrowed Studebaker was ominous. We followed the railroad out of Atlanta, and I would watch through the Venetian blinds peculiar to Studebakers as the telegraph poles whizzed by. They sat right alongside the tracks, and unlike power poles, they were cross-shaped. The journey seemed to take all day, but it was probably only an hour or two. I played with the lap blanket cord stretched across the back of the front seat, and would eventually take the blanket and curl up and sleep as the car waddled along.
As we approached Milledgeville, the road took an abrupt turn across the end of a lake. On a high rise beside the lake was one of the scariest things we knew: the power plant. It loomed over the road, belching smoke from coal fires as coal cars banged around its base.
The other scary thing was the women’s prison at the back of the asylum. Mother spoke of it while she was there, but I didn’t actually see it until I made the return visit during my college days. You rode past pastoral brick buildings fringed with flower beds until the street from the hospital’s main entrance petered out, then made a slight right turn. Suddenly you arrived at a high chain-link fence laced with razor wire. A lot of bare, open ground lay between the fence and a cold building rising from atop a large hill. It was grey, stark and quiet.
Mother got better with time. Years later, she expended considerable effort getting her medical diagnosis changed from a serious mental illness to stress brought on by family problems. It was important to her, and that letter from the hospital was a cherished possession.
She felt vindicated. The diagnosis of stress was not surprising. For nine years, she had grappled with a mother-in-law from hell, a woman determined to nibble at what she perceived to be the weakest fish in the bowl. A woman jealous of Mother’s looks and “privileged” upbringing in an upper middle class city family. Granny had made her life hell with gossip and criticism. Granny was an interfering, domineering woman who pried gossip from children.
Shortly before Granny died, Mother even made peace with her. Granny always had a mean streak, but she’d gotten so mean that no one came around to help her any more. Mother was the only one who would stop by to clean house and bathe her to give my octogenarian Pawpaw a break.
Mother’s maternal instinct never waned. When she moved into senior a senior living apartment she spent a lot of time cooking for those less able, helping them with laundry and even washing and dressing them when necessary. A sweet blind lady named Louise helped Mother whenever Mother was sick, and Mother was soon the only white member of Louise’s AME church. The AME minister presided over Mother’s funeral, and I don’t have adequate words of gratitude for his efforts and those of his group.
I want to thank Dr. Wahl and Nurse Bunny. I’ll never know whether the diagnosis was wrong to begin with, or whether they let it slide to give Mother a much needed chance to rest and regroup.
The things we witnessed at the asylum left an impression, not a scar, because Mother explained them in terms we understood. But those things made me forever wary of doctors claiming the latest “state of the art” treatment when I know that within my relatively short lifetime that shock treatments and lobotomies were state of the art.
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Oatmeal Does a Body Good
© 2012, C. D. Bonner, all rights reserved
Oatmeal Does a Body Good
Dave stopped in to check on Coosa one afternoon. He finally found him at the home of Coosa’s brother Arthur. The place reeked of a two-week drunk. They had a set of bunk beds and a big couch on the perimeter of the front room. The kitchen lay just beyond.
Dave didn’t even get his coat off before Arthur raised up enough to rasp, “Dave, check on Torey. He said he wasn’t feeling good.” Neither of the moonshiners was in any condition to get up.
The table hadn’t been cleared in a long time. Dirty dishes occupied every seat. There was a large plate of oatmeal on one side of the table that had flies hovering around it. They hovered, because Torey had already landed in it. Several days ago. And he smelled a bit ripe.
Dave held back a bit and asked them, “How long since you talked to him?” “Oh, he hasn’t moved in a couple of days.” “He don’t talk much anyways.”
Coosa got one eye open and slurred, “We tried feeding him some oatmeal on Thursday, but he don’t want to eat anything.” It was now Saturday afternoon.
Dave laid the back of his hand on Torey’s neck. Cold. He slid up Torey’s sleeve. No pulse. “Arthur, he’s dead--been dead a while.”
“Oh, my word. He was such a good man, a good friend.” No one had yet risen, least of all Torey.
“Should we call the doctor?” Coosa inquired, finally raising upright. “No,” Dave advised, “We have to call the law. You have to when there’s a death. No doctor’s gonna help him now.”
Coosa and Arthur were alert now. “No, no, don’t call the law. We’ll take care of him. We got a family cemetery just up the road.”
Dave’s eyes widened, and he told the older men in his most confident tone, “Hey, I ain’t goin’ to jail for not reporting it. We have to call the sheriff.” Despite their pleas, Dave dialed the sheriff’s office. While Dave spoke to the sheriff’s office Arthur went through the pockets of Torey’s overalls. He pocketed the wad of bills from his billfold and the singles from his shirt pocket before he returned his wallet.
“Law’s on the way. They said it’s not a big deal but they still have to come out so he can get a death certificate,” Dave told them. Coosa straightened up the house, putting away the mason jars of liquor. No need for additional excitement today.
A half-hour later, the coroner’s wagon rolled quietly up the dirt driveway. Before they could reach the door, an agitated Arthur slid a ten-dollar bill into Torey’s shirt pocket then retreated to the far side of the living room.
Dave explained the situation as he knew it. The coroner asked Coosa and Arthur the same questions, trying to pin down the time of death. While they were interviewing Coosa, an anxious Arthur blurted out, “He was stone-cold dead when I checked him…and he only had ten dollars in his pocket.”
They told them the death seemed to be from natural causes, but that they would have to give them an official cause of death in a couple of days. They wheeled Torey away on a gurney. As Torey crossed the threshold for the last time, Arthur shifted from foot to foot, lamenting, “Sure is awful he died like that. At least he died with friends. He only had ten dollars.”
The drunks had sobered up. Dave reassured them that the law had no other interest in them, which calmed them down. Still, they were shaken up and chattered about how good a man Torey had been. As they got dressed to go visit Torey’s family, Dave seized the opportunity to extract himself.
A few weeks later a policeman stopped by Coosa’s place with news from the coroner. Torey had died quietly of a heart attack and had not suffered. The oatmeal had been too little, too late.
Oatmeal Does a Body Good
Dave stopped in to check on Coosa one afternoon. He finally found him at the home of Coosa’s brother Arthur. The place reeked of a two-week drunk. They had a set of bunk beds and a big couch on the perimeter of the front room. The kitchen lay just beyond.
Dave didn’t even get his coat off before Arthur raised up enough to rasp, “Dave, check on Torey. He said he wasn’t feeling good.” Neither of the moonshiners was in any condition to get up.
The table hadn’t been cleared in a long time. Dirty dishes occupied every seat. There was a large plate of oatmeal on one side of the table that had flies hovering around it. They hovered, because Torey had already landed in it. Several days ago. And he smelled a bit ripe.
Dave held back a bit and asked them, “How long since you talked to him?” “Oh, he hasn’t moved in a couple of days.” “He don’t talk much anyways.”
Coosa got one eye open and slurred, “We tried feeding him some oatmeal on Thursday, but he don’t want to eat anything.” It was now Saturday afternoon.
Dave laid the back of his hand on Torey’s neck. Cold. He slid up Torey’s sleeve. No pulse. “Arthur, he’s dead--been dead a while.”
“Oh, my word. He was such a good man, a good friend.” No one had yet risen, least of all Torey.
“Should we call the doctor?” Coosa inquired, finally raising upright. “No,” Dave advised, “We have to call the law. You have to when there’s a death. No doctor’s gonna help him now.”
Coosa and Arthur were alert now. “No, no, don’t call the law. We’ll take care of him. We got a family cemetery just up the road.”
Dave’s eyes widened, and he told the older men in his most confident tone, “Hey, I ain’t goin’ to jail for not reporting it. We have to call the sheriff.” Despite their pleas, Dave dialed the sheriff’s office. While Dave spoke to the sheriff’s office Arthur went through the pockets of Torey’s overalls. He pocketed the wad of bills from his billfold and the singles from his shirt pocket before he returned his wallet.
“Law’s on the way. They said it’s not a big deal but they still have to come out so he can get a death certificate,” Dave told them. Coosa straightened up the house, putting away the mason jars of liquor. No need for additional excitement today.
A half-hour later, the coroner’s wagon rolled quietly up the dirt driveway. Before they could reach the door, an agitated Arthur slid a ten-dollar bill into Torey’s shirt pocket then retreated to the far side of the living room.
Dave explained the situation as he knew it. The coroner asked Coosa and Arthur the same questions, trying to pin down the time of death. While they were interviewing Coosa, an anxious Arthur blurted out, “He was stone-cold dead when I checked him…and he only had ten dollars in his pocket.”
They told them the death seemed to be from natural causes, but that they would have to give them an official cause of death in a couple of days. They wheeled Torey away on a gurney. As Torey crossed the threshold for the last time, Arthur shifted from foot to foot, lamenting, “Sure is awful he died like that. At least he died with friends. He only had ten dollars.”
The drunks had sobered up. Dave reassured them that the law had no other interest in them, which calmed them down. Still, they were shaken up and chattered about how good a man Torey had been. As they got dressed to go visit Torey’s family, Dave seized the opportunity to extract himself.
A few weeks later a policeman stopped by Coosa’s place with news from the coroner. Torey had died quietly of a heart attack and had not suffered. The oatmeal had been too little, too late.
Upcoming Projects
The first book, "I Talk Slower Than I Think," is finished. It is suitable for audiences from 12 to 115.
My next effort will be recording a couple of original comedy CDs, geared to a strictly adult audience.
There are also many more stories of funny family adventures and misadventures to capture on paper. Some
of those stories have more mature content than I wanted to include in the first book, which was written
for all ages.
My next effort will be recording a couple of original comedy CDs, geared to a strictly adult audience.
There are also many more stories of funny family adventures and misadventures to capture on paper. Some
of those stories have more mature content than I wanted to include in the first book, which was written
for all ages.
Voice Acting
The Monroe, Georgia Art Guild:
Favorite Quote: the left single-quote '
Cool places to visit:
Thought-provoking and often funny look at how we deal with Change, at Chan6es.com
http://www.chan6es.com/
The Event Center Downtown in Opelika, AL showcasess great art, music of all types and fine authors
Opelika Unplugged every 1st Friday at 7:30 p.m. at The Event Center gives musicians of all genres
a chance to reach an appreciative audience.
Let author Candace Mountain raise the hair on the back of your neck and give you good writing tips
Stop in for a taste of Southern Sunshine, a delightful and humor-filled blog
Studebaker Drivers Club
Gold Prospectors Association of America
Identify your antique radio at The Radio Attic
Radio Free Georgia - Enjoy a wide variety of music
"The Dabbling Mum" -- A great writer's resource from some really nice people
"The Giggling Grasshopper" -- Keen wit and reflection on life struggles
Keen Zero, a fine artist and passionate individual
The Monroe, Georgia Art Guild opportunities for expression for all ages
Begin every day with a good laugh at true but silly news from Fark.com
Volunteer to narrate audiobooks, stories and poems at Librivox
Find your nearest drive-in movie theater
Blog Insane in the Mom Brain
The Klonopin Chronicles Blog
Ironical - The Twisted Blog
Thought-provoking and often funny look at how we deal with Change, at Chan6es.com
http://www.chan6es.com/
The Event Center Downtown in Opelika, AL showcasess great art, music of all types and fine authors
Opelika Unplugged every 1st Friday at 7:30 p.m. at The Event Center gives musicians of all genres
a chance to reach an appreciative audience.
Let author Candace Mountain raise the hair on the back of your neck and give you good writing tips
Stop in for a taste of Southern Sunshine, a delightful and humor-filled blog
Studebaker Drivers Club
Gold Prospectors Association of America
Identify your antique radio at The Radio Attic
Radio Free Georgia - Enjoy a wide variety of music
"The Dabbling Mum" -- A great writer's resource from some really nice people
"The Giggling Grasshopper" -- Keen wit and reflection on life struggles
Keen Zero, a fine artist and passionate individual
The Monroe, Georgia Art Guild opportunities for expression for all ages
Begin every day with a good laugh at true but silly news from Fark.com
Volunteer to narrate audiobooks, stories and poems at Librivox
Find your nearest drive-in movie theater
Blog Insane in the Mom Brain
The Klonopin Chronicles Blog
Ironical - The Twisted Blog