Superhero Softball

     Part of my freelancing writing for the past year has been for a superhero film/TV news site called BamSmackPow (I review The Gifted each week).
     Because of the World Series, there won't be an episode to review next week, and my mind working the way it does, began to speculate about what characters would be drafted if Marvel TV and the Arrowverse were to play a softball game against each other, powers being legal to use.
     Villains are not allowed to play, due to trust issues, though antiheroes may with close supervision.

TEAM ARROWVERSE

First base: Kara Danvers/Supergirl, Supergirl
Reasoning: Kara can fly, which is useful for catching fly balls. She's very strong, which helps in throwing, and her cheerful attitude would be great for team chemistry. Plus her friendly demeanor would get baserunners involved in a conversation, thus keeping them distracted from the action.

Second base: Cisco Ramon/Vibe, The Flash
Reasoning: Cisco can teleport, which would be very useful when fielding, plus he already works closely with...

Shortstop: Barry Allen/The Flash, The Flash
Reasoning: Line drives require instant reactions, and who has a quicker reaction time than The Fastest Man Alive? Double plays would be a snap.

Third base: Sara Lance/White Canary, Legends of Tomorrow
Reasoning: Sara's an assassin, very skilled with weaponry of all sorts, but especially knives. She's never missing first base on those infield throws.

Left field: Jessie Quick, The Flash
Reasoning: Her genius-level intellect, combined with Speed Force powers, provides the outfield with a quarterback.

Center field: Firestorm (Jefferson Jackson & Martin Stein), Legends of Tomorrow
Reasoning: Jax was a star quarterback in high school, and with his athletic prowess combined with Stein's knowledge of physics and advanced math, Firestorm would be a great pick to have on your team. Plus they can fly, robbing sure home runs.

Right field: Joe West (The Flash) or John Diggle (Arrow)
Reasoning: There's no way you can leave Joe out of any important situation, and Joe would see this softball game as important. While his lack of superpowers would relegate him to right field, his strength would be useful at the plate and his teammates could always look to him for advice if needed.
Diggle would apply for many of the same reasons.

Catcher: Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, The Flash/Legends of Tomorrow
Reasoning: His presence is intimidating, which would spook opposing batters. Catchers are typically those players on the team who work as the glue, holding everything together, and Snart is an excellent and meticulous planner - he would forge the greatest strategic plots ever.to help his team succeed, even if he didn't especially care for most of his teammates.

Pitcher: Oliver Queen/The Green Arrow, Arrow
Reasoning: Oliver's determination, level of fitness and deadly projectile accuracy makes him an excellent choice for Team Arrowverse's pitcher. He commands respect, and his steely glare and fierce stubble alone would give him a mental edge, as they're already MLB-caliber, similar to John Smoltz.

Manager: Harry Wells (Earth-2), The Flash
Reasoning: He's maybe the smartest person in the multiverse, and his gruff manner and awful people skills cover over an awkward affection for his workplace proximity associates. With Felicity Smoak (Arrow) as assistant manager translating and using her techy wizardry for Moneyball-sih purposes, they make an unbeatable leadership duo for this project.

Team Doctor: Obviously it's Caitlin Snow (The Flash), who doesn't trust Killer Frost enough to allow herself to play, despite secretly being deceptively good at softball.

Fans - Ralph Dibney, whichever of Joe or Diggle isn't playing, Thea Queen, Kara's sister Alex, Winn Schott, Jimmy Olsen, Ray Palmer. 

TEAM MARVEL

First base: Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Daredevil
Reasoning: Matt has great reflexes, which would be handy when fielding - no sight required. He would be the most reliable bet for snagging teammates' throws. 

Second base: Clarice Fong/Blink, The Gifted
Reasoning: "They have a teleporter on second, we need one, too," she'd sum up everyone's thought process here. Plus her sarcastic wisecracks would keep everyone loose.

Shortstop: Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez, Agents of SHIELD
Reasoning: Yo-Yo's quickness would be extremely useful in the infield, able to zip across the field to tag runners out.

Third base: Grant Ward, Agents of SHIELD
Reasoning: His discipline and military training would be a great asset to this team, and he would play nicely enough with his teammates to reluctantly be allowed to join in. His sense of dark humor might even rattle the other team. And I bet he would be a decent threat to get extra-base hits each time at bat.

Left field: Jessica Jones, Jessica Jones
Reasoning: She's super strong, and that's needed in the outfield. She's also mentally tough and used to working on her own, which is a necessity for the occupants stranded out in the pasture. At bat she'd be a good leadoff line-drive hitter.

Center field: Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse or Melinda May, Agents of SHIELD
Reasoning: Bobbi and May can do everything - of course either of them could play softball adequately enough to join this game.

Right field: John Proudstar/Thunderbird, The Gifted
Reasoning: He's very strong, useful for those long throws to the plate, and great at tracking due to his enhanced senses, which would help at tracking fly balls. His personality would mesh well with these teammates, even though some of them he might not entirely like being around.

Catcher: Alphonso "Mack" McKenzie, Agents of SHIELD
Reasoning: Mack is enormous and strong, which are good traits in a catcher, and though his emotions might occasionally steer him wrong, he's generally a reliable leader to lean on, which his team would need. Plus he would be a home-run threat at the plate, and ensure great team chemistry.

Pitcher: Lauren Strucker, The Gifted
Reasoning: Lauren's powers allow her to manipulate air molecules, which would be very helpful in throwing unhittable curveballs, sliders and knuckleballs. And I bet she's played softball in the fairly recent past, as most girls do. Besides, she's incredibly stubborn, which is an admirable trait in pitchers.
Also, her dad Reed played Little League baseball growing up, so it might be in the Strucker genes.

Manager: Phil Coulson, Agents of SHIELD
Reasoning: Coulson is incredibly inspiring and passionate, and people believe in him. That's the confidence you want in your team's manager. His assistant manager would be Colleen Wing from Iron Fist, as Daisy Johnson would claim she knows nothing about softball in order to fangirl over Thunderbird and the Green Arrow.

Team Doctor: Jemma Simmons and Caitlin Strucker would team up to fill this role when they weren't running the concession stand.

Fans - Lorna Dane/Polaris, Reed and Andy Strucker, Leo Fitz, Foggy Nelson, Lance Hunter, Karen Page, Marcos Diaz/Eclipse, Daisy "Quake" Johnson, Danny Rand.

Team Arrowverse is much more skilled, but Team Marvel would work better together. The outcome's a tossup, but I would love to see this happen.   

Ranking Pixar Movies 18-1 (For Now)

     It's a bit of a slow news day. So here's a ranking of Pixar movies, because it's been too long since I've done that.

18 - The Good Dinosaur
Release Date: November 25, 2015
     I haven't seen The Good Dinosaur yet, which is why it is currently in last place, but I love the premise: What if the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs had missed Earth? The story follows an apatosaurus named Aldo and his pet boy Spot. And Sam Elliott plays a T. rex.

17 - Cars 3
Release Date: June 16, 2017
     I haven't seen Cars 3 yet, but I'm imagining it will leap into the midpack at least. Lightning McQueen is now the tired veteran trying to rejuvenate his career after a wreck.

"Y'know, if you could just get over the gag reflex..."
16 - Ratatouille
Release Date: June 29, 2007
     Rats aren't interesting main characters. Elite French cuisine is an uninteresting setting. And when you try to weave in a mystery about illegitimacy...eek.

15 - Finding Dory
Release Date: June 17, 2016
     This didn't need to be made. Dory tracks down her parents at an aquarium in California.

14 - Brave
Release Date: June 22, 2012
     The storyline is the worst of all these, because it follows an extremely cliched pathway. But the animation is beautiful, as is the soundtrack, loaded with Celtic music, so those save it from appearing too far in the back. A headstrong princess named Merida seeks to disenchant her mother from a curse that made her into a bear.

13 - Finding Nemo
Release Date: May 30, 2003
     An overprotective clownfish father named Marlin, with the help of an extremely forgetful friend named Dory, tracks down his lost son Nemo, who has been captured. Aimed much more for parents than kids, which is why it's always astounded me that it has the following it has.

"...Oh, that's puce."
12 - Monsters, Inc.
Release Date: November 2, 2001
     Highly quotable, and the idea of a parallel world peopled by monsters is amazing, but ranks this low rbecause of the frenetic pacing - the entire movie takes place in about 36 hours, which is far too rushed for the scale of events that happen. Bonus points for casting John Goodman as Sulley and Billy Crystal as Mike.

11 - Cars 2
Release Date: June 24, 2011
     This is a spy adventure starring Mater the Southern tow truck. It's fun, but that's about it.

10 - Monsters University
Release Date: June 21, 2013
     A prequel showing how Mike and Sulley met their freshman year of college, they captured the feel of campus life extremely well. So I'm not sure why I have it ranked so low. Probably because I dislike the Greek system and hated college.

9 - Toy Story 2
Release Date: November 24, 1999
     Woody gets kidnapped by a collector, so Buzz, Slinky, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm and Rex go save him, which leads to a ridiculous chase sequence at the end. My 6-year-old self was vaguely offended they would make a sequel, though it looks better now that the trilogy has been completed.

8 - The Incredibles
Release Date: November 5, 2004
     As a superhero movie, this is really good. As a family drama, it's also very good. As a Pixar movie, though? Not that great....aimed more directly at adults than children, which has always felt kind of out of place, given their usual target parameters of "everybody in the audience."

"Something AMAZING, I guess!"
7 - WALL-E
Release Date: June 27, 2008
     This movie is mostly silent, yet it is amazing. It's new territory in far-flung-future sci-fi, which was an interesting way to challenge themselves. While falling in love, a janitorial robot stranded on a future Earth brings about a recolonization of the planet for humans.

6 - Up
Release Date: May 29, 2009
     Grieving widower Charles Muntz and a lonely Scout named Russell go on an adventure to South America, where they adopt a noisy dog named Doug and save an endangered bird from Charles's boyhood hero. It's an extremely emotional movie, definitely not for the faint of heart. All of these from this point on are that way, really.

5 - Inside Out
Release Date: June 19, 2015
     As a hockey-loving teenage girl named Riley tries to cope with moving from southeast Minnesota to San Francisco, her emotions attempt to work together. Bonus points for casting Amy Poehler as Joy.

4 - Cars
Release Date: June 9, 2006
     Arrogant racer Lightning McQueen is stranded in a charming desert town called Radiator Springs, where he gradually makes friends and falls in love with town attorney Sally.

3 - A Bug's Life
Release Date: November 25, 1998
     An eccentric outcast inventor ant named Flik manages to save his colony, with the help of a circus troupe out of options, from their tyrannical grasshopper overlords.

2 - Toy Story
Release Date: November 22, 1995
     Woody and Buzz Lightyear vie for control of the leadership role of Andy's toys, but soon have to work together if they want to escape from the neighbor's house. Extra points for Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz.

1 - Toy Story 3
Release Date: June 18, 2010
     Andy's going away to college, and so the toys who are left have to make a new life for themselves. I'm bawling by the end every time.

Ping Pong Diplomacy

     The Bulldogs beat the Tahlequah Tigers Friday night, or at least the boys’ team did, but Tom didn’t go. He thought about going to the games, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble, because he’d run into Natalie, and he didn’t want to deal with her accusing stares. That was the trouble with his next-door neighbor being on the cheerleading squad, he thought – even at basketball games he couldn’t escape. And since his friend Trevor had moved away from Skiatook to somewhere around Chicago about a year ago, there weren’t that many people to be around. Tom had trouble making himself talk to new people. The thing was, though, that Natalie was right – he just didn’t want to admit that.

      She was mad at him for making fun of Svetlana’s reading – she had been adopted by the Maguires about the same time Trevor moved. She was from what had been the Soviet Union - it was now some new country spelled with an unpronounceable jumble of letters, and the encyclopedias in the school library hadn’t been updated with all these new countries yet. And was it his fault that he had always excelled at retaining written information? His mother said that that didn’t give him reason to make anybody feel inferior because they didn’t grasp concepts quite as quickly. That was pretty much what Natalie had said, too.

      So Tom sat on the couch with his younger siblings and watched the latest episode of Boy Meets World, which he found ridiculous and irritating – Corey Matthews was simply too boring to be interesting. But Jenny was obsessed with the show, alternatively attempting to recreate Topanga’s choices in hairstyles and clothing or gushing without end about Corey’s friend Shawn. And Lenny did whatever Jenny told him to, so he always watched the show, but only because his twin did. So the phone ringing gave Tom a welcome excuse to vault off the couch and into the kitchen to answer it.    

      “Curtis residence, Tom speaking. Who is this?”

     “It’s Nat.”

     “Hey. Couldn’t you just walk over if you had to talk?”

     “This feels too important,” she sighed. “Can you meet up tomorrow?”

     “I think so. What time?”

     “How about eleven, by the mailboxes.”

     The Curtises and Phillipses had lived on the same red river-gravel road for as long as either Tom or Natalie could remember, and the cluster of mailboxes near the highway turn-off was the bus stop, and thus  generally the neighborhood gathering place.  

     “All right.”

     “Didn’t see you in the stands tonight,” her tone sounded disappointed.

     “No, I didn’t go.”

     “Pete could’ve let you ride with us, you know.” Pete was the oldest Phillips sibling living at home, two were in Norman studying at OU, and Natalie fell the fifth out of six in terms of birth order.

     “Yeah, I know… I just….thought it would be good to spend some time with the twins.”

     He knew from experience that she would have one eyebrow raised and a hand on her hip right about then, playing with the phone cord.

     “Tom, you NEVER spend time with the twins if you can help it.”

     “So? I wanted to tonight. What’s so wrong with that?” Tom snapped out. His tone was much harsher than he meant it to be. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

     The cli-thunk of the phone slamming down on the receiver cut another another of her sighs.

     The wind was whipping along pretty well, even though the sun was shining, so Natalie and another girl, one with black hair, were wrapped up in coats. Nat was shivering, but the other girl - Svetlana Maguire - looked at ease.

     “Heeeyyy,” Tom greeted them warily.

     “Hello,” Svetlana greeted him back.

     “Hey. Since you’re here, you might as well come over to my place for ping pong,” Nat stated. Pete was by far the best of their family, but the Phillips garage could get noisy whenever there was a match in progress, they were all so competitive.

     The wind whistled by, obscuring the girls’ faces.

     “All right. I guess so,”  he agreed reluctantly.

     “Ah...what is….ping pong?” Svetlana asked.

     “It’s, uh - Shit, what is it called….?” Tom tried to answer.

     “Table tennis!” Nat smiled at the Russian girl. Her face lit up in response.

     “Oh! Table tennis! I know this, how to play.”

     She could, too. As had been Natalie’s plan, showcasing this skill cast Svetlana several rungs higher in Tom’s respect, as since he was a guy, athletic prowess in anything, even something as dorky as ping pong, equalled greater respect. That was part of the reason Nat became a cheerleader in the first place, though she would never admit that to anyone, and barely to herself. At some point through the day Tom apologized for his behavior, and Svetlana graciously accepted the apology.

     Pete drove the three of them and Natalie’s youngest sister Amanda into Tulsa to go see the Michael Jordan movie, since Svetlana needed to be indoctrinated into American pop culture more fully, and she had some knowledge of the Looney Tunes already.,full of sarcastic one-liners.

     “I bet I’m gonna show that to my kids someday,” Pete declared afterwards. 

     "That'd be, like....two thousand and fourteen. Will the world even exist by then?" Amanda asked.

Two People Fell in Love

     If it wasn’t for the pestering of my roommate Eli’s crazy girlfriend Marti, we never would have gotten together. Marti can be obnoxiously persistent when she wants to. All of us were studying at OSU-Okmulgee at the time.

    This is Lee Ann. I’ll try not to interrupt, but when I heard this idea I wasn’t a fan. “Marti! I grew up in Muskogee. In a trailer park. You said he’s a photographer. Like Peter Parker - I don’t think this is a good idea!” “It’s a great idea. Opposites attract, y’know.” Decisive head-shake from me and a dubious snort. “Just once, to meet him?” Marti pleaded. “Fine…”

      “She’s – different but you’ll like her, Mike. And it’s just a date, not like I’m askin’ you to marry her or anything. Please? Pleasepleasepleaseplease?” That finally wore my defenses out eventually, and so I unenthusiastically agreed to go on a blind double date with her and Eli. And so that’s where I first met Lee Ann, in a Braum’s one Friday night.

      The usual amount of older people were there, and a couple of teams from the local YMCA kids soccer league were having their fall-season-wrapup parties at the restaurant, with parents and siblings in tow, so the place was really crowded and noisy. She had darkish hair and her fingernails were painted teal. I noticed that because I’d never seen any girl use that color nail polish before, and because it looked good, like the uniforms of the Charlotte Hornets, San Jose Sharks and Arizona Diamondbacks. Honestly, a dude would compare to sports… She was wearing a black leather jacket, jeans and – I noticed this since it was practical – running shoes. I was hoping she didn’t notice that I’d buttoned my shirt crooked due to nervousness. Yeah, I did notice that. I also thought you were strange. But in an interesting way. She says she was wondering if she was too standoffish. We talked about surface-level things of the likes-and-dislikes variety, somehow the topic of country music came up, which we both enjoyed. We got into a long argument over Taylor Swift; I said she was terrible, Lee Ann liked her.

      I didn’t call her, even though I wanted to. I even picked up the phone a couple times with that intention, but I couldn’t ever quite finish dialing her number. Me? Why would I have cared? I was half afraid he would call. But I was also somewhat disappointed and pissed off that he didn’t.

# # #

      This inability to communicate continued until we ran into each other one afternoon in a shopping center parking lot in Tulsa about two months later. It was a chilly day, and the wind kept slamming her largeish Hobby Lobby bag into her hip.

      “Good day of shopping?” I asked, pointing at the sack.

      “Huh?” she asked, startled. “Oh, yeah. Found some cool scrapbooking stuff on sale.”

      “Cool. You scrapbook?”

      She nodded. “I like to, when I have time. What’re you here for?”

      I pointed my thumb at Guitar Center. “I need to get some cables for my amplifier, browsing around for some other stuff, kind of to get an idea of prices.”

      Her brown eyes sparkled. ”You play?!”

      “Yeah. Learned in middle school. Why?”

      She looked down at her Asics and coughed, self-conscious. “Would you….be willing to teach me? I have an acoustic with one of those funny little plug-things-“

      “Okay, so it’s possible to hook it up to an amp. Acoustic-electric.”

      “- but I don’t know what kind it is. It’s bright orange, if that helps-“

      “Not really,” I smiled a little.

      “-but I don’t really know how to play. The strings are kinda tarnished and grimy, so…”

      “That’s not hard to fix. And sure, I guess I could try.”

       “Do you sing?”

       “Not when people can hear me.”

       “If you’re going to Guitar Center anyway,” she bit her lip. “do y’mind if I tag along? Could use some advice on what stuff to get.”

       “Sure, why not?”

       “Thanks.”

       “No problem.” I held open the door to the store, she walked in. “When do you want to start?”

# # #

      “Ever wonder what the history a guitar’s seen in its previous life?”

       Lee Ann was scowling at her aching left hand, trying to shake the muscles loose, so she wasn’t really paying attention to this comment. “Mm…not really, no. What’d you mean?”

       “I dunno. Like, what happened to yours before it wound up with it?”

       She thought a moment. “I know I’m new at this, but you said guitars usually have names, right?”

       “Most of the time.” 

       “When I bought it, I heard that it-” she gestured at her Ibanez, “was called Steve. So that would mean it belonged to a girl?”

      “Probably. Not sure why, really, but that’s usually the way it goes, the guitar becomes the opposite gender.”

     “And yours is Sophie.”

      I nodded, patting the black Takamine. “Ready to get started again?”

     She shrugged halfheartedly and we began practicing again.

     “Okay, “Never Alone” by Sara Evans is pretty easy. So the chord progression on this one is D-A-Bm-G,” I said. “So to make a D, that’s your first finger on the third string, second fret, second finger first string third fret, third finger second string second fret.”

     “Tell me this gets easier…” she muttered. “And don’t strum the top two?”

# # #

     “Come On Over Tonight to a Brad Paisley concert?” I texted her around New Years.

     I remember it particularly because it was the start of a new decade, too – 2010. And I couldn’t resist the pun of including the title of one of Brad’s earlier songs in there. And she recognized the reference for what it was – a declaration that I cared about her and an invitation to go steady.    

     “She said Yes!” Lee Ann replied after what felt like forever. I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the Rhett Akins song with that title, or the one-hit wonder “Yes!” (complete with maybe-unnecessary exclamation point) from Chad Brock. Either way, it was good news.

     So that was our first outing as an official couple. The concert was part of the American Saturday Night Tour, at the arena in Oklahoma City where the Thunder play, it was called the Ford Center then. Justin Moore and Miranda Lambert were the opening acts, and they’re both great, too. He’s from Arkansas, and she’s counted as an adopted Oklahoman, since she was married to Blake Shelton. And although a couple songs Brad forget the lyrics to, it was a fantastic show.

# # #

      Eli knocked on the door late one Saturday morning. “Hey, dude? You in there?”

      I shut up quick then, and the sounds of Sophie’s strings stopped abruptly while I opened the door.

      “Whatcha playin’?” Eli’s arms were full of grocery sacks after a run to Wal-Mart. He knew the answer was “More Than a Memory,” but figured it would be better to keep his mouth shut. 

      “Garth. And Keith Urban,” I growled. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, about anything. And so I wasn’t trying not to mope.

     “Don’t let me stop ya.”                            

     Eli began restocking the kitchen cabinets with chili, paper towels and cereal. Pretty soon from the living room he could hear the anguish within “Stupid Boy,” a reproach-filled exercise in self-flagellation. He hummed “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” to himself, spinning around from the open refrigerator to poke his head into the living room. I shushed Sophie and glared at him.    

     “Hey. Whatever happened – just apologize. Love her like she’s leavin’. Don’t mess this up; she’s a keeper. Y’all can meet in the middle somehow.”

     “You do know many song titles you used just then, don’t you?”

     “Uh….more than I meant to? I was thinking Diamond Rio…”

     I flipped him off, and he went back to whatever he was doing.

  “C’mon. You can get through this,” Marti consoled. We were in Marti’s living room, sitting on the uncomfortable faded-blue hand-me-down couch she salvaged from somebody’s driveway, and a pile of feel-good DVDs were on the coffee table, along with several cans of Bud Light and a mostly-empty pizza box. Sleepless in Seattle was playing on the TV.

  “Ooh, maybe I could slash his tires!” I tried to cheer myself up.

  “Nope, you don’t wanna do that.” Marti had previous experience with that form of revenge. It didn’t lead to good things.

  “Yes I don’t,” I huffed in frustration. “How ‘bout…I dunno… go sit in the football field stands at the high school an’ drink a beer?”

  “You think that’d help?”

  “I dunno. But that’s how I process shit. Think about it endlessly. Eventually it makes sense.”

  “Sure, let’s try it,” Marti shrugged.

# # #

     We got back together eventually. Having the other’s presence around to deal with the trials that come up made life a lot easier. And we had our share of disagreements and fights, but gradually got to understand the histories and baggage behind most things the other said and did. She grew up in a trailer park in Muskogee, while I bounced around southern Missouri and eastern Oklahoma. She enjoyed reading Billie Letts novels, and I followed halfheartedly along on the trips to the library. We were squeaking by; she was working at Wal-Mart and I had a shake photography business going.

     One day Marti send me a heads-up text that Lee Ann was leaving for her thinking-place, so Eli and I raced over to Eagle Stadium. It being August by now, the boys of fall were almost ready to shine, and at the moment Morris High was having a scrimmage, maybe against Haskell, I don’t remember. Anyway, other people were there watching, but the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. Eli was born and raised in Morris, so he knew everyone, including the people running the press box. So that part of our plan was easy. I spotted where Lee Ann was sitting in the splintery orange-painted bleachers, tucked away into the bottom-left corner, on the third row. Not many people were nearby, except a second-grader down at the railing in her cheerleader uniform, watching her big brother play.

     “Mind if I sit here?” She shrugged.

     I sat down and called Eli. He was inside the press box, and the CD player was all set up. Somebody started it, and Josh Turner flooded the loudspeakers. There were amused chucklings of approval throughout the stands, first in surprise at the unexpectedness, then as they watched what unfolded. Lee Ann’s foot tapped along automatically to the bluegrassy mandolin-led tune; by this time she’d taught herself how to play the banjo. Then which Josh Turner song it was registered – “Would You Go With Me?” – or maybe that was my being on one knee with a ring I’d improvised out of an old guitar string (because poor college students have to MacGyver things most of the time). .

     She laughed in disbelief, managing to nod her assent, while everyone else in the stands snapped pictures and whooped their congratulations. I think it was a front-page story in the local newspaper that week. Everybody dies famous in a small town, right? Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it. 

Go, Go Gadget

     This flashfiction story was adapted from a flashfic play we were assigned in Pop Market, where we then all cold-read our scripts. Dr. Dial-Driver's reaction - "Okay, a tragedy, that's fine.But - Damn! Why'd you have to kill the dog??!!"  I also played a 91-year-old grandmother with dementia that day. It was a super depressing start to the morning, when all of us seniors were already depressed because it was Thursday, which meant another dose of the soul-draining Capstone course. And usually we like Pop Market.

     "Not the smartest dog in the world," Ted said, looking skeptically at the puppy his wife of five weeks was holding. "But not all of them need to be."
     "I think he's adorable!" Melanie declared. "We can't let him..." her voice trailed off into the breeze, knowing that the owner would send the unwanted puppies to the local pound if they went unclaimed by Wednesday.

     "And so that's how we ended up with Gadget. Since then he's torn up shoes, shredded the couch, and angered our landlord by peeing on her purse," Ted mused aloud, remembering the day they'd taken him home, and all the chaos in the years since
     "Yes, he had done all that, and more. But there's also been the comfort he gave when your dad died, Or how he keeps me company while I'm grading papers. But now...here we are -" Melanie's voice choked up.

     "Do we have to go in?" Ted's question was barely audible.
     "Nnnyee-sss," Melanie groaned.
     "Damn."
     "We'll be okay," she comforted, not believing it in the least.
     "I know." Long pause. "I just don't believe you right now."
     "Me neither."
     But they got out of the car and removed Gadget's crate from the backseat, slowly walking into the building.
     "Welcome to Wilson Veterinary Clinic. How may I help you?" The receptionist's name tag said her name was Mia.
     Ted and Melanie looked at each other for guidance.
     "It's...we....the poor guy -" she gestured at Gadget's crate.
     "He's....almost -"
     "All right," Mia's tone was soothing but disinterested. "Dr. Cassidy will be in in a few minutes. Take as much time as you need."
     The couple sat themselves uncertainly in two of the waiting room chairs, glancing around at the other patients. Mia turned back to the computer screen and began typing again. When it's time for an animal, especially a pet, to be put down it's always so hard. I may pretend I don't care, or the owners must see it that way, but I wouldn't be able to function working here if I could let myself be too empathetic.
     Dr. Cassidy poked his head into the doorway. "Ted? Melanie?"
     "(That's us, yeah,)" they mumbled indistinctly, moving towards the doorway.
     "This is Gadget, huh?" the vet addressed the occupant of the crate. Mute nods from the people. "You've had a long and distinguished career, Inspector," Dr. Cassidy bit his lip, hesitating. "If y'all want -"
     "Thanks - but - we'll stay here," Melanie managed to answer the vet's question. She knelt down to get eye-level with the crate, her forehead resting against the bars. They felt stable, but everything was swimming and blurry. "Thank you, buddy. We'll miss you - so, so much."

     "Go - go - goodbye, Gadget," Ted choked. Melanie put a hand on his arm, and together they turned away from the freshly-dug grave.

Historical Fiction Flashfic

     This was a historical fiction flashfic in-class assignment for Dr. Dial-Driver's Pop Market. The first historical quote that leapt to mind to indicate setting was Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!" speech from June 12, 1987.

     "Mr Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!"
     I was nine, and so I didn't understand what President Reagan meant. I just knew I liked his movies. (And yes, I knew how weird that made me.) But Dad liked him, and so I figured that maybe he could explain.
     He tried to.
     "The Russians - y'know, from WarGames, they - well, this is in East Germany, and they're similar to the Soviets. Dangerous. Anyway, people over there are tryin' to escape - there's a MacGyver episode about it, remember?"
     I nodded. Sort of.
    "Okay, well, what Reagan is tryin' to do is get the Soviet prime minister - sort of their president - to do is let the East German people escape by tearing down the Berlin Wall."
     "He prob'ly wont, will he?"
     "I don't think so, but maybe. It could be like Rocky IV, where we decide that the other side is human, too."
     His tone was mystified and pessimistic, so I figured that that was enough politics and that it was time to do math homework. Mrs. Jackson was attempting to teach us fourth-graders division, and that was going about as well as comprehending metrical feet would in a poetry class I'd take in college.
     "Fourteen goes into ninety-two - no, that's not right... If you have ninety-two, and there's fourteen..." I muttered on my way up the screaky stairs, my Keds furthering the erosion of the woodstain in the middle of each step.

Suspense Flashfic

     For Dr. Dial-Driver's Pop Market. This was an in-class timed flashfiction assignment, making a suspense story ending with the line, "Some days I almost forget about the scar. And some days I still feel like I'm being followed, but I always remember to [blank]." Brian suggested the closing phrase, and there were a lot of interesting spins put on the phrase.
     It's not a great flashfic, especially compared to Lauren's - suspense is her wheelhouse, and she delivered a great tale of an assassination attempt with an Agatha Christie twist. McKenzie had a great fight scene in a coffee shop MacGyvering kitchen implements into weapons. Brian had a psycho attack a guy in an empty movie theater, which was a great use of setting, and Deborah set her story in an aquarium, where a stalker was eaten by a shark. A guy named Shane had us all thinking that his narrator was kidnapped by a cult, until the twist ending revealed that the narrator was actually a sugar glider, and what we thought was a cult was just the normal world seen from a rodent's perspective. That provided some material to chew over.

     Things were tense. That's the best way of describing where we were in life at that moment. I was without a steady job, and my girlfriend Jamie's parents were divorcing.
     It started when the guys from one of the frats got drunk one Thursday night. I was walking back to my apartment when I heard some scuffling noises. I went to see what was up. Three guys, a girl - this wasn't good.
    "HEY! What the -?" This got their attention, as did the fact that my phone was up to my ear reporting the rape.
    The girl - she was a small redhead - slipped away into the night. The dudes chased after me. I evaded them as best I could, running more or less in a circle across back alleys and untraveled sidewalks until the cops showed up. They were locked up for about a month, then released, somebody rich was there to clean up "this minor mistake," as they called it.
     So they tailed me, waiting for an opportune time to strike back. This didn't help ease the tension between me and Jamie, either. She knew I wasn't telling her everything, but she didn't press. That wasn't her way.
     I was walking out the store to deliver a pepperoni when they jumped me, slashed up what felt like everywhere. Someway or another I got to the hospital - since they knocked me out those details were fuzzy - and I slowly healed, except for the large jagged scar on my right forearm. It was raw and red and every day multiple people commented on it, or pointedly didn't. Eventually it faded into a nasty-looking birthmark sort of thing, and once I had enough saved up I got a tattoo to cover it.
     But the paranoia continued, as did the pain.
     It was rough.
     And it took a while, but I'll finally graduate in a couple months, after missing all that time recovering and paying off medical bills. Some days I almost forget about the scar. And some days I still feel like I'm being followed, but I always remember to --
     "Brad? Are you okay?!" Jamie looked distraught.
     I looked around, groggy, from her couch, where I'd been taking a nap. And then I knew. Not sure how that works, but it wasn't a dream: It was a vision. This was all going to play out, someway.
     The final line of the voiceover haunts echoingly in my mind - "Some days I almost forget about the scar. And some days I still feel like I'm being followed, but I always remember to..."

Get the Job Done

     Dr. Dial-Driver's Creative Writing for the Popular Market is the final creative writing course left for those RSU English majors who made their minor Creative Writing. It's basically genre fiction, which is fun to explore. That two-thirds of the class are computer-science people is a pain (this class was originally called Writing Video Games), though it provides examples of what we're trying not to do.
     This flashfiction assignment was ghostwriting practice; we were given a random selection of six elements - plot, character, character relationship, setting, and scraps of dialogue and background info. Then we had to turn them into a two-page Western. I was definitely thinking of a Clint Eastwood/Firefly vibe while working on this.

     “Remember those days when we were together? Before you changed?”

     Jack McClain rode through the dusty town of Yatesville, the scalding sunlight roasting everything in sight. It didn’t improve his mood much. Replaying his wife Maggie’s forlorn questioning about their relationship wasn’t helping with the current task at hand, either. That task was to apprehend one Garth Boggs. Yatesville was a three-day ride from their homestead, but bounty hunting was a job. It was difficult to balance when there were problems at home to sort out. Glimpses of corruption of various types were seen in almost every building he passed as he pulled up at the saloon. As long as the drinks kept coming, his relationship with Henry the barkeep were fine. When they weren’t – things were strained, likely because of that time years ago when Jack had to pull Henry into the ranks of the freshly-incarcerated. It was about a year before he and Maggie were hitched – most men would reckon her as pulchritude if it weren’t for that scar ‘long her cheek. So he laid a claim, her drifting days were finished, and it had worked out pretty well. The dubious business dealings of the Yatesvillains wasn’t his problem; keeping a low body count of uninvolved persons was.

     “What the hell’s this?” Jack frowned at his beer after tasting it. ”Don’t look normal.”

     “New truck at a discount. Cain’t say properly th’ name, sold by some German fella out of St. Louis.” Henry slid his Remington revolver across the tabletop and whipped out the lopped-off Winchester underneath the bar. The cowhands in the corner – the only other souls in the establishment at the moment - quit their hand of poker and slunk under their chairs.

     Boggs had entered the saloon.

     Jack whipped around, slinging the mug of beer into Boggs’s face while scooping up the Remington. Blood dripped from a gash over Boggs’s forehead into one eye, and it mixed with the tears and beer droplets running down his face. None of that kept him from swinging the Bowie knife towards Jack’s throatal region.

     Henry emptied the Winchester into Boggs’s hip, and Jack had already pegged his right arm. He was beginning to unholster his Smith & Wesson, just in case, when Henry vaulted over the countertop and snapped Boggs’s left arm.

     “Damn - what’d ya do that for?”
     “You know how much those mugs cost to replace?” Henry snorted. “And it’ll cause you trouble, explainin’ the condition he was hauled up to Wichita in.”

Jack ignored this reply and hoisted Boggs’s unconscious form towards the livery stable where he’d kept the farm wagon, staggering and almost faltering under the weight. Once the cargo was deposited, he retraced his path back to the saloon.

     “You’ll need that, I reckon,” he said to Boggs, flipping the outlaw’s hat into the wagon bed. “No need t’ git overheated any more’n can be helped.”

     “Thank ye,” Boggs whispered.

     “Changed for the better, I hope, Maggie,” he muttered as the horse plodded along some time later, not realizing he was speaking aloud. “Or at least that’s a start, anyway, ain’t it?”

     “It’s a sight better than leavin’ me daid,” Boggs answered from the back. “Who’s Maggie?” 

     Jack ignored him. 

Lost In This Moment

     For Dr. Dial-Driver's Pop Market. This flashfiction assignment was a romance, and the structural commands were that it had to be exactly one page long. So I snuck around the double-space-everything-in-MLA-format rule by writing half of this story in poetry, because poetry can be single-spaced. Because it's me, I knew that the title would be influenced by country music somehow, so the title is borrowed from a Keith Anderson song that Big & Rich later covered. The cover is the better-known version of the tune.

While the swing goes on in the predestined way –

endlessly pacing, like all such furniture must journey –

the background  fills with our friends’ chatter,

someone’s klutzy dog makes quite a clatter,

and I’m one lucky dog with a brand-new fiancée. 

Clasped hands and hearts on that old porch swing; Desiree,  

is it this song that’s such an enchanter?

Don’t answer aloud – let your gaze say

while the swing goes on.

Years from now, this moment will stay

in my favorite memories, thinking of last Saturday,

and though in years ahead we’ll weather paint splatters

and deal with your mom – drat her -

but they’ll be counterbalanced by moments of play  

while the swing goes on.

      This was the rondeau that Mike wrote for his wife Desiree in their hotel room one night on their honeymoon. He had proposed to her while they were at a Fourth of July party hosted by friends; they were snuggled on the creaky porch swing in the Allans’ backyard, and it finally seemed like the right time to ask – they’d survived their first year of school, (they’d figure out the transfer details later) and there was family housing. Most people would say they were crazy, but if their grandparents had made it work so young, why couldn’t they? He set her guitar back into its case (he’d been using as a desk) and tucked the poem between the strings where she’d notice it first thing. Then shaking his head, wonderstruck that this was real life, he slipped under the covers. She grunted sleepily and loosened her grip on the comforter. 

20 Dog-Eared Recollections about "Wishbone"

    This is a BuzzFeed-style listicle because I ran out of time to edit an essay for Dr. Mackie's Creative Nonfiction before the portfolio was due. It was about the PBS show Wishbone, and all the previous drafts were sprawling avalanches of information that scared off most readers. I guess I got a little carried away in my enthusiasm for the subject. Listicles make absorption of information easier to digest.

     1, The 1990s were a great time to be a canine TV star. There was Beethoven the St. Bernard, Moose the Jack Russell Terrier (Eddie from the TV show Fraiser, Skip from the film My Dog Skip), Buddy (from the movie Air Bud, Comet from Full House), and Soccer, narrator/protagonist of the children’s show Wishbone.

      2, Soccer beat out over a hundred dogs during the audition for the lead role. The occasional backflip seen on the show was real; and likely was what won him the part.

     3, Like all stars, Soccer had stunt doubles. Their names were Phoebe, Slugger and Shiner. A dog named Bear was used for the publicity photoshoots.

     4,  Producer Rick Duffield owned a Jack Russell Terrier himself, and he’d been playing with the idea of a children’s show starring a talking dog for a while, but hadn’t ever quite figured out how to make that work. Then his gaze fell upon an anthology of world literature sitting on the bookshelf, and all the puzzle pieces fit together – the dog would narrate classic novels and plays, bookended by the real-world adventures of his people.

     5, Those people were mainly his owner, Joe Talbot, Joe’s mother Ellen, his best friends Samantha Kepler and David Barnes, and Ellen’s best friend/next door neighbor Wanda Gilmore.

     6, There were fifty episodes run on PBS stations between 1995-98, divided into two seasons. Reruns aired until 2001.

     7, Because one parent seemingly had to die in every story starring kids or dogs, Joe’s father Steve died years before the show began due to a rare blood disease.

     8, In real life, the actress who played Ellen (Mary Chris Wall) was actually the mother of Jordan Wall, who played Joe.

     9, None of the main cast ever really had any noteworthy credits after this show ended.

     10, The voice of Wishbone, Larry Brantley, won the part during a callback after an improvised five-minute monologue while watching Soccer be mesmerized by a tennis ball in the corner of the room.  

     11, Almost all the episode titles were puns. (Examples: “A Tale in Twain” was a two-part Tom Sawyer, “Furst Impressions” was Pride and Prejudice, “Bark to the Future” was H.G. Wells’ Time Machine, and Henry IV, Part One became “The Prince of Wags.”)

     12, The literary imaginings inside Wishbone’s head were put together as theater productions, and used a core group of Dallas/Fort Worth-area theater professionals as these players.

     13, The show went well out of its way to break down the barrier required for suspension of disbelief, frequently showing clips explaining how certain visual effects were made during the credits. And the setting of a video game based on the show was the set’s backlot.

     14, These behind-the-scenes clips can be found on YouTube, and there is an entire channel dedicated to showing full episodes.

     15, Eight different spinoff book series were created between 1995-2001, totaling 77 titles in all, continuing the adventures of every viewer’s favorite Oakdale residents.

     16, The sports teams of Sequoyah Middle/High School, where the kids attend, are known as the Bulldogs, and their colors are blue and yellow-gold. Wishbone filled in as the team mascot at one point.

     17, Guest stars included pre-fame versions of Jensen Ackles (best known for Supernatural) and Amy Acker (of Angel and Dollhouse).

     18, Other guest stars were Shelley Duvall from The Shining and, playing himself, Dallas Cowboys fullback Daryl “Moose” Johnston.

     19, Wishbone was replaced by another dog-and-book-related series, an animated TV adaptation of Norman Bridwell’s Clifford the Big Red Dog series.

     20, The Clifford show got a short-lived spinoff titled Clifford’s Puppy Days, whose head writer was Suzanne Collins (of Hunger Games fame). 

Some Writer

     I really enjoyed writing this essay for Dr. Dial-Driver's Children's Lit class.

     In her foreword for the 60^th Anniversary edition of E.B. White’s children’s classic Charlotte’s Web, multiple Newbery Medal-winner Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie; The Tale of Despereaux) writes that White “loved barns and pastures, dumps and fairgrounds, ponds and kitchens. He loved pigs and sheep and geese and spiders” (vi). He also loved subjects as diverse as “rain, harnesses, pitchforks, springtime, fall, spiderwebs, monkey wrenches and Ferris wheels” (vi). Because of this love for the common bits of everyday life, “every word of this book shows us how we can bear the triumphs and despairs, the wonders and the heartbreaks, the small and large glories and tragedies of being here” (vi). In case the reader didn’t catch this aspect on the first reading, DiCamillo is humorously pointing out that another thing White loved was creating atmosphere-enhancing lists, which can be seen everywhere from the description of farm implements and junk cluttering Zuckerman’s barn (13-14) to Fern and Avery’s summer activities (42-44) to the ingredients of the meals Wilbur and Templeton consume (too many examples to mention all of them).

     Charlotte’s Web is a novel about friendship, which also says a lot about good writing, while also being about growing up and facing death, of which there is plenty on a farm. In 1947 White wrote an essay outlining the “Death of a Pig,” published in the January 1948 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. White begins this essay by stating that the traditional farming practice of butchering a hog for wintertime is natural and accepted without question: “It is a tragedy enacted on most farms with perfect fidelity to the original script. The murder, being premeditated, is in the first degree but is quick and skillful, and the smoked bacon and ham provide a ceremonial ending whose fitness is seldom questioned” (Essays of E.B. White 17). On this specific occasion, one ad-lib interrupted that ancient script’s flow – the pig never showed up for his last supper: “I found myself suddenly cast into the role of pig’s [sic] friend and physician – I had a presentiment that the play would never regain its balance and that my sympathies were now wholly with the pig” (17). This particular pig died of a sickness a short time later, despite White’s best efforts of swine-nursing, and thus depriving him of tasty ham and sausage. But soon afterward he began work on his second children’s novel, which starred a pig protagonist.

     Of course, like his earlier children’s novel Stuart Little and his later children’s novel The Trumpet of the Swan, the animals in Charlotte’s Web can speak English. Can animals really talk? It’s a popular idea in the minds of many, and the wise Dr. Dorian doesn’t completely rule out the possibility when talking with Mrs. Arable: “I have never heard an animal say anything. But that proves nothing. It is quite possible that an animal has spoken civilly to me and hat I didn’t catch the remark because I wasn’t paying attention” (110). Perhaps White was consciously echoing the words of G.K. Chesterton from Chesterton’s famous defense of fairy tales in “The Ethics of Elfland,” part of his book Orthodoxy:

I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hardworking people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which I belong. I prefer even the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside. I would always trust the old wives’ tales against the old maids’ facts. (Orthodoxy 53-54)

     Still, facts must be dealt with and arranged appropriately. And as Melissa R. Cordell explains in an article on the backstory of Charlotte for the October 2008 issue of children’s magazine Highlights, White “filled a folder with sketches of spiders and notes about spiders at work” (32), and a lot of these notes wove themselves into the tale, including “Charlotte’s description of the seven parts of her leg, what happened when Charlotte’s children hatched, and how her foundation lines differed from her snare lines” (33). College professor Sue Misheff summarizes the work in her 1998 essay “Beneath the Web and Over the Stream,” for the academic journal Children’s Literature in Education, by saying, “Within this fantasy lives a very down-to-earth spider who weaves a bit of magic into her otherwise realistic web which essentially saves her friend from certain extinction” (133).

     Chesterton would agree that a spider’s web is magical; when queried with such unanswerable questions children wonder, such as why birds lay eggs or gravity makes apples fall in autumn, “we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is magic” (quoted in Elfland 57). So would Dr. Dorian, though he uses different language: “A young spider knows how to spin a web without any instruction from anybody. Don’t you regard that as a miracle?” (White, Charlotte 110)

     Another everyday miracle for any writer is having a good editor, and most people in general would considered blessed with a spouse they could both work well and get along with. For White, his wife Katharine filled both of these roles admirably, though she did not officially edit his work. As he wrote in a March 1954 letter to a little girl named Shirley Wiley, “My wife is an editor. An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do, but who has escaped the terrible desire to write” (Letters 358). And writers need editors for the simple reason that White cited when replying to a student’s query: “I can’t explain myself. Everything about me is mysterious to me and I do make any strong effort to solve the puzzle” (Letters 372).

     Still another everyday miracle is the concept of stories themselves, and the immense power they hold. Western author Louis L’Amour said of them in “In the Beginning, There Was the Story…”, a short essay from his reference work The Sackett Companion: “The story was man’s first and best means of transmitting knowledge or information, of preparing the child as well as the adult for what might come” (261). White uses the power of story, in part, to model what desirable behavior looks like and educate readers through new vocabulary, while keeping his adult viewpoint that sees humor in the commonplace. As Charlotte says to Templeton on page 140, “’Humble’ has two meanings. It means ‘not proud’ and it means ‘near the ground.’ That’s Wilbur all over.” In this approach, White creates what Misheff calls “a safe space created by a reasoned approach to a problem” (Misheff 138).

     Even though Charlotte dies, because death is inevitable for all creatures, life goes on for Wilbur, and he must learn to deal with the pain in order to grow and mature (Misheff 137). DiCamillo says this is part of Charlotte’s promise to Wilbur, in addition to being White’s promise to his readers: “Things will continue, life will go on. It will be beautiful, astonishing, heartbreaking. And as long as you keep your eyes and heart open to the wonder of it, as long as you love, it will be okay” (Foreword vii). This is a very important lesson to learn, which can be taught somewhat by sitting at the typewriter and bleeding, so sayeth the Hemingway quote familiar to nearly all English majors. Life’s experiences will teach this lesson to the readers in one way or another at some point in their lives, but books like this one can play an early role in understanding this lesson, which is part of why children’s literature possibly occupies the highest place in storytelling, which in my opinion is the highest form of teaching tools in existence. 

      White also has quite a bit to say about the importance of good writing in general, not to mention common sense, throughout this work. But in terms of finding out what this advice is, we must study his actual words. “If you are engaged in writing a theme about my works, I think your best bet is to read them and say what you think about them,” was the advice he gave a high school student named Arthur Hudson (White, Letters 372). So that is what I tried to do.

     There is the main plot device of the words “SOME PIG,” “TERRIFIC,” “RADIANT” and “HUMBLE” appearing in the threads of Charlotte A. Cavatica’s webs in Zuckerman’s barn and the fairgrounds, of course. No one understands how words could appear in a spider’s web, because it seems utterly fantastic. But again, Dr. Dorian serves as a voice of reason: “I don’t understand it…None of us do. I’m a doctor. Doctors are supposed to understand everything. But I don’t understand everything, and I don’t intend to let it worry me” (108-10). Since “doctor” comes from the Latin “to teach,” this bit of wordplay in that statement about “having to understand everything” is doubly worthwhile. After all, isn’t part of the reason that professors and teachers continue to seek out new perspectives and knowledge of their subjects because they wish to learn more?  And if we tried to understand everything, we would quickly go crazy, an observation which Chesterton expands upon in his earlier Orthodoxy essays “The Maniac” and “The Suicide of Thought.”

     Another bit of humorous observation about writing occurs during the initial barn-wide planning meeting, where Wilbur protests that he’s not terrific, only to be quickly overruled by Charlotte’s snarky-yet-sensible reply: “That doesn’t make a particle of difference. Not a particle. People believe almost anything they see in print” (89). This is sadly true, and can be seen by reading the political coverage in newspapers or on Facebook. People are quite easy to fool.

     In an essay remembering his Cornell professor William Strunk, White describes his own process of writing this way: “I write by ear, always with difficulty and seldom with any notion of what is taking place under the hood” (White, Essays 256). Is that comment a little strange, coming from the editor/co-author (with Strunk) of The Elements of Style, one of the most influential books on writing in history? Kind of. But at the end of the day, the words that White hammered out just worked. They connected with people, and explained clearly the simple, often-forgotten parts of life’s daily existence in a rural setting. And that’s what counts. Perhaps with the closing lines, he was hoping they could be his epitaph: “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both” (184). I know that I would be honored to have people say about me.

Works Cited

Chesterton, G.K. “The Ethics of Elfland.” 1908. Orthodoxy. Ignatius Press, pp. 51-70, 1995.

DiCamillo, Kate. Foreword by Kate DiCamillo. Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White. 60^th Anniversary edition. Illus. Garth Williams. 1952, HarperCollins, 2012, pp. v-vii. 

Cordell, Melinda R. “E.B. White and His Spiders.” Illus. Meredith Johnson. Highlights for Children, Vol. 63, No. 10, October 2008, pp. 32-33. EBSCO. Accessed on 28 September 2016. Web.

L’Amour, Louis. “In the Beginning, There Was the Story…” The Sackett Companion. Bantam Books, pp. 261-262, 1988.

Misheff, Sue. “Beneath the Web and Under the Stream: The Search for Safe Places in Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terbithia.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 29, No. 3, 1998, pp. 131-141. EBSCO.  Accessed on 29 September 2016. Web.

White, E.B. Charlotte’s Web. 60^th Anniversary edition. Illus. Garth Williams. 1952, HarperCollins, 2012.

--------------. “Death of a Pig.” The Atlantic Monthly, January 1948. The Essays of E.B. White, 1977. Harper Colophon Books, pp. 17-25, 1979.

--------------. “Will Strunk.” 1957. The Essays of E.B. White, 1977. Harper Colophon Books, pp. 256-262, 1979.

--------------. “To Arthur Hudson.” 1 April 1955. Letters of E.B. White, Revised Edition, 2006. Edited by Dorothy Lorrano Guth and Martha White.  Harper Perennial, p. 372, 2007.

--------------. “To Shirley Wiley.” 30 March 1954. Letters of E.B. White, Revised Edition, 2006. Edited by Dorothy Lorrano Guth and Martha White.  Harper Perennial, p. 358, 2007.

BIbliography of Suggested Reading for Teens

     For Dr. Dial-Driver's Children's Lit class. This bibliography, too, was extremely difficult to narrow down to ten examples. I tried to be diverse when it comes to genres.

Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red Fern Grows. Doubleday, 1961.
     Billy Coleman lives near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and he diligently saves up for two years in order to buy a pair of coonhound puppies, which he names Old Dan and Little Ann. His grandpa helps him teach the dogs to hunt raccoons, becoming one of the Ozarks’ most accomplished hunters. After Dan dies following a mountain lion attack, loyal Ann dies from a broken heart, and the Colemans move out of the mountains at Mama’s request, settling in Tulsa.
     The chief heartbreaker of all dog-story-tearjerkers, this ought to be required reading for Oklahoma children due to the local setting. Loyalty is the chief virtue expressed in these pages, though there are many virtues scattered throughout. I was five when I first heard this story, which was plenty old enough to understand it. Wilson Rawls wrote his books for “people,” and hated the idea that publishers marketed them as children’s literature. Therefore everyone ought to read it, as an example of true love and the power of patient hard work. Especially teenagers.

Kaye, M.M. The Ordinary Princess. 1980. Doubleday, 1984.
     In the far-off kingdom of Phantasmorania, there is a seventh princess born to the king and queen, her royal highness Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne – and the seventh princess is always the prettiest, the most graceful, the most blessed of all the fairies. Everyone knows that. But everyone also knows how contrary fairies can be – and this is what caused this princess to be ordinary, of all things. An ordinary princess would be an embarrassment to the kingdom, so Amy becomes a scullery maid in the royal castle of the next country over, where she eventually falls in love with a man-of-all-work.
      This was mystery author M.M. Kaye’s only fairy tale, but it works supremely well, mainly because it has such an emphasis on the ordinariness of life, while at the same time clearly being a fairy tale and containing all the classic ingredients. These elements are treated with respect, unlike so many things which claim to be modern fairy tales (glaring at you, Shrek).

Schaefer, Jack. Shane. 1949. Bantam, 1975.
     In 1880’s Wyoming, the Old West was dying quickly. This novel is narrated by a man named Bob Starrett, who was eleven when a dangerous stranger rode onto their farm one day, signed on as a hired hand and then found himself defending the group of local homesteaders in the middle of a range war with a devious cattle rancher.
     It’s a straightforward and formulaic Western plot, but the writing quality alone makes it worth reading for the strength of Schaefer’s descriptions. Bob Starrett is one of my top ten narrators across all books ever.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 1960. Grand Central, 2010.
     This tale set in a Depression-era southern Alabama town chronicles Scout and Jem Finch’s childhoods dealing with their father Atticus’s occasionally absent-minded parenting, in addition to the trials of public education and racism. Character and setting are much more important than plot.
     Scout Finch is probably my favorite narrator of all time, and Atticus is one of my favorite characters. This is a classic of southern American literature, and therefore almost has to be read at some point. Lee deals with a lot of big questions in this novel, and doesn’t provide all that many answers, which appeals to teenagers everywhere. If the reader has writerly ambitions, then studying Lee’s Go Set a Watchman shows how important the revision process is.

Goldman, William. The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. 1973. Del Rey, 1987.
      In the country of Florin, long before Europe and just before glamour, but after America and blue jeans, lived the most beautiful woman in the world. She was a farm girl named Buttercup. Forced to marry Prince Humperdinck against her will, she is kidnapped and then reunited with her first love, Westley. Once Buttercup is recaptured, Humperdinck brutally murders Westley. He is resurrected (this is a fairy tale, after all) and teams up with Buttercup’s original kidnappers to break her out of the castle. The novel ends on a wonderfully ambiguous note, as they’re running away as fugitives with their end unknown.
     There’s the first sentence, to start with: “This is my favorite book in all the world, although I have never read it.” So many quotable quotes. So much more character depth than in the movie. This is a fairy tale for grownups, which claims neither to be more nor less. It is presented as an abridgement of a longer satirical Florinese history by fictional author S. Morgenstern. To paraphrase an A.A. Milne quote (from Once On a Time), the reader will either love this style of narration, or he/she will not. It’s that sort of book.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. 1598. The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Orgel and A.R. Braunmuller. Penguin, 2002, pp.365-400.
      After the conclusion of a civil war, many people gather at the house of a rich man named Leonato. His daughter Hero is engaged to Claudio, whose best friend is Benedick, former lover of Hero’s cousin Beatrice. Everyone schemes to get Benedick and Beatrice back together. Complications ensue.
     William Shakespeare is one of the greatest storytellers in the history of English. His comedies are the easiest for modern readers to understand, and Much Ado follows most closely the formula of a modern comedy. And Benedick and Beatrice are amazingly snarky, slinging insults at each other with gleeful abandon. There is also the brilliant Joss Whedon film adaptation.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. Simon & Schuster, 2013.
     In a bleak dystopian future, humanity is enslaved by addiction to technology, books are banned, and firemen create fires. After making the acquaintance of his quirky neighbor Clarisse, fireman Guy Montag comes to question everything he knows about his life and his society, to the point of becoming a wanted fugitive.
     The idea of dystopian literature is to serve as a warning of what society could become. Thus, while it may be uncomfortable to read, it is an important genre to be aware of, in order to avoid the futures described in the books. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 together make up the triumvirate of essential dystopian literature.

King, Stephen. On Writing. Scribner, 2000.
     Almost everyone has read at least some of Stephen King’s works while a teenager, so why not read about the man behind the stories? The first half is a memoir, detailing his life from childhood up until the struggling early years of his marriage. The back half is a “how to write well” book. Both of those genres are necessary sometimes.

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. 1990. Ballantine Books, 2015.
     A billionaire with no common sense creates a theme park featuring live cloned dinosaurs. During a cold opening of the park as a final measure of readiness before allowing the general public, a traitorous employee sets a catastrophe in motion which severs all power and communications, letting all the dinosaurs loose from their enclosures. Lots of people are eaten over the weekend.
     While mostly a bit of thriller fluff, there are some profound questions raised by this novel, mainly dealing with the role of science and technology in our world. And a quote from Dr. Ian Malcolm is interesting: “In the information society, we expected to banish paper. What we actually abolished was thought.” Loads of academic jargon make this somewhat difficult to wade through, so I would estimate high-school-age as a target audience.

Montgomery, L.M. The Golden Road. 1913. Kindle Direct Publishing, 2012.
     This novel meanders here and there, so there isn’t much a plot. It follows a group of friends and the adventures they had together just before going their separate ways as they grew up, narrated by the adult version of one of the characters. That makes it a perfect read for panicking high school graduates going to college to destress with as they reflect on memories made. This is another book with the target audience of “people.” I love most of Montgomery’s works, but this is my favorite of hers. 

BIbliography of Suggested Reading for Children

     I LOVED Dr. Dial-Driver's Children's Literature course. This assignment was really difficult, because there are so many wonderful choices to pick from, and we could only use ten examples.

Eastman, P.D. Are You My Mother? 1960. Random House, 1993. 

     A small baby bird gets lost after falling out of his nest, and he has to look for his mother. Once he finds quite a lot of things which are not his mother (including a dog, a cow, and a gigantic Snorting Power Shovel), he gets back home in time for a warm hug from Mom and a yummy worm dinner. 

     This is one of the Beginner Books series, so if your child is learning to read, this would be a good bet. P.D. Eastman’s pictures are spectacular, though, so this would be a great choice to read aloud to toddlers, as would his other books.

Bond, Michael. A Bear Called Paddington. 1958. HarperCollins, 2014.

     This is the first of the Paddington series; each of the chapters-work-as-short-stories variety like P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins books. Paddington is a small bear adopted into a rather bland London family, and he gets usually himself into a variety of strange and sticky situations. Literally sticky situations, since he loves marmalade. However, things always work out in the end.

     I would guess this is written for seven-year-olds just starting to read “big chapter books” on their own. They work well at introducing that indescribable quirky British sense of humor, which is their chief merit. If anthropomorphized animals are not a family’s cup of tea, then they should skip these books.

Barrett, Judi. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Illustrated by Ron Barrett.1978. Aladdin Paperbacks, 1982.

     A grandfather tells his grandchildren a tall tale about the small town of Chewandswallow, which had no grocery stores, because the town got all its food from the sky, because they didn’t have normal weather. Eventually, something went wrong, and terrible storms forced the evacuation of Chewandswallow, because it wasn’t safe to live there any longer, what with the tomato tornadoes and five-ton pancakes.

     Food connects people of all ages, and everyone has their favorite food they wish it would rain (like milkshakes or gumdrops, according to the Barney song.) The pictures add a wonderful dimension to this tale, which I would estimate as appropriate to first introduce anywhere from four to seven, depending on if it were read aloud or not. The imaginative concept appeals to a child’s mindset very well, and it could be used to learn about the different food groups, as well as the idea of tall tales and their history.

Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red Fern Grows. Doubleday, 1961. 

     Billy Coleman lives near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and he diligently saves up for for two years in order to buy a pair of coonhound puppies, which he names Old Dan and Little Ann. His grandpa helps him teach the dogs to hunt raccoons, becoming one of the Ozarks’ most accomplished hunters. After Dan dies following a mountain lion attack, loyal Ann dies from a broken heart, and the Colemans move out of the mountains at Mama’s request, settling in Tulsa.

     The chief heartbreaker of all dog-story-tearjerkers, this ought to be required reading for Oklahoma children due to the local setting. Loyalty is the chief virtue expressed in these pages, though there are many virtues scattered throughout. I was five when I first heard this story, which was plenty old enough to understand it. Wilson Rawls wrote his books for “people,” and hated the idea that publishers marketed them as children’s literature. Therefore everyone ought to read it, as an example of true love and the power of patient hard work.

Wallace, Bill. Upchuck and the Rotten Willy. Aladdin Paperbacks, 1998.

     Chuck, a young orange kitten, has just lost his friend Louie, who got smushed by a car on the highway. And then an enormous monster of a Rottweiler moves in down the road. And then his best friend Tom moves away. And then, to top it all off, his Person Katie moves to somewhere far away and cagelike called “College.” What’s a lonesome, scared cat to do?

     This is a terrific first-person narrative starting around age seven, illustrating well the emotions of life as only Bill Wallace can. It deals with loneliness, abandonment, the changing of life-seasons, in addition to offering some humorous insight on dating and emphasizing the power of friendship, especially the friendship found in overlooked corners.

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Shiloh. Atheneum, 1991.

     Eleven-year-old Marty Preston lives in the extremely rural town of Friendly, West Virginia, where he comes across the new beagle of infamous-dog-mistreater Judd Travers. Marty and his little sisters nurse the dog, now called Shiloh, back to health, trying to decide if it’s ethical to steal Shiloh in order to prevent certain future cruelty by Judd.

     This novel is appropriate for readers around nine, because they would likely have a deep bond with their pets by then, and the beginnings of an understanding of empathy and the complexity of this world we live in. The first-person tone draws the reader in, and if he or she is of a writerly turn of mind, they can study how that first-person POV can be used to describe the rural setting, poverty, and ethical dilemmas within. Real life is often very gray, and this novel explains that while keeping a kid-appropriate tone.

Brink, Carol Ryrie. Caddie Woodlawn. 1935.

     Caddie Woodlawn and her brothers grew up in Wisconsin after their parents moved to Boston, and this novel tells about some of their adventures growing up. It doesn’t really have a plot, but it’s the kind of book that doesn’t really need one.

     This is included because it is clearly historical fiction, as the author makes note of in the introduction, and that is a good genre to be introduced to. She is retelling the childhood of her grandmother, based on the stories that she heard as a child. If Laura Ingalls Wilder is seen as too girlish for boys to think they’d enjoy, this might be a good alternative. Girls could appreciate Caddie’s indecision between wanting to be a tomboy at times, and a lady at other times.  

Sachar, Louis. Holes. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.

     After being accused of stealing a pair of sneakers, Stanley Yelnats gets sent to a juvenile detention facility in the Texas desert, where he gets to know his coworkers as they dig holes “to build character.”  Interspersed with the mystery that follows is a history of the outlaw Kissin’ Kate Barlow, a former schoolteacher who turned rogue after her romance with a black man was discovered.

     The braided nature of these interweaving stories is a very interesting stylistic technique to take notice of, and given the complexity of the issues raised (mainly juvenile delinquency, the justice system and interracial relationships) I would say a reader should be around eleven or twelve before tackling this one. Those subjects are handled in an age-appropriate way, but given the general meanness of the characters to survive, some thick skin must have already been developed.

Pyle, Howard. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. 1883.

     A retelling, perhaps the first aimed at children, of the legendary antiheroic character of Robin Hood, from his first coming to Sherwood Forest to his death by treacherous arrow. Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian and the Sherriff of Nottingham are all here, as well, as is King Richard the Lion-Hearted.

      What kid doesn’t like adventure? Pyle’s book abounds with it, though the reading difficulty might present problems unless the reader was an especially-determined nine-year-old. This would be a good candidate to read aloud for younger children, giving a chance to practice comprehension skills by asking them to summarize the action at various points throughout each chapter.  

Neville, Emily. It’s Like This, Cat. Illustrated by Emil Weiss. 1963.

     This Newbery Award winner tells how a 14-year-old named Dave deals with problems of early teenagerdom, including hero worship, fights with his father and first love. His cat, who was given to him by a family friend named Kate, serves as a sounding board in figuring out all these problems.

      This would be appropriate for readers about eleven, I would estimate, because parents aren’t perfect, and they have as many flaws as anyone. There are scenes of smoking, if I remember right, some interest is taken of the opposite sex, and the characters wander around New York City entirely unsupervised a vast majority of the time. Knowing some history of what was going to happen later in this decade, this novel gives a better picture of the day-to-day life of those growing up in this era, and reminds readers that human nature is much the same everywhere. The first-person narration is used well to highlight the urban setting, providing literary-minded readers a glimpse (especially in contrast with Shiloh) of how the basic tools of writing can be used in interesting ways. 

About "Space Jam"

     For Dr. Mackie's Creative Nonfiction, this prompt was to write about one of our favorite movies.

     There are a lot of movies I love, that I’ve learned a lot of storytelling technique from by repeatedly studying them. Unfortunately, they usually tend to get blow aside as either “low production quality” or “kids movies” or something like that. And sure, they aren’t all masterpieces. In fact, they usually tangle themselves into pretzels that defy any one genre, skipping easily through several, and meaning every one. Movies like The Princess Bride; is it an adventure? A fantasy? A romance? A satire? A fairy tale? It’s all of those, and it’s honest about being all of those things. The Big Green is a 90’s sports movie, certainly. But it’s also about hope, the job of teaching, the power of small-town community and an interesting conundrum of illegal immigration. Space Jam is the one I’m going to talk about for this assignment, though.

     A diabolical theme-park owner named Swackhammer sends a group of tiny aliens called Nerdlucks to capture the Looney Tunes in order to enslave them and increase attendance. The Looney Tunes come up with an escape plan by challenging the diminutive Nerdlucks to a basketball game. However, the Nerdlucks steal the talent of NBA superstars, transforming themselves into the terrifying Monstars. Meanwhile, Michael Jordan has retired from basketball to try playing professional baseball in order to make good on a promise he made as a child to his father. So Bugs, Daffy, Elmer and the rest kidnap Michael to get him to help win the game. The Looney Tunes defeat the evil aliens, the NBA players get their talent back, and Michael Jordan decides he’s terrible at baseball and goes back to the Chicago Bulls to win another couple championships. That’s pretty much the entire plot.

     On some level, it could be called historical fiction, given that it explains Michael Jordan’s first retirement to try (and fail at) playing professional baseball. Of course the reasoning was changed, as this decision remains somewhat in mystery, though it likely had something to do with his father’s murder and outrageous gambling debts. On another level, it’s an extended screwball comedy, since it features most of the classic Looney Tunes characters going through their daily lives. And then there is the science-fiction part of the story, since aliens blast onto Earth in order to enslave the inhabitants. And oh, yeah, it’s a sports movie on top of everything else, with cameos from most of the top players of the time, and featuring Bill Murray and Danny DeVito for good measure. If a cynical viewpoint was to be taken, it could be said that this movie was made solely for advertising merchandise. And it was, of course; even the characters mention this. But it doesn’t take itself seriously, while fully admitting that none of these rules it’s following make any sense. Because of this, it works. This could be because a more three-year-old Wesley-approved movie could not have been made if it were manufactured for me alone in mind, but this report doesn’t have to be subjective. The greatest basketball player in the world is teaming up with Bugs Bunny to save the world from a bunch of aliens. Yes, please!

     It came to theaters when I was three, and while I don’t think I remember watching it in theaters, Mom said I hid in her lap when the Monstars first appeared. I also know that I saw it for the first time in the theater because she says we were grocery shopping one day not long after and I recognized a song the PA system was playing(R. Kelly’s “Fly Like an Eagle” or Seal’s “Fly Like an Eagle” cover) as being from the movie, which she then recognized after I urgently explained the connection. I can also clearly remember dancing maniacally to the soundtrack in one of the apartments we lived in. The soundtrack has Bugs Bunny doing a rap song, of all the insane experiences worth listening to at least once. There are the detractors who gleefully point out all the paper-thin plotting, the lack of acting ability from Jordan, or complain that the Tunes themselves act nothing like themselves. Have they watched some of those shorts in a while? The Tunes can be mean, and there can be sex jokes hidden in many of them.

     Lola Bunny is an original character expressly designed to give Bugs a love interest, less-than-expressly to sell merchandise, and possibly to give girls a role model of Bugs’ standing to admire. I think all of those goals were met. The appeal of Lola was obvious: she was fantastic at basketball, and independent and determined. Besides that, she became the girlfriend of Bugs Bunny, so that automatically got about a thousand bonus points. (I hung out with teenagers all the time, so some of their attitudes I must have picked up by osmosis.) “She’s hot!” Tweety says. Feminists can complain that she never really does anything – and they kind of have a point – but that’s missing the point, really. In the first place, the story is balanced the way it is already, and to shift anything would have thrown everything out the window. Secondly – and this is by far the most important – was the purpose of the story wasn’t to create a masterpiece, it was to fire the imagination, one of the highest callings I can think of for story in any medium. So Lola isn’t exactly much else than a bit of cheerleading damsel in distress in the movie. In kids’ imaginations, she played a bigger role; maybe she single-handedly saved everyone. Maybe she and Bugs went on dates and antagonized Elmer Fudd together. Anything was possible. And the thing is, that same principle applies to every single character. All those gaps in the movie can be filled in by each viewer, bringing them into the story like few others can match.

     Obviously people can’t be squashed flat into a pancake and reinflated, lassoed through golf holes, dynamite can’t be used to blow up the backboard, and arms don’t stretch like rubber bands for thirty feet. But this is Looney Tune Land, and so that’s all fine and dandy. After all, if trains can pummel Yosemite Sam and Wile E. Coyote can fall prey to goodness-knows-what perils from ACME, then all these Space Jam quirks are fine. They’re animated, and they know it. Depth perception doesn’t exist, so all kinds of adventures can happen. (This doesn’t work quite as well in 3-D Land, unfortunately.) A story usually covers the same welcoming (because it is well-trodden) plot, and so we learn to recognize these details and find comfort in their sameness.

     The familiar threads of story material are easily recognizable; the average townspeople need the stranger to come in and save the day from a force of marauding evil. This stranger has to face his past and overcome it in order to vanquish the threat. The stakes are dire. The average townsperson has friends and a lovely lady to back up his efforts to fight the threat courageously; indeed, all the townspeople exhibit immense courage and fortitude. In the end, through seemingly impossible odds, the threat is defeated. Everything goes well from there (that we know of). There. Now what movie (or book) did I just describe? It could have been nearly any Clint Eastwood movie, it could’ve been It’s a Wonderful Life, it could’ve been Pixar, it could’ve been Much Ado About Nothing. In the same way, a sport of almost any kind is a comforting thing, because there is a fixed set of expectations and outcomes, with a bewildering amount of variation possible within those set guidelines. One team will always win, the other will lose. The basketball will not be kicked, and it will go through the basket. Even though it’s a movie, and therefore prone to break the rules a little in order to create more dramatic tension, all that excitement of the movie is enhanced by knowing the framework the scene of the climatic showdown is staying within.

     This could go on for a while, but I should really wrap this up now so it doesn’t stretch on for thirty-plus pages (because it totally could). I love Space Jam because it fires the imagination and acknowledges that anything could happen. Are their imperfections? Yeah, all those critics have some good points. But they are forgetting that at the core, the movie has “it. Whatever ‘it’ is, you’ve got a lot of it,” Michael tells the Tunes on leaving. I would call this “heart.”