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Quest for Namai is now available in Indie Florida, a collection of books from local indie authors available exclusively on the BiblioBoard Library mobile and web platform. This collection is available to patrons of participating libraries all across Florida. You can access it here if your library participates in the program. Unfortunately, my local public library doesn’t currently participate, but I have requested that it become a member.

You can always find this book and Trials by Fire on my Amazon page and Season of the Dove on Vella.

Looking Forward

Over the past few days, my inbox has been filled with notices of new posts by fellow bloggers. Most recap the past year and list their intentions for the year to come. But where have I been?

They say the Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. If that’s so, anyone who hasn’t posted on their weblog since September must be on that very road! In my defense, I’ve been slammed with projects over the past year. It’s my own fault. I need to go back to middle school and take that “Just Say No” workshop.

I won’t bore you with the many organizations I volunteer for, only say that I’ve threatened to go back to work so I can get some time off. With a job, you work 8 to 5, weekends off, and you can call in sick. A volunteer position owns you body and soul and is no respecter of holidays or even wee hours of the night. My advice to new retirees is to watch out for that “V” word.

No more complaining–in my writing life, I have been productive. Season of the Dove, my book on Kindle Vella, is doing well. Quest for Namai, the sequel to my YA book, Trials by Fire, will come out this month if I can get KDP to cooperate with my uploads.  

Coming soon…

Another project I’ve been involved in has finally come to fruition. Back in August 2020, the history museum in Gainesville, Florida began collecting material from local residents on their pandemic experiences. Someone got the idea to involve local writers, i.e. the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, with which I am intimately involved. The idea was to compile stories and artwork into a book which would chronicle the lives of ordinary people in these unordinary times. It sounded like a good idea, so I jumped in feet first.

Wise people test the waters first, but in reality, these waters were untested. Most of my partners in crime are writers, but this was the first time we’d taken on a project like this. It proved to be a learning experience. In our innocence, we thought we would have the book put together by December and published by January, 2021. Nope.

However, we persevered. After the vaccines came out, we worried the pandemic would be over and forgotten before we released the book. Dream on. Setback after setback, over a year after we started, Local Lives in a Global Pandemic: Stories from North Central Florida finally saw the light of day!

I was both unprepared for and pleased by the attention we received in the community. It feels good to be appreciated. It feels even better to have this project behind me.

In the coming year, you will hear more from me. I haven’t stopped musing over curious things. In the meantime, click on the titles of the books and links will take you to them. Enjoy!

BiblioBoard

IndieFlorida_AnthologyImage

I submitted my short story “Canebrake” to the Indie Author Project and just learned it is now available in Indie Florida. This is a collection of ebooks (mine is a short story) from independent authors, available exclusively on the BiblioBoard Library mobile and web platform. This collection is available to patrons of participating libraries in Florida. Here’s the link.  Unfortunately, my local library is not a member of BiblioBoard, so I haven’t been able to check this out yet. I’ve requested my library be added. If you have a library card for a Florida library, see if they they have BiblioBoard. If not, ask them to become part of the platform. You can also read the story here on my website. 

In January 2020, the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, of which I am a part, presented their First Annual Sunshine State Book Festival, featuring some 75 authors, several speakers, and reenactors of famous writers of the past. It was a resounding success.

January 2020 Sunshine State Book Festival

Once the excitement settled down, we began planning the second annual SSBF. Then COVID. Talk about deflating your balloon! It was not long before we realized there were to be no traditional festivals for quite some time. Time to regroup and get creative.

Why not a virtual festival? The advantage of a virtual event is that presenters and participants are not limited by geography. They can be from anywhere in the world. And they are. Most of our nearly 100 authors are from Florida, but some are from other states, and a few international writers are included.

Rather than sitting in a booth with their books displayed in front of them, authors videotaped short talks on their books. Instead of standing in front of a podium in an auditorium, guest speakers appear in videotaped presentations. In addition, we were not limited to a single weekend. Once launched, the festival could be live for months. And it is. Don’t miss it.

Please visit: https://www.sunshinestatebookfestival.com/

The planning stages for the 2022 Sunshine State Book Festival are underway. Hopefully, this will be a traditional festival, but we’re prepared for any eventuality.

Don’t forget to visit my booth:

https://www.sunshinestatebookfestival.com/au_pg1.html#Rogers

Happy reading!

I Was There

Sometime in our lives, we have an experience that words are inadequate to describe. I had one on 8/21/17, the day of the Total Eclipse. It was my first. I’d missed every other solar eclipse in my life by being in the wrong place or because of cloudy weather. I wasn’t going to miss this one. But summers are so busy. I traveled through eight states in three weeks. Serendipitously, a library in West Virginia had free eclipse glasses. I picked up a pair.

On my way home, I checked for available campsites at my favorite state park in South Carolina. They were booked. I returned to Florida a week before the eclipse, having made no plans, and my van needed TLC before it could make another trip. Despair was not an option.

 

Not my van, but definitely my sentiment.

 

Fate began to smile. My mechanic made the critical repairs in a timely fashion. When I told him where I was going, he said, “You must really like to drive.”

“No. I just like to go places.”

South Carolina campgrounds were full, but what about Georgia? Only about 100 miles from Orangeburg, Magnolia Springs State Park still had vacancies! Instead of a grueling six hour drive to Orangeburg, I faced a four hour trip to Magnolia Springs, followed by only two hours the next day. I made reservations.

Sunday afternoon, I headed north. With no rangers on duty when I arrived, I chose a campsite and enjoyed my evening at the park. Bright and early Monday morning, I reported to the park office, but the staff wasn’t ready to do business yet. I told them I was going to South Carolina to watch the eclipse. “You registered online?” they said. “Then just go! You can do the paperwork when you come back.”

I drove through fog, optimistic the sky would clear. There was little traffic on US 301 although the interstates were jammed. I arrived in Orangeburg at 9:45 and found a shady parking spot at Edisto Memorial Gardens. With hours to spare, I walked around the Rose Garden and decided this was where I wanted to watch the eclipse. Workers were busy mowing and weeding. I thought, what a great job they had—being paid to experience the eclipse!

When I returned to the parking lot, it was full. I’d been wise to get an early start. Half the cars, it seemed, had Florida tags. I strolled through the Sensory Garden and rang the farm bell. Then I went down to the Azalea Garden, where other folks awaited the big event. From time to time, I heard the farm bell ring. Despite growing numbers, the atmosphere was peaceful, friendly, upbeat.

I asked those I encountered, “Where are you from?” Many were from Florida. A mother and daughter from Orlando had driven all night and slept at a rest stop in their Mini Cooper. A couple of ladies came up from Georgia. One couple was from Denver but had been vacationing at Hilton Head. Family members wore matching eclipse shirts. Some had brought their dogs. All races were represented, and many nationalities. I heard accents I could only dimly place, and one group spoke German.

Every so often, I put on my eclipse glasses and looked at the sun. It looked like an orange cookie. The sky cleared and clouded again. Some expressed concern that we wouldn’t be able to see anything (Oh you of little faith!) but others were, like me, optimistic that the weather would be kind.

I walked through a sunny area where families had set up canopies. As I approached a scattering of trees, someone called my name! Who here would know me? It was fellow writer Jessica Elkins and her husband. They’d stayed in a motel in Statesboro, Georgia and were enjoying a little picnic of fruit and cheese and crackers. I joined them.

About 1:30, people wearing eclipse glasses stood pointing at the sky. The sun looked like someone had taken a bite out of the orange cookie. Over the next several minutes, the bite grew larger. Then a cloud occluded the sun and we couldn’t see anything. The cloud gave us some relief from the heat, but many were anxious we’d miss the eclipse. I kept saying, “The cloud will move on and then the sky will clear.”

Eventually, that cloud moved, but another took its place! Blue sky lay all around, but that cloud seemed happy to stay put.

The weather was kind. After a very long 20 minutes, the cloud went away and the crowd went, “Ahhh!” The sun now looked like a crescent moon. The light around us was subdued, as though clouds still shaded the Earth. The crescent grew slimmer. Around 2:20, I took leave of my friends.

On the way to the Rose Garden, I passed a group of Seminole Indians who were drumming and chanting. The light continued to dim. I sat down on the ground in the middle of the Rose Garden.

Dusk is falling.

By 2:35, the sun was only a thin sliver and the air was noticeably cooler. Dusk had fallen. Then it grew dark. The crowd cheered. We clapped with excitement. We laughed with delight. The drummers increased the volume of their chant. I took off my eclipse glasses.

In the sky was a silver white ring—the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!

Streetlights came on. At 2:45, a band of sunlight appeared on the north side of the garden. The crowd went, “Ohhh!” I glanced up to see a tiny jewel of sunlight on the edge of the silver ring. It was time to put the eclipse glasses back on.

Pictures don’t do it justice. (Photo by Jake McElveen.)

Daylight returned. People stirred, their eyes lit with wonder, exclaiming, “Wow.” “Cool.” “Incredible.” As I made my way back to my friends, I encountered a phenomenon that wasn’t visible on the lawn of the Rose Garden. The asphalt was covered with little crescents of sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees, as though the image of the crescent sun had been shattered into a thousand pieces and  projected onto the ground. A stander-by said they’d been present before the totality, facing in a different direction.

A Thousand Crescent Suns

There were no strangers. Everyone was overcome with awe. One said, “There are no words to describe it.” Another, “Words are inadequate.” A lady said she now understood why people get addicted to solar eclipses and will go anywhere in the world to see them. I’d heard that the experience was a life-changing event. It’s true.

Jessica began to talk about the next one, in 2024, and said she intended to watch it. Yes, I thought, me, too. The wonderment buoyed me all the way back to my campsite. That night, all I could think about was that beautiful silver ring that was the sun. It still remains in my mind’s eye.

The next total eclipse in Florida is August 12, 2045. I’ll be…how old by then? In the meantime, there are others in parts of the world I have yet to visit. On April 8, 2024, less than seven years from now, a total eclipse will begin in Mexico, cross Texas and Arkansas (where I have family), the Midwest, and into western New York and New England.

Arkansas, 4-8-24, here I come!

CANEBRAKE

This story appeared in the 2015 Bacopa Literary Review.  For more information on Bacopa, visit: http://writersalliance.org/bacopa-literary-review. You can order a copy of the 2015 issue through Amazon. It has more short stories as well as poetry and creative non-fiction. Happy reading!

Cattle Gap

Cattle Gap

Mario stepped off the school bus into the late August heat. “Remember, no TV till I get home,” Aunt Ginny, the driver, told him. “Make a sandwich and do your homework. I’ll be home in forty-five minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Aunt Ginny was his foster mother, not his aunt, but he didn’t want to call her “Mama.” He had a mother. He’d just finished the first week of sixth grade, but he felt so lost. Changing classes was a new experience, and there were so many new faces. He wore nicer clothes than he used to, but old classmates still treated him with contempt.

He should have gone to middle school last year, but he had flunked fourth grade. Not because he was stupid. He’d missed too many days. Last year, he did better. He learned to get himself up in the morning, even if his mother overslept or wasn’t home. He missed his mother.

Mario checked the mail and found a letter from his father in California. “Dear Mario,” it began. “I hope this finds you well. I am quite good, as is Cissy, and the kids. The social worker was here today to do the house check. She said she saw no problem with you coming here. It will take awhile for the paperwork to get to Florida, so we have to be patient. I’m saving money for a plane ticket to come get you.”

A joyful bark interrupted him. Aunt Ginny’s dog Skeeter bounded down the driveway and knocked the letter from his hands. Skeeter always came to greet him. Mario wondered what Skeeter would do after he left. By then, there might be new foster children to greet.

“Hey, Skeeter,” Mario stuck the letter into his backpack to read later. He paused at the cattle gap. This was a relic from the days when the old place had been a farm. The cattle gap was a grate made from railroad rails laid horizontally across a small ditch. Cows would not venture to cross, but it was no barrier for vehicles and most boys.

The ditch held a little water from yesterday’s thunderstorm. It looked like a good place for snakes to hide. Aunt Ginny had warned him to beware of snakes. What he feared even more than snakes was slipping and falling between the rails. He gripped his backpack, inhaled deeply, and balanced on the first rail.  Safely across, he let his breath out. He had never lived in the country before, and there were so many things to worry about.

Aunt Ginny’s farm now grew pine trees. Halfway up the driveway, Skeeter started barking again and dove into the palmettos that grew among the trees. Mario heard a great thrashing noise. Something big was in there. What could it be? A bobcat? A coyote? What if it was a bear?

“Skeeter! Come back!” But Skeeter was too busy to obey.  Mario set his books down and followed. A fine net settled over his face and he cringed. He brushed and sputtered to get the cobweb off. He wiped his mouth with his shirttail and brushed frantically over his head and shoulders. Could the spider be on him? It would be one of those enormous yellow ones that spun great webs between the trees. Aunt Ginny hated them and killed any she found in her yard. So they hid in the woods to ensnare unsuspecting boys.

He stepped forward. Skeeter stopped barking. Mario eyes darted around and looked down. Skeeter sniffed at a large gopher tortoise which tried to run from him. Its short legs flailed against a palmetto frond, which rattled against its neighbors, creating a noise way out of proportion to the size of the creature.

Mario let out a nervous laugh. “All this fuss over a little ole turtle!” He poked it with a stick and watched the gopher’s head and limbs draw into its shell. Maybe this would make a good pet. He carried it to the house, found an old washtub, and filled a dish with water. He’d ask Aunt Ginny what they ate. He never had a pet before.

Mario went back for his backpack and let himself into the house. He fixed a sandwich and poured a glass of iced tea before settling down at the kitchen table with his homework. Then he remembered his father’s letter. “I’m so looking forward to seeing you again. It’s been so long. You must be nearly a man by now.” His mother had called him her “little man.” He had taken care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself. After they put him in foster care, everyone treated him like a child. His first foster parents even made him go to day care. Aunt Ginny wasn’t so bad. She fussed over him, but she also gave him independence.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been more of a father to you,” the letter went on. “I didn’t know how things were with your mother.” Mario winced. He didn’t like people saying things about his mother. “You see, after we split up, every time I went to see you, we’d fight so bad, I thought it was best to just stay away. I thought sending money every month was enough.” Mario had not been aware of any money. His mother said his father was dead. He had a vague memory of a man arguing with his mother, but he was not sure if that had been his father or a stepfather.

His musings were interrupted by Skeeter’s frantic barking. Mario rushed out. There was a new noise, an intense buzzing, like that of a windup toy out of control. And there, on the ground, not two yards from Skeeter’s nose, was a coiled rattlesnake.

He dared not panic. He called Skeeter, who only kept barking and circling the snake, keeping a distance of four or five feet between them. What should he do? Call for help? But Skeeter could be dead before it arrived. His pounding heart drowned out the sounds of both snake and dog. Mario crept up behind Skeeter and grabbed his collar. He dragged him up the steps and through the front door. Skeeter was an outside dog and Aunt Ginny didn’t let him into the house, but this was an exception.

After the rattling noise ceased, Mario looked out and saw the snake crawling across the yard toward the back of the house. What if it got in the house? He ran to the shed and found a hoe. He tried to sneak up on the snake, but it turned back toward him and started to coil. Mario raised the hoe as high as he could and brought it down onto the snake’s neck with enough force to drive it into the ground. The body twisted every which way, but its neck was broken. Mario chopped with the hoe until he severed the head from the body. He trembled back to the porch and collapsed on the steps.

Then he remembered Skeeter and let him out. Skeeter immediately returned to the snake, but when it didn’t react to his barking, he began to sniff. Mario jumped to his feet. Maybe it couldn’t bite, but it still had venom on its fangs. He scooped up the head with the hoe and buried it in the garden. Only now did he examine the body. He’d never seen a real rattlesnake before and didn’t know they were so pretty. This one had diamond-shaped markings on reddish skin. He had seen belts and hat bands made from snake skins. The body was thicker than his arm and might be enough for more than one belt.

Warily, he picked it up. The skin was not slimy, but smooth and cool, like glass. Mario carried it to the back porch and got a knife from the kitchen. Although he had never skinned anything before, he’d seen it done. He cut off the rattle and put it in his pocket. Then he carefully separated the skin from the carcass, which he buried in the garden. He stretched the skin on an old board and nailed it down.

Only then did he truly appreciate his feat. The snake had been as long as he was tall. He shook the rattle in his pocket. Now he knew what a rattlesnake sounds like. The deadly creature could have killed him, but he had killed it. He marveled at how easy it was to kill. He stood up straight. Perhaps he was a man after all.

Suddenly, he heard the school bus out on the road. He put the skin and the tools in the shed and hosed off the back porch. The bus turned into the driveway. He washed the knife and put it away. He slipped into a chair and opened a book as the bus came to a stop in the yard.

A few minutes later, he heard Aunt Ginny say, “What’s this?” He had forgotten all about the turtle.

“I found him in the woods. Can I keep him for a pet? Do you know what they eat?”

She shook her head. “No, you can’t keep him. They’re an endangered species. The game warden’d throw us both in jail. You need to let him go. He’ll find food in the woods.”

Disappointed, Mario hopped off the porch. The motion jiggled the rattle in his pocket. Aunt Ginny perked up as though listening, but when she heard nothing more, she went inside. Mario carried the turtle with one arm and held his other hand over the pocket to keep the rattle quiet. After he released the gopher, he returned to the house and found Aunt Ginny brushing paw prints off the living room couch.

“What was Skeeter doin’ in the house?”

“Uh, there was a rattlesnake in the yard. I didn’t want him to get bit.”

“You left it alone, I hope.”

Mario couldn’t lie to her. His hesitation told on him.

“Empty your pockets,” she directed.

He had no choice but to show her the rattle. Her eyes bulged.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“In the shed.” He told her the whole story.

“I don’t think it’d come into the house. It was just trying to get under the house where it’s cool.” When Aunt Ginny saw the size of the skin, she clutched her chest and hollered, “Holy Jesus! Snake that big could kill you!”

“Yes ma’am.”

“It’s a canebrake rattler. That’s why it’s so red. They don’t usually bother anybody. They usually just run away.”

“But it was trying to bite Skeeter.”

“Only because he was harassing it.  If you see another one, you and Skeeter stay in the house till I come home. Promise?”

“Yes ma’am.” He felt like a child again. He looked down at his feet.

Aunt Ginny put an arm around his shoulders. “Was you scared?”

“No ma’am. Well, maybe. I guess. I was afraid for Skeeter.”

“You were very brave to protect Skeeter. I’m proud of you for that.” Then she turned him to face her and put a hand on each shoulder. “But from now on, leave snakes alone. I can’t have a foster child bit by a poisonous snake.”

“Yes ma’am.” When he looked into her eyes, they were twinkling.

“What do you plan to do with that?” She meant the canebrake skin.

“Can I take it to California with me?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“What do you think my dad will say?”

Aunt Ginny smiled. “I think he will be very proud of you.”

There was a lunar eclipse the other night, or rather, very early in the morning, about 3 a.m. I didn’t wake up for this one, because I had heard, incorrectly, that it was to be merely a partial eclipse. Only after I missed it did I learn it had been a total. Oh, well. I’d stayed up for another total lunar eclipse just a few months ago.

That was Sunday night, May 15th. It had been raining off and on and the weather forecast called for cloudy skies and a chance for more rain. I prayed for the weather to clear. We needed rain, but couldn’t it let up for just a few hours? I wanted very much to watch this eclipse. It was to be a dress rehearsal for one that is to occur June 8, 2123. Yes, I said 2123, 101 years from now. Why, you might ask, would I be interested in an eclipse more than a century from now? Surely, I don’t intend to live that long, do I?

No, I’m not likely to live another hundred years, but I hope my novels will.

Season of the Dove takes place in 2123. For a story to be interesting, the lives of the characters must be thrown into chaos. This happens when a Category 6 hurricane devastates North Florida, where I live. To date, the worst hurricane I’ve weathered was a Cat 2, and that was enough for me. The largest storm is rated Category 5, but in the next 100 years they’ll probably have to add additional categories. In this fictional future, the worst is Cat 7.

In the book, after things settle down a bit (Or do they?), I wanted a second crisis, a turning point for the novel. After I witnessed the Solar Eclipse of 2017, I thought a solar eclipse would be just the thing. I searched the internet, but unfortunately none were predicted in the US in the time frame of my story, even if I adjusted it by a year or two.

How about a lunar eclipse? Good news! A total eclipse of the moon is predicted to occur on the night of June 8th and 9th, 2123. Perfect timing. My heroes will be in the mountains of North Georgia at this time. Will it be visible in their part of the world? Yes! The eclipse will be visible over the entire eastern US, including Georgia. It’s predicted that the moon will turn orange or red during the eclipse, a phenomenon known as “blood moon.”

Blood Moon in 2021

In the story, the eclipse starts late at night and is at maximum around midnight. I wrote clear weather into the story so my characters could experience the entire spectacle. In this dystopian future, my heroes are reasonably intelligent people, but US civilization has degraded to the point that the masses are poorly educated and superstitious. When the moon turns red, spectators become anxious, fearing it to be some kind of omen. To complicate matters, I threw in a minor earthquake at the moment of maximum eclipse, just a little one, enough to be felt, enough to knock a drunken man off his feet and cause panic among the gullible.

If my novel survives into the 22nd Century when this eclipse occurs, what will my readers think? That I’m some kind of prophet? Or will they realize I had access to the internet and the calculations of astronomers? It would be fun to stick around and find out.

The Appalachians are not widely known as an earthquake zone, but they do have small quakes, more often than you’d think. I haven’t personally experienced one, but two of my family members have, and I used their accounts of the experience in the story. Earthquakes not being as predictable as hurricanes, I’m not aware of any foretold for the year 2123. If that were to happen, especially at the same time as a lunar eclipse, well, that would be just a little too weird.

Back to the present. The May, 2022 eclipse was predicted to occur at the same time of night as the one in June of 2123, with the same coloration of the moon. I wanted to see it for myself. I didn’t spend the entire night outdoors—the mosquitoes would have eaten me alive. I know, you can view these online, but I prefer to watch them in person. I peeked out every few minutes to see how the eclipse was developing.

At 10:30, the brightness of the full moon began to diminish. By 11:00, the shadow of the Earth fell over half the moon, making it look like a fat, silver crescent. At 11:30—Oh No!—clouds covered the sky and I couldn’t even find the moon. Fifteen minutes later, the sky cleared enough that I could see a small orange disk in the southern sky, about 30 degrees above the horizon. Over the next hour, I watched light play along the lower side of the orange ball, from the right side to the left as the eclipse progressed.

At 1:00 in the morning, a beautiful silver crescent appeared on the lower left side and grew larger as the Earth’s shadow passed. The moon again brightened the night, and I retired for some well-earned sleep, satisfied that my description of the 2123 eclipse was accurate enough.

I’m not going to give away more of the story right now, but Season of the Dove has been on Kindle Vella for over a year. Presently, I’m doing some editing and preparing to publish it in book form. I’ll let you know. I could have left it on Vella longer, but I want to make it available to more readers in time for the Sunshine State Book Festival in January. I’ll see you there!

 

Check out my other books on Amazon, the award-winning Trials by Fire and it’s sequel Quest for Namai. 

I originally posted this two years ago, to spread the word about a simple preventive for COVID. At the time, I didn’t imagine the pandemic would drag on this long. Not only has it persisted, we are now experiencing yet another resurgence. Every week I hear of a friend or relative who is suffering from COVID, some for the second time. As if that coronavirus isn’t enough, now we have the threat of Monkey Pox. I decided it was time to bring this easy remedy to people’s attention again.

Iced Pine Tea with Mint

For two years, I have been drinking pine tea daily and (knock on wood) I’ve remained healthy. Of course, I follow the usual precautions. I’m vaccinated and boosted, avoid crowds when possible, and mask-up. Perhaps I would have dodged infection even without pine tea, but I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for science by intentionally exposing myself to the virus.

Here is a modified version of my original post:

Sometime, in the long-forgotten days before COVID, I watched a webinar on herbal remedies and took notes. Four months into the lockdown, I came across this in my notebook: “During the Spanish Flu, those who ate pine needles didn’t get sick.”

What?

Why isn’t this common knowledge?

The webinar had touted the benefits of various parts of the pine tree. Pine needles contain more Vitamin C than oranges. For centuries, Native Americans have used pine to treat scurvy. During the 1918 pandemic, someone noticed that these scurvy patients didn’t get the flu.

A few years ago, at a Garden Club event, I bought a cookbook titled I Eat Weeds by Priscilla G. Bowers. One of my favorite recipes is Pine Needle Tea. You can drink it hot or iced. Its mild flavor is delicious. I take it to pot luck luncheons where it’s always a hit, but I didn’t know it could protect you from the flu.

I Googled “pine needles/Spanish flu” hoping to find more information. At the time, I didn’t find anything related to the 1918 pandemic, but I did find information on pine in regards to modern influenzas.

In addition to vitamins C and A, pine is rich in shikimic acid, an ingredient in Tamiflu. This ingredient is imported from China where it’s extracted from the star anise tree, but we grow our own source of shikimic acid right here in the US. You may have it growing in your own backyard!

I found newspaper articles from Maine and Pennsylvania which discussed how timber companies could gather pine needles from harvested trees and extract shikimic acid to supply pharmaceutical companies. A Canadian company collects discarded Christmas trees for this purpose.

I wondered, if pine can protect you from the flu, what about COVID 19? I kept digging and was surprised by the research that’s been done on the medicinal uses of pine.

There are some 80 to 90 species of pine around the world, and most are edible. In fact, other conifers are also edible, including fir, spruce, larch, cedar, and hemlock. Not the hemlock that killed Socrates. Poison hemlock is a member of the carrot family, so beware of wild carrots. Also beware of these poisonous trees: ponderosa pine, yew, and Norfolk or Australian pine. And remember, not all evergreens are conifers.

Another caution: pregnant women should not drink pine needle tea as it could cause abortion. Also, it’s possible to have an adverse reaction to pine, but I haven’t come across anyone who has.

You won’t see a Nutrition Facts chart attached to your pine tree, but besides Vitamins A and C and shikimic acid, pine contains protein, fat, phosphorus, iron, and a long list of other goodies. Oils from pine needles could potentially treat heart disease, diabetes, senile dementia, and hypertension. And the list goes on: obesity, depression, and anxiety. Pine is anti-microbial and boosts your immune system, so it’s good for colds, sore throat, and sinus and chest congestion. To relieve upper respiratory illness, you can inhale the vapor.

Pine tea is consumed around the world. Koreans have a popular pine tea called Solip-cha. Taoist priests drink pine needle tea because they believe it’ll make them live longer, and there is researched evidence that it can help slow the aging process.

But what about our current scourge? While doctors were scrambling to find treatments for COVID, all they needed to do was look out their windows. If pine worked during the flu pandemic 100 years ago and contains an ingredient used today to treat viruses, would it be effective for coronavirus? The answer is yes. To my knowledge, no studies have been done yet on pine and COVID, but there have been studies involving other coronaviruses, including SARS.

The recipe for Pine Needle Tea is very simple:

Green pine needles, cut into 3” or 4” lengths (Include some of the stems for more flavor. Some sources say to remove all the brown parts of the needles, but that’s not necessary.)

Water to cover

Sweetening to taste

Bring to a boil in a sauce pan, hold 5 minutes, and let it steep for 10. Strain and sweeten.

Just Add Water

Boiling will destroy some of the Vitamin C, but not all of it. I like to make the tea by the half-gallon and serve it iced. You may not need to sweeten it, depending on your taste. Honey will add health benefits. Warning: pine resin will stick to the pan, so use an old pan or one that’s easy to clean.

I have pine trees on my property. Whenever a storm blows branches down, I gather the twigs, cut them into useable lengths, and freeze portion amounts. Then I have a supply to last me until the next windstorm.

Enough for 2 Quarts of Iced Tea

Over the past two years, interest in pine needle tea has spiked, and more information has appeared on the internet, including where to buy it. I came across an interesting account of a Lakota grandmother who saved her family from the flu in 1918, using home remedies, including cedar tea: https://www.cdc.gov/publications/panflu/stories/cure_janis.html

I can’t guarantee that pine (or cedar) tea will protect you from or cure COVID, but when you have something that won’t hurt you, is pleasant to drink, and might help, why not try it? Brew some pine tea. You may like it.


If you haven’t checked out my books yet, click here for my Amazon page.

           

And here for Season of the Dove on Kindle Vella.

Season of the Dove

In Memoriam

At the close of the day on April 30th, I turned my calendar to May. For nearly four weeks now, it has been staring me in the face, reminding me. I write birthdays on my calendar so I won’t forget to send a card. In May, I have a son, a sister, and two grandchildren with birthdays, and on May 27th, Aunt Carolyn. For the first time in my adult life, I will not be sending her a birthday card, because she left us in March.

I don’t send birthday cards to all my relatives. There are too many of them. I limit my greetings to my children and grandchildren, sisters and brothers, and my mother. Not other aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins. There are too many of them. But Aunt Carolyn was different.

She never married, had no children, but family connections were important to her. She sent gifts to each of my children when they were born and wedding presents when they got married. She also sent birthday cards, religiously. I received one from her every year, and every year, I made sure to send her one.

In my memories of Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Masters, she and her younger brother, my Uncle Joe, teenagers at the time, would give me and my siblings each a present. It was the same every time: a coloring book, crayons, and modeling clay. These gifts, although predictable, were always appreciated.

Aunt Carolyn’s graduation picture

Then she went off to college, the first one in the family to do so. I remember once accompanying my grandparents when they took her down to Ladycliff, an all-women’s college right next door to West Point. A good place to grab a husband, you’d think, but she wasn’t interested. She went on to earn a Masters Degree in Social Work at Fordham University. (Grampa joked that she already had a Masters degree.) She was the first woman in the family with a career outside the home.

After we moved to Florida, I didn’t see Aunt Carolyn that often. When we visited my grandparents, she was usually in New York City where she lived in a tiny efficiency apartment. Occasionally, she flew south to visit us, and I went to NYC a few times. I remember touring museums with her. We also rode the Staten Island Ferry (that’s another story). When my boys were small, she accompanied us to the Statue of Liberty. We climbed into the crown, but Aunt Carolyn stopped halfway and sat in an alcove until we rejoined her. She wasn’t much for physical activity, until she had a wake-up call later in life. Then she began to walk regularly for her health.

She never failed to attend the annual Masters Family reunion in Owego, NY. I didn’t always make it, but when I did, I got to see her there.

The Masters family. She’s the redhead center back.

Aunt Carolyn was different from the rest of the family. Most of us are country people, but she loved New York City. She worked there as a social worker for over 50 years, not retiring until she was in her upper seventies. She was active in her church and had many friends.

On 9-11, I called to check on her. She lamented that she had intended to buy my son a wedding present on her lunch hour, but unfortunately, the store was no longer there. Where had she intended to shop? At the World Trade Center! The thought still sends shivers down my spine. I was so glad she didn’t go shopping before she went to work.

She was a very particular person. When she wrote a letter, if she made a mistake, she’d neatly cross it out and surround it with parentheses, then continue in her perfect handwriting. She loved literature and art and Shakespeare in the Park. She was also very opinionated. When I was in college, I’d make a remark about something, a particular poem, or a piece of art. In a calm, perhaps condescending, tone, she’d correct me. The funny things is, as I matured, I realized she’d been right. Her relatives loved her, but she did try their patience.

In later years.

This month, whenever I sent out cards, her address would pop out at me in the address book. How many times have I recopied her address from one outdated book to another, even though I had it memorized? When the current book needs to be replaced, there will be no need to copy her address again, and that saddens me.

You don’t know how much you will miss a person until they’re gone. I’m glad I sent her a card every year.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Carolyn. This year I’ll send you love, if not a card.

 

 

Recently, I watched the classic movie The Guns of Navarone with Gregory Peck. Set in the Aegean Sea during World War II, it’s the story of a small band of soldiers sent to take out a German fortress which is a threat to Allied ships. Of course, our heroes can’t just go in and destroy the enemy’s guns, they have to suffer through a series of ordeals on the way. And they can’t just keep the mission to themselves, they have to interact with innocent bystanders and beautiful women.

Gregory Peck, David Niven, and friends

I’m not here to tell you the entire plot of the movie, only one part that got me thinking. An officer gets seriously wounded, so they take him into a Greek village for medical attention. There are Nazis in town, and the villagers try to hide our heroes from them. When the enemy finds out, they destroy the town in retribution.

What caught my attention was that the Germans made the people leave their homes before they bombed them. It’s heartbreaking enough to have your home destroyed. It’s even worse when your life and that of your loved ones is put in jeopardy. At least the Germans spared the villagers’ lives.

Listening to the news about the war in Ukraine, we are shown a different scenario: civilians deliberately targeted, even when they try to evacuate, bombs dropped on hospitals and schools.

In the movie, the Nazis are hardly pictured as nice guys, but other than the SS officers, who are sociopaths, the German soldiers show a little compassion, first for the wounded American officer, then for the Greek villagers.

How true to life this is, I can’t say. The movie was released in 1961, nearly two decades after the war. By this time, hatred toward the Germans had softened. In fact, we were on good terms with them. Did German soldiers actually show compassion for their conquered foe? War creates atrocities. Can it also bring out compassion?

My father served in the Pacific theater in World War II. He wouldn’t talk much about the war, certainly not about combat. I don’t know what horrors he was exposed to, but although the rest of the world moved on and made friends with the Japanese, he harbored a life-long hatred of them. He even disapproved when his children bought Japanese-made cars.

His attitude toward other Asians was quite different. When one of my sisters brought home a Korean friend, he was okay with that. When I went on a tour of China, he expressed admiration for the Chinese people, if not their government.

But when he had personal contact with one of the enemy, he had a different attitude. Dad told about an incident when he was stationed in Hawaii. A Japanese soldier was being held prisoner in the camp. One day he tried to escape but didn’t make it out of camp before he was recaptured. For some reason, Dad expressed compassion toward that young man. He identified with the fear the Japanese soldier must have felt, being held captive by the Americans.

Dad in uniform. He’s the short one.

I grew up during the Cold War. In high school, one required class was Problems of American Democracy, in which we were indoctrinated against all things communist. (I don’t understand why some authorities think young people are just itching to go over to the “dark side.”) Perhaps that accounted for my reaction the first time I saw Red Army soldiers in China.

I was fascinated by the history and culture of China. One of the first historical sites we visited was crawling with Chinese soldiers. I felt fearful, paranoid, as though I thought they were watching the evil American tourists, waiting for a chance to arrest us. Actually, they were on leave, tourists like myself. By the end of the two weeks, I saw these soldiers for what they were, teenagers in uniform. Familiarity does not breed contempt.

Back to the war between Russia and Ukraine. We admire the heroism of the Ukrainians and ache for their suffering. We condemn the actions of Putin’s government. However, most of us don’t blame the Russian people. We sympathize with them because of what their government is doing to them.

In the throes of battle, compassion is in short supply. Yet we can identify with the hopes and fears of other humans, even in time of war. Perhaps if we cultivate more compassion, we can learn to avoid war.

 

The last time I posted, in early January, I was looking forward to our third annual Sunshine State Book Festival at the end of the month. As penalty for diligence and hard work, I’d found myself chairman of the committee. My equally hardworking comrades were putting the finishing touches on the Festival. We’d rented the Oaks Mall in Gainesville for Saturday’s event. Nearly 100 authors, both local and from elsewhere, were registered. I was one of them, with a new book to offer. Five interesting speakers were scheduled for the next day at the Matheson History Museum.

Then Omicron. As infection rates skyrocketed, so did our anxiety. Authors began to drop out over concern for their health. We, too, questioned the advisability of holding a large indoor event during a wave in the pandemic. We hated to change our plans, but people’s safety was at stake.

So much uncertainty. How long would Omicron plague us? What if we change the date and there is another surge of the coronavirus? None of had a crystal ball, but we had no choice. For the second time, COVID disrupted our plans. We postponed the festival.

That meant changing the dates with the Mall and the Matheson. Fortunately both were available on the 9th and 10th of April.

If, in January, we were ready to launch the Festival in three weeks, three months should have us uber-prepared, right? Hold on. When you’re forced to punt, you can’t score until your next possession. If your opponent is worthy enough, it can take a good deal of time and effort to get to your next possession. That’s where we found ourselves.

We had been advertising for months. Promotional materials had been printed and distributed. Not only did the registered authors need to know of the change, the public and local media had to be informed. A lot of leg (or laptop) work. Besides correcting things, we kept finding stuff that should have been done earlier, plus a few things that just weren’t going to get done. Let’s hope they’re not critical.

There you have it, my long-winded excuse for failing to post in over three months. We are supposed to be using our social media to promote the Festival. Have you seen anything on mine? Oh, I was waiting until the last minute, to balance out those people (you know the type) who are prompt with everything.

So, if you are anywhere within driving distance of Gainesville, Florida on the weekend of April 9th, there’s plenty of parking at the Oaks Mall. Pop in and visit the Sunshine State Book Festival. Look me up at table 47. I’ll have copies of Trials by Fire and my latest book Quest for Namai. I’ll also have bookmarks with the QR code to Season of the Dove, which is on Kindle Vella, but not available in book form yet.

On Sunday, don’t miss the speakers at the Matheson.

If you can’t come, check out my books anyway. You’ll be glad you did.

Fire

Have you heard of Kindle Vella? It’s a new thing, where stories are published by episode, much like in the old days when books were serialized in newspapers and magazines. For some reason, you can’t read these stories on your Kindle but on your phone or computer.

I was putting the finishing touches on my novel Season of the Dove when I heard about Vella. After exploring a few books on the platform, I decided my novel lends itself well to being serialized.

For you, the reader, here’s how it works. You go to Vella and choose what you want to read. Here’s a shortcut: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09GLLRR87. You can read the first three episodes for free. That should be enough to let you decide if you’re interested. If you are a first time Vella user, you are then given 200 free tokens. Each episode costs a certain number of tokens depending on the word count. After you’ve spent your 200, you can buy more. For $1.99 you can buy 200 , but if you’re a serious reader, you can buy in larger quantities at a discount, up to 1700 tokens for $14.99, which could pay for several novels. The total cost of a book is about equal to what you would pay for an eBook or a print book, depending on how it’s priced.

If you like an episode, give it a thumbs up. That helps the writer. Once a week, you can give your favorite book a Fave, which lets other readers know it’s worth reading.

Season of the Dove takes place in the year 2123. Serious damage has been done to the environment, resulting in social and political unrest. Florida is hit by a Category 6 hurricane, which makes matters worse. The main characters, Rob Hardman and Rosa Ortiz, are caught up in the turmoil. Yes, this is a dystopian future, but it is not a tale of gloom and doom. I won’t tell you how it turns out. You’ll have to read it. You’ve probably guessed a love story is involved. In addition, there is a murder (or two or three) to solve, a good bit of adventure, and human interest.

Unfortunately, while a book is on Vella, it can’t be published in another form, so Season of the Dove won’t be available in eBook or hard copy until such time as I take it down and republish it.

I invite you to check out Season of the Dove. (Yes, that’s the link above.) If you wish, you can give me feedback in the comment section below. Happy reading!

No one can argue that this past year has been stressful. We all needed escape mechanisms to help us cope. I’ve tried several. After the shut-down last March, when COVID was still fairly new, I came across a list of streaming movies about pandemics to watch while quarantined. With ghoulish curiosity, I watched a few. Because those fictional accounts bore little resemblance to the existing situation, they provided a sort of comfort.

Netflix has a series, ominously released in January, 2020 before coronavirus became popular, called Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak. This documentary introduces the viewer to “heroes on the front lines of the battle against influenza” and showcases “their efforts to stop the next global outbreak.” Well, they didn’t stop this one, maybe because they focused on influenza and we were hit with a coronavirus. I watched a few episodes, but they were too close to reality, and I needed escape.

I seldom binge watch, but in the evening I’ll sit down to a movie or a couple episodes of a good TV show. Half the world found diversion from reality in Tiger King, but it was short lived. Science fiction is usually a good escapist genre. Even issues pertinent to our real world are disguised well enough to take us out of ourselves. I watched several seasons of Star Trek before I found Stargate SG-1.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, the Stargate is an ancient alien artifact that connects to other stargates throughout the galaxy by way of wormholes. SG-1 is a team of four adventurers. Each episode takes the heroes to a different planet where they encounter and surmount new perils. Each season, they save the Earth from impending doom. Good entertainment. Nothing, other than the occasional politics, to remind me of current problems.

The Stargate

Until I came to Season 9. A two part episode was titled “The Fourth Horseman.” Only after I watched the first part did it dawn on me that they were referring to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the Old Testament, the Fourth Horseman is Plague.

In the last century, when we were sending people to the Moon, NASA would quarantine returning astronauts just in case they picked up some microorganism that could wreak havoc on Earth. The SG1 team bopped from planet to planet without a care. Only occasionally did they bring something undesirable home, and then it was usually an alien life form other than a disease.

Main characters are not allowed to die, of course, unless they can be restored to life, but lesser actors are fair game. In Episode 10 of Season 9, a team of lesser characters brought back a virus. I should have stopped watching, but I was addicted to the show.

One man developed a fever and respiratory distress and died. Others began to fall ill and were quarantined. Unfortunately, a lieutenant with no symptoms had already left the base, and he was a carrier. By the time they reined him in, the public had been exposed. The CDC was called in.

Back at the base, even individuals who had no contact with the infected team began to test positive or fall ill. The virus was described as “airborne and persistent.” Efforts to contain it to Colorado (where the story takes place) failed and cases began to pop up in other states. Public transportation was halted. Citizens panicked as the contagion continued to spread.  Hospitals were struggling and waiting rooms crowded. Cases emerged in major cities. The US borders were closed. Contact tracing was put into place.

It was like watching a recap of the past year’s news. How was this supposed to take my mind off my worries?

The script writers seemed to have done their homework. They must have consulted with the CDC on how a pandemic would play out. That, or they had a crystal ball. If that was the case, why didn’t they warn us?

There was one difference—no one wore masks. The general ignored the advice of the physician and went to visit his suffering airmen. I yelled at the screen, “Put on a mask!” He didn’t listen. Next scene, the general was in sick bay. I should have skipped the second episode, but I wanted to see how our heroes managed to save the world this time. They were furiously working on a vaccine.

Remember the cigarette-smoking man in The X Files? The actor William B. Davis? He is the arch villain in this story. In an attempt to conquer the Earth, he had purposely infected the doomed SG team. However, I don’t think he was responsible for our recent situation.

The Archvillain

By part two, there were cases in Mexico and Canada. Other countries grounded air travel and closed ports. The Stock Market crashed. Work on the vaccine continued, day and night, as the contagion continued to spread. Finally, the vaccine was ready and being distributed. (No mention of testing for safety and efficacy.) This team of fictional crack scientists developed a vaccine in two episodes in 1995, but it took us months in 2020.

At the end of the episode, a news reporter said, “The final death toll of the pandemic has been estimated at a little over 3000 worldwide.” Only 3000? The reporter seemed to think that was a lot. Do you remember when ours was only 3000? As I write this, our death toll has surpassed 3 million.

How did I remember so many details? A writer must sacrifice for her art. After I thought about writing this post, I watched the episodes again and took notes. Besides, plunging into it gave me a morbid sense of comfort.

The rest of the series thankfully offered more escape from reality. Now I’ve resumed Star Trek. Captain Picard’s world, while beset with conflict and danger, gives an optimistic view of the future where self-interest and greed have largely been replaced by ideals of cooperation and benevolence. What better way to get your mind off your troubles?   

If you haven’t already, check out my video at the Sunshine State Book Festival and my novel Trials by Fire on Amazon.

Bonnie T. Ogle

Award Winning Childrens Author

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