November 15: Writing Prompt #319-FAQ

Interview someone — a friend, another blogger, your mother, the mailman — and write a post based on their responses.

I interviewed my youngest son. He’s 12. Here’s the “transcript” of the interview:

Question 1: What’s your favorite thing to do at home? Watch TV.

Question 2: What’s your favorite thing to do outside? Play soccer.

Question 3: What’s your favorite thing to do at school? Play basketball at recess.

Question 4: What’s your favorite thing to do in summer? Hang out with family.

Question 5: What do you want to do when you grow up? Be a soccer star, a professional soccer player.

Question 6: What’s the best thing about living in the states? There’s a lot of things to do like hike in the mountains and stuff like that.

Question 7: What’s the best thing about living on an island? The freedom that you get to hang out with friends and ride on your bike all around the island by yourself. 

Question 8: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in your 12 years? I’ve learned a lot of important things. One of them is about bullying. Also, I’ve learned about being nice, having manners, being humble, and I can’t think of the rest right now, but there’s a lot of things. 

I think it will be fun to see what his responses to these questions would be in 5 and then 10 years from now.  I know when I was little my favorite things to do were play with my friends inside, jump on the trampoline outside, play with my friends at school, and I wanted to be a dancer and singer or model when I grew up.  I think the best thing about living in the states is the same as my son’s answer, all the opportunities to do different things, and the best thing about living on an island is the laid back lifestyle and ability to save money and not have any bills to speak of. And the most important thing I’ve learned in my 40 odd years, well, that would have to be about love and how it’s really the only thing that matters in the end, love or passion for your work, love for your family and friends, knowing the love of God, sharing love every day and in every way you can, and love covering all else, sin, hatred, pain, etc….love is the great healer and where peace and understanding lives.  I think my son is on the road to learning that too….It’s one of those things you can only truly learn through time and experience, but when you learn what is really means, you know it’s enough.   

November 14: Writing Prompt #318-Write about Evil

Write about evil: how you understand it (or don’t), what you think it means, or a way it’s manifested, either in the world at large or in your life.

Evil is profoundly immoral or malevolent by simple definition. Dictionary.com goes a bit further by saying evil is the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.  I’ve always understood evil as the work of the devil, and it’s manifested in the world today just as it has always been…through murder and perverted acts that hurt others. It starts small with lies and rule bending, then it progresses to rule breaking, pathological lying, emotional and physical pain inflicted on others.  I think it means that we’ve allowed ourselves to give into the devil’s lies, his whispering in our consciousness.  To fight it, you must make a move back toward God, the epitome of all goodness.  Just as the super heroes we all idolize do, you fight evil with good. 

November 13: Writing Prompt #317-Non-Regional Diction

Write about whatever you’d like, but write using regional slang, your dialect, or in your accent.

Well, it’s been quite a time since I had the opportunity or need to practice my natural born Southern English, but I reckon I can give it a try. I see now that I have lived away from “Alabama the Beautiful” so long that growing up in the South was truly unique. 

I didn’t know I had such a thick accent until I lost the bulk of it while residing over yonder on that atoll.  I use’ta have what my track coach in high school called “an educated Southern accent.” I might could, ya’ll, and fixin’ were all staples of my language back then. Catching “Light’nin Bugs” and picking honeysuckle from the backyard were some of my favrit activities as a yung-un, and I still luv to listen to my Ant’s storytelling. During holidays, we always visited my dad’s family up at Sand Mountain, and if you thought I had an accent, you ain’t heard nuthin’ yet ! And once again, the storytelling by my cousins was the best entertainment of all. 

Of course, we had our share of troubling times as well, like when the tornados ripped through a heavily commercialized area, including my dad’s office building, but then again, we did live in what’s called “Tornado Alley,” so we were use’ta the sirens and unbelievable stories of touch downs in various parts of the state over the years. I remember the cows in Jones Valley in particular because one or more was killed by pencils from the local elementary school when they were thrown so forcefully into their skulls that they died! True story.  

Sunday meant attending one of the many, many churches dotting the major roads throughout the city. I was amazed at how few churches there are in my area of WA. I reckon that was specific to the South, which is not only Tornado Alley, but also part of the “Bible Belt.” 

Summers were spent traveling to the beach in Florida or to Six Flags over Georgia (where most of my GA cousins worked at some point or another).  We did take the camper across the states once or twice, but mostly we traveled close to home.

Eating together as a family was casual, taking our plates to the stove for hot items and the counter for cold ones and dishing them out ourselves. There was no reason for formalities, except for the prayers always said before we got our food.   Sweet potato pie and pea-can pie were always served at Thanksgiving next to the green bean casserole with French fried onions on top and the fried okra, usually from someone’s backyard gardens.  For fast food, we enjoyed McDonald’s, but also Captain D’s, Krystal, and Chick-Fil-A.  For a sit down meal, we ended up at Gibson’s BBQ, Catfish Cabin, Pizza Hut, or Picadilly’s at the mall.

Some of these experiences may be more Southern than others, but it’s things I remember that are different from what I’ve experienced since leaving the South almost 20 years ago.  It’s much more difficult to write in a Southern accent (or any accent for that matter) than I hoped it would be. Kudos to those writers who do write in a different dialect…not easy! Thanks for muddling through my weak attempt!

November 12: Writing Prompt #316-Come Fly with Me

Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

It was Spring Break in Alabama when I stepped on the plane to Atlanta, GA. It was just the first leg of my journey, which would take 2 days to complete and take me from the cool spring weather of the south to a very hot, tropical climate.  The ride from Huntsville to Atlanta was short, but that’s okay. It would give me a quick break before the non-stop 9-hour ride to Honolulu International Airport.  Once there, I called the airport hotel shuttle to get dinner and some rest before my early morning flight to the United States Army Kwajalein Atoll.  Even though it was my first time traveling so far from home and in a hotel by myself, it was an uneventful day and night. The hotel provided a discount for dinner at their restaurant, so I stayed in and ate a quiet dinner alone, then headed back to the room for some TV and bed.  I had to be back two hours before my 6 am flight.  The beauty of Hawaii and its unique cultural identity would have to be explored another time. I would not be able to experience any of it on this trip.

The next morning, I took the airport hotel shuttle back to where I had just landed a few hours earlier.  I was nervous and excited all at the same time. After a long 7-hour flight, including two stops at Johnston Atoll and at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, we finally skidded to a smooth stop on the just long enough tarmac of the 3-mile long, ½ mile wide low-lying coral island.  The biggest surprise for me was realizing that there would be not a jet way connecting the door of the plane to the inside of the airport.  Instead, I walked directly out into the tropical air of the island, and the humidity hit me in the face like a warm, wet washcloth while all around was the most amazing blue-green ocean I have ever seen, all from the top of a set of airplane stairs.  Little did I know that this would be just the first of numerous plane rides to and from the islands over the span of the next 17 years, and even after visits to many other places since that time including Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Guam, and Bali, Kwajalein is still the furthest I’ve ever traveled from home. 

November 11: Writing Prompt #315-Food for the Soul (and the stomach)

Tell us about your favorite meal, either to eat or to prepare. Does it just taste great, or does it have other associations?

That would have to be sushi, and it would be to eat (or to watch my husband or the sushi chefs prepare).  It not only tastes great, but also has many delicious and joyful associations for me.  I first tried it during my early days on Kwajalein in the form of fresh sashimi (usually tuna) from the Pacific Ocean ride outside our door.  This is simply raw fish and rice, but to have it right after a local fisherman caught it is absolutely divine.  Sashimi and maybe a California Roll here or there was all I had for awhile until I traveled to Japan on a business trip and was taken out to a true revolving sushi bar where I branched out a bit, to Tamago (which is sugared egg on sushi rice with a strip of seaweed wrapped around it).  Later on, when I met my husband, I took a much bigger leap and tried all kinds of sushi on Kwajalein, Roi-Namur, Hawaii, and here in the Northwest a bunch and for whatever reason, I remember so many of my sushi experiences individually more than eating at other types of restaurants or having other types of meals.  I remember my husband (then boyfriend) making sushi for us in my tiny dorm room of a BQ on Kwajalein. I remember eating sushi at the Outrigger Bar on Roi-Namur during a holiday party. I remember seeking out a sushi restaurant in the Ala Moana mall in Honolulu, HI after many months on the island rock we called home. I remember introducing our oldest son to sushi in Salem, OR at a food stand in the mall. He loved it as well! I remember introducing my mother-in-law to sushi too. That was fun! Since we’ve been in WA, we’ve been to multiple sushi places and even enjoy take out now and again. The most recent good memory I have of eating at a sushi restaurant is being at the Sushi House down the road from us with both our boys and seeing my oldest order the Bento Box while my youngest (the pickiest eater in the world….seriously…the world!) had chicken teriyaki, and we had a fabulous time!! Sushi and good times just seem to go together for our family. I hope that is always the case!