October 20, 2012
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Searchlight Pictures; Hello! Oscars 2013?
Today I am getting E-mails from Searchlight, Among my favorites of the film makers, and I got a couple of notes about next year’s Oscars, so maybe I should take my, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” assume that something wonderful is happening, pitch the frying pan, and head for, “The Hollywood Film studios to see if I am finally awakening the dead and begging them to get one of Hollywood’s bravest directors, and God knows I would be flattered to learn that Mr. George Clooney, or Mr. Stephen Spielberg had discovered my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” through a visitation from some Holy Realm which granted them the time and the chance to tell the truth of living without in America. After all, I stayed up days and nights, and I prayed that someone would finally tell the story of when Washington raped the south in mid last century to fill a hole in The Rust Belt work force putting the citizens of the southern Appalachias on notice that we were not worth the skin which covered our bodies white or black, so we could kiss our farms and independent ways of life, our cries of, “Love Lifted Me,” as we watched the sinners go for salvation on Sundays — We would be calling down the saving grace to help ourselves, for Agrarian America was on life support, and we were going to be the losers, no matter which way we looked..
If Searchlight is looking for a real American story, then would it not be something that a wretch like me hauled all their corporate leaders down to the scene of the crime where old farmers, and the way we were was put to rest by giving a little wad of cash to keep us from planting our fields, but it was token money, stolen money from the federal government to kick we indpendent, self sustaining, first in war to volunteer, and first in peace to not bother a soul. That is the kind of people our country wanted to get rid of, for they could grow cotton in India for less than ten trailor loads could be bought from the old cotton gis which was people’s work along with the tobacco allotments around our way.
Most of all, moving us around, making us the newest poor with no hope could not matter a lick, for our votes did not mean diddly squat down in Franklin and Jackson Counties. My daddy would give a vote to someone respectful enough to call him, Mr. Everett, for he knew what he was called behind his back, behind the backs of all the organic farmers who used what they grew for food, gave the rest away to those who came visiting, and right now; I want to get down on the ground and kiss the earth that fed us from the time we came to America — and I am damned certain that was before the Revolutionary War.
As my brother, Robert who wrote the prologue to, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” might say — By keeping our mouths shut, and by not disturbing those who had their Sunday clothes, we were the ideal people to label as, “White Trash,” for you called us that behind our backs, and it having been only about 75 years since The Civil War, we still were not convinced that people of our southern rasing still needed a good whipping after all — Even though black people and white cotton pickers and share croppers shared the same brand on our skin which could not be washed off. There had to be rich, some folks in the middle, and people who did not count, and that was us!
I usually met a Jewish person once a year, and that was when a Jewish citzen came around with a car full of linoleum rugs which I talk about in the book, and most folks knew the rugs were just going to come apart after the first mopping, but Mama thought they were so pretty, and this man could have sold a fur coat to a gopher. I bring this up because the Jewish people and most of The Catholics did not come down our way, for they found wealth, community, and safety in the coastal areas. Black folks knew the biggots, and they were not us, for we learned early to feel really bad to be left out of everything, and the rug man called Mama, “Mrs. Everett,” and he complimented her for looking so nice, and Mama was not used to anyone caring anything about her, especially with daddy having to go to Chicago to make enough money to hold on to the old farm. I am just surpised that Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Clooney, and I always thought Barbra Stressand could have told our story well, and Ms. Winfrey had problems in not understanding the southern rules. I never got the feeling that she knew the women down our way, but she surely would have known all the no goods up there in Harvey, Illinois, for they came in and took over Harvey as if they had always lived there.
I am so sorry that I just never felt the love coming from Ms. Oprah, and I am not certain if she knew where The Railroad and Airplane Lost Luggage Store was. Scottsboro, the county seat of where I was born had that place, and it still does. Most of us couldn’t afford the fine jewelry there, but here we were in the center of one of America’s longest lasting businesses, being again, more than we could be a part of. Dog days were more what the people around us might go to, for Mama said filthy people with chickens, dogs, and all kinds of farm implements came for those trading days, and if you got lucky, an old mule or two might still have some gas in their tank to pull a plow. I would like for you to meet some of the nice folks from around our home place, but if you go and ask them where the Appalachian Mountains begin; Do not be surprised to find out that most of us did not know where we lived.
“Pinkhoneysuckle,” would be such a treasure for Searchlight, and how you wound up on my E-mail today, then I do not know. About this day 6 years ago, our Mama died, so I think her spirit might be active right now, and maybe she had a hand it the accidental appearance of a famous film company showing up, and it even asked a question. It asked, “What can we do for you,” so I wrote it in the few words they allowed me to have, that we would certainly like a film, so that the rest of America might know who they have labeled as Rednecks, Crackers, and Holy Rollers. I got this book out after almost dying this time last year, but I haven’t been very well — Not well enough to market it, and people promise they will help and disappear. It sort of seems like the times when we would have Watkin’s orange drink, a forerunner to Tang with the rug man, for he was surely thirsty, and we loved his nice ways; but maybe his spirit is loose as well, and I prayed a long time to finish my book. I had to write it to tell you that we are real people, body, soul, and spirit.
Searchlight Films, I can be found in San Francisco or in Cincinnati, and I will even make you all dinner just to sit at my table and to plan this project out of filming a people, a way of life destroyed. I would help you to understand the woman’s part is me, and thousands of women who walked similar roads; Oh my God; you can do something for me, for it is rare for a people to have been just written off or plain lied about for who we were. I would make Mr. Clooney my very best Italian Mama cooking, for I have learned in 63 years how to make food from most nationalities, and I can look at your in town place from my in town place, and you have the nicest, best looking folks ever!! I could sit Ms. Streisand and her husband a place, and let us be certain to invite Ms. Winfrey, for I am certain that she did not ignore the women who lived back home or moved to Harvey,, Illinois on purpose, for she is my a spiritual woman. I know that, but could we not all get together and see that my book finally tells America about the people in Rosalee, Pisgah, Lexie Cross Roads, and Paint Rock Valley, for there are folks there still needing help really badly.
“I know, Mama, that you are telling me to carry on in introducing the southern poor, for your house got messed up badly in a short while, and we dream of sitting with you and Daddy, some iced tea in our glasses freshly made. We will never forget, and Walnut Grove might hold your old bodies, but you are going to rise up just like they said in Revelations, that the dead, “In Christ,” would rise up first, so when the earth trembles, Just place your hand out, and do not be afraid, for Daddy will be waiting. You are going to have atonement for any sins of this world.
I will try to find a piece of your old linoleum to argue that you need your money back, especially from the year you bought that pretty and pink flowered one. I loved it, Mama, for the hour it was beautiful, and it made our living room look like a nice place with Ms. Hannah’s old couch. So I will show those film people what living on nothing looked like, .for they have been so misinformed as to what it was like in the land where, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” called us to the pine woods so long ago. I want people like Mr. Spielberg to know of the hidden American Diaspora and to see my Daddy getting off the night train from Chicago.
I am waiting you film folks, you promise keepers, so make Barbara Everett Heintz, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” my book — Amazon and Kindle ready, to take a step beyond where another shattered family can walk with their heads up, for you care about us too there in Hollywood? Surely you will after Mama’s sloppy chocolate cake fills your empty place and mine with me just being a way of saying, “All the folks from ; where the Appalachians rise up and the old souls born there now are laid to rest. Surely you will come, for things are left without someone asking for help. I am asking right now, and the Searchlight opens the darkness. BEH — “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Blog and book — Amazon, Create Space, and Kindle ready in five languages.
