Well this is a fantastic hotel, the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, not to be confused with the Hotel R in LA, Columbus, or Chicago or the three other hotels By the same name, and I already have my “Pinkhoneysuckle” paper back edition on display in my extremely nice room where it is possible that many early Hollywooders had trist with starlets like Marilyn Monroe, Spencer Tracy, Mickey, Minnie, and God knows who else.  One can just feel the heat;  Oh, let me get over here and turn down that air conditioner, for it could be possible that I am just hot because it is a terribly hot day in Hollywood.

Now notice that I used the adjective, :Terribly, instead of a, “Bitch,” of a hot day,  My mini-bar remains untouched except for the frigin bottle of Fiji water which I was dying for — Ten dollars for water, you might ask?  I think it just shows how urbane I am becoming in this short while.  Thus far, I have managed to drag in  my room after being held up from leaving San Francisco with the damned place still in LA, and they kept reassuring us we would have a fast turn around once that plane got in, so if you are afraid of flying, just go easy on yourself knowing that they do absolutely nothing to these planes before they hoist our asses on them ready to go North or South, though I think they checked the fuel gauge.  I left with anxiety in my heart, but the plane which I took once from Amsterdam to Balogna was far more terribying than this, plus deodorant use runs higher here in the good old USA.

I am here, just right where I can see the building where The Academy Awards are held, and when George;  You know GC, last name rhmes with looney, decides to direct the film of, “Pinkhoneysuckle, then I fully expect to be on that red carpet, and you cannot miss me, because I have never seen more muscular sticks in dresses running around here, and then there was the gorgious head of red hair that I was admiring, for I had never seen hair that red; She almost freaked me out, for when you reach 80 years old, Honey, no red is going to cover that face no matter how many times you have shot up with snake venom, and I would have to say that my bosommy Granny boobs were easier to look at than  gawking at that mop of red hair that must have come from a family of people fed carrot juice from the moment of birth.

Back to the excitement;  Yes, I had a continental breakfast; The coffee was divine, and the fruit tasted as if they bought it from the seconds fruit stand, but I am here and just thrilled to be so, all because of my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle Ready, Create Space, just wiating for your dollars, for we need dollars to allow me to give something to, Tennessee Cares,” where my baby brother is cared for and has been loved ever since they got rid of those merciless prisons where they kept folks who needed 24 hour care, and this one, I am not leading you on.

Oh, wait!  I have to get out of here and get my hair done this evening, so I am off to La’ Posh to get this mess of hair clipped and lightly tinted, just tinted, for I do not want to take away my natural look, which has only changed by about one hundred pounds over the past ten years. “Oh, would you just tell George to keep it down out there;”  He is carrying on like Nixon after Watergate trying to get in here.  It is embarassing, because I told him that I would let him in first but he has still got that, “Kentucky, Me first attitude,” that one like Morgan’s raiders coming across the river and terrifying the cit;izens of the USA in the war of, “Our late unpleasnantness,” but acting like this is going to get him no where!”

Thus what I have done in Hollywood is little of nothing, but what I got very upset about last night was the fool who told me that I must look for stars, and I will be truthful with you, that I just came out with the  statement; “Why?”  “Are we expecting a comet to come through,” and that man had  the gall to look at me so strangely.  Well, off to La’ Posh, and I will hope to be ever so much better for my photograpsh at the photo gallery where I can take pictures of mysel.

More later from you no where.  Now just keep the little bunindle of jealousy out of your pants, and be pleasant as you must now that I have arrived to change this town for a while.  I do not like mediocrity!

Get that computer down, and start helping me, so I can help, “Tennessee Cares, and yes; I would keep some for myself, for how else would I write my next book.

So, “Bye bye,” we will chat later; Dahlings.”

Love, Barb

This very weekend I am going to pick up my award for having won The Best Wildcard Book in The Hollywood Book Festival 2012, and I have been told by the folks running the show that they are looking for folks like me, ones that have not had a chance to make up some lewd story of making out with politicians on the sly, wives or husbands who are embezzlers, and this is their last chance to feel sorry for them that their furs got hung up in a local auction house, nor had I become a devout believer that L. Ron Hubbard is the prophet for whom we are told is coming back to land back in his mansion where he lived his life as a devout, “Scientologist, ” and we know it is all true, because if Tom Cruise has ditched two wives over it, then it has to be so;  Now doesn’t it.  Now I have respect for those people who have been attached to a faith which has lasted all through the centuries when a head on a sword was more precious to some ladies than the finest gems which sparkled like starlight and for which human being would continue to kill for to this day.  Back near Sand Mountain where I was born and my open and truthful relationship with Appalachian people and the price they payed  to worship as they pleased seemed most inviting to others, but I have a feeling they might have kicked the L. Ron Hubbards off that mountain and discouraged others from worshiping false prophets.  However, if you see a flying saucer over L. Ron’s place, then for God’s sake, start making cakes and get out all that you own ready to see that you will give your best to the big guy, and if that means: Red Velvet cake from a box or easy bake pre-frozen chocolate chip cookies, then bet ter be prepared to say  that you were wrong; and He’s the big guy, and you’ll be glad to scrape their shoes just to let you and your beloved and little children get on board the end times space craft.  Jesus did make it clear that when he comes again, there is going to be quite a commotion, so you might want to take off to one of the counties I was raised in where the Appalachian had their birthing some zillion years ago, for there have been some wacky
goings on round those mountains, and I heard the old folks tell the stories, so we Appalachian folks have reason to believe things you never thought of, for your brains were too busy getting all full of prissy stuff while we saw visions and signs, heard wonderful stories and some, “Kick Ass Sermons,: that told it all in one heap pretty much — That if your not going to the right church, then God is a merciful but fierce God, and you better know this when you are getting saved, that be as good as you want and join the church with the wrong name, and you are still apt to be lying in your grave while the faithful rise up on that day of the resurrection.

I am going to have to tell God the truth about me and for mine, that we are just confused, and we did our best to get back to the Church that he saw from giving Peter the job of keeping it all together, even though being called a Christian was equivalent to dangling your naked body over a hungry lion who had developed quite a taste for ribs, especially the ones on skinny little people, for you did not need one bit of cat sauce to make those taste better.  Now do not send me a bunch of nasty letters, for I believe that, Through the trinity; God the father, Christ the son, and his death giving rise to the Holy Spirit, that I have done the best I can to live a decent life.  I cannot control my thoughts though, but if I joined up with Mr. Hubbard’s clan, then I could eventually work up to being at the highest level of all things, and I might not have to be fearful of any of this.  John Travolta, the pretty woman with big hair who became a Cheers star;  Mercy the likes of these souls simply spell out a warning to me that this whole thing is even more complex than I thought they would be.  Let us see;  for there are Christians, Hindus, Buddhist, Protestans and Catholics and the large group of Muscle people, and it is as if we need a guiding light to have any faith what so ever, but I was brought up a believer, and I used to sing  louder than most of the other kids in church, and I think I caused some people to place their fingers in their ears.

I just cannot believe this earth shall pass away and be destroyed and that L. Ron and a bunch of super cowboys and girls are going to sit aroun watching us burn in to the worst of secrets, the worst stories ever told, that our end time master came in with a name like L. Ron Hubbard.  Before Jesus came back, he did some mighty keen activities like having the stone that sealed the grave open widely, and then he had a solemn party with the Holy Men at that time and warned them to start teaching and preahing ever sense..  Can you imagine eating your supper with your buddies and then having all together this, Son of God, call you in for it is supper time?  From walking on waters to being an apparition but deciding  to show his nail scarred hands, the burns of the ropes, his pierced side to tell the story.  This all got started just becuase I saw a picture someone  had of L Ron on One of these sacrifices has to be name, and if it is just a bunch of new believers, so are they scammed  of their last time, so the space travelers;  Who knows maybe Jesus though that Star Wars did such a fine job of showing us that we cannot breath without a  lot of help, those of us who have weak lungs anyway, so maybe there will be a pass there.

When we speak of Jues as being with his church and hear words like; This is what you have listened and studied for, then we need to know ahead of time.  I just see us all endeavor to look like L. Ron Hubbard, and I do hope that we get the fashion industry on notice that these babes need fire proof material as well as a place where poachers will be sent to arm America, even if it means dressing up in outfits that look a whole lot like I thought my mother would look so nice in when they crack open her tomb.
 
Hollywood has not been just to the religion, especially what my Mama called, “That old time Religion, but a study of Appalachian Faiths and how they came in to being could give us the pleasure of argument for the rest of our days.  I am betting on the ones who cook the best turkey and yeast rolls, for Jesus might like some of our southern cooking, but California people better stop thinking of tofu  and Onion of three colors to save the wonderful opportunity now to get naked and sauced at the same time when we note that lots of this cooking needs, “Seasoning, so folks endeavoring to get ou your flying saucers.  Maybe a better name like John Luke would have left us with more faith in L Ron Hubbard and his mystical macjomes catch on there is something besides redanother is all I could ever hefore we make fun of our Gerontologist is to know that in a vicious surface, then we all appear pathetically small, but smart people have or are reading what I wrote, and most are captured before paragraph two.

Wickedness,’ Homes For Children in need, Tragic searches for parents who disappear, and through children’s eyes, the way out of Appalachian;Know how I and to know the place of my youth, where my folks are laid to rest, and  t Mennonite home who show  a community where just a little builds a i /Yes, their learneing goes back in to the faith .but these people learn and show how to preserve and to make it a happy one.  In 17 years, they might
We were told horrific stories of Catholics worshiping idols, I did not know tuntil I began study that lighting a cle at hours of death and even at a Thanks you wish to bring to God, the candles gave a visual presence of the Holy Spirit through your prayers, and you may or you may not want to acknowledge the person under such a wonderful manner of honoring The Christ, but Catholicism is very complex, and it is very difficult with elder and passionately elders running the Vatican when there is so much work with so few people.  You never would convince anyway that you were not worshiping in an unholy manner with that cross up at the church front, and you even thankMary for her only son who happened to be Jesus Christ whom we adored.  I am with the Protestants on this one though, for scripture refers to Jesus’s brothers, and the ancient tradition states Jesus with his brothers, in the Catholic faith to be as we would call Brothers and Sisters of the church.

I have never found out what was so evil about Catholics, and I never will, and I think the religions are far less divided than people can understand.  But I am taking my cross to Hollywood and to pray for a miracle earned because I never gave up on writing a novel which I said I would do at age seven.  I wrote poetry for my teachers Miss Nelle Baker loved.

But the summary of this mas collections of thoughts comes together under o ne banner, that we are probably better believing something than nothing.  We receive lessons of help and hope through most faith traditions. and learning something new every day is apt to make us less educated.  Oh Hollywood where miracles are bor, I am praying for one for me, and I have promised you that five percent of it will go through Tennessee care where  my brother James,deformed, loving anakd impossible to t TennesseeCares, for they gave my brother a home when merely getting him excited starts around the clock care;  And the great state of Tennessee has given to us a model program for the nation.

Yes, “Hollywood,” here I come, and I lay my faith at your feet Oh God to help me find someone there who understands that I understand busines, and that I would love to see this film made for the sake of others who could never put all in to nerves what happened to them.  I love them all, those past and those who remain, and this book allows folks to note where planting the routes of poverty by throwing money at it has never worked, and it severely breaks my hert.

I will make you laugh in Hollywood, and I will be forcing back tears, for I think I am the first one in the family who ever brought a note home from Hollywood.  The clock is ticking now toward another book.

Blessins; Forget the editing until I sleep for a while.

I have learned many things by joining Xanga, and among them is that I am not a sales person, and even if I were, Xanga is no place to sale anything.  So I got, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” the book published.  Well this is a truth, I go through here and read the poetry, the short stories, the kind and humble blessings all over the place, and there are one heck of a lot of really good writers on Xanga, so what makes me thing that just because I put out a truthful and significant book last fall, one filled with the love and hate of 60 years packed in every line, one that is going to make those who read it walk in to the channels of disbelief and of heartbreak, for no one could have survived all of that incredible shit;  Could they??  So what that I was a southern ninney who picket cotton, hid my face in shame for daddy giving away our good melons so we could eat lunch at school;  So what??  What ever made me thing that I was different, so much so that Hollywood would come calling, and I am just a little old Caucasian whimpering ass that I hadn’t written this  story before; “Oh, can you see her just carrying on with that whining when other people had as many challenges or more.  Maybe if I had my right arm chewed off in a bear trap or had been bitten by a copper head, stumbled over and fell face down in the pig trough and then had gotteny body ripped to shreds by a horny old wild boar;  Then, and only thien would I have room to think anything was special  about my life or any of the other folks that lived around me, so for heaven’s sake; why would you want to rent, to purchase, or to give me a great big vote of confidence that I had a story worth your kissing off one Angry Bird or giving me a pat on the back for writing truth about what went on on those backroads off to the sweet souls who pulled along the sacks of cotton with me. “The Appalachian Trail,” a national tresure  by John Muir and his getting the national park syatem up and going has been blasting out on public television about this important man sounds like really big stuff, so what could be hard about living in a National Treasure, for it is so beautiful.  As was well spoken and mentioned to me by an Irish lass about her own country; “Woes, “Well My Darlin, she said;  There’s not much eatin’ comin/ out of them rocks and the finest or Organic gardens, and I wish my sisters could have been there to see that moment, for I felt proud that a real home girl hadt laid the truth of several histories on their table.

The fish and potatos had a fine flavor that night,for truth is a precious taste when laid out on your tongue and lips in such a brave manner.

I have been calculating in by brain how my Xanga family could help me seen America word of my, “Pinkhoneyscule,” but I come from a long line of proud folks who can find roots in the grass, and maybe a rabbit, then we have dinner,a and Mama prided herself on fooling people in to thinking they were eating chicken with weird bones, but we caught up with her tricks one day and decided it wasn’t such a shabby way to be.  To live off what the good Lord gave us, And then I got this idea;  I get about three to four hundred Xanga hits each week, so I have this idea that if you all went out and maybe 250 of you were might loyal, then you become experts on my book and learn to talk people to death, then maybe we can get at least two hundred and fifty folks to buy at just over a dollar my book and our blessing — two hundred and fifty over ten months to rent my book over all your FB friends, twitter birds, Xanga blog and others, then you should know that before the year is over, you would have helped me become a million dollar book seller  by years end; and; Holy Mam please, a book sale here or there would be most generous, so with the help.  I just know that Xangans are extremely talented, and I need a hand getting this on its way and Xanga friends are our first super group wo believed in me.

Another suggestion was that if I would use sexually explicit words, then it would bring people to my site, so here are a few: Sex, sexual positions, sexual organs, heavy breathing,  battery operated sex gizmos, lubricants to make you hot, jelly to make you bold, large, mega, raging, breathing like the cat’s meow, and other ones tha increase like raging bulls.  Next we could talk about baby dolls, see thoughs, animal prints, furs, silks to wear, pretty bubbles to blow, a fine champaign;  How is that for NASTY,  and I do not want any more of this damned criticism about not a lot of sex, but somewhere, My goodness; if this is all we needed  to get my book flying through cyber space, then less give it a great big Mega condom stuffed with all of these goodie thou nghts, and next week we will
ask you to share your most lkely windows of payment to our United States Government to help uncrowd
Next month we can talk about how I stirred up suc such red hot business, but Xanga has taught me so much about laying needs out on the table, so here is one great hot play ground for adults;  I just want you to have youe r heart checked out to make certain you can take the escitement! Blessings from the backroom of the, “Pinkhoneysuckle found on Xanga, The Amazon Kindle Ready, Hot Book of The Farmer’s Daughter!

anHello Xangans,  I noticed that we have something new in there from Punk Rock Cowboy, and Finity, so  tomorrow I have to catch up on some summer Xanga reading, for there is information to learn of the blogs that you just would not believe if you did not take the time to get down and to do some serious reading.  These are not like the summer nights of old when I led all my little boys to the firehouse near us in Cincinnati, with money in our pocket and a hot date to sit on the firehouse bench we hung out, just hung out firement saw the boys and let them in to shine the truck a little or to see how the hose snapped on its side.

The starlings would try to grab the blue jays coveted trees there in Clifton, showing no respect for the other birds, just using a little maple as a flop house at the corner of Ludlow and Clifton Avenue, for starlings are like that, a really bad grunge dirt bant I am waring you, but the blue jays and mocking birds can get it together and whip up a tune as if they remembered what point/counter point meant hanging out around the music academy.  Some nightds were so thot though that a tweet sounted like a croak from the choir of birds, and if you were feeding the starlings, then I always hoped they would bless your car window with a few exttra drips of their nitrogenous waste that stuck worse than bubble gum.  They left a mess worth scrubbing, and if you insist on calling them part of the cycle of life, then I am going to tell you that rats can fly just like those gruesom little birds, but at least they burrow a little hole to take care of business in.

I loved the birds, and the boys just went through the motion of getting snacks at the local grocery, for, “News, Petes, had it all from  licorice to gummy bears, comics and drinks.  I wish that I could have taken Punk Rock and his books straight to our Friday Night place, for it was worth some Rock and soul head banging, “I love it; I like it when you take your panties off.”  It was pure truth, the sentiment of any manly box that these guys could get the audience all their touche, but after it was all out there ready for the next Rock band to do covers from which the tunes probably came to my eldest okson from The wars of the starlings of the bird fights.  That was about as near heaven, a Mama could get with three little boys, ice cream dripping down their faces, their pockets  stuffed with penny candy and God bless those public servants who saw their jobs as encouraging young boys to drop
by any old time, and we’ll talk about  the hook and ladder.

Life was way moore simple than when they got panties on their brain, not to mention as some great panties, not mine were displayed,” as if they were trophies.  “You slut of a whore bag Mama, you might be thinking we had a lot of control over out kids them, but we  had a choce and ours, was to endeavor to trs.”Who let them experienceis objectionable behvior?”  Their Dad and me, for we never wanted our kids to be afraid to come home, for out there was where the years would take away the child hood bliss I want our, “Cowboy,” to know that he is one special guy, so play on write on, and give us some pearls of wisdom that we can share and hope other kids, and our grandchildren cam make it on the outside and away from us.  If you want to fix the public schools, you may have to fix some of the parents to help them know what kids are thinking, so what better energy can you have than an urban rocker like, Our friend is an artist with his life before him.

Now you do not lose touch with me young man, for some of these folks are going to think that I am brain dead for  agreeing with a lot which you wrote, but that is our problem, that we need to be thinking like parents, and I want you to know too, young man, that making it in the court of opinion is your biggest battle.  You will find  stogy places, and we can both get some mean notes for any quack disagreement people have with us, but let that build you up and not break you down.

I can’t wait to read Finnity and some more of your thoughts and poems, and to feel bless that we are all friends in a special way.  Just kou eep writing, and some of us will read.  My book has had a lot of Xanga support, and most of you know that, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” was begun as a book.  It will carry y ou hto a place and to a hidden time, and you will be engrossed in it and want to do something before the day is finished.  Sometimes, doesn’t it feel as if life is one long day except for naptime.  Read some  Xangan this day, and that is how I make my best friends.  Silence is my gold, and I love the sounds of everything except when my chest doest not want to breath, and it sounds as if I swallowed a whistle out of that penney candy which I mentioned. before.

Be happy, and read on for the new day is coming.  Your author of, “Pinkhoneyeysuckle on Amazon and Kindle, and a blog of similar chracter.  Bless you all and God bless us too for we need your promises to be unbroken,,,

Love to all, Barb Hz

We Xangans  are very good at wishing each other well, and several of you;  And you know who you are who watched, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” develop and know that I saw the wondrous tunnel last October when I was dying from a Pulmonary Embolism have been along with me straight from when I began the first chapter, and Lord;  it must have been hard not to just scream sometimes and to tell me that you could just take no more of my book discussion, worry, fretfulness, depression over time, for so much has happened over these two and a half yeaars that it is impossible not to have felt that you were sick of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” but worse;  you were sick of me, for I send reminders, and I asked you to read. 

I put my name, and where the book was, and that it was published on my  notes to you, but I always tried to reassure you that you would not get messages from me unless you had shown that you gave a damn.  A girl whose name started with an S and who shared a name with a very famous president kept cheering me along, reached out at sales meetings of her husband, did a review; and S must be my lucky letter for people who share on Xanga that they care, and they wanted what was good for me.  I have Vexations, Vegas Mike, A certain Granny Golitely, and Andrew pitched in early on.  Then there is my Nashville buddy, the book club crowd, Frank, Two Robertas; Robert Everett, and I have to stop, for there’s tto many, but you have cheered for me, prayed for me, healed me, and then I got the PE, and a nurse knows what it means when you see tunnels, and you feel yourself moving;  But you think the ambulance hasn’t left your back yard.  You know what it means when a paramedic is looking to get a line in, and you are going in to shock, so the blood starts leaving the surface to your internal organs, trying to keep the heart, the lungs, the brain going for you;  And then you are in a room and they want to know if you want, “The shot,” and I was a little afraid, because, “The clot buster,” made my Mama stroke out, and I was trying to see them Mom and Dad, and they are over there, but I heard voices nearer, and the one earthly thing I thought about while all of this was going on was whether I would get to finish the book, “Pinkhoneysuckles,” was telling me that I had something to finish, then I am seeing people drifting in and  out of sleep, and everyone is so nice.

It was alright to be dying, and it was alright to be living, but by morning, I saw what looked like the perfect physician; and he said;  The good news is you lived through it, but the bad news is we know what is wrong, and a clot hit your lungs and went down both sides, and the world knew I was back when I sat up and said the most intelligent thing I had said all night, You have got to be kidding!”  The night had passed, and I had little memory of my husband’s going home, but that was the first day, and the spiritual values which I had;  My children and husband, and the grandchildren;  All was well with them, and they could not reassure me I would not have other clots until everything was sorted out, so then I went to ICU, and, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” began to take a four month back seat to life itself.  A good thing had happened though, that I had it ready to submit, so the first copy would get in before Christmas, and I would have to take it to shreds, but I was on oxygen and house bound;  So it had a place in the scheme of things.

Then in May, I got a first honorable mention in the San Francisco Book Festival, and then this Sunday I got the news.  I WON A WHOLE CATEGORY FOR HOLLYWOOD CALLED, ‘WILD CARD,’ SO THE PEOPLE WHO PRODUCE THE BOOK AND MEDIA FAIRS WHICH ARE GOING WAY INTO THE E CATEGORIES HAD CHOSEN MY BOOK AS THIS BOOK PEOPLE FROM ALL KINDS OF MEDIA OUTLETS SHOULD LOOK AT, SO I AM GOING TO HOLLYWOOD!  “Mama and Daddy,”  I wish you were here for this, for Hollywood is where I stand a chance of giving the Appalachian people a great big audience, and I have been telling George Clooney all this time that I have a book for him.  The Clooneys never returned the book, but did they get it.  I am aware of what gracious people they are, and if they had known I was in an ICU unit forgetting to breath and on oxygen for four months afterward;  The Clooney family are what our midwestern children would call real people, and George would have got my book.

You see, this book is a cause, not just a book, for most of you do not know about 3rd world Appalachia and those of us who grew up in the cotton fields with the little black kids who would pick cotton around the county.  Everett kids were mid-century slaves, and our mother and father could not help us, for they were family slaves too, and if you think we lived in too much better than slave quarters of another century; Then you might want to buy the book and see the house where 7 children would go as the oldest left home.  I want this book to kick asses from here alll the way to Washington, for the government never knew what to do with poor whites other than to hide us back in those mountains and valleys.  You might want to read the coming of age story that is going to Hollywood a winner, because I am trying to figure out how if I can even make what I gave Create Space funds back out of it just how much I can give to Tennessee Cares, because Tennessee found a human way to care for my retarded little brother, James who even got to go to the seashore and grow up again with another family, and this time they are taking him to A Christmas Village down in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for James loves Christmas over all things.

You might want to read a book that has taken prizes in San Francisco and Hollywood when I was having a really hard time with the publishing, but some really cared, and we got it done.  It is a love story, mid 20th century history; Coming of age, and taking a turn in Washington D.C., because I kept having angels and evil in my life, but the angels, that inner voice that gave me knowledge that I needed to live in this life;  Those angels won out, and when my book was chosen as a great book you could not Pigeon Hole in to  one topic easily and received the, “Wild Card,” first place win, it opened the great big door for producers to come in and to know they have never heard a story quite like this.  I am going to unashamedly tell them, that this book would make a really good movie, and I am ready to take it on.

I would learn this week that my blood clotting is an inherited defect on Chromosome 16, so I will be one of these people who has to stay on anticoagulants to live, but you see;  My Granny died at 64, a blood clot, so at least she left me something.  I am filled with humor, a little of it on the dark side, but what do you expect from the last of the cotton pickers.  I wrote the book, and you can buy the story even on Kindle, or you can rent it or buy it used;  However, as of this day, I have living proof that Barbara Everett Heintz has a story worth reading and maybe being picked up by media. 

God Bless you all for being there for me.
Love and Grace; “Pinkhoneysuckle,” on Amazon
Barb

It is an ordinary Friday evening in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Holiday weekend in its full bloom still unwithered, and some little freak is out on a skate board in front of our house riding up and down in the only part of the street where the intersection gives him enough of a hill to go down, pick up enough speed to take him back up a side street called, “Cumberland,” and since he is skilled enough to stay on, it is like a bowl, for he can then go exactly back the same pattern up and down as if he is on some wonderful ramp — Back and forth, forth and back, and the noise of the pavement sounds as if it is hollow which it probably is there as a place where electrical, gas, sewer,and storm water drains all meet — back and forth, then up and down, and I have to endeavor to understand that this is a pleasant thing to do for him, joyous, faultless, a sweet kid learning new tricks. ” Hooray! ” HIs audience is jubulant; “Bravo,” “Our Bay; Would you look at him, says the broadcaster in his mind,”  “Yes, Super Bad,” and you would know just how he feels standing up on that podium with the, “Plastic Fantastic,” gold colored Olympiad trophy around his neck, for you were him  a few years ago, “Super,” and we saw the hint of a tear when the trophy became yours.”

“Super replies,  “Yeah, it was joyous, like totally joyous, my Grammie, Pappy, Flopsy my Pup; Like they were all there, “Mr Man,” and all that training up on Cumberland got me to this place in my life where; “God –dd! I, Super Bad,” just could not have imagined my life without my pictue silk screened on a box of “Tooties,” the breakfast, mid-day and super snack was not the first thing I had to look to every day;  Me, “Super Bad!”

“Whoa; Ha Ha Ha, slit my sides, Super, for you know I was thinkin’ of the same darned thing,”" (Giggles, Snorts, Back Smacks) Bad and Broadcaster are thinking about the breast shaped cereal, nipple and all, and what a hoot it was with with the picture of, “Super Bad,” bent over with his Speedies bathing thong on, his 6′ /7″ beinding over Becky Backbenders 5′/2″ frame just looking into her immodest double D breast crawling out of her yellow flowery Islander Princess Wear which gave her the ultimate lift.  “Super Bad,” is counting the five Tooties in his hand about to pop them in her tank, when, “Snap,” goes the shutter, and “Super Bad,” is immortalized as the world’s foremost “Kick Boarding,” worlds most boring sport that he made famous right there below us on Cumberland Street.

My husband siad he remembered the guy as a kid, and I was delighted, for I had not met many famous people from the Hill before, so I said, “My dear, you actually knew bad/”  And F Tim said;  “Why are you saying that?”

“I just meant that his mother knew my mother; and heck, we played a game of water balloon toss now and again,” and I remarked that I was merely saying that I was impressed that, “Super Bad,” was one of his acquaintances, and to me all of this seemed very impressive,”  And F. Tim begins to get anxious, speaks outloud as if he is angry; “Well, I guess I just cannot tell you any thing, for you start blowing it all up and out of proportion to the way things were, and it is that attitude of you that makes me want to just go down to 24th street and walk, because you are acting as if you think you know the story, and I feel very bad, so I tell Tim that I will do better;  I will be better, and that he is upsetting me.

“Upsetting what; “You,” for if you ever got your mind off of you, then you would not have to cast aspersions about the people I may or may not have known.”  and he is angry by now to make it worse.  “That’s right. “Barb,” now just lay it out on the table what you mean to say while I sit over here and do the bills.  “Did I put money in. “Your Account,” for I decided to ask him if he had brought my personal spending money up to a sum as such I did not feel that I was reporting in, especially now that I get my social security check, and he is convinced I am hoarding eight hundred dollars behind his back for a trip to Mexico City, so I can get raped, mugged, and carried off for the ransom money I use to pay housekeepers,” so the monthly lesson begins;  “You have already spent dolllars and dollars on Paypal, and you know how dangerous it is to shop using that when you do not keep a regular and routine report of every dollar you spend,” And I am feeling pretty bad; First I have screwed up what he knows about, “Super Bad,” And now this!”

“One of these days he says, as we sit in the house which is still his mother’s place in a psychological way, for he even makes drawers and things to feet the layout of where she could go and always find things, the finest woman on the face of the earth who knew everything had a place and a purpose, and buying new clothing was nothing but a total waste considering there are thrift stores from here to hell and back, and a penny saved is a penny that will not get turned into a fifty cent souvenir in China town, so he is quiet for a minute knowing that his mother would be satisfied that he is protecting her place from that auction block or sales which would equal a whole lot of money and she did not spend on herself, and I have done that thing — Spent on myself, so I need this once a month reminder that our expenses are great, and no one cares about my birthday and Christmas presents anyway.  (By now, I have a pain in my shoulders, probably, “Hysteria,” needing some Transference therapy again.  “Well, my mother never needed a damned thing, that saint of a woman who called me her, “Tim Tam!”

“You do not get it he repeats for the hundredth time; the sell of this house would equal the Enron scandal if it got out around here.  Our children would be forced to rent a hotel, and I could not possibly move to a neighborhood where the tool drawer in the kitchen is where my mother expected it to be, and;  “You can’t stand this place anyway, he rants on,” so why is it you cannot be happy with your allowance, treat it respectfully, and these packages of deodorant, and those Christmas presents you are buying; “Well, they are killing us, and I would have to create debt on this, my mother’s house, for you know that I do not have all these funds just lying around;  I would have to sell something!”

“You were wanting to get out of here a few months ago and never see this place again,” he reminds me.  “A few months ago I had a blood clot in my lungs, and I was about to really be out of here  a few months ago, I explain,and I have a hard time not crying a lot; “You  know that, I tell him.”  I sit quietly for a while, for a general act is to storm out for him, but he had an Achilles tendon snap twice, so I think it is almost as if God is saying that he is grounded for a while and stuck with me,”  I keep hearing that tune, “Rubber Ball, I’ll come bouncing back to you,” and I wish that it would get out of my head, for I had a good couple of days now and then a while ago, but the days just keep eating me, eating me.

“I cannot believe that you would want my mother’s place sold; and he gets tearful, for it is the place where the things are right.  He is sorted out with his sister having given her share of this house, pretty much our inheritance, and bless her heart, for she sadly still feels some inequity.  We chose to have kids, houses that were nice, and new clothes, and one assigns fault.  It is our fault we had children and are not enjoying the carefree existence of being older and never having spent big bucks on ourselves, for the idea of children being the anchor that carries a family on is somehow lost in all of this.  “It is all about money, alright, says F. Tim, and we are in the clear on this place, and we own it, and if it sold;  How would we know where to dim the lights, to turn on a fire place, and to live in a place that was smaller here.  One is not safe when they do not have a tool drawer, the blinds drawn in the right direction, the plug in fans to vent bathrooms, and to modernize this place means shelling out big  dollars again.

“You have never been grateful for anything he chides.”  “Look at that closet full of clothes,”  “look at all of that stuff you are stacking away to amuse the family at Christmas.”  “No one but you cares about it!”

I want to speak and to tell him that he is right, I do not appreciate this place, that it is not my home, and it has had the same living room wall paper for 40 years bought from Butterworh’s Auction by his mother in her day.  He has her picture, his sister and his picture in the living room, and it feels like it goes back 40 years.  The mouths have carpet for lunch each day, ” Then he speaks; “You sleep all the time,” “No, I sleep when you are awake,” but I do not get very far with that.  “You are really pretty good at not doing what the Drs. tell you,” and then he goes over that list.

“You do not even know which day it is, he states, for he keeps up with day, with time, and with hours.”  I told him I understood it was a part of the aging process to have something to look forward to, and I want to look forward to being a grandmother, for I have nice grandchildren thus far;  One is more like another daughter, and I feel that I am back in  some other world which I left behind. 

F. Tim is getting better just in time for The Bohemian Club days, so he will be happy, busy, dressing well, playing his music, off with the men at The Russian River.  I do not envy him that pleasure, but I would like to know what it is this thing which people find such pleasure in — this life.  I want to know what it is not to be corrected constantly and to feel as if I have nothing to prove any more, but this will not happen soon.  A curse came up on this place when he remodeled the kitchen, and he was happy then, for we had not taken a place back near the family on the Ohio, but you see;  I think I know what the curse is about.  I think it is the vegetable box.  His mother used the same cardboard box for vegatables until she the day she left her house, and her daughter protected her places;  Her son protects her places, her things, her place;  And I do not know where or when the vegetable box left, but in her space, You used one thing over and over again, and the box would not wear out, and it is out there somewhere, and until it turns up, I fear that I will have no peace.

“Our lives will be miserable if we sell this place, and we will never get over these tax issues if we chose a condo here with a view instead of a four story house.  “You just drive me,” and he wants to say;  To the moon, Alice,” but that next step he knows better than to take.

Tomorrow;  Will I be confused, Contradicted every other word, Cower behind some invisible fence so as he cannot touch my soul, or will he give me the now and then happy day when he is nice to me enough that I might find laughter?  “It is a waning moon tonight, F. Tim; “No, they said there were solar flares on the sun;  What does the moon have to do with anything?”

I want to thank everyone who shared experiences with psychotherapy on your blogs to me, and I had hoped to answer each of them in a very personal way, for some were humorous; some were terribly serious, but I would sum up the content to say that with the question of what people think of good old Freudian psychoanalysis that there is a tilt for those who have experienced talk therapy that appears to give folks a few hits above the dentist as to home they had rather see, and as I expected, the scientific component was just not there to move people along.

Now one couple, especially seemed to find it useful with the physician to draw them out and, feeling they had a bonus better marriage had come as a result of their sessions, so we give a great big bravo!

Indirectly, I heard from a couple of younger people admitting to depression, and I wished that I could have given them that great big hug and that I could have directed them on toward a path of healing, but it is not something for which I have an option.  Please, younger folks, especially preteen to adolescent, moving in to young adulthood;  Just remember what I told you about there being unseen angels, and when your heart is breaking, please seek to find them and to hear them.  You feel alone, but you are not absolutely alone, even if you have to go to the local hospital and say that you are feeling self destructive;  Please go there, and do not worry about money.  Go to your local police station if you must;  but before you hit rock bottom and feel as if you have zero options;  This is not my world of the mid 1960s, and there is help for kids.  Look for youth programs like The Lighthouse shelter in Cincinnati where there are younger people similar to you.

No one is just like you, for you are an individual placed on God’s earth for a purpose — though, again, God might not be your idea of what you need,  But my sweet younger friends;  Whatever you do;  Know that people all around you love you;  But they have not had a chance to hear your story; what hurts you — who hurts you –But it is not all a bunch of miserable demons around you, for many of them care so much, but they haven’t a clue as to what is hurting you.

Remember, too, that you’ve got some bad chemicals in your brain which are firing because of all of your stress, so please do not add more chemicals which are going to wind up killing you.  You are a life worth saving, and it is a total bitch that you have to be the one that manages for yourself to seek care, but you are so brave to do so.  I told a lot of what went on in our home when I was your age, at home and away from there in my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and it is impossible for me to relate to you on a level which seems really appropriate, but just think, and it is true;  I am a grandmother, and there is room in my heart to care for all wounded children.  Few were injured more than within my own family and survived to tell about it.

Bless you, for kids today have even more villans on their plates.  Many kids feel like they cannot ask anyone for care and help, for you have seen that people in power with children has had a major truth which existed long before the cover was blown, that child abusers like to get near the very children who need them, and then they turn around and make things even worse.  But, we are a new generation of older people;  We are on to them, and there is no one lower in any community than a child molester

If that is a situation you are in; you are powerful, and you can help outing these people who are worse than shams.
We have no place horrible enough for child molesters, so you cry, scream, beg, but let authorities know if someone is after you, because that means you are one of many.  I can reassure you that when they are caught, for the most part, their lives are over, for even the prisoners do not want them to be near them in prison.  Demons, devils; they exist, but love is more powerful and love will endure and intercede for you.  Just get someone to begin a process of helping you to feel better, and the psychoanalytic drugs actually do help many people in spite of what you have heard, but to get them, you must see a physician, for you do not want junk in your system.

To the one young boy who said that you are gay at age 13.  I believe you, and your pain was so vivid on your exquisite face, and it is the young people like you who are in fear and are suffering, because you do not want to hurt the others around you who expected different behavior from you.  You are not among the spoiled, or the;  I will try anything, and then crash like a rock from a cliff, a person has turned gay.  Again, I urge you to get help, and here are two requests for you;  maybe three.  Make certain that this is something which happened, because you had an orgasm around another boy.  Orgasms happen at your age in all sorts of circumstances.  Next, unless you are in a small farm village;  Even your high school probably has a place for gay teenagers to meet, so you can go and compare notes.  A helpful adult at school should point you toward someone experienced in dealing with boys who have similar feelings and thoughts.  If you are terrified of causing hurt to your family or embarrassment;  remember that you are a child, and you asked for none of this.

I do have some suspicion that we are having more feminine behaviors than at anytime in my life history among males, and the girls love to shock, so who knows?  I can reassure you that if they fantasize about having a penis, then girls are probably lesbian, and either way;  there will be some difficulty.  Though I am expecting that environmental changes may have contributed to the larger number of teens with sexual identity problems –  That is not what is important now in your life.  What is important is for you to talk to any adult you admire, for if you are gay angel, I can tell you that everyone has probably figured it out by now.  We need no screaming matches to see children who are effeminate,  nor do we need a huge sign when a girl does everything she can to deny her own gender and who works at being more masculine, so people probably already know.

It is not for me to ask you how you came to this conclusion, but the time is now to look up public sponsored programs for you  and for your parents.  I got the feeling you did not want parents to be in on this, but you are a young man, just a boy, and knowledge of what to expect over the next few years will be helpful to you simply by allowing intervention from your county social worker or whomever you may need to talk with not.  Here in California, the largest population of gays absolutely insist that it is there at birth.  I would like for gender studies to include hormonal and DNA testing, and you are the perfect example of why.  If children are being affected in utero by an outside source, or if there is a common DNA marker, then it states loudly and clearly that a child should never suffer for worry about sexual identity.  That is why, to me, the studies hold some importance.

From most GLBT individuals, except for the small areas where they are in a majority, then the science should shut the public criticism involving behaviors and labeling.  And for the rest of you out there;  You know it is true that people will understand the science long before they will the behaviors.  I have had more than one gay person say to me;  “Do you think I would have chosen to go through all that I have had to if this was just a passing thing?”  Then they tell me how they felt and were treated, and they need say no more;  I get it, and I can accept that for many it is not a choice.  You have no science to go on.  You are a child who looks as if your heart is breaking, and you are so beautiful.  You have done nothing wrong, but you need a place to start the conversation.  May God Bless you and heal your sweet and young broken heart.  I promise you, that from all the gays out here, that along the way, it just does not matter any more.  You fit the criterion, that you feel you have always been this way.

Sexuality is not just about having intercourse or other forms of sex; No it is a part of every day life.  Now, a next resort if you cannot face your parents is to look at school, and see if there is a program for gays and lesbians.  If not, even poorer counties usually have a social work department, but you look so sad, that I beg you to find some support now.  It does not all have to be fixed tomorrow with a sign all over town;  No, this is personal for a child of 13, so you want to take baby steps in finding your way.  Is this helpful at all?  Just as you are, you are loved, so watch over your precious body, and watch out for opportunistic people.

I know that I have just said the same thing in different ways over and over, but these are the kinds of things we can do for friends, but our very first statement  is that we have no right answers, and we have people who cannot wait through,  long range talk therapy to help, so we are called on the line to care for our brothers and sisters, especially the young who are at risk,  so it is within each of us to just do the best we can; “Sorry, no time for transferred, counter-transference here,” for people are in pain, so we give them what little we can, our abiding love.  I would like to believe that every one out there in the field of personal care are able to know that their sweeping broken pieces of anyone under the rug is a serious offense.

My experience with talk therapy has led me to many conclusions which I cannot share, but if I have said one thing through this process that helps any individual;  Then I feel humble and blessed, for we  find ourselves suffering, and we want answers for our pain when our truth becomes that we are all disturbed one day or the other, and we are not perfect in any manner, but I am convinced that we can make a difference simply by taking the time to listen sometimes, and if we see suffering, then the kinder among us, if we find the strength, leave our hearts open to the fact we did not have to train to be a good friend, and friends are those angels I keep harping about, one’s you may not have found just yet.

Love and Peace Be With You;
Anyday, I should hear about Hollywood;  WillI win an award?  Will I get the call from Geroge Clooney?

We just do not know, now do we?  Pray for those who suffer.
“Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon Book By Barbara Everett Heintz

I have always cried easily, a family trait, for we Scot Irish mixed American Indian bloods are like that, but it has gotten worse since last year’s visit to the other side when a blood clot could easily have crashed in to one of my hear vessels and sent me packing, the deep six, call it what you may; I was very near my death, so out of no where, like battle fatigue, one just has times when everything seems a little to much, and the tears come, that special bath of saline and water, perfectly measured to keep your eyes moist spills over, and you are grieving, simply grieving, and some would say; “You are just depressed,” and you need someone to counsel you, to walk you up that yelllow brick road to the local bar and enjoying shots with the perfect orange zest and a lime peel made into a work of art to sip on.”

Then, there is always talk therapy;  Oh My God;  may you never have to pay for talk therapy, for it is probably best to take yourself out and to do whatever might cheer you up, for Barbara Streisand and I could probably share talk therapy, and that part of our epitaph should read that it was time better spent with a really good friend or a Parish Priest.  Those Sisters of Mercy could probably break out some cheese and wine if you are willing to have some talk with Jesus while you are there.  We have counselors; And I will bet that Ms. Stresand and I could share some battle scars, but I am not Jewish and could not say things quite so, just right, with that small amount of annoyance, vim and vigor.  It would not sound right for me to say, “And you sat for a thousand tears to hear that Schlemiel hand you some Freudian Faccata kissed with Jungian epithets and Oprah’s bent on giving psychologist their own TV show?  Sweetie; Take it from me that I just wanted to nap on the couch, cover my touche with silk, and take a nap!  “Oh how can you say those things Barbra; How, knowing that I am this girl who believes that if it is in writing; then it must be true, and these guys have written some incredible case studies, I mean, INCREDJBLE,” and then we would have a nice laugh, and I would leave with an, “Obama for President sticker for my car,”

“Don’t be so critical, she would have said;”  “You’re a Mench, if you would lose that bottom lookin’ like a mound of sweet butter, so do not lot all those chuck steaks convince you that you’re any thing but filet mignon,” and she would have left me with those words to hang on to. You see, she came to realize that playing a psychiatrist was better than being one, for you could, at least, get an Oscar for the performance.  Why do I have the sudden urge to push my hair back on both sides?  I would think some transference has gone on here, that remembering Barbra’s depression went away when she found the right kind of guy to just cuddle through the hours was all she ever needed after all.  “Amen, she is cured.”

I am thinking of all others of you my friends who may feel sad this night, who might be crying for the, “No good reason,” that I usually have and I wonder what is your comfort and consolation.  If you tell me smoked tongue and latkes, then I am done forl  Oh, save me from tongue, and know that anything a cow has belched on is not my cup of kindness, but I want to hear from all of you with the cares of the world on your shoulders where you find comfort when your tears come, and you just cannot stop them.   I might even suck it up and tell you what I really do when the going gets too hard to seize the hours and to find any joy in them.

So, here’s the table;  Give us a hand, and tell us what you think psychotherapy achieves that a best friend cannot or your Pastor, Priest, or Rabbi.  Have you come to terms with depression with all of its quacky ways of screwing up your insides, and showing that you are remorseful on the outside.  This is your turn to share something so meaningful and even life changing.  If you become more depressed just thinking about this;  Forget this blog, and head for the nearest mental health clinic, and just alwaays remember that we cycle between depression and just being Okay, and that if you can laugh at your darkness, have the desire to spit on Sigmund Freud’s grave or any such urge;  you are one of us, and we make it, because our table is full of coping methods through the worst of times.

Alright, how do you battle the days of tears, and is it working to lower the number of days of your depression. Lay it on me, for I want to know if we are in a new age for psychiatric emergencies, and know there is no shame in having a disorder, but the shame is if you do not, at least, tell someone how badly that you are feeling.

Good night, and I can’t wait to hear from you,

Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of Pinkhoneysuckle , Book on Amazon and Create Space, Kindle Ready, as well as this little place and gift of my blog – Also called, “Pinkhoneysuckle”

Once, a long time ago and about this time of year, Mama would be rounding us all up to give us a dose of Black Drought every Saturday, for Mama believed that most of life was controlled by whatever was going on within a person’s bowels.  Most of you probably did not know that different days and different seasons were looked up on in body parts, and the old folks knew by the stars, the phases of the moon, and all things which had been passed from Biblical writings on as the time when we got things done.  I do not think that she nor Daddy nor any of the farm folks back then understood that they were actually practicing astrology, and that all seasons and times were set, like Easter, by some mystical equation told by those who lived long before writing paper was a commodity to worship in every home, for a five cent pack of paper was five cents more than my folks had to spend on all of us.  Oh thank you Marlene and Mrs. Davis for giving me a hand full of paper when I would visit, and even with your help, it rarely lasted the school year.

I fear that my mother and father did not follow the stars closely enough, for there is wisdom in the order of the planets the stages of the sun, and the seasons as we turn, turn, and circle around the sun, for our crops just seemed to happen by chance and when Dad could get a hand.  Every home waited until that Farmer’s Almanac came out, and the Daddies, especially read, and the mama’s  hearts filled with fear when they saw that calendar warning to even avoid canning during the days when the signs were in the bowels, so mothers like mine lined us up and gave us a dose of something which tasted like black tea flakes she would get us to swallow with molasses, and we took it or died, took it and then felt like we were dying, for Mama wanted those bowels emptied and clean, for it might even help the crops planted too close to that season of pestilence when all of nature and life depended on a clean gut.  No southern child ever lived and went barefoot all summer without getting pin worms, so there was some good that was going on, and I was so disappointed to learn that as pure and clean as Iceland sounded;  Even there; they have the fierce tapeworm which sucks the B 12 vitamins right out of your body, and I was stunned to learn that supposedly, in such nordic places, they would place a bowl of milk under your nose and those horrible worms would start coming straight out your nose, and they were called tape worms for they could be longer than folks could measure with an ordinary ruler;  so even where life is pure and white and crisp with snow;  Lord have mercy about what goes on in one’s bowels.

I would like to have talked to Mama more about such things, but we wait until they die and think of all that we should have asked.  She would be proud to know that her wisdom haunts me now, and those folks lived long lives taking their black draaught, though all things faced an end when they came out with all sorts of things which were not supposed to cramp you up, like Ex-lax, and what my folks called, “Peppito Bismol,” for that sounded right to them.  If you ever want to have a conversation with a woman who has an incredible amount of knowledge about the most mundane of things; just buy me lunch, but I am not very good at conversing with strangers, so you had better have some thing on your mind if you want to see if I have any answers.

Here I go telling you the most basic of earthly knowledge that a farm girl sometimes hides from other folks for fear she will be found out to know such things, so no one can believe that I am the author of a real book.  I have to remind you all about that now and again, and some of you have been concerned and have listened knowing that I have a quantum leap from farm girl to know it all, for folks back home might think I am putting on aires by having published my book.

I wish that more of you would pick it out for summer reading, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” by me, Barbara Everett Heintz – Available on Amazon, Kindle Ready, Create Space, and any independent book seller with a computer on their desk, but they are apt to charge you more.  I wrote, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” because I wanted to share more of what I know about The Appalachian life, the poverty which exist all over those mountains, those who were born and died in their shade like my Mama and my Daddy, and in it I tell you about coming of age with nothing;  Sometimes, NOTHING, and how we white folks were too proud that we could not tell you our situation.

I wanted to write, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” to tell you that despite it all, I would, and my fellow, “White Trash,” as the town folks often referred to us as – But to let you know that a whole bunch of us made our folks really proud.  Oh, most of us got in to situations we could not share back then, for we were supposed to meet our God unstained, and I fear we all had stains and doubts.  Some of us had troubled hearts and souls, but you did not know us.  When you thought of the poor, they showed you the poor little black children whose homes looked quite similar to some of ours, but I would like for you to consider ordering my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” for after it won an award in San Francisco, I decided to give it a trial run in Hollywood.  My book is being judged right now along with hundreds of others from the USA and five European countries, so I may not have any more of winning anything as a crop planted when the signs told folks that the earth was in its bowel phase, but I will tell you right now that my book is worth me giving it a shot at Hollywood.

I filled, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” with history, stories, relationships, evil events which happened to me and even things I did which would make a saint blush, but my book reflects me.  It is truth – Ver-i-tas, the emblem of Harvard where I got to go when my son and future daughter in law graduated from law school.  Truth has been the one thing missing from all those books you have ready with their cutsy southern charm humor, so I let it all out.  Sins are uncovered, and I wrote truth.  I wrote fiction, but the fiction made the truth plausable, for I could bring in way more humor that way.

Barbara Everett Heintz, Me, I am going to Hollywood with my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and if I win an award I am not stopping there.  I have this thing about George Clooney and all of his good friends, that I do not think they know what lay in their back yards in this country, or they might have taken up the cause of endeavoring to help a new Appalachia where folks would go back to the old ways of taking care of themselves instead of depending on the government checks and having babies that cannot get proper medical care.  It is virtually impossible to get physicians to go to the back country, for they all still think our kind of folks smell and cannot pay.  If some physician would take care of my Aunt MIldred, she would see that they had Peacock feathers for the rest of their days.  Aunt Ruth would bake them a no bake fruit cake that is just delicious, and people would take care of their yards for free, and those who had insurance would see that the Drs. used it, so you get money, and you are crowned king of the country;  So what more would a physician ask for.  I need you Mr. Clooney, and Mr. Pitt, and all of you pretty girlfriends to know my people exist.

“Pinkhoneysuckle,”  it is our story, the one where we grow up, learn that we have sexual body parts, and, “Fight The Good Fight,” for we were trained to live that way.  Some people are not so nice back home, and you will meet them too, but what you are not going to be able to do is to not put my book down.  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” In my book you are going to need to cry and laugh, but it will not leave you the same.  I was called, “A Half Wit,” more times than once, for I would lead my mentally challenged little brother around Winchester, and James was not well, but it wasn’t hurting anyone that he would screech like a banchee when we were up town.  It was our business, and for all those who called me such names;  Just know that I am going to Hollywood, and the prize I win is all of our prizes for we put up with a lot of unlucky times.  Maybe this time, things are out of the bowels and in to the light, but next time, I am going to check out The Farmers Almanc to make certain that I am entering writing contest when the chief priests and scribes would have said, “Yes;” Then I just cannot lose.

Blessings, Barbara Everett Heintz – Author, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle Ready, Create Space, and Independent Book Stores Coast to Cloast

I hardly remember when I came in to Ohio this past spring time, for living through pulmonary embolisms, the ultimate death trap leaves one that way, but I came in all ready for snow, to smell chili steaming on my stove, and the irresistible chocolate brownie to take over the scent of my kitchen.  I would play with the grandchildren, have some special time with an old friend or two, and get to send survival letters back to California about being rugged in Ohio, lasting out a blizzard, stranded from the shopping malls and Church Bells which kept saying, “Come To Me,” as I pulled the warm covers over my healing body.  Oh yes; it would be winters of old, but this time I could stay in, run to the window and watch the snow fall on The Ohio, and my spirit would not be restless, for when one hits an age which comes to all at differeent times; Things in nature cascade like the beauty of a melting ice sheet crashing a scenic spot on the window where the warmest of life is released by a late winter sum beam.  It was all planned, and nature would see that the paintings of a new year nurtured Frank and me, our surgeries,our time to heal, but best of all it would be home in Ohio.

The months would paaa, and all old seasonal records would be broken as the spring time burst forth in February, and random hints of snow went further North than here in the North Star city, but all that was so beautifully expected of spring came almost three months early while the tows carrying their different grades of coal kept passing each other, and until around the end of March; I just could not believe that we had come in a year when winter was something happening in Nordic places with cities I cannot spell much less pronounce.  Mother Nature had to strip her bustier just to laugh as hard as one could at the site of fools such as me thinking I could predict something more wonderful than her advances, and when nature laughs, the thunder rolls, and this time it rolled very hard across the great plains snatching up homes, showing that old storm paths are not forgotten, and reminding us we have little control, so very little control over the ebbs and tides of time.

At this very moment my balcony is filled with plants that flower, and I have the largest star gazer lily which I have ever scene in full bloom to send me on for a while, to tend the next of our days back in California when we should enter June gloom when the fog comes hauntingly in over the Bay and we remind the rest of the country why few of us need air conditioners, and I will look around to see if my blue bird has come to welcome me, and our kitty will run up and down the upper floors like it is on speed, the drug, not the miles per hour.  It does that like a silly child;  “You’re back;  you’re back; what did you bring me; just what; oh what,”: and I am supposed to have left over turkey to fill his bowl, for Pie the cat loves turkey more than any Thanksgiving mortal any day of the year, and he speaks in cat language, reads time, and knows just the hours when you are supposed to give him some extra loving in a way people just cannot ask, for it makes us look so brave waiting to see who is vulnerable first.

I had the rose I swore was a gift  from Mary, Blessed Mary, the pretty coral rose which bloomed ahead of all of them, and for days it stood brilliantly over all the other blossoms to follow — This sweet rose with the faint scent you related to the last time we would see our mother, her tired hands filled with our little spray of pink roses to take on her journey with her, and everything around her was incensed with the roses and lilies, all the flowers she helped me learn to love, for my parents sat quietly when with each other on their front porch — waiting for a grown child to come home, and they took in the pleasure of birds, of flowers, of the pecan trees which had the nasty habit of falling off in one day.  Their hummingbirds all looked the same to us, but they new the aggresive ones, the sweet ones who would only come when the others left.  They new when a cow would look tormented in her labor and knew the exact hours to help pull the little calf to the light of day.  It was the way with them to know those things which were beyond other’s vision,  and each left us some of their gift, just some, for we all have been exposed to too much noise.

I woke one day, and the Mary Rose had laid its head over while the bush was so covered with blossoms that I could only see one big mass of flowers with the scent of small bouquets where rose oil gifts the air with a prevailing and loving presence, and I do not know why I could not take the one special one for myself, and in this moment;  in this hour the balcony garden is ready to burst forth again just in time for me to go home to San Francisco.  There, Nancy, an elegant neighbor has a white rose which looks as if it is white ever through until you see at the base a little pink which makes it shine and shimmer like a wedding bouquet, and it runs down our back redwood fence as if it were our own.  Hydrangeas will be in full bloom, and even the crack houses in some of the districts where no one plants, beagenvilla just blooms everywhere along with the daisys we adore on the East Coast, but are considered to be weeds out west.  It will all be there.

I can breath better than when I came, for sometimes during the recovery from the PE, I would forget to breath, and that is something beyond me that breathing can be forgotten when one’s body decides to deceive them.  Frank is still limping after the second Achilles Tendon snap and rupture, so we have to decide who gets to take care of whom as we go about our days.  When you are young, even as young as 40 years old, most cannot imagine that bodies have a time when it decides that to just maintain a portion of good health, you are going to do battle, for we were born to make children, to help the new generation get started, and then to go on to a shining moment when we die and behold our God.  It seems so improbable, but I know that angels are.  I have been in the tunnel of light, and I have a guide with no name, and it has come in the form of many people and even a sweet dog who warned us away from the blackberry vines and took the copperhead bite for his own.  He walked across pasture for a while with a haunting wail, and he would be buried before the sunset, but we knew, for the copperheads had been there before.  It was like a trap, for the berries at that sight were the plumpest, most beautiful of all the groves before you began to trek in to the deep woods which held all sorts of secrets from flowers growing from the bark of trees to termites feeding hungrily on a log, and song birds were deafening, for they had to stand as guardians across all of the forest, singing, singing,  “Stand back,” “Come near,” and all is well before going in to a mad frenzy at the site of a red fox which would leave us alone, for it was not the hunter of winter months when even a person, especially a small one appeared to be a tasty meal.

I must bathe well, and lotion all of my skin with a touch of rose scent, mark out instructions of what must have water well in to the fall, for I do not expect to return much before then, and the summer season will pass for Frank and for me.  I sometimes feel that we are ducks moving in a row at one of those carnival games, for we have had substantial times in life where we were fully on the edge, and only a well set tiny stone on the cliff has kept us in place, so we must listen to our guides, listen to internal thoughts, know they are not magical but are Holy and mystical, and they have seen us safe this far.  We have things left to do and places which need mending.  I did not want to be broken so soon; No, I did not, and theere are those who brought shallow old thread and basted in places where heart break lives, and for them the time of needing silk threads may be as great as our own.

I have always known that those who hurt with purpose, and those who settle on ground where they have dug places for the carcass of wounded people, much less those who gave birth to them and honestly loved them more than words could have ever said – It is only a while before the winter settles in and the red fox hungers before they shall see that our Guides, all of nature, and, “Yes,” our God will hold them to a higher counsel, and in that hour it is theirs to wail, for unlike the wounded collie;  They sent you to the wild berries which harbored all that was beautiful only to ease you in, before you see the copper bands move like a flash, break the skin, and tear you until the mockingbird repeats its song and the death knell rings.

” Where did the rose petals fall from the first gift of the vine, the little coral bush?,” I ask myself, and I remember to throw rose petals on the summer’s air so some may come east and heal the one who beats the drums?  We will know, for the fragrance travels on the air when simple gifts blow sweetly over the desset and plains to the new morning.  It is enough today just to know that each breath is free, that Frank can walk again, a for this while we have only to see where the days take us.  We accept our sprays of roses hold them near to us and, for now; we abide.

Barbara Everett Heintz, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle Ready, Create Space, Indes –First Honorable Mention San Francisco 2012 Book Festival Biography/Autobiography
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