FOUND STORY

I belong to a snail mail/Yahoo group of writers who are extraordinary women writers. Tracy Johnson is our fearless leader/coordinator; she does an outstanding job each month to keep us all connected. This month she asked us to write a piece about organization. It brought to mind the new office I have and all the care that went into putting everything in place again. It also made me spend some time in several of those boxes of clippings, ideas, research--ones I haven't gone through yet.

We never know what gems we have if we are unorganized. Or what ideas we've had in the past that might be usuable--if only we knew where to lay our hands on them. I was tossing out here and there, saving this and that, and then I came across the beginning of a story I just might be able to use. See what you think with this first offering (more tomorrow).

Untitled Beginning

I guess I made a friend on the first day I moved into the old doublewide on grandpa's farm. All it took was asking Lincoln Skaines, he's my neighbor across the road, to haul off all the junk filling up the yard. But I'm thinking what really did it was telling him the deal included the Old John Deere tractor perched on blocks in the barn.

Lincoln spat a gob of thick dark tobacco juice near my hot-pink-painted toenails peeking out of Italian leather sandals. "Won't your husband be a little put out when he finds his tractor missin'?"

Doesn't it frost you when men, especially Southern men over sixty, figure there has to be a man in every woman's life--or she couldn't survive? Right!

"I'm not married. Well, not anymore. Divorced." I watched the word sink in. "James Clayborne left me the farm." I offered my hand. "I'm his granddaughter, Abby Clayborne."

He ignored the hand. "Thought you was married." Then he pulled up short. "Once upon a time you were married?" He gave a snort, sort of a sound of disbelief.

Who did Lincoln Skaines think he was--God of these parts?

I stood my ground. "Yes, I was married. I took back my maiden name--no reason to keep any connection with a loser, is there?"

He surprised me by laughing, slapping me on the back, almost knocking me over. "I like strong women. My Hazel's like that--you'll have to meet her. How 'bout comin' over for supper--we're havin' chicken 'n dumplins."

My mouth watered. But I had been raised in the city by a mother who wouldn't even go to the apartment manager's office without a written notice--never would she accept a verbal invitation to share the table with a cook who didn't even know you were coming. But it sure sounded good.

"Won't she. . .won't Hazel be a little upset with an uninvited guest for dinner?"

"Guest? You're a neighbor--and old Jimmy's kin. That makes you almost family."
***

Comments welcome.