Author: David

Mondays with Martin: Winding Roads

David Martin

In 1829 the future President Martin Van Buren wrote to then President Andrew Jackson, asking him to slow down on his progressive moves to face the future in the young United States of America.

 

Dear President Jackson:

The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as “railroads.” The federal government MUST preserve the canals for the following reasons:

ONE: if canal boats are supplanted by these new “railroads,” serious unemployment will result. Captains, docks, drivers and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed growing hay for horses.

TWO: Boat builders would suffer, and towline, whip and harness makers would be left destitute. 

THREE: Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defense of the United States. In the event of the expected trouble with England, the Erie Canal would be the only means by which we could ever move the supplies so vital to waging modern war.

As you may well know, Mr. President, “railroad” carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by “engines” which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock, and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.

Martin Van Buren,

Governor of New York

 

This letter, which was written three years after Thomas Jefferson died, might be the ultimate example of conservative thinking. Really, canal boats are better for the United States than railroads? Now, we know those roaring and snorting engines that “endangered” passengers in 1829 are still vital to our country’s economy, and fifteen miles per hour is no longer “breakneck speed.”

Mankind’s journeys have come in many fashions: horses, bicycles, boats, railroads, automobiles, airplanes, computers, cell phones, and space travel. Whatever our mobility mode, look for the roads less travelled. Life seldom follows a straight line from point A to Z, and our personal journeys add clarity to the telling of our stories. They allow us to have fun with the written word and build the creative corners of our minds that we did not know existed. Each paragraph we write acts like a railroad car of its own, carrying characters, messages, and a cargo of ideas across vistas that complete the breakneck train-ride of our lives.

 

Some people think Monte Walsh was the best western novel ever written (1963). Since the author also wrote Shane (1949), Jack Schaefer captured the timely saga of a dying way of life, where the lonely cowboy meets the changing modern way of living. It is ironic that the Monte Walsh movie of the same name takes place in Harmony, Arizona.

My father always wanted to be a real cowboy, like Tom Mix, Lash Larue, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Shane, and Walsh, but when he returned from WWII with three Purple Hearts, his legs and feet were so damaged by bullets and shrapnel that they were unable to do the hard riding and physical work a cowboy must do every day. He only took his boots off to sleep, because he could hardly walk without their firm, high arch support. I imagine him talking with one of these cowboys, and they are wearing their favorite pair of leather boots.

Dad’s favorite companion was a beautiful Morgan mare named Gin. She ruled every pen and pasture she entered. Her eyes were alert. Her ears were always up. When I looked at her, I could see her thinking about how to survive in a world of animals and humans. Gin lived for thirty-three years, which is old for horses. From her, I learned it is a mistake to assume all animals will react identically to the same stimuli. Some need rewards at every turn. Some only want encouragement to achieve superior results. People are the same.

 

Every day, Mom suffered, because she hoped for an educated life, one that provided a better living, one where people graduated from college and became professionals. She flinched every time she heard the song “Don’t Let Your Sons Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” That ballad was not her friend. While she let me work with Dad during the day, she made sure I spent an equal amount of time with her in the town library, at piano practice, and doing homework for school. She smiled the most when we had late night chats in the kitchen, puzzling over life’s questions and the abstract ideas I found interesting in the books I read. 

She let me find my own road in life. I wanted to be myself, but I had a hard time learning who that was. I searched for years to discover me. Many of my blue highways did not appear on maps. I rode horses in saddle club contests and learned cowboy lingo. I read Victor Hugo all night and loved the flow of his words. I coached young boys how to put basketballs into nets and took those skills into classrooms to score points with teachers who listened to me. I pumped gas and learned some of the oil business. I balanced a checkbook for the first time and took great pride in being thrifty. I drove grain trucks and felt the land’s treasure riding in the back. I delivered newspapers and brought the world news to my customers’ front doors. I wrote magazine articles, managed a church, studied philosophy, fed cattle, and learned how to adapt in life in order to survive. 

I was frustrated with my imperfections. However, when I discovered “perfection” was just another word, and there were no perfect human beings, no perfect Standard English, no perfect religion, no perfect student, no perfect teacher, no perfect parent, no perfect planet, and no perfect god, I relaxed. I stopped looking for and expecting perfection in myself and others. The word “progress” interested me. If I improved a little each day, that was enough. This realization gave me reason to ride more trains and investigate more winding roads. 

 

One day in my biology high school class, when I was dreaming out loud with friends, I said that I wanted to go to college and do something exciting, but I did not know what to study. 

My teacher heard me and said, “Oh, you are just your father’s son. You will be like him and run his gas station or one of his farms, someday.” I can still hear her tired, raspy voice say those words. They haunt me still.

She hardly ever talked to me, because she was my mother’s and father’s teacher, and she believed I was an average student, having known them. She did not see anything special about them or me, and I did not expect that she ever would. Still, this hurtful comment was not what I hoped to hear from any adult teacher. She was full of negativity, darkness, lack of hope, and I never felt inspired in her classroom. That day, I almost let her kill part of me, my dream of becoming the first person in my family to earn a college education. 

 

After school was out for the summer that year, I was working with Dad, one day, and we walked into his favorite saloon for lunch. He seemed so comfortable that a chill of premonition went down my spine. That bar represented his life and the status quo he liked. I just wanted to eat, get back on the tractor, finish my day’s work, and in the evening go to the library. I wanted to live my life, not his. In high school, I knew that if I wanted to write, I needed to read more. I felt like a little bird with a broken wing, because I could not get off the ground. When healed, I imagined flying high, soaring with words beneath my wings. Mom would like that.

I had plans to read, write about topics that were fun to investigate, and discover substantial information that would pull me into my future adult life. My pearls of joy were those books resting on the rows of shelves. Each volume was a treasure of its own, and I dreamed that one day my name would have a place on a shelf, too. 

That night, a librarian asked me, “Are you a writer?” 

She caught me off guard, and I blushed. “Well, I want to be one, someday, but I don’t know if I have what it takes to get started.” 

She said with a smile, “You won’t know until you try.” 

 

Winding roads have curves, and some have bridges. Forgiveness is a bridge between leaving the past and improving tomorrow. I learned to face difficult times, when I found chaos is where creativity is born. The more I read, the more I changed, and the toughest times taught me the most. Those books led me over rough waters, where I learned to forgive myself. When I opened the books, I imagined light erupting from the pages, and I walked forward into their light. One of the earliest self-affirmation bridges I experienced was when my passion for reading helped me through my toughest year. I read 150 books in 12 months. I felt more confident about a lot of things when that year ended. Those bridges taught me to not let my limitations define me.

Once, Dad looked at me, and without speaking, he asked, “Why do you want to be different?” 

I responded in the same way, “Some of me is you. Some of me is Mom. I just want to be me. That is who I want to be.”

He did not know what to say, so he said nothing.

Years later, I heard Bob Marley sing what I felt: “One love, one heart, let’s get together and feel all right.”

With these lessons, I grew page by page. I dug deeper. I thought harder. I saw further.

When I was lonely, I found puppies that took me in. Every dog needed a boy or a girl. Children liked their dogs, and dogs liked their boys and girls. Puppies helped me make the best of the way things turned out. They taught me to be humble enough to be coached, and I learned even the youngest and smallest in a litter can learn. The most stubborn puppy changed his attitude, when motivated to do so. When my furry friends were stubborn, I got down on the floor with them, let them lick my face, looked them in both eyes, told them what they had to do, and never let them do otherwise. They did not forget the look in my eyes, the tone of my voice, what I told them, and how much I cared for them. If they didn’t follow my commands, I did not care enough. 

 

Grandfather was a positive role model for me in many ways, and I felt lucky to be around him on the weekends, when Mother and I came for visits on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. When I was a little boy, maybe eight-years-old, reading did not come easily for me, and opening a book required much planning and effort. 

One day, I walked into Grandfather’s library, and there was a half-cut apple on the card-table next to his comfortable reading chair, a steaming cup of coffee, three open books lying next to each other, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” playing on the big radio, and hand-written notes on a large, yellow tablet. As I sat down, the breeze outside ruffled the shades in the open window. 

He was the smartest man I knew, and his interests included agriculture, human evolution, politics, and the St. Louis Cardinals. There was no question I ever asked him that he could not answer. At that age, all I had to do was listen. When he talked, he kept me at the end of his out-stretched arms, and when he felt an important point in the conversation was about to arrive, he squeezed my shoulders for emphasis, so I would know to remember what he said.

We lived in a small town, and as far as I knew, no one important lived there. To most of the townsfolk, Grandfather seemed like any ordinary 60-year-old man, but he felt special to me. Although he farmed every day, I never saw him sweat. How is that possible? I asked my mother that same question. She said she did not know, so I watched him closely. After a few weeks of diligent observation, I could see that he never hurried. He never pushed. He smiled all the time, and he talked to all the animals on the farm. It seemed as if he had the best job in the world. What did this mean? 

Grandfather was an organizer, a planner, and he never did anything or spoke a word, unless he thought about his actions ahead of time. He always got up early, before the sun rose, and when it was the coolest part of the day, he did eight hours of work before noon. Then, he would eat lunch and take a nap. When he worked in the afternoon, he was in the shade, if possible, took ten minutes out of every hour for a cool drink, put his feet up, and rested awhile. His smile always showed up, because he enjoyed what he did. His love for farming was contagious, and we all wanted to help him. 

One day, after lunch, he and I sat on the shady front porch. His eyes were closed, as he rested, before he went back to the field to work. I was listening to a train going down the tracks in the distance, blowing its whistle.

I asked him a question. “Grandpa, will I grow up to be like you?”

He opened his eyes, slowly. “What did you say?”

“Well, you seem so happy all the time, and you like what you do every day. I don’t know anybody else who likes what they do so much. I want to be like that.”

His eyes got bigger, and he laughed. “If I help other people and do a good job at it, that is a good thing, right?”

“Yes.”

“We are a family, and we are supposed to help each other in as many ways as possible. Well, being a conscientious farmer is doing God’s work. Feeding people healthy food is one man’s way of praying. I often feel like an artist of the soil, when I drive my tractor during planting season. I plow, disc, till, plant, weed the rows, and harvest the crops. When I take care of the Earth, it takes care of me. Our heaven might just be below our feet.”

“I’m not sure I understand all of that. Last week, my teacher tried to tell us what a metaphor was. Did you do one of those just now?”

“Maybe.”

“It would be nice, if more people worked with those goals in mind, right?

He stood up to go back to work, arranged his hat, placed his hands on my shoulders, and squeezed them.

Then, he smiled and said, “In the future, instead of planting soybeans, wheat, and corn every spring, wouldn’t it be great to have a tractor that could plant truth, justice, and freedom for all? In the fall, we’d harvest knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom. Those different crops in the barn would come in pretty handy, when we needed them. We must never limit ourselves. We will never know what we can achieve, until we try.”

I replied, “I want a job like that.”

He hugged me, and I saw his eyes twinkle. 

“Don’t over think it, sonny,” he said. “Just begin.” 

Mondays with Martin: Best Friends

By David Martin

For most of his Nebraska farming days, Grandfather Edgar Schock had no tractor, and he said the smartest thing he ever did was buy two, black, Belgian draft horses, because they saved his life and farm, while providing for the family, when he was unable to do the work himself. Every morning and evening, he brushed them, lovingly. In turn, they protected his tuberculosis-scarred lungs.

Blaze and Lady always had good grain and hay to eat, and Gramps talked to them, when he was in their stalls, as they were his children. Their affectionate eyes watched him, constantly. Horse and human, their bond was sensitive, strong, and intuitive. Their ears followed his quiet sounds, as he fed them, but like radar, they went suspiciously flat when strangers were loud or got too close.

Although he was quite ill, Grandmother said that Gramps never seemed as sick after his friends arrived. He was awake before sunrise and could not get out of the house fast enough, after eating his own breakfast, in order to care for those two beautiful animals, his best friends, and give them their first meal of the day. Both horses seemed to know how important they were to this skinny, two-legged creature, who worked every day in the fields with them and thought it was a privilege to join their team.

He became an artist of the soil and used these heavily muscled paintbrushes with bobbed tails to color in fields of corn, alfalfa, and nature’s unique composition. At the end of exhausting workdays, the four-legged corn eaters with broad hooves, soft noses, and gentle hearts stuck their mouths under the surface of the cold tank water and blew bubbles like kids, laughing together at a summer swimming pool.

The only time Mother saw her father cry was when the big truck came that cold day and took the horses to the sale barn. He could not say goodbye to his old friends. After they left the barnyard that last time, Gramps was never as cheerful or stood as straight in the sun.

“Farming was never the same after that day,” he said.

The next week, a red metal tractor appeared. The deliveryman said it could do the work of ten teams and would not need corn and hay for fuel.

Weeks later, one evening after we finished supper, he got up from the table and left the house without telling anyone where he was going. Grandmother looked at me and nodded her head, so I followed him. He walked down the path away from the house into the cornfield and disappeared. I walked quickly to catch up with him.

“Hey, where ya goin’ so fast?”

He was surprised to see me and slowed down, so I could catch up with him.

He rubbed tears from his eyes with one hand and put the other on my shoulder.

“I wanted to go to the barn and pet Blaze and Lady, but they’re not here, now, so I’m going to talk to the corn. In the field, those horses, wherever they are, will hear how much I miss them. Life is not the same without my friends. Tractors get hot but are never warm. That pair nudged me in the back with their noses when we talked, looking for another wedge of hay at day’s end, and thanking me for loving them the way friends do. I’ll never have buddies like that, again.”

“Hey, Gramps, I can be your buddy.”

He laughed, coughed, and more tears rolled down his cheeks.

“I’d like that.”

Mondays with Martin: A Personal Trinity

By David Martin

You Must Be There
the music is playing
and it sounds like heaven
so you must be there
the night glimmers when
you slip on that white dress and
we hold each other close
our love moves to the rhythm
and the temperature rises
as the floor becomes ours alone
one two three one two three
we keep pace with each other
together our hearts create tomorrows

 

this is our song 

everything we feel we are 

let’s dance like we mean it

 

2.  Together 

 

Here he comes 

running into this moment 

we have on a sunny morning

 

from beyond the darkness of sleep 

from a time of warm shadows 

from the happy sprinting which moves

 

the dry pages of my book 

and drops the necessary facts of life 

like bones at my feet causing his black eyes

 

above a panting tongue and wet nose 

each holding a caring passion for me 

and I can almost hear his words in between

 

his rapid fire barking 

“ruff — ruff — ruff” 

let’s walk now

 

3.  Now Is the Write Time 

 

If Ted Kooser can send poems to Jim Harrison, 

now is the “write” time to compose a verse for Vince McAndrew.

He motivates me to elevate my thoughts.

 

I can’t explain this situation. 

I don’t even write rhythmical composition. 

It is a darned hard thing to do.

 

With Kooser’s model and Vince’s acceptance, 

I will write a poem every . . . , well, whenever I feel like it. 

Then, I am going to burden him with their interpretations.

 

It doesn’t matter if he comments or not,

because I know he will have better things to do, 

but having an audience is better than pitching horseshoes.

 

Beware: we have a poet-in-progress, and 

he is a card-carrying member of Over Writers Anonymous: 

No Fear — No Perfection — Only Progress.

 

This new poet may attempt William Kloefkorn’s  

“Snowball Theory of Composition: 

Inspiration, Perspiration, and Compression,”  

 

which will create little treasures 

without a Map Quest app to move molehills, 

if not mountains.

Mondays With Martin: This Moment

By David Martin

I am a little bird
with broken wings, afraid of the future.
My cracked dreams flutter, lack direction,
and refuse to take flight.

When I struggle to find purpose,
it is not necessary to travel 4,000 miles for a perfect photograph
or seek answers in barbaric places where crisis rules.
Destiny will take care of itself.

It only takes 39 digits of pi
to calculate the circumference of the universe
to an accuracy the size of a hydrogen atom,
yet, I spend little time measuring the boundary of my heart.

When the community counts and respect for truth rules,
where people meet to find the best among them is holy ground.
The urgent must not displace the important,
and there is no substitution for amputated spirits.

Not yesterday. Not tomorrow.
Not history. Not mystery
Today is the focus.
I am grateful, now.

I didn’t come this far to go somewhere else,
and my little corner of the world brightens.
In the trying, the healing happens.
This moment is the answer.

Mondays with Martin: There is More

Editor’s note: This “Mondays with Martin” originally ran back in 2006.  It’s still important reading today.

 

David Martin

In 1990, one of my English classes was filled with downtown, street-wise, tough high school teenagers who were one step from expulsion. All of them failed English class before, at least once, some of them several times. They did not want to be in school, and they couldn’t wait to leave those classroom walls. They did not do homework for other teachers, when it was assigned, and they stared at me like they dared me to teach them anything. Half of the class was black. The rest were Caucasian, Latino, Vietnamese, and Native American, but the meanest looking and most physical was a white boy named Jack.

This group of “at-risk” juvenile delinquents was quiet, like the silence before a storm. If they misbehaved, they knew their days as students in that urban high school were over, and the street was the only thing they had waiting for them. Most of them knew what that meant: gangs, hard work, prison, and an early death from drugs. They all had friends or family in one of those places.

Jack never talked to anyone in class, including me. For all I knew, he was mute. From the first day of class in August to the week before Thanksgiving, he did not talk to anyone. He turned in enough work to maintain a passing grade, but when I asked him a question, he shrugged his shoulders and refused to reply.

He never took his eyes away from mine. Whenever I turned around, after helping another student or when I looked up from my desk, his eyes were on me. After a few days, I was leery to turn my back on him. I started doing things in class, so I always faced him. He sat in the next to last seat in the second row from the door, and I planned all my classroom activity, so I had one or two rows between us. Jack only let one student sit behind him, George, who was everyone’s friend and always seemed happy. George was slow and had behavioral development issues, but he tried to read and write, even though he was four grade levels behind his peers.

Some of the girls in class had children. Carlotta was nineteen-years-old and had three. It was forbidden in school to flash gang signs, but when she wasn’t paying attention to me, I could see her give a sign to another girl across the room. She was pretty and smart, and all the boys spoke to her every day, except Jack. When she spoke to him, he glared at her. After awhile, she ignored him.

Some of the boys were scarred by fights, and they never relaxed, even in class. They were always looking over their shoulders, like the worst thing that could ever happen to them was be caught off-guard or surprised, and where they came from, they were probably right.

The first day of class, I walked through the door and looked at this collection of races and attitudes, of dark sunglasses and darker souls, of defensive body language and silent despair, of low motivation and lack of hope. I said to myself, “Oh, Lord, why me?”

The next day, when I saw the principal, I asked him, “Why me?”

His answer was, “No one else would take the class, and we thought you could make them work. You’ve coached seven sports. You get along with any student who tries. Give them a chance. They all know that if they don’t do what you tell them, they will fail the class and won’t be allowed back in school.”

I agonized about how to teach this unusual collection of young adults who did not fit into any group in the school. How would I get them to write essays, learn poetry, and read the standard curriculum? They didn’t do those things before, so I knew I had to try something different. I threw the school’s traditional way of doing things out the window, metaphorically. I decided we would write every day and keep a journal of our own work. Our writing notebooks became our textbooks, and I graded their work by the pound. In this class, the sweat that appeared from pushing a pen across the lines on the paper would earn credit. Three days a week, I would bring ideas for us to write about, and two days a week, different students would bring ideas from their personal lives for the class to write about. In effect, they would share in teaching the class. We sat in a circle, and everyone was equal.

Chemistry started to build between us. Slowly, trust crept into the room, silently and unseen. I would not let students enter class, if they didn’t bring their journals every day. I brought photocopies of chapters from many classics, and we read those, often out loud. Text books scared these students, but they would read, discuss, and study anything that was photocopied. One reading I handed out that created the biggest stir from these young, angry rebels was “The Song of Hugh Glass” in A Cycle of the West by John Neihardt.

I introduced Neihardt’s epic poem and talked about defeat and victory, rejection and acceptance, revenge, and forgiveness. I thought I saw Jack’s lips move in response to something I said, but when I called on him, he shook his long hair that touched his shoulders and refused to speak. I knew he wanted to ask a question, but he would not verbalize it. He sat there in his long, black, leather coat, years before Columbine, and I thought, “Will I ever reach this one?” When I read his journal entry about Hugh Glass’s true story, I felt a strong passion come out of his pen that started to show a different aspect of his character.

Over the next few weeks, everyone helped read Neihardt’s long poem in class, except Jack. We slowly read every word, and I took my time, like I was walking beside Glass and giving a “play by play account” of this unusual, adventure experience. Outwardly, Jack gave the impression that he was too good to participate or too cool; however, his journal relayed another story. After each verse, after each page, we stopped and talked about what we read. I helped interpret many words and put the lines in a context everyone could grasp. Each time I looked up, Jack’s eyes met mine.

When he turned in his notebook to me, as the others did, every Friday, I made sure to write something about his thoughts on every page. All my comments were positive. I believe in the power of positive reinforcement, and he had so much rejection in his life that I did not want to add to that long, negative list of “downers.” I was surprised to find out that he was a deep thinker. No one could see what he wrote but me. I was amazed. His words were philosophical and intellectual. The sentences and paragraphs were not filled with the anger he generated with his body language and glacial stares in class. There was a good mind leaking out between the lines of his writing. Was there a heart in there, too?

I read to the class from “The Song of Hugh Glass”:

“Alas for those who fondly place above

The act of loving, what they chance to love;

Who prize the goal more dearly than the way!

For time shall plunder them, and change betray,

And life shall find them vulnerable still.

 

A bitter-sweet narcotic to the will,

Hugh’s love increased the peril of his plight;

But anger broke the slumber of his might,

Quickened the heart and warmed the blood that ran

Defiance for the treachery of Man,

Defiance for the meaning of his pain,

Defiance for the distance of the plain

That seemed to gloat, ‘You can not master me.’

 

And for one burning moment he felt free

To rise and conquer in a wind of rage.

But as a tiger, conscious of the cage,

A-smolder with a purpose, broods and waits,

So with the sullen patience that is hate’s

Hugh taught his wrath to bide expedience.”

 

Jack shifted in his seat and rocked back and forth. He leaned forward and squeezed his pen so hard that I thought it would snap in half. While I asked other students how they interpreted those words, Jack stood up, slowly, left the group, and went to the windows and looked outside, quietly. He stood there for twenty minutes and only left when the bell rang to end the period.

The next day he wrote about rage and anger for ten pages. There were no paragraphs, just a stream-of-consciousness writing, like Holden Caulfield on steroids. He told of the injustices he witnessed, a death in the family, depression, fear, no strong male presence at home, loneliness, all the “phonies” he met in his short life, unable to control his anger, and why his court probation was connected to fighting.

The next day, I asked the students for permission to print some of their work in a four-page pamphlet that I would bring to class and share with them. Each person would get a copy, and they could take extra ones home for their family and friends. I got a verbal acceptance from everyone in class, except Jack. When I looked at him, he simply nodded. That was the first, positive gesture he made since school began months ago.

In 1990, our school had ten, old Apple computers, and they were always in use with a waiting line of teachers hoping to use them, so I bought my own and planned to do the layout of the student writing at home for our first, little publication. I didn’t mention my ideas to the class again, because I was preoccupied with learning how to turn on my new computer so it would not explode in my face, teaching myself how to run a desktop publishing program, not swearing loudly while my own children were at my desk, grading papers from school, doing lesson plans for all of my classes, getting enough sleep to stay awake in class, and staying sane.

Many weeks later, I walked into class, and without saying a word, I started passing out our first class newsletter. All the writing came from students in Jack’s class, and I could hear a few gasps and “Wow’s” as they started reading their own copies. By the time I got to the next to the last row passing out the copies, I heard Jack yell out loud, “What is this?”

All the students and I jerked around like we had been shot. Jack talked, and he was on his feet and walking toward the front of the room. He was 6’ 4” and weighed 225 pounds. He should have been on the football field daily after school, because he was such a good athlete, but he had such a poor, grade point average, the head coach would not let him come out for the team.

As he strode down the aisle, I thought he was coming for me, but when he got to the front of the class, he turned and walked directly through the open door out of the room into the hall. He stopped out of sight of the other students, turned around, and motioned for me to come into the hall with him. I told a student in the front seat, “If I am not back in five minutes, go to the office for help.”

I walked into the hall and said, “Hang on, Jack, you can’t leave our class.”

Jack surprised me. His eyes got wet, and he began to cry. Tears came down his cheeks. With much anger, he asked, “Why did you put my writing on the front page?”

I didn’t know if he was going to hit me or what. I said, “Jack, your writing is consistently the best writing in the class. It deserves to be on the front page. You have talent. I hope you write a lot more, and I am proud of you.”

Then, the tears flowed heavily. “No one ever said I had talent in school before. What do I do, now?” He hung his head and stared at the floor, as water splattered on his shoes.

I felt him change in front of me. I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Go down the hall, and get a drink of water. Take ten deep breaths. Then, come back into class, because this is where you belong. From Monday to Friday, from 2:00 to 2:50 p.m., this is your home. Hold onto that notebook, and tonight, write into it like you are writing to your best friend. Tell it what you are thinking. Hold onto your pen, like it was your life-line. Don’t let go of it, until you are so tired of writing that you have no energy left. Whatever you do, tell the truth with your words. Make every word ring with honesty. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just write. Tell the truth. When you are done, let your “new friend” talk back to you, and all you have to do is listen. Write everything down. You don’t have to show it to anyone, unless you choose to do so. Now, go get that drink of water.”

As he turned to leave, he stopped and moved toward me. I froze. He looked at me. I will never forget those black eyes looking down into mine: part animal, part divine, part confusion, part determination, part anger, and part pride. Those eyes haunt me still. Then he hugged me and said, “Did Hugh Glass ever survive?”

Tears came to my eyes, and I had to look at the floor. I said, “Come on, I will go with you. I need a drink of water, too.”

As we walked down the hall and back to the classroom, several students looked out the door, trying to find where we went. When Jack and I entered the room, the other students wanted to know where we went. Jack smiled. It was now the week before Thanksgiving, and none of us had ever seen him smile in class.

As he sat down in his seat, he said to the other students, “Come on you guys; relax. I want to see what happened to that mountain man. Can you imagine crawling 100 miles after being half-eaten by a grizzly? That is some kind of courage. I don’t think I could do what he did.”

After that day, there were many more class newsletters. Jack’s writing was in most of them, and he was the primary inspiration who sparked that anemic, classroom pamphlet to grow into Fine Lines, now a quarterly magazine for new writers of all ages. What started as a classroom motivator to encourage marginal students to write more after they saw their work in print and read by other students, teachers, and administrators became a publication which is used today in all grade levels: elementary, middle, high school, college, and graduate school.

Jack’s grades slowly began to rise. He came in to see me after school and asked for help with his homework in other classes when he needed it. He still had to check in weekly with his probation officer, but he did graduate from high school. I found out, years later, that he stayed out of jail, worked his way through a two-year community college, graduated from a small, four-year college in another state, majored in journalism, and got a job with a small newspaper in South Carolina. He moved on from there, and I do not know where he is today.

I remember the last entry of Neihardt’s All Is But a Beginning: Youth Remembered, 1881-1901. An old man tells of his youthful vision quest and how he felt like a failure after experiencing the three-days and nights of fasting on a lonely hill praying and hoping Wakon Tonka would appear then provide a spiritual message as he entered manhood. The old man admitted he had no great dream to tell when he returned to the tribe.

“If I have no vision to give me power and guide me, how can I ever be a man? Maybe, I shall have to go far off into a strange land and seek an enemy to free me from this shame.”

Then, just as he had this bitter thought, a great cry came from overhead like a fearless warrior hailing his wavering comrade in the heart of battle. “Hoka-hey, brother – Hold fast, hold fast; there is more!” Looking up, he saw an eagle soaring yonder on a spread of mighty wings, and it was the eagle’s voice he heard.

“As I listened,” the old man said, “a power ran through me that has never left me, old as I am. Often, when it seemed the end had come, I have heard the eagle’s cry, ‘Hold fast, hold fast, there is more.’ ”

Mondays with Martin: Beethoven or Baseball?

David Martin

When I write at a computer, I often hear instrumental music with a piano leading the melody. I never notice words or lyrics. As I place my fingers on the keyboard, I sense a concert hall and a quiet audience, waiting. I hear a symphony in the background, and I see Ludwig van Beethoven in my mind.

Why music? Why the piano? Why Beethoven? More importantly, why at the computer? After years of wondering, the answer became clear to me one night, as I tied sentences together and coasted into the 3 a.m. darkness.

When I was young, my mother and I argued weekly about how much time I should practice the piano. There was a nice Baldwin in the house, and she wanted me to play it.

One day, I heard Mother talking to her friends about classical music. The name “Beethoven” came up in their conversation, and I paid attention every time his name was mentioned. “He was the best German composer,” she said.

At first, I was curious if I could make my fingers please Mom, and I was serious with my lessons for awhile. I practiced, diligently, so I could perform at a planned student recital a few months away. Would she think I was a little Beethoven? The stage fright I experienced at that small gathering killed my interest in playing. I knew Beethoven was beyond my reach.

However, the biggest competition for my piano playing time was baseball. I wanted to play centerfield for the New York Yankees when I grew up. Mickey Mantle, I imagined, was my big brother. I was the oldest child in my family, and I needed a brother to look up to, so I picked him. Fast, strong, able to hit on both sides of the plate, and unstoppable chasing fly balls that would be hits against other outfielders in Major League Baseball, he was my hero.

I loved the grass in “my office.” It smelled good. I thrived on the isolation in the outfield and knew it was my job to manage the players on either side of me. I dared batters on the other team to get a ball past me. That did not happen often.

The respect I got from the coach and the rest of the team motivated me to concentrate on the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand on each throw, so I could get a jump on the batter’s swing, as he made contact. I had to cover more ground than any other player. I wanted to be the best I could be, and I felt excited when I caught a line-drive on the run, grabbed a pop fly out of the sun, and threw a frozen rope from deep center field to home plate before the opponent on third could score.

My fingers were meant to throw baseballs, not find middle “C” on the piano. I liked the feel of my hand around the leather ball. I felt the gift of strength in my arm, and if I kept practicing, I would receive more praise from my coach and teammates.

Every Saturday at 10 a.m., God bless her, Mother would make sure I was seated on the piano bench doing my scales to warm up before practicing the new piece my instructor assigned for the next session. Weekly, this routine took place. My desire to improve was not as great as hers. While she dreamed of “Moonlight Sonata,” I dreamed of the Chicago White Sox visiting Yankee Stadium.

In the spring, one Saturday morning, my life changed. As I sat on the piano bench absorbed in a new piece of sheet music, three of my closest friends knocked loudly on the front porch door, only a few feet away from me, as I was lost thought.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

I nearly fell off the piano bench in fright.

One of the boys yelled, “Hey, Dave, we’re going to the baseball field, and we need you to practice some plays. We want to win that first game of the season. Come on.”

Quickly, Mother said, “Tell them you can play in about an hour, after you finish your piano practice.”

“But, Mom, they need me now,” I replied.

“Your promise to me comes first,” she whispered.

The boys on the porch were all older friends from the neighborhood. They played infield positions, because they did not like the outfield. They thought playing there was boring and too much work. They felt better on the dirt, and they needed me to back them up in the outfield.

I was not going to win this contest. Either my friends or Mom would not like my decision. I could always do piano practice later, like my friends said. They would not wait forever. I knew I would be grown up soon, and the Yankees would call me.

Mom’s hands slowly folded across her chest. Her eyes filled with tears.

Beethoven or baseball? I knew that I loved centerfield more than the piano, so I made my move. Fifty years later, I still feel my legs slowly sliding off the piano bench and moving toward the front door.

“Mom, I’ll be back after baseball practice,” I reassured her, but I did not hear her say anything.

As I reached for my leather glove, she reached for the music pages.

When I stepped through the door onto the porch, the oldest boy put his arm around my shoulders and said, “We need you, buddy,” and the other boys agreed.

As I started down one of the many roads I took to reach manhood, I imagined my piano music being torn in half.

Today, in my mind, I sense a bust of Beethoven behind me when I type, and I always write with his music in the background. His powerful notes calm me and let me find inner paths to explore with words. I have no fear of him, anymore, so I write on.

I find time each day to type a little “music,” and sometimes, I talk to him. The music of reflection is a solitary tune. I roll through the storm clouds of life listening to “da-da-da-dum,” as I hear notes coming from the keyboard. The letters that make my words become piano keys, and I don’t look over my shoulders anymore.

Composing my “music” on paper shows me I learned to listen, while playing the piano and running in the sun. I learned the most in both activities when I did not talk, because there is power and strength in finding silent spaces during the day.

The secret of composition is to not think of the ending and what comes before the last page. The best plan is to write one sentence at a time and measure the steps, thoughts, and days in key strokes.

Today, when I watch a ball game, I recall all the fun, challenges, and respect I received at such an early age playing with my friends. Those days defined who I would become many years later. I liked sports, and I could not get my fill. I would love to return to those games and play them one more time.

I raise my hands above the keyboard, once more, and hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with those famous four notes. I am still practicing, Mom. This time I hope to make music, as I struggle to form complete sentences and developed paragraphs. I listen to Beethoven’s notes, but I write my own internal rhythms and play my own tunes.

Mondays With Martin: Who Knew?

David Martin

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editor’s note: This essay from David Martin was initially written when Fine Lines was “only” 25 years old.  It’s a little older now, but the essay’s message is just as relevant. 

25 Years: Who Knew?

Fine Lines is dedicated to the development of writers and artists of all ages. Our publication started out as a classroom newsletter in 1991 and has now turned into a 50 state writing network and a 501 (c) (3) non-profit educational organization. The first issue was four pages long and allowed many students new opportunities to show others their clear thinking and proper written expression. Each online, quarterly issue is about 300 pages of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art by “authors and artists in process.”

Now, 25 years later, Fine Lines receives creative writing from authors of all occupations: prose articles of medium length, reflective essays on diverse topics of life experiences, what one learns through the writing process, and poetry in all forms. We have printed writing from a six-year-old, a 94-year-old great-grandmother, ministers, janitors, doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, and students of all educational levels. In this quarter century of effort, we published writers from every state in this nation and 38 foreign countries: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Australia, Barbados, Bhutan, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Dubai, Egypt, England, Germany, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Sicily, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Vietnam, and a US Navy aircraft carrier in the South Pacific. Who knew this wonderful development would happen to a little journal like ours?

To paraphrase George Orwell, good writing is like a window pane, and the editors of Fine Lines hope to assist developing writers see through their windows more clearly. The bottom line of our work is to help writers develop their full potential. Often, we see ourselves as “writing coaches” and value reader participation in this endeavor.

Our Fine Lines mission is to provide a beacon of hope for the misunderstood, share a global vision of improved literacy, embrace the passion of human diversity, understand the need for clarity in all communication, and create the lives we desire through the written word. Led by dedicated volunteers who provide creative oversight, we are an inclusive, nurturing, writing community engaged in the thoughtful pursuit of beauty and truth.

Composition is hard work, and we are proud to show its rewards in each issue. We hope readers share with their friends, students, and fellow writers who love creative expression and celebrate our language. Join us in forming the lives we desire through the written word. Writing of life’s experiences, emotions, and discovered truths brings order to chaos, beauty to existence, and celebration to the mysterious.

In our four anthologies each year, many authors attempt to improve the world through constructive composition, clarifying their views of the world and using words to develop better pictures of humanity. At the beginning of the latest technology age, it took 40 years to sell 1 billion computers, 20 years to sell 7 billion cell phones, and 5 years to sell 1 billion digital tablets. This record teaches us not to settle for the here and now. Dreams show us the world we wish to inhabit. With proper written expression, we can do better and go farther.

Each issue is a collective art gallery of emotions and feelings. There are so many stories behind each page and new-found joys of using words to communicate with others. How nice it is to be heard. How wonderful it is to share a warmth of rhythm and a flow of understanding from one human soul to another. Our stories are simple gifts. Our writers find inspiration by not running from their passions. They compose with purpose.

People of reason need poems, songs, and stories that bring life to the page. Facing the blank page is the first step of creation. Our creative writers deeply inhale that open space. They breathe in and out and become sisters and brothers of that nothingness. In happiness and celebration, they use metaphors as medicine. They write every day to heal hearts and souls. They invite the lines to take them in. We are a collection of broken pieces, but with the help of others, we can restore ourselves. Nature gives us grace to start again with a new blank page. We must tell our stories.

“Everyone on this road is going somewhere” (Roy Rogers). My father believed that and lived an unusual life. He had so many stories that he was the hit of every party he attended. He knew every cowboy in the county, and they knew him, too. He felt potential was overrated. Having the ability to do any job, accomplish any goal, and complete any project required two things: passion for the task and a tough discipline to see the work completed. Artists, athletes, and cowboys must learn to finish their jobs. “Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion,” said Friedrich Hegel. However, those people who deliver as much effort in the fourth quarter of their lives, as they do in the first quarter remain the most productive.

Fine Lines strives to be a motivational manifesto for new writers of all ages who have stories to tell the world. Our editors search for the purity of characters’ messages. We are looking for our homes. We are searching the place to do our best work. We want to know where we will be safe. What is your story? What do freight train whistles mean? Do you hear music in unusual places? When that one person whispers your name, how do you respond? When sleep is hard to find, what does the light rain falling on the roof mean? This is what we are all about. Slow down. Look people in their eyes. Touch them with words. Share your voice. Help others. Make yourself available to the world. Write it down.

Hope is alive for “young writers of all ages” in our publications, and self-expression comes to the surface in all creative forms. We mark their growth process line by line and page by page. Fine Lines echoes Umberto Eco, “To survive you must tell stories.” Each Fine Lines issue is an inspirational journey. The most important door to view the world of knowledge is through an open mind. We take the 26 letters of the English language, rub them together in sentences and paragraphs to start fires that turn into essays, songs, and poems, as the light of wisdom winds its way toward understanding who we are and what we must do with our days. There are so many ways to pray.

Move to the front row of your life and capture the most important part, the “now.” Life is influenced by diverse mediums: dance, theater, poetry, electronics, and cinema. They are an ongoing exploration of the world. Use the anticipation, excitement, and doubt in life to appreciate the calm moments, which prepare us for the chaos that follows.

“How does anyone grow a national literary journal with no staff, no money, and no advertising?” The first answer is “Most don’t try.” The second answer is “Fine Lines found a small group of dedicated volunteers, a couple of administrators who looked at the big picture of literacy and schools, teachers who recognized our potential, a lawyer who wanted his colleagues to write better like our authors do, and students of all ages who loved the idea of sharing their ideas with the world.”

The need for increased literacy is prevalent, and we want to do our part to speak for those who have no voice. We want to let good grow. Words bring hope and magic in so many ways. When things don’t go the way we want, we turn the page. We evolve a little each day. Stories matter. Words matter. Who knew?

Dedication, writing daily, giving our journals personal names, and encouraging them to come alive in front of our eyes, like children, can make us better writers. “Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work” (Chuck Close).

Through the past 25 years of organizing, editing, publicizing, and communicating our mission, Fine Lines has played a part in cultivating a new generation of writers, artists, and insightful souls who appreciate the value of creativity. The work has been our engine of change and growth; the readers have become our products. We work to cultivate the value of creativity. It is my hope that we will succeed for twenty-five years more.

 

Write on.

 

David Martin