Author: The Coastal Crone

PERSONAL NOTICE TO BLOGGERS

/ The Coastal Crone / 32 Comments

I AM HAVING TROUBLE LIKING AND COMMENTING ON BLOGS!!!! IT SEEMS RANDOM AS SOMETIMES I CAN LIKE AND COMMENT AND SOMETIMES I CAN’T. I NORMALLY LIKE AND /OR COMMENT, BUT DON’T ALWAYS GO BACK TO SEE If THEY APPEARED, JUST TOOK IT FOR GRANTED. SO FAR I AM WORKING WITH WORD PRESS BUT THEY WANT MORE INFORMATION.

FORTUNATELY, I HAVE NO PROBLEM LIKING COMMENTS AND COMMENTING ON MY OWN POSTS. I WANT MORE THAN THAT. IT IS FRUSTRATING! HAS ANYONE HAD SIMILAR PROBLEM? AT THIS POINT I HAVE LITTLE PATIENCE!!!!!!

POST CARD FROM BRIAR COTTAGE 8/11/22

/ The Coastal Crone / 32 Comments

The Old Farmer’s Almanac tells me Dog Days are between July 3 and August 11 as those are normally the hottest days of summer. This year it was hard to tell one hot day from another as the weather week after week was HOT, HOT and more HOT and not even a tropical storm to bring some rain.
We are in Stage I water restrictions that means no watering with sprinklers except on trash day once a week and other limited use of water. Our lawn is brown but we weren’t watering before the restrictions.
I remember the drought during the 1950s when my father, a rancher in South Texas, considered contributing money to seed clouds if praying for rain didn’t work. My mother discouraged that idea and kept praying. Let us hope that it does not take a hurricane to bring rain and get some water into our watershed.

Until then I will keep toasting Chac,the Mayan Rain God.

PRAYER FOR SUMMER SOLSTICE

/ The Coastal Crone / 27 Comments

I greet this morning of sunshine with open eyes
I see the flowers that greet the sun
I hear the birds call to each other from tree to tree
I sense the trees greeting the sun with me
I ask that today bring gladness and gifts
This summer solstice
Warmth of sun
Clearness of air
Happiness of birds
Purity of flowers
Greeness of plants
Prisms in water
Clarity of sight
Patience of growth
Blessings of the long day
May the gifts of this day surround me and all I love
From morning’s first light
Through the shortness of night.
(Author unknown)

REMEMBERING ONE OF MANY ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY

/ The Coastal Crone / 38 Comments

TROY E. KEITH
TEXAS
PFC 311 INF 78 DIV
WWII
MARCH 25 1926 APRIL 12 1945

Troy Elijah Keith was killed in Voilersheim, Germany at 19 years old. He was my first cousin on my father’s side of the family. His mother died a few days after he was born. I was too young to have remembered seeing him, but I do remember being there with my family when his body was brought back from Europe after the war. His body arrived on a train and was given a military burial at Cleveland Memorial Cemetery in Cleveland, Texas, a small town north of Houston. I have not been able to find a photograph of him.

DEATH’S GARDEN REVISITED KICKSTARTER INTERVIEW WITH EDITOR LOREN RHOADS

/ The Coastal Crone / 35 Comments


Today I am interviewing Loren Rhoads, editor of the first Death’s Garden and author of 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die and Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel. She has put together a second edition titled Death’s Garden Revisited, a collection of new essays by over 40 authors who share their personal relationships and experiences with cemeteries. The book went live on Kickstarter March 17. FULL DISCLOSURE: I am excited to have an essay included in this book!

Welcome, Loren! For those who are not familiar with Kickstarter, please explain what it is and how it works for Death’s Garden Revisited.

Kickstarter is a website where creators, including small presses, can raise funding for a project before it’s created. In this case, Automatism Press had the money to publish Death’s Garden Revisited as an oversized paperback with black and white photographs, but I wanted to produce a full-color hardcover book. I hoped to raise enough money for that by taking preorders for the book through the Kickstarter campaign.

As it turned out, Death’s Garden Revisited sold enough copies on its first day to make the transition to full-color.

Have you ever used it before for a book or a project? And why did you choose it this time?

I’ve helped to fund a lot of projects on Kickstarter before: story anthologies, history books, comic books, new magazines (several of which I later went on to write for), even a couple of cemetery history books.

I’ve never tried to raise money for a project of my own that way before, but it turns out I know a whole lot of people who have. They gave me great advice.

I chose Kickstarter this time because I hoped to build some excitement for Death’s Garden Revisited before it comes out in October. With the help of everyone who has preordered, Automatism Press can afford to make the book I really want to make.

How long have you seen writing about cemeteries and how did you get started?

Oh, my goodness, a long time! I edited the first Death’s Garden book – Death’s Garden: Relationships with Cemeteries – in the early Nineties That book started when a friend who was dying gave me a box of photographs he’d taken in cemeteries as he traveled. Before that, it hadn’t ever occurred to me that people would want to visit cemeteries on vacation. Blair inspired me to seek out cemeteries myself, which led me to writing a monthly column for several years about traveling to visit cemeteries. I gathered those columns in my first cemetery book, Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel.

Death’s Garden Revisited will be my fourth cemetery book. The fifth one – Still Wish You Were Here – is going out as a bonus to people who preorder Death’s Garden Revisited.

Tell me about some of the backgrounds of some of the contributors. Do they write mainly about cemeteries or do they write in other genres?

There is such a wonderful variety of them! Carol Tyrrell, Joanne Austin, and Rachelle Meilleur all write cemetery blogs. Sharon Pajka just published a wonderful book called Women Writers Buried in Virginia. M. Parfitt worked as cemetery tour guide. Paul Stansfield is a contract archaeologist who has helped to move several cemeteries.

Other contributors are historians and travel writers. Erika Mailman has written a novel about Lizzie Borden. Anne Born has written about walking the Camino de Santiago. Trilby Plants has written thrillers and children’s books. Rain Graves taught tango in Argentina. A bunch of the contributors are horror writers.

When is the book coming out? In what form? And where will be available?

Death’s Garden Revisited will be out in October 2022. It will be available in hardcover, an 8 x 10-inch paperback and e-book. I know it will be available on Amazon, but I’m still working out the distribution everywhere else. The complication is that I’m not working with my regular printer this time, because of the color photos.

People can bypass all that by preordering their own copy on Kickstarter now. Then the book will magically appear in the mail in October!

Thank you, Loren! Here is the link – check it out. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lorenrhoads/deaths-garden-revisited-relationships-with-cemeteries The campaign ends April 16.

Here is a link to Loren’s Cemetery Travels site. https://cemeterytravel.com/about/
and her author’s page.https://lorenrhoads.com/

HAPPINESS, COURAGE, STRENGTH, & A SENSE OF HUMOR

/ The Coastal Crone / 44 Comments

Courage, strength and a sense of humor will help get me through almost anything in my opinion. Years ago I read Lindbergh’s book of poetry and essays, Gift from the Sea, but did not know much about her beyond the kidnapping of her baby and the fame of her husband, Charles Lindbergh. A little recent research revealed she was an accomplished woman on her own and had to deal with her share of tragedy, loss and betrayal. I may have to read a biography written by Susan Hertog, Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life.

A DUSTY CLASSIC

/ The Coastal Crone / 40 Comments

On a recent morning walk leaving my neighborhood, I saw this dusty MGB being loaded on a car hauler in front of a house that had been recently sold. For several years I would see the older man who lived there take it out occasionally for a drive on sunny warm days like this beautiful fall day. Once as I walked by I stopped to admire his classy sports car. Alas, it was not for sale. The soft top was down and he went on his way wearing a jaunty driving cap that made him look somehow British. It was always kept in the garage and never parked in the driveway.

I stopped seeing him drive it or even his other car several years ago. Instead I would see a car belonging to a home health worker parked out front; the garage was always closed; I wondered about the MG. Time went by, the house was put on the market. I never knew if the man was moving away or had died. That morning I walked past the almost full car hauler and looked back. The MG was halfway into the street. I walked back. There was the old car, top down and covered in dust. It must have been sitting in the garage all these years. Were the new owners selling it? Did the man die and his heirs were selling it?

I interrupted the two men who were trying to load it, and asked where they were taking it.

“Indiana,” one replied.

I asked if I could take a photo. Given permission, I pulled my phone from my pocket and took a couple of photos as I tried not to get in their way. The inside was as dusty and neglected as the outside. The inspection sticker on the windshield was dated February 2011.

As I thanked the men, one asked me what kind of car it was.

“MG, an MGB. British. The company stopped making these sports cars in 1980. I would guess this one is a 1970s-something model. My husband had one in citron when we got married. It was fun to drive.”

Turning for one last look as I continued my walk, I hoped that it would find a good home and someone would restore it and take it out again on sunny, warm days with the top down.