Already. Anybody else feel the transience of the months…the seasons? In our ISU OLLIE  Life Memories class, I’ve been privileged to meet many talented, inspired writers. And what inspires them? All sorts of topics…intriguing people, events that shape the course of lives, family traditions, methods of making-do… In a word, experience.

I dislike saying good-bye to these folks from various walks of life and backgrounds. We were just getting to know each other, but I’m hoping some of them stay in touch. I’d like to see how their memoirs develop and blossom as they nurture words and phrases.

Such a short season together…only three class times, but thankfully, richness knows no timeline. Perhaps that’s true of nature’s seasons, as well. This year’s vivid yellow begonias may wend their way, through memory, into a story. So might the purple potatoes our daughter planted this year…

This variety boasts lovely inner designs, like paisley patterns.

Such natural wonders all around us, and so are the stories we live day-to-day. As Annie Dillard writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Viewing our life as memories of specific days to record gives us one story at a time to digest and share with others. I’m grateful that yesterday, our helpful granddaughter spent time with me transferring an enormous walnut crop into pails…would you believe large garbage cans? And here she is, highlighting the spectacular pumpkin in her mother’s garden.

Perhaps sixty years hence, she and her brother will say, “Remember that gigantic pumpkin Mom grew? What summer was that, anyway…?

We’e been enjoying cool nights and mornings in northern Iowa, with more rain than the usual late August-early September. The morning glories are in their glory, climbing all over our weary clematis vines.

I’ve been remiss in blogging, but definitely not in researching and writing. And this week, I became familiar with a new word: festinate.

This word’s early recorded use was by William Shakespeare. He used it as an adjective pronounced \FESS-tuh-nut\ in King Lear, “Advise the Duke where you are going, to a most festinate preparation.”

The Latin proverb festina lente means “make haste slowly.” Shakespeare also used the adverb festinately in Love’s Labour’s Lost: “Bring him festinately hither,” Don Ariano de Armado orders. The verb festinate, meaning “to hasten,” occurs later.

So…is autumn festinating, or will we still have some hot days? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, I’m still working my way up the Italian boot with my heroine Dorothy, a real-live WWII nurse. She’s about the go to the hideous battlefield called Anzio, otherwise known as “Hell’s Half-Acre.”

It seems the Allies hurried up and landed, but then made haste very slowly in claiming the hills around the beachhead. My husband always says, “In the Army, it’s hurry up and wait.” But oh, the suffering the survivors of Anzio endured…

Until next week…don’t forget to smell the flowers still peeping their heads out before the first frost. 

Believe me when I say that laughter up at the front lines is a very precious thing—precious to those grand guys who are giving and taking the awful business that goes on there. . . . There’s a lump the size of Grant’s Tomb in your throat when they come up to you and shake your hand and mumble “Thanks.” Imagine those guys thanking me! Look what they’re doin’ for me. And for you.—Bob Hope, 1944

This week marks no patriotic holiday, but I don’t think it hurts to once again say thanks to the men and women who earned Bob Hope’s admiration. He knew the difference between the adulation of stardom and the devotion of giving one’s life for one’s country.

But reading his history of entertaining the troops all over the world in several wars reminds us of his bravery too. He and other entertainers risked life and limb going to places fraught with danger. Wonder how many of our modern “stars” would be so courageous.

 Bob Hope with troops near D-Day, 1944

Back in the forties, a long list of actors and actresses, singers, and sports stars not only entertained the troops, but served in the military…Jimmy Stewart, Charlton Heston, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Glenn Miller, and Joe DiMaggio, to name a few. Picture Charlton Heston as a REAL aerial gunner and radio operator.

These professionals joined in “the awful business” that defeated Naziism and liberated hundreds of thousands of people–and it was a horrible process.

So what is my point? Just a general thank-you for what all of these “Greatest Generation” folks sacrificed, since I’m deep in WWII research right now. Gratitude is the key word here, since I’m deep in research right now, learning more about the battles in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Southern France–campaigns that led to a costly Allied victory.

Because of thousands of unselfish acts, we can enjoy life today. Including photography, and  voila! Your weekly view from our little corner of Iowa. (Hummingbirds do actually sit still once in a while!)

Last week I had lunch with another author, and we exchanged horror stories from writing conferences where we presented our proposals to an editor or agent. Marie told me how she burst into tears right in the VIP’s presence when they made a critical comment…not once, but twice.

Of course, this was years ago, when we were just beginning to believe in our work–and boy, could I ever identify. Once, an editor looked over what I had prepared to win her heart to my heroine’s saga. She sat back and said, “I don’t see any story here.”

For once, I found myself speechless.

Many of us write in obscurity and relative isolation, as do artists in other fields. We get so glued to our WIP (work in progress) that it seems more real than the actual physical world around us. Then to face rejection of what we’ve poured our hearts and souls into…it’s pretty tough.

Because I’m writing about the very real, TRULY tough world of war, I can’t feel sorry for myself for long, though. But it does help to have some camaraderie, someone who understands you’re just coming up for air when you appear out in public. Your pulse may still be racing from what happened in an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) like this, just off the coast of Sicily in 1943.

It’s a writer’s life–it is what it is, but I’ve learned how much we need each other. I’m grateful for how easy it is to reach out to another writer these days…just type a quick e-mail and write, HELP!

Today, I’m not even going to try tying in Lance’s great photo with what I’m writing. I’m constantly making connections, integrating this into that…This time, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but add a hearty, “Thank you, Marie, for taking the time to meet me for lunch!”