Next NETWO meeting is
Thursday, Apr. 10, 6:30 p.m.
Volume 21, issue 4
April 2008
Western Sizzlin, Mt. Pleasant
NETWO 2008 ANTHOLOGY
Earlene Callan, who designed and formatted the book layout, says the book has been shipped by the printer and should be available at the April 10th meeting. To place your order, call Jean at 901-537-4292 or Georgia at 903-856-6724.
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VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
To ensure that the NETWO 22nd Annual Writers’ Conference goes smoothly and efficiently, volunteers are needed for:
1. Arrangements and setup on Thursday afternoon, and Fridayafternoon.
2. Guest pickup at DFW airport on Friday afternoon
3. Monitor accommodations
4. Registration for Friday afternoon seminar
5. Greet/escort speakers
6. Bring finger foods for Friday reception
7. Friday night reception activities
8. Post-reception cleanup and setup for mystery theater play
9. Registration Saturday morning
10. Book sales
11. Participate in mystery play.
There may be other areas where you see a need for participation.
Find an activity you would like and join in to make your contribution to the enjoyment of the conference by everyone. You will have an opportunity to sign up for some activity at the meeting Thursday night. If you cannot be there then, call Ted Rankin, 903-844-0289. t
Minutes of March Meeting
Northeast Texas Writers’ Organization met at Western Sizzlin in Mt. Pleasant, Texas on March 13, 2008, at 6:30 p.m.
A total of 18 members and one guest attended. Pat Hamilton brought Kenneth Swinford from Mt. Vernon, Texas. Kenneth is interested in writing his memoirs.
Ted Rankin opened the meeting with a list of opportunities for members to help make this year’s 2008 writers’ conference the best ever. The job list was prepared by Jim Callan. Ted stressed the importance for more members to take an active part in the production of the yearly conference to continue to serve this section of East Texas. Volunteers are needed for the following areas: pick up conference speakers at DFW airport; maintain NETWO’s web page; fill time slots for the book sales table; bring door prizes, help set up tables and chairs for the conference on Thursday,
April 24 at 2:00; monitor the appointments and waiting areas, and bring finger foods for Friday night’s reception.
There will be a mystery night for those staying over at Shiloh.
Short Story Contest winners will be announced Saturday night, April 26th, during the banquet at Camp Shiloh.
Check the website for more information concerning the conference at www.netwo.org.
Respectfully submitted, Michele Chitsey
EVENTS
East Texas Authors Forum
Thursday, April 17th, 6:30 p.m.
Norman Activity Center
526 E. Commerce
Jacksonville, TX
Contact person: Nancy Washburn
Operations Officer
903/542-2065
903/541-2089 (fax)
Gay Ingram will be participating in this event and felt other area authors might be interested. @
The following invitation is extended to
Northeast Texas Writers’ Association:
“Your presence is requested at the Mount Pleasant Public Library’s 60th Anniversary
Saturday, April 19
11:30 -- 1:30
Welcome.....................Jerry Boatner, Mayor
City of Mount Pleasant
Invocation…………..Claude Alexander
Mount Pleasant Library Board
Recognition of Past
& Present Library
Advocates……………Lori Rigney
Library Director
Speaker……………….Peggy D. Rudd,
State Librarian
Refreshments…………Friends of the Library
Please R.S.V.P.
903-575-4180
Mount Pleasant Public Library
213 North Madison
Mt. Pleasant, TX 75455
903-575-4180
! ! ! !
MEMBERSHIP DUES
Listed below are the NETWO members who have paid their dues for the calendar year 2008:
Jim H. Ainsworth
George and Sherry Allen
Virginia Bivona
Jackie & Bob Brown
Jim and Earlene Callan
David Colley
Bill and Barbara Carl
Lisa and Anthony Cecil
Mike Clifton
Sarah Del Collo (new-reg. for conference)
Lucile Estelle
Kimberly Fish (new-reg. for conference)
Scott Fitzwater
Bryan and Wally Freeman
Gale Gill
Betty Harris Gilbert
Kate W. Godden
Susanne Gregory
Pat Hamilton
Sarah Hayes (new)
Christina Heaney
Georgia Henson
Charlotte Hilliard
Skip Hughes
Gay Ingram
Donna Kouba
Jean Lauzier (new-reg. for conference)
Ken Loveless
Kay Martin (new-reg. for conference)
Jean Pamplin
Donna and Wayne Paul
Vicki Phelps
Ted L. Rankin
Sherry Ray
Marzelle Robertson
Patricia Rudy (new-reg. for conference)
Gene Shelton
Jory & Charlotte Sherman
Billy Simmons & Fleta Smith
Allan and Floy Smith
Heather Player Smith (new-reg. for conference)
Jack Stone (new-reg. for conference)
Lynn Vaughan
Randy & Barbara Washburn
Steve Whisnant
Holly White
Grady Jane Woodfin (new-reg. for conference)
Stephen Woodfin
If you have paid and your name is not on this list, please check with us. If you paid dues just before the 2007 Annual Conference, it’s time again, so remember to include your $20 for dues when you register so you will retain your NETWO membership.
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LANGUAGE FOUL AND VULGAR
By Bryan Freeman
When I was in my young and innocent years, I heard of this foul language. I thought that it was the way chickens speak, like one of those foreign languages you hear of…like German, French, or Spanish, so I just put it out of my mind. I spoke English and that was good enough for me. It wasn’t until I turned twenty that I found out that it was part of the English vernacular. I was raised in a very conservative household.
It was late Spring and I decided to find out about this foul language, so I donned my light gray suit and went to New York City by railroad to find out about this language.
In the city, I asked where I could find out about this language, and was directed toward the Hudson River, where the cargo ships dock to have their cargo unloaded by the longshoremen, also known as dock workers. It was starting to get misty and dark as I walked along the waterfront, looking for an appropriate tavern to expand my education. I passed a few stores that were closed and boarded up and two taverns that were quiet and dimly lighted. I finally came upon one. The din was loud, continuous, and almost deafening. I peered in the windows. They were too dirty to see through. This might be a good place for my edification, I thought. Inside, the large room was smoky and the light bulbs, covered with nicotine smoke, gave off a yellow hue. I turned to look through the windows toward the street. They were just as bad as the outside. On one of the tables a man with a hook for a hand was dancing to the loud music with a heavy set woman who had a peg leg. I eased over to the bar and squeezed between two large muscular men. My head was even with the top of their shoulders. They looked rough and tough, and even their ear lobes looked like they had muscles in them.
The bartender looked at
me, then looked up at the ceiling and rolled his eyes. He looked at one of his
patrons and nodded his head in my direction.
“What’ll it be, chum bait?” he asked. Trying to fit in with the crowd, I said,
“A double eggnog, with heavy cream with one ice cube in it, please.” He looked
at the ceiling once more and rolled his eyes. When the bartender delivered my
nog, he said, “Chum Bait” once more. I thought that he was being friendly,
until a few days later I found out what chum bait was.
The bartender leaned across the bar and said to me, “Chum Bait, whatcha doing in here, you got a death wish or sumthin’?” His voice was slightly slurred. After I explained to him that I was trying to learn about foul and vulgar language, he yelled, “Hey, everybody, Chum Bait here wants to know about foul and vulgar language.” The inebriated crowd gathered around me and I got a burning earful. The big man on my right asked, “Whatchu drinkin’, little man?” What that, he picked up my glass and took a drink. “Hey, that tastes pretty good. Barman, give me one of dose.” When he drank his, I pointed to his mouth and laughed. “He’s got a milk mustache.” Everyone thinking
that was fun, started to order double eggnogs. The
bartender looked at me and directed a flurry of obscenities in my direction. I was learning more
and more with each passing moment. He had to send out for more milk before he ran out, knowing if he did the crowd would turn ugly.
He man with the hook for
a hand came up with his peg leg girlfriend and, through his milk mustache,
said, “You’re OK, Chum Bait, Have another nog on me and me girlfriend here,”
and slapped me on the back. In the brief conversation that followed I asked,
“How’d you lose your hand?” “Shark bite,” he replied. I asked his girl
friend, Miss Peg Leg, the same question. And she said, “Shark bite.” I
thought about this for a moment and inquired, “Was it done at the same time by
the same shark, with one bite?” My double eggnogs were free for the rest of
the night.
I thanked my new found friends for the good time they showed me and their
input of foul and vulgar language in the English vernacular. I learned a bunch
of new words that night, even some from a Singapore sailor. It was two a.m.
when I left this happy tavern. The bartender once more directed a bunch of the
new found words in my direction. It seems that the patrons were not used to
drinking milk and it was upsetting their stomachs, all over.
The streets were dark and misty as I walked back to the rail station. I was alone in my thoughts, about what I had learned of foul and vulgar language from my new friends. That language was second nature to them, or first. They were expressing themselves in their own crude way. I feel that my snob is taking over right now.
I was passing a mission church that had a sign outside. It read “The use of foul and vulgar language is the attempt of the weak and feebleminded to express themselves forcefully.”
What a glaring statement, I thought. I made my decision then and there that I do not want anyone to think I am feebleminded, even though I may act it now and then. <
PATCHES, ONE MEAN CAT
By Galand Nuchols
Patches: Meanest Cat in Town. That was the Bayport Tribune’s headline this morning. Under the headline was a picture of Patches, the police chief, and me. Not everyone has a cat that can capture the headlines, but then Patches has always been a special cat.
Patches, a calico cat, came to live with us after she bit seventeen holes in Aunt May’s waterbed while Aunt May and Uncle Jim were at church one Sunday morning . It was a crime of revenge for Aunt May’s insisting the vet remove Patches’ front claws. Patches had snagged a few threads in Aunt May’s couch when she used it as a scratching post.
In my opinion, Aunt May overreacted to Patches’ crime. Patches didn’t do much damage really, just pulled a few threads here and there. A quilt or lap robe draped over the arm would have covered it, but Aunt May flew apart, came clean unhinged, I tell you. She insisted Patches be declawed. Uncle Jim objected, but Aunt May overruled him. Off to the vet Patches went and had her front claws removed.
She came home really riled. A week later she put seventeen holes in their waterbed with her teeth. That’s when Patches came to live with us in town.
But back to the story about the Tribune’s headlines this morning. It all happened night before last. Mother, Dad, and I had gone to bed. Patches was the only one still awake. Cats are nocturnal animals. That means they sleep a lot during the day and prowl around hunting food and playing at night.
Patches didn’t have to hunt for food; it was right there in her food dish. She did like to prowl around the house at night though. It was while she was roaming around that she spied a burglar crawling through a window he had forced open. He later told the police she sat and washed herself as she watched him enter. He thought she was a nice kitty at first. He changed his mind later.
The man told the officers how she followed him into Dad’s office, then sat on the desk watching him open the wall safe. He was thinking the job was going to be a piece of cake when he heard a strange noise and turned around. That was when he saw the monster. Patches had doubled in size with her long hair standing on end and her back arched high.
She was snarling, showing needle-like fangs.
The policeman said the man’s voice shook as he described Patches’ eyes shooting fire. He told them of her hideous scream as she launched herself at his head. He must have thrown his hands up to hold her off, because she bit him all the way up one arm, before going for his ears.
I guess he was trying to get away from her when he fell over the foot stool and knocked the lamp to the floor. Patches’ ear splitting yowls and the crash of the lamp were what woke us. Dad went to investigate. He found the man tangled up in the lamp cord and Patches circling for her next attack.
When I got there, the man was holding his bleeding arm and backing toward Dad and me, keeping his eyes on the snarling Patches stalking him. Dad suggested he better leave and opened the door next to us. The man backed toward it and, before he realized it was a closet, Dad shoved him in and slammed the door shut. We jammed a chair under the doorknob and called 911.
By the time the police arrived, let the terrified burglar out of the closet, and handcuffed him, Patches was pretending to snooze on the window seat, her tail curled around her. But the burglar knew better. He nearly drug the policeman out the door and to the waiting patrol car. Patches followed, rubbing against the officer’s legs, purring her approval.
The terrified burglar gave a full confession and told of his narrow escape from a demon cat, “the meanest critter he had ever encountered,” according to the policeman’s story.
Anyway, that’s how Patches earned the title of the meanest cat in town and got her picture in the Bayport Tribune. t
WRITERS’ JOURNAL
POETRY CONTESTS
§ Serious verse only
§ Each poem may be no longer than 25 lines
§ Entries must be double-spaced on 8-1/2 x 11 white paper
§ Each entry must be submitted in duplicate. Name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address, if available, should appear in upper left corner of one sheet. No name or address on duplicate. No staples please.
§ Photocopies accepted—poems will not be returned.
§ For those without Web access, a winner’s list can be obtained by sending a #10 SASE.
§ Only previously unpublished poems accepted.
§ Copyrights to poems remain with authors. WRITERS’ Journal requires only one-time publishing rights to winning entries.
Address all entries to:
(Name of Contest)
Val-Tech media
P. O. Box 394
Perham, MN 56573
Make checks or money orders payable to:
WRITERS’ Journal
Reading Fee: $3.00
Prizes – 1st/2nd/3rd : $50/$25/$10
Annual Deadlines:
April 30
August 30
December 30. <