A Writer's Dream

August 26, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Do you see what's in the picture? A typewriter! My very own typewriter. Mr. Atkinson, the lawyer in the office across the street from us, bought his secretary a new typewriter and let me buy her old one for twenty dollars. 

I had to break my piggy bank, but who needs all those nickels and pennies anyway. That change along with the dollars I had stuffed down in my sock drawer for a rainy day or more importantly, a typewriter to fall down out of heaven, were just enough. Mr. Atkinson laughed when I spilled out five dollars in pennies, nickels and dimes on his desk, but he said money was money as he raked it off his desk into a box. He even gave me a couple of never used typewriter ribbons and let his secretary show me how to put them on. She barely got any black on her hands from the ribbon, but when I tried it, my fingers found plenty of ink. But I'm used to that. I get ink on me all the time helping Dad and Wes print and fold the newspapers for delivery. I can never keep from touching my face. The blacker my hands, the more my nose itches. Wes is always telling me I look like a spotted dog.

I don't care about a little ink on my nose. The good thing is that now I can be a "real" writer and type up my stories instead of just scribbling in a notebook. Dad says writers write all different ways, but famous writers have typewriters. Dad says Ernie Pyle always had a typewriter with him when he was reporting from the war. He found this picture in an old newspaper to show me. 

Other writers too. Book writers. They have to have typewriters. Maybe I'll write a book someday. Maybe a mystery like Agatha Christie. Or those Hardy Boy books. Maybe something mysterious will happen here in Hollyhill. I guess it doesn't have to actually happen if I'm writing fiction. Say a stranger comes to town and he's up to no good. A smart and very cute newspaper reporter starts digging into why the man's here and saves the day. 

Well, I haven't figured all the plot points out. You can't write a book in a day. But you can get started - when you have a typewriter. I'll go to sleep smiling tonight!

Did you ever have a typewriter and dream of writing a book?

I

Sleuthing like the Hardy Boys

August 19, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill Main Street. Well, actually I'm not on Main. I'm out on Barton Road where we live. Cleaning my room. Not by choice! But Aunt Love says it has to be done. She says I'm a pack rat. That's not true. Not exactly true anyway. I simply like to save my books and papers. But she says some of it needs to go before the new school year starts and I begin collecting a new year's worth of papers. I don't save them all. Hardly ever the math ones, but always the English ones. I love diagramming sentences, don't you? Figuring out which phrase goes where. It all makes so much more sense then. 

And why would anybody ever want to get rid of books? Books can be read over and over. So, she's right. I probably will never read my Hardy Boy mysteries again, but just looking at them makes me remember all the great fun I had reading about Joe and Frank and their sleuthing. 

Sleuth - see there's a great word. If it's a noun, the dictionary says it's a detective. If it's a verb, then it's more fun. Verbs are, you know. More fun. Anyway then it means "to act as a detective." I used to wish a mystery would pop up in front of me when I was reading all about their exciting adventures. I could do some sleuthing. But it's a fact that nothing exciting happens in Hollyhill. Even if Wes does say that the whole town in full of strange characters. Strangely ordinary and hardly mysterious. He's the most mysterious guy I know since he says he's from Jupiter. The planet. The Hardy boys and I know that's not exactly true, but Wes hasn't ever said where he is from. It drives Zella crazy. She has to know everything about everybody in Hollyhill.

Of course, now that Mr. Whitlow is driving her crazy too. She can't figure him out. He told her he was from some little town up close to Chicago. So what does Zella do? She calls a newspaper up there and talks this woman who answered the phone into looking in the phone book for a Whitlow listing. None. Not one. And the woman said she'd never heard the name. 

Now, how could that happen in a little town something like Hollyhill, Zella asked the air in front of her desk. She wasn't talking to me. Didn't hardly seem aware I was even standing there. So I didn't answer. I just let her keep talking to herself. Thought I might hear something interesting about Mr. Whitlow. Something that might be mysterious enough to call for some sleuthing. 

Wouldn't it be funny if Zella and I teamed up to do some puzzle solving like Joe and Frank Hardy? Zella and Jocie. That wouldn't just be funny. That would be insane! And not apt to happen unless the world starts spinning backwards or something. 

But no way am I throwing away my Hardy Boy books. I might have to read them again to get some pointers in this sleuthing stuff. Maybe I can part with a few history papers instead. Aunt Love will be happy if she sees me toting out a box full of junk. She won't look to see what's in it. So a few history papers, a few worn out pairs of underwear, those kiddie magazines Mrs. Wilson keeps bringing to church to give me after her grandkids read them. Dad says I can't say no. That I have to smile and act like I can't wait to read some bunny rabbit story so Mrs. Wilson will feel good. Even if it is for babies! But nobody said I had to keep them forever and with them gone, I'll have more room for real books.

August 19, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill Main Street. Well, actually I'm not on Main. I'm out on Barton Road where we live. Cleaning my room. Not be choice! But Aunt Love says it has to be done. She says I'm a pack rat. That's not true. Not exactly true anyway. I simply like to save my books and papers. But she says some of it needs to go before the new school year starts and I begin collecting a new year's worth of papers. I don't save them all. Hardly ever the math ones, but always the English ones. I love diagramming sentences, don't you? Figuring out which phrase goes where. It all makes so much more sense then. 

And why would anybody ever want to get rid of books? Books can be read over and over. So, I probably will never read my Hardy Boy mysteries again, but just looking at them makes me remember all the great fun I had reading about Joe and Frank and their sleuthing. 

Sleuth - see there's a great word. If it's a noun, the dictionary says it's a detective. If it's a verb, then it's more fun. Verbs are, you know. More fun. Anyway then it means "to act as a detective." I used to wish a mystery would pop up in front of me when I was reading all about their exciting adventures. I could do some sleuthing. But it's a fact that nothing that exciting happens in Hollyhill. Even if Wes does say that the whole town in full of strange characters. Strangely ordinary and hardly mysterious. He's the most mysterious guy I know since he says he's from Jupiter. The planet. The Hardy boys and I know that's not exactly true, but Wes hasn't ever said where he is from. It drives Zella crazy. She has to know everything about everybody in Hollyhill.

Of course, now that Mr. Whitlow is driving her crazy too. She can't figure him out. He told her he was from some little town up close to Chicago. So what does Zella do? She calls a newspaper up there and talks this woman who answered the phone into looking in the phone book for a Whitlow listing. None. Not one. And the woman said she'd never heard the name. 

Now, how could that happen in a little town something like Hollyhill, Zella asked the air in front of her desk. She wasn't talking to me. Didn't hardly seem aware I was even standing there. So I didn't answer. I just let her keep talking to herself. Thought I might hear something interesting about Mr. Whitlow. Something that might be mysterious enough to set my mind to sleuthing. 

Wouldn't it be funny if Zella and I teamed up to do some puzzle solving like Joe and Frank Hardy? Zella and Jocie. That wouldn't just be funny. That would be insane! And not apt to happen unless the world starts spinning backwards or something. 

But no way am I throwing away my Hardy Boy books. I might have to read them again to get some pointers in this sleuthing stuff. Maybe I can part with a few history papers instead. Aunt Love will be happy if she sees my toting out a bag full of junk. She won't look to see what's in it. So a few history papers, a few worn out pairs of underwear, that kiddie magazine Mrs. Wilson keeps bringing to church to give me after her grandkids read it. Dad says I can't say no. That I have to smile and act like I can't wait to read it so Mrs. Wilson will feel good. But nobody said I had to keep them forever and with them gone I'll have more room for books.

Do you love books? Did you read the Hardy Boy mysteries when you were a kid? Did you wish you could solve a mystery like them?  


 

Making Cotton Candy

August 12, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill. 

I am never going to eat cotton candy again. Ever! You know I'm in 4-H. Well, for a fundraiser, somebody thought it would be great to rent a concession stand and sell soft drinks and popcorn and candy and cotton candy at a ballgame. If they'd stopped at popcorn and candy, it might have been okay. But no, the leader, Mr. Reardon, had to get a stand with a cotton candy maker in it. And who was stupid enough to volunteer to work in the stand? Me, that's who. 

And who was even more stupid when we decided on jobs? "Yeah, sure," I said. "I can spin a cardboard tube and collect cotton candy on it. Sure, I can." That's one of the problems with thinking you can do anything and everything. But I'd still rather be like that than hiding over in the corner afraid to give anything a try. But this was one thing I should have hidden in a corner away from - far, far away - instead of standing there getting wrapped in a web of spun sugar. 

Have you ever tried it? It's not as easy as you think it might be. That sugar spinning out will stick to everything and anything except that paper tube. I had pink sugar in my hair. I had webs of the stuff dripping down off my eyebrows. The other kids working in the stand thought it was hilarious. Of course, Jesse did burn his arm on the popcorn machine and had butter up to his elbows. The easy job was at the window taking money and handing out candy bars. Alicia got that. She looked really cute doing it too, so maybe that sold extra stuff. Thank goodness not everybody wanted cotton candy. If you don't spin that paper tube with a light hand while the sugar is spinning up in the air, then it's more like crunchy threads of sugar instead of cotton. You don't want crunch when you're buying cotton candy. You want sugary air. Something that will melt in your mouth. Not something that might break a tooth. 

At last, I sort of figured out how to capture the sugary webs and then I wanted to go grab little kids and make them come buy the cotton candy, but I might barf if I have eat another bite of that sugar. I need a potato chip. 

Did you ever do anything like that? Work in a concession stand? I'll bet Zella never has. She's still waiting for that Mr. Whitlow to come by with a big bunch of roses to say he's sorry for heading out of town for a few days without so much as a see you later. He is back in town, but he hasn't come to make up with Zella. He's probably scared to try it.

You don't want to mess with Zella when she's mad. 

Yawning through Meetings

August 6, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill. 

Boring! Boring! Bo-o-oring! I guess you can guess where I am. No, not school. That's not for a few more weeks and usually not so awful boring until at least the middle of September. That is, if you don't have Mr. Smith for history. Then it's boring from the second you slide into your desk in his room. That man could make the Battle of the Alamo boring. You walk in his room and it's like all the life has been sucked out of the air. Dry names and dates are all that's left. Dad says history is exciting. I tell him to tell Mr. Smith that.

Dad also says history is in the making where I am right now. At the courthouse at the magistrates' meeting. Holly County history. Not exactly anything that's going to make the history books, but once a week, these men from all around Holly County get together with the judge and decide who gets first crack at the tax money. They spend a lot of time arguing about which roads have the worst potholes. Yawn! 

The meetings are open to the public, but the public would rather stay home and go to sleep in their own chairs instead of these hard old chairs in the courtroom. So only a half dozen people show up who don't have to be there. Dad has to be there to write it all down in the paper and put more people to sleep reading about it. I'm the only kid. It's not exactly a place you're going to find the in crowd from school. Vanessa wouldn't be caught dead here - even if her father is one of the magistrates. But the thing is, she has a mother at home instead of a crazy old Aunt Love who wants a certain kid out of her hair as much as possible. So here I am - stuck in this hot old courtroom with dust motes floating in the air.

Don't get me wrong. I like being with Dad, but that doesn't keep me from needing toothpicks to prop open my eyes as Judge Goodman drones on and on about how the county only has so much money and they need to figure out a way to divide it fairly among the districts to fill up those potholes. I want to stand up and say who cares about potholes. Why don't they talk about spending the money on something everybody can enjoy like a park with new baseball fields? Dad would tell me I'm at the wrong meeting. That's the City Council. Double yawn! I'll probably have to go to that meeting next week.   

 But then when the meeting finally breaks up after nobody decided anything, I look around and who's there in the back row but Mr. Whitlow himself. Whatever is he doing here? He doesn't even own property in Holly County. Or does he? He must have sneaked into the courtroom the way he sneaked back into town last week. 

He hasn't come around the newspaper office yet to see Zella. Might be safer for him that way. She's been going around looking like she's sucking on a lemon. Wes says we'll be smart to keep our distance from her for a while. Maybe forever! But somebody is sure to tell her Mr. Whitlow's back in town. What is that man up to? If even Zella couldn't find out, then I'm not sure anybody can. 

Did you ever go to a meeting of your local government? Bet if you did, you were hiding some yawns too. Or maybe you were one of the elected officials in your town. If so, I'm sure you weren't as boring as our Holly County guys.