YOU ME AND THE LAMP POST

A BACKWARD LOOK

2011-06-23T14:26:00.001-07:00

My roots in the Virginia earth are deep. My mother’s people came here from the walled city of Lucca in the Tuscany region of Italy. They came as indentured servants to Thomas Jefferson who intended to start a wine industry in Virginia. They brought cuttings from their vines but the grapes did not adapt to the Virginia soil, and withered away.

Not so the Gianinni clan. On land granted to them by Mr. Jefferson they became farmers in the shadow of Monticello Mountain. They prospered in Albemarle County and intermarried with a group of footwashing Baptists.

At the same time my father’s people had emigrated from Wales, leaving their village of Hanmer near the northern border of Wales and England. They had acquired land along the James River and were raising tobacco. They tended to be tall and thin, a sentimental crew, who loved their families, and their wine, and who had to be goaded by their wives to attend church, but once there they could out sing the clearest and loudest voice in the choir.

Somehow descendants of these two clans, in the Great American Melting Pot tradition, found each other, married, and their descendants, the families of my mother and my father, early in the new century moved to a small village in Nelson County to work in the soapstone quarries and mill. When my Grandfather Hamner developed polio, and was no longer able to take care of his family, my own father, at twelve years of age quit school, and took a job toting water to workers in the soapstone quarries at Schuyler. My mother graduated from high school but, as she used to claim, she went through high school eight more times while coaching each of her children through to graduation.

Of their eight children seven of them were normal, but one was strange. That was me.

I was an odd looking boy, leaping to six feet tall when I was fourteen, all long, skinny wrists, unruly red hair, shoulders slumped in an attempt to lean closer to my companions.

Earl and friends at Schuyler High School. 1939.

We were in the midst of the Great Depression of the Twenties and Thirties. Like our neighbors we were self-sufficient but cash money was almost non-existent. And I had a secret, strange and impossible dream.

Years later, when I was writing the screenplay for my television movie “The Homecoming” I tried to put into words some of those alien, confused, and mysterious yearnings.

In the play, Olivia, John-Boy’s mother has just discovered a tablet the boy has hidden under his mattress. She demands to know what is in it. He replies:
“You know what’s in this tablet, Mama? All my secret thoughts- how I feel, and what I think about. Things I never told anybody ‘till now. What it’s like late at night to hear a whippoorwill call and its mate call back, the rumble of the midnight train crossen the trestle at Rockfish, watchen water go by in the creek and knowen that some day it’ll reach the ocean and wonderen if I’ll ever see the ocean. Sometimes I hike over to Route 29 and watch the people in their cars and wagons go by and I wonder what their lives are like. Things stay in my mind, Mama. I can’t forget anything. It all gets bottled up and sometimes I feel like a crazy man. Can’t sleep or rest till I rush off up here and write it in that tablet.

“I do vow,” replied Olivia.

“If things had been different, Mama, I think I could have done somethen with my life. What I would have liked, Mama, was to have tried . . .to be .. a writer!
“If that’s what you want, couldn’t you still try? “ Asked Olivia.

“It wouldn’t be right,” he answered. “Not in these times. It takes a college education to be a writer and even if we had the money it wouldn’t be right to risk it all on me. And anyway I can’t disappoint my daddy. He’s got his heart set on me taking up a trade.”

Olivia replied, “He just want you to know how to make a living.”
“I could sure never do that scribblen things down in a tablet.”

But time would prove me wrong. Through the intervention of Laura Horsley, the wife of our company doctor I received a scholarship to the University of Richmond. But that was only half the battle. The scholarship paid for tuition only. There was still food and board, textbooks to be bought, fees of several kinds. Through the generosity of three of my father’s sisters I was taken into their home in Richmond and given food and lodging. Our local Baptist minister gave me a crash course in Latin, one of the requirements the University needed before I could qualify to accept the scholarship. My father ruefully parted with the white shirt he had planned to be buried in, and my mother spent the money she earned from selling eggs and buttermilk to buy me a suit from Sears and Roebuck. She showed a picture of it to me in the catalogue before it arrived – “the fabric is of green herringbone, with vest to match and an extra pair of trousers.” And it cost nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents. Took every cent of my mother’s buttermilk money!

I entered the University of Richmond in the autumn of 1940. I was unsure of myself, in an alien world, among other boys who were obviously more sophisticated in their manner and dress. The largest city I had visited until now was Charlottesville, usually on a Saturday morning when country people clogged Main Street in their horse and buggies. I had never ridden a streetcar, driven a car, or talked on a telephone.

But I was on time for my first class, and the strangeness gradually went away. The tall boy with the red hair wearing the green herringbone suit was on his way! A writer was in the making!

That was the autumn of 1940. And just recently, decades later, I received the following stunning announcement.”

LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA ANNOUNCEMENT

Earl Hamner to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Nelson County native Earl Hamner, writer of novels, television shows, and movies and the force behind the semiautobiographical television series The Waltons, will receive the 2011 Literary Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia at the 14th Annual Literary Awards Celebration on October 15, 2011.

Hamner grew up in Schuyler, Virginia, with seven brothers and sisters. From an early age he exhibited a love of words and writing. When he was six his poem, “My Dog” was published on the Children’s Page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. His potential was recognized and he received encouragement from his teachers and members of the tight-knit community.

Hamner received a scholarship to the University of Richmond, but midway through his sophomore year Hamner was drafted. He spent time learning to drive tanks and diffuse mines, but his ability to type landed him in the Quartermaster Corps. While in the U.S. Army Hamner began to submit stories for publication.

After his discharge in March 1946 he returned to Richmond and briefly worked for local radio station WMBG. In the fall of 1946 Hamner enrolled in the school of broadcasting at the University of Cincinnati and graduated in 1948.

Shortly after graduation Hamner went to New York City and found work as a radio writer for NBC. His first book, Fifty Roads to Town, was published by Random House in 1953 and in 1961 his novel Spencer’s Mountain was published by Dial Press.

He began writing scripts for episodes of the Twilight Zone and CBS Playhouse. The film rights to Spencer’s Mountain were purchased by Warner Bros. and Hamner was on his way as a success in Hollywood. In 1970 The Homecoming was published by Random House and became a CBS special starring Patricia Neal and later was the basis of the long-running and hugely popular television series The Waltons. Hamner garnered additional fame as a writer for Falcon Crest, a prime time soap opera, which aired on CBS from 1981 to 1990.

Hamner has received numerous honors including:

TV-Radio Writers Award (1967)

George Foster Peabody Award for Distinguished Journalism (1972)

Virginian of the Year Award from Virginia Press Association (1973)

An Emmy for Best Drama Series for The Waltons (1974)

National Association of Television Executives Man of the Year Award (1974)

Virginian Association of Broadcasters Award (1975)

Frederic Ziv Award from the University of Cincinnati for Outstanding Achievement in Telecommunication

P.S. I know I'm shameless, but I couldn't resist adding that my new book ODETTE, A GOOSE OF TOULOUSE, has just been published and is selling briskly on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

And I just received word that a new short story, 'The Woods Colt," has been selected for inclusion in an anthology of mystery and fantasy to be published in the fall.
Warm Virginia greetings by way of California!

Earl

What’s That Goose Doing In Your Office?

2011-04-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

Often when visitors come to my office they walk in and observe, “This isn’t an office. It’s an aquarium!” They aren’t far off except that the fish are not alive, but carved figures I have collected them from all over the world.

Lately visitors ignore the fish figures and want to know about the goose. It’s a noble bird that sits at a place of honor in the middle of my desk. Her name is Odette and her story that begins some years ago when our friends, John and Nota McGreevey invited Jane and me to join them on a barge cruse on the Canal du Midi that winds its way from Bordeaux to Toulouse.

It was autumn in France and I was back in a country I love. I first came to France as a soldier in World War Two. Now I was back as a tourist. It was autumn and the plane trees along the canal were golden yellow. The food on the barge was superlative and the scenery was magical. The canal wound it s way through small villages and farmland. Each view was memorable and unique.

It was at a small village along the canal where I came upon my first Toulouse goose. It was a gorgeous creature with gray feathers laced with whiter and its expressive eyes were huge and brown. Our guide from the barge pointed out that it was still young but later it would be force fed copious amounts of grain until its liver was huge and then the goose would be slaughtered and its liver made into pate, or as the guide described it “a culinary delight.”

And the guide said all these dreadful things right in front of the poor goose, and when she leaned forward toward me and looked at me with those big brown eyes I could tell that she had heard and understood every word.

That was when the inspiration came to write ODETTE, A GOOSE OF TOULOUSE. In the book Odette is destined to die for her liver, but because she is endowed with a special gift she saves her own life in a most surprising way.

The book is illustrated by the students in Judith Victoria Hensley’s 6th Grade class at Wallins Elementary and Junior High School in Wallins Creek, Kentucky. Judith Hensley is a teacher, writer, and photographer and under her guidance her pupils have created illustrations that are original, artful, and at times quite innocent and at other time most sophisticated. As far as I know this is the first time a book has been illustrated by school children.

“ODETTE, A GOOSE OF TOULOUSE” is available from Amazon.com as well as Barnes and Noble.com. It can be ordered through your local bookstore or directly from the publisher at:

BearManor Media
P. O. Box 1129
Duncan, OK. 73534-1129
Phone: 580-252-3547

Have a good read, and if you own a goose = be kind!

REMEMBERING PATRICIA NEAL

2010-08-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

How could one not adore Patricia Neal? I first met her when she arrived from London to portray a character based on my own mother in a television special called “The Homecoming.”

True to her dedication to her work she had memorized the script word for word. She asked for one change which I happily made. The character she was to play I had originally named Dorrie. Pat revered the role and asked if I would change the name to Olivia after the daughter she had lost. And the name remained Olivia through the long running sequel to “The Homecoming” when the series became “The Waltons.”

The scenes between Richard Thomas, who played the young mountain boy who aspired to be a writer and Patricia who portrayed his mother were especially moving. No one in the my family had ever gone to college much less to have an ambition so foreign to our backwoods way of life. Nevertheless Patricia captured just the right attitude of doubt and wonder and support of this unlikely son. Richard in turn was a stunning partner in the scenes.

Most adult actors would rather face a firing squad than work with a cute child. The youngsters who played the Walton children weren’t just cute. They were accomplished actors posing as children. Every one of them should have been arrested and sent to jail for scene stealing. But Patricia was a pro and she gave each of the children the same respect she gave to her fellow adult actors, and their scenes are extraordinary to this day.

All of the exterior scenes of “The Homecoming” were to be filmed in the Grand Tetons. Fielder Cook, the director, in making out his schedule, decided to lighten Pat’s work load when possible. So he arranged for Pat’s exterior scenes to be filmed on the CBS backlot here in town. Pat wouldn’t hear of it and insisted that she make the trip to Wyoming, and did several of the most demanding and compelling scenes there. In one scene, where Pat takes a long walk along a county road, the script called for snow. But the skies were clear. There was not a cloud in the sky. Fielder Cook, ever striving for miracles, bowed his head, and said prayerfully, “Now Sir, if You would be so kind!” And snow began to fall!

Another memory of Pat that I treasure came about when my son, during a college vacation was visiting London. I gave him Pat’s telephone, told him to call her and give her my love. When Scott phoned, Pat insisted that he come to tea. She sent Ronald Dahl down to London to pick up Scott and bring him out to Great Missenden. I doubt if Scott has had such a distinguished chauffeur since, or such good company at tea.

Some years later Pat was in town on her way to Vancouver to make a movie. She let me know that she was here and I informed her that my mother was coming to visit. “Oh, I want to meet her,” Pat exclaimed. But my mother was to arrive the day after Pat was to leave. “I’ll just have to change my schedule” declared Pat. So the day my mother arrived I took her over to the Beverly Wilshire where Pat was staying. Pat met us at the door and said to me “Shoo. I already know you. I want to know your mother. Come back later.” About an hour and a half later when I knocked on the door they were still in animated conversation.

My mother was a country woman who had spent most of her life having children and nurturing a huge family. Her life was a dramatic contrast to the life of a legendary film actress. I was curious.

“What did you and Pat talk about?” I asked my mother on our way home.

“Oh,” my mother replied, “Lots of things, but mostly about our children.”

Two great ladies whose lives briefly touched. It was a privilege to know each of them.

Amigos,

2010-08-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

I know, it’s been a while, and I owe you an explanation. Here’s what happened. That sweet natured, kindly, well mannered guy you used to know has become a cantankerous old geezer who sits in front of the television set, shouting obscenities and throwing things at it.

Part of the problem is age. When I went to my doctor not long ago to complain about my knees he said, “There isn’t much you can do. They’re just old knees.” Aside from that I am well and there is even some news about a new book that will be coming soon.

When I was a young man I told myself that when I got old I would be tolerant of the young. I promised myself that with the wisdom that would come with the years I would rise above youthful follies. I would smile at the antics of the young; try to understand their language and their behavior.

It didn’t happen.

So here I am in my “golden years!” You do get some breaks, like lowered prices on some items like restaurants and theaters. But the hell with senior rates at the movies! Most of them aren’t worth even the reduced price, acted for the most part by unappealing people, and filled with gratuitous violence and celebrations of perversity. What ever happened to movies like “All About Eve,” Citizen Kane,” “Great Expectations” “It Happened One Night,” and “Gone With the Wind?”

While many of the problems I have are in what the mother of a friend of mine used to call “my mental mind,” most of my disabilities are physical.

There have been suggestions that the stairs in our beach house will make it necessary for us to sell and find an “alternative life style.” No way. I’m going to crawl up them steps on my knees if I have to. Well, maybe on the left one, the right one just don’t work hardly at all.

Where is the world we used to know?

I mean look what’s happened to our language. Yuknowhahmean? Of course you know what I mean. Either that expression or the shorter version “Yuno?” punctuates just about every attempt at communication made by half our population. I suspect there is an underlying cause for this aberration. I suspect that we have grown so alienated from each other, so distrustful of, or ignorant of our language, that we aren’t sure that what we are trying to express is actually getting through to the other person. So we have to keep asking, “Do you know what I mean? Am I getting through to you? Yuno?"

Even some of our great institutions have fallen into the trap of trying to be cool and appealing to “the youth audience.”

For years I have taken pride in the fact that I am a member of the National Geographic Society. It was formed back in 1888 for the purpose of promoting the conservation of the world’s cultural, historical and natural resources. You don’t just subscribe to the National Geographic Society. You don’t just become a member - you belong to this distinguished organization – one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. I will confess that I have often looked for ways to mention casually in conversation that I am a member of the National Geographic Society.

You should also know that I am a sucker for big fish. I love to catch them, to write and read about them, and to watch others catch them on television.

So I became excited when I saw an ad for a story about a man’s attempt to catch a monster fish in some South American river. I turned on the television only to find that the program had been produced by NAT GEO! Surely I thought, this is not my National Geographic Society. But I was wrong. How this venerable institution has allowed this outrage to take place, I don’t want to know. I tell this to you in confidence. Don’t mention this to anybody. God knows I don’t want the entire world to know that I am a member of something called NAT GEO.

The same thing has happened out here in California in the music world. This won’t come as any surprise to most of you since weird things are happening out here all the time.

While I was growing up back in Virginia during the Great Depression I was an avid fan of The Grand Old Opry. I still love country western music, but somewhere along the way I also acquired a taste for more “serious” music.

I remember a remarkable experience right after World War Two when I was a soldier stationed in Paris. There was a concert conducted by Pierre Monteaux at Le Palais de Chaillot of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies. Whenever I could get a pass I went to these concerts.

Recently I was reading the Entertainment Section of the Los Angeles Times and an ad caught my eye. It invited me to a performance of among other works, one of Beethoven’s symphonies. My interest perked up until I saw that the music was being performed by L.A. Phil.

L.A. Phil sounded to me like he could have been a cab driver who sang to his passengers or the jolly butcher at the meat counter at the Farmer’s Market or even the author of one of those Internet ads offering devices for enlarging one’s manhood, and then I realized it was short for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

No way I will attend a performance by L.A. Phil.

Some of you may remember a time when we were fortunate to have such great singers as Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney. They were people with talent and style and something we used to call “class.” I hobbled into these vintage years with Frank and Rosie and others like them, loved them and their music, bought their recordings and grieved when they left us.

Today we see such oddities as Lady Gaga. Recently she was the guest on an early morning show. Her entrance on stage was a doozie. She materialized in a cloud of smoke in an upright position but then proceeded to sing much of her song while lying prone on the platform. Most recently on the same show they featured a young boy, not even into his teens, who sang with his adenoids and kept stroking his genitals. I suspect this was a bad habit he picked up from old Michael Jackson videos, but on the other hand he could have simply been checking to see if there was anything there.

The object of my wrath on television at the moment is the NBC newsman, Brian Williams. I kind of liked Brian when he first took over that position from Tom Brokaw. He looked like the kind of guy I might enjoy going fishing with.

But then I began to worry that Brian didn’t know what country he was in. He kept referring to “this country” as if he just happened to be some place and wasn’t quite sure what country he was in. And finally it came to me that Brian was talking about “our” country. I counted one newscast in which Brian referred seven times to our country as “this country.”

I know this sounds naïve, but in this time in our country where there is so much discord, when politics have divided our citizens so sharply, when we face such dangerous enemies, I wonder if it might make a difference if we thought of “this” country as “our” country and feel some small smidgen of shared patriotism and pride in the good old U. S. of A.

I wrote Brian a letter asking him to follow our Presidents’ good example and refer to The United States of America as “our” country, but so far I haven’t heard back from him.

I am really put off by people who talk fast.

Recently there was a young woman on the Today Show who talked so fast that I suspect she had trouble understanding what she was saying herself.

She was probably just graduated from Vassar a day or two ago but oh my goodness, she knew everything about everything.

She was an authority on several topics one of them being the war between men and women. Marriage was her specialty and she informed us that the institution was in trouble in “this country” because partners had taken to sleeping in separate beds, or God forgive them, in separate rooms.

I sent her note explaining the effect that snoring could have on a marriage. I wrote it from personal experience. I have a deviated septum, which causes me to snore so vigorously that I have been known to disrupt the sleep of folks living blocks away. Rather than let my affliction destroy an otherwise extremely happy marriage Jane and I elected to sleep in separate rooms. And we will be celebrating our 57th anniversary this coming October. So far the knowledgeable young lady from Vassar has not responded either.

I still have in my office an upright Royal typewriter. It is in perfect working order and often I work on it for the fun of hitting the keys. The sound brings back happy memories of all those early years when I wrote novels and poems and radio scripts on a similar machine.

But today I work on a computer. It’s faster and at eighty-seven I am trying to finish a novel as well as a screenplay before going to that great Writer’s Guild in the sky. So speed is a necessity. There is one advantage of the computer over the typewriter. You have probably noticed that I have used an extraordinary number of misspelled words.I have been a terrible speller all my life. I never really mastered the art. So I use the spellchecker once in a while on the computer, but I warn you it can turn on you.

For instance I have a fine man for a son in law. He is a considerate, solid citizen, a student of history, a concerned citizen, and a devoted husband to my daughter.

I once sent Pepe an e-mail and before I hit the send button I ran the spell check. Somehow the Spell Check changed Pepe to Peeps, a name you might use to describe a little yellow baby chick.

Well, there is nothing yellow or chicken about Pepe, but he is a good-natured man and the name stuck. In addition to his other good qualities Peeps is a computer expert and it is due to his expertise that these words are being transferred to my BLOG.

So until you hear from me again I’ll just be sitting here listening to L.A. Phil on the radio, watching a middle aged woman in hot pants shouting lyrics to a song I can’t understand, and switching over occasionally to watch fishing stories on Nat Geo, writing notes to Brian Williams to remind him what country he is in and throwing things at the television.

Warm regards and Adios!

Earl

Where is Everybody

2010-04-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Actors, directors, writers and crew on a film or a television series will often claim, “We’re a family“.

I expect that such feelings do develop over time in some films. At the height of production folks on a series often spend more time on a sound stage than they do at home. They may see more of each other during a day than they see of their own families. And some actors, not all, inhabit the character they are portraying so completely that sometime the line between play-acting and reality becomes a little blurred.

Those of us involved in the production of “The Waltons” really were a family. In the first place the actors were portraying characters based on members of an actual family. Some of the actors who portrayed the Walton children were as young as six when we began filming. In the following ten or so years they worked together, went to school together, ate together. They also grew up together and even today they are close to each other.

Sometimes it was interesting to see the actor, in real life, taking on the traits of the character he or she was portraying. I have a fond memory of Ellen Corby shouting to one of the young actors, “Watch where you’re going! You want to break your neck?” And certainly everybody, even many viewers, loved Will Geer as if he were truly his or her grandfather.

Now that they are both in Heaven I think I can safely tell this about Will and Ellen: If scene stealing were a crime they both would have landed in jail long ago. Ellen was forever fidgeting on camera to attract the attention of the viewer.

Sometimes Will would hold her by the back of her costume to keep her from moving about. But of course she was forced to such measures because Will knew every trick in the actor’s book to dominate a scene.

Often their “stage children” confided in their stage parents, Michael and Ralph, when they needed a grown up ear. It was especially moving to see, as the series neared its end, the efforts that Ralph and Michael took to assure their “stage children” that the family would remain “family.”

All these years later, we Waltons keep in touch. We are still a family, and in answer to the many inquiries I receive about them, here is what everybody is up to these days:

RICHARD THOMAS – JOHN-BOY WALTON

Richard is back on Broadway. He is performing at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, only a few blocks from where he made his stage debut in “Sunrise at Campobello’ at the age of seven!

This time Richard appears along with David Spader, David Alan Greer and Kerry Washington. The play has been described as “the riveting new play by America’s foremost playwright and Tony Award winner, David Mamet.” In the play, three attorneys, two black and one white, are offered a chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black women.

In Richard’s words “It’s about things that no one says. It’s strong stuff. Provocative, but not shocking for the sake of being shocking.”

I am always amazed at the range of Richard’s talent. Just a few years ago I was in the audience for his remarkable performance in Richard III. I admired him tremendously in his masterful enactment of an embattled juror in “Twelve Angry Men,” and then to watch him with equal skill able to transform himself into an earnest boy from the backwoods of Virginia who yearned to be a writer.

MICHAEL LEARNED – OLIVIA WALTON

I ran into Michael and her husband, John, not long ago in a restaurant, and I can tell you that Michael is still as gorgeous and as radiant as ever. She still does a lot of theater and occasional guest appearances on television. She told me that she has been filming a guest shot on “GENERAL HOSPITAL.” She was not exactly sure when her performance will air, but your local television schedule will have the information when it is telecast.

Soon after that I sent her a note asking about her immediate plans and here is her reply:

This summer I'm scheduled to be in Sarnia Ontario Canada, doing “DRIVING MISS DAISY.” I'll be at the Starbrite Theater, which is about an hour from the Detroit border. It's on Lake Huron so I'm looking forward to some time back in Canada where I raised my kids. Lake Huron is where we spent many happy days on the beach, when the kids were small and their father and I were performing at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. I'll be there in Sarnia in July and August. In the meantime I feed my wilds birds who are soaked through at the moment, but still singing their hearts out in the ivy bushes outside my window.

RALPH WAITE – JOHN WALTON

Ralph and I have been playing telephone tag. I have been missing him at his California home and I am guessing he may be in New York or on the road. I still managed to find a quote.

The current issue of TV Guide lists TV’s TOP FAMILIES OF ALL TIMES! Our series is listed as Number 6. The story reads as follows:

“John and Olivia Walton, Ralph Waite and Michael Learned, raised seven children during the Depression, and the series saw them through World War Two. Bathed in sentimental nostalgia for simpler times and unchallenged values, “The Waltons” was an escape for the social turbulence of the ‘70s.”

And here is Ralph’s comment from that same article: “A lot of people felt they had lost their anchor, and this was a reminder of what people wanted a family to be, with an emphasis on work and honesty and education and basic American values. The show’s iconic sign off, as the family, all under one roof, says goodnight to each other while the lights go out, was recently spoofed in a Geico ad. “It’s a very powerful symbol, said Waite. “It still resonates.”

JON WALMSLY – Jason Walton

The last time I had a chance to visit with Jon was at The Waltons International Fan Club Reunion in Virginia last November. Carolyn Grinnell, President of the Fan Club, had invited Jon, his wife Marion and me to be guests of honor. At one of the events which took place at the Baptist Church in my hometown, I also had the pleasure of introducing three original “Waltons”: my sister, the inspiration for Elizabeth, Nancy Jamerson and her husband, Garnett; my sister, Audrey Hamner, the model for Erin, and my brother, Paul, known on the series as Ben. Another highlight at the church was a recitation by Marion Walmsley of “Silent Night, Holy Night” in her native German.

Jon is one of the busiest actors/writers/musicians I know so I asked him to tell us in his own words where he is up to these days:

”First and foremost,” he wrote, “I am enjoying spending time with the love of my life, my wife Marion. We had a wonderful time at The Walton’s fan club reunion in Charlottesville, VA in November, and then were off to Arizona and New Mexico for some musical gigs (more on this later). We also managed to squeeze in some sightseeing in Sedona, AZ and along the old Route 66. Christmas was spent in California, and then we were off to Germany and Austria for New Year with Marion’s family. We had great weather, and the Tyrolean Alps were spectacular. My latest project is called ABBEY ROAD MEMORIES. It’s a live concert show featuring a great band along with special guest artists, performing the entire Beatles ABBEY ROAD album. Between “side one” and “side two” the band performs a medley of British hits recorded at the Abbey Road Studio, then the special guests play their hits (also recorded at the famous studio!) We just finished our first run of shows in Arizona and New Mexico. The shows were sold out and the audience went wild every night. The headliners this time were Denny Laine (Wings, Moody Blues) and Joey Molland of Badfinger.Soon, it will be time to hit the road again.

In addition, I have been writing and recording music for the “Elf Sparkle” cartoon for Nickelodeon as well as providing voice characterizations.

Of course, I am still working with my own bands “The U.K. Beat” and my latest baby, “The Blues Odyssey”, as well as doing solo gigs around Southern California.

If you’d like to keep up date, please make sure to join the Jon Walmsley fanpage , as well as The U.K. Beat fanpage, on Facebook. Also visit www.theukbeat.com and www.thebluesodyssey.com for complete info on the bands, live videos, photos, and more!

JUDY NORTON TAYLOR – MARY ELLEN WALTON

Over the course of the life of the series Judy Norton Taylor was required to grow from a pugnacious little girl to a sensitive teenager and finally to become a highly capable nurse and mother. Having watched the excellence of Judy’s performances in these various challenging roles it will come as no surprise that following the series she has excelled not only in acting, but also in writing, directing and producing. In these capacities she has worked in theaters in England and Canada as well as here at home.

Her reviews in each of these fields have been most laudatory and I was tempted to reprint some of them, but I found another review for another of her talents I haven’t even mentioned yet, singing. I will let the review speak for itself

A STELLAR EVENING WITH JUDY NORTON AT STERLINGS
BY
Don Grigware

“This was my first cabaret review for 2010 and I was not disappointed. An Evening with Judy Norton was a stellar show with a true night club star. Gifted and experienced she is a consummate artist whose selection of songs was guaranteed to entertain her audience. Judy makes you feel right at home. She made her way to the stage with “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” and once there followed through with a series of tunes that highlighted her career.

Highlights of the seventy minute show included a snappy “Le Jazz Hot,” a fabulous rendition of “Stompin’ At the Savoy” and a deeply felt medley of love tunes. Her encore of “There’s No Business like Show Business” kind of sums up Judy Norton’s life as actress singer, director and writer. She is one happy gal who‘s done it all in this biz and has surely ended up the better for it. A balanced and contented woman, Norton’s a dynamic performer with charm, a great instrument and a lot of love to give.

Never one to slow down, when I spoke with Judy she was preparing for a concert style show, “From Judy, WithLove” two shows in Grapevine Texas and two shows in Granbury, Texas as well as a benefit Gala Concert for the Musical Theater of Los Angeles at the Met Theater in Hollywood on April 7th.

ERIC SCOTT – BEN WALTON

In response to my note Eric wrote: One special bit of news. I have just finished our friend, Joe Conley’s book and liked it a lot. It is called IKE GODSEY OF WALTON’S MOUNTAIN” and it can be ordered from Bear Manor Media,PO Box 71426, Albany, Georgia, 31708.

As for as the old Scott homestead, we are all doing great. Ashley is finishing high school this semester and has received two college acceptances. She is waiting on six more and we are planning a road trip in April to visit the campus' that are in the running. Emma is learning so much in second grade and is in the Brownies.
Jeremy is in Kindergarten and has just started on a little league team and really enjoying it. He is riding a two wheel bike now and is constantly in motion. He reminds me so much of myself at that age, I think you can vouch from personal experience that my hands are going to be full with him!

We spend a lot of our weekends at the beach house and we are so lucky to have these special mini trips. Cindy and I will be observing our tenth anniversary in March. We are going to Las Vegas for the celebration.

MARY BETH MCDONOUGH – ERIN WALTON

Mary Beth has a recurring role on the popular CBS drama, “The New Adventures Of Old Christine.” In addition to her acting career she has finished her autobiography, “Lessons From the Mountain, From Walton to Woman.” It should be out this year!

I was especially pleased when Mary asked me to write a forward to her book. It is a valuable work and will shed light on a subject of much concern to women young and old.. In part, in the forward, I wrote:

“Ten years after “The Waltons” had run its course, Mary had become a mature woman, an accomplished actress, and a great beauty. After leaving the series and work was scarce, she took a seemingly innocent step toward a more active career. Going on the notion that a “fuller” figure would be an asset in her work she underwent breast implantation. Mysterious symptoms began. Her health became more and more impaired. Eventually she discovered that as a result of the implants she now suffered lupus, and equally horrifying she found that her daughter had similar symptoms.

It is at this point that her book turns from a story of a child becoming a mature actor into the story of a woman on a quest and a cause.

Part detective work, part medical research, her own health as well as that of her daughter are at stake as she sets out to discover the role of breast implants in the illness they were each now suffering. Resistance was there at every turn, more often than not, from paid consultants of powerful medical supply companies.

Once armed with knowledge Mary has taken steps to inform all women of the potential danger, one such step being the writing of this book. It is a revealing story that took courage and strength to tell. It is a story of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity at its finest.

Check her web site marymcdonough.com to find out more about Mary Beth, her book, life coaching and acting classes. She has a fan page on Face Book, here's the address to contact her there.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Mary-McDonough/274441120496?ref=ts

DAVID HARPER – JIM BOB WALTON

I last visited with David in November at the memorial service for his father, actor Paul Harper. Paul had been a well-known character actor, a versatile performer who had appeared in many major films including the legendary “Wild Bunch.”

Since that time David has been busy tending to his father’s estate, but when we spoke today he was considering reactivating his acting career. In his words: “I feel like Clark Gable who said he hated acting but it’s a good way to make a living.”

In our conversation I also learned something about David that I had never known. He is a History buff and is especially well informed about the Civil War. His interest grew out of his early interest in books and he expressed special gratitude to his parents and said, “The greatest thing my parents ever did for me, besides to love me, was to give me a library card. He is looking forward to his next trip to Virginia and especially to visiting the battlefields at Manassas, We each admitted that when we drive through those fought-over fields and forests as the sun is setting over the Blue Ridge – we see ghosts! And as David pointed out it is almost a duty of each American to visit such sites that were so defined our country.

KAMI COTLER – ELIZABETH WALTON

Of all the Walton actors the one who has the closest association with the area I come from is Kami. For several years after the series was over she taught school in my home county of Nelson. I spoke with her recently and ask for news of her and the family. She replied:

”My family is well. Daughter Callie is 9 and son, Cotton is 12. They are both at the charter school I used to co-direct and now I am on the board of directors. I am working at a charter in Lawndale, Environmental Charter High School, helping them open a middle school. It is a very cool educational program, so I am enjoying it. www.echsonline.org

I have a page on facebook, so people can get info there. Funnily enough, I just posted the story of how I ended up on The Waltons on my page, so fans might find that interesting.

I guess if you want an "update" you can say that I got my teaching credential at UC Berkeley, taught in an school-within-a-school program for at-risk high school students in Nelson, moved back to LA (so my folks could know my kids), taught at a charter school until my Dad got sick in 2002 and then I left to help him with WITFAWN, his boutique travel company/hobby that takes USC football fans to away football games. When Daddy died, I took over WITFAWN. Cotton was in first grade and kept coming home "sick" before recess, so I started looking for a school that wouldn't make him miserable. I ended up finding a group of parents starting an arts-integrated charter school. I volunteered to help and ended up as one of the co-directors. After 3 years there I did some consulting to other start-up charter schools and now I am at Environmental and enjoy my work quite a lot.”

And I should mention that Kami is still fondly remembered in Nelson County, Virginia.

EARL HAMNER – NARRATOR AND BIG BROTHER. Better know as The Old Bear!

When I spoke with David Harper he reminded me to say: “Be sure to express my affection to all those viewers who have been so faithful all these years!” And speaking for David and for the whole Walton “family” I can echo those sentiments.
- - -

Bear Story

2010-02-28T21:28:00.000-08:00

Friends and Neighbors:

Here comes a bear story!

We had known for a long time that the bear was there. My father claimed they had once come face to face with each other when he was out hunting quail. My father was given to telling tall tales, and if the story wasn’t exciting enough he was not above supplying additional dramatic details. According to his version the bear was black, weighing three or four hundred pounds, that it was eating apples that had fallen from Old Man Withrow’s orchard, and that the two of them had passed a moment gazing at each other before my father stared him down and the bear disappeared into the woods.

There were other reports from witnesses with less imagination than my father. Owen Goolsby reported sighting bear tracks six and eight inches wide over on Wales Mountain. Cuss Gibbs had watched the bear wade across the Rockfish River down near Power House #l. Virgil Pugh had come across spore behind his barn that might have been bear but he wouldn’t swear to it.

And then came the day when my mother was alone in the house. All her children had left home except for Brother Jim who commuted to his job in Charlottesville and he wouldn’t be home until after dark.

The phone call came from Aunt Dolly Ragland who lived at the end of the country lane that ran in front of our house. Aunt Dolly lived alone and all the neighbors kept a watch over her because she was sometimes given to what the local folk called a touch of “dimension.” There were times when she would get lost in the house she had occupied for seventy five years until some neighbor would stop by and help her find her way home again.

My mother reported that she sounded as if she was trying to keep calm when she said, “Doris, would one of your boys stop by here for a minute? There’ a bear trying to get in my back door.”

With none of her boys at home my mother called to Uncle Donald who had retired from Sears and Roebuck in Charlottesville and who was out spading the garden to plant his early spring peas.

“She’s at it again, huh?” said Donald. “Last time she claimed it was a pole cat under the house.”

“Well, you just never know. Maybe you ought to take a look just in case.”

Donald went in the house and when he came back out he was carrying his 21 gauge shot gun and was followed by his wife, Aunt Alma. There was no way such a modest gun would stop a bear but it was the best Uncle Donald had. If nothing else it would pepper the bear’s behind with birdshot, make a loud noise and frighten him away. Aunt Alma and my mother watched from a distance but they had no clear view of Aunt Dolly’s back door because it faced the other way. They could hear Aunt Dolly shouting and there was fear in her voice so they knew it wasn’t just dimension.

“Watch out, Donnie,” she cried. “He’s just about broke the last plank through.”

Aunt Alma and my mother recalled what happened next. ”We saw Donald raise his gun and fire and then the skinniest, hungriest looking old black bear you can imagine ran away from the house and headed for the Rockfish River.” He had obviously been in hibernation all winter and it was desperation that led him to Aunt Dolly’s house. While Uncle Donald fixed Aunt Dolly’s kitchen door she invited every body in for a glass of buttermilk and the bear was never seen again.

I was reminded of this event recently when I too came out of hibernation. Unlike that old bear I didn’t sleep the winter away. I just spent it driving back and forth to solicitous Beverly Hills doctors who, even in the face of my extreme age, continue to try to piece together the many ailing parts of what I laughingly call my body. I won’t bore you with them except to mention, hoping for maximum sympathy, that the most recent curse I have suffered is with gout of the left knee. Superstition has it that gout is caused by too much red wine, too much rich food and
blood pressure medicine. I am thinking of giving up the blood pressure medicine.

So spring has come again and this old bear is out of the woods. Thanks to the shot Dr. Venturapalli injected into my knee and massive amounts of prednisone the pain has diminished and I can now walk without a cane. One of the other many medications I am taking is causing occasional hallucinations so if you will welcome a crazed old bear with hallucinations back into your life I’d appreciate the chance to get caught up.

First I want to send my sympathy to all you folks in the Midwest and east who have been hammered with all that snow. Many of you have shared photos of the stuff at depths hard to imagine and I have enjoyed the beauty of it without experiencing the inconvenience.

Out here we have had an unusual amount of rain. These severe storms come so rarely that nobody knows what to do. Hardly anyone owns an umbrella or a raincoat and when the drops start falling the natives call one another on the phone and say, “What does one do?” The smart ones move out of their homes if they happen to live below of the fire ravaged mountain slopes where the roads become rivers of mud frequently carrying boulders the size of basketballs. Jane and I live on a hillside, but fortunately the hillside above us is stable.

One of the burdens I want to get off my chest is the guilt I feel because I have not answered your letters.

I swell with pride as I read each one. What outpourings of admiration and gratitude and appreciation you so

generously send. The only way I can accept such adulation is on behalf of the Walton team. We were a remarkable group, every member of the team – actors, writers, directors, executive staff, and a remarkable crew were superior in their field, dedicated to project that each of us loved. Many participants in a television series will say, “We were a family.” On our set it was remarkably true.

So why this guilt? The answer is that there are just more letters than I can respond to. Which is painful to me when they express such sentiments as “Your show changed my life.” “The Waltons are the family I never had.” “The Waltons is the way I wish my family had been.” “Because of the show my daughter intends to become a writer.” ”The show is life transforming.” These are very humbling messages, and I apologize that they have not been answered with a proper response.

So spring has come again! In the east the daffodil and crocus are reaching up through the snow. The dogwood and red bud won’t be far behind. Here in California the magnolias and ornamental pears are in full blossom, the hummingbirds are already nesting, the temperature is in the eighties, and this old bear is out of the woods. I’m energized again. Watching Shaun White defying gravity of his snowboard in Vancouver I considered taking up the sport but Jane talked me out of it.

Many years ago there was a great gang of kids here on our street.. There was a nice kid in the neighborhood named Jeffrey Van Zanten. I was home a lot of the time and often they would include me in whatever games the gang was up to. One day, while I was flailing away at the typewriter, Jeffrey came to the door and asked Jane if Mr. Hamner could come out and play. If any of the kids from the present gang ask Jane to let me out, I’m ready!

So long for now.

Tribute To A Friend

2009-12-07T13:44:00.000-08:00

It’s just around the corner! Christmas! Here in Southern California we know it’s on its way because suddenly the leaves of the liquid amber have turned mustard yellow, golden orange, bruised red, speckled green and a gentle brown. Snow is already on the ground up in the Angeles National Forest. Weekend visitors pack it on the top of their SUVs, but it's mostly melted by the time it reaches the downhill suburbs.

The faces of jack o’ lanterns, set out on the curb after Halloween are caving in and collapsing and the images of the Thanksgiving turkey in the windows at schools have been replaced with Christmas Trees and Chanukah candles. It seems that Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer has been playing on the radio since the Fourth of July but now it gives way to more serious Christmas music and in our cars we sing along to “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Because its daylight savings time we leave our jobs early. Even so darkness is falling by the time we reach home. We live on a country road and the coyote that usually doesn’t show up until after dinner is loping along in search of food. Peaches somehow knows he is there and announces his presence with hysterical barking.

My friends know me and forgive me for becoming sloppily sentimental during the Christmas season. Jane, who suffers the most from my compulsion to write stuff down, looks after me patiently when sometimes late at night , I put on a ratty old bathrobe, grab a Heineken from the refrigerator, and disappear into my office . The bathrobe is a long, brown, ugly garment of some strange but oddly warm comforting material. It is very old and has lengthened as time has passed so that it now almost reaches the floor and the belt has now stretched to such absurd length that it frequently trips me. Jane has threatened to burn it but I hide it when I leave the house and uncover it each night when I feel the need to write coming on.

Tonight I want to write about a very special man in my life. In my fifty years in the entertainment business I have met and worked with many actors. Some of them have faces and names that are known around the world. Others even thought they might have had talent, just never got that break that could lead to fame and fortune. Still I treasure having worked with each and every one and I am proud that most of them I still count as friends.

Actors are a special breed of folks. I once wrote an obituary for a well known actor. I tried to make it a tribute to all actors and so I wrote that actors are born while their parents are appearing on the road in some off Broadway production, that their first cradle is a dresser drawer, that without applause they will wither away and die and that they only come truly alive when the camera is rolling or at 8:30 on Broadway when the curtain rises.

There is one actor who holds a special place in my heart. Will Geer was born a Hoosier and went on to perform on every stage from provincial theaters to Broadway and eventually to a major career in films and television. At one period in his life, paying the price for of his political beliefs, he was blacklisted, unable to find work, and became a gardener, but reason prevailed and he was able to resume his acting career.

Will brought special gifts to the role of Grandma Walton. He was not so much portraying Zebulon Walton – he was just being himself and in that guise he brought humor, depth, empathy, dignity and a credibility to the role that enriched the entire production.

Will and I became good friends and I remember an occasion when I was back in my home county in Virginia to be honored at Earl Hamner Day. I should mention that there had recently been a negative review of The Waltons in which the critic called the show “corny.” Will was to remember the review.

The celebration was held on the football field of the Nelson County High School. My whole family was there. This was back when my mother and all my brothers and sisters were still alive and we were all there. There had been speeches, parades, and awards (I was gifted with a key to the Nelson County jail!) someone dropped from the sky in a parachute and it was all wonderful.

And then a dusty old bus drove into the area and came to a stop in front of the podium. Out stepped Will along with a troop of actors. He had driven all night from Alabama where he was appearing in a play. He was carrying a bushel basket of corn which he had stolen from some farmer’s field down the road. He came up on the podium and presented me with the basket and announced that he just wanted me to know that there was still more corn than concrete in our country.

Wherever he happened to be Will made a garden and it did not take long, once he became a member of the cast, for him to plant a garden on the Walton set. And there in the unlikely setting, a major movie set which had pioneered the industry and produced more than its share of film classics, Will set about raising a crop of onions, peas, squash and tomatoes. And being Will he took care to see that each of the young Walton actors was included in the care of the seedlings once they developed into young plants.

Sometimes he was so full of himself, so exuberant that he would break into spontaneous song without realizing that most music on the show had to be cleared with the publisher and paid for before using it, so we often were charged for Will’s unscripted serenades.

There were other times when at a dinner scene he would be saying grace; With the camera rolling, with the actors waiting for cues that never came, with the director pulling his hair, Will would depart from the script, improvise, extemporize and lengthen the grace until he had properly thanked Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, friends, neighbors and God Himself for the food and fellowship we were about to enjoy.

It was with those memories in mind and with my great love for my friend that I wrote the words that I believe Will would have said on such an occasion.

Grandpa Walton’s’ Christmas Prayer

What is Christmas? It is a time when some of your dreams come true. Every year it rolls around and takes you by surprise some of the time, especially when you’re as close to 100 years old as I am. You think, “It can’t be time for another one,” but here it is with all its hope and joy and the promise of the wishes that might come true.

You’re probably wondering what I wish for. What would an old man wish for? Maybe you think I would wish to be young again. But I don’t yearn for youth any longer. Being young is a painful thing. Being young and in love to boot, which most young people are, is even more agony. I’ll tell you what I wish. I’d wish for the power to return some of the love that’s been given me. I wish the time and place for all that giving could be commemorated like the heart I carved on the tree around your Grandmother’s and my initials. I wish too for more days to my life.

I wish for time - time to help children know some of the beauty of this Earth that has been revealed to me. A drop of water is a wondrous thing. A spade full of earth is a kingdom in itself. A cloud is worth watching as it passes from one horizon to another. A bird building its nest is as wondrous as men building the Pyramid, and any green thing that grows is proof that God exists. It all comes into focus at Christmas.

It is a tender time. We grow cautious because we open ourselves to love. We exchange gifts, but what those presents really say is "I love you." It makes some folks uncomfortable to say or hear these words. Maybe it’s because they’ve never learned the secret of the giving heart. There are more takers than givers in the world. Sadly there are people, communities, even countries spending their time grubbing and rooting for the goods of this earth like pigs after acorns in the fall of the year.

But ours is a country with a giving heart, and I pray it will always be so. It’s a good country and it’s part of our strength, something that we brought with us as pioneers that we can share with the fellow who is down on his luck, with those who suffered calamities: with the loss of their homes or jobs or their hope.

This is a family with a giving heart. You children may squabble and bicker among yourselves, but you’ve been taught to love and to give, and that’s the greatest present your Mamma and Daddy could have given you. So take pleasure in the trappings of Christmas. Be merry like the songs say. Revel in the tinsel and the glitter and the sparkle and sing the old songs for all the joy that’s in them and the memories they bring back. But to touch the real Christmas, to feel the true spirit of the season, look to your own heart and find all the secret treasures that they’re there to give.

There is one wish that I make every year. I never said it aloud before, but I’ll tell it to you now. I wish for all the seasons I have known, endlessly to come and go; the dogwood spring, the watermelon summer, the russet and gold of autumn. I wish for Christmas to come again and for each of us to be here again next year at this time...together, safe, warm, and loved as we are at this moment.

Merry Christmas to one and all!!

A THANKSGIVING MEMORY

2009-11-17T17:14:00.000-08:00

Earl Hamner

In the beginning my hometown of Schuyler, Virginia, was a company town, the home of The Alberene Stone Corporation that quarried and milled soapstone. We lived in company built houses and bought our goods from the company store. Schuyler had been a prosperous little village but when the Great Depression came the mill closed. My father found work in Waynesboro and could only be home with his family on holidays and weekends.

I remember a Thanksgiving from those years. Mornings were strangely quiet because the whistle calling the workers to the mill was still in observance of the holiday. On this Thanksgiving morning the sound that woke us was that of my father, home for the holiday, building a fire in the wood-burning cook stove. He drenched the wood with kerosene and when he lit it with a match the flames mad a whooshing sound as they roared up the chimney.

Shortly, he called down the hall to my mother, “Sweetheart,” which was his name for her till his dying day. My mother answered, “I’m on my way,” and joined him in the kitchen. They spoke quietly to each other, sharing private moments. Soon the sound of coffee percolating and the aroma of sizzling bacon would drift up to our rooms.

We descended upon them, eight red headed brothers and sisters, crowding around the stove to warm up. Breakfast was served at a long wooden trestle table my father had built and while we ate he would admire his brood and call us his “thoroughbreds.”

Each of us was assigned chores. The girls helped our mother wash and dry the dishes, make the beds, washing and iron the clothes. The boys tended to outside chores. There was the cow to be milked. She was a brown and white Guernsey. My father had bought her from Miss Dolly Hall for forty dollars. Miss Dolly had named her Chance because she gave a “good chance” of butter. The chickens had been up before us and were waiting for the grain we tossed to them on the frosty ground. Feeding the pigs was a melancholy chore. They had intelligent eyes and looked up trustingly as we poured slops into their tough. I knew, and it pained me, but they were unaware that they did not have long to live.

Our Father had brought home the turkey the day before. He had shot it over on Wales Mountain and my mother was already preparing it for the oven when company began to arrive.

We were part of two great clans. My mother’s family, the Gianinnis, was of Italian descent and came from the town of Lucca in the Tuscany region. The earliest to arrive in our country was Antionio and his wife. Antonio had been brought over by Phillip Mazzi, a neighbor of Thomas Jefferson’s and eventually he became one of Jefferson’s gardeners. They were tall blond people for the most part, God fearing Baptist with strong family bonds.

In addition to my mother’s family, most of whom lived close by, my father’s people, aunts and uncles and cousins would arrive from Richmond and Petersburg. We were in awe of the city cousins. They used slang words that were new to us such as “guy” “jerk” or “kiddo” which made us feel naïve and countrified. We children would travel in packs, playing the old games of Hide and Go Seek, Olly, Olly Oxen Free, and in the nearby school yard we would shoot baskets or play baseball, or find a plowed field where we searched for arrowheads and fools gold.

In the house the conversation grew in pitch and volume as everybody talked at once. Hardly anybody heard what the other was saying but everybody knew what was going on. We are a family of storytellers. No event is without significance to us, and all that happens becomes a part of our history. We keep and share every detail. Our reunions become a verbal history of birth and death, of failures and accomplishments, of hardships and good times and just celebrating the joy of being together again. Being an aspiring writer I shamelessly kept notes!

At one point everybody piled into cars and went to the graveyard where we paid respects to our dead. The more recent graves bore markers with names and dates carved or engraved on them. In the older section we came to earlier graves marked simply by a single primitive stone with no lettering to tell the name of who rested beneath it.

On the way home one of the uncles made a detour down to Esmont to visit the Staples Sisters who made bootleg apple brandy. He brought a bottle back with him and it was surreptitiously passed from one of the uncles to the other. If she caught sight of it one of the wives would disapprove but her scolding did not last long for someone moved to the piano and soon all the grown ups had their arms around each other, swaying back and forth while singing “In the Garden” or “Down by The Old Mill Stream” or “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

In the late afternoon dinner was served. If my Grandmother Gianinni was there she would say a proper grace, but if she was not my father said, “Look out, Lord, we’re gonna eat!” A grace that Miss Ora looked upon with great disfavor. What a feast ensued! The turkey, golden brown, had a minimum of birdshot left in it! The applesauce was made from fruit we had gathered from an abandoned orchard down on Mt. Alto. The butter beans, the corn, and the peas came come from our summer garden and canned by my mother. The potatoes flavored with Chance’s rich butter were not mashed but creamed. Finally desserts. The sweet potato pie, still warm from the oven, was encased in a crust so crumbly and sweet that it alone could have been a dessert. And then came the pumpkin pie, steaming aromas of brown sugar and nutmeg, and all laced with generous portions of whipped cream. All of it was accompanied by milk for the children, coffee for the adults and if requested iced tea as sweet as sugar cane.

At sundown out-of-town guests drifted off to whatever relative had taken them in for the night. Others, sated with food and companionship, gathered around the radio for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving message. Sleepy, exhausted children were carted off to bed. It was a family custom that we would call goodnight to each other from room to room and finally, we would drift off to sleep secure in the knowledge that we were home, safe and loved.

They were challenging times, those Depression Years. They seem so distant now. We thought we were poor, but in them we were richer than we knew.

The house where we lived fell into disrepair for a while, but happily it was bought by someone I respect and admire and am most grateful to, a fellow Virginian, Pam Rutherford. She has restored the house from top to bottom. I was afraid that when I visited there after the restoration I might be disappointed but Pam has paid such incredible attention to detail that when I was there a couple of weeks ago I walked thought the door and I was home again.

In memory I go there each night. I stand beside the gate, look up to the house, and once again I hear the voices of my mother and father, my brothers and sisters as we call goodnight to each other before we sleep.

The end.

THREE HOMECOMING STORIES

2009-10-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,
I have to tell you that there has been a glitch on my mail system but it has finally been ironed out. Hope we will be in better communication from now on. Thanks for your patience. I will post a special Thanksgiving blog early in November. In the meantime the latest news has just been posted.
Have a happy October.
Earl

THREE HOMECOMING STORIES!

#l

HAMNER GOES HOME!

Old Earl is going home! Home to my beloved Virginia, home to where everybody knows your name, home to people who invite you to sit up and talk till bedtime, people who know how to fry chicken, how to properly make ham biscuits, and how to correctly pronounce the words – about, house, and mouse!

Carolyn Grinnell is throwing a party! Those of you who have attended past reunions of the Walton’s International Fan club know it is a day long adventure capped off with an unforgettable banquet.

The 2009 Reunion will be held on November 7th at the Doubletree Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Carolyn has invited Jon Walmsley and me to be guests of honor, and we are looking forward to the day. Her theme this year is an Early Christmas and every guest is asked to bring an old fashioned decoration to dress up the tree.

The day will be a full one. It will include a visit to the Schuyler Baptist Church where the Hamner family worshiped, The Waltons Mountain B and B with its extensive collection of Walton books and Virginia antiques, and a stop by the Hamner house which has been so lovingly and faithfully restored by owner Pamela Rutherford as well a visit to the Museum of Rural History at Lovingston.

Guests will need to arrive on November 6th since activities will start early on the next morning. Space is limited but for further information contact Carolyn at 336-993-2752.

#2

OLD WRITER TURNS ACTOR!

I was once invited by the director of a stage production of “The Homecoming” to perform at the Laguna Playhouse here in California. With my knees knocking in fright, I looked out over an ocean of people and read an opening, a kind of curtain raiser, and at the end of the play a closing paragraph. You should have heard the applause!

I have never been the same and always craved for more! So when Peter Coy and Boomie Peterson, Directors of the Hamner Theater back home in Afton, Virginia, invited me to spend an evening with them and to perform with the cast of their production of “The Homecoming” I leapt at the chance.

At 6:00 PM, Thursday November 5th, 2009, along with the cast of the upcoming production, I will be on hand for the festivities.

From 6:00 to 7:00 I look forward to saying hello and to autographing copies of my books that will be on sale at the theater.

From 7:30 to 8:30 I will read scenes from “The Homecoming” with the cast of the upcoming production.

I look forward to this evening. It is not only a source of pride to me that the theater is named after me, but that it continues to bring quality drama and entertainment to Nelson County and the surrounding area.

All tickets are $50.00. Proceeds of this event will go to support the on going work of the theater.

After the reading we can visit as long as you like.

I should stress that I will be there only for this special event. The actual run of the play will begin on Thursday, November 19th at 7:30 pm and will end on December 13th. Tickets for these performances are $10, $5 for 12 and younger. Reservations are suggested. Call 434-361-1999.

Who would have ever guessed that the glorious words of William Shakespeare, the production of a play recently on Broadway, original drama, highlights from the world of dance and music from all over the world, a school for actors, directors and writers and a play written by a boy from Schuyler, would find a home at 190 Rockfish School Lane, Afton, Virginia!

See you there!

#3

AND A LITTLE TO THE SOUTH - -

Down at Hendersonville, Tennessee the Steeple Theater Players will also present–

THE HOMECOMING.

Friday, November 13th through Sunday, November 22nd Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 2:00.

The Staples Players’ Program Notes were so beautifully written that I couldn’t resist reprinting them.

A play based on the book by Earl Hamner, Jr. (and the inspiration for the 1970s TV series, "The Waltons"). The time is the great depression and the large Spencer family, living at the foot of a Virginia mountain, is struggling just to survive. With his father having to take the only available job a long way from home, Clay-Boy is stuck with unusual responsibility for his brothers and sisters. Just reaching manhood, Clay-Boy has a secret yearning that's quite extraordinary for the practical, earth-bound community in which he lives. He wants to write! His father comes home and brings a special gift for his son, a gift that reveals unexpected understanding and the strength of a loving family.

The Steeple Players Theater is devoted to encouraging the development of God-given talents in a supportive Christian, family environment through the experience of producing quality entertainment. The Steeple Players is a non–profit community theater located at 206 Main Street in the City Square Shopping Center in Hendersonville, Tennessee. It has presented family-oriented theater to the local and surrounding community for over fifteen years.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kym Sims, Director of “The Homecoming” and when I suggested a few slight changes in dialogue from the original script she was not only happy to make the changes but to welcome me to taking an active role in the production - typical of the warm reception I have always found in Tennessee.

I would like to take advantage of this occasion to send greetings to my many friends in Hendersonville and the nearby Nashville area. I will never forget filming the pilot for BOONE there and being allowed to film in such legendary sites as the Ryman and next door at Tootsies. I will never forget that when the Governor gave a reception for us visiting fireman that one of the guests was Minnie Pearl and that when I went over to greet her I said, “I have loved you all my life.” And she said, “Honey, I feel the same way about you.” And I am endlessly grateful to all those friends who worked at Ron Pit kin’s Cumberland House Publishing who have kept my books alive all these years.

Warm thoughts to one and all.

Earl

HARVESTING

2009-10-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

When I was a boy growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the Great Depression we subsisted partially on my father’s ability to hunt for game, on the plentiful bass and catfish from the Rockfish River and also on wild fruits and berries which grew in abundance in the area, but most especially on the vegetable garden which we tended and which rewarded us generously from the early spring peas to the huge pumpkins that we harvested and either carved into Jack O Lanterns or made into pies in the fall.

I was a sensitive boy, a failure as a hunter.It was painful to me to deal the coup de grace to a quail that had only partially been killed by the spreading birdshot of a twenty-two rifle. I was repelled when a deer had only been wounded and the harsh struggle that had to take place in order to subdue it. And while I continued to fish even into adulthood there came a time when I questioned if the gigantic king salmon experienced pain while I engaged in the hour of “sport” it took to drag it out of British Columbia’s legendary Rivers Inlet.

The one source of food that I took part in planting, cultivating, and harvesting and which gave me the greatest pleasure was gardening. My father’s earliest garden was a sizeable plot on the bank of the Rockfish River. We planted our crops following directions from “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” (Plants that were to be harvested above ground to be planted when the moon was full. Plants that came to fruition underground were to be planted on the dark of the moon!) And it worked!

It was my duty to take water from the Rockfish River and carry it to whatever hill or row was carrying seed. I can still remember the awe and astonishment I experienced when the first tiny leaf of tomato or a string bean or cucumber first showed its face.

I suspect that if my life had followed the pattern like that of the other boys in my village I might well have become a farmer, found a nice local girl and settled down to a life similar to that my parents knew. But due to a set of near miraculous circumstances it was not to be my destiny. Laura Horsley, the wife of our local doctor had friends on the board of directors and nominated me to receive a scholarship at the University of Richmond. The scholarship was awarded and I left the Rockfish River behind. In my sophomore year I was drafted into the Army of the United States and left Richmond, Virginia behind. As a soldier I was stationed in Paris and for a while I fell so in love with that city that I nearly left my own country behind.

I was a far different person when I returned to Schuyler Virginia after the war. While I still hated to wring a chicken’s neck or killing the deer. I could do it. And I discovered that while the Army experience had toughened me, I still felt the awe and wonder of a seed’s awakening and growth. I had visited New York City on our high school Senior Trip. We had gone there to visit the 1939 World Fair. The fair must have astonished most visitors, but coming from my background, it was a glimpse into a world I could not even have imagined. We stayed on Columbus Circle at a hotel that I believe is still there. I loved the city from the moment I first stepped out of the hotel door and breathed in something ineffable that told me that this was my spiritual home. And I promised myself on that trip that someday I would come back and live there. Soon after World War Two I kept that promise and from the moment I arrived I became a New Yorker.

The apartment I rented was described in the classified ads as “for the discerning few.” Actually it was rather special for the price. The owner was an architect and he had stripped the walls down to the original brick and painted them white. Although it was really one large room the space had been utilized adroitly. The bed conveniently disappeared under a raised stairway platform, which led down to the floor of the room. The kitchen was hidden behind a folding door and the bath was its own separate room. The most interesting feature of the apartment to me was not the interior but the exterior. All along the length of the front window was one long deep planter box in which the owner had cultivated a showy bed of geraniums.

I am sure that the owner, a fastidious man, would have had an apoplectic fit if he had ever discovered that hidden in the geraniums I had reverted to my childhood passion to grow things and planted tomatoes, cucumbers, and a bed of wax beans.

My profession led me to California and in its endless sunshine, and climate so hospitable to growing things, my passion came alive again. Our house is on a hillside and what level ground there is became a rose garden which is Jane’s pride and which supplies the house with fresh roses just about all year round.

This year I had an inspiration. I realized there was a level surface! It existed on a long deck surrounding the swimming pool. Why not raise a container garden! Not exactly compatible elements with a pristine turquoise swimming pool from a decorative point of view, but what the hell! As the saying goes, “You can take the boy out of the country, etc.”

I spent hours at the nursery supply stores studying seed packets, comparing brand name pieces of equipment and the complexion of various potting mixtures. A small fortune went into planter boxes, containers the size of tubs, soil, fertilizer, watering cans, trowels, seeds, a composting system, and a hose long enough to water the entire area.

I envisioned what the Los Angeles Times recently described as an “Urban Meadow,” but once assembled the deck began to look as if the Beverly Hillbillies had moved in. But what the hell! Jane’s roses filled the house with beauty. My garden would fill it with fresh healthy produce.

The spring weather was most beneficial with cool nights and bright sunny days. All the seeds went to work enthusiastically and I would rush down to the deck each morning at first light to rejoice at the miracles taking place.

I fantasized about the rich harvest that was sure to follow. I gazed with pity on shoppers in our market as they spent good money on produce from God knows where, sure to be laden with hormones and cancer causing preservatives. I pictured myself, wearing a straw hat and overalls, going from neighbor to neighbor with gifts of hefty beefsteak tomatoes, baskets of crisp wax beans, slender succulent cucumbers, and huge purple eggplant. My visits would inspire others to follow my example. They would foster good neighbor relationships during this deplorable time when trust and good will are disappearing from our society. My garden would sew the seeds for a better world!!

But then a long wet spell set in and I did not visit my “meadow” as often, but when I did I found my infant plants began mysteriously disappearing.

When I kept watch I discovered that the very blue jays, mocking birds, sparrows and linnets that we had fed and treasured were the culprits. I started afresh but covered the next generation of seedlings with netting. The butterbeans came to vibrant life. The cucumber vines were aggressive immediately and were climbing to ambitious heights and the egg plant blossomed when it was only a few weeks old. I bought tomato plants already close to producing fruit and within a week tomatoes the size of marbles appeared. My garden was a marvel.

And then one morning my produce began to disappear. The tomatoes were the first to go, and then the beans. The mystery was solved when I kept watch one dawn and witnessed the raids by ground squirrels, rats, raccoons, skunks, mice and even a family of ravens. I fought back with traps, but the critters outwitted me. I caught one ground squirrel in a Havaheart trap, but I was too tender hearted to drown it and so I drove to Griffith Park and released it. I did harvest a tomato, but like the great fish in Hemmingway’s book “The Old Man and the Sea,” the trophy has been half eaten and was a skeleton of what it had been.

I did manage to arrive early one morning with my camera to catch the one last item the beasts had overlooked.

I harvested the wax bean and rushed in the house to show it to Jane.

“What shall I do with it?” I asked.

With her usual sweetness and generosity, she said, “Earl, it’s your bean.”

I am happy to tell you that my literary harvest has been more productive. When I came from New York to Hollywood in 1961 Rod Serling gave me my first job – an assignment on “The Twilight Zone.” That job opened the door to a lifelong career in television and film and I will always be in Rod’s debt.

During those years I kept a file of ideas for "Twilight Zone" type stories and just this month three of them are seeing the light of day.

"Dark Discoveries” is an exciting new magazine specializing in fantasy and darker type fiction. The present issue has an interview with George Clayton Johnson, an entire script by Bill Nolan and an article by novelist and poet, Christopher Conlon about work that was intended for “The Twilight Zone” but which were never telecast.

I have too a short story in the issue about an aging writer and what happens when he exchanges his sports car for a more sensible model. It is available at newsstands or by contacting the magazine at http://www.darkdiscoveries.com

The same publisher has an anthology called “The Bleeding Edge” and my contribution is a story about a boa constrictor and two brothers who strive for the affections of an exotic dancer. Available by following this link: http://www.jasunni.com/shop/

I harvested one more story from my "Twilight Zone" file. It is a mysterious tale about the revenge a bonsai enthusiast visits on a man who injures one of his valuable trees. It is in a collection called “Twilight Zone, Nineteen Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary” Edited by Carol Serling. Available from all book stores as well as Amazon.com. This “Harvest” is dedicated with gratitude, respect and admiration to the memory of Rod Serling, a fine man, a remarkable writer and a good friend.

DOGGEREL

2009-07-07T14:41:00.001-07:00

For all things there is a season. This is a season for gardening.

I have a file here in my office that’s labeled:

“THERE’S A CURMUDGEON IN THE CAMELLIAS.”

I am that curmudgeon!

The file contains a collection of pieces that have come to me while gardening. While they appear to have the look of poems and some of them actually rhyme, they are not poems at all, but DOGGEREL!

The Bibliophile’s Dictionary by Miles Westley defines doggerel (do g uh rul) –n. as a loosely styled verse in an irregular rhythm. Often for comic effect (from the Middle English word for worthless).

So to those of you fellow maniacs who rush to the yard at dawn to see if the green beans have sprouted, or who know the wonder of watching a tomato seedling grow to maturity, or who are enraptured by the sight of the blossoming night blooming cirrus, set aside your clippers, trowel and watering can for a moment, and enjoy doggerel!

BONSAI IS AN ANCIENT ART

I have a little bonsai tree.
It came in a glazed blue pot.
I placed it on my window sill
And watered it a lot.

I fed it fertilizer
And gave it room to grow.
I spoiled it with attention
And took it to a show.

I pruned that little rascal
And pinched back each new leaf.
And never dreamed that little tree
Could bring me so much grief.

For one day it got spider mites!
To keep myself immune
I sprayed myself with bug spray
I may not live till June.
-------------------------------------------

MARIO WAS NOT A GOOD GARDENER

Mario from the barrio
Killed my prize bamboo!
He’s gone back to the barrio
And I’ve got someone new.
-------------------------------------------

DEAR HOME DEPOT

I’m writing to you from surgery,
And I promise I won’t raise a stench
Regarding the injuries I suffered
Assembling your wooden lawn bench.

It was left at the gate by the postman.
Claimed to lift it would be much too hard.
With great risk to my life and the help of my wife
We moved it to the back yard.

It arrived in a most sturdy carton.
I beat and I punched and I hacked
With a chisel and knife and the help
of my wife
We managed to get one side cracked.

Many thanks for the simple directions
For assembling this wooden bench kit.
It took me most all day to read them,
And I understood little of it.

We finally got all the parts counted.
Six wing nuts were really not there.
And what is that thing like a small oval ring
That fell out and rolled under the chair?

The bench we got finally assembled
It looked most attractive, just right
But next day when we went out to see it,
It had collapsed on the lawn overnight.

We’ve decided to return all the pieces.
You can charge us most any amount.
Our next order? When hell freezes over!
Please kindly close out our account!
-------------------------------------------

LIFE ON MARS

When we go colonizing space
And live in a great glass dome,
I’ll take along a geranium
To make it seem like home.
-------------------------------------------

MAKE YOUR OWN COMPOST!

My compost pile is heating up!
It smells to Heaven high.
Did I sprinkle in too many coffee grounds?
Were my grass clipping too dry?
My neighbor complains of the odor
That drifts downward to his yard.
I’d tell him it’s fumes from my illegal still
But he already thinks I’m odd.
My wife is threatening to leave me.
My children will visit no more.
They claim I’m the neighborhood nuisance
And they’ll never darken my door.

I’ll pay my wife alimony.
And the kids will be misunderstood.
But I’ll go on making my compost
That’s ruining the neighborhood!
-------------------------------------------

MY VISITOR

We have some living jewels
Imported from Japan.
The koi cost a fortune
But watching them is grand.
We have a little visitor
Who comes around each night
He’s a faithful little fellow
But he brings us no delight.
His eyes are bright and beady.
His face is like a mask.
He makes a chirring noise.
He thinks it is his task
To eat my living jewels
While I am in my bed.
One night I’ll lie in wait for him
And shoot the bastard dead!
-------------------------------------------

THE LESSON

Gladys Upchurch called today
To visit with my wife.
She brought along her little boy
And told him to be nice.

“Go play out in the garden, dear,”
She said to little Don.
“Don’t tease the dogs or chase the frogs,
Or throw things in the pond.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said in saccharine tones
But I could tell he lied.
I knew the havoc he would wreck
When he got loose outside.

He started in the fish pond
And tried to catch a koi.
I shouted “Get out of there!
You wicked little boy!”

He laughed at me and fled on foot
And once I nearly caught him,
But tripped and fell
Into the ageratum.

I found him in the storage shed
Where he had found some paint
Now we have a green pug dog
To get it off we can’t!

“You really ought to speak to him!”
I told his doting mom.
“His shrink said don’t repress him
To scold him would do harm.”

I did the child a favor
Since I’m a kindly man.
I took him to the potting shed
And spanked his bottom tan!
-------------------------------------------

DON’T INVITE THE HUMMING BIRDS

I bought a hummingbird feeder
And hung it in a tree
I filled it with sugar water
And invited them to tea.

But now I can’t go near it.
My chances are quite slim
Of coming out of this alive.
My future has grown grim.
They fight and dive and poop on me,
And flit about the sky.
One day I’ll poison their nectar
And let the damn things die!
-------------------------------------------

IN PRAISE OF EARTHWORMS

Welcome to my garden
Simple creatures to be sure.
Stay and make my plants grow
With your gift of worm manure.

Rest here and break my soil up,
Squirming guys and wriggling gals
Don’t let me break your fun up.
Stay here and we’ll be pals.

It matters not a fig to me
You’re slimy and unsightly
I’ll sing sweet songs about you
And praise you day and nightly.
-------------------------------------------

I MADE A GARDEN FOR MY LOVE

I made a garden for my love
And planted it with herbs.
I placed it near the kitchen
A favor she deserves.

For my love cooks good things for me
And serves me at my will.
With savory stews and omeletes
And cucumbers with dill.

The house is always spotless.
She’s never mean or cruel.
She knits me nice warm sweaters
And even spins the wool.

I know I’ll always find her
Waiting at the gate
When I’ve been out philandering
And then pretend I’m late.

I grant her a generous allowance
She accounts for every cent.
She makes her own hats and dresses.
Never asks for compliments.

I do not grant them to her.
I’m more inclined to scold
To keep her from ever knowing
She is worth her weight in gold!

How could she tire of such a man?
I really couldn’t say.
The note she left said simply:
“Martha Stewart has moved away!”
-------------------------------------------

WELCOME TO SCHUYLER

2009-06-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

We Virginians are not known for modesty in describing the virtues of our commonwealth. We are tempted to use such descriptive phrases as most beautiful, most legendary, most historic, most hospitable, mother of the most presidents but most of the time good manners finally overtake us and we simply say, “Why don’t y’all come to see us?”

Many of you have asked for information about how to get to my hometown and what to do when you get here. With summer upon us when you will probably be traveling I hope the following will be helpful:

Schuyler is located roughly in the very center of Virginia in Nelson County, an area rich in history and unspoiled beauty. Nelson is nestled between the Blue Ridge Mountains to the West and the James River to the east. A large portion of the western section of the county is the George Washington National Forest. To visit the area is to step back in time. A perfect destination for you to explore our way of life, our good food, our beautiful rivers and streams, and even our moonshine or “recipe” as we call it around here.

If you are traveling by air the closest airport is in Charlottesville. Wonderful things to see and do in Charlottesville, but we’re headed for Schuyler. You need to go south on Route 29. The road winds through scenic rural Virginia and rises almost imperceptibly because you are headed for mountain country. Neat farms, antique shops, gas stations, apple orchards, vegetable stands color the way. Frequently Virginia Historical Markers will point out the birthplace of our famous sons or daughters or the site of a long ago Civil War battle.

You have to look for it or you might miss it. Route 6. Turn left here. Slow down and take the time to decelerate, to leave the frantic pace of cities behind you and take the time to savor all the beauty and serenity that is ahead.

It would be easy to describe these places in terms of dates and statistics, but I want you to enjoy your visit to my home in a personal way. I want you to experience it as I have experienced it and have written about it in my books and on television.

This road holds family memories. My father came along here on a snowy Christmas Eve in 1933.

When the depression came the mill closed. Clay Spencer found work as a mechanist at the Du Pont Company in Waynesboro that was forty miles away. During the week he lived in a boarding house. He had no car so every Friday night he would take the Trailways bus that let him off at Hickory Creek. From here he would walk or hitchhike if a car happened past, the remaining six miles. From “The Homecoming.”

On this road Brother Jim once struck a deer on a sharp curve one foggy night and barely survived the encounter. Brother Cliff and I caught minnows under the Faber Bridge. We pass the old apple storage shed, then the Volunteer Fire Department building, past Faber, and the lovely Shiloh Baptist Church on the right hand side of the road. Soon we are in wild country of hardwood trees under-grown with dogwood and red bud – a sight in the spring that will lift your heart.

There may be a sign there indicating Schuyler or Irish Road. Keep going! You’re getting close to Route 800, and you will turn right and climb gently two miles up toward the village of Schuyler.

The first sign of human habitation you come upon is on the left -a row of neat frame houses with porches decorated with rocking chairs or even an old washing machine. Now the road bends sharply to the right and downhill. Suddenly you arrive at an open confusing area. A small white clapboard building to the left is the remains of the old Schuyler Post Office.

To get an overall picture of Schuyler of today you need to know that it is the relic of a company town, a mill town. It was built on soapstone. As it name implies soapstone is very soft. It’s most important ingredient is talc, the softest mineral. Because it is so easily quarried and shaped it was very useful as a building material. At a point it was discovered that the largest vein of soapstone in the world existed under what is now Schuyler and its surrounding area.

Commercial harvesting of soapstone had been underway at a nearby village called Alberene, but when it was determined that Schuyler sat on the motherlode of the stone the company moved its operation to Schuyler.

While its wages were low, overall the company was benign. It established a hospital with a resident doctor, a commissary where employees could “charge:” against their earnings, occasional dental service. Whole neighborhoods came into being, - rows of two story clapboard homes in areas called Goldmine, named after the site of an abandoned gold mine. Riverside Drive, named after the row of homes bordering a stretch of the Rockfish River and Stumptown, named after the number of stumps that had been left when the lumber for the buildings had been harvested.

The company and the village prospered until 1934 when the mill closed its doors throwing 450 employees out of work. One of them was my father.

This area was once the center of a thriving community. Next to the post office are the remains of what was once a company owned and operated restaurant and pool hall, facing you is a building that housed many of the company offices as well as a commissary, butcher shop and drug store. There is not a soul in sight. The village is deserted.

Not quite. Sometimes if you are fortunate you will find an employee of the present owner of the mill who will give you a tour. My Grandfather Colonel Anderson Gianinni worked in the carpenter shop. He built crates in which to ship the great slabs of soapstone. My father worked as a mechanist at a shop about an eighth of a mile to the left where he spent much of his time repairing the machines that cut and polished the stone.

Past the soapstone plant the road climbs upward and there at the top of the hill, pause for a moment, then cautiously (it’s on a blind curve) cross the road and park in front of the Walton Mountain B and B.

This is the ideal place to begin your exploration of Schuyler because it is the center of a triangle formed by the Hamner house, the Schuyler School and the Baptist Church. – The center of the three most influential forces on my life and my writing.

Stop and say hello to Scott Pound, one of the owners of the B and B. He is a genial host and will show you some of the rooms, which are handsomely and comfortably furnished with good Virginia antiques. With very little urging he will even take you by his show room – a store - where he has all sorts of Walton memorabilia, collectables, gifts, antique reproductions and primitive country décor as well as copies of my books, for sale – the only place in Schuyler where autographed copies of my books are available.

The B and B was known as Walker’s Store back in thee old days because it was operated by Willie Walker, the son of Schuyler Walker head of one of the earliest families to settle in the area who gave it the name of Schuyler. For many years the store was vacant and seeking escape from that multitude of brothers and sisters as a teenager I used to hideout there for the solitude I needed in which to write.

We do a lot of porch sitting in that part of the country. Have a seat on the deck of the B&B and look to your right: From here you have a good view of the Baptist Church. Back in those depression years, on any Sunday morning, you might have seen my brothers and sisters and me on our way to church.

With our hair combed and our faces scrubbed within an inch of our lives and all dressed up in our Sunday best, we would head for Sunday school. My sister Marion usually led the way. She was the feisty yon and often got in fights, usually when she was standing up for one of her younger brothers. From “A Joyful Noise”

Back in those primitive days I was frightened by blood and thunder, fire and brimstone preachers. But today I believe in the hands of our present minister, Pastor Tom Fowler, a more loving, more forgiving God may reside there. Pastor Tom is a friend and I know he would want to invite you to stop by and attend services. You should go inside just to see the restored Sanctuary, which is now as it was when I was a child. Large beams cross the worship space, tied together intricately, and ancient colored glass windows adorn the sanctuary, giving it a feeling of more expensive stained glass. It is simple, but eloquent, a plain country church, where my family went for worship every Sunday. The basement served as a temporary school for a period long ago, when the Schuyler Elementary School building burned to the ground. I was in the Second Grade that year and my homeroom was in the basement of the present building. My mother is remembered at the church by a simple soapstone plaque embedded in the outdoor pavilion.

On past the church there is an overgrown path that leads to where Drusilla’s Pond was located. After work my father used to take the whole gang fishing.

Each child had his own fishing pole, and you never heard such squealing and screaming as they started pulling in silver perch and sun perch and once in a while a bass or catfish. When the sun goes down something sinister comes over Druysilla’s Pond. Old skillpot turtles rise to the surface and like sentinels gaze out across the darkening water. Bullfrogs lurk along the shore and start their ghostly croaking. A while crane sweeps down and comes to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree. Long ago two of our cousins were drowned in the pond and if you dare to stay till darkness falls you might see poor Arlene and Eddie through the thick stand of pines that grow on the water’s edge. From “You Can’t Get There From Here.”.

Another landmark is just over the hill past the church. It is the site of Powerhouse Number One and the dam over the Rockfish is still a sight to see. Under the bridge used to be a dependable and productive fishing site. My father once caught a thirty-pound carp there. None of us ever actually saw the fish because he said he gave it away and we believed him. We had no reason to doubt him, but the story of the struggle to land the behemoth grew better, longer and more dramatic each time he told it.

Home. To me in spite of the passing time and the fact that no Hamner still lives it will always be all that the word implies. It is the place that I come from. It was where during a desperate time in our national history my mother and father raised eight children and gave us the love and security to face an uncertain future.

Take a moment and look up through the wisteria arch to the while clapboard house with the porch that extends across the font. This is what is now known as the Hamner House, and indeed we did live there for most of our lives. Today it is owned by a caring and civic-minded Virginian, Pamela Rutherford. The house was built in 1925 as a residence for employees of the Alberene Stone Company. When the company closed because of the depression my father bought the house for five hundred dollars. By 1970’s it had fallen into disrepair and my brother, Jim, the last family member to live there, had moved out. Even the underpinning of soapstone was collapsing. To her everlasting credit, Mrs. Rutherford bought the house and is doing an incredible job of restoring it and has even managed to have it listed as one of Virginia’s historic home. The restoration of the house is a work in progress with much interior painting and furnishing still to come. If you had looked through the kitchen window when I was still a boy you would have seen the family at breakfast.

They were seated at a table nine feet long. Clay had built it himself and it was flanked on either side by wooden benches. There were eight children in all. Each one had red hair, but on each head the shade of red was different. Each of them was small of bone and lean. Some of them were freckled and some were not and some had the brown eyes of their father and some had their mother’s green eyes, but on each of them there was some stamp of grace of build and movement, and it was this that Clay voiced when he said, as he often did, “Every one of my babies is a thoroughbred. You ever in y our life see any thing so pretty?”

Olivia looked up from the frying pan where she was frying eggs to each individual’s liking, and said, “If I had my way my children would never grow up. I’d just keep them little for the rest of their lives.” From “Spencer’s Mountain.”

When I was growing up there each of us had chores to do. It has been torn down now but back in those days there was a barn at the far end of the yard. As the eldest it became my duty to milk the family cow when my father went off to Waynesboro to work.

Clay-Boy sat on a three-legged stool, while he milked the Guernsey cow, Chance his head resting tightly in her flanks. It wasn’t a job he minded. The cow placidly chewed her mash, occasionally giving him a companionable flick of her tail. Once she turned and lowed briefly and examined him with her dark, serious, luminous eyes, thanking him, Clay-Boy supposed, for the extra bucket of mash he had given her since it was Christmas Eve. From “The Homecoming.”

Look up to the house from the front yard and picture a boy seated behind the window to the right. He is tall and thin and red headed. He is working at a desk he has constructed himself and he is writing with a pencil in a Big Five tablet. It is his deepest yearning to be a writer, and toward that end he is keeping a journal, a record of the weather, of observations about people, all those events that make up his day, his deepest feelings which he shares with no one and consequently he hides the tablet under the mattress of his bed.

OLIVIA
What in the world would anybody hide a tablet for?

JOHN-BOY
Mama, I’ve got a right to some kind of privacy around here.

OLIVIA
Is it something you’re ashamed of?

JOHN-BOY
No, ma’am.

OLIVIA
Then why are you hiding it?

JOHN-BOY
Know what’s in this tablet, Mama? All my secret thoughts, how I feel and what I think about. What its like late at night to hear a whippoorwill call and its mate call back, The rumble of the midnight train crossen the trestle at Rockfish, watchen water go by in the creek and knowen that someday it will reach the ocean and wondering if some day I will ever see an ocean and what a wonder that would be. Sometimes I hike over to the highway and watch the busses go by and all the people in them and wonder what they’re like and what they say to each other and where they’re bound for.

OLIVIA
(wonderingly)
I do vow.

JOHN-BOY
If things had been different, sometime I think I might have become a writer.

OLIVIA
Can’t you still, son?

JOHN-BOY
It takes a college education, Mama; I don’t see much chance of that.

From the film of “The Homecoming.”

Across the road, where the Post Office is now, there was a pasture where we kept our cow, Chance. It had once been an orchard and there were a few crab apple trees still alive. I remembember a special morning in spring and I described it in “Spencer’s Mountain.”

Suddenly a flock of goldfinches flew into the orchard, thousands of little golden bundles that might have been flung from the morning sun into the pale green fog-damp orchard. They would cling to the young branches, fill the air with their canary-like warbling long enough to announce the new day and then disperse to their separate chores of eating or singing or courting. Each spring they came to the orchard and some mornings they came in such number that the pale green leaves would be concealed and the trees would become a swaying mass of gold and singing.

I remember going to sleep in that house. You would expect way out there in the country the night would be quiet but not so.

Outside the night was filled with sound. The high mechanical screech of the cicada was a metallic din that gradually fell silent. A turtledove called. His mate answered, far off, and then her voice sounded again and his voice called out, closer now. In the distance, flowing over the pine trees from the swamp, past the pond, came the thousand-voice choir of frogs. Once only came the saddest sound in the world, the single unanswered voice of a whippoorwill, but there was no one to hear it. Everyone in the house was asleep.

In memory I say goodnight to that house. I hear the slap of a screen door closing for the night. Inside the children finish their homework and prepare for bed. After the last light is out they call good night to each other. Three thousand miles and seventy years away I still hear those sweet voices.

On the very last episode of The Waltons when the story has been told there is a shot of the house and as the lights fade to dark, John-Boy as a man reads the following:

I had returned to the mountains once again to find the inspiration I needed to write. Soon I was back in New York City, laboring over yet another book, and because of the renewed courage they brought me; I would never forget all the people I had known there. I hope you’ll remember this house as I do. The mystical blue ridges that stretch beyond it into infinity’ the sound of warm voices drifting out upon the night air, a family waiting, and a light in the window. Goodnight.

As we leave my old home and continue up the road we go past what was once my old school that now houses The Walton Museum. The center room facing the road was traditionally the senior’s room. In the graduating class of 1940 we were Lynette Bradshaw, Verdie Hamilton, Jean Kidd, Elaine Mawyer, Edith Drumheller Ragland, Jane Rainey, Louise Rainey, Christine Shumaker, Estelle Thomas, Elsie Tillman, Dorothy Witt and me, the only boy in the class! Remembering my graduation day I wrote this closing narration for ‘The Graduation” episode of The Waltons.”

JOHN BOY AS A MAN
We could not have known on that day the momentous events that were to follow. But that small school and those teachers had prepared us and that preparation helped sustain us through those turbulent years, through war through depression, the death of kings and presidents and through those lesser day to day experiences which added together make up the fabric of our lives.

To the left of the schoolhouse was the basketball court. In my senior year I had a desperate crush on the teacher, Miss Elsie Mayo, who coached the girl’s basketball team. It was my first love affair and I wrote about it in my book “Generous Women.”

Her blonde hair moved in a constantly changing pattern of beauty as she moved alongside the members of the team calling out encouragement. To my anguish I learned that she was dating the boy’s gym instructor, T. Dan Gusmerotti. He was dark and handsome and I hated him. At the senior dance I finally managed to dance with Miss Elsie. That voluptuous blonde hair touched my cheek. My feet behaved, and carried away with ecstasy, I began to croon!

‘Careless, now that you’ve got me loving you,

You’re careless, careless in everything you do…

She seemed unaware of the depth of my passion and kept looking over my shoulder to T. Dan Gusmerotti. I am sure she had no idea how heartbroken I was when at the end of the school year she married the man!

The long wooden building to the left of the basketball court was the earliest school in the community. Today it has been turned into residential units. A few hundred feet up the road to the left is a small convenience store and filling station that has become a landmark. Back in the early days it was owned by a family named Sneed. It was the inspiration for Ike Godsey’s Country store on “The Waltons.” Ike’s wife, Corabeth was the only person on the mountain who hated it. She used to call it “this cultural backwater!” Do stop by and say hello or buy some gas or an ice cream.

Continuing on past the store for only a hundred or so feet is a road that goes left. Just in sight down this road is the building where I was born. Back then it was a hospital operated by the Alberene Stone Corporation. Today it is a private residence. Treasured friends still live there.

Other houses along this stretch include the Baptist Parsonage, The Morris House where my Aunt Bessie lived with her husband, Sam Morris and their childen, The Hamner House that was once the home of my Grandmother and Grandfather Hamner.

The last house along this road to the left is the Norvell house. My father’s sister, Lily, said to be the most beautiful of the Hamner girls married Ernest Norvel. All of the family has gone except for one daughter who still lives there. Nearby is the family graveyard where my grandparents, Cliff and Susan Henry Hamner, my mother and father, Earl and Doris Hamner and some others dear to me are at rest.

Stay on this road and you are now on your way to Rockfish and I have to make a confession. As I wrote my stories and books I needed a small town nearby to Walton’s Mountain and while I did not invent Rockfish I did enhance it a bit. In truth is one lonely little building – a former post office - with one chair sitting on the porch. But it is worth the trip because you are now on one of the most beautiful stretches of road in Virginia.

Much of the way you will be adjacent to the Rockfish River. Today the river is a placid stream that moves gently along its rocky bed, but 1969 it turned into a monster. Hurricane Camille dropped torrents of rain that causes catastrophic damage to all of Nelson County and especially along this stretch of the river. Homes, barns, livestock. trucks, trailer homes and people were caught in its mighty flood and swept away. In Nelson alone some one hundred and twenty eight people lost their lives.

The road eventually reaches Route 29. If you turn left here you will reach Lovingston, our countyseat. Your first shop should be The Visitor’s Center at 8445 Thomas Nelson Highway. Or you can call ahead for information to 800.282.8223. Or dial up info@nelsoncounty.com. Once at the center a hospitable and knowledgeable group of folks will happily answer your inquiries and recommend some of the many sites of interest in the area. If you have any difficulty in finding the activity you are looking for one or two of them will probably close the office and lead you there.

Often visitors are so taken with the area they want to move there. Pick up a copy of Nelson County Life (it’s free and fun to read) for listings of some of the wonderful homes for sale in the area.

Pride compels me to urge you to ask for directions to The Earl Hamner Theater. At the visitor’s center they will know the schedule of what music or theater is available while you are in the area. Enjoy!

Before leaving Lovingston, be sure to stop by the Lovingston Cafe for lunch, dinner, or a snack. The food is down home and the waitress may address you as “Honey” but like the rest of us, she just wants you to feel at home, as welcome as the flowers in May, and that if you have the time we hope you will stay a while.

Where the River Road meets Route 29 you also have the option of turning right. You are now twenty-six miles from Charlottesville, two hours by car from Richmond and three hours from Washington, D.C. Ahead are picturesque small towns, museums, theaters, parks, hotels, restaurants, country inns, wineries, and shopping venues, are waiting for you.

And as we say to all departing visitors, “Hope you folks enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed having you. Y’all come back soon, you hear?”

WHY I AM WEARING THIS SLING

2009-03-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me recently how old I am and I said I am eighty-five but I only feel eighty-four. I am not complaining. I hope to stick around for as long as I can. Chances look good. Physically I am a pathetic old thing to look at, but the vital organs work as well as they ever did. Mentally I’m nothing to boast about, but I get by with what’s there.

Coping with old age can be a challenge.

Waking in the morning, if one is so fortunate, can be the most challenging part of the day. Just getting out of bed can be dangerous.

First, you really ought to be able to see. You feel about on the bedside table for your glasses. In doing so you knock over a bottle of aspirin, the alarm clock and the table lamp. Eventually the glasses turn up on page thirty-seven of “How To Improve Your Memory,” the book you were reading when you fell asleep.

Second, you need to hear. Hearing aids have a life of their own. Mine are little rubbery things with metal attachments that whistle. Often I can even hear with them, but mostly I rely on an ability to read lips that I have developed out of necessity. Frequently they develop legs and crawl so far under the bed that you have to kneel and feel about until you retrieve them. Don’t even mention changing their cunning little batteries. Once one of them escapes it rolls even further under the bed than its parent.

Oh, and teeth! Dentures restore a little of what I used to call “my looks” so the sooner the better. They are nowhere to be seen until you spot them in the glass of chardonnay you left half empty at bedtime.

Finally you get what I laughingly call my body dressed and go to the kitchen for breakfast.

The meal consists of one half of an English muffin for me, the other half for Peaches, acceptable to her only if it is generously smeared with extra crunchy peanut better.

You remember that you have an appointment at CBS to pitch an idea for a television pilot. It’s not like the good old days when you had two shows on the air and were making a million dollars a minute for them. The receptionist asks your name twice now and when you are finally in the presence of the twelve-year-old executive in charge he helps you to your seat and offers you a glass of warm milk.

You are half way to the appointment when you realize that you are still in your pajama bottoms.

You return home and are greeted at the door by a pretty woman who claims she is your wife. You decide you had good taste when you were choosing a mate, but you wonder what her name is.

This is also the time of “the fall!” Every family has a story of “the fall.” It is a landmark in the lives of most people in, what for some puzzling reason are called, their “golden” years.

“After Aunt Edna’s fall she never got out of bed again!”

“After Dad’s fall he was never the same.”

“When Mama had her fall she just laid there!”

I had my fall a few weeks ago.

Jane and I were going to the beach house for the weekend. It was one of those spring days when every plant in the garden was bursting with new life. The morning was cool and there was a special slant of light that illuminated earth and sky. It was one of those mornings when nobody is looking I cry out in awe and wonder: “Good Morning World!”

The car was mostly packed. Jane was trying to round up Peaches who goes berserk with excitement when she hears the word “beach.” She has a vocabulary of close to two hundred words so Jane and I have to spell things out a lot.

There are three steps from our front gate down to the road. I maneuvered two but missed the third one and went sprawling out onto the street.

I may have been unconscious for a few moments but when I came to I wondered what I was doing there. When I tried to get up nothing worked, and then I saw BLOOD!

It was then I started shouting for Jane, but she was at the far end of the house trying to lasso Peaches and did not hear me. When Peaches becomes excited she has running fits and has to be cornered before she can be hooked to her leash.

I decided that my only hope was if someone were to drive past and would have the decency not to run over me and quite possibly stop and ask if I needed help. Ordinarily vehicles race along our narrow country road at all hours of the night and day. Many of the drivers aim their vehicles at children, old people and dogs but so far the kids and old folks and our dogs have been nimble enough to avoid fatal injury.

Unable to reach Jane and still seeing blood I decided that my life was ebbing away, but I was consoled by the fact that my last living moments I would experience the jasmine that is in full intoxicatingly rich perfume by the front gate.

Finally Jane came to the back door and rather plaintively called, ”Earl, where ARE you?”

“Here,” I croaked in what I thought might be my final words on earth. I regretted the moment for I have often rehearsed what I want to be my final words and I certainly did not want them to be ‘here.’ And certainly did not plan to deliver them face down in some remote country road in the Hollywood Hills. One of my favorite last words I planned to deliver in Sweden when I hoped to accepts the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. Another was before the Virginia State Legislature when I extolled the virtues of my native Nelson County. For too long it has been associated with bootleggers and xenophobic hillbillies. There are people back there now who know how to read and write for God’s sake and I wanted to tell the world.

Jane rises to every occasion with grace and composure, but it is in the face of disaster that she amazes me most. I have seen her cope with fire, flood and famine and I am sure that when “the big one” comes, as we are promised that earthquake will, she will save us all.

Discovering me face down in the street, bleeding and broken, she helped me to a sitting position and assured me that I would live. All the while she was staunching the blood and cleaning it away from my forehead and hands. The injuries were not all that severe but I take a blood thinner and consequently I bleed alarmingly with very little encouragement.

Once on my feet and assured that no broken bones are visible Jane led me into the house. Peaches looks at me reproachfully. She expected that we would be on our way to the beach by now.

When we finally reach the beach it is late afternoon. Both arms, wrists and a finger or two were swollen and in pain. Jane decreed that we go to the Emergency. Daughter Caroline and her husband, Pepe, always reliable and supportive, joined the effort and delivered me there.

It is a facility run by achingly beautiful young nurses and female doctors. An excruciatingly beautiful young blond nurse gave me a tetanus shot and said it wouldn’t hurt. It hurt like hell, but there was no way I was going to cringe in front of such beauty. A stunning young woman entered and introduced herself as my doctor. Her touch was cool and comforting as she examined the effected areas. The only man I laid eyes on was a nice guy named Eric who took the X-rays and recommended an excellent book which I am now reading called “The Zoo Keeper’s Wife.”

After a few hours I emerged, forehead patched up, one arm in a sling, fingers in splints, both wrists in supports, and with a prescription for Vicodan. The folks at the Emergency had done an excellent job. I was instructed to see my orthopedic doctor as soon as I got back to town.

My family doctor gave me a number for a medical group called The Center for Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery. I made an appointment for the following day.

When Jane and I arrived in the waiting room we surrounded by tall lanky young African American men who looked like basketball players I had seen on television. When their names were called to go into the examining room they walked with a kind of strut that I admired tremendously. Another young man who walked with a limp carried a tennis racket in a leather case. A young woman, one leg in a cast, sat across from us. And one mountainous guy with legs like oak trees engaged Jane and me in a mumbled conversation in which we were able to gather that he was a professional football player and was recovering from his fifth surgery on his right leg.

In the examining room I sat slouched, dejected and depressed. Frustrated that I could not use my hands to brush my teeth, comb my hair, or open a bottle of wine (that bothered me most of all). I sat and made little sobbing noises. I felt old. I reminded myself to check to see if the will was in order. I was in pain and wondered if I would ever regain use of my arms and fingers. And then a good looking young doctor breezed in. He took one look at me and said “What’s going on, Dude?”

It was the first time in my buttoned down, conservative, bookish life anyone had ever called me “dude.” It was a moment I will treasure forever. He had bestowed the mantle of “jock” upon me.

I sat up a little straighter and decided that there was no way I was going to tell this guy that I had simply fallen ass-over-tea-kettle for no reason and muttered something about slipping while shooting baskets at the hoop over the garage door.

“Stuff happens,” said the doctor. After consulting the x-rays and a physical exam, he said, ”Let’s get rid of all this crap.”

And with that he slipped off my sling, began cutting off the splints and discarding the wrist supports. He prescribed some exercises, told me to come back in a month, gave me a high five on my least injured hand and was gone.

I am happy to report that since that day getting up in the morning is a piece of cake. My glasses, hearing aids, and dentures are much easier to find. I have developed a little strut like the one I observed the other jocks in the waiting room had perfected. Swaggering down the hall in the morning I stop to look at my image in the mirror and a dude gazes back. I continue on to my Breakfast of Champions and when I see my wife I remember her name.

Don’t look for me on the sidelines, Sports Fans; I’m off the bench and back in the game!

MY LIFE IN SIN

2009-02-17T12:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes on my way home to Nelson County from California, I fly to Dulles Airport, rent a car, and drive down Route 29. It is a lovely drive through old towns where the lights are just beginning to come on as night falls across Virginia. State Historical Markers point out where this or that Civil War battle took place.

At Manassas the old fought-on-landscape is dotted with cannon and fencerows, and ghosts lurk in the shadows. Over a rise in the highway, the Blue Ridge Mountains come into view, and my heart lifts. At such an hour the mountains are fringed with rich crimson sunsets that fade gradually to purple and then to a dark blue.

I stop in Charlottesville, park my car, and walk along The Mall where once Main Street was busy with street cars, country people, horse drawn wagons, and buggies.

It is usually late at night by the time I arrive there, and I go looking for the boy I used to be. He is twelve years old, and he has a quarter burning a hole in his pocket. He in the grips of The Great Depression and a quarter is a treasure.

He is tall for his age, a freckled boy wearing knickers, mended many times at the knees, ankle socks in a brown argyle pattern worn thin at the heels, and his “good” shoes which have been freshly polished in observance of this trip into the city. It is the third year of use for the “aviator” jacket he wears, and since he has grown alarmingly in the past year his wrists stick out inches below his sleeves. His short sandy colored hair is covered by an imitation leather “aviator” cap that fits snugly around his head.

He is a country boy in town, so he moves tentatively. This is Albemarle County, after all, and foreign country. By nature the boy is shy, but he is also unsure of himself because he doesn’t know city ways.

People move more briskly here than they do out in the country. Everybody is nicely dressed. Many of them are students at the University, wearing saddle shoes and good tweed jackets.

The boy stands in front of the Woolworth Five-and-Dime, his nose pressed against the glass. He feels the quarter in his pocket. He tells himself that he must not spend it. He had made a promise to God.

He had been working hard to save his soul that year. At church he has been taught that a sin of thought is as evil as a sin of deed. Try as he might he could not prevent sins of thought from swarming through his head. He knew that he would burn in Hell.

But then he reasoned, What if he could buy salvation? What if when the Devil came to throw him into the Eternal Fire he was able to say that he had given his fortune to the church? The thought gave him momentary peace.

It may have been the newfound peace that caused him to revert to his willful and ignoble nature. Was it necessary, he asked himself, to donate the entire quarter to the collection box? What if he tithed? Would ten percent buy full salvation, or only a percentage? Looking for any excuse to hold on to as much of the money as he could, he did the arithmetic and calculated that ten percent of twenty-five cents is two and a half cents. Who by rights should get the half-cent God or him?

Now looking through the window at Woolworth’s and savoring the luxuries inside he feels his will weakening. The quarter would buy several Big Five writing tablets and he needs a new one for the journal he is keeping. Secretly he yearns to be a writer and has kept a journal almost from the time he first learned to write. The quarter would also buy a pair of socks. He needs them badly. He enters Woolworth intent on simply pricing the socks. On the way to the sock counter he passes Stationary. Almost in a trance he selects a tablet. He hands over the quarter and receives twenty cents in change.

All caution, all conscience has been thrown aside. Back on Main Street, carrying his tablet in a sack, he wanders. In front of Timberlake Drug Store he stops. He has never ventured in, but he has always wanted to see what it is like inside. Recklessly he enters. A waiter indicates a round marble topped table and indicates it is free. The boy sits uncomfortably in one of the wrought-iron chairs. A couple at the next table are sharing with straws something dark and interesting looking.

The waiter arrives and asks to take his order. The boy is confused by the menu, and finally he points to the couple at the next table and says, “What’s that they’re drinking over there?

“Chocolate malt,” answers the waiter.

“Can I have one of them, too?”

“Coming up.”

The waiter disappears and the boy attempts to look as citified as the other customers, but his is ill at ease and his posture becomes withdrawn as if he is trying to become invisible. He fixes his eyes on the marble top of the table in front of him and waits.

But then his order arrives and a look of the purest pleasure spreads across his thin freckled face. In a single moment in those pinched and poverty-stricken days, this Young Prince of the Baptist Church has given in to yet another temptation. The Devil has won! The boy has spent all but pennies on drink.

It is his first chocolate malt. The rich, smooth, frosty, malty, chocolate creaminess of it is more delicious than anything he has ever imagined. He will remember it all the days of his life, and he will also remember it in Hell where there is no doubt he is soon to become a citizen.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2008-12-31T06:41:00.000-08:00

Actors reenact The Homecoming at The Earl Hamner Theater in Afton, Virginia

A CHRISTMAS MEMORY

When I was growing up in Nelson County, Virginia during the Great Depression, all the seasons seemed to be filled with a sense of wonder. I remember the dogwood spring, the watermelon summer, the russet and golden leaves of autumn, and the frosty mornings that marked the waning year.

With the coming of fall the pace of our lives quickened. The cries of the blue jay and the crow became more strident, a warning that winter was about to descend upon us. The world became alive with intense color as the leaves turned watermelon red, lemon yellow, and pumpkin gold.

After the frost killed the vines in the vegetable garden, we gathered the last of the green tomatoes. The following day my mother’s kitchen would be filled with the pungent aroma of green tomato relish.

Finally, the long silent winter would flow down from the mountains, across the sleeping fields, the frozen lakes and ponds, and into the woods and hollows where only the deer and the beaver, the squirrel and the rabbit, were at large.

The first hint of Christmas came with the arrival of the mail-order catalogue from Sears and Roebuck. We called it “the wish book,” and while the great winter storms raged across the Blue Ridge, we would gaze wistfully at each page and dream our Christmas dreams.

Charlottesville was twenty-four miles away, and a walk down Main Street during the Christmas season was as awesome as a journey through ancient Baghdad. Unlike the muddy country roads of our village, we knew the city had paved streets with stop lights and streetcars and fancy window displays. We were foreign to all that sophistication, and we showed it in our country clothes and country ways. We had little money to spend, but we did a lot of window-shopping while Salvation Army musicians on street corners played a tinny version of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”

We had picked out our Christmas tree in July. We found it while picking blackberries up on Witt’s Hill. It was a six-foot tall cedar laden with pine cones and a pungent evergreen scent. A week before Christmas we brought it inside and set it up in a corner of the living room. We strung lights on it, and its fragrant presence permeated the house. It was as if we had captured some wild thing in the woods, brought it home, and tamed it with tinsel and homemade icicles.
Ideally, there was a snowstorm on Christmas Eve. If the flakes were small, my grandfather would predict the storm would continue for days. Sometimes the snow would diminish gradually at dusk, the moon would rise, and from our window we would witness a frozen cathedral of trees with crystal icicles clinging to the branches.

On Christmas Eve, bundled against the cold, we crunched our way down the snow-covered path to the Baptist church. The steepled, white clapboard building beckoned with the warmth of a pot-bellied stove and the sounds of country voices celebrating the birth of Jesus.

The highlight of the evening was The Christmas Pageant. Mothers had worked for weeks to improvise costumes for shepherds, wise men, and the Holy Family. Others had rehearsed the actors who would portray Mary and Joseph. A manger had been set up and a doll, the symbol of the Baby Jesus, rested in the crèche. Our minister read the story with such power and drama that it was as if it were taking place right before our eyes:

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.”

As he read, shepherds approached and with the three wise men gathered together to admire the Baby Jesus. All the while the choir hummed, “Silent Night, Holy Night.” We were transported to Bethlehem. No more stirring drama was ever witnessed on the Great White Way itself.

When the service was over, Santa Claus arrived.

We knew he was really Mr. Willie Simpson, who sang so loud in the choir. We recognized his voice from his ho-ho-ho’s. From a burlap sack he distributed a single orange to each of the children.

We then walked home through a frozen landscape, the sounds of our footsteps muted in the snow and the melodies of the old-time carols still resounding in our ears. The crystals of snow sifted down through the crusted overhead branches. In our hearts the spirit of Christmas had awakened. We did not feel the cold. We held oranges in our hands.