Faithfully Fighting

Honestly, I’m tired of talking about cancer.  Tired of the emotions and the physical stuff and the . . . .whatever else.  I know I started this blog to keep everyone I love informed, but I think you are getting a little tired of reading about the craziness in silly old Lynn’s life too.  So we are switching gears today.

Many of you know I’m a writer.  It’s what I love and I’m ok at it.  My job is writing technical stuff – sometimes, and my hobby (other than knitting shawls) is writing novels.  Now, one book does not make one a novelist (especially a little 1-2 day story), but I have been story teller all my life.  I used to make up stuff that people never knew was real or not (Mom, Dad I would have never done that as a teenager – I just want you to know).  One time I told a group of 5^th graders, on a field trip to Antietam Battlefield, a story about two brothers fighting each other on “Bloody Lane” that they actually listened to enthralled.  I was making the entire story up as we walked along, using information I saw on the memorial posts to keep the facts correct.  I finally fessed up on the bus ride home that it could have happened (because my facts were right), but that I was winging it.  Now granted fooling a handful of 10-11 year olds isn’t too hard and writing an entire book is a different story, but if you take the attitude that you are writing for yourself and not an audience (at first) then things can flow.

Having said that, things are not really flowing right now.  My second book, which I’ve been not-so-diligently working on for over 2 years is hanging on my head.  I have the entire story outlined.  I have about 3 chapters written.  I can see the entire package in my head, but I haven’t been hitting the keyboard.  I don’t have a good excuse.  I have more spare time on my hands than I ever had the first book.  Jessica was a teenager with practices and a social life, Bobby wasn’t always well-so I was taking him here and there.  I can remember sitting in the back seat of the car with a notebook, while we traveled to family and diligently scribbling 5-6 pages.  I don’t know where my love of writing has gone, but I will find it again.  So, in order to inspire me to continue I am posting the beginning of the book.

Please remember it is first draft and these paragraphs will probably be re-worked many times before I’m satisfied.  But in order for me to get motivated, I’m embarrassing myself into sharing.  It might read a little confusing, because you don’t know the characters or the setting, but those of you who have read the first book may know that this one is about a character in the first book:

 Sometimes there are people, or places or times in our lives that follow us around forever.  They can be good or they can be bad, but they latch on to something inside of us and stay.  When a man is strong he often thinks he will be strong all his life.  When a woman is beautiful she may believe she will stay that way.  Very often neither of those physical attributes last as long as the person, but when a thing grabs your heart it is the hardest thing to fade, even when you want it to go away. Jacob Scott was a good hearted man.  He’d grown from a dreamy, tow headed, strapping young boy to a tall handsome strong young man in the West Virginia hills.  He loved to hunt and fish and just to be part of everything around him.  When Jacob graduated from high school in 1966 the world around him was starting to rock with turmoil, but the West Virginia hills were surviving as usual, isolated, harsh and wild.  He didn’t have vision.  He knew what vision was because his younger sister, Barbara Jean, was a driven person.  She was driven by dreams, and passion.  She saw her future laid out in front of her and she choose each of her steps in the single most direct path to reach her goals.  Barbara Jean was almost three years his junior, but her drive and perseverance superseded his understanding.  Jacob was a young man like many young men who looked to the future much like he saw the present, as an opportunity to live life.             

 Jacob’s father, Lester Scott, was a hard working and deep loving man.  He spoke softly and with wisdom.  Jacob looked like his father, long and fair with shocking blue eyes. Lester Scott ran the one store in the small community of Stony Hollow. It was part feed store, part grocery, part hardware with a little fabric supply and fishing supply thrown in.  It was also the community gathering place and source of all information for the town of Stony Hollow.  Jacob spent many hours helping his father in the store.  He stocked shelves and worked the register.  He could tell you how many sacks of corn feed came in the last shipment as well as what kind of needles Bessie Todd used for her shawl knitting.  He knew who had accounts and how much most folks had on account at any one time.  Being his father’s son he would never have shared the fact that Buster Shares hadn’t paid on his account in 3 months, because that wouldn’t be right when a man had lost his wife 5 months ago. Jacob knew he should be grateful he didn’t have to go to the local coal mines for work, and that he had the freedom to take an afternoon for fishing, once in a while.  But the store felt kind of like a Sunday shirt to Jacob.  The stiff collar felt too tight around his throat and the material wasn’t worn smooth and comfortable.  The store held to tight to him.            

Young men all over have energy they don’t know how to hold.  They find all kinds of ways that energy can get let loose.  Some paths go fast and hard.  Some paths are bumpy.  Some lead to wealth and leadership.  That fall in 1966 Jacob was trying to find a place for his energy when he and a friend went to town in his beat up truck.  They stopped at the small bar and visited with friendly folks as they drank a long neck beer.   One of those friendly folks was the local army recruiter.  Sarge, as most folks called him, visited the most popular bar that the young men in town frequented.  He wasn’t two much of a drinker, but Sarge sure could talk up a storm.  The young men liked to hear his stories, especially after he’d bought them a beer or two.  Sarge had great stories of wild women, raucous parties, and great buddies.  He also talked about seeing far away placed with exotic women. Before Jacob really understood what had happened he wasn’t at the bar any longer.  He was in Sarge’s small office signing his name.  He felt excited and confident about his decision to visit interesting places and see the world, until he crested the hill and drove into Stony Hollow.  He wasn’t sure if it was the beer wearing completely off or if it was the vision of his mother’s face, but his stomach grew cold and he had to pull over to throw up.           

 Margaret Marie Scott was a lovely strong woman of West Virginia.  She kept her long chestnut hair tied tightly back at the nap of her neck.  Her large brown eyes were expressively gentle and framed by coal back lashes.  Everyone knew she was a woman of great faith.  She had been just 18 years old when Jacob had been born, so the day he came to tell her he was leaving for the Army she was not quite 37 years old.  Still lovely, especially to her dear husband, Margaret felt suddenly extremely old.  The small community was pretty isolated, but not so isolated that they didn’t know about the war going on in Southeast Asia.  Margaret knew Jacob was excited about the travel and adventure he thought was ahead of him, but she knew that a strong, work hard, West Virginia boy that was a cracker jack shot with a rifle would end up fighting far away from home.  Her heart began to bleed the day he came home with his enlistment papers, and she was afraid it would bleed forever.  She started praying even harder for her son, who she’d been praying for since the day she knew he was inside her.           

As Margaret’s reaction was painful and frightened, Lester Scott’s reaction was violent.  Jacob couldn’t remember ever hearing his father shout out in anger.  He banged his fists on the large oak kitchen table.  Lester Scott had faced a war.  He had caught the end of WWII in Europe.  He had seen men die, had held them as they died.  He had survived by shear luck and hadn’t even wanted to go back to his hometown in Pennsylvania.  He had instead come to West Virginia with his fellow survivor buddy.  That’s were he had met Margaret Scott, only 15 years old at the time, and had stayed.  He never thought he would have to send his son to fight for his country.  After all wasn’t his war the war to end all wars?  He had been watching the news of Vietnam, and he knew they were shading it as a small conflict, but he saw it for what it was, a place to send young men to die far from their homes.  Lester argued with Jacob late into the night that night.  He insisted the recruiter had tricked him, gotten him drunk and made him sign the papers.  He told Jacob they were going back in the morning and getting him out of the obligation.  Lester shouted, Margaret cried and Barbara Jean hid in her room with her arms wrapped around her legs tightly, crying silently.  Jacob stood his ground through the entire scene.  He’d made up his mind, he wasn’t afraid of a fight.  He was a good shot and he wanted to make something of himself.  Margaret cried, Lester shouted, and Jacob stood his ground. At the end of the discussion Lester stood from the table and walked over to where his son was sitting.  Jacob rose from the table beside his father.  Man to man, eye to eye, they stood looking at each other.  Finally Lester held out his hand to his son. “Recon, if you gotta be a man this way I’ll have to shake your hand like I would a man’s.”  Lester said, his voice choking with emotion.  Jacob reached out and shook his father’s hand firmly.  Margaret ran up and threw her arms around her son. Six weeks later Jacob found himself on a bus, leaving West Virginia for the first time in his life.  The towering young man felt small and strange as the bus traveled south.

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