A long-awaited dream comes true
I received my last whipping—make that “switching”—at the age of nine. I was writing my latest story inside my favorite little cubby hole. I’ve always liked secret, private places. Mama had positioned the guestroom dresser in a corner to make room for the space heater. There was a crawl space beneath the dresser’s glass vanity between its drawers on either side. I could shimmy under and have plenty of room behind it to sit comfortably with my Big Chief tablet balanced on my knees. I also had room for a big flashlight propped on its end to lend extra light.
On this particular afternoon, I was a bit daring and took a small candle inside my space. I melted its bottom onto a saucer and set it beside me. Ahh, this must have been the way Anne Frank wrote in her attic. I was midway through my second or third page when I heard quick footsteps in the hall and the guestroom door thrown open.
“Brenda Joyce, where are you?!! Are you burning something in here??” MAMA! She never used my middle name unless she was really mad.
My heart stopped and I blew out the candle. Big mistake…tallow smells strongest just after it’s extinguished. That little misjudgment gave away my hiding place.
“You come out from behind that dresser right now, Young Lady, and give me that candle. Haven’t I told you over and over not to play around fire? Now, go get me a switch.”
I was already beginning to cry as I shimmied out bottom first and handed her the candle. Once we were out of the room, I began bawling my head off while following her down the hall and through the kitchen on the way to the back yard. Willie Mae never turned around from the sink so I knew who had told on me. She must have seen me sneak the box of matches from the top of the stove and called Mama to come home from the store.
Still crying, I took my time checking out the hedgerow, finally choosing the tiniest branch I could find when Mama yelled from the back steps, “Get a bigger one!” I complied and, hiccupping, took it to her with a trembling hand. Using her fingers, she shaved off every leaf except for the one at the very top before lifting my skirt to bare the back of my knees. Three or four swishes were applied to that tender area while I yelled bloody murder.
“Now, go throw this switch in the trash and if I EVER see you playing with fire again, you’ll get a real whipping.” She then leaned down and gave me a brief hug without saying a further word and headed back to the store.
Mama was the disciplinarian. All Daddy had to do was look at his little girl and I’d stop whatever mischief I was attempting. Willie never spanked her ”Baby,” but she’d sure fuss at me when I was bad or tell Mama when it came down to something serious like playing with matches.
After this episode, I moved my writing place to the back bedroom closet with its back stairway leading to the attic. Its steps were another private place to compose my stories. But when she found out, Mama put an end to that hideaway, too, saying that writing or reading by flashlight would ruin my eyes.
Yet, neither of these banishments deterred my writing efforts. I wrote throughout grade school and high school but only shared my stories with Suzanne and “Other Brenda.” They encouraged me with lavish comments which only best friends deliver. My senior English teacher was another encourager. She always stressed writing only about that which I KNEW. No New York or Hollywood settings with characters who were too overblown for my small town understanding. Besides occasional notes on my themes, her supreme compliment was written in my yearbook, “Brenda, you show promise of becoming a skillful and creative writer.”
Entering college, I wrote to tell her my freshman orientation essay was chosen “Best in Class” by a panel of English professors and counselors. The first to deliver the news was my personal counselor, Mr. Holt, of the Fine Arts Department. He suggested I pursue journalism as a major, but I stuck to my speech/drama major with a minor in English. I added education courses for a BSE degree during my junior year after deciding I would like to teach. May I be perfectly honest here? These were the dullest and least helpful of all my college courses. Just ask my EHS class of 1966…I began to learn to teach after entering my first classroom.
During my “fun” time I continued to write whatever was on my mind. Like other hopeful writers, I sent books to publishers and received reams of rejection letters. Next, I tried magazines. Same thing…”Crisp writing—but no thanks.” Finally, in my mid-sixties, I barged into a newspaper office and literally bluffed my way into column writing on a “trial” basis. At age 64, I first saw my name in a byline. My readership grew and my column later won 2nd and 1st place in two Texas Press Association contests. But my biggest thrill came when, after all the years, I saw my first book, SATURDAY NIGHTS/DIXIE DOG DELIGHT, published in 2009. Though the book sold only a little over 800 copies, I was published at last. A second book (also a compilation of reader favorites), MILES of MEMORIES, followed in 2012. A lifetime of writing. A lifetime of hoping. A lifetime of dreaming. At last the dream came true. Whatever your personal dream might be—pursue it—and never give up. After all, sometimes a dream ‘wished upon a star’ comes true outside the world of Disney.