Honeysuckle, a Ghost Story

 "She really shot him?"

Grandma Sonny leaned forward, her eyes glimmering and her mouth lifting up into a smirk. Embers fell from her cigarette as she waited for her moment.

"Twice."

8-year-old me gasped, less out of shock than out of excitement. Sonny was proud of our family's gallows humor, and her stories grew more sensational with each telling. The nights I spent at her house sent my already overactive imagination into overdrive. I had one of my Hello Kitty notebooks in my bag and I already had an idea brewing for a tale about a haunted manor and a fearless girl ghost hunter.

Whether the story made it onto the page that night or just swirled around in my head a bit longer depended on the heat and if I could even write without sweat making my hands stick to the page. By mid-July, the Oklahoma wind dies down just a bit, which makes the searing heat even more smothering. The air drips with humidity and food grows mold overnight, and you feel greasy and sweaty even if you've just showered. You wait all day for even the slightest breeze, which usually doesn't come until around midnight. The breeze combined with the sweat on my skin would cause me to shiver. 

"Raccoons walking on your grave?" Sonny would chuckle.

I'd giggle and take another bite of my Twix and wait for the next shiver.

My grandmother was a chain smoker and a non-stop talker, but occasionally she'd go silent, staring straight ahead but not looking anywhere. Eventually she'd do her own shiver and look at me in surprise.

"Raccoon walking on your grave?" I'd ask, usually finishing off my Twix by this point.

She'd just laugh and tap her cigarette on the ashtray and ask me if I wanted a Chocolate Soldier.

This night was especially heavy, but finally a breeze swept across the porch, knocking Sonny's pack of Virginia Slims onto the ground. 

"Must be midnight," she said, leaning back in the green plastic reclining lawn chair and closing her eyes. I shivered again, this time out of fear. I'd seen the little girl in green several times by then, usually just after midnight when she'd go skipping along the side of the house next door before disappearing around the honeysuckle-covered curve in the back fence. The scent of honeysuckle would waft toward my grandmother's front porch before dissipating seconds later.

I don't know why I didn't tell my grandmother about her. She would have believed me. This was the woman, after all, who said she never dreamed unless the dream came true, and that her childhood home was haunted by the ghosts of farmhands whose footsteps still echoed up the staircase at the side of the house that led to the workers' quarters. For some reason I felt like the little girl was like me and just wanted to be left alone, so that's what I did.

I'd only seen the person who lived in that house a handful of times. He was one of the few original residents from when the neighborhood was built in the early 1900s. His parents were Land Run settlers, their small farmhouse long ago torn down to make room for one of the city's first middle-class neighborhoods. Mr. Jeffrey was probably around 90 years old and had lived there alone since my grandmother moved there in the '50s, though neighbors said he'd once had a wife named Maud and a daughter Clarabelle who everyone called Honeysuckle because she liked it so much. At some point Maud left him and took Clarabelle and he never mentioned them again. I'd smiled at him once, thinking he must be lonely without his family, but he just glared at me and went inside and drew the curtains.

By this point Sonny had nodded off. I sat on the porch and looked around the neighborhood my mother grew up in. The paint was peeling on the turn-of-the-century homes and there was graffiti on the drugstore on the corner, but the street had once been the kind where everyone kept their lawn mowed and their bruises hidden under high collars and heavy makeup.

Within a few minutes I saw something out of the corner of my eye. The little girl was here, skipping along as usual, seemingly unaware of my presence. I wondered if she was actually a ghost or just a remnant left behind, repeating some random moment in her life over and over. My grandmother must have been having one of her dreams because she groaned and jerked one of her arms to the side, hitting the metal stool she used as a side table. The little girl stopped, turned in my direction, and looked at me. 

Her eyes widened and the translucent fabric on the front of her dress went up and down with her increasing breath. Her skip turned to a run and she flew past the honeysuckle and disappeared right where Mr. Jeffrey's backyard rose garden began. I could smell the honeysuckle and feel it in my nose and chest. I found myself sprinting toward Mr. Jeffrey's back garden. The girl was long gone but I couldn't stop running toward where she'd disappeared to. Mr. Jeffrey's red roses came into view, and as I approached them it was as if they transformed into monsters from the fairy tales I wasn't supposed to read. They were 10 feet tall and full of thorns, their stalks stretching out to grab me. My heart was pounding and I could hardly breathe, but I had to reach that garden. 

Just then a bony arm wrapped around my chest and pulled me down onto the grass, and I looked up to see Mr. Jeffrey glaring at me, a rake in his hand. I tried to force my body to move but before I could, Mr. Jeffrey grunted and his head jerked forward and then he too fell onto the grass, his hand landing in the thorny rose bush. I saw blood on his fingers but something else too, something gnarly like a tree root but not a root. A finger. A very small finger that had probably been there a very long time.

Sonny stood over me holding a shovel, which she threw to the ground as she leaned forward to pull me toward her. She held me tight for a very long time and then said "It's ok, you can go now." 

I thought she was telling me to go inside the house, but when I pulled away I could see she wasn't looking at me. I followed her gaze and saw the little girl.

"I'm sorry," Sonny said to her.

The little girl smiled, I think, and then skipped toward the alleyway behind the yard and disappeared. I looked at Sonny and she just nodded and pulled me toward her again.

An ambulance came and took Mr. Jeffrey to the hospital but Sonny said he never woke up. The police dug up the yard and found Clarabelle and Maud and I didn't see Clarabelle after that. 

I knew Mr. Jeffrey didn't have any family to come and bury him, so later I asked Sonny what would happen to him. All she would say was "What he deserves."

Journalism 101: How to Salvage a Bad Interview

You look at each other, neither one speaking. You shift nervously in your chair, tapping your pen and searching for your next move – or the nearest exit. You’ve just found yourself in the middle of The Worst Interview in Journalistic History, and you’re wondering if you’ll ever work again.

It happens. It happens to cub reporters interviewing their first celebrity, and to veteran journalists with their own talk shows. It’s every journalist’s worst nightmare. It doesn’t have to ruin your story, however. Even the most disastrous interview can often be salvaged, and even result in an insightful, readable article your audience will actually enjoy and learn something from.

Do Your Research

So, the first and most important tip actually isn't about how to save a bad interview, but how to prevent one in the first place. Start by doing your research. Get to know your interviewee and the topic in-depth. Don't ask basic questions that you can easily find the answers to on the internet, in the company's literature, the person's bio or other places. People often find it insulting if you come to the interview with no knowledge of them or the issue, and they may think you're not taking the subject seriously. Use this background research to develop targeted, informed questions that will help you gather information that hasn't already been covered. 

Have a Plan B

You can often prevent a bad interview simply by having a backup plan. I make a list of my most important questions, but I also include several “in case of emergency” questions to help me get an interview back on track. These include questions that, while not essential, are interesting and can be used if the source is providing only brief answers to my key questions. They’re often offbeat questions, something seemingly irrelevant or that I know hasn’t been discussed in other interviews. While they may seem irrelevant, that’s part of their power. They help me catch the source off guard and get them thinking. Some of my best material comes from these “throwaway” questions and they’re also a great way to get the source to loosen up and be more conversational. Once I get the other person talking, the interview makes a turn for the better, and sometimes I can revisit the questions that didn’t go over well the first time.

Push Reset

They say you only get one chance to make a first impression. Unless the interview has deteriorated so badly that you and your source are shouting at each other, you may be able to take a step back and change the tone of the conversation. You can always just acknowledge the awkwardness, for example by telling the other person you feel like you got off on the wrong foot and you'd like to start over. If you feel certain questions are pushing the person's buttons, you can try veering away to more benign subjects until the person is more comfortable. You can also try reframing questions. For example, your interviewee may feel as though the questions are confrontational (even if they're not) and this may make them defensive. If you ask a city manager "How much will sales tax go up to fund the new community center?" and you get pushback, take a step back. The person probably knows that increased taxes won't be well-received by the public, and they may think you're slanting the article in a negative way (again, even if you're not). Instead, ask what kinds of things will go into building a new community center and what things the city needs to consider. From there, you can ease into asking more specific questions about money.

Be Flexible

Knowing specifically what you want from an interview is crucial. You need to make sure the conversation stays on track, and that you get the information you need. However, if you can’t seem to save the interview, sometimes it’s best to go with the flow, at least temporarily. If the subject doesn’t want to open up about the topics you most need,  but is willing to talk about something else, let the conversation wander. I’ve often gone into an interview with a specific angle, only to find that the person I’m interviewing takes the conversation in a more entertaining and informative direction than I had planned. Sometimes the information they give me is even better than what I had in mind. If there's information you absolutely must get, you can keep coming back to it until the subject opens up. Sometimes, however, you have an idea about how the story should go, only to discover that the subject gives you an even better story. 

Stay Focused

Finally, no matter what happens, concentrate on your responsibility as a journalist: putting together a solid, informative, engaging and accurate article that has value for your readers. This is also the one thing you can control. If you find yourself getting flustered or intimidated, try to take a deep breath and remind yourself that this isn't personal. Interviews go off the rails for several reasons, many of which have nothing to do with you. Maybe the person you're interviewing is worried about their reputation or their company's reputation, maybe they've had a bad media experience in the past, or maybe they're just having a cruddy day. Remember that your first duty is to your readers, and that even if the interview goes south, if you can manage to write an engaging, informative and impactful story, you've fulfilled your obligation to your readers. 

A Journalist Prepares

U.S. Department of State, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The obnoxious journalist waving a microphone or a camera in someone's face is a long-held cliche that has some truth to it but is also exaggerated. Sometimes reporters have to be assertive to get the information they need to inform and educate the public. And sometimes, they're just, well, obnoxious. They want to get the scoop, they want a byline on the front page. Maybe they want a big payday for selling their story or photo to a national outlet. If you believed what you see in the movies, you'd think reporters spent their days rushing from one breaking news story to the next and doing it all in a very confrontational way.

The truth is more mundane. Even if you're covering a live event, such as a meeting or a press conference, it's likely a significant amount of behind-the-scenes research went into it. Rather than dashing across town fueled only by cigarettes and coffee, I typically spend most of my time staring at a computer screen and consuming copious amounts of tea and chocolate. 

This week, for example, I covered a local city council meeting. I'm a freelancer so I'll get a small check for covering the meeting, which will likely last about an hour or hour and a half. But prior to that, I'll be researching the agenda items to ensure I can write the most relevant and in-depth story possible. Sure, I could just show up and report on what was said, but I'll likely omit crucial context and backstory the readers need to understand why these items were on the agenda in the first place and what they mean to the community. In fact, I may spend many (unpaid) hours staying on top of what's going in the community. 

Here's a breakdown of everything I do prior to showing up at the meeting with my notebook and camera in hand:

I'm the only one covering the meeting, so I have to balance taking notes with getting good action shots.

Step 1: Review the agenda.

The city posts the agenda prior to the meeting, but it's just an overview. They send out a much more detailed agenda to news outlets. Critical thinking is crucial here, because I need to determine what items are likely to make the best stories. I usually have a good idea what  I'm going to cover even before I go to the meeting. I don't just look for what seems most attention-grabbing. I have to consider if the issue has already been covered and a new story would be redundant. I also consider things like, what issues are already a major topic discussion among the community? I belong to several community Facebook groups, so I'm often already aware of hot-button issues. Most importantly, I have to look at which stories have the most significance to residents. There have been topics that I found fascinating, but I knew probably would not be relevant to most people's day-to-day lives.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission from US, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Step 2: Plan My Strategy

How much information does the agenda provide? What questions do I need to ask to fill in the gaps? What information can I find before the meeting? If there's a topic I think I might cover, I look at the city's website, search for prior news coverage, and even browse social media to see if anyone is talking about it. If the meeting itself doesn't provide the information I need, I then have a good idea of who I need to follow up with and what questions I need to ask.

I have to know which stories I need to get photos for - I usually have an idea of this before the meeting.

Step 3: Take a Picture!

Readers like pictures. Editors like pictures. We all like pictures. Not only do they break up those long blocks of text on the page, they also add depth to the story. It helps readers make a connection, by showing them the faces behind the story. Instead of just words on a page, they see the people who make the story important. When I review the agenda, I also look for potential photo opportunities. In some cases, I can be pretty sure people will get up and speak about the topic. I spend as much time planning my photos as I do planning my stories. 

Putting It All Together

Preparing to cover a meeting takes as much or more time and effort than actually going to the meeting and writing the stories. I typically get the agenda the Friday before the Monday meeting, which means I have to allot time over the weekend to prepare. It can get a bit hectic, but with the journalism industry deteriorating by the minute, local newspapers like the one I write for are sometimes the only media outlets community members can rely on. Journalism, when done right, is ultimately about public service, which means I owe it to my readers to bring them the best reporting I can.

Week(s) In Review: Music lost and found, adventures in thrifting and a suicidal hitman

So, I don't post for seven years, then I crawl out from under my rock and say I'm going to post every week, and then promptly drop off the face of the earth again. Sounds like me. Anyway, I did mean what I said and I still want to get this blog going again, so I'm going to practice yet another exercise in futility (how many calories d'you suppose that burns?) and attempt to resurrect this blog once more.

50 Years of Junk

I have a lot of stuff. Not just my stuff, the stuff accumulated by various family members that has somehow made it into my collection. This means I often lose track of my stuff and am buried in theirs. I also had a family member who was a packrat, and let's just say I'm not surprised by the stories of those people who die amongst their piles of possessions and are not found for many years.

Every year I try a proper spring cleaning but always run out of steam. This year, though, I have to get through it all and even through I've just gotten started I already feel doomed. I moved a little over a year ago and have two family homes full of crud that needs to be gone through and hopefully tossed. There have been a few good moments, such as finding parts of my music collection that I thought I had lost, including some old cassettes (I don't have any cassette players, though, so there's that). However, for the most part it's been excruciating.

My grandmother in her pre-packrat days.

In particular, trying to go through my grandmother's belongings. She had dementia at the nd, and left behind a mess that I'm still trying to unravel. She was a hoarder, which I knew, but I wasn't prepared for how emotional it would be sifting through her collection of thrift store purchases and various odds and ends that should have been chucked in the bin years ago. Yarn she never used, patterns for clothing and crafts she never made. When someone has dementia or Alzheimer's, it's like losing them twice, and going through the remnants of my grandmother's life was like losing her a third time. This is going to be a long process.

Another person's trash...

My wardrobe has always consisted primarily of clothes from the thrift store. It's hit or miss and definitely not for the faint of heart. It takes consistency and patience and a eye for detail - after all, you have to check for stains, tears, missing buttons and other flaws that make even the quirkiest thrift store find just not worth the money or effort. Where I lived before, there was a thrift store nearby that had 5 for $1 on specific color tags every Sunday. Once I moved to a different city, it just wasn't worth the drive, but I found a thrift store right around the corner from me that has sales ranging from 50 cents to even 10 cents. I haven't found much there, but I did snag a few 10 cent pieces I'm pretty excited about:

This is a nice, grown-up piece that will hopefully hide how immature I am. I already wore it to cover a city council meeting and I seemed to have passed for a professional. However, I have some goth/punk jewelry from when I was a teenager that I think will take it another direction altogether.

This is not quite my usual style but something about it struck me. It has kind of an '80s look that I think I can play up. Looking forward to the challenge with this one.

And then there's this one. I've had an animal print obsession since I was a teenager, and I think I'm definitely going to try to go full punk rocker here. 

Movie of the Week - "The Merry Gentleman"

Many of us know Michael Keaton from his comedic, often over-the-top roles, like "Mr. Mom," which is the first thing I saw him in. In fact, there was incredible backlash when Tim Burton cast him as the brooding "Batman." Keaton has also played some serious roles ("My Life," "Clean and Sober"), but many people associate him more with Beetlejuice.

In "The 2008 film "The Merry Gentleman," Keaton plays an unlikely leading man - a hitman named Frank who wants to exit the biz. By day he's a tailor, and while he carries out his hits in a matter of fact way, it's obvious he wants out - of his job, of his life, of everything. And then he meets Kate (played by Kelly McDonald) a woman on the run from her abusive husband (who's also a cop). Kate witnesses one of Frank's hits,, and we at first assume that he'll have to kill her too, to eliminate any witnesses. Instead, he befriends her, and we watch as both characters evolve and attempt to come to terms with their lives.

Though set at Christmastime, the movie is hardly cheerful, and it's definitely not something you'd watch with the family on Christmas Eve. However, the festive setting only enhances the bleakness of the characters' lives at the beginning. Keaton also directed the movie, in which he delivers an understated, quiet but somehow equally imposing performance. You wouldn't think you could sympathize with a hitman, but in this case you do. Kelly McDonald also delivers, portraying the abused Kate as not a victim or a damsel in distress, but as someone doing everything she can to rebuild her life.

The Merry Gentlemen is free on Tubi and Plex.

Week in Review: City government, punk rock ghosts and green onions

I was a journalist for about 15 years, before I spent the last 4 or so years in insurance. I recently returned to journalism on a freelance basis, and I realized how much I miss it. For a little over a year I've been freelancing for a weekly local newspaper (that still has a print edition - yay!). For them, I primarily cover events in a nearby, smaller city that traditionally doesn't get as much coverage. Mainly I report on the city council meetings there, which I thought would be excruciating, but that I have actually learned a lot from. This week's meeting was particularly scintillating, with new businesses coming to the area, an overhaul of parking ordinances, sales tax incentives...and...cupcakes!

They all got along at this meeting. That doesn't always happen. 

I've been a Scrooge since I was 15, but I have to admit the city hall Christmas decorations made me want to wrap myself in tinsel.

In other news, there's a new Western wear store coming to the city, which I'm sure has everyone breathing a sigh of relief because the other one we had here just announced it will be closing. We're Okies and we need our cowboy boots, damnit.

And finally, free food, which, let's face it, is the real reason journalists do what they do.

TV Discovery of the Week

I cancelled cable about 20 years ago and I now refuse to pay for streaming services. Thankfully, there's a lot of free stuff that's actually really good, but you do have to spend some time looking for it. I'm actually glad I cancelled cable all those years ago, because it meant I had to get creative to find worthwhile movies and TV shows, which led me to shows from all around the world. I wish we required our kids to watch foreign shows, so they could see that there's a great big world out there and that the way we do things here in the United States is not the only way and definitely not the best way. 

I recently down a Reddit rabbithole, as I am wont to do, and saw mention of an Australian series called "Spirited," about the ghost of a 1970s British punk rocker and an Australian (living) dentist who meet and fall in love after the dentist buys the penthouse the rocker was staying in before he disappeared in the early 1980s. It reminded me of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," which I've long been a fan of, and I'm also a fan of anything ghost-related and all things punk rock. Also, shows from Australia and New Zealand are increasingly becoming my favorites because I prefer their sense of humor and they're nearly all full of quirky characters - "Spirited" being a perfect example. I couldn't believe the series was free online at Amazon's Freevee, because anything with that kind of cult following typically isn't. 

I had never heard of the two lead actors, but I was already a fan of Angus Sampson, who plays one of the supporting characters. As always, he was right on target in this show, and in fact, the casting was incredible all around. I'm now actively seeking out other shows featuring Claudia Karvan and Matt King. The show does a great job pulling you into the love story but also makes the supporting characters engaging and relatable and gives each of them a backstory and a character arc. We follow the dentist, Suzy Darling, as she finally learns how to stand up for herself and the punk rocker, Henry Mallet, as he tries to remember how he died and as he learns to face his new reality. Henry adjust to being dead was particularly heart-wrenching. 

A show's soundtrack is as important to me as the storyline, and this show's tracks excel at evoking the punk rock era. The Henry Mallet/Nerve songs sound like something I would have grown up listening to - on vinyl, and many of the songs are available on YouTube.

Check out "Spirited" on the Freevee app or for free on Amazon Prime

Adventures in Gardening

I have a brown thumb. I rarely get anything to grow, and if I do, it dies pretty much immediately. I've lost count of how many times I've watched "On a Clear Day," not just because I like the movie, but because I wish I had Barbra Streisand's character's ability to make plants grow at will. My inability to foster any kind of life would be bad enough as it was, but it was especially crushing because I come from a long line of farmers on both sides of my family, and I grew up eating fresh veggies from my maternal grandmother's and great-aunt's gardens. With the way things are going, pretty soon I'll be subsisting on dandelion salad like they did in the Great Depression, so I figured I'd better try to figure out how to grow something, anything, that can keep me from withering away and floating down the street and into the abyss.

I decided to try something a little different, because I can't start anything from seed, so instead I've been taking my veggies and then starting new plants from them. So far I've had the best luck with the green onion, and have consistently been using off these three for a few weeks now. Maybe at long last I'll have my own victory garden.

I'm Gonna Live Forever...

Source: Wikimedia Commons

I've never been interested in living longer. Better, yes. Healthier, of course. But not longer. Why? Because even as a kid I saw that all that scary shit from the dystopian sci-fi novels was slowly starting to come true. In the last few years this shift has ramped up considerably, to the point where I think the Thought Police are probably watching me chuckle over the many Trump memes Moby posts on his Instagram.

Pack Your Bags, Kids, We're Going to Mars!

Credit: NASA

I call shotgun!

For years, I've been telling everyone I know that the Mothership is going to return for me really, really, really soon. Well, it's time to accept that's not going to happen, and if I want to get off this godforsaken planet I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands. And with the U.S. presidential election nearing, I need to fast track my plan.