by compound complex 730 Replies latest social entertainment
"Throughout the book, Ray Franz's love (for God, justice, and Christian freedom [prepositional phrase)] shines brilliantly."
Good catch on your part, Syl!
I make the same mistake myself, all too frequently, and must tell the world that I've set it straight!
CoCo
Tee hee hee.
Syl
Somewhat better link to Syl's article is
http://ex-jw.com/remembering-raymond-franz
Be sure to watch the video in the sidebar.
As a spectral Mary glides effortlessly, as all ghosts do, from darkened pane to darkened pane, she laughs to herself how she was so intent on washing the glass daily when she was in the world. Today, in her present ethereal state, Mary's once sparkling windows and spanking clean sheets on the dooryard clothesline below are scarcely a concern for a woman 80 years departed from the paltry affairs of running a house that was, at one time, the gem of the neighborhood: an old structure now desperately needing some fresh flowers, a few throw pillows, a new coat of paint ...
The old darling has some newly arriving tenants to welcome....
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CoCo, is Mary one of the Vincents?
Syl
Sylvia :
I was so taken by your house that I waxed on spontaneously about a "Mary" whom I am truly unfamiliar with but whose invisible qualities made her a wraith-like Alabaman come popping out of my fertile imagination.
Really - it was simply free writing inspired by those dark panes in your lovely, below-the-surface-potentially-spooky photos!
Thanks for asking!
CoCo
"My" house is located on the grounds of the once-famous Snow Hill Institute.
Here's a story about an attempted restoration by the founder's granddaughter, now deceased..
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/01/consuela_lee_spike_lees_aunt_a.html
It just amazes me how you pick up on stuff!
Syl
Dear Sylvia :
Thanks for that wonderful link regarding Consuela Lee. This resonates deeply with me because of our family's community involvment with the fine arts. I will PM you later [off to work now] as to how.
I have a 1942 edition of This Is My Best, which contains "Poems of American Negro Life," by Langston Hughes.
Thanks, as ever, for inspiring me.
I'm dredging up more family memories (the dark ones!) for the eponymous Vincent Saga.
Till later,
CoCo
I am waiting ...
Syl
It was not a light slam of flesh and bone against a slanting wall of the derelict cabin.
Animal rage set its talons upon an unsuspecting, trusting child and sent her hurtling into the air and, upon impact with the splintery cedar paneling, edging downward, painfully downward by a stop-go motion that could hardly be described as sliding. Landed in a shocked but still breathing heap, she lay quiet until the beast left its lair. Once out the ill-hung door and into the labyrinthine wood that all but put the tiny speck of four rotting walls safely off the map, Mommy went to work. For the day. All day. The reprieve was, nonetheless, too brief.
Liz knew what awaited her and her little brother if their rundown home was not sufficiently spic and span upon Mommy's return from work. Richie somehow escaped the brunt of their mother's physical brutality, however, and floundered like a drowning puppy under the muddy torrent of his mother's loose and vulgar tongue. Whimpering, he ran over to his battered sister, running his little hand up and down the torn sleeve of her dotted swiss blouse as if the magic of his youthful innocence would heal the bruises beneath.
Elizabeth Vincent, nee Freitas, was staring out her bedroom window at the little stand of trees beyond the property line of her home on Hernandez Terrace. An evil, unwanted recollection of her beloved Richie had been triggered by some lurking, subconscious memory fiend. The trees, their compact density, something within an otherwise innocuous copse of oaks, grabbed inside the infinite and jumbled mix of memory and metaphor and shouted that Richie had died too young, that he shouldn't have died at all ... not like that....
"Mommy, Mommy," Andy called out to his preoccupied mother, whose aspect had gone from pensive to dark and ugly. Growing within was an already sprouted bad seed of irrationality and wanton mayhem awaiting a deadly harvest. She averted her look from the seemingly real but imagined looped rope dangling from a distant black oak limb, and glared red, angry, frenzied at her own little boy.
"Mommy, look what I made for you!" shouted Andy.
