Christmas at Home

Christmas at Home

A friend of mine was the son of a man who had survived the Bataan Death March. He had seen men stagger out of line knowing they would be machine-gunned. He kept his head down. He didn’t talk to others. He was slow to react to the commands of the enemy herding them on, pushing them beyond their limits. He would breathe slowly, and let the air out like a monk meditating in a temple. His stoicism may have saved his life. But he had given up a precious virtue — anticipation. He didn’t want to think about the next moment, and kept his mind as empty as his pockets. He trudged. He slowed when someone staggered ahead of him. He didn’t want to fall or make a single mistake. He knew a certain guard kept his eye on him; he didn’t think anyone could be that determined. He was sure he was getting food somewhere, even though he was just a skeleton in the rags of his infantry uniform.

“…kept his mind as empty as his pockets.”

To meet such a haunted man was a trying experience. He would be sitting in his worn- out easy chair studying his fingers, barely saying a word. He had survived, but he had sacrificed everything worthwhile to do so. He made himself into a lump of clay, a reduction of his spirit into the mud of the rain forest. He had no magic in him. No jokes, either.

When his wife put a present for him under the Christmas tree, he pretended not to notice. He chose instead to sharpen his penknife on a small stone in the kitchen drawer, and polish his shoes, very slowly, with a rag and dabs of Shinola. Breakfast on Christmas morning was mostly conducted in silence, with the forks scraping against the plates and the coffee sipped at while the kids scrambled around opening gifts. He was handed his gift; he put it carefully on his lap and continued to dawdle at his poached eggs. Then, when it was already too late to join in the holiday spirit, he would undo the tape and pry up the wrapping paper to reveal a miniature chess set or a book about falconry. He would allow himself to smile and look up with muddy eyes and thank his wife with a nod.

 

“Breakfast on Christmas morning was mostly conducted in silence, with the forks scraping against the plates and the coffee sipped at while the kids scrambled around opening gifts.”

The march occurred in January 1942 and lasted until April, with some 650 casualties on the American side. Many more Filipino soldiers died. Along the way of the 60-odd miles they marched, guards gave out ladles of water and stale bread. The men were bearded and hollow-cheeked; their boots were worn out, with their feet showing. Some discarded their boots for fear of tripping on the broken soles. If you were found with Japanese money in your pockets, you were executed for having stolen it from dead Japanese soldiers. Even officers were not spared from the death squads. The men had spent Christmas eating out of field rations and drinking cold tea from their canteens. But the New Year was perhaps the lowest point of the war, with Japanese victories in Manila and many of the islands. General MacArthur was having to order retreats and surrenders.

Becoming a Writer Dorothea Brande

His son Jake started a rock band in central Texas and would play gigs around the city, at parties and weddings, an occasional street fair. He played rhythm guitar and his drummer had been his best friend since childhood. Jake sang with a good country twang, and smiled at the girls who crowded up to the stage to flirt with him. He was a gentle soul and clung to the music he made as the only escape from the gloom of his family life.

A Christmas tree stood in the corner by the stairs shedding needles. The wrapping papers were still scattered about the floor. His father had retreated to his little corner of the garage to read the instructions on his chess set. He would later put the box away and come into the house to sit before the TV. He was among the living dead of the war and nothing could console him. But he would take out the chess set and study the pieces, then move one or two of them on the wooden board. He would think about war and how to capture the queen, how to surprise the enemy, how to pull victory from the terrible grief he suffered. But he didn’t get far. He had to surrender his pieces one by one to an imaginary player whose moves he determined and made more lethal than any of his own. The great matted canopy of the jungle clothed his soul in rain, in the hum of mosquitoes, the suck of mud against his tramping feet.

Christmas came and went. In summer, he was given time to putter in a struggling garden at the back of the yard. The train went by and the soot from the rail bed would dust the leaves of his tomato plants. He kept himself aloof from neighbors and would chase the rabbit out of his carrot patch with a leaf rake. Summer erased the vision of endless mud and overturned Jeeps, the bombed-out remains of thatched huts and tin-roofed schools.

War had ravaged the innocence of Filipino life. The rice paddies were deserted and arid, with wiry shoots of rice grass here and there. But as the weather cooled, it would back the smell of lemons and fish soup, the odors drifting out of the windows of small hamlets along their way. It would ease the pangs of memory a little.

A child stared at him as he passed by. He dared not look at it for fear they would both be shot. In a month or two, it would be Christmas. He could hear the old mission bell in a town marking the noon hour. A water buffalo walked along beside the men and then went back into the fields dragging a slender plow behind. Life went on. Marriages were celebrated; a pregnant woman stood holding the small of her back after chopping grass. The steady rumble of thunder could be heard across the river.

When the Christmas season began again, the old man would stroll with his wife and sons into the mall. He wouldn’t shop, but he liked to sit on a bench and observe the throngs passing by. Happy people. Innocent people. They were eager to get home to eat a feast, to sip wine, to turn on the TV to Christmas specials. Everyone had lights blazing on the shrubs and on the porch roofs. It was a time of resurrection, of rebirth, a promise made by whoever God was that life would persist, even triumph over the terrible failures of power. So, there he sat, listening to the throb of drums coming from the food court, and the sound of his son’s guitar playing a shrill solo while he pressed his mouth against the microphone and wailed out a love song. He felt the calming influence of that harsh sound; his son was not scarred with the memory of so much death. He was hailing the return of love into the world as the bells rang.

When the old man was led back to the car, his wife kissed him on his cheek and patted his hands. She was glad he had come out, she said. She was happy he could hear his son Jake playing music. It all seemed to add to the spirit of the moment. She didn’t know why, but she was very happy, as happy as she had ever been. She was like a voice in the midst of war, a calming, soothing voice from home.

Becoming a Writer Dorothea Brande

He heard the words; he was moved to tears at their affection. He had survived. That’s what Jake said to him later when they were assembled in the living room with cups of eggnog. The old carols were playing on the radio. There was nothing silly about them, even though he had heard them so many times his brain was numb. But on this night, this cold, dry night of Christmas Eve, he was lifted from his chair and led to the porch where his neighbors were standing with a box. He was told to take it. He put it under the tree with the other gifts and opened it the next morning. It was a garden kit of hand spades, a weeding fork, packets of seeds, a nozzle for the hose. And a cartoon of his lanky body bent over a bushy eggplant vine. He was smiling and waving. He felt a dull thrill pass through him, the kind you might feel after a girl kissed you the first time in your life.

Opinion and Truth Are Not Synonyms

Opinion and Truth Are Not Synonyms

Yesterday, a friend asked me what I thought of the participation of veterans in the events at the Capital Building in Washington, D.C. this past week beginning on January 6. He knows I am a veteran of the Vietnam war wounded in combat and that I was also active in the anti-war movement upon being discharged from the Marine Corps in 1969. He felt that made my opinion valuable. Maybe it does, or maybe not so much. But it is also worth a disclaimer, hence the title of this post.

Truth

What I write after this paragraph is my opinion. It may contain truth, but life is a big picture, a panoramic movie screen. It’s complex and nuanced and comprised of almost as many realities as individuals. That is my way of saying I don’t know everything and don’t pretend to understand all the intricate motivations that drove veterans into their actions.

First, let me interject something here. I’m bothered by comparisons of this event to Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests the past summer. Yes, looting and violence occurred during them. It has on the periphery of every major protest in this country that I know of, including when Indiana University fired Bobby Knight and when the University of Kentucky won its last NCAA championship. But the looters and the criminals this summer comprised a very tiny percentage of the whole, were most always outside the movements themselves, and some have been proven to be right-wing agitators.

More importantly, these protests and marches were held to correct injustice and discrimination, as were the civil rights and antiwar protests of the sixties. They were not initiated with violence in mind and with a desire to create an injustice, the overturning of a legal and proper democratic election.

The fact that Donald Trump lost the presidential election by more than seven million votes is not an opinion. It’s the unavoidable fucking truth. Let’s not compare apples to oranges or Jesus to Charley Manson.

That said, there were two groups of veterans active in D.C. during and immediately after the violent insurrection on January 6, 2021. One group of veterans, along with other deranged and mostly white people, intended malice and an undermining of the American government simply because they didn’t get their way in the recent election.

You don’t come, as one veteran did, with 500 rounds of ammo, several Molotov cocktails, and two pipe bombs to peacefully protest anything. You come to violently bend everyone else to your will. You come to kill, maim, and torture. Yes, that happens in wars every day, but read the soldier’s oath. When it happens, a soldier is supposed to be engaged in defending his government, not destroying it.

“Let’s not compare apples to oranges

or Jesus to Charley Manson.”

And, yes, you can peacefully protest as a veteran after the fact if you feel betrayed by the mission itself. Thousands of us did upon returning from an unjust war in Vietnam and thousands have continued in voicing their concerns in America’s pre-emptive wars to protect corporate interests in third world countries. I know because I traveled to D.C. myself in 2008 to march with Veterans for Peace to end the war in Iraq, one that we knew by then was being fought under false pretenses. No one brought any weapons, and nothing was damaged. We never broke formation. We made our voices heard and left.

This was not that on January 6th. If you’re honest and halfway sane, you know that. As a Marine my motto was and is “Semper Fidelis” always faithful to my oath, to my country, to the Constitution and to Marine Corps values—Honor, Courage, Commitment. That faithfulness also dictates a responsibility to criticize the humans who comprise the government and hold them legally accountable for their actions. What we, as veterans, remain faithful to are the ideals that create this government, not demagogues who seek to pervert those ideals for personal benefit.

The other motto that I tried to live by as a non-commissioned officer in combat was also from the Latin “Ductus Exemplo” or lead by example.

 

 

I took my son to that anti-war march in D.C. because I wanted him to see one of the tools our democracy gives us to help correct it when politicians lead it astray for personal agendas. Used correctly and peacefully, protest is a strong and viable means for change—see Mahatma Gandhi, see Martin Luther King. Again, this was not that.

Wiping shit on hallowed walls, killing police officers, breaking windows, threatening to hang a vice-president, and assaulting the very bedrock symbols of our nation in a mob riot because your favorite white guy didn’t win a legal election is actually the opposite of a legitimate protest.

 

 

 

The word for this is also treason. I repeat, veterans involved in the insurrection of January 6th betrayed their solemn oath to this nation.

On January 7th another group of veterans made themselves known in and around the Capital Building. These vets spent the day cleaning up trash, fixing broken things, and helping to restore order to a damaged democracy. I can say without hesitation that these are the brothers-in-arms whose company I prefer and who exhibit that quality of Ductus Exemplo that is so needed now in our government and our country. 

Will I stop my activism personally because of the stench and stain left by riotous fools on the ideals that I once fought and bled for more than fifty years ago? Will I stop criticizing with words and with my vote those corrupt and self-serving politicians who betray the same ideals as these deluded rioters? No.

My last venture into peaceful activity came in 2016. I was 68 years old and drove over a thousand miles to link arms peacefully with the Great Sioux Nation at Standing Rock reservation. Yes, there was violence there. People long abused by the politicians and corporations were attempting to stop a dangerous oil pipeline. Its only existence was for more profit from foreign buyers. However, the violence came from local law enforcement thugs and corporate mercenaries as they sprayed Native Americans with water cannons in sub-zero weather, shot them with rubber bullets, and crippled them with flash grenades while they stood in line quietly praying to their ancestors for guidance. After years of peaceful protests and sacrifice and after years of legal court battles, the Dakota Access pipeline was shut done.

I’m getting too old and physically damaged for that type of action now, but as long as my mind works, I will continue on the front lines figuratively, if not literally. But I will act in accordance with my values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment and remember that my actions should always be in harmony with the goal of maintaining the ideals that so many of my brothers have died to protect.

Semper Fidelis.

REEL HEALING: How the Films of Lon Chaney Helped America Grapple with the Tragedy of World War I, Part 1

REEL HEALING: How the Films of Lon Chaney Helped America Grapple with the Tragedy of World War I, Part 1

Part One

On Sunday, June 28, 1914 at 10:45 in the morning, a shot rang out on the streets of Sarejevo – then the capitol of the Bosnia-Herzegovina province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – followed by a second a moment later. That single moment in time, which marked the death by assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, would be the immediate cause of the greatest conflict the world had ever known, one whose repercussions could hardly be imagined at the time. 

To be sure, Franz Ferdinand was a minor and relatively unaccomplished European royal. He ascended to his position only after the deaths of both his cousin and his father, and marked his career as Archduke more by his passion of big game hunting rather than any political or military achievements. There’s little doubt that, had it not been for his assassination and the events it touched off, he would be little more than a minor footnote in history today. 

But, thanks to a series of alliances around the world, Ferdinand’s death by a member of the student-led revolutionary group, Young Bosnia, who were armed and organized by the Black Hand – a secret military organization dedicated to unifying all nations possessing a majority of South Serbian citizens under one banner – sparked a world-wide conflict. Austria declared war on Serbia, causing Germany, Austria’s ally, to declare war on Russia, Serbia’s ally.

Germany then declared war on France, an ally of Russia, and invaded Belgium, a neutral country. This led to Great Britain declaring war on Germany, as they were allied with France. Within a week, many of the world’s greatest powers were at war with one another. The United States, under President Woodrow Wilson, announced their neutrality rather than joining either side of the conflict. In 1917, however, pushed to the brink by the ongoing attacks on American ships in the Atlantic, Wilson finally declared war on Germany and entered the fray.

“World War I was bloody, brutal, and all-consuming.”

And so World War I raged on in Europe. Recognized as the first mass killing event of the 20th century, it was responsible for more than 20 million deaths, both civilian and military. It quickly became clear that this war was different than others that had come before it. Advances in technology had created indelible changes, not only on the battlefield, but in both medicine and in the way wars were reported to those at home. Unlike the “gentlemanly” conflicts that had come before, such as the American Civil War – during which interested parties could gather on nearby hillsides and picnic while watching the battles below – World War I was bloody, brutal, and all-consuming. Nature itself was unforgiving, as the soldiers had little protection from rain (and the resulting mud), wind, heat, bitter cold, and other natural occurrences. Battlefronts, marked by the presence of trenches throughout which diseases like typhoid, body lice, trench foot, influenza, and trench fever ran rampant, resembled nothing so much as medieval depictions of Hell, with signs of horror, mutilation, and decay as far as the eye could see. When the sandbags that protected the soldiers from gunfire were damaged or destroyed, corpses were piled up to take their place. Death was always a mere moment away.

“This was not a war that could be romanticized (as much as many tried) – it was slaughter on a mass scale.”

Front-line soldiers were not the “honorable combatants” of previous conflicts as much as they were considered pieces of meat with weapons, to be thrown at the enemy in increasingly desperate waves of human cannon fodder in an attempt to overwhelm the other side. They were frequently ordered to “go over the top,” with virtually no regard for their personal safety, and attack in what often turned into a suicide run. This was not a war that could be romanticized (as much as many tried) – it was slaughter on a mass scale.

However, as in wars before and since, the battlefield, besides being an abattoir, proved to be an excellent proving ground for both new technology and medical innovation. This was the war that saw the development of the Thomas splint, which introduced a new way to immobilize broken hip and thigh bones, changing an 80% mortality rate for such injuries to an 80% survival rate; newly motorized ambulances replaced horse-and-carriage conveyances, transporting wounded from the battlefield to the hospital more quickly and effectively; vehicles equipped with X-Ray machines, installed by Madame Marie Curie herself, advanced the science of medical imaging and diagnosis; recent developments in hygiene, antiseptics, and vaccines helped treat and avoid many instances of infection and disease contracted at the front; revolutionary advances in blood transfusions improved with the addition of anticoagulants, allowing for the conservation and transportation of blood; and new techniques in both anesthesia and reconstructive surgery were put to the test in the unforgiving theater of war.  

And unforgiving it certainly was, as time and science brought into being many new methods of making death and destruction more widespread and efficient than ever before. Both sides of the conflict were hard at work revising and updating existing armaments, as well as creating new ones. The hand grenade, at first crude and unreliable, evolved into an effective killing machine, especially useful in trench warfare; the armor-plated tank, complete with caterpillar treads, found its place on the battlefield of World War I, as its design made it perfect for moving over uneven terrain and dealing death at close range; aerial warfare and aerial bombardment, long the purview of science fiction, became a terrifying reality as death rained from above; machine guns became faster, more reliable, and more deadly; and the newly-developed flame thrower was first used by the Imperial German Army to clear trenches by burning their enemies alive.  

Perhaps the most terrifying development, however, was the introduction of poison gas to the battlefield, in spite of the bans instituted by the Hague Convention in both 1899 and 1907 prohibiting the use of chemical weapons. Chlorine gas was the first chemical used in warfare; when chlorine meets moisture in the body, such as in the mucous membranes, it forms hydrochloric acid. It was limited, however, as its green color and distinctive odor served as a warning of its presence, allowing time for the donning of a simple gas mask. Far deadlier was mustard gas, which causes the skin to blister and can remain on the ground or in clothing for weeks after dispersal, and phosgene, a colorless – and largely odorless – gas that causes a buildup of fluid in the lungs leading to suffocation.

In spite of these new and horrendous methods of destruction, the advances in medicine meant that men were surviving injuries that would have killed them in earlier battles. Amputations and major surgeries were not the death sentence they had been, and such soldiers were more likely to be patched up and sent home than ever before. For some, that was both the good news and the bad. 

It’s estimated that 21 million people were injured, mutilated, or disfigured in World War I, with nearly 20% of that number suffering facial disfigurements of one kind or another, while even greater numbers returned home without one or more limbs. Wounded by shrapnel, bullets, chemical attack, fire, cold, disease, or any of a number of attacks meant to kill or disable, a larger percentage of wounded soldiers than in any previous conflict survived to come home, albeit horribly changed. Reconstructive surgery was available – to a point – but that science was still in its infancy. The result was that all over Europe and America, servicemen were returning home with shattered, broken faces, causing many to experience a feeling of lost humanity and isolation from friends, family, and loved ones. The mutilation of sexual organs, for which nothing could be done, was particularly damaging psychologically. Custom-made masks were available to veterans whose faces had been disfigured, although whether these were designed to protect the injured or the public at large is open to conjecture. 

This phenomenon was so widespread that France, for example, had an organization, Union des Gueules Cassées (“The Brotherhood of Smashed Mugs”), dedicated to helping and supporting veterans who had sustained disfiguring injuries of the head and face. The English town of Sidcup in south-east London, which had a hospital specially dedicated to the care of disfigured vets, had blue benches installed around town specifically for the use of such soldiers. Whether it was for their benefit, or to warn passers-by to look away, is not clear.

In the US, former soldier Robert S. Marx, working with the newly-formed American Legion, established the Disabled American Veterans of the World War (DAV) in 1920, dedicated to raising public awareness about, and providing support for, disfigured soldiers. By 1922, the organization had 25,000 members, with 1,200 chapters nationwide.

“While much was written both during and after the war, most of the literature of the time dealt with the effects of “shell shock,” better known and understood today as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).”

But in spite of these heroic efforts, acceptance was long in coming for these “gargoyles,” as many called themselves. Sent off to war in the prime of youth and vigor, they returned home in a monstrous condition. In her 1918 book, You Who Can Help: Letters of an American Army Officer’s Wife, August 1916 – January 1918, Mary Smith Churchill, who served as a nurse during the war, wrote, “… the thousands and even hundreds of thousands of head and face wounds almost prevent the poor men from looking human. I suppose they are glad to be alive, but with the life before them it is a pretty hard outlook.” A volunteer nurse, Enid Bagnold1, who was vocally critical of her hospital’s administration and was dismissed because of it, wrote about one of her patients in her 1918 book, A Diary Without Dates, saying, “… he has no profile, as we know a man’s. Like an ape, he has only his bumpy forehead and his protruding lips – the nose, the left eye, gone.” And John Masefield, a noted writer and poet who served on the staff of a British hospital for French soldiers and briefly served as an orderly, wrote in his diary, which was written at the front, “…[the doctors] shewed me some 50 casts of Before and After [reconstructive] treatment and really they make human heads out of things that have no single feature left, not even a swelling.” From an object of pity to an inhuman animal to a “thing,” the wounded vets lost their humanity as quickly as they had lost their features.

While much was written both during and after the war, most of the literature of the time dealt with the effects of “shell shock,” better known and understood today as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Virginia Woolf covered the topic in both Mrs. Dalloway (1925) which includes a character who is a World War I veteran experiencing PTSD-related symptoms, including hallucinations, who is committed to a mental asylum, and ultimately commits suicide and, to a lesser extent, in To the Lighthouse (1927), which foregrounds the changes wrought on the Ramsey family due to the War.  Ernest Hemingway also faced the fallout of the “War to End All Wars” in A Farewell to Arms (1929), the author’s first bestseller which was based on his own experiences in the Italian campaigns during the war, and The Sun Also Rises (1926), largely recognized as Hemingway’s best and most important novel, based on his own 1925 trip to Spain and his thesis that the so-called “Lost Generation” of the 1920s, largely considered to be irretrievably damaged by the war, was actually more resilient than they were given credit for.\

Few novels, however, dealt with the tragic injuries suffered by soldiers on the front lines. One notable exception was Johnny Got His Gun, a stunning anti-war novel written by Dalton Trumbo in 1938. In it, young American soldier Joe Bonham regains consciousness in a hospital bed, and comes to realize that his arms and legs, as well as the entirety of his face, including his eyes, ears, teeth, and tongue have been lost, resulting in his being trapped within his body with his mind still fully functional.

The story is told entirely in Joe’s mind, as he slips into and out of delusion and reality. It is a shattering look at the horror of those who were kept alive, but without a real life to return to. Granted, Joe’s situation is more extreme than most of the veterans that came back with “smashed mugs,” but Dalton portrays Joe’s new existence with sympathy and grace, something that was lacking in many veteran’s post-war lives. In spite of this, it’s hardly surprising that few, if any, other novels dealt with the subject matter that Trumbo took up. Johnny… is intense and disturbing, and a scathing indictment about the cost of war and who it is that is forced to pay that price.

Few movies were made about the war during the period of 1914-1918. Still in its infancy, having debuted in 1895, by the time World War I began in Europe, film was still trying to find its way as a vehicle for narrative expression, rather than a simple exhibition of moving images. Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) would help show that film could tell actual stories, while D.W. Griffith’s highly controversial The Birth of a Nation (1915) proved the viability of both feature-length film (as opposed to shorts, which dominated production at the time) and film as an artistic medium capable of much more than the simple recorded stage play that had been common up until that time.

“Needless to say, Hollywood had nothing to say about disabled and disfigured vets, content to keep them invisible as the country tried to put the war behind it.”

But as much as film had advanced, the public was still cautious as far as subject matter went. In 1910, Edison Studios released a one-reel (about 10 minutes) adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Tame to the point of being tepid by today’s standards, the film outraged the public, being castigated as not only “blasphemous,” but “revolting.” The pushback was so strong that the horror genre would largely disappear from the silver screen for more than a decade, giving way to more “respectable” forms such as romance, drama, and comedy. Needless to say, Hollywood had nothing to say about disabled and disfigured vets, content to keep them invisible as the country tried to put the war behind it.

In 1919, however, a film debuted that would be the first step in a reassessment of the war’s wounded, although that was likely the farthest thing from director, producer, and writer George Loane Tucker’s mind. The film, based on a play by George M. Cohan, which in turn was based on an original novel by Frank L. Packard, was The Miracle Man, about a gang of crooks who throw in with a shady faith healer, known as the Patriarch, in a small town, bilking the gullible public out of their hard-earned cash. The film is unremarkable – what exists of it – except for one thing: the character of the Frog, and the talented actor who portrayed him.

The Frog, part of the criminal gang, was a contortionist, who could twist and turn his body into seemingly impossible alignments, coming into town as a cripple and then allowing the Patriarch (the eponymous “Miracle Man”) to “heal” him, resulting in a man who went from a bent and broken figure to a vigorous and healthy young man. Without special effects capable of making this transformation, the role had to go to someone who could not only pull off the requisite physical stunt work, but could also act (a tougher combination to find in one person than was initially thought).

The role was filled by a character actor who had achieved some notoriety as head cattle rustler Hame Bozzam in the 1918 William S. Hart Western, Riddle Gawne. His performance drew favorable notices in the press, leading to the role of the Frog, which cemented the actor’s reputation as one of Hollywood’s leading character actors. His name? Leonidas Frank Chaney, better known to film buffs around the world as the immortal Lon Chaney, the Man of 1,000 Faces.

[1] Bagnold would attain even greater fame in 1935 with the publication of her best-known work, National Velvet.

JAM SESSION with Kathleen Rodgers

JAM SESSION with Kathleen Rodgers

 

Born and raised in Clovis, New Mexico, Kathleen M. Rodgers is a novelist whose stories and essays have appeared in Family Circle Magazine, Military Times, and in anthologies published by McGraw-Hill, University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, Health Communications, Inc., AMG Publishers, and Press 53. She has just completed her fourth novel, The Flying Cutbacks.

 

One Question–My Experiment

Recently, after a couple of Zoom conversations with my friend, Kathleen Rodgers, I thought it might be fun to record conversations with author friends about their thoughts on writing and their recent work or novels.

(SEE OUR “CHAT” BELOW!)

After weeks of thinking about it and trying to find a good time, I finally jumped in and interviewed Kathy about her latest novel, The Flying Cutterbucks.

The conversation was intended to be just that –- a conversation, and not an overly formatted interview. This made it both exciting and scary.  Though I did have a couple of questions in mind to ask, Kathy didn’t have a heads up about what I would be asking.  I think you’ll see in the video, it really was spontaneous–especially by the fact I didn’t even have a title for the “episode” yet. But we had fun, and hopefully, viewers will learn a little bit about Kathy, her novel and her writing process.

Though we had intended to limit this episode to 15 minutes, thinking many people may not have the time to watch anything longer, as often happens when we talk, one topic begat another, and we talked on and on.

Next time, perhaps I’ll set a timer, a proverbial hook to pull the performers off the stage. ?

This little challenge of “one topic begetting another” also led me to ask more than “One Question,” which is why I edited my title page to add, “or two, or three, or four…”

Obviously, I have some work to do as an interviewer.

So, I hope you’ll forgive my lack of polish and precision, and instead, will enjoy being a “fly on the wall” of my conversation with my very talented author friend!

Feel free to leave your comments about the video, including any critique. I’m always open to new ideas!

Thank you for watching!

For more information on Kathleen M. Rodgers and her books,
please visit her website  www.kathleenmrodgers.com