Dear Reader:

During a question and answer period one day Madeleine L’Engle (popular children and adult author) was asked a question from one of the students in the audience. “How do you keep coming up with ideas for stories? 

This time L’Engle remembered a story she had once been told to answer the question:

“The most asked question that I generally receive is, “Where do you get your ideas?” That’s very easily answered. I tell a story about Johann Sebastian Bach when he was an old man.

“A student asked him, “Papa Bach, where do you get the ideas for all of these melodies?”

And the old man said, “Why, when I get up in the morning, it’s all I can do not to trip over them.” And that’s how ideas are; they’re just everywhere. “

That’s the way I feel when I get asked the same question…”How can you come up with a story idea each day? My response…”How can I not?” As long as I am breathing..I am surrounded by stories.

I decided to put myself to the test…to take a photo of five different objects that surround my computer and tell a little anecdote about each object..without ever getting up from my computer desk.. to remind ourselves how we are all surrounded with stories… all the time.

I received this Indonesian “storyteller”  for my birthday one year from my good friend, Carol Poole, when we used to travel together doing social studies/story workshops. The “storyteller” now sits atop the computer desk to remind myself that the one activity left that can still bring children running from their “cyberspace lives” is the question “Would anyone like to hear a story?”

This little “fella” sits on top of my computer desk for a special reason which I will tell you in a minute.

I always associate my “Boll Weevil” with Bishopville, SC-home of the Cotton Museum and the infamous Lizard Man sightings.

I was on a state committee to evaluate the high school there and stayed in a wonderful bed and breakfast whose owners, of Scottish heritage, had Scottish paraphernalia scattered throughout the house. The owner even took me to the cotton fields, outside town, to show me where the Lizard Man, supposedly, lived when not scaring people.

The reason for the boll weevil sitting on top of my computer desk is told in a little story attached to the weevil itself…

Since being chased from the cotton fields, Boll Weevils have chosen a new occupation. As graduates of the Boll Weevil University School of Computer Sciences, these Weevils sit near your computer and protect it from harmful computer viruses.  Once more you can feel safe in this electronic age, knowing that a highly trained “Boll Weevil” guards your vital information.

  After delivering my 1002nd story to beat Scheherazade’s previous 1001 Arabian Night stories…the Ya’s got Ernest Lee (Chicken Man) to paint several symbolic benchmarks in my life and this was one – a painting of my ‘chicken self’ sitting on a boulder with pen in hand… finishing up my 1002nd story for the victory.

It was only after the celebration… that I had to make the first decision to continue writing the blog or go out on a high note…it was then that I realized the blog had become a life-line for me. If I had stopped the blog then…I never would have met so many amazing readers and friends…like you!

 When I retired from teaching at Alston Middle School, having spent three decades within its walls, before going to the district office…the Alston “family”gave me this wood-cutting, as a memory, of my stay there. So many memories of students and fellow teachers…I get a lump in my throat every time I glance up from typing and see this special school that gave me a second home.

 I was given this plaque one year at a teacher Christmas exchange and it always makes me smile. But just recently it also reminds me of a funny incident that took place when Eva Cate spent the night with me a couple of weeks ago.

On the way to my house we were listening to the radio and I was shaking my head and shoulders to the music. I heard Eva Cate giggling in the backseat…she said “Boo Boo…you act crazy sometimes.”

I replied, “Do you mean that it has taken you this long to figure that out, Eva Cate? I thought you were a  smart little girl.”

“Well now that you have we will have to write down the “historical” date (when we get to the house) when you figured out that your Boo Boo grandmother is C_R_A_Z_Y!” Eva Cate just burst out giggling again.”

The plaque is right “Well-behaved women rarely make history” but crazy grandmothers will be remembered forever.

So until tomorrow…Need a story…look around you!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh