NEWS

One of Mom's favorite expressions was "by guess and by God." For a woman who did carpentry and always told me, "Measure twice and cut once," she was amazingly laissez-faire about other measurements.

Making a quilt: "Do you need more batting, Mom? I can bring some out." "Nah, I should be fine, I eyeballed it and figured by guess and by God I should have enough.

"How do I make baking powder biscuits? How much flour do I use? "Just throw some in a bowl, by guess and by God."

"How do I know the cake is done?" "By guess and by God."

"How much allspice in the pumpkin pie mix?" "Just throw it in, I go by guess and by God."

So, I've started gathering the short stories, changing the format, adding some sketches (see my last blog post), and I am tentatively calling it "By guess and by God".

To me, those words describe my mother's entire life. A childhood of trauma and abandonment, abuse and poverty, she moved on, "by guess and by God."

Mom had a faith I never understood. Life had done her a dirty deed too often, yet she had an abiding faith. I remember her baking bread; some days, that bread was the main course. While she baked, teaching me each step repeatedly every week, she would sing. "On the Wings of a Dove", she knew each word. As she mixed, kneaded, and beat the crap out of the bread dough, she told me the story. I could picture the ark, filled to bursting with animals. Of course, to my mind, they were all farm animals, since that was my only frame of reference. Endless days with nothing but water surrounding them, living in fear and on the grace of God, Noah and his family had their doubts. Each day, the birds would fly away from the Ark, looking for land. Returning at night with nothing. Then one day, a dove came back with an olive branch. "Because they grew a lot of olives back then."

Noah built the ark by guess and by God. He was jeered and ridiculed and did the impossible and somehow figured it out, by guess and by God. I didn't really believe the story. Like my daughter would figure out later, I knew that the amount of poop on that boat would sink it by day three. Mom took it as the truth. The "gospel truth," she would say. She did complain, though, that Noah was pretty stupid to put mosquitoes, flies, and snakes on the boat. But she never doubted.

Right now, I am in the middle of editing and re-editing. My three editors, Donna, Lee, and Amanda, are assisting me in editing. Donna, because she knows the stories, Lee, because he is bluntly honest, and Amanda, because she is a reader. John has to hear the stories over and over as I edit. Lilly listens because she has to. It will be much, much smaller than White Trash Rising. I am looking at 200 pages, paperback. Stay tuned for more news on the new book. I am working on a series!