Review: Skulduggery by Carolyn Hart

Skulduggery.  Carolyn Hart.  With a new introduction by Carolyn Hart.  Seventh Street Books, Amherst, NY. November 2012. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61614-706-8, $13.95.  E-book: ISBN: 978-61614-707-5. $9.99.  176 pages.

Here’s a treat for mystery lovers: the earlier stand-alone mysteries and romantic suspense novels by Carolyn Hart.  Skulduggery was originally published in 1984, one of ten books that Carolyn said had seemed to disappear into a black hole before she began to win prizes for her Annie and Max Darling series set on a island off the coast of South Carolina.  Five Star brought out many of the early ones around 2000, and now Seventh Street Books is bringing some of them out through their Carolyn Hart Classics series.

Here is what Carolyn says about the difference between a mystery and suspense in her introduction to Skulduggery:  

***

I feel fortunate over the course of a long career to have written traditional mysteries, suspense, and romantic suspense. In recent years, my focus has been the traditional mystery but I recall writing scenes of derring-do with great pleasure. The traditional mystery celebrates goodness; the suspense novel celebrates courage.

What affords suspense? Tales of war, adventure, and, always dear to me, the hunt for treasure. I have always been fascinated by the idea of treasure. Treasure figures in a number of my books. A very particular kind of missing treasure inspired Skulduggery, the long lost Peking Man bones that disappeared in the early years of WWII and may have reappeared briefly in New York in the 1970s.

***

I have now read several of these early books, and I highly recommend them.  What did I especially love about this book?  I liked learning about the real situation in Chinatown in San Francisco in the 1980s.  The problems of the poor, many of them elderly, stirred my compassion, and I liked seeing compassion in the main characters as they encountered Chinese people in desperate straits.  I also liked the difficult decision the heroine, Ellen Christie, an anthropologist working for a San Francisco museum, had to make between following her intuitive grasp of the situation she was in versus turning away and choosing the conventional, “safe” way of putting her career first.

A young Chinese man, Jimmy Lee, follows Ellen and persuades her to come with him to see an old skull.  It turns out that she is sure, intuitively, that it’s the missing Peking man’s skull, the remains of which were found in China near Peking not long before World War II began, and then the Japanese invaded China in 1941, and these very ancient bones (Sinanthropus Pekinensis, the Chinese man from Peking) appeared to be lost after World War II was over.  There were several theories as to how they could still exist and possibly be in the U.S.

What creates the suspense is that someone in Chinatown learns about the bones Jimmy is trying to sell and their extreme monetary value.  This man sends his thugs to find them.  Both Jimmy and Ellen are at risk, but Ellen lets go much of her cautious, predictable lifestyle up to that point and not only trusts Jimmy and his brother, Dan, but joins them as they try to outwit this man who’s willing to kill to get to the bones.

The book also is a wonderful model for a woman who uses all her wits and resources to outwit a dangerous enemy.  For those who, as I do, like a little romance in their suspense novels, you will find that present, too.

I highly recommend this powerful book.  

***

Carolyn Hart is the author of 50 novels. Her 50th novel - DEAD, WHITE AND BLUE, 23rd in the Death on Demand series – was published in May. 

Recent titles include DEATH COMES SILENTLY, 22nd in the Death on Demand series. Forthcoming in October 2013 will be GHOST GONE WILD, 4th in a series featuring the late Bailey Ruth Raeburn, an impetuous red-headed ghost who returns to earth to help someone in trouble. 

LETTER FROM HOME, a stand alone novel set in Oklahoma, was published by Berkley in 2003. Gretchen Gilman is 13 in the summer of 1944 and working on the small town newspaper. Murder occurs on the street where she lives, changing her life forever. LETTER FROM HOME was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers at Oklahoma State University Tulsa. Letter from Home won the Agatha for Best Mystery Novel of 2003 and was a New York Times notable book. 

Hart was one of ten mystery authors featured at the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington D.C. in 2003 and again in 2007. In March 2004 she received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book. She has twice won the annual Oklahoma Book Award for best novel. In April 2004 she spoke at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. on mysteries in American culture. She received the Ridley Pearson Award at Murder in Grove, Boise, Idaho, in 2005 for significant contributions to the mystery field. She has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Malice Domestic in 2007 and the Amelia Award in May 2013. 

Hart is a native of Oklahoma City, a Phi Beta Kappa journalism graduate of the University of Oklahoma, and a former president of Sisters in Crime. She is also a member of Authors Guild, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, the International Crime Writers Association, the International Thrillers Association, and the American Crime Writers League. She taught professional writing in the University of Oklahoma School of Journalism from 1982-85. She is the author of 50 mysteries, winner of three Agatha Awards for Best Novel, two Anthonys and two Macavitys. 

       

Re-Learning To Be Intrepid

Judy's hens last winter, near their coop.  Photo: John Ewing.

***

I turned seventy-six the end of May, and for some months–a year or so–I’ve been aware of another aspect of aging besides forgetting names and words (which eventually float back up from the recesses of memory) and having to do various exercises for the sake of my lower back, my balance (standing on one foot), and my knees, circulation, and general health (walking).  What’s new is a tendency to be less brave, less intrepid, more vulnerable, less confident that I can do things I’ve always done without giving it a moment’s thought.

Sometimes it’s traveling.  Or it can be standing on a chair to change a lightbulb (will I fall off?) or simply coping with the nitty gritty problems that come along to plague mortals and test their flexibility and resilience.  The back door gets stuck in the closed position. The hens have discovered a way to get over their flexible string fence but not how to get back.  At first it was only two or three hens doing this and laying their eggs hither and thither in the orchard. 

Then one morning this past week, I found only six hens in the coop instead of thirteen (two were already committed to orchard living).  

The next morning when I went to feed the orchard hens, here came the missing nine.  I’ve stopped chasing them to get them back.  I don’t want to fall on my face.  I do check the fence for holes but no problems there.  I did not want to cope with this.  I took stock.

They haven’t bothered the blueberries, covered by bird netting, though they had laid some eggs under the blueberry bushes, sneaking in under the netting.  They may well help themselves to the figs on the lower branches that touch the ground.  They love figs.  So far no predators (six last year–a raccoon and five possums had come over the outer chainlink fence).  I think Robert’s goats, eating the weeds out behind the orchard have kept the predators off.  One of my chicken workshop participants, Lisa, suggested that goats nearby would do it, and so it has.

So I said to myself, what the hell, and I let down the flexible fence, laid it on the ground for about fifteen feet, so the hens could easily get into and out of the orchard, return to the coop to lay eggs, and if they wanted to roost in the trees, why not?  I’m sure it’s cooler.

They’re laying better than in many weeks and now all the eggs are in the coop nests.  They’re obviously happy, exploring every niche and corner of the orchard, finding bugs, eating grass and weeds, and some do roost in the trees as well as some in the coop.  So I solved that one.

In fact, I begin to see a pattern.  I was talking to my friend Gene about it.  He works with elderly people through Hospice, visiting them in their homes, especially when they live alone.  He says the elderly often find it harder to deal with these little unexpected problems that come up, that are part of living, and they tend to withdraw into themselves.  I didn’t want to do that.

I admitted that these surprise problems bother me, too, more than once.  I had several slow drains, and I know that I can use my plunger and get them unclogged, yet I postponed it from day to day, but it was also depressing me, as the chicken problem had been, too.  I don’t want to get despondent because some things that I did easily before are now harder.  I either have to muster more courage and/or grit and do them myself or ask someone to help.

I finally did solve the hen problem.  It’s a risk, but life for me, and for the hens, is risk.  I can live with their eating a few figs.  If they get eaten by a predator, I’ll have to rethink the situation. All six predators last year were caught in the hav-a-hart, and only one hen was killed.  I went to work and cleared the drains.  

By asking on our local Chatham Chatlist, I found a wonderful handyman named Jim Nitsch to fix the back door locks.  I had to be patient while he finished a big job and use my front door to go to the backyard, but he was cheerful, friendly, inventive, gave me choices depending on how much money I wanted to spend and did everything quickly and for a reasonable price.  

I asked a friend to put in the new lightbulb.  She thought it wise not to stand on chairs to change bulbs if my balance wasn’t perfect. My exercises help, but I sometimes lose my balance, though I haven’t fallen since I started the exercises.

Now I feel better about these dips my mind takes into feeling vulnerable or inadequate.  I simply have to go ahead (the sooner, the better) and do what needs doing.  Then I feel good, and I re-experience my own competence and courage.  Those qualities are still there in me, but I need to use them, not sit around stewing.  The sooner I act, the sooner those vague feelings of inadequacy will pass.  They do pass.


I want to live a long time, and something tells me life is going to get harder for Planet Earth-dwellers, given climate change and some other things already on our horizon.  I do want to live and write as long as I can, so I shall have to be intrepid and tough, canny and inventive, keep my close ties to others, ask help when I need it but challenge myself to solve clogged drains, chicken dilemmas, balance problems, and the ordinary round of life’s interruptions. 

Some of those surprises may well lead to more happiness than I can now imagine.  You never know.

***

Hens in winter, near coop, bare fig trees in orchard behind them. Photo also by John Ewing.

Farm Fresh and Fatal Pre-Sales

Cover image

***

FARM FRESH AND FATAL, the second Penny Weaver traditional mystery novel by Judy Hogan

Publication date: October 1, 2013.  Pre-sales now!  See below.

Trade paperback: 978-0-9895804-0-3 $15.95
Ebook: 978-0-9895804-1-0 $2.99

When Penny Weaver joins the new Riverdell Farmers’ Market to represent their neighborhood garden, squabbles break out among the farmers about their places.  The county poultry agent tries to sort them out before Nora, the market manager, arrives, infuriating her.  Penny discovers that there may have been racism behind her friend Sammie’s almost not being accepted to sell her flower bouquets.  After the third market, the poultry agent is found dead of food poisoning, apparently from drinking the punch provided by Nora.  That and her fights with him cause her to be arrested.  Meantime Penny is skeptical of her daughter’s new sponging boyfriend, and her husband Kenneth confesses to being homesick for Wales.

Penny and Sammie work to uncover the real poisoner and to release Nora.  Derek, the lead detective and Sammie’s husband, wants them to stay out of it.  The poultry agent was unpopular with the quirky farmers, with the exception of the genetically modified seeds man and the baker/jelly maker.  Penny and Sammie discover that the poison was black nightshade, but which farmer grows it and who put it in the poultry agent’s punch?  The state ag department threatens to close the market if the case isn’t solved. 

Praise for Farm Fresh and Fatal:

Farm Fresh and Fatal features an appealing protagonist, an intriguing background, and well-realized characters.  Readers will enjoy these characters and empathize with their successes and failures.  In the tradition of Margaret Maron.  –Carolyn Hart, author of Dead, White, and Blue.

In Farm Fresh and Fatal Hogan serves up a complex dish that is flavored with community and family drama.  It is spiced with intrigue, finished with mystery and delivered right off the vine.
–Lyle Estill, President, Piedmont Biofuels and author of Small is Possible

Judy Hogan delivers again in her fearless Farm Fresh and Fatal.  Through a story built on a strong foundation of research she tackles difficult issues, all the while giving us a first-rate read.  And that authentic voice her readers have come to expect shines on every page.  
--Lane Stone, author, Tiara Investigations Mystery series.
***

Judy notes that she likes to take up social issues in her mysteries, and this one takes up genetically modified foods.  She knows even more now about how dangerous they are in our food supply, using herbicides like Roundup and pesticides built into the seeds.  The only safe food now seems to be organically grown.  

Opening page:

Monday Morning, April 1. A fight broke out during the second market, but the opening day of the first farmers’ market in Riverdell went relatively smoothly. The third market was when the murder occurred. 

Penny and Kenneth were searching madly for snails in the lettuce when Nora Fisher, their new market’s manager, drove her yellow pickup in and parked near their garage apartment. “You go talk to her,” Kenneth said. “I’ll keep checking the romaine. The red lettuce was the hardest. All those curlicues.” He was moving slowly on hands and knees down the rows they’d cultivated with the rototiller only the night before. 

When Penny caught up with her, Nora was out of her truck and standing at the chain link fence that kept their neighbor Leroy’s chickens in the orchard. “These White Rocks yours, too, doll?” Nora wore faded blue bib overalls over a man’s white shirt rolled up at the sleeves. Her closely cropped curly brown hair gleamed in the sun. 

“Hi, Nora. Welcome to Greenscape. The chickens are Leroy’s, but he’s part of our operation. He has to work today. Mostly he has them like this, out in the orchard, to pick bugs and fertilize the peaches and apples.” 

“How exactly does it all work? Andy lives next door?” 

“Yes, he got us started when he became Shagbark’s first sustainable ag agent about three years ago.” She pointed to where she and Kenneth had been working. “Our vegetable garden takes up most of his and Jan’s backyard.” 

“Who’s the guy working in the lettuce?” 

“My husband Kenneth.” 

***

To pre-order: $17 to pick up signed copy (includes tax) to Judy Hogan, PO Box 253, Moncure, NC 27559-0253. $20 to have signed copy shipped.  Shipping before October 1, hopefully.  For more info: call 919-545-9932 or judyhogan@mindspring.com

Judy Hogan bio:

Judy Hogan helped found and was first president of the N.C. Writers’ Network (1983-7), as well as founding Carolina Wren Press (1976-91) and co-editing Hyperion Poetry Journal (1970-81).  She has published five other poetry books and two prose works with small presses.  She has taught creative writing since 1974. Her first mystery, Killer Frost, finaled in St. Martin’s Malice Domestic contest, appearing from Mainly Murder Press in 2012. Farm Fresh and Fatal is the second novel in her Penny Weaver series.  She will be reading throughout the Triangle area from her two new books this fall.  She farms and writes in Moncure, N.C.

web:  judyhogan.home.mindspring.com

judyhogan at mindspring.com

Wisdom Inside

 Waterfall photo by Richard Hayes.  Sometimes we have to live with inner waterfalls, of pain, worries, fear, or love, bounty, good fortune.  Any of these can throw us off track.  The poem below written seven years ago comforts me now, but I don't feel very wise at the moment.  I hope to be like that fishing heron, live with my inner waterfalls and keep my eye out for fish.

***

GOLD INSIDE 15

September 17, 2006

I used to think of myself as resting on a pivot.

When something disturbed me, I leaned away

from my center; when I made peace, I returned

to resting easily on this inside pivot.  I also

described this experience of inner certainty

and balance as like standing on a shelf of rock.

From that deep place inside me any turmoil in

my inner world settled.  I could see what I felt

and knew what I needed to do.  But I don’t

remember having, until recently, this feeling of

repose, of my whole self being at rest, yes, on

a pivot, but less inclined to motion than what

rests on a pivot is.  Closer may be Plato’s metaphor

for justice in the state.  He compared it to the body

where every part is carrying out its work and is in

harmony with all the other parts.  It’s like that

but quieter.  All that I am–body, soul, feelings, mind–

rests like the natural world outside the window rests.  

I am inside the peace I feel; the harmony of my 

parts is what I’m living.  I do struggle, I have, I will.

This state comes as a reward for the struggle, for

the living out of what I know I need to do.  What

I do each day–and often it is hard for me to do–

makes possible this enjoyment, so quiet I can barely

feel it, so without motion, that it’s hard to say it’s

an emotion.  It is serenity, as in the prayer about

asking for the courage to change what can be

changed, the strength to accept what can’t, and

the wisdom to know the difference.  I am not that

wise yet, but something in me holds this wisdom

in its heart of hearts and sends me moments like

this, when I, as a being, am still, clear, peaceful,

at rest, serene at that level where a fountain rises,

illogical, miraculous, to water every parched place

in my soul, quiet every doubt, calm every worry.

The unrest will return, the striving to change

what can be changed.  I will lean far to one side

on the pivot, and have to take the shelf of rock

for an assumption I can’t prove.  But when an hour

arrives to give me rest like this, I’ll know that I now 

am who I need to be, the person my growing pains 

urged me to become, the full-fledged woman:

human, loving, wise.  

Judy Hogan

Report on Frack Free North Carolina Forum--June 22, 2013

The rush from the N.C. Legislature to frack us feels like an oncoming thunderstorm we can't ward off.  Photo, Richard Hayes

***

I was persuaded to attend the Bynum Forum on Fracking program, sponsored by the umbrella group, Frack Free NC, on Saturday afternoon, June 22.  On the program were: Elaine Chiosso, the Haw Riverkeeper; James Robinson, with the RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation, International, USA; a man from Mebane, working on environmental racism, Omega Wilson; Hope Taylor of the Clean Water for NC org; from Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, Ryke Longest; and finally, two women dairy farmers from Bradford County, PA: Carolyn Knapp and Carol French. 

There were about 60 folks there, coming from Chatham,  Lee, Moore, Alamance, and other counties, too.  This was a gathering of no-fracking activists, being called “fracktivists.”  Signs and bumper stickers were given out, refreshments were available during the break.  Elaine explained present situation, how many people’s lives are affected, risk to water: contamination of wells through drilling and three million North Carolinians are on private wells (we don’t have as much separation of layers of gas and water as in PA); surface water contamination through spills, deliberate dumping, fracking companies taking water from streams and rivers, etc, (not enough regulations to prevent it or enforce stopping it if it happens); huge amount of water needed, avg of 3.5 mil gallons per fracking well.  Deep underground injection of waste water outlawed in NC, because of an earlier incident in 1968-72 at the coast when Hercules Chemical company did it, and the chemicals came back up to the surface.  Also deep drilling especially sets off earthquakes, and nuclear plant near Jonesboro fault line, and gas under shale in same area.  Rules supposed to be finished by Oct 2013, moratorium until Mar 2015, but even House version says permits could be issued by 2015, and language could be finessed legally.  Unclear whether laws and second vote in 2014, in House version, would hold up permits.  House and Senate presently in committee to work out a compromise.

James Robinson said that RAFI has worked primarily on helping farmers not sign predatory leases.  This may be why few leases have been signed except in Lee County, and that county had many landowners without mineral rights, going back to the days of mining coal there.  He said RAFI hadn’t taken a stand for or against fracking, and he serves on the Compulsory Pooling Study Group of the Mining and Energy Commission (MEC).  RAFI opposes compulsory pooling, which forces landowners who don’t want to sign mineral rights to do so.

Omega Wilson announced that he and Elaine had filed a federal complaint that fracking in NC would violate Title 6 of Civil Rights Act.  It would not only hurt the environment; it would hurt people.  States now receive federal money for health, employment, education, housing, safe drinking water, sewer, and other areas, but they’re supposed to follow federal guidelines re Title 6, but it’s not being enforced by states. “We have to take the responsibility to be the watchdogs,” Omega said.  NC now is the 10th largest U.S. state, with 9.6 million people, fracking affects 12-15 counties, 1.6-2.5 million people.  605-950,000 people of color.  

Hope Taylor announced that they were starting a new petition, with the goal of 50,000 signatures.  It should be available soon.  Their website www.cwfnc.org will have that and other information.  You can email Hope at hope@cwfnc.org  Some of the health affects from the chemicals and gasses released into air (primarily) and water are: respiratory diseases, mood disturbers (clusters of suicide in the fracking areas), cancer, joint pain, skin rashes, memory problems.  She also said that in Europe they are being much more careful, and to them our largely unregulated fracking makes the US look foolish.  

Ryke Longest, consulted by Elaine, Hope, and others, explained that one big danger not often mentioned was the casings, where the main pipe going down is connected to other pipes going out horizontally.  A third of the wells have well-degradation of casings.  Once wells are in, they can be there for 50 years.  He thought Anson County’s moratorium could be legally defended in the courts.  It argues that since the county doesn’t have protection and laws in place, it can hold off fracking with a moratorium for 5 years.  In NY state, too, they’re getting help for towns with ordinances forbidding fracking, from the appellate courts.  The public is supposed to be notified if any chemicals are released, but this isn’t always happening with fracking.

The two women from PA were very solemn.  They talked about the attraction of the money, first the bonus, then the royalties, but when their water goes bad, they have to pay huge amounts for water to be trucked in. Carolyn named nearly $200,000 to get water for her cows.  Carol said her water jelled. Many people have illnesses, but people are offered money by the gas companies not to talk about it; Carolyn had rashes, and her daughter got very ill so can’t visit her mother as being there makes her sick.  Cows dying and aborting.  Carol was an organic farmer, can’t afford the fees to get re-certified.  Their state had high income from tourism, dairy products, and many other things, $392 billion; fracking income, $22 billion, but tourism, dairy, and many other things ruined.  Also the gas companies blocked roads for two weeks, so children couldn’t go to school, people couldn’t get to hospitals, etc.  Roads were destroyed by heavy equipment.  They have bills to pay instead of royalties.  Carolyn was crying over her lost just-born calf. She said, “Think about your treasures.  What do you treasure most?  Compare that to the money.”  But obviously the money received can’t compensate for the income lost, the health problems, the new bills.

Some follow-up on the presentations, if you’re interested in seeing the power-points.  Also you can sign up for Clean Water’s weekly Frack Updates by contacting Hope.  They’ll have Carol and Carolyn’s power point on their website and/or in a Frack Update soon.  These available now.

Elaine Chiosso, Haw RiverKeeper: http://frackfreenc.org/wp-content/uploads/Frack-Forum-PPT-6-22-2013.pdf

Mineral Rights Leasing, Compulsory Pooling, and Protecting Landowner Rights - James Robinson, Rural Advancement Foundation International

http://frackfreenc.org/wp-content/uploads/J-Robinson_RAFI-Presentation-June-22.pdf

State and Federal Responsibilities for Title VI and Fracking - Omega Wilson, West End Revitalization Association 

http://frackfreenc.org/wp-content/uploads/Omega-Wilson_FrackFree-NC-Forum-_-June-22-2013.pdf

Layers vs Loopholes - Ryke Longest, Duke Law Environmental Policy Clinic 

http://frackfreenc.org/wp-content/uploads/Longest_Layers-vs-Loopholes_June-22.pdf

***

Then, I understand that Rev. Barber, at a recent Moral Monday quoted Gandhi.  “When you start a movement (for justice), first, they laugh at you; then they ignore you; then they fight you; then you win.”

 

Another photo by Richard Hayes of a recent storm coming on.

***

One of the folks here in Chatham, 79-year old Judith Butt, sent me her report on what it was like to be arrested at a Moral Monday protest.  She also mailed letters to the editor to several papers.  This one appeared in the Sanford Herald June 27th:

***

LETTER: Conscience drove me to civil disobedience

Jun. 27, 2013 @ 04:59 AM 

To the Editor:

Up until today, I have generally obeyed the law. I am a 79-year-old woman who has one traffic ticket in more than 60 years of driving and never been arrested. I am not an “agitator, "hippie" or “outsider“ as the governor and many politicos on the right like to believe. So why did I choose now to be arrested for civil disobedience during a peaceful protest in the state legislative building?

I have watched in disgust and horror as the super majority in Raleigh has cranked out one unjust and outrageous piece of legislation after another under the complicit nose of our supposedly “moderate” governor. North Carolina is one of 24 states with a Republican governor and both houses of the legislature controlled by ideologues dedicated to the interests of the wealthiest at the expense of the poorest and weakest. In the Tar Heel state, many of those elected officials owe their seats of power to a “cash cow” newly appointed to the influential position of budget director (Art Pope).

Ultimately I was so bothered that my conscience drove me to attend a Moral Monday protest on June 10. While there, I was much taken by a sign that paraphrased Thoreau: “In unjust times, the only proper place for a person is jail.” Silence feels to me like acquiescence. Since the number of people protesting and speaking has been met with only non-hearing and accusations from the majority of our Republican legislators, I decided it was important to do what may not be “lawful” but what is morally “right.” I remember Margaret Mead’s statement, “Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.” So I signed up for civil disobedience. I hope Margaret Mead’s words prove to be true.

Judith Butt

Pittsboro

***

Along with 120 others, with 1500 cheering us on and saying thank you for doing this, I was arrested for civil disobedience at the legislaturebuilding in Raleigh at the 8th Moral Monday coordinated by the NAACP and Reverend Barber.  The total arrested so far is 550. My warrant reads "Second Degree Trespass; Fail to Disperse on Command, Violating Legislative Building Rule." My Court date is October 4th. NAACP will provide us with bail if needed and volunteer lawyers.

The experience was amazing. After an orientation at a Baptist Church, we were bussed to the mall of the legislative building for more inspiring speeches. Then the 120 of us were blessed by the Reverend and marched into the legislative building singing Solidarity forever-the union makes us strong, and civil rights songs. We continued singing and swaying as the officers instructed us to leave, supporters cheered us and did leave, and then we were handcuffed with plastic ties and led into a room where mug shots were taken, our cell phones, drivers licenses, food, and dangerous instruments taken away to be later returned. We were marched, 

handcuffed, into a department of corrections barred bus used to 

transport prisoners, not air conditioned of course, to be taken to jail. 

And cheered by onlookers as we drove away. 

At the detention center we were taken from one room to another to be registered as offenders, at one point on a chain gang with steel locked handcuffs. The numbers of armed officers guarding us could have paid for the budget cuts the legislature had passed.

The funniest part were the jail holding cells holding anywhere from 6-10 women (men were separated for the whole procedure). We were told only two flushes per hour were allowed or the cells would flood. Volunteers drove us back to the church, after all the processing, where other volunteers had provided a feast for us and cheered us as each group returned. Because I was one of the first processed and out by 9 PM, and the driver for our carpool from Pittsboro was one of the last, we didn't get home till midnight.

An exhilarating experience; I then sent my letters to the editor of all 

the local newspapers. You may see me in a Civitas (think Art Pope) 

blacklist of names and pictures of those arrested. I now have a pin that says "I was arrested with Reverend Barber 2013" which I shall proudly wear.

***

I hope all those who read this blog think carefully about the dangers of fracking and do what they can.  If we each do a little, we can change this picture. We want rain from our storms, not illness, poverty, and hopelessness. Judy Hogan

***

Last Week for Beaver Soul Pre-Sales

Drawing of beaver and snowgoose from Russian edition of Beaver Soul, by Mikhail Bazankov, Editor, Kostroma Writers Organization.

***
Beaver Soul sales–June 23, 2013

I am happy to report that my pre-sales of Beaver Soul are going up nicely.  As of this Sunday morning, I have 36 and need 19 more pre-sales to make 55 by Friday, June 28, my deadline.  Some of you got my gentle reminders that it really helps me to get this book out to have the minimum of 55 pre-sales.  I’m very grateful to those who responded by ordering it.  Remember, it could make nice Christmas gifts for those on your list who like the natural world, rivers, especially the Haw River here in Chatham, Alamance, etc., are curious about Russia, or know what it means to fall in love with another culture, its people, traditions, natural world.

The ordering info: $14.49 (includes postage), to Finishing Line Press, PO Box 1626, Georgetown, KY, 40324, or on line www.finishinglinepress.com  If you want to check on whether your order went through okay, it’s to: flpbookstore@aol.com

You also might enjoy looking me up on the North Carolina Writers’ Network website under Book Buzz, for July 5, a week from Friday, www.ncwriters.org, where the news about Beaver Soul is posted.  Also last Monday, June 17, Jess Ferguson, who also belongs to Sisters in Crime and the Guppies (great unpublished), had my thoughts on being a real writer on her new blog: http://realwriter.blogspot.com

Now here’s another little excerpt from Beaver Soul, to inspire you to buy this little book.

***

A drawing of Russian Cathedrals in Kostroma, by Mikhail Bazankov, from Russian edition of Beaver Soul.

***

Belief.  In the secret life of
the beaver to which she devotes her whole
intelligence in order to preserve her life,
her livelihood, and the lodge where her
children grow fat and strong; the lodge she
has hidden so well that I am baffled: I
can’t read the signs, tell whether the old
lodges are newly inhabited; I think not.
Probably she has a new nest; has outwitted
me; has not only safety on her mind, but
longevity.  She has learned from the river
winds how to fool the eye, how to blind the
heart that isn’t pure and able to believe
what it has seen.  The truth is always there:
it’s in the way the current follows the
river bed, however dammed and held back that
flowing is.  And the beaver’s life leaves
proofs a trusting heart has no trouble taking
for evidence: a few fresh chips of wood,

and she knows the whole story. 

***

Judy Hogan, as Mikhail Bazankov saw her in the 1990s. 

Why I Am An Activist

Judy after a successful local election, November, 2004, in General Store Cafe in Pittsboro, when the Chatham Coalition elected our enlightened new County Commissioners, Mike Cross and Patrick Barnes.  Photo by John Hammond.  I had been secretary and volunteer coordinator.

***

My son was visiting me this past week, and at a dinner with friends, he said he didn’t see how protesting against the big corporations did any good.  They were so powerful.  It made me think about my own life, and what I as one person, usually, of course, working with others, have helped to make better.  Herewith part of my letter to my son.  We had been talking about the Moral Monday protests being in held now in Raleigh at the Legislature building.  Judy Hogan

***

My friend sent two articles from the newspaper about the Moral Mondays happening in Raleigh at the Legislature building.  She asked me to send them on to you.  In both the writers try to be realistic.  Sometimes such protests set off a harsh response, but ultimately, they admit, they usually have an effect, especially as more and more people get involved.  My friend said: “Protesting can seem futile at times, but it’s still the right thing to do.  Just ask the Germans who didn’t try to restrain Hitler while it was still possible.”  She also said that I am “irrepressible.”  (!)

It got me thinking, your wanting to know how protesting and being an activist could change anything when it seems like the big corporations, often supported by the government, seem to have all the power and control.  They certainly have a lot.  Since I moved here to Moncure, I’ve been working, since 2002, toward safer nuclear storage at the nearby nuclear plant, specifically to stop the train shipments of irradiated rods being shipped to that plant through Moncure (right by the PO) from other Progress Energy plants southeast of us.  I spoke to the Chatham County Commissioners back in 2003 about it, and they did write to the Attorney General of NC and ask that those shipments be stopped, as a train accident could endanger people here.  I worked with a group called NC Warn, that works on environmental issues, and is still working on them.  Progress Energy said they’d stop the shipments, but it took them two years. 

I also worked against air pollution, which had been going on here for ten years, with the regulators (Dept of Environment and Natural Resources) knowing it was bad from a combination of plants polluting our air.  People have been dying of cancer in Moncure for a long time.  The worst plant, a particle board plant, polluted more formaldehyde than any plant in the country.  I heard their vice president talk about how formaldehyde was quickly dissipated into the air, etc., as if there couldn’t be a serious problem, but we involved the county commissioners, and I wrote articles about it for our little community paper, and more and more people got involved and upset.  In the beginning people wouldn’t look at me, afraid they’d lose their jobs, more worried about that than dying.  Gradually it got better; that plant finally had to put in new machinery (expensive, so they sold it, and the new owner put it in), and people here, including me, were getting fewer colds.  A lot of people in the area had asthma, too.

Then I worked on county elections, 2004-6, because the commissioners were letting in every developer, without regard for the cost to the county and its people.  We changed that. 

So I have seen how my work can help, which is why I started talking to people here, putting up signs, and getting signatures on a petition to keep fracking out of N.C.

I like Margaret Mead’s wisdom, that it’s only small groups of people trying to bring about good changes that ever do change anything.  I also assume that our human life has both good and evil in it, and my job is to be a good human being and to do what I can to keep the balance on the good side.  I don’t think all my counter-players (opponents) are bad people.  Some good people become convinced that they’re right, when I think they’re wrong.  Few people are truly, deliberately evil.  

In the case of fracking, a lot of the challenge is education.  Natural gas released this way from under the shale rock can seem like a good energy choice, but I’ve learned that the toxic chemicals put into the huge amounts of water they use, and then the toxic waste water, often acquiring unsafe minerals and radiation from under the ground, which isn’t always carefully disposed of, represent a new source of air pollution, water pollution (some frackers have poured it into streams, drilled deep in the earth setting off earthquakes, and we in Moncure, with the nuclear plant, live on an earthquake fault), and earth pollution.  

How can we grow organic vegetables and fruit with this pollution of our atmosphere, water, and earth?  I was very worried, so I began to do something to keep me from getting depressed.  It’s the best antidote I know to worry, is to work on the problem.  I was amazed at how people welcomed me and thanked me for giving them a sign, for doing something.  Most of them were poor and hadn’t understood the danger, and most were elderly and wouldn’t be going out to put up signs or protest.  

Photo of yard signs on Moncure-Pittsboro Rd, photo by Keely Wood.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen how things can change.  When I was seven years old, living in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1944, Negroes couldn’t stay in that town overnight.  When they came to a meeting on race relations at the University, where my mother worked, there was no bathroom they could use, nor in town, and Mother brought them home to use the bathroom, and told me.  I was upset for them, and Mother said I could write to the Mayor of Norman, and I did.  I entered the University of Oklahoma in 1955, and the first young black woman (only one) was in my freshman class.

If it hadn’t been for the Civil Rights movement, and the new Desegregation decision from the US Supreme Court, in 1954, that wouldn’t have happened in 1955.  Even in NC in 1974, when we were living on a Cedar Grove farm, and I published a review in the Durham paper, calling black poet T.J. Reddy, a saint, our farmer got upset.  T.J. was sent to prison for burning a stable of horses, with two other black men who were also innocent.  Their “crime” was urging young black men to evade the draft, and witnesses against them were paid by the Justice Dept and sent to Mexico, to put The Charlotte Three behind bars.  

Two days after my review came out, our farmer came to tell us we had to move.  That was why we ended up in Chase Park, an integrated housing project which had grown out of the Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill.  Things racially were still tense in NC.  I began publishing black writers through Carolina Wren Press in the mid-70s, and I got away with it, but at the time there were no publishers in NC who were publishing black writers, except one in Charlotte, Red Clay Books, and she thought T.J. was guilty!  I published him, proudly.

This is Judy, Chair of the National Small Press Association, COSMEP, at the annual convention in Austin, Texas, 1976, the year I began publishing Carolina Wren Press.  Photo by Foster Robertson Foreman.



Anyway, your mom, as my friend says, is irrepressible.  I want my books to help make things better, so I take up issues that concern me.  Right now the fracking is my big social concern, and the new novel I’m starting now is to be called Don’t Frack Here, and will take up fracking and its dangers to NC.  Love, Mom