Fred's Blog
  • Fred's Blog
  • 2021 Guest Blogs
  • 2021 Authors Showcase
  • 2021 Showcase Guidelines
  • Info
  • 2020 Authors Showcase
    • Vernon Lacey 2020 - 1
    • Carolyn Muir Helfenstein 2020 - 1
    • Liliana Amador-Marty 2020 - 1
    • Alison Alderton 2020 - 1
    • Lizzie Jewels 2020 - 1
    • Robyn Boswell 2020 - 4
    • Lally Brown 2020 - 1
    • James Robertson 2020 - 2
    • Ronni Robinson 2020 - 1
    • Ronald Mackay 2020 - 6
    • Denis Dextraze 2020 - 5
    • Syd Blackwell 2020 - 2
    • Susan Mellsopp 2020 - 2
    • Robyn Boswell 2020 - 3
    • Val Poore 2020 - 1
    • Mike Cavanagh 2020 - 3
    • Helen Bing 2020 - 3
    • Neal Atherton 2020 - 1
    • Susan Joyce 2020 - 1
    • Leslie Groves Ogden 2020 - 1
    • Tina Wagner Mattern 2020 - 4
    • Elizabeth Moore 2020 - 2
    • Denis Dextraze 2020 - 4
    • Patty Sisco 2020 - 1
    • Ronald Mackay 2020 - 5
    • Syd Blackwell 2020 - 1
    • Frank Kusy 2020 - 1
    • Malcolm Welshman 2020 - 1
    • Mary Mae Lewis 2020 - 1
    • Susan Mellsopp 2020 - 1
    • Ronald Mackay 2020 - 4
    • Tina Wagner Mattern 2020 - 3
    • Denis Dextraze 2020 - 3
    • Robyn Boswell 2020 - 2
    • Ronald Mackay 2020 - 3
    • Helen Bing 2020 - 2
    • Roger Knight 2020 - 3
    • Amy Bovaird 2020 - 1
    • Patricia Steele 2020- 1
    • Elizabeth Moore 2020 - 1
    • Helen Bing 2020 - 1
    • Mike Cavanagh 2020 - 2
    • Ronald Mackay 2020 - 2
    • Denis Dextraze 2020 - 2
    • Tina Wagner Mattern 2020 - 2
    • Roger Knight 2020 - 2
    • Mike Cavanagh 2020 - 1
    • Robyn Boswell 2020 - 1
    • Irene Pylypec 2020 - 1
    • Denis Dextraze 2020 - 1
    • James Robertson 2020 - 1
    • Andrew Klein 2020 - 1
    • Ronald Mackay 2020 - 1
    • Roger Knight 2020 - 1
    • Tina Wagner Mattern 2020 - 1
  • 2020 Guest Blogs
  • 2020 Showcase Guidelines
  • 2020 WATCH "RWISA" WRITE
  • 2020 RWISA "RISE UP" TOUR
  • 2019 Authors Showcase
    • James Robertson 2019 - 6
    • Val Vassay 2019 - 2
    • Syd Blackwell 2019 - 6
    • Dawne Archer 2019 - 1
    • Susan Mellsopp 2019 - 3
    • Ronald Mackay 2019 - 6
    • James Robertson 2019 - 5
    • Sarah Owens 2019 - 1
    • Syd Blackwell 2019 - 5
    • Dolores Banerd 2019 - 1
    • Val Vassay 2019 - 1
    • Helen Bing 2019 - 4
    • Ronald Mackay 2019 - 5
    • Tina Mattern 2019 - 4
    • James Robertson 2019 - 4
    • Robyn Boswell 2019 - 3
    • Helen Bing 2019 - 3
    • Syd Blackwell 2019 - 4
    • Adrian Sturrock 2019 - 2
    • Jill Stoking 2019 - 1
    • Ronald Mackay 2019 - 4
    • Tina Mattern 2019 - 3
    • Cherie Magnus 2019 - 1
    • Roger Knight 2019 - 3
    • Susan Mellsopp 2019 - 2
    • Robyn Boswell 2019 - 2
    • Syd Blackwell 2019 - 3
    • Catherine Berry 2019 - 1
    • James Robertson 2019 - 3
    • Nancy McBride 2019 - 2
    • Tina Mattern 2019 - 2
    • Ronald Mackay 2019 - 3
    • Susan Mellsopp 2019 - 1
    • Mike Cavanagh 2019 - 1
    • Helen Bing 2019 - 2
    • Nancy McBride 2019 - 1
    • Malcolm Welshman 2019 - 1
    • Mary Mae Lewis 2019 - 1
    • Patty Sisco 2019 - 1
    • Syd Blackwell 2019 - 2
    • Adrian Sturrock 2019 - 1
    • Tina Mattern 2019 - 1
    • James Robertson 2019 - 2
    • Ronald Mackay 2019 - 2
    • Roger Knight 2019 - 2
    • Liliana Amador-Marty 2019 - 1
    • Celia Dillow 2019 - 1
    • Helen Bing 2019 - 1
    • Syd Blackwell 2019 - 1
    • Ronald Mackay 2019 - 1
    • Robyn Boswell 2019 - 1
    • Kelly Reising 2019 - 1
    • James Robertson 2019 - 1
    • Roger Knight 2019 - 1
  • 2019 Showcase Guidelines
  • 2019 Guest Blogs
  • Author
  • Competitions
  • 2018 Travel Highlights
  • 2018 Travel Stories
    • Robyn Boswell 2018 - 5
    • Apple Gidley 2018
    • Lindsay de Feliz 2018 - 5
    • Helen Bing 2018 - 3
    • Julie Watson 2018
    • Anisha Johnson 2018
    • Philip East 2018
    • Mary Mae Lewis 2018 - 2
    • Mike Cavanagh 2018 - 3
    • Ronald Mackay 2018 - 5
    • Malcom Welshman 2018 - 2
    • Celia Dillow 2018
    • Syd Blackwell 2018 - 5
    • Lee P. Ruddin 2018
    • Cat Jenkins 2018
    • Anierobi Maureen Ogechukwu 2018
    • Dede Montgomery 2018
    • Valerie Fletcher Adolph 2018 - 2
    • Parishka Gupta 2018 - 2
    • Angie Clifford 2018
    • Emma Yardley 2018 - 4
    • Roger Knight 2018 - 2
    • Mark Boyter 2018 - 2
    • Laurel Casida 2018
    • Mike Cavanagh 2018 - 2
    • Alison Galilian 2018
    • Colleen MacMahon 2018
    • Zahra Makda 2018
    • Ronald Mackay 2018 - 4
    • Susmitha Subramanya 2018
    • Lindsay de Feliz 2018 - 4
    • Aleksandra Krysik 2018
    • Swarnabha Dutta 2018
    • Delores Topliff 2018 - 2
    • Sourabha Rao 2018
    • Valerie Fletcher Adolph 2018
    • Swatilekha Roy 2018
    • Syd Blackwell 2018 - 4
    • Robyn Boswell 2018 - 4
    • Mary Mae Lewis 2018
    • Parishka Gupta 2018
    • Helen Bing 2018 - 2
    • Madeline Sharples 2018
    • Joe Dodkins 2018
    • Andrew Klein 2018 - 2
    • Roger Knight 2018
    • Rob Johnson 2018
    • Anu Devi 2018
    • Lu Barnham 2018
    • Amy Bovaird 2018 - 2
    • Helen Bing 2018
    • Emma Yardley 2018 - 3
    • Lindsay de Feliz 2018 - 3
    • Robyn Boswell 2018 - 3
    • Alan Passey 2018
    • Ben Stamp 2018 - 3
    • Susan Mellsopp 2018 - 2
    • Alyson Hilbourne 2018
    • Sunny Lockwood 2018 - 2
    • Syd Blackwell 2018 - 3
    • Ronald Mackay 2018 - 3
    • Brigid Gallagher 2018 - 2
    • Martha Graham-Waldon 2018
    • Mark Boyter 2018
    • Kristen Caven 2018
    • Neyda Bettencourt 2018
    • Robyn Boswell 2018 - 2
    • Logan Wood 2018
    • Ben Stamp 2018 - 2
    • Emma Yardley 2018 - 2
    • Wenlin Tan 2018
    • Tom Czaban 2018
    • Claudia Crook 2018 - 2
    • Lindsay de Feliz 2018 - 2
    • Dolores Banerd 2018
    • Piyumi Kapugeekiyana 2018
    • Stephanie Dagg 2018
    • Gabrielle Chastenet 2018
    • Bonnie Jean Warren 2018
    • Rasa Puzinaite 2018
    • Patricia Steele 2018
    • Ronald Mackay 2018 - 2
    • Syd Blackwell 2018 - 2
    • Louise Groom 2018
    • Malcom Welshman 2018
    • Delores Topliff 2018
    • Claudia Crook 2018
    • Robyn Boswell 2018
    • Amy Bovaird 2018
    • Emma Yardley 2018
    • Ben Stamp 2018
    • Jesus Deytiquez 2018
    • Ria Chakraborty 2018
    • Brigid Gallagher 2018
    • Jules Clark 2018
    • Nancy McBride 2018
    • Susan Mellsopp 2018
    • David Greer 2018
    • Lindsay de Feliz 2018
    • Aditi Nair 2018
    • Mike Cavanagh 2018
    • Frank Kusy 2018
    • Andrew Klein 2018
    • Ronald Mackay 2018
    • Syd Blackwell 2018
    • Sunny Lockwood 2018
    • Robert Fear 2018
  • 2018 Guest Blogs
  • 2017 Travel Highlights
  • 2017 Travel Stories
    • Matthew Dexter - 2
    • Sandra Walker
    • Rishita Dey
    • Lisa Baker
    • Patricia Steele - 2
    • Sue Clamp
    • Debbie Patterson
    • Jill Stoking - 2
    • Robyn Boswell - 2
    • Cherie Magnus
    • Mark Boyter - 2
    • Rita M. Gardner
    • Alex Curylo
    • Graham Higson
    • Jill Dobbe - 2
    • Amy Bovaird - 3
    • Elizabeth Moore - 3
    • KC Peek
    • Lucinda E Clarke
    • Nancy McBride - 2
    • Frank Kusy - 2
    • Melisa Quigley
    • Yvonne Kilat - 3
    • Mike Cavanagh - 2
    • Susan Mellsopp - 5
    • Mather Schneider
    • Syd Blackwell - 5
    • Gundy Baty - 3
    • Elizabeth Moore - 2
    • Jill Dobbe
    • Heather Hackett
    • Bob Manning - 2
    • Mark Boyter
    • Jackie Parry
    • Matthew Dexter
    • Amy Bovaird - 2
    • Gundy Baty - 2
    • Susan Mellsopp - 4
    • Susan Joyce - 2
    • Syd Blackwell - 4
    • Yvonne Kilat - 2
    • Bob Manning
    • Elizabeth Moore
    • Yvonne Kilat
    • Olivia-Petra Coman
    • Susan Mellsopp - 3
    • Gundy Baty
    • Syd Blackwell - 3
    • Paul Spadoni
    • Phil Canning
    • Jill Stoking
    • Robert Fear
    • Anna Coates
    • Kelly Reising
    • Syd Blackwell - 2
    • Susan Mellsopp - 2
    • Sine Thieme - 2
    • Alison Ripley Cubitt
    • Angie Clifford
    • Philippa Hawley
    • Nancy McBride
    • Robyn Boswell
    • Mike Cavanagh
    • Amy Bovaird
    • Susan Mellsopp
    • Patricia Steele
    • Susan Joyce
    • Peggy Wolf
    • Sine Thieme
    • Syd Blackwell
    • Frank Kusy
  • 2016 Travel Highlights
  • 2016 Travel Stories
    • Robyn Boswell
    • Elizabeth Moore - 5
    • Susan Joyce - 3
    • Bob Manning
    • Jackie Parry - 2
    • Mike Cavanagh - 2
    • Lisa Fleetwood
    • Mark Boyter - 2
    • John Rayburn - 5
    • Mark Boyter
    • John Rayburn - 4
    • Elizabeth Moore - 4
    • Mike Cavanagh
    • Graham Higson
    • Philippa Hawley
    • Jill Stoking
    • Nancy McBride - 2
    • Susan Joyce - 2
    • Lucinda E Clarke
    • Elizabeth Moore - 3
    • John Rayburn - 3
    • Jill Dobbe
    • Richard Klein
    • John Rayburn - 2
    • Jackie Parry - 2
    • Elizabeth Moore - 2
    • John Rayburn
    • Jackie Parry
    • Elizabeth Moore
    • Kelly Reising
    • Susan Joyce
    • Nancy McBride
    • Stewart Brennan
    • Frank Kusy
  • Behind the Scenes
  • 2015 Travel Highlights
  • 2015 Travel Stories
    • Val Vassay
    • Doug E. Jones
    • Matthew Dexter (2)
    • Beth Haslam
    • John Rayburn (4)
    • Susan Joyce (2)
    • Jackie Parry (2)
    • Lucinda E. Clarke (2)
    • Jill Dobbe
    • Francene Stanley
    • Richard Klein (2)
    • John Rayburn (3)
    • Julie Haigh
    • Frank Kusy (2)
    • Nancy McBride (2)
    • Anne Durrant
    • Lucinda E. Clarke
    • John Rayburn (2)
    • Nancy McBride
    • Sarah Jane Butfield
    • Jackie Parry
    • Kelly Reising
    • Gareth Nixon
    • John Rayburn
    • Jeremy Parris
    • Matthew Dexter
    • Susan Joyce
    • Richard Klein
    • Frank Kusy
    • Robert Fear
  • Daily Diary
    • February Archive
    • March Archive
    • April Archive
    • May Archive
    • June Archive
    • July Archive
  • Reviews

Day 4 - Wordless by Beem Weeks

4/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture

Wordless
 
“What’s that word say?”
“That’s an easy one, Daddy. Just sound it out.”
Levi Bacchus can’t read. 36 years old, and he’d never learned the meaning of a single sentence.
“I just ain’t cut out for this, Jamie Lynn.”
The girl’s countenance dropped in disagreement—just like her mother, that one.
“So, you’re a quitter now?” she bellowed, sounding too much like the woman who’d walked out of their lives two years earlier.
Levi took offense. “Mind your manners, Missy. I ain’t never been called no quitter.”
“Reading is something everybody should be able to do, is all I’m saying.”
“It’s easy for you,” Levi argued. “You’re just a kid, still in school. You have teachers telling you what to do and how to do it. I’m just too old for learning.”
The girl narrowed her gaze, jabbed a finger into the open book. “From the beginning,” she demanded.
His heaving huff meant he’d do it again—if only for her sake.
Words formed in his head before finding place on his tongue. Some came through in broken bits and pieces, while others arrived fully formed and ready for sound.
Jamie’s excitement in the matter is why he kept trying. Well, that and the fact he’d long desired the ability to pick up the morning paper and offer complaint or praise for the direction of the nation. All those people in the break room at the plant held their own opinions on everything from the president to the latest championship season enjoyed by the local high school football team.
“That’s good, Daddy,” Jamie said, patting her father on the arm. “That’s really good. You’ll be reading books before too long.”
A smile worked at the edges of his lips, refusing to go unnoticed.
“I’d like that, Sweet Pea.” That’s all he’d say of the matter. If it came to that, well then, he’d have accomplished something worth appreciating.
Levi harbored bigger notions than merely reading books. When a man can read, he can do or be anything he wants to be. His own father often said a man who can’t read is forever in bondage. How can a man truly be free if he cannot read the document spelling out the very rights bestowed upon him by simple virtue of birth? No sir; being illiterate no longer appealed to him.
Of his immediate family—father, mother, two older brothers—only Levi failed to attend college. Oh, he graduated from high school. Being a star quarterback will afford that sort of luxury. But when those coaches from the universities came calling, low test scores couldn’t open doors that promised more than a life spent in auto factories.
He’d seen a show on TV about a man who’d been sent to prison for five years for armed robbery. While there, this man learned to read, took a course on the law, and became a legal secretary upon his release. Eight years later, he’d earned a law degree and opened his very own practice.
Levi didn’t see himself arguing cases in a court of law—defending criminals most likely to be guilty just didn’t appeal to his sense of right and wrong. What he did see, however, is the need for a good and honest person to run the city he’d forever called home.
“Think I could be mayor?” he asked his daughter.
Jamie Lynn always grinned over such talk. “Everybody has to have a dream, Daddy.”
It’s what she always says.
Everything begins with a dream.
She gets that part of her from her mother.
“Once I can read without stopping to ask questions,” he mused, “maybe I’ll throw my hat into the ring, huh?”
“There’s nothing wrong with asking questions,” she answered, weaving wisdom between her words.
                                                                                 *      *      *
She’d been a girl scout, his daughter—daisies and brownies before that. It’s the other girls who bullied her out of the joy that sort of thing once offered. Straight A’s have a way of making others feel inferior, even threatened.
But Jamie Lynn isn’t the type to pine or fret. She chose to tutor—and not just her father, either. Kids come to the house needing to know this and that among mathematics or English or science. Her dream? To be a teacher one day.
And she’ll accomplish that much and more.
Her mother had that very same sense about her as well. She knew what she wanted in life, and cleared the path upon which she traveled.
High school sweethearts they’d been, Jamie Lynn’s mother and father. She’d been the pretty cheerleader, he’d been the All-American boy with a cannon for an arm. She went to college, he didn’t.
But she returned to him, joyfully accepting his proposal for a life together. Her degree carried her back to the high school from which they’d both graduated. This time, rather than student, she became teacher—American History.
Levi went to work building Cadillacs in the local plant. It paid well, offered medical benefits and paid vacation time. Life settled into routines.
Then came their little bundle. This didn’t sit well with the newly-minted history teacher. No sir. It’s as if Levi had intentionally sabotaged his own wife’s career in some fiendish plot to keep her home.
Words of love became “stupid” and “ignorant” and “illiterate ass.” She walked out one evening and never came back to the home they’d built together.
A former student, he’d heard—five years her junior. They’d ran off together, supposedly making a new home somewhere out west.
Levi didn’t challenge it. He received the house and the kid in exchange for his signature on those papers he couldn’t even read.
Jamie Lynn, she’s the light that shined in his darkness, showed him there’s still so much more living to be done. And learning to read, well, that just added to the adventure.
                                                                                 *      *      *
The night came when he read an entire chapter from one of Jamie Lynn’s old middle school books—straight through, unpunctuated by all those starts and stops and nervous questions. By the end of the month, Levi had managed the entire story—all 207 pages.
“We have to celebrate, Daddy,” she insisted.
It’d been the silly draw of embarrassment that twisted his head left and right, his voice saying, “No need to make a fuss, Sweet Pea.”
But fuss is only the beginning. “Dinner and a movie,” she ordered. “Then we’ll stop off at the mall and pick out a few books that you might like.”
There were stories he recalled from his boyhood; books other kids clutched under their arms and took for granted. Stories that stirred so much excitement in those young lives.
They’d belong to him now.
“You’re finally blooming, Daddy—just like a flower.”
And so was his daughter.
A teacher in the making.


Thank you for supporting this member along the WATCH "RWISA" WRITE Showcase Tour today!  We ask that if you have enjoyed this member's writing, to please visit their Author Page on the RWISA site, where you can find more of their writing, along with their contact and social media links, if they've turned you into a fan.  WE ask that you also check out their books in the RWISA or RRBC catalogs.  Thanks, again for your support and we hope that you will follow each member along this amazing tour of talent!  Don't forget to click the link below to learn more about this author:
 
Beem Weeks RWISA Author Page


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    WATCH "RWISA" WRITE SHOWCASE BLOG TOUR

    It is a great pleasure to be a host for this Blog Tour being held during the month of August 2017.

    You will be able to  read daily blogs from a group of fantastic authors, who are all members of RWISA (RAVE WRITERS - INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF AUTHORS), a  division of the RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB (RRBC).

    Find out more about this exclusive group of authors by following this link: RWISA.


    SCHEDULE OF BLOGS
    1 - Yvette Calleiro
    2 - Karen Ingalls
    3 - Laurie Finkelstein
    4 - Beem Weeks
    5 - Gwen Plano
    6 - Wendy Scott
    7 - Jan Sikes
    8 - Michelle Abbott
    9 - Ron Yates
    10 - John Howell
    11 - Lynn Hobbs
    12 - Laura Libricz
    13 - Amy Reece
    14 - Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko
    15 - Marlena Smith
    16 - Nonnie Jules
    17 - Rhani D'Chae
    18 - D. L. Finn
    19 - Harmony Kent
    20 - Jeff Haws
    21 - Marcha Fox
    22 - Robert Fear
    23 - Michael Hicks Thompson
    24 - Bruce A. Borders
    25 - Joan Curtis
    26 - Stephanie Collins
    27 - Joni Parker
    28 - Linda Mims
    29 - Nonnie Jules
    30 - RWISA
    31 - TBA


Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

​Copyright © 2020
Proudly powered by Weebly