Category writing

Feb 20 2015

Nebraska— the film

I’m a fan of Netflix.  As of this writing, the film Nebraska is available on the service. This comedy/drama is rather hard to classify, but I enjoyed it very much. Perhaps it speaks to my life experiences. My father was a widower for a number of years, and as the daughter who lived close by, it was often up to me to take care of his needs. And, people of his generation are just different from ours. Example: I was handed his wallet while he underwent a medical procedure; the darned thing was two inches thick. With nothing else to do while I waited, I thumbed through it. There were many scraps of paper, usually with a phone number scrawled upon each of them. He had a metal plate replica of his social security card! And, there was a “business card” of some executive from the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes. No kidding.

Okay, you are wondering when I will get around to reviewing Nebraska. Here goes: As the film opens, set in Billings, Montana, an elderly gent is walking on the emergency lane of a multilane highway. A cop pulls over and asks the gent (ably portrayed by Bruce Dern) where he is going, and he merely points ahead of his position. When asked where he came from, he points behind him. All the while, he is still walking. The next scene has his son, Dave, coming to the police station to pick up his father. His father’s destination is Nebraska. Why? Because he has a letter saying he won a million dollars in a sweepstakes, and the letter has to be returned to an address in Nebraska by a certain date. You know, the kind that really exist only to sell magazines.

The father, who seems a bit out of it, apart from his intense desire to get his million dollars, has become a thorn in his mother’s side. So, to give his mom a break, the son feigns illness to get off work, puts his dad in the car, and off to Nebraska they go. Their adventures make up the rest of the film. I’m not going into details, because I don’t want to spoil it, but suffice it to say that the son learns quite a bit about his elderly father on their journey to pick up his million dollar sweepstakes.

Nebraska gets a 92% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is unusual. So is this film, however. Those who have dealt with parents born during the depression will really appreciate this well acted film.

Feb 12 2015

The Gift Horse is still available as an eBook

gifthorse-frontcoverMy debut novel was written over the course of several years; I have laughingly called it “my stress relief book” because when I had a bad day at work, I would stay up late at night and make sure my main character, Angie, had a worse day! Anyway, while I don’t view it as my best work, I have a strong affection for this twisted tale of misguided affection.

Here’s the “blurb” from the back cover:

If Angela Donalson – a young woman, orphaned, living in poverty, with brains and ambition – were granted three wishes, she would want wealth, an education, and a family.

Marc Avery has always had everything he ever wanted. Now he wants a girl for his pleasure, a girl no one will miss.

When, in a bizarre twist of fate, Angie is abducted and held at Avery’s remote Tennessee estate, she initially tries to thwart her captors. Unable to gain her freedom, Angie finds herself trading her morals to meet the challenges presented to her each day. As she comes to know the man behind her abduction, and comes to recognize that he can provide her with more than she ever dreamed possible, Angie faces dilemmas which will determine not only how she lives, but if she lives at all.

Combining a dynamic plot, remarkable characters, and a setting in the deep South, Pamela J. Dodd takes her readers for a wild ride on The Gift Horse.

After I did some minor edits to the original published version of Trinity on Tylos, which is now exclusively an Amazon Kindle title, I decided to do the same thing with my debut novel, The Gift Horse. Before I put it out to pasture, I really would like to do some web 2.0 marketing for it. However, the nice folks at Booklocker suggested that I pull the print version but leave the eBook alone. Since The Gift Horse is available on multiple eBook platforms (pdf, Nook, as well as Kindle) folks who want it should not have any trouble purchasing it. Of course, the few print copies that are still around (I have a few in a box somewhere) are all that will be printed. So, if you own one of the print copies, it might be worth something some day.

Until then, the original tale is available for $2.99, which is less than the price of a deluxe hamburger.

Feb 1 2015

The Star Spangled Banner

Americans are looking forward to the Super Bowl tomorrow. Some will watch the game, because they love football. Fans of each team will hope for a year’s worth of bragging rights. For some, its an excuse to buy a $100 worth of chicken wings from the local Beef O’Brady’s. Then there are fans of those enormously expensive commercials. Probably few people will tune in to see Idina Menzel sing the national anthem, but I might be among them. That lady can sing!

However, she will be hard pressed to beat the version that Whitney Houston did a generation back. Take a look at her performance:

Jan 24 2015

Mama a/k/a “Shorty” Blackstock

Mug shot 49 book

For whatever reasons, I took a look at the Piedmont College alumni website recently, and they have online yearbooks! Wow. That is kinda scary for me, as I was in four of those, but it was seriously cool to see fairly clean copies of my mother’s yearbooks. Mama was from Auburn, Georgia, and she went to college for two years (1948-51) on a basketball scholarship. As an austerity measure, the new president at Piedmont discontinued women’s basketball, so mama left the school (in debt, she told me once) and worked in Atlanta to pay off her debt. Afterward, she attended Georgia State University, while playing semi-pro women’s basketball in Atlanta in the early 50s. She never finished college, because, as the youngest and only unmarried daughter, she was called home to help with aging parents.

While back in Auburn, she had a blind date with a guy named Dodd, and they married a year or so later. The Dodds had three daughters, and I am the eldest. I graduated from Piedmont, and one of my sisters went there for her first two years of college. Piedmont is still a fine institution, and I know because I took a graduate class there a couple of years ago.

Mama was known as “Shorty” because she was six-one, which wasn’t too common 65 years ago.

Here are some screen shots from the ’49 and’50 Piedmont College yearbooks:

Front and Center

Mama, at six-one, always got to hold the ball in team shots.

Piedmont women on defense in 1949 yearbook.

Caption in the 1949 book reads “Hold that Line” so no one is identified, but that has got to be Mama in the center of the picture.

Candid from 1950

This is one of the few pics where Mama looks like me.

Dec 23 2014

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Christmas Card

I love Christmas Cards

Warning, this post is not about books.

Each year, I write a letter to friends and family, but I try to avoid bragging or writing about things everyone knows anyway. I really hate those sorts of letters. In my letter, I try to present a humorous take on the previous year, and I always include a few photos, usually of my son (who is kinda cute) and my husband, who is rather dignified, but certainly good looking. Since I am the family photographer, it can be difficult finding a picture of me, but I try. I put the letter in a traditional card, because I really like getting cards, and the only way to get some is to send some.

However, each year, I update my card list, and there are several addresses that are deleted or altered, because the recipient died, or Mr. and Mrs. becomes one or the other, because one of them passed on. This morning, I opened a few more cards, and one of the ladies had written a note that she misses her husband so much. The card I sent her was one of the ones that I had to alter, and I never hit the delete key without thinking about how difficult it is to go through the holidays with an empty chair, a lonely meal, or a side of the bed that is no longer occupied. While this is sad, it is also life.

Thankfully, some folks are still having children, and those will bring joy to those of us fortunate enough to have them. I’m very blessed to have an almost two-year old granddaughter. Lately, I have taken an old kid-craft version of the nativity, and put it within her reach. She can point to the “baby” which is merely a folded piece of felt with a wooden head glued on it, and she can also identify the “mama” and the “daddy” which are made of sticks, cloth, and glue. This little wood and cloth scene has some “hay” and a “star” for her to talk about as well. While she can’t form sentences, she does seem to realize that this object has some significance. Perhaps, next year, I can show her one with a bit more detail, and explain why there are holidays to celebrate.

In the years to come, I will take out some photo albums, and show her those who have passed from this world, as well as sharing photos from more recent times. Hopefully, she will grasp the importance of family. Christmas can be sad, because of those I have lost, but it is also very happy, because I have a future to build as well.