Tina Leonard | Heroes Among Us

Recently I went to dinner with some mothers from my son's tenth grade class. One of the dads had become paralyzed from the neck down, basically, all of a sudden. The odd thing was that the dad had been keeping score at the high school basketball game the night before, and all seemed well. He never complained of feeling bad. Knowing that our friend has a lot on her hands juggling rehabilitation, her children, and her job, we got together to do what women do: comfort. I learn a lot from other women. Over the years, I've met so many readers and writers, and I always find my little world opens up dramatically. What one thing did the mom mention she could really use to help them? They loved the meals people were bringing, and she said her family would particularly enjoy some fried chicken. Like, just plain old cluck-in-a-bucket. My hand shot up in a hurry for that assignment! Yet I'm still thinking about her situation, and what more can be done besides take-out for a woman who's carrying so much, so bravely.

Then I started thinking: When I'm stressed out, what do I turn to? It's always been reading. Novels got me through my second child's crying jags, when the doctor said the baby just wanted to cry. Every night at the same time, then, I put on a comfy nightie, grabbed a good book, put the baby on my chest, and read while I patted his back and he cried. The crying stopped after a few weeks, but what I remember most about that time is how the books allowed me to escape what I really just had to wait out. The friendships that came along with those books have been the best. It's my writer and reader friends who were there for me when my son lost his gallbladder, when I was frightened out of my wits. And so on.

Yet as much as I love books, I never consciously realized I was going to write a book until my grandmother asked me to. Consciously is the key word. My father called the other day while in the midst of cleaning out my grandmother's house. He said, "What do you want me to do with all these books you wrote?" I said, "What books?" He told me I had several books lying around. I said, "Throw them away, Dad." After all, I hadn't looked at them in twenty years, and I didn't want him to have to deal with that on top of everything else. He said, "Are you sure? You were trying to get them published." This was long before computers and internet, so I would have typed them on an old portable plastic-encased typewriter. I said, "How do you know I was trying to get them published?" He said, "Because the letters you wrote the publishing houses are attached."

I still had him throw it all away. I don't want to read what I can't remember. But I learned that I was always a writer, despite not remembering that the dream was in my heart. I don't even know how I would have found out, in our little town, the names of people working in publishing houses. Years later, when my grandmother asked me to write a book, I believed that was my first attempt at publication. My husband bought me a ninety-nine cent spiral in College Station. In the rain he came carting it out from the gas station, and I wrote in that with my first serious intent. Later, I moved to a computer that had no printer, so my husband would copy my work onto a floppy disk, and we'd all go up to his office after closing. My children—probably about six and two then—would help. I printed, and the children took turns running the pages down the hall to my husband who was manning the copier. It was hot up there because the company turned off the air conditioning at night, but the kids loved helping. One day my husband brought home my first manuscript in a green folder—he'd made it as close to a book as he could, and I was touched that he believed that much in my dream.

A lot of people want to be published. Things are easier and faster now, but they are just as hard in other ways. I would say to hang on to your dream and take your time with the journey. It's is a journey, even if we don't realize that we've been taking it, maybe all of our lives.

Speaking of books, I've read some great ones this month! I'm a greedy reader, and always need about five books going at once. Katie MacAlister's FIRE ME UP so far is my favorite in her series, but I've just started the fourth book, so don't hold me to that. Second good read: JOKER ONE, by Donovan Campbell. Donovan is one of my son's mentors at his school, so I bought the book for my son's sixteenth birthday, and also to say thank you to a man who's graciously given up a bunch of his time to Dean's class. I started reading it one night, and found myself crying by the end. Another good read is Barbara Bretton's CASTING SPELLS. This is one of those books that I picked up specifically because of the cover. I'd met Barbara years ago at a writer's conference, and so her name drew me, but the cover and title were just too fun to resist. It's a book you want to share—and then make certain the borrower returns to your private collection.

Good movies: John Wayne's THE QUIET MAN I met an older gentleman the other night who said he and some buddies—when they were about eighteen—had gone to Mineral Wells to escape their camp jobs for a night. In the deserted hotel restaurant sat John Wayne, all by himself. They said they went right up to him and started talking, and had a few beers, if I recall the tale correctly. I said, "What did John Wayne say when you went up to him and introduced yourselves?" The elderly gentleman said, "He seemed glad to have the company." Can you imagine several rag-tag, stinky campers descending on John Wayne in the middle of nowhere? Another good movie: Grease. I know, we've all seen it a hundred times. But my son and his girlfriend couldn't find any copies of the Lion King last week in the Blockbuster, so I talked them into renting Grease. I happened to be in the room when my sixteen-year-old son saw Olivia Newton John strut out in her black spandex and electrified hair. "Oh, wow," was all he said, but his tone conveyed one of the reasons this movie will always be a classic twist on the boy-meets-girl theme. Yet how about that pristine letter jacket on Danny Zucco, who strove to be a hero to win his girl's heart!

And a few appropriate words from good ol' Ernest Hemingway: "As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary."

Last, I'd like to offer a five dollar Amazon e-cert to three people, chosen by Fresh Fiction, who care to jump in with a comment or two. Grab the stage!

Off to order cluck-in-a-bucket,

Tina Leonard