Dorothy Before the Twister

By Pat Sewell

High-strung, gutsy Dorothy Gale seeks travel and adventure, but she doesn't want to leave home to experience these. Her father says that Dorothy would like to have her cake and eat it too. Still, circumstances change, and occasionally human character changes with them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pat Sewell
• Release date: Jan 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310493942

Pat Sewell

I was born and grew up in Wichita County, northern Texas. Recollections of a farm, a small town, Bullbats (though not Bluebirds) booming overhead, loneliness despite the predominance of grown-ups, Friday night lights on the football field, and killer dust storms remain vivid memories. At Midwestern University (then called Hardin College), English instructor Miss Weber admonished her summer college prep students to write with originality, with "freshness." It’s an enduring challenge for authors, not least because "Write what you know" vies for commendation with freshness as a fundamental guiding principle. Balance isn't easy. I have been incredibly lucky. Volunteer service in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War -- in my case, standing on guard prepared to defend one's citizens -- permitted me to sample life in diverse places. Graduate studies at Berkeley led to a PhD in international relations. This degree opened the way for an invitation to teach at The University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, thereafter at Yale, Brock, Princeton, Columbia, University of Toronto, York (Glendon College), and Mount Holyoke,. Since formal retirement I have continued to teach and consult at academic institutions in the U.S. and in Canada, where I now live.

Book preview

DOROTHY BEFORE THE TWISTER

By Pat Sewell

Illustrated by Gunnar Rutherford Sewell

Published by Pat Sewell at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Pat Sewell

ISBN 9781310493942

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Dorothy had a problem. Actually, at the moment she had two problems, and both centered on the same Gale family member.

The problem wasn’t Robin, Dorothy’s mom. Robin remained the same calm, steady-yet-sensitive big sister-like figure that Dorothy had looked up to since both began to fathom the mysteries of the adult world. Adult observers smiled and exchanged the view that she was eleven going on nineteen. Nor did Dorothy’s problems involve either Auntie Em or father Bob’s older brother Henry, Henry being the senior partner of the aging couple who had for weeks been bearing witness by an informal visitation of Dorothy’s father’s childhood and his coming of age. Dorothy’s uncle Henry came across as aloof, or maybe just shy. Auntie Em preoccupied herself with managing the puny senior Gale savings while dedicating her deepest heartfelt strivings to the creation of a church that could sustain her staunch faith. It was observed that Em also kept a keen eye focused upon the social behavior of the Gales’ nearest (though distant) neighbors. All other relatives aside from Dr. Bob ranked benign in Dorothy’s book, at the moment.

Dorothy’s immediate problems concerned relations with her father, introduced locally as Doctor Bob when he and his wife journeyed to Kansas for a Gale family reunion. Dorothy’s bad feelings intensified when she overheard her father complain to her mom that the trouble with Dorothy is that she doesn’t want to follow in our footsteps, yet at the same time she doesn’t want to stay at home. Dorothy was particularly incensed by Bob’s comments to a home-comer disparaging Dorothy’s rapid, frequent shifts from liking one identity to dropping it and taking up another – or the original once again. Bob characterized their daughter to his wife as a budding homestead romantic who has gone native over the summer. Still, this phase of Dorothy’s growth seems to be passing pretty fairly, smoothly and swiftly, agreed Bob. Let’s give her an ‘Incomplete’ like we used to get for our own research work back at our universities."

Moaned Robin, quietly: Oh, Bob, she’s just homesick! Dorothy’s relations with her father seemed to Dorothy best described as chilly but not as downright hostile. Surely she would eventually resolve the outstanding issues with her dad. But she did not yet know about a greater problem shaping up beyond this family’s territorial boundaries.

For sure this place wasn’t home, but to Dorothy, it had felt a little more