Our Own Little Fictions: Stories from the Road

By Ron Rhody

This is not a memoir.
I would not presume to try to write a memoir.
Memoirs are the province of people who are famous, or notorious, or otherwise of note.
My wife has informed me that I am none of the these.
So this is a story instead.
What Woody thought emboldens me—Woody Guthrie, that master teller of tales and singer of songs.
Stories are what tie us all together. They’re how we connect with each other.
Each life is a story. Each is unique. Each has in it moments that can move us and teach us and strengthen us and comfort us.
Stories are our markers. If they’re not told and passed on, they’re lost forever.
If we don’t tell each other our stories, how will we know what life is all about?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outer Banks Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781310201318

Ron Rhody

Outer Banks Publishing Group is the first publishing house of its kind to use the latest digital printing technologies, social networking, virtual marketing, and the Internet to publish, promote, and sell your book.

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Our Own Little Fictions

Stories from the Road

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by

Outer Banks Publishing Group

on Smashwords

Our Own Little Fictions

Stories from the Road

By Ron Rhody

Copyright © 2018 by Ron Rhody

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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OUR OWN LITTLE FICTIONS

Stories from the Road

By Ron Rhody

Outer Banks Publishing Group

Raleigh/Outer Banks

Our Own Little Fictions – Stories from the Road. Copyright © 2018 by Ron Rhody. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Outer Banks Publishing Group – Outer Banks/Raleigh.

www.outerbankspublishing.com

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For information contact Outer Banks Publishing Group at

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FIRST EDITION – November 2018

Library of Congress Control Number:  2018909429

ISBN 13 – 978-1-7320452-1-7

ISBN 10 – 1-7320452-1-6

eISBN - 978-1-3102013-1-8

If we don’t tell each other our stories, how will we know what life is all about?

For Miss South and Lucy Jane Craycraft and Cecil Webster.

And Ken Hart and Harry Towles.

And Donnie.

Thanks is too weak a word.

A few early readers’ comments

A beautifully written remembrance of a young man lifted and loved through the sheer ordinariness of family and coming of age. Well worth the read. - Cynthia Kasabian, CKB Consultants, San Francisco.

An unconventional book but strangely engaging. Not a ‘must read.’ But definitely a ‘glad I did read.’ - Annette Bowen, Inside/Outside, Atlanta.

Fascinating! This book is like a conversation on paper. - Charlie Baglan, Kentucky Afield radio, Frankfort, Ky.

Deeply personal, often moving. - Bob Irelan, author, Rancho Murrieta. Ca.

Thought provoking. It causes readers, especially in today's all-consuming digital world, to reflect on how memories have shaped their lives. - Joseph Piedmont, Gallatin Public Affairs (Ret.) Portland, Or.

Each life is a story. Each story is unique. If we don’t tell each other our stories, how will we know what life is all about? Pretend you’re listening.

The Old Capitol

I

TO BEGIN

This is not a memoir.

I would not presume to try to write a memoir.

Memoirs are the province of people who are famous, or notorious, or otherwise of note.

My wife has informed me that I am none of the these.

So this is a story instead.

What Woody thought emboldens me—Woody Guthrie, that master teller of tales and singer of songs.

Stories are what tie us all together. They’re how we connect with each other.

Each life is a story. Each is unique. Each has in it moments that can move us and teach us and strengthen us and comfort us.

Stories are our markers. If they’re not told and passed on, they’re lost forever.

If we don’t tell each other our stories, how will we know what life is all about?

Country Boy

I haven’t decided whether I was just a poor country boy trying to do the best he could in a world he never made … or a poet and a lover.

I prefer to think the latter, but …

When I say country boy, think of Kentucky, think of the Bluegrass of Kentucky.

Think of a land where, in the spring, broad meadows of blue-tipped grass flow in gentle swells across the countryside like waves on a peaceful sea. Think of small creeks gurgling over polished pebbles and white plank fences lining pastures where young colts play. Think of cornfields in rich river bottoms and tobacco, golden brown, hanging in racks in big white barns whose sides are open to the season to let the sun and wind do its work.

And moonlight.

Lord, there is no light so soft and bright as the light of a full moon on a summer’s night with the whippoorwills calling and the big bass moving up on the rocky points at Lake Cumberland.

Think of that.

I haven’t mentioned the snow-clad hills of winter, or the bright woods of spring with the dogwoods and the redbuds blooming. I haven’t mentioned how he died on his feet arguing that blacks had rights. I haven’t mentioned the visitors at Romance, or what we did about the cyanide in the river, or the L.A. riots, or the Tech Center rapist, or my time among the godlike creatures in the big black tower at the foot of Nob Hill.

Or even the day they killed the