The Road to LaReta

I swam from a dream world to the surface through murky half-light. A new title came to me, a splash of thought. The Road to LaReta. The imagined waters calmed and it was clear to me, this may be the final title for the novel about Webb Bateman. 

Lying in the warmth of fluffy covers with an even fluffier cat backed into the crook of my waist, I reflected on the sound and meaning of The Road to LaReta. It rolled off my tongue; sounded right. I felt a bonding with the words.

Including LaReta’s name in the title was inspired by her daughter, Nicolette, as we stood by her dying mother’s bedside. She advised me to include something about a woman in the title. “We need more books about women,” she said. She didn’t specifically suggest her mother’s name, but it made me step back and think more about the important women in the story and the one person who motivated Webb’s journey and the opportunity to redeem himself. It was LaReta, his three-year-old daughter.

The book, a historical fiction novel based on a true story, had two other titles during the writing: Cat Skinner and Nicolette’s first inspired title, LaReta’s Cat Skinner. But the third title seemed best, The Road to LaReta.

The father LaReta and I share, Webb Bateman, was a Cat Skinner – a heavy equipment operator, but the story is not just about the earth he moved. It’s also about a man honed behind a cue stick, at the end of a fist, behind a plow, in a circus giraffe suit, and in the belly of a coal mine.  It’s the story of a man who married because he thought it was the right thing to do, but a man more interested in his construction jobs, drinking and playing cards than he was in raising a family. His wife’s sudden death provided a chance at redemption. Could he do what was right and make up for the pain he caused? Could he raise LaReta?

The journey of 900 miles to Dorothy’s funeral takes just a few days, but gives Webb time to reflect on his twenty-seven years of life; too much time and not enough to grapple with who he is and the man he wants to be.

The novel is in revision, after being read by four wonderful women who offered right-on suggestions. The one woman I wanted to read the story, is gone. My half-sister LaReta passed away at age eighty on June 14, 2016, but she knew her name would be in the title and I’m hopeful her sweet spirit will live on in The Road to LaReta.

Journey

The difference between the writer and the wannabe writer is … one writes and the other, due to choice, chance or circumstance, thinks about writing rather than getting it done. That’s where I’ve been the last couple weeks. Thinking, reading, procrastinating.

From what I’ve read and been told, that’s not unusual, but it’s also what keeps a story in one’s head and not on paper. 

I’m now in Part 3 - The Funeral of Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s. This is the final third of the story. Webb and his sister, Blanche, have exchanged personal information and experiences as they motor the 350 miles from Billings, Montana to Dunn Center, North Dakota on Friday, March 10, 1939. Their goal is to reach Dunn Center by 1 pm in time for Dorothy’s funeral.

The journey is more than watching the straight-as-an-arrow highway disappear beneath the spoke wheels of the 1930 Chevy. It is a journey for Webb to figure out, with the help of his sister, what kind of man he wants to be, the real thing or a wannabe. Is he going to think about what he should have done and what he should do now regarding his three-year-old daughter, LaReta, or is he going to do it.

I’ve been stuck these past few weeks trying to think my way to the end of the story. How do I pay homage to the real people who lived this story, show their perspectives, their feelings and fears, in a fictionalized version of the truth? Tonight is the first time I’ve gained a little traction. I'm letting the story tell me where it wants to go.

Hopefully, the story will reveal itself in a way that readers remain sympathetic to all the characters, including Webb, and in part, to this wannabe writer, his daughter.

Getting out of Bed

I woke up this morning thinking about a response to an exercise I gave the students in my memoir writing class yesterday. We had discussed the use of sensory description, dialogue and action in writing about a location where they used to live.

The exercise was to describe getting out of bed and moving to another room; not just telling about it, but enabling the reader of the story to see what was happening. Show don’t tell – one of the principles of writing. I’m trying to use the principle in the book I’m writing, Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s, but here’s my own response to yesterday’s exercise.

Light filters through my sheer curtains, teasing my eyes to open. My alarm with its incessant beeping brings more than a tease to the process. I slap it quiet for another seven minutes and roll from my left side onto my back. I love stretching like the cat beside me. Pointing my toes toward the end of the bed, my elbows are thrust toward the headboard, fists on either side of my neck. Maybe a strange way to stretch, but it frees spine and muscle kinks until my calf threatens a Charlie. Not Charlie my dog, but Charlie, my horse. I let up on the toe pointing and relax, until the muscle spasm subsides, and then return to my fetal, left side position. Just a few more minutes in this warm, toasty environment won’t hurt.

The alarm beeps again, quietly at first and then louder and louder until I can’t ignore it any longer. One more slap to shut it up. There have been times when I’ve let it go on and on because in a half sleep, dream state, I’ve imagined it was a truck backing up. This morning I got the message without a garbage truck in the room.

I slip my feet off the side of the bed, the rest of me following into an upright position, however reluctant certain body parts are to follow others. My toes slide into my slippers. I sit on the edge of the bed, turn off the alarm, stand up and shake down my older than dirt, purple, granny nightgown. Love the thing. (Girls, feel free to bury me in it. I’m sure you won’t want an open casket anyway, so no one will know the truth of the matter).

Walking to the door of my bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom is dangerous business. The same cat whose stretching I emulate, enjoys weaving in and out of my legs as I walk. While silky soft against my legs, Riley’s erratic movement keeps me guessing about where I step next. 

Charlie, my dog, is behind the gate in the utility room, just across from the bathroom. He’s deaf, but when it comes to the possibility of getting fed in the morning, he knows I’m up and with paws up on the gate, in all his Malti-poo cuteness, he whines until I give him what he wants, one-third cup of dog chow. (Of course, he wants more, but unlike me – he’s on a diet).

And so my morning begins - every morning, although now that I’m retired, I must admit, some mornings look more like Noon.

The Bateman Family

Explaining family relationships as a backdrop for what’s to come is something akin to begats in the Bible, necessary (at least to the author), but boring. As I write, I’ve tried very hard to stay away from boring in Cat Skinner – a Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s, but you may get a taste of it here.

My cousin, Janet Peterson Esser, and I have been exchanging email about the Bateman family. Her mother, Evelyn (“Toots”) Ruth Bateman Peterson was my dad, Webster (“Webb”) Warren Bateman’s oldest sister. There were six siblings. After Toots came Raymond Wellington, then Webb, followed by Walter Harrison, Vivian Lois, and Blanche May. They were born to James (“Jim”) Robert Bateman and Tomine Teodine (“Dena”) Ramsland Bateman during the first two decades of 1900. 

Thanks to Janet, I now have some details about life in the Merchant Hotel in Almont, North Dakota that I wouldn’t otherwise have. Janet verified the Bateman family did live in the hotel (she remembers visiting the hotel as a young child) while Jim operated the pool hall and livery stable across the street. What becomes obvious in our exchange of information is Toot’s natural instinct to “mother” Ray, the oldest brother and Webb, two years younger. At the time the boys left to join the circus, Toots was seventeen, Ray sixteen and Webb fourteen years old.

“I remember Mom (“Toots”) talking about how upset she was with her parents that they allowed the boys to do it [join the circus],” Janet commented in an email and later asked, “So why did they?”

I responded with facts from Dad’s own brief memoir, information Janet hadn’t known. 

Ray was almost strangled to death by Professor DeNoyer, the head master at school. He might have been if the janitor hadn't pulled him off Ray. DeNoyer was also a boarder at the hotel, paying $30/month rent.  

Jim lectured both boys even though Dad wasn't in the fight. He said (according to Dad), "If you boys don't want to go to school and behave, you can go out and go to work for your own living." Dad and Ray thought that was a good deal and initially "rustled" jobs on separate farms working 14 hour days, seven days a week for $15/month. Dad also said about his farm job, “I think dogs had it better." And from there they joined the circus which made one night stands in small towns in the Dakotas and Minnesota. 

When Dad reflected on Jim telling the boys to go get work, he said it seemed Jim was more interested in getting rent than feeding two hungry boys. Obviously Dena went along with it or felt she had no say in the matter. DeNoyer was later sent to an insane asylum for the mentally ill and criminally insane. He died there.  

While recitation of family lineage may get a bit tiresome, the stories the family relationships produce are truly stranger than fiction – and deserve to be told.

Oh the Places You'll Go!

“Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go! 

That phrase keeps buzzing in my head as I scan a used book I just received from Amazon. The title is Step Right This Way by Edward J. Kelty. This is a wonderful coffee table edition of old-time circus photographs taken in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Why a circus book? My Dad, Webster (“Webb”) Warren Bateman and his older brother, Raymond Wellington Bateman joined a traveling truck circus the summer of 1925 when Dad was fourteen and Ray sixteen. The boys drove two of ten trucks to one night stands in towns in the Dakotas and Minnesota. They helped put up the big top and also performed. No they were not the high wire act. Dad was the front end and Ray the back end of a cartoon looking giraffe. After the show they broke it down, caught about four or five hours sleep and hit the road again. 

Dad’s brief discussion of this adventure and my regret at not having asked him more questions when he was still alive, led me to do more research. How many acts did they have? What were they? How many people can you haul in ten Model T Ford trucks along with the big top, bleachers, food, and animals? Yes, I’ve looked at images of Model T trucks used in the circuses to get an idea of size and I visited the LeMay Family Collection (of cars) at Marymount Event Center in Spanaway, Washington. (I was even allowed to open doors and take photographs).

I also contacted Archivist Peter Shrake at the Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center which is part of Circus World in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Peter in turn gave me the names of three truck circuses from the mid 1920’s. (I also discovered the names of more in Kelty’s book of photos).

Peter directed me to their library’s archive of photos. There aren’t many photos of truck circuses since the larger more glamorous circuses of the day travelled by train and drew a lot of attention wherever they went. Think Water for Elephants written by Sara Gruen as an example.

The answers to my questions, for the most part, will require a great deal of imagination to answer in my novel, Cat Skinner – A story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s.

Oh, the places I go in my journey to tell Webb’s story and the fun still to be done!

Not Worth a Tinker's Dam

In the notes my dad left about his youth, I wondered why he started his memoir at age 28, referring to himself as, “not worth a tinker’s dam.” A tinker was traveling repairman a couple centuries ago, who used temporary patches to repair holes in metal pots and pans. The material used for patching might have been mud, clay or wet paper. The dam wasn’t worth a damn! 
 

My dad didn't finish his memoir, but once my half sister, LaReta, shared letters her mother had written to our father, between 1936 and 1939, I understood. Dad was not the man I later knew him to be. (I was born in 1945). My story of his younger years, 1920's and '30's, is fiction, but based on facts garnered from Webb himself, his first wife, Dorothy, and historical information. Following is an excerpt from Cat Skinner, Chapter 1.

 

Dorothy’s too young to be gone. Only twenty-seven, for God’s sake! Webb hunched his muscled shoulders, conditioned by years of farm labor and construction work, toward the steering wheel.

I should be lying in that coffin for the way I treated her. Twenty-eight years old and I’m not worth a tinker’s dam! Been to the top and bottom in a lotta ways, but this is the worst payback a man can get for his mistakes.

Guilt and regret were a load Webster Warren Bateman’s six foot, one hundred and ninety pound frame wasn’t used to carrying. He was a handsome Norwegian with a wavy shock of light brown hair. High cheekbones and a dimpled smile added to his good looks. His facial features were boyishly soft even though he wasn’t.  Born on a farm near Milroy, Minnesota, May 28, 1911, Webb was a guy who could hold his liquor, put on a poker face, shoot pool with the best of them, and tell stories until his audience, drunk or sober, was in stiches. He was a man used to being the center of attention and liked it. The ladies liked him too… long before Dorothy and Ogallala.

Webb’s deep set blue eyes, usually mischievous, scanned the road ahead through fading light. He was headed west from Ogallala, Nebraska toward Cheyenne, Wyoming. It would take another three hours on Highway 30 before he turned north onto 87. His brows furrowed into a serious scowl. Exhaust clouds roiled behind the 1930 Chevy Sedan mirroring thoughts churning in his head. It was Wednesday evening, March 8th, 1939 and it was cold. The temperature had dropped below freezing again. At least it’s not snowing. Hell of a blizzard we worked in just four days ago. Glad it didn’t stick or I’d probably never made it to North Dakota in time.

 

Cat Skinner: The Search for a Subtitle

Last Friday morning, I shared with my once-a-month breakfast group, Women in Transition (WIT), the tentative name of the novel I’m writing about my father’s life in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Cat Skinner drew non-responsive stares - which compelled me to explain the name. I didn’t want my friends to think I’m descended from a psychopath or that I’m promoting cruelty to animals. I recently helped to start a non-profit benefiting animals at our local shelter – for heaven’s sake!

Following is an excerpt from Chapter 1:

He was used to being in charge and in control, whether it was operating heavy equipment: Caterpillar tractors, bull dozers, crushers, backhoes, blades, shovels, dump trucks – or men. He’d been a shift boss on a lot of jobs. He knew how to lead and get things done. He was a Cat Skinner. That’s what they called heavy equipment operators. Webb liked the moniker because it recognized his skill, but he joked with friends about “skinner” since it referred to a man who drove a mule team. Skinning a mule just meant you were smarter than the mule. “A questionable gauge of intelligence,” Webb would say with a belly laugh and a drink in his hand.

There are those who know what’s meant by the term, Cat Skinner, but usually they’re folks with lots of miles behind them and a penchant for starting sentences with, “Back in my day…”

So here is my dilemma. What should the subtitle be?

My dad was a Cat Skinner who was self-educated. He only attended a year and a half of high school – maybe not even that long since he and his brother were told to leave home when Webb was fourteen and his brother Ray sixteen.

The term Cat Skinner fits him so well, I don’t want to change the name, but the subtitle needs to explain he doesn’t skin cats. It has to succinctly convey the essence of the novel which is a working stiff’s story of love and loss in the 1930’s. Does that do it or do you have other ideas? All offerings welcome. J

It's Fiction, but Check the Facts

“It’s fiction, for God’s sake, Bonnie! If you want it to snow, let it snow.”

It may be a mistake to tell friends and family what I’m doing – attempting to write something people will read and enjoy – but I do anyway. Perhaps it’s a way of holding myself accountable. If you tell enough people you’re writing a novel, maybe you’ll believe it yourself and actually write!

Over horses doovers (aka hors d'oeuvres. Have to look up the spelling every time) and drinks, I shared with Sue and Laurie the research I’d done to get a visual on what my dad, Webb Bateman, was seeing as he drove from Nebraska to North Dakota.  

“Phebe, in my writer’s group, pointed out I could check the weather for March 1939 to make sure it was snowing,” I explained. “Sounded like a good idea to me, so I did. Cost me $20 to subscribe to a reliable site ( weathersource.com/past-weather/weather-history-reports), but I actually verified Dad worked in a blizzard on March 4, 1939 in Ogallala, Nebraska, as he indicated in a letter. But then I found out the snow melted and it was fairly mild. So I changed my story to get rid of snow as he drove north.”

Sue, who is an avid reader, just shook her head. I tried to reassure her I wasn’t going to recite the high, low and median temperatures for every day of the trip. “It’s just a method to get me in the moment. Besides, Sue, my brain game, Lumosity, indicates I should have been a researcher or scientist or something like that.” She knows my analytical side well, having worked with me for twenty years before we both retired. Nonetheless, her head wagged back and forth again.

Google and I have become very good friends which doesn't say much for my social life. One of the searches helped me with the typography of Wyoming. “Would my dad have to shift down in a 1930 Chevy Sedan, if he were going from 3000 to 6000 elevation in 17 miles?” I asked my husband, Scott. He also looked at me in disbelief.

The research in and of itself hasn't always been riveting, but it's helped my comfort level in writing description. On the other hand, I've found information I'm not sure my 80 year old relatives would approve of. Lyrics from "Dirty Songs of the Twenties and Thirties" are real eyebrow raisers. Then again, Who am I kidding? My relatives probably helped write them. 

Yup, I’m hooked on research and for now, there may be snow on my roof, but not on my roads.

Hunkerin' Down

Fair to middlin’. Cat skinner. Shenanigans. Fracus. Charivaree. Yoohoo girls. Blind pig. Crazy as a shit house rat.

I’ve been living in the ‘20’s and ‘30’s the past year. Words and phrases like these continue to crawl from the crevices of memory or leap out at me from historical novels. In my attempt to write the story of my father’s youth, the jargon of the time finds me. Is it because I’m steeped enough in Webster Warren Bateman’s brain? Am I recalling his memories or am I remembering the language of my childhood? Whichever it is – it’s an adventure and I’m lovin’ it.

There I did it again. Helpin’. Talkin’. Filterin’. Writing dialogue of farm guys shootin’ pool in Jim Bateman’s establishment during prohibition years will do that to a writer. At least it’s done it to me. Forget the “gs” and to hell with grammar. The fact that I used to teach English in the States and overseas no longer holds sway in this writing. I read aloud what I’ve written to see if the rhythm and tone sound right to me – perhaps not to someone else – but this is my invention, a historical fiction novel based on stories from my dad’s life.

Have I written a novel before?  No, but there have been thank you notes, emails, operator manuals, technical reports, and – oh yes, my first blog of five years, Bonnie King Photography: As I See It. www.bonnie-king.blogspot.com. I also started my own memoir four years ago, From Australia with Love, stories of my wild and crazy youth, but instead of finishing it, I became enamored with the idea of teaching memoir writing to others. That old adage, “If you can’t do – teach.” But I’m a damn good teacher and people like the class so I continue to this day. My photography business also gave me a good excuse not to write seriously, so I didn’t, until now.

My passion for photography as a business waned and the desire to tell my dad’s story took hold. I closed the business. With the help of rain and wind urging me to hunker down with my computer, a cup of coffee, cat on my lap and dog at my feet – I’m finally on my way. Only another 100,000 words to go.