Writer's Almanac: literary culture in the mobile home

Half of me is utterly opposed to mornings. That's the sleeping half, of course. The half that is quickly becoming conscious looks forward a collection of delights that the morning brings: waking next to my wife Wendy, watching the sunlight filter through the remaining trees in our backyard and hearing birds sing, drinking strong coffee, making Wendy coffee, eating breakfast, and listening to Garrison Keillor describe the lives of writers famous and obscure on the morning NPR show "Writer's Almanac."

About 8:55am every weekday morning, the sparse piano tune announces the show. Keillor lives in Minnesota, or at least he used to (I don't keep up that well), and I always feel as though he is reading his script inside an iced-over hovel on a farm in the country. That's obviously not the case, of course, but Keillor crafts his cultural declamations in such an intimate fashion that I feel as though he, too, abides within and against a cultural wasteland. It's like an oasis in a desert. It's as if he is talking to me.

Keillor begins with a birthday or two of literary or otherwise notable figures. He shares facts about the birthday celebrant's life. Today is F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday. He was born in St. Paul (very near to Keillor's heart) in 1896. Keillor often shares a pithy quotation from the writer, though I can't remember Fitzgerald's quote. Ah, Fitzgerald. It has been a long time. I read The Great Gatsby in high school (11th grade, 1992 - egads!), and I have not touched him since. I suppose it's high time I do. Oh, the ever-expanding reading list. But I will appreciate Fitzgerald so much more now that I am more thoroughly acquainted with the time period.

Our host then shares other significant events that occurred on each day. This week, however, is a little different. This week, Keillor is reflecting upon the Norman invasion of England in 1066. William the Conqueror, my namesake... I mean, via my grandpa, Bill Clifton, sort of. Today, Keillor talked about ways in which Normans impacted our language. They hailed from the northern French coast, of course, though I remember learning somewhere along the line that the Normans were actually of Viking descent (is that true?). The Normans, in good French fashion, particularly affected the language of food. They introduced the words gourmet, supper, and dinner. They also added beef and mutton, although we continued to use the Old English words cow and sheep. Food and philology, two worthy subjects close to my heart.

Keillor also closes each program with a poem or two. Today, he read Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "The Pennycandystore Beyond the El." I think this is correct. My attention trailed off a bit here. Ferlinghetti was a leading Beat poet. He opened City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, which I had the pleasure to visit ten years ago. It was like a pilgrimage. The other day, Keillor read a fantastic poem about coffeehouses in Seattle. I don't remember the name. I was driving.

It is such a brief program - five minutes? - like a shot in the arm to bolster our defenses against the soul-deadening effects of our modern world on the go, careless. Keillor ends with these famous words, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch." I stay mostly well, and I'm told I do good work. I guess I should write him.

Kamikaze hawk strikes the Trailer of Paradise

Wendy and I were treated to a spectacle of nature as we hurriedly got ready this morning. As we both walked through the living room in transit between the bedroom and the kitchen (the two poles of existence at the ToP), we heard a loud thud somewhere to the right of the backyard windows. My first thought was that a large book had fallen from some high place, which is always a distinct possibility in our abode. Falling books create an especially booming resonance, given the mobile home's infrastructure (or lack thereof). My second thought was that a loose tree limb fell onto our roof. Also always a distinct possibility, one that makes hurricane season particularly fraught with worry.


Wendy peered out the back windows onto our backyard and the large clearing that was once a magnificent wilderness beyond our back fence. I glanced that way as well when an immense flurry of wings suddenly darted into view from the side of the trailer, encompassing a large portion of the view from the window, and swiftly heaved itself to the top of the fence! There perched a hawk that had to be a foot long from head to tail. I've included a photo of it below, but I'm afraid it does not do the majestic creature justice. Nevertheless, there it is.



Evidently, this large aerial predator decided to fly smack into the side of the ToP. It seemed to have narrowly missed the window. If it had, would it have crashed through the glass? Imagine the chaos! That would be a story to tell. Well, the hawk perched on the fence long enough to have a good look around and for me to take the photo. Suddenly, it leapt up into a tree above, where, lo and behold, another hawk of the same size appeared out of nowhere. The first hawk chased the second one across the canopy of trees in our backyard and out of our view. What a rare glimpse! What a morning! On a cool, dark, and windy September morning that threatens rain and possibly storm, could one be tempted to perceive it as an omen? If so, what sort of omen would a kamikaze hawk be? And who could blame it for wanting to join Wendy and me for coffee? But we were on the run. Sorry, hawk.


This was my second glimpse of hawks at the ToP. The first occurred a couple months ago. One of the hawks perched majestically atop a wire across our neighbor's driveway. It was also about a foot tall. Same hawk? Who knows? To put it's size into perspective, here's a photo of a cardinal on our back porch:

Backyard possum

I noticed a possum rooting around in our backyard when I got up this morning. They are nocturnal creatures, and the sun was just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon. Wendy thinks they're ugly, but I have a soft spot for possums. A sixth-grade substitute teacher brought his pet possum to our science class. I decided it was one of the coolest possums I had ever seen. Nevermind that a possum once stood and hissed at me when I caught it scrounging through the trash on our back porch at the B-Side in Valparaiso. I told it to shove off and placed the lid firmly back on the trash can. It stayed right where it was. (There was always great potential for confrontation with nature at the B-Side.)

I left the window to find Wendy's digital camera, and the possum left. I should have stayed to see where it went. I have a sneaky suspicion it's living under the trailer. Here's a photo of a very similar possum courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden:

My friend Tim Roberts told me about a time his mom and dad, newly wed, were living in a trailer over in Seminole. A possum had taken up residence under their domicile, and they decided they had to get rid of it (can't remember why). In the middle of a Florida summer, they cranked the heat of the mobile home to exorcise the beast. As it fled its sweltering confines and sprinted out from under the trailer, Tim's dad slew it with a fake tourist's sword. Something like that. Welcome to life in northwest Florida.

Fortunately, I won't ever have to dispatch an unwelcome creature (at least of that size) with a heavy, blunt object meant for displaying on your mantel. At least, not at the Trailer of Paradise. That's the beauty of renting. That's the landlady's job.

Whatever happened to the silent "o" at the front of possum? You know, "opossum." Obviously, possum is short of opposum. Not sure who decided that one. According to the 2006 Random House Unabridged Dictionary (that is, according to dictionary.com - yes, I cheat for backyard fauna), opossum is Virginia Algonquin for "white dog."

Notes from the front porch

You'll notice this blog's name change. This blog was formerly titled "Bill's Reading Habits" - a bit pedestrian. I preferred pedestrian at the time, given the personal, provincial nature of my posts. Actually, I just couldn't think of anything else to call it. Recently, however, I ran across a mix-cd I made called "Notes from the Front Porch," a title meant to signify my current life in the Trailer of Paradise. Wendy and I have a magnificent front porch (for a trailer). I sometimes even take notes on it. There you have it: examinations of life and literature from the front porch of an inconspicuous trailer in the middle of Pensacola, Florida. The musings of a history grad student soon to be unleashed upon the world like a GI Joe action figure flung casually from a school bus as it winds through the wild backwoods.

La Cucaracha (Paradise Lost)

When Wendy and I first moved into our current (mobile) home, I dubbed it the Trailer of Paradise. We're located on a small lot behind a house in a subdivision (I certainly wouldn't grace this lifeless, sociopathic suburban wasteland with the title of "neighborhood") in the middle of Pensacola. Yet, upon arriving, it almost seemed as though we lived in a little cottage in the country (that is, once the sewage spill beneath the trailer was cleansed). Trees and vegetation abound, with an ancient oak quaintly surrounded by ferns looming over our yard. Squirrels and blue jays and cardinals play. Best of all, our back fence bordered a densely wooded lot that gave the impression that a busy thoroughfare does not in fact run two-hundred yards south of us.

We can see the busy road very clearly now. Construction vehicles ripped nearly every single tree out of the ground in the wooded lot behind our house. We were told that the lady who owns it wants to sell it, and she feels an empty dirt lot would sell more quickly. She may be right, but no one's bought it yet. Nice dirt lot, lady. Nice.

I can put up with a trailer's typical technical problems: broken toilet handle, fridge on the fritz, etc. One expects it. But the vanishing forest quickly diminished our trailers paradisiacal status. That's fine. We still have our front yard, and the variety of woodland creatures still cling to what few trees ring the dirt lot (they kindly left those that pose a threat during hurricanes). It's still fairly quiet around here. But our neighbors have proved increasingly inhospitable. Paradise dwindling.

This morning, paradise lost! We were invaded. I was personally violated! The culprit? Cockroaches!!! I woke up this morning to find a big roach running laps all over my body. It's not a very pleasant experience. I still feel its little feet moving around my neck and down my side. I killed it instantly, of course. And then we changed the sheets. Then I killed another, very big creature-from-hell in the living room closet. The first one woke us up at 6:30 this morning, so after the clean-up, we went to Wal-Mart to buy traps (and groceries). (7am is a good time to shop at Wal-Mart.)

"But are these not also woodland creatures?" one may ask (rather annoyingly, I might add). Yes, but these creatures are supposed to stay in the woods! Oh, we've had cockroaches in the trailer before, but they had never personally violated me. They had not defiled the purity of my flesh with their filthy being as they did this morning. Two other times have I felt the decaying-compost-like touch of their nauseating little feet: in Taiwan (I saw one on my back in a mirror - traumatizing!) and at the B-Side in Valparaiso (I felt one run across my face - or was that my brother Josh's face?). That is one thing I will not abide - cockroaches on my person. I declare this: in this trailer, cockroaches will be hunted down like dogs! There shall be no quarter for cockroaches in this house. I don't care how essential they are for the local ecology; if they stay in their ecology, they won't get smashed. That's the deal, and any cockroach that has a problem with it can taste the underside of my shoe!!!

Wendy and I are moving first chance we get. Here is our new home: