Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine (63 page)

And now I’ll leave the sad stuff behind and push forward with a little insight into some other things about
Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine
.
First of all, I certainly hope that everyone out there had the opportunity as a child (or adult) to sip the nectar from honeysuckle.
What a wonderful childhood memory that is for me!
The hours we’d spend sitting in our backyard, plucking honeysuckle blossoms and carefully picking them apart to finally enjoy that one tiny little droplet of nectar!
Oh
,
I miss those carefree childhood days, don’t you?
Tadpoles hold the same mesmerizing wonder for me and were an indispensable part of my childhood too
—t
hus the tadpole
and
pollywog scene in the book.

And then there’s the bone collection of Nate, Willy
,
and eventually Lowell.
Well,
y
ou know the side of my family that is intrigued with
b
lack
w
idow
s
piders?
T
hat same side of the family likes anything interesting and gruesome—including bones!
My favorite
“
family bone
”
story is one that I wasn’t aware of until just a few years ago.
Now, I may or may not have already told you this story in another Author’s Note
,
but since I can’t remember off the top of my head, here it comes either way.

I have these two really cool uncles
,
Uncle Wayne and Uncle Russell
. Y
ou’ve met them before in Author’s Notes.
Well, this story involves my Uncle Wayne as the hero.
Way, way, way back (I believe it was the late
’
60s)
,
my Uncle Wayne and a friend of his were w
a
ndering along an old riverbed.
Now, you must understand that Uncle Wayne has the eyes of a hawk!
This is the guy
who
spotted a tarantula on the side of the ro
a
d as he was driving home one pitch
-
black night from Canyon City and stopped to collect (being that he must’ve always had a jar in his trunk for just such occasions).
Anyway, my hawk-eyed Uncle Wayne and his friend were roaming along this old riverbed when all at once Uncle Wayne looks up and sees a sort of spherical something slightly protruding from the dirt of riverbank wall. (The river was low
,
so the bank was vertically higher than normal.)

Well
,
naturally Uncle Wayne reached out, digging his fingers around whatever the thing was
.
A
nd lo and behold
,
what does he pull out but a human skull!
That’s right
, a
human skull!
Now, being that Uncle Wayne is as smart as he is hawk-eyed, he studied the riverbank awhile and surmised that the skull must be of Native American origin and very old.
Now
a
days
,
you’d be obligated to report this kind of a find to the state or something
,
but Uncle Wayne (being interested in all things natureish and scientific of any kind), simply kept the skull.
Seriously.
He just set it in his closet and hung onto it for years.

Eventually, my
u
ncles and my
a
untie (you remember Auntie from other stories, right?) all shared a house when they were in their twenties and none of them were yet married.
This meant that Uncle Wayne moved all his stuff (including the skull) into Auntie’s place.

Time passed, as it often does, Uncle Russell got married and moved out, then Uncle Wayne moved out, and then Auntie got married to my now Uncle Ken.
Well, as you know, when you move, sometimes you leave things behind on accident, or intentionally if you don’t (especially if you’re not sure what to do with them).
The skull must’ve been one of those things Uncle Wayne wasn’t sure what to do with because it ended up sitting on a shelf for a time before my Uncle Ken wen
t
downstairs and found it one day.
Of course
,
he instantly went on a rant about how someone was going to come into the house and see a human skull and think he and my
a
untie were murder
er
s or something.
(He’s a funny man
,
always laughing
,
but the skull must’ve wigged him out—understandably.)

So Auntie gave the skull back to my Uncle Wayne.
But Uncle Wayne was still uncertain about what do with it or how to display it in his house, so he gifted it to a woman he was dating at the time
who
worked at a museum.

My reaction to hearing what Uncle Wayne had eventually done with the skull was thus
:
“Are you crazy?
You just gave it away?
I would’ve
loved
to have had that!”

Well, feeling regretful at that point, my Uncle Wayne soon sent me a mummified toad he’d found in his basement one year.
So it all worked out for the best
.
I will never have to explain to anyone why there’s a human skull in my closet, and I added a mummified toad to my collection of rarities amassed thanks to my Uncle Wayne,
g
randparents
,
and mom.
So in the end, all is right with the world.

As a side note, my kids are the same way
;
I think most kids are.
I remember the Thanksgiving when Mitch was about four or five
and
was so intrigued with the turkey bones that my mom boiled all the meat
and
remains off our Thanksgiving turkey, bleached the bones,
d
ried the
m
out
,
and put them in a shoebox
,
which she gave to Mitch for Christmas
,
I think.
He was elated, and he and my mom spent several hours going through those old turkey bones.
I love Christmas gifts like that!

Anyway, I’ve always been intrigued with bones, dead animals,
and so on
—and so were Nate, Willy
,
and Lowell.

Speaking of
Lowell
, I have to admit that he is one of my favorite secondary characters ever!
He’ so funny—so brave and brazen too, to kiss Vivianna like that when he first met her!
Many readers have written to me concerning their adoration of
Lowell
, and I am so touched, tenderhearted
,
and grateful that you all love him as much as I do
.
He’s such a little dickens
,
and I love him!

I love this book! It springs from something embedded deep within my soul, and whether or not it’s a favorite of yours, I do hope you enjoyed it. At least the kissing was good, right? (Winky wink!)

Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine Trivia Snippets

Snippet #1—
Guess what my major was in college? Yep, that’s it! For practical reasons (at the time), I majored in Secretarial Science. However, my minor was in something I loved—history!

Snippet
#2
—
The Alabama First Cavalry was a real cavalry unit, not one I made up. The Alabama First Cavalry comprised rich men, poor men, black men, and white men who were loyal to the
Union
, even for the fact they were Alabamians, and volunteered for service. Southerners who fought for the
Union
were called Southern Unionists and were viciously persecuted by loyal Confederates. In fact, you may or may not be aware that more than one in ten southerners who fought in the Civil War enlisted in and fought for the Union Army. And with the exception of
South Carolina
, every Confederate state raised at least one Union battalion. Interestingly enough, you don’t often hear about all the southerners who abhorred slavery during the Civil War, and I think that is a distortion in reporting true history.

Snippet #3—Now, at the risk of leaving you on a little of a melancholy note, I’ve decided to really stick my neck out and share something very personal. Years and years ago, I woke up one morning after having a very vivid dream—a dream of a story in the form of a poem. The dream was so powerful that I immediately wrote down the poem I had dreamed. Now, could I have had a Stephanie Meyer type dream that turned into a multimillion-dollar franchise? Nope. I just had a dream about two brothers—two Civil War soldiers. It’s not anything profound, and it
is
very melancholy, so if you’re feeling down or not in the mood for an emotional journey, you can skip it and go right to the teaser chapter for
The Fragrance of Her Name
. But since it does have something to do with my inspiration for this book (even just a little), I thought I’d share it now. The brothers in this poem struggled with exactly the same emotions that Robert E. Lee did—a love for the South and his home but a disgust for the evil of slavery. It’s something we will never understand or have to endure, thank heaven, but many of our ancestors did, and perhaps it was just given to me for that reason. Again, it’s a sappy little ditty, so if you’re not in the mood, that’s fine. Just grab some chocolate and a season of your favorite TV series on DVD and have at it instead! But for anyone who may be interested, here it is—a powerful dream I once had when my mind wasn’t so smushy
.


Donnin’ the Gray

By Marcia Lynn McClure

He wore the gray when he passed away
a
t a ripe ol’ hundred and one.

He donned the gray, and was buried that way
i
n 1941.

He said, “Don’t grieve,” before he went
. “
I’m more’ n happy to go.

I’ll go where my brother was early sent
’r
ound
’
bout eighty years ago.

“I know I’ve told you before,” he said,
“
a
t one time or another,

And I’ll tell you again on my own deathbed,
’
bout my own departed twin brother.

“That ol’ war
’
tween the states
,
son, it jest had to be
t
o put this great country at rest.

And we know’d it
,
son, brother Joe and me,
a
n
’
we know’d we’d be leavin’ the nest.

“Both of us know’d that the Union side
w
as right in the words from its mouth.

But
both of us know’d that if’n we died, it’d be defendin’ our beloved South.

“Slavery was a sin, son. It was terrible wrong! Them slaves was jest folks like me.

They shouldn’ta had to suffer so long. We shoulda jest let ’em be free.

“And if’n that’d been the only reason for the war that took me and Joe,

It wouldn’ta lasted one whole summer season, ’cause most of us Rebels was po’.

“Folks is folks, son—no matter their skin. We know’d they should been freed.

But there was other reasons that the war took our kin and caused North and South to bleed.

“Our way of life, our homes…our settled back ways. I know’d progression must come.

But I loved
Carolina
and those warm fragrant days, and could not fire ’gainst my home.

“Me and Joe, we talked…we discussed it a while. We know’d the
Union
must live.

We talked and considered over ten country mile, ’bout what we two oughta give.

“One oughta fight to save the U-nited States…one for the sake of fam’ly.

So we made up conditions with mighty high stakes. We decided what to do, Joe and me.

“We flipped up a coin, and it flied in the air. I hollered out ‘heads,’ Joe said ‘tails.’

It headed for ground and then landed there…right ’tween two rusty ol’ nails.

“
‘I win,’ said Joe. ‘or I reckon I do. So I get to choose where I go.