PEGGY FIELDING'S NEWSLETTER
Vol. 6 Number 5 July 2006

HORRIBLY LATE

Yes. Blame it on the HENS. We've spoken and/or signed at 32 places so far this year. At least Paula and Jackie and I have been fluttering our boas everywhere and sometimes Sharon joined us. She says she will drive up for our speaking signing gig at the University Village here in Tulsa on July 20.

HOLIDAY FROM HELL

Yeah, I'm doing this on the fourth of July. It's not that I'm an unpatriotic American. Far from it. I'll give you the "whys' and "wherefores," after you go...

GO WHERE?

Well, I think you should go to the archives to read this...just to keep Carolyn Leonard happy, if nothing else.

BACK TO THE HOLIDAY

I do have a reason for telling you to go to www.peggyfielding.com. My letter just looks better there. And, of course, you don't want to miss the little drawings and photographs that go along with my stuff. (All put in by Dan, the man, you understand.)

Now, back to our National Holiday. It's not that I'm unpatriotic. I was brought up by parents who were true blue patriots. Mama didn't even want me to say that George Washington had wooden false teeth, nor did she want to see Thomas Jefferson making love to his slave, Sally.

It's just that they treasured peace and quiet very highly. (Gunfire was not unheard of in oil boomtowns, by the way, so perhaps they had reason. Daddy's brother was shot and killed and robbed inside his house in Glen Rose, Texas. My Uncle Curtis, my cousin Julis Mae's father, was shot and killed in his car, in the daytime, on the main street of Roxanne, Oklahoma. And the nine-year-old Julia Mae was there to see it all.)

Jack and I were never allowed to have firecrackers and the other loud stuff many families spent their money on. We were allowed sparklers only, a packet each. We never went anywhere except to our front porch, front steps, or front yard, and almost unbelievably, we had no company.

That was unusual because our house was a magnet to all the Mosses (Daddy's family) and the Matlocks (Miss Hazel's family) all the rest of the year. We ALWAYS had company. But not on Independence Day. Hmm. I don't know, but I suspect that all my relatives were "Uninvited" by my parents because I'm sure the two of them wouldn't even allow visitors to shoot off firecrackers, cherry bombs or other loud stuff.

So our Fourth of July celebration was always dark, quiet and peaceful. We'd have a picnic in the front year, then after dark we'd light our wild fireworks...the sparklers. We were allowed to scream with joy, of course. We enjoyed the time a lot. We lived on a 15 acre farm so we could hear (distantly) the celebrations of our neighbors and friends around us.

Bobby Williamson's Mother must not have liked fireworks either. They were our closest neighbors and Bobby and Jimmy Lewis sometimes lit a few small firecrackers during the day, but even though they were our best friends, we were not allowed to visit them on Independence Day, nor them, us.

I do love a quiet Fourth. Impossible in a large city with tiny yards, so I stay inside my Tulsa house, doors locked, lights off.. Sometimes I watch city fireworks from my back steps.

Have I bored youall stiff with this stuff? Well, I'm not through yet.

TOO MUCH LIKE REAL SHOOTING

You know I've lived in some unusual places? In some of those places, loud pops were, I knew, real gunfire.

During my stepdaughter Suzy's second year in high school, a political feud erupted just outside our compound wall, the concern of an ambitious, parochial politician, who lived about 15 feet away from us.

During the time of the feud I would not let Suzy sleep in her room which was the one room closest to the city road where guns were being fired for several days. I padded our old porcelain clad iron bathtub with pillows and quilts and required her to sleep in the bathtub. She didn't object. Maybe she was afraid, also. I don't remember that we discussed that weeks long fight across the wall overly much. It was just a way of life. Ray went to work and Suzy and I went to school each day without any problems.

The young American Naval Officer and his wife, who lived directly behind us in our compound, told us they dragged the mattresses from their beds, spread them over pillows and quilts on the living room floor and they and their infant slept UNDER those mattresses for several nights during the worst of the fights. One bullet (not meant for the officer or his family) found its way into one of the mattresses one evening so they felt justified in their precautions.

I also heard real gunfire in Cuba, sometimes, so I just can’t love fireworks. Too much like gunfire.

My writer friend, Norma Jane Boone, told me of the time when a neighbor's rocket embedded itself in the roof of her house and neither she nor her husband were aware of that. The day after, July 5th, she came home from school to find firemen trying to save her house which was burning from the roof down. Scary.

A BIT MORE ABOUT SOULMATES

Debbie Haskins, the tall, gorgeous, creature who is a Lone Star Night Writer, and a part of Dan's harem in Denton, said, "Your soulmate may communicate with you after his death. You may talk, laugh, have sex. He may tell you he's building a beautiful house for you in Heaven. This could happen to a widow, at night, through the widow's dreams.

My next newsletter will be the last to mention soulmates, for awhile, at least. Especially since I've learned that Paula Gorgas' cat can't be my soulmate.

BOOK

I've just finished TO THE BRINK by Cindy Gerard. when I opened it I was thrilled to see that it was set in Zamboango in the Philippines. I spent a week in that city once. I enjoyed the book but a few pages into it I knew it had been written by someone who had never been in the Philippines. Here is the quote that gave away Gerard's secret. "The streets were, for the most part, deserted."

I lived seven years in the P.I., went home for a year, then went back for three more years. I was in stores, schools, clubs, cafes, movies, hotels, and in the streets of Filipino towns, villages, and cities at all hours of the day and night. I am a real night owl as many of you know. I have never, repeat, never, seen a deserted street anyplace in that country.

The Republic of the Philippines is an overpopulated country. There are no deserted areas. Every street, at anytime, offers people, vendors, jeepneys, taxis, shoppers, watchers, carreteras, horses, and whole families living next to the pavement.

Maybe our heroine meant it was "deserted," because she saw no other Americans or Europeans? Yeah. That must be it.

Anyway, TO THE BRINK, was a pretty good book. If you like suspense and edgy romance, you'll enjoy this one.

OTHER BOOKS

Did you think I'd given up on reporting on my love life? No, no, no.

My pal, Dusty Richards sent his two most recent Logan books and I've read both in the last two days. Man, we've had an orgy over here on Fourth Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

All mental, of course, but better in the mind than nowhere, I say. Thanks Dusty

A VOICE FROM MY PAST

Marty Baker was the teen aged daughter of my friends at Guantanamo. Her father was Ray's boss, her mother was my pal. I'll tell more about her and her family and Cuba next time, perhaps.

Love to you all.
Peggy