TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Yay Summer Vacation

vacation

 

When I was growing up in the swamps of Louisiana, my mother created a summer time routine that never varied until I was in my late teens. Every year mid summer she would get an urge to visit her brother and his wife in Oklahoma. Aunt Betty and Uncle Elmo owned what I would call a farmer’s market/souvenir shop on the outskirts of the Cherokee Reservation.

I can remember her coming into my bedroom in the middle of the night to wake me up just so I could wedge myself between my parents in the front seat of our old car and go back to sleep while my siblings crammed themselves into the back seat. My father drove all night and most of the following day while my mother read the maps and dangled her feet out the window. There was always fried chicken and bologna sandwiches to munch on so the long trek from the Louisiana swamps to the hills of Oklahoma was never interrupted by sightseeing detours. Our destination was our relatives’ house and since my father wasn’t fond of driving all that way in the first place, he wanted to arrive in the shortest amount of time possible.

Once there, I knew I would get the chance to see some real, live Native Americans as they frequented my uncle’s store almost daily. To a young kid from the swamps, it was like seeing aliens dropped down from the Mother Ship. I would hide behind the counter and then peek out to see what they would buy. Eventually, as I got older, I would help weigh the fruits and vegetables on an old-timey set of scales before bagging the produce for them. My uncle treated everyone the same…all were welcome at his store…and this was during a time when others might not have treated their neighbors from the reservation so kindly.

There are many holes in my memories of those trips but there is one memory so vivid all I have to do is close my eyes and I can summon both the sight and the smell of it. On every return trip our trunk would be loaded down with fresh apples and oranges as well as other produce to help supplement a poor man’s dinner table. My favorite part about those apples was the fact they were packed in cardboard boxes with slits in the tops and on the sides. If you lifted the top lid and quickly pushed it back down while holding your nose really close to the top slit, you could drink in the delicious aroma of crispy sweet Red Delicious apples picked fresh from the orchard just a few days before. To me it was one of the most heavenly smells on earth and if I had the chance to smell it again today I know it would bring back flashes of those lovely summer vacations with my Oklahoma kin.

I think it might be time to go grab me an apple and reminisce …

 

++++++++++++

 

HM Hunting Gris-Gris Epub cover

 

Amelia Earmouse travels back through time to uncover little known events. You may THINK you know your history, but wait until you see what Amelia uncovers in book three of HISTORYS MYSTERIES.

Eleven-year-old Emma misses her father who’s serving in Europe during World War II. He leaves behind a treasure box with six compartments to be opened during her birthday week. He also tells her to watch for the gris-gris while he is gone. Looking out for swamp creatures and dealing with wartime rationing is hard enough, but now there’s a British refugee staying at the house! How will Emma enjoy her birthday and keep her decision to hunt the gris-gris a secret with a stranger following her around?

 

++++++++++++++

 

donna - Copy

 

Best-selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of flash fiction, children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection.

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Take A Ride On The Soul Train…

 

record player

 

I discovered early on that I was born to love music. I don’t mean I’m able to tolerate it or that I simply enjoy listening to songs. I LOVE MUSIC! 

I was born to a mother who was part Native American and Cherokees sure do love their music. Then there was my father who was part Cajun and most people have heard of the Zydeco thing. Add to that the fact my maternal grandfather was a composer who built his own violin and my father would play the accordion for me growing up, I had no choice but to learn to appreciate the beauty of listening to great sounds…everything from the Grand Ol’ Opry to Doug Kershaw.

I didn’t know there was any other kind o music until my middle teens when I was allowed to start watching shows like American Bandstand to Soul Train and The Midnight Special.

There’s something about music, no matter the style, that connects with me and lifts my spirit. Even when it was time to grow up and leave my hometown I made sure my records traveled with me…a lifeline during hard times and a way to light up my future. Even today…years later…you can still find me rocking out to a good tune in my car and remembering some of the good musical moments from my childhood down on the bayou…

 

++++++++++++

 

HM Hunting Gris-Gris Epub cover

 

Amelia Earmouse travels back through time to uncover little known events. You may THINK you know your history, but wait until you see what Amelia uncovers in book three of HISTORYS MYSTERIES.

Eleven-year-old Emma misses her father who’s serving in Europe during World War II. He leaves behind a treasure box with six compartments to be opened during her birthday week. He also tells her to watch for the gris-gris while he is gone. Looking out for swamp creatures and dealing with wartime rationing is hard enough, but now there’s a British refugee staying at the house! How will Emma enjoy her birthday and keep her decision to hunt the gris-gris a secret with a stranger following her around?

 

++++++++++

 

donna - Copy

 

Best-selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of flash fiction, children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection.

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Staying True To My Roots

 

buffalo.jpg

 

For many years when I was growing up, the whole family would pile into the old family car every summer and make the trip over the mountains to visit my Aunt Betty and Uncle Elmo. They lived in Oklahoma, not far from the Cherokee Indian Reservation, and ran a small gift shop and general store just outside the reservation lands. We would even sometimes visit some the buffalo farms scattered among the rolling hills not far from where my aunt and uncle lived.

I grew up knowing I was part Cherokee. It comes from my mother’s side of the family and I can only imagine what my mother’s ancestors must have been like. My mother was many things, good and bad, but the thing I remember most about her is what a strong spirited woman she was.

At least one branch of the Ownby family tree was made up of full-blooded Cherokee and my grandparents even traveled from North Carolina by covered wagon…from an area where the Eastern Band of Cherokees remain today… to eventually settle in the mountains of Arkansas where my mother, eight siblings and her parents lived in a log cabin barely big enough for all of them. Mother was one of the oldest and worked hard on the farm to help put food on the table.

During the summers when we would make the trek to Oklahoma, I would get a chance to visit with some of mother’s relatives from the Cunningham side of the family and I knew right away they were descendants of the Western band of Cherokees. Those Cherokee were the people who survived the Trail of Tears and settled on the reservation set up for them in Oklahoma. Today I wonder if my Oklahoma cousins actually lived on the reservation back then…maybe my sister knows…but I always felt like I had stepped into another world when I would visit.

I can remember helping out in the general store and shyly hiding behind the counter to watch the people from the reservation as they would come in to do business with my aunt and uncle. Black hair and deeply tanned skin wouldn’t match my auburn hair and very fair skin but still our spirits called to one another and I knew in my heart my roots would always be with the Cherokee people.

For many years one of my favorite souvenirs was a small indian doll dressed in buckskin dress that was given to me on one of my visits. I’m not sure where that doll is now, but I still have the cherry colored doll house dining room set my Aunt Betty gave me for my birthday one year. It had belonged to her mother and is now more than 80 years old but I still have it…a reminder of my annual trips back to the reservation and a step back in time to the world of the Cherokee…

 

cherokee.jpg

 

************

 

[wpvideo Zvs6WtXV]

 

*************

donna

International best selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy), is now available in eBook and print form from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and other online retailers.