Romantic Inclinations

My mother had a romantic streak a mile wide. She used to read romance stories and listen to romantic music on the radio everyday. She also went to the movies as often as she could.

 

In those days, the drugstores sold romance magazines. I don't remember all of her favorite titles, but I recall Ranch Romances.

 

As a Southerner, her favorite songs were often, but not always, the songs she heard on the Grand Ole Opry and on other radio shows of her youth. I remember The One Rose That's Left in My Heart and Mexicali Rose. After we moved to California, she became a fan of Glen Miller and especially liked his Moonlight Serenade.

 

One of her favorite songs was Faded Love played by Bob Wills and his string band Texas Playboys. Patsy Cline later recorded it and then Johnny Rodriguez. I personally like Patsy's version.

 

Somehow, my mother loved the movies of Gene Autry. I recall that she would take me with her and we'd sit in the back row. The only movie of his that I remember from that time was some sort of surreal science fiction story about Gene traveling to another planet. Odd.

 

I actually never liked Gene Autry until I was much older. I considered singing cowboys sissies. Give me Johnny Mack Brown anytime. But oddly, his movies often included songs that I call Western Music to distinguish it from Country Music.

 

Western Music in my mind is a mixture of songs about cowboys and pop songs that found their way into the pop charts. Cowboy songs include tunes like Back in the Saddle Again and Cool Water. This was a Sons of the Pioneers version and very listenable.

 

One of Gene's songs that made it to the pop charts was his rendition of Blueberry Hill. This tune later became a rock and roll favorite by Fats Domino.

 

My mother continued to listen to this kind of music all of her life, and I've continued her listening habits. I have much of the music she loved on tapes and discs and I listen to them when the mood strikes me.

 

I hope that one of my daughters picks up on my musical tastes. Music is a generational glue, one of the means we have of passing along an authentic bit of American culture.

 

Technorati Tags: Country Music,Western Music,Gene Autry,Fats Domino,Patsy Cline,Johnny Roqriguez,Sons of the Pioneers,Glen Miller

My Favorite Romance Author

...happens to be Jeannie Watt.

I have an unfortunate habit of raving about the things I like. And this novelist is a newly-discovered delight.

I stumbled across her purely by accident one day while passing a bookrack in a supermarket. I'd been looking for a Western novel and my eye happened to fall on the nicely illustrated front cover of a book sitting askew in the bottom shelf, partially obscured by another book. All I could see was a cowboy and some ranch buildings, so I grabbed the book and ran.

At home, I noticed that it was a Harlequin romance novel and I put it aside, thinking perhaps I'd send it to my daughter since I never read romance novels. It just isn't manly. Or so I thought.

Later that day in a moment of inactivity, I leafed through the book and couldn't put it down. The title of the novel was The Brother Returns and the author was Jeannie Watt.

Later, I did a little research for other novels she'd written and found A Difficult Woman, which I promptly ordered from Amazon.com. This one was better yet, so good that I wrote a review on Amazon, followed recently with an as yet unpublished review for Barnes and Nobel. Writing reviews is something else I never do.

Now, I'm scouting around for The Horseman's Secret, a book that gave birth to a sequel about a brother who returns. Fortunately, my daughter has ordered one for me, which if all goes well, should arrive in a week or so.

In the meantime, I eagerly await Jeannie's newest novel, Cop on Loan, scheduled for release in October 2008. I have no idea of the plot of this story, but the title intrigues me.

Later this month, you might catch Jeannie at the Romance Writers of America annual national conference, to be held in San Francisco at the Marriott, July 30-August 2, 2008.

So, what is it about her writing that I particularly like? For one thing, she writes about ordinary people. They live ordinary lives much like the lives of the rest of us. Until love strikes. But even then we can relate to their angst.

And her characters are superbly drawn. She rounds out not only the protagonists but the supporting cast as well. In A Difficult Woman, she drew my personal attention by skillfully weaving an older man, Luke, into the story so completely that I immediately recognized him as someone out of my own youth.

My Mom and Dad had an older friend much like Luke. This friend was a bartender at, surprise, surprise, a place in California called the Owl Club. Coincidentally, the Owl Club is the name of a casino in Jeannie's story and the central location for much of the action in A Difficult Woman. Not the same Owl Club of my youth, of course, but close enough to fire my dormant imagination.

Jeannie's dialogue, especially the male dialogue, also drew my attention. If you didn't know better, you'd think that Jeannie Watt is a male author using a female pen name. But no, Jeannie is a woman, a school teacher, married, with two grown children.

Above and behind her startling technique and writing skills, however, I respect her hard word and tenacity. Here is a person who has persevered. Among other things, she's taught school, raised children, worked a ranch, and goodness knows what else, all the while following her dream of becoming a writer. Her life story reads like a novel in and of itself.

Okay, I've raved long enough. I've been criticized in the past for pouring it on too thickly, but as I mentioned earlier, it's one of my many character defects. The possibility that I might change is rather remote.

We like what we like. What else can I say?

Technorati Tags: Ranch Romances,Modern Love Stories,Romance Writers of America,Harlequin Romances

Poetry is in My Soul

Well...sometimes. The poetry I like must be short, simple, and without underlying mysteries.

I am not a person who likes to labor when I read something. Of course, I violate my personal preference with Robert Frost. But then again thinking about Frost's The Road Not Taken or Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening isn't work at all. It's a tantalizing memory trip filled with pleasantries or regrets as we chose.

A beautiful poem the teacher made us memorize in the Sixth grade is Trees by Joyce Kilmer. I wasn't alive when Kilmer composed his classic, but classics live a long time and occasionally I still run the poem's words through my mind.

This one isn't a poem but a song composed by a Russian guy named Israel Isidore Beilin. It's called God Bless America, another one drilled into my developing brain by a school teacher. Funny how the sounds of youth can make us goose pimply. This one sung by Kate Smith will do that to me.

With me, liking isn't about analyzing something and saying, "Ah, I like this because the iambs are so perfect." My personal sense of liking is just a gut feeling, a sort of almost-instantaneous pleasant experience which causes me to say, "Hey, I like that," without further deconstruction.

The way I view life, poetry is kind of like music. Sounds touch our soul. Words well expressed can have the same effect. Like this:

I've got the bottle-blond blues
blue as I can be

That bottle-blond babe's
gonna be the death of me.

Now, that's what I call poetic.

Just kidding.

Technorati Tags: Robert Frost,Joyce Kilmer,Irving Berlin,Kate Smith

A Kiss is Just a Kiss

Remember these lyrics from the 1942 movie Casablanca?

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

I saw the movie recently on HBO or some other movie rerun channel and listened once again to one of my favorite romantic melodies.

But this time around, I thought about the lyrics from another angle. It dawned on me that a kiss isn't just a kiss.

Every kiss is unique. There are kisses that presage passionate sex, deep and demanding.

There are duty kisses, you know the ones I'm talking about, the kiss at the door after a date you didn't want to go on anyway.

There are tentative kisses, exploratory, halting, interrupted as you fall back and ask, "Is that what kissing is all about? Hmmm. Not bad."

And then, there is the kiss of love and romance. Here is a passage from a story describing the sweetest kiss of all. Let me set the scene.

Cowboys and cowgirls are gathered around a Dutch oven near a trailer parked on the grounds of a rodeo. All of them are rodeo participant except the main character, Roy Magothy, a friendly deputy sheriff who has decided to tutor the rough bill riders on romance.

***

One of the cowboys says, “Well, kiss the girl, Roy. That’s the only reason you’re here.”

Another one says, “This is a public place, Dave. Roy’s too polite for that.”

Everyone laughs except Argie. She knows her face is warm and red.

Roy says, “Well, now, boys, and you young ladies, too, a decent Arizona boy doesn’t just crudely grab a girl. At least not in the presence of the young lady’s mother.” He nods politely to Argie’s mother.

“Give us the benefit of your sophisticated experience, Roy,” Jake says.

“Tell us about it, Roy,” a bull rider says through muffled laughs.

Looking at Argie’s mother again, Roy says, “With your permission, Ma’am, I’ll instruct these untutored boys in the ways of true love. If I offend or embarrass you, I apologize in advance so that I can continue without interruption until my lesson is complete.”

“Go ahead, deputy, I’ve heard them all, but I’d like to hear yours, too.”

Roy smiles at the older woman. “First of all, ma’am, I don’t want to slander these fine but misguided Arizona boys. I’ve known most of these uncivilized and untutored riders all of my life. They’re merely rough and uncouth. The only thing they’ve ever kissed is a horse. I’ve even arrested a couple for sheer foolishness, but they were so pathetic, I let them go. They are good boys suitable for marriage under most circumstances, but they need guidance.”

“Well, get on with it, Roy,” Jake says. Maybe I’ll learn something myself."

Roy begins slowly. “First of all, boys, and you maidens, too, true Arizona romance is about anticipation. When that first kiss happens, it has to be the most natural and gentle kiss in the world. Remember, a kiss of real love isn’t a lip-grinding exercise. It isn’t a race to see if you can reach your partner’s tonsils first.”

Jake collapses in uncontrollable laughter. “Where have I heard this?”

Roy goes on. “A true-love kiss is silent and very soft, a gentle touch. Remember the old Arizona adage that I am making up as I go along: A kiss is in the lips, the pleasure of a kiss is in the brain.”

One of the girls pretends to swoon. “You tell them, deputy.”

Roy smiles. His voice becomes softer. “Think of a kiss like this. Imagine a single rose petal falling softly across your lips, so softly that at first you don’t even know it’s there.”

A bronc rider rubs his lip with a rope-roughened finger. “Yeah, I can feel it now.”

Roy continues with a voice filled with barely-controlled passion. “Deep in your brain, where emotions reside, feel the weightlessness of the rose petal. Now hold that sensation. Soon, the petal becomes warm then hot, like fire. But it doesn’t burn. It is so exquisitely beautiful that you can’t describe it.”

Roy pauses.

“That’s so heartfelt, deputy,” a girl sighs.

“But that isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning. Soon, you begin to phase out everything. Lights dim, sound becomes muted. Suddenly, the world around you is black and silent. Nothing exists but you and the rose petal. You’re in a trance, no sensation but the rose on your lips.” Roy looks at the sky as if in a dreamy trance.

“Look at me,” a cowboy hollers rolling his eyes. “I’m numb.”

“Still,” Roy says, “The kiss continues. Think about remaining in that trance forever. Nothing exists but your lips and your partner’s lips, touching like the touch of a rose petal. Imagine the taste of that rose petal. It is exquisite, like nothing else on earth.”

Roy glances around. The girls look at him with rapt attention waiting for him to continue. Even the cowboys seem subdued.

Argie’s face is a flaming red. His words have caught her off guard. Where did this ignoramus find such emotion?

Roy looks at the older woman and smiles. She has a mischievous grin and humor in her eyes.

She says, “God, deputy, where did you get the poetry in your soul?”

“I read it in a Superman comic Jake gave me, Ma’am, when I was ten years old.”

***

Remember this. A kiss isn't just a kiss. Each kiss is unique. You recall the most exquisite kiss of your life, don't you? Relive that kiss and I believe you will agree with me.

Romance Novels

I don't ordinarily read romance novels, preferring instead a good Western. However, put together a modern Western with romance in it, and I might be able to get into it.

That's what happened with a couple of novels by Jeannie Watt. I read her "The Brother Returns" followed by "A Difficult Woman." I stumbled across them by accident at a super market book rack. I was enthralled by her writing, character development, and dialogue. I'll just sum it all by by saying, "Man, she's a gooood novelist.

Another favorite author is Nicholas Sparks. His novels aren't strictly romance. Some are romances wrapped in a mystery, and those are the one I like. I've just finished "A Bend in the Road." Before that, I had read "True Believer" followed by its sequel "Love at First Sight," two top-notch novels.

These two fiction authors are the first I have read in more years than I can recall without giving away my real age, which isn't as high on the scale as most think but certainly high enough to provide me with the wisdom to avoid adolescent impulses.

If you haven't already read these authors, try them. You may like them.