Category Archives: Character Confessions

Moving To America

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Tog Ericson has getting a lot of press here but today, in this edition of Character Confessions, I get to grill him about something that he might wish he never did.

Scott: Thanks for agreeing to meet with me Tog.

Tog: You’re welcome Scott. I know some of your Character Confessions articles have been a little confrontational but I trust you after reading the three posts I’ve already been featured in.

Scott: I’m glad you’re feeling comfortable speaking with me today. So which of the those was your favorite?

Tog: That’s easy…How to Do Those Things You Love. I really enjoyed giving people some tools to enjoy life. Though being one of the first characters introduced in Bluebell’s Top Ten was pretty cool too and giving me a chance to show my logical side in Interpret the Facts Carefully made me feel good.

Scott: Wow, if I didn’t know better Tog, I’d think I paid you to mention those articles to help promote interest in this blog. So “Bluebell” takes place in and around Drewsport, but that wasn’t always home to you, right?

Tog: I guess you’ve done your homework Scott. Shortly after Christine and I married, we left Sweden to join others from our homeland that had settled in Wisconsin.  For several years I worked for my uncle on a large dairy farm.  Continuing in the frugal, hard working tradition of our families, we soon had our own small farm.

Scott: But something else happened during those first years in America. Can you tell me about it?

Tog: We “attempted several times to bring an heir into the world, but each pregnancy ended disastrously” for our child.  “Following two such incidents, in which Christine nearly lost her life; the doctor” advised us to avoid future attempts.

Scott: Oops…my journalistic talents must be slipping. I just realized that Drewsport isn’t in Wisconsin, so what prompted leaving your new home and heading here?

Tog: “With the realization that she would be unable to bear children, Christine was beset by periods of deep depression.  This seemed to greatly aggravate what had been only a minor bronchial condition.  After consulting numerous doctors, it was decided that Wisconsin winters offered little opportunity for improvement.”  So, overriding Christine’s adamant objections, I sent her to live with my uncle, “leased the farm to a young couple newly arrived from Sweden, and went in search of a place wherein to start anew.”

Scott: So you left family and the home you’d built and went searching for another place to live. How did you determine where to look?

Tog: “With the aid of the U. S. Weather Bureau,” I “chose an area, west of the Mississippi River, which promised temperatures and humidity readings closest to those the doctors had recommended.” 

Scott: I love that you cared so much for her that you’d give up what you’d created in Wisconsin. How did Drewsport become your destination?

Tog: The final decision came down to topography. “The low wooded hills offered the only break” I “had seen in the otherwise, rather barren landscape.  Not being a particularly prosperous part of America,” I “was able to purchase two adjoining sections of choice land at a very depressed price…erected a fine house near the small stream that wandered amiably through the property, and went east to bring Christine to her new home.”

Scott: And then, after all that, you had the terrible experience of being with your God children when you discovered their mom had been beaten. I guess after all that’s happened, you and Christine probably wish you’d never left Sweeden?

Tog: Actually Scott, it’s just the opposite. Moving here, we met Doc Ferguson and without him, Christine might never have gotten the medical help she needed. And how we came to be God parents is a story that almost seems too good to be true. We love our home.

Scott: And it sounds like you’ve just made a pretty successful pitch for a follow-up interview. I’ve got a lot of other characters to talk with Tog, but if time allows, I think we just might speak again.

Tog: Works for me. “Bluebell” is a pretty long book and I’m not going anyplace soon.

Well readers, Tog is my 4th Character Confession post but there are lots of characters in “Bluebell” so don’t be surprised when you see the 5th edition soon. And speaking of what’s to follow, here are a few ideas…

Could I Fix Another Tractor

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Some life situations make us more uncomfortable than others and that’s the situation Struther Tanksley found himself in that I want to focus on in today’s ‘Character Confessions‘ post.

Scott: Struther, I really appreciate you stopping by today.

Struther: And I’m glad you asked me to stop…though I hope it won’t take too long.

Scott: Why?  Do you have another tractor to repair?

Struther: How did you hear about that?  You been spyin on me?

Scott: No Struther.  I read my dad’s book Bluebell and know about how you fixed Tog’s tractor.

Struther: Yeah, I wish that was the only thing I had to deal with that day.  I remember when I saw him, I “waved and shouted;  “G- got the t-tractor runnin’…”  Then, seeing Christine and the girls scurrying into the house” I broke into the lurching gait I call running.

Scott: The girls?

Struther: The Watkins’ girls.  “When Claude and Charlotte Watkins had asked that he and Christine be the godparents of their two children, the Ericsons were thrilled; and through the years they had come to love the girls as their own.”

Scott: After the girls were safe with their godmother, is that when Tog brought you up to date on what had happened to their mom?

Struther: Yeah, I remember his sayin, “Charlotte Watkins has been…” and then it was like “Tog’s mind refused him access to the words.”  He finally went on, “She- she’s been badly injured.  Doc is going to take her to the hospital.  I’ll give you the details on the way, that is if don’t mind comin’ back with me.”

Scott: Sounds like I should keep this short for both of us Struther…thanks again for stoppin by.

What I didn’t ask him about was how he responded to Tog’s news that Charlotte had been severely injured.  The question wasn’t necessary because I knew from my investigation that after shaking his head, he said, “That’s a mighty shame” and those “last words, as a pure extension of his instinctive feelings for others, came easily in his rich, rumbling baritone, but no question followed.”

More to Learn

Bluebell is a long book, by novel standards, and this blog has been live since January 14, 2017, so there’s lots more to read here, such as…

That Phone Call You Don’t Want

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You met Stacey Norton as the second member of Bluebell’s Top Ten but I didn’t get a chance to dig into his story very deeply.  In today’s Character Confession though, digging deeper is exactly what I intend to do.

Scott: Thanks for joining me today Deputy Norton.

Stacey: It’s my pleasure Scott, but please, call me Stacey.

Scott:  Ok…Stacey it is.  Let’s jump right into what happened the day Charlotte Watkins was beaten.  You received a call from a telephone operator, yet it was Tog Ericson who found Charlotte.  Why didn’t he call you?

Stacey: There was already too much on his plate.

Scott: So he relayed this critical information through a telephone operator?

Stacey:  She wasn’t just an operator, but someone he could trust.  Being “considerably less interested in gathering or spreading gossip than most of Drewsport’s party line wags; Mary Lou Trimmer was a competent, conscientious operator.  Having read the urgency in Tog’s voice,” I imagine “the line was ringing before he had finished speaking.”

Scott: Good thing he had someone like that to lean on.  So what did she tell you?

Stacey:  I don’t know how she did it but it was like Tog was speaking to me.  This is the transcript of what I recorded that day.  “There were two men close enough to have done it.  They were both strangers to me.  One was a big white man, dark bushy hair.  He was wearing light colored overalls, same as railroad people wear.  The other fella was a Negro, medium size, uh, plaid shirt… red and black, and, um… blue overalls…it looked as though the colored man was trying to help Charlotte, but he ran when I got here.”

Scott: Wow…so it fell on you to investigate.  How did that work out?

Stacey: Well, as you can imagine, “when Mary Lou had called, she was extremely distraught, and it had taken several minutes…to unravel the story.”  My “first reaction had been to call up a posse, but a second, less dramatic, thought persisted.”

Scott: Less dramatic?

Stacey:  Yes…a “quiet, personal reconnaissance had been the result.”

Scott: Boy…I’m so glad I write for a blog rather than have to do work like that.  I think that’s all the questions I have at this time, but perhaps we can speak more later.  Thank you again for taking time out of your day to speak with me.  This is something people need to hear about.

Stacey: You’re welcome Scott.  And about people needing to hear this…if you’d get your dad’s book, Bluebell, published, more people would have the opportunity to know the whole story.

Scott: Uhhh…thanks for the encouragement?

Something else I learned from my investigation into this story.  A woman who saw him coming back to town after his initial investigation into Charlotte’s beating, said “a thoughtful frown bunched the inner reaches of Deputy Stacey Norton’s brow, and he exercised greater than normal care guiding his old Dodge along Main Street.  Beyond that, however, there was nothing to denote the tension building within him.”

You have to admire people who do this type of work on our behalf.

 

An Unsettling Meeting

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In today’s Character Confessions, I’m speaking with Carl Schenfield, the investigative reporter who went to Drewsport in 1949 to research the story chronicled in my dad’s novel, Bluebell.  “In 1934, Carl had signed on with Trans-World-Wire; and, by 1939, was one of its top correspondents in Europe.  When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor he was transferred to the Pacific…” and that’s where I want to start our interview.

Scott: You met someone while you were in the Pacific that greatly impacted you…can you tell me about that meeting?

Carl: He was a “young man, a gunner’s mate from a PT squadron, at an airstrip on Leyte.  They were there waiting for transportation north.  The boy was being reassigned after having been hospitalized for injuries incurred when his boat was blown from beneath him.”

Scott:  And you talked with him for a long time?

Carl:  No, it was “a brief encounter…war rarely leaves time for proper introductions.  Such meetings might be no more than sharing a slit trench, a life raft, foxhole, or being slung over the shoulder of some guy who’s risking his life to save your butt.”

Scott:  That doesn’t sound like ideal circumstances for investigative reporting.

Carl:  Actually, “these situations, and the myriad of others created by war, make room for an openness that is seldom achieved in more refined circumstances.  Maybe there’s an attraction, maybe there isn’t; it’s of little consequence.  In the next minute either, or both of you, could be dead.  It had been that way with…Jeremy.”

Scott: Other than what he told you, what stands out about your time together?

Carl:  We “were together less than an hour” but even in that short time, I “learned a great deal about the boy, his family, friends…and his hometown.”

Scott: Being a reporter during the war, you probably “had seen more death than a hundred men would see in a lifetime. In the midst of such wholesale slaughter, why would hearing about the death of one man make such a lasting impression?”

Carl: During my time in the Pacific, “there had been atrocities enough on both sides to foster grave misgivings concerning the state of the ‘civilized’ world.” Then the kid told me what his town had done, and “I was forced to acknowledge the truth: Ignorance, and the fear it breeds, will always combine with hate to produce the same crop.”

Scott: Thanks Carl for speaking with me today.  Can we arrange to have you back for another session?

Carl:  Sounds doable to me.

Scott:  Well folks, that does it for today but to know when Carl and I speak again, plus get updates on other new articles posted on this blog, get in touch and say, “Sign me up”!

 

A Berry Scary Day

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One day recently, I found myself sitting opposite Jennifer Robles, better known to Rowena as Jenny, to hear about one very terrifying afternoon.

Scott: Can you set the stage for me Jenny…what was happening?

Jenny:  It was during the Summer of 1899 and we were on a church sponsored weekend outing.  “Although America, at least its rural segments, had yet to enshrine Summer Camp, church or otherwise,” these types of events “were regularly enjoyed by both youths and adults.  Simple affairs, they entailed moving the rudiments of home to the less comfortable, but more exhilarating domain of nature.”

Scott: And you were about to go exploring?

Jenny:  Yes.  “Two of the teachers brought together a group, including Rowena and” I, “for a nature walk.  Empty coffee cans, and the promise of a berry hunt, added a touch of extra excitement” for all of us.

Scott:  Then what happened?

Jenny: I remember Mrs. Hauenstein, the third grade teacher, saying, “All right, children; the berry bushes are just ahead.”  Rowena and I, “faithfully adhering to Mrs. Hauenstein’s admonition to” keep her in sight, “had stayed close— for awhile.”  Then we headed off on our own.  “Not to such a degree as to have forsaken the security of hearing” her voice, “but far enough to feel…excitingly, covertly, and wickedly alone.”

Scott: And how did your decision to distance yourself from the leader work out?

Jenny: Well, “true to Mrs. Hauenstein’s word, berry bushes were plentiful, but their offerings were meager” and our interest was beginning to lag.  Suddenly, I squealed with joy.  “Ween, look!”, I said and “pointed to a cluster of berry-laden bushes atop a slight rise, just beyond an outcropping of rock.”

With a joyous shout, we rushed forward.  “Racing ahead, Rowena clambered on a rock, the first step, of what seemed a natural stairway leading to the berries.  Leaning forward, she grasped the next jagged edge, and launched herself.”

Scott: Jenny, are you OK?

Jenny:  Yeah…no, not really.

Scott:  Should we stop for a while?

Jenny:  No, it’s something I need to share…it’s just hard because sometimes I still blame myself for showing her that batch of berries.

“For an instant both feet were airborne, as she soared toward her destination.  Then, in coming to rest on the rock’s face, her right foot settled on a cluster of pebbles.  The foot skewed sideways, throwing her off balance.  In a frantic effort to find support, her left foot became wedged in a crevice between the rocks.  Arms flaying wildly, she pitched to one side, and the captive leg twisted ominously.  Upon reaching the limit of its flexibility, the bones parted with a sickening pop, and Rowena crumpled to earth.  There was a moment of near silence, then a piercing scream, as she saw the blood soaked stocking stretched taught over shards of protruding bone.”

Scott: What happened then?

Jenny:  I ran?

Scott:  You left her there alone?

Jenny:  No!  I ran back to my teacher to tell her Rowena had hurt herself.

Scott:  That was smart.  And I know from reading two other books by my dad, that she made it out OK and grew up to be a pretty great lady and your best friend.

Jenny: Yep…I don’t think she ever blamed me a bit for what happened.

Scott:  Jenny, thank you for being so open and sharing this difficult story.  I hope it gives some people the encouragement to read more about you and Rowena.

Jenny:  That would be so great.  I really want to see her book do well.  Was that too obvious a plug for the novel?

Scott:  Well I don’t think anyone missed it but that’s what this blog is all about anyway, so I don’t see any harm done.

Jenny:  Then, could you add a link after our interview, so people could download “Rowena” and get to know us both better?

Scott:  I think that’s a great idea Jenny.  Thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed and for the great story you shared.  I’ll hide the link right here so it won’t be too obvious.

Jenny:  Very clever Scott and thanks for asking me to be part of your Character Confessions series.  I read the one you did with Rowena and really liked it, especially the ‘potty mouth’ part.

Scott:  One last question Jenny.  If people want to read about that Summer day, do you know what page in the book they should visit?

Jenny:  Of course!  Have them start near the top of Page 69.

Scott:  Thanks Jenny!  Well, that’s today’s Character Confession.  Hope you’ll find my next interview as exciting as I did this one.

How Embarrassing

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I’m so very excited to sit down today with Rowena Carlson Kramer, a major character in three of my father’s novels, and get her story for my first ‘Character Confessions‘ article.

Scott: So Rowena, for today’s ‘confession’, I want to deal with a time you were afraid of something happening.  Did anything like that ever take place?

Rowena: “Go Potty!”

Scott: Umm, of course.  You know where the restroom is and when you’re done we can get started.

Rowena:  It’s not that Scott.  I was referring to what I said to my new father after he put me to bed the first night in Garwood.

Scott:  Well, you’ve got my attention.  What happened Rowena?

Rowena:  After my mother died, my father had a woman friend who didn’t want me around so he arranged to give me to a family in Garwood,  On our way, my father, “possessing the level of intellect he did, and being of the temperament he was, had given no thought to seeing” that I used the restroom “before or during the train ride.”  “In the prevailing excitement” after leaving the train, “no one else had considered the matter.”

I was still asleep when we got home, so I never saw my new mother, but I did hear a woman’s voice, once in awhile.  “It wasn’t as cold and harsh as that” of my aunt, with whom I had “stayed in those weeks following” my “mother’s death, but it lacked the melodic sweetness that lay in the precious memories of” my “mother.”

I can still feel the warm, fluffy nightgown being pulled over my head and then those huge, loving hands gathering me up and placing me gently into bed.  “Fear held no power against the delightful sinking sensation,” as I “settled into the downy depths.”

It wasn’t long after when the urgent demands of my bladder brought me to the horrible realization that I had no idea of where a toilet might be or if one existed in the house I now occupied.  I grew up with outhouses and chamber pots, and in the city with my aunt there was indoor plumbing, but I didn’t know anything about where I was that night.

I remember laying very still and concentrating on prolonging the inevitable.  The room was not totally dark, but having no knowledge of my surroundings, I dare not get out of bed.  I recall whimpering softly and “contemplating which might be the least traumatic; getting up, being unable to find a facility, and wetting the floor,” or staying where I was and wetting the bed.

Recalling all too vividly my father’s wrath at the occasion of my last accident, I was “certain that either would involve terrible punishment.”

Scott: I’m almost afraid to ask about the ending.

Rowena: That’s when ‘Uncle Jason’ came and asked me what was wrong and I blurted out, “Go Potty!”

Scott: Uncle Jason?  I thought you were picked up at the train by your new father.

Rowena:  Well yes, same man, but that’s a story better left for your First Acquaintance series.  Before I knew what was happening, “the covers were snatched away, and those great warm hands whisked” me “from the bed with such speed” that I was forced to squeeze with all my “might to avert an instant flood.”

Everything he did was gentle and soon, the ordeal was over and I was “settled in the warm folds of the feather bed.'”  He said he was sorry and that he should have had me ‘go potty’ before he put me in bed.  “Hearing the deep masculine voice” repeating my “baby phrase was strange, almost comical, but at the same time very reassuring…and from that magic storehouse, from whence flows the wisdom of children, came the realization that there had been no need for” my “discomfort.”

Scott: Wow…that could have ended so differently, especially if you were still with your real father.  It sounds like you went from fear to peace in a very short time.  How old were you when this happened?

Rowena:  I hadn’t celebrated my fifth birthday yet Scott and you’re so right about the ending.  My new father, whose nearness that night gave me such peace and security, filled my life with a love nearly equal to that of my mother, a love I cherished, and returned, for the rest of my life.

Scott:  Thank you so much for your time and openness with us Rowena.

Rowena: It was my pleasure Scott and I hope you’ll give me a chance to share some other confessions at a future date.  There’s lots to tell.

Scott:  If that gleam in your eyes is any indication, I’m sure my readers and I would love to have you share again.