New Series Start and Aces of Writing

The last series I kept updated petered out, so I'm starting a new one. Thinking of naming it "Everyday Sox" for reasons that should not be at all clear to anyone but me. It's a place to put not just "Great Lines" (see HERE for more of those) but also poetic asides I run across, little mementos of writing I see, or other things that I come across that are poignant and deserve being remembered. 

This first one is from a book I am reading currently. No,  . . . not a Dick Francis book. This is a non-fiction History book I'm slowly wading through, not a novel I blaze through like a runaway horse. I was a double major in college . . . English and History. Every now and then I have to feed that side of my psyche.

I like to wake up early before the household and read this by the fire with a cup of coffee. Taking my time to get through it. It's got a bit of a special place in my heart already because my grandfather was in WWII and flew P-38 lightnings. This book is about the capabilities of the P-38 and how it was used to turn the tide of the war in the South Pacific. 

This little snippet has nothing to do with the book itself but instead is a bit of color for one of the pilots that it follows. It hit home with me on several fronts. One of the pilots, when he was in school, fell for a local girl who became is sweetheart.

The girl walked past that statue, red umbrella open against the light rain. Meticulously dressed yet unafraid to get her shoes and skirt dirty she followed the muddy trail, an Oregon girl through and through, feminine with that resourceful twist of tomboy. 

The red umbrella . . . distinctive and memorable,  . . . the light rain and mud . . . descriptive and telling . . . but there's nothing that tops that last line. If you have never fallen for a feminine gal with a twist of tomboy, I highly recommend it. You'll never find any gal better than that!

What's fun is that this character and the gal with the red umbrella, they meet many times after he first catches site of her and they loiter and linger often among the head stones in a cemetery. Great stuff there. 

Then later he writes:

They chatted like long-lost old friends, the conversation never running lean. As they sparked and laughed, he felt more at east than at any other time in his life.

Now THAT's a feeling I can relate to easily!