HATE MAIL

I received a chain email this morning. Unless they're incredibly funny, I never pass them on, regardless of topic. I think chain letters are the poorest form of communication. Not only do we use another's (usually a stranger's) words to speak for ourselves, the letters often prey on everyone's superstitions, fears, hopes, weaknesses, and that all too human temptation to play whisper-down-the-lane.

This one, however, stuck with me like a flu bug, so I decided I had to respond. At first I thought I'd just hit reply-all, but what I want to say ought to be said openly, so, although I rarely use my blog as a blatant soapbox, this was important to me.

The chain letter began:
"Great grandfathers watched as their friends died in the Civil War.
"My father watched as his friends died in WW II.
"And I watched as my friends died in Vietnam."

I can't reproduce the entire letter--it's too long--but here are some other statements:

"I'm standing up because the hundreds of thousands who died fighting in wars for this country, and for the American flag."
"Let me make this clear! THIS IS MY COUNTRY!"
"This statement DOES NOT mean I'm against immigration!"
_______________

First of all, I have to admit, none of my great-grandfathers watched their friends die in the American Civil War. (At the same time, none were slave-traders, nor did they slaughter Indians and run them off their lands.)

However, here's the story of my great-grandpop, Carmen Ronca. In the 1880s, he worked in the marble quarries of Italy, which was dangerous and back-breaking. He could read. So he wanted to come to America, then bring over his wife and children. He didn't except streets paved with gold; he just wanted a better life and more opportunities for his family. He was poor, so when a chance to work his way over to America in the boiler room of a Portugese steamer came up, he jumped at it. What he didn't realize was that the steamer's crew took advantage of his enthusiasm and ignorance of their language. The steamer landed, not in North America, but in South America.

Carmen was able to work his way north as far as Mexico and tried to use his papers at the Texas border. The officials told him no, he had to go to Ellis Island. He didn't have the money. Meantime, the U.S. railroads were hiring Mexicans (because, gee, they worked cheaper and would do work Americans were unwilling to do in conditions Americans wouldn't touch), so Carmen was hired as a Mexican to build and repair America's railroads. Technically, he was an illegal immigrant. After a year or so of this, when he was in Pittsburgh, he was told they were sending him back to Mexico. He showed his immigration papers, and some sane official processed him through Brownsville, PA. He got a job in coal mine, in even more horrendous working conditions, but was finally able to bring his wife and family over to America. After a few years, he move to eastern PA to be near other relatives. He worked in the limestone quarries. Limestone, Carmen said, was at least easier to cut than marble, and he was out in the fresh air.

Carmen never became a citizen, but he flew both the American and Italian flags over his house every day of the rest of his life. His sons fought in World War I, and his grandsons in World War II. Somewhere in the U.S. Army archives is a photo of Richard Ronca holding the Nazi flag after his unit liberated the town of Colmar, France. Major Robert Ronca served in Korea, then led the first air mission over North Vietnam. A few weeks later he was killed in action when his plane was shot down.

One other story: my grandfather, Giuseppe Ciccocioppo, came to America in 1912. Even before becoming a citizen, he served in the U.S. Army in World War I. He kept his Army nickname, Joe Chicco, because Americans treated him better. During World War II, Joe would walk down to the train station each day to see off or welcome home troops. His son Francis served in the Army in Europe. His other son, Joe B. Chicco, served in the Navy aboard the USS Mobile in every major naval engagement from August 1943 to the end of the war. You can read this son's WW2 diary at www.1945chicco.blogspot.com. As a result of his service, Joe B. also suffered from severe chronic PTSD until the day he died.

I get a little tired of folks like the person who wrote that email, who seem to think immigrants have nothing to do with America's war sacrifices. Take a look through the database at http://militarytimes.com/valor/ -- of those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, most don't have your basic Sons of the American Revolution names. A big percentage are Hispanic, and a huge percentage of those are Mexican.

Whoever wrote that email had an ancestor who was an immigrant--doesn't matter how far back in time you go. Yet, in saying he's not against immigration, he shows that he sets himself apart from, and obviously in his own mind, superior to, immigrants.

He says this is HIS country. Well, no sir, it isn't. America is a democracy, which means none of us can lay singular claim to it. We share ownership, and stewardship. And all of us are descendants of immigrants.

Please don't let people like this spread hate and division. The world doesn't need any more of either.

Peace,
Elena

Memorial Day

I posted this last year on Facebook for Memorial Day. It's just as appropriate this year. They're still haggling over the fate of the Wilderness Battlefield. We're still fighting wars.
____________________

In my first book, Pat asks Miss Maggie if she's against all the development around the Wilderness Battlefield in Virginia. Miss Maggie says she's against the very grass, because the grass grows over battlefields, heals them, and stops us from being able to picture what really happened there. We forget how awful war is and we do it again. I stole Miss Maggie's thoughts from Carl Sandburg in his poem "Grass":

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
...
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What is this place?
Where are we now?
...

Last night I heard that Walmart is building a 141,000 sq. ft. superstore right in Miss Maggie's backyard, on the Route 3 dividing line between Chancellorsville and Wilderness, right about where the rear of the union line was located. If you want to find out about this latest fiasco of greed over meaningful history and what you can do, check out www.civilwar.org/walmart08. At this point, it looks like Walmart's going to win.

Up on this side of the Mason-Dixon, we around Valley Forge have been fighting the building of a hotel and other development on top of the Continental Army's commissary site during the winter of 1777-78.

What is it that makes local officials want to give away the best of our historical sites--the places from which we and future generations have the most to learn--to money-grubbing giants who won't even have the grace to leave a few dollars of their profit in our own local economies? Why do we do this to our most sacred American places?

Maybe Sandburg's poem has another side -- maybe we WANT our history covered. Most of it isn't as pretty as we'd like. Especially the battlefields. Then again, if the grass didn't do its work, I'm betting that humankind would have given up war long ago.
_________________

Peace,
Elena

Vacation Recommendation (for real!)

The photo on my banner above is of Montgomery Cemetery in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Seemed appropriate, considering my Possessed Series novels are semi-historical ghost mysteries. Cemeteries can evoke thoughts of ghosts and mysteries, and this particular burial ground is as historic as they get. Also, Montgomery Cemetery plays a significant role in my 4th (and yet unpublished) novel--titled FEAR ITSELF.

Like my protagonist, Pat Montella, I had kin (a grandmother, 2 uncles, an aunt, and 4 cousins) who lived within a block of Montgomery Cemetery. Their street ended right at the gates. As a kid, the graveyard seemed ancient to me. Derelict, too. Stones were toppled, the grass was always high. I never saw anyone venture inside. My relatives, as far as I was concerned, lived beside the mysterious ruins of a bygone civilization. How cool is that?

Fast forward a few decades, to when the Historical Society of Montgomery County took charge of the cemetery and began restoring the grounds and giving free tours. Main reason for today's blog--their tours continue this weekend and I highly recommend them. See info at the end of this article.

Before about 1850 in America, public burial grounds were usually potter's fields, that is, cleared land used for burying anyone who had no connection with a church, no burial plot on their family's property, no money for a funeral, or for anyone who died while traveling and had no family nearby. Sending a corpse home was a rare occurrence. Embalming fluid didn't catch on until the Civil War. These fields often had few or no markers.

Mid-19th century, the idea of "garden cemeteries" became popular. These were public parks where you could come to picnic on a Sunday afternoon while paying respects to your deceased loved ones. Montgomery Cemetery was founded in 1847 with this concept in mind, although it's laid out in a formal pattern instead of meandering like many other garden cemeteries (West Laurel Hill near Philadelphia, for example). Montgomery was actually one of the first cemeteries of its kind and has one of the largest collections of underground vaults in the region. (An underground vault is essentially a subterranean mausoleum--a room with shelves, usually accessed by ladder through a slab on top.)

If you're a Civil War buff, you shouldn't miss this place. Montgomery was the final resting place of 5 Union generals, the most famous being Major-General Winfield Scott Hancock, said to have "saved the Nation" at the Battle of Gettysburg, before going on to become a candidate for U.S. President in 1880, losing by a very narrow margin to James A. Garfield (who was shot only 4 months later). Hancock's funeral in Norristown was attended by thousands, and his pallbearers included Generals Sherman, Sheridan and Buell, and Secretary of State Bayard.

The other generals buried in Montgomery were Hartranft (the officer in charge of the Lincoln Conspiracy prisoners, who gave the final order for the first execution of a woman in the U.S.--he went on to become governor of Pennsylvania and welcome the world to the state during the American centennial celebration), Slemmer (who fired the first Union shots of the war), Zook and McClennan.

The cemetery is chock full of other historic personages, plus fascinating stories, like the huge mound that supposedly marks a witch's grave, and the tale of Charles Hunsicker whose skull was stolen by grave robbers. Legend has it that the robbers all went on to became victims of some form of accidental decapitation. Besides all this, Montgomery's tomb architecture is amazing--worth the trip all by itself.

For more info on Montgomery Cemetery and the free tours, go to
http://www.hsmcpa.org/cemetery.htm

Peace,
Elena

A WRITER'S PLAYGROUND

The most-asked question of authors is "Where do you get your ideas?"

Give a kid a large empty box and it becomes a cave, a clubhouse, maybe even a spaceship. Kids have no trouble taking something as ordinary as cardboard and creating whole universes.

We all did this when we were young. A towel pinned to the shoulders becomes a cape (Batman phase). An old tennis racket becomes a guitar (Beatles phase). My bike was once a bobsled (I marvel that I survived my Olympic phase). The alcove behind a neighbor's garage was, for eight of us one summer, a detective agency (and no, I never outgrew that one).

What do adults call play? Our games are structured, with fixed rules. Our fantasies become private. Like lions, who as babies wrestled each other to learn how to kill, adults use their old play skills for gain--flirting, scamming, and playing mind control games with bosses and kids.

But in writing--actually, in any creative activity--you get to be a child again, playing "what-if" with whatever happens by. Like the child, the writer's imagination won't be sparked by every little stimulus. Surrounded by toys, a seven-year-old might whine "There's nothing to do!" I feel exactly like this when trying to come up with a story (I try to keep the whining to a minimum). Agatha Christie described the feeling as "broody."

I can never predict what my imagination will grab hold of. I've tried to introduce subjects to it. Other people have tried, too: "Why don't you write a book about such-and-such?" This doesn't work for me. Conscious planning is a left-brain activity, creativity is right-brain. Stories aren't carefully blueprinted and built, like houses. They grow, like living things. And often they grow from tiny seeds, not real ideas at all. No more than glimmers, nudges.

A month before I began BY BLOOD POSSESSED, I had a vague notion that I might write a mystery with a ghost. The whim had a "been done" feeling, though, so I couldn't get started. The seed was a dare from my brother Tom to write a book with two first-person protagonists. I thought it might work, if the two were never in the same scene together and the narrative voices were unique. I played "what-if": What if one voice was contemporary and one historical? What if I tie the modern and historical stories together using the ghost? What if I make the canvas bigger than just a haunted house? Et cetera. The concept went from simple "been done" ghost mystery to a novel about families and war that I had to write.

Idea-growing shouldn't take place at a computer keyboard. The notions need to come together in your head first. Most authors admit that they create stories while doing something boring: driving or doing laundry. Walking seems to help me. Or doing jigsaw puzzles. Christie said she wrote best while washing dishes.

So, where do writers get story ideas? They simply make spaceships out of cardboard boxes. Any child can do that.

Peace,
Elena