The Vow

A movie on a cold February Saturday afternoon sounded like a good idea, but to be honest, I haven’t seen that many movies lately that left me feeling glad I went once it was over.

Not so with The Vow.

For me, this was a movie that did what movies are supposed to do, offer up a story that allows for a couple hours of complete absorption, a mini-vacation of a sort.  The story gets off to a roller coaster start, a short ride up the first hill to happiness, and then it’s dropping off the other side into total uncertainty.

The Vow

Leo and Paige are two people you can’t help but want the best for.  As guys go, Leo(Channing Tatum) is a good one.  Once Paige(Rachel McAdams) snags his heart, it’s clear he’s hers for life.  His love for her is so earnest and convincing that he’s easy for us to love.

Paige’s struggle with what has happened to her(trying not to give away the story here!) makes her a little less sympathetic at times, but not enough so to make us question why Leo still loves her.

The most outstanding scene in the movie for me was the one in which Jessica Lange who play’s Paige’s mother, explains to her daughter why she stayed with Paige’s father after he had an affair with one of Paige’s friends.  Lange’s explanation is riveting, and this was the part of the story that made me cry.

Again, without giving away the plot, it was nice to leave the theatre feeling hopeful instead of hopeless.  If you’re looking for a good love story to lose yourself in, go see The Vow.  I’m glad I did.

Charlie

The day Charlie was brought to the Franklin County Animal Shelter might have been both the worst and best day of his life.

He arrived there with someone who said he had been hit by a car.  His back leg was retracted, and he could not walk at all.  He kind of rolled instead.  A Franklin County Humane Society volunteer happened to be there at the time and said she would take Charlie with her to the Rocky Mount Pet Clinic where it was determined that the injury was actually an old one.  His nails were so long and curled that they were almost embedded in the pads of his paws, compounding the difficulty he had walking.

The old injury could not be repaired in a way that would allow him to be without pain and to walk normally.  So Dr. Eric Lorens removed the leg, and there began Charlie’s journey to healing.

Shan Sirry volunteered to foster him during his recovery, and Charlie could not have hoped for a more loving, nurturing foster home.  Shan took him in as her own, shuttled him to vet appointments and therapy sessions to help him adjust to his new life as a dog with three legs instead of four.  And just gave him truckloads of love.  Which was all he’d ever really wanted anyway.

Today, Charlie starts the next phase of his new life.  Shan and her mother are driving him to New Jersey.  If all goes well, he will join his new family where he’ll receive the kind of love and care he deserves.

Dogs like Charlie leave permanent paw prints on our hearts.  Watching him heal and show joy for even the little things, a car ride, a cookie, a new toy, well, you see, that’s what it’s all about.  Every volunteer involved in his journey from that shelter to the home he’s travelling to today knows they have done something meaningful, something that matters.

Because Charlie matters.

Charlie matters.

Water Therapy

If you’re a dog who ends up in need of a new family, it would be a far better deal to be a seven pound poodle than a dog like Columbo.

You see, Columbo is a big boy.  Eighty pounds easy, and brawny with cords of muscle like a linebacker.  Oh, yeah, he’s also a Pitt Bull.

But to know Columbo is to want a dog like Columbo.  First off, he’s just drop dead gorgeous.  Like one of those pro football players who not only got the gift for the game but the looks to go with it.

Columbo’s game is a love for life.  And he’s so darn good at it.  That was the one thing he made abundantly clear during the October 22^nd Franklin County Humane Society Adoption event hosted by Tractor Supply.

The boy’s never met a stranger.  Whenever someone new would stop to greet him, he was up on his feet like the Southern gentleman he is, wagging his tail and panting one of his big goofy smiles.  “Hey, how are you?  Nice to meet you. Glad you could come out today!”  You could almost hear him say the words.

Columbo didn’t bother with sitting around looking pitiful either, dwelling on the fact that he’s been at the FCHS Adoption Center since May, watching weekend after weekend as his buddies leave with a new family or head out on a transport for New Jersey or New Hampshire.

He’s had to watch a lot of newfound friends leave him behind.  He misses them when they go.  But he has lasting people friends at the Adoption Center.  Ray, who takes care of him everyday and Karin, who tries to make sure he gets seen by the families who come to look for a dog.  And all the volunteers, too, like the ones who signed up as his date for the adoption event.

It turned out to be a beautiful day there, and Columbo enjoyed every minute of being outside in the sunshine, getting lavished with treats and chew toys, and ooohed and aaahhed over by each of his escorts.

The puppies were popular, and three kittens got adopted.

No one filled out an application for Columbo, but when the event ended, and he climbed into a volunteer’s car to head back to the adoption center, he seemed to be okay with that.  He knows he’s not a dog for just anyone, but he’s a dog for someone.  And he can wait until that person comes along.  Someone who’s been looking for a dog just like him.  They’ll be every bit as special as he is.

*******

If you’re the person Columbo has been waiting for, please email ascott@embarqmail.com.

I’m having lunch today at The Hub, my town’s place to go for a home-cooked meal that won’t leave your wallet feeling empty but will leave your stomach full.  It’s the kind of place that lists peach cobbler on the white board of daily lunch specials under Today’s Vegetables.  I’m okay with that because every once in a while it helps justify the choice.

This time, I’m being good though and having the Vegetarian Omelet and iced tea.  The waitress who takes my order has no doubt been the template for a number of secondary characters in my books.   I guess it has to be true that I’ve written about this place under one fictitious name or another a good number of times.

Doesn’t every small town have one? The diner/cafe/locally owned place that’s been around a couple of generations - a spot where you’re guaranteed to know most of the people there by face if not by name.  For me, there’s a cozy kind of comfort in that, both in real life and within the pages of a story.  A place where characters know and are known, where they stop in for an update on what’s going on in the community.

Write what you know. This was the advice given to me by teachers in my pre-published years of writing. It wasn’t that I exactly disagreed with them, but wasn’t what I knew boring and mundane, the same kind of thing everyone else knew? Wouldn’t it be much more exciting and interesting if I wrote about places like Paris and St. John, Florence and Munich?

To answer my own question, maybe, if they’re what I know.

Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to visit each of those places, and one of the things I learned from going there is that visiting isn’t the same thing as living.  I’ve experienced those beautiful spots a slice at a time, but I don’t know them like I know my own corner of the world.

If my characters feel real to a reader, I think it’s because I’ve put them in a life that is real to me in all its seemingly everyday normalcy, quirks, curiosities and all.  As writers, what might seem routine and not terribly exciting to us can be the exact opposite to our readers when we paint our story with a brush of details that give it color and life.  The red Formica tops of a diner booth.  The stainless steel stools with the royal blue cushions kids like to spin on.  The Peppermint Pattie jar that sits by the cash register.

So as I sit here, absorbing the bustle of a regular old Monday at The Hub, I realize how nice it is to belong in a place.  And as a writer, to be able to write stories that come from a place in me that get their truth from the life I live here.  From what I know.

I didn’t order the homemade coconut pie today. But I really wanted to.

A good book is like a mini-vacation, and for me, that has always been the appeal. No matter where I am – dentist’s office, doctor’s appointment, airplane – a good story can take me out of a less than appealing spot of time and put me somewhere infinitely more pleasant.

Maybe nothing does that quite like a good love story, where we follow two people who want to be together, who ought to be together, but can’t quite clear all the obstacles thrown in their way. Who doesn’t like to watch two people fall in love? Remember what the newness of that feels like?

Put them in a small town with some lovable secondary characters, and you have LaVyrle Spencer’s contemporary novels like The Hellion, Bittersweet, Separate Beds or Spring Fancy.

Put them at odds over how to heal a broken horse and the girl who loves him, and you have The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans.

Or pair Meggie Cleary with Ralph de Bricassart, and you have The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCollough.

Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester, and you have Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (loved the 2011 movie version!)

Each of these books took me through a torrent of emotions, and left me at various points along the way happy, sad, amused, conflicted, and wistful. That’s a journey well worth taking.

Many great books aren’t romance novels, but many romance novels are great books.

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John Riley's Girl

“I’m a bit sad that I got this book from the library because it would have had a place with my keepers.”

View from the Virginia Creeper Trail

If you like to cycle and crave the emotional restoration that a day spent outdoors can provide, the Virginia Creeper Trail is a great place to go for it.

A 34 mile ride from White Top through Damascus and on to Abingdon gives you the opportunity to do just that.

Here’s how we did it:

1. Book a room at the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon.  Beautiful old hotel with a great restaurant and spa.  It’s worth the trip just to stay here.
2. Rent a mountain bike at one of the local shops that cater to visitors who want to ride the trail.  Each of these shops will also provide transportation to White Top where they drop you off with your bike.  We’ve used a couple different ones, but these folks are especially nice.
3. Start the ride in White Top.  Much of this part is downhill, so it’s pretty easy.  There are many beautiful stops along the way, boulders to sit on in a river stream, trees to lean against.
4. The Creeper Trail Cafe is your reward at the end of the first 11 miles, a great place to stop for lunch or just a snack.  Highly recommend the pinto beans and cornbread, and word has it the chocolate cake is homemade.
   

   Creeper Trail Cafe

5. Pedal on for the next 6 scenic miles, and you’ll arrive in Damascus where another great stopping point awaits.  The Off the Beaten Path ice cream shop serves the biggest single serving waffle cones I’ve ever seen.  Of course, you’ll be canceling out the calorie burn of the past 17 miles, but then, you’re on vacation!
   

   Off the Beaten Path Ice Cream Shop

6. The ride to Abingdon from Damascus levels out a bit and requires a bit more pedaling.  Here’s your opportunity to make up for your ice cream indulgence.  The countryside out here becomes more dotted with pastures and cows who take cooling breaks in the river.
   

   Cows Take a Dip

By the time you get back to Abingdon, you’ll be ready to put your bike away for the day, but if you’re like me, you’ll also be looking forward to the next time you can come back.

Thank You

The closest celebrity encounter I’ve ever had was a chance elevator ride at the Buckhead Ritz Carlton with Steve Martin.  He looked exactly like Steve Martin, , and so I had no trouble recognizing him.  As soon as the doors closed, however, my tongue managed to tie itself into knots, and my eyes glued themselves to my shoes.  With every floor that passed, I couldn’t bring myself to utter a single word of appreciation for any of his movies which have given me countless laughs.

So if I ever did actually have an opportunity to thank Angelina Jolie in person, it’s very likely that I would choke again and miss the chance altogether.  But this week’s People magazine cover made me think it would be nice to have that chance.  Maybe saying it here is the closest I’ll ever get.

Even at her young age, it’s easy to see the many ways in which someone like Angelina Jolie has already left her mark in the world.  She’s made any number of blockbuster films, won an Academy Award, and served as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador.  All of that, and she’s also the mother of six children.  Yes, that was six.

And that’s the part I’d like to thank her for.  The visual she’s given us of a life completed and enriched by children, both natural born and adopted.

I can only imagine how many people have been inspired to adopt by the example she has set.  People who weren’t able to have children of their own.  And people who might already have had children but wanted to help a child in need of a family.

The adoption of our four beautiful daughters has been the greatest blessing of my own life, and I can only hope that the joy of my experience has in some way encouraged someone else to pursue the adoption of a child without a family.  If so, that will be by far my greatest accomplishment.

My children have taught me many things, most importantly that there are some things we do in life that really matter, that make a forever kind of difference.  Through them, I’ve learned that family is what happens when people commit to one another, love and take care of one another.  Isn’t that a beautiful thing?

My grandma, who had made the mistake that morning of sending the children out to play while she tried to get rid of a really bad headache with a little bit of quiet time, knew as soon as she saw my mama’s hand that it was no hen peck.  The place on her finger had already begun to swell, and my grandma guessed correctly that she had been bitten by a snake.

To back up a bit, this was 1948, and my grandparents lived in rural Franklin County, Virginia.  Back then, rural had an altogether different connotation than it does today.  My grandparents didn’t have a telephone.  My grandpa was at work, and my grandma didn’t drive.  The closest hospital was approximately twenty miles away.  On foot, it would have taken a while to get there.

My grandma, knowing that she somehow had to get Mama there as fast as she could, ran next door to my great Aunt’s house.  She didn’t have a car, either.  But the two of them made a bridge of their hands and carried my mama, running as much as they could, to the nearest neighbor, a man named Sug Brooks.  (Sug as in Sugar)

Mr. Brooks was elderly and hadn’t driven in a while.  But he didn’t hesitate when my grandma knocked at his door and, in tears, asked him if he would take them to the hospital in Rocky Mount.  No sooner had they started off than Mr. Brooks asked my grandma which gear he should put the car in.  I’m sure her heart must have dropped to the floor.

But somehow they lurched their way to the hospital that July afternoon in time to save my mama’s life from the bite of a copperhead snake.

In those days, before Steve Jobs gave us the iPhone to call 911, people were more dependent on the kindness of their neighbors.  Mr. Brooks helped my grandma and my mama even though he hadn’t driven his car in so long he wasn’t sure he remembered how.

And that’s one thing that even modern conveniences can’t replace.  There still needs to be a selfless human being on the other end of a plea for help, whether it comes in the form of a knock at the door or a cell phone call.

Thank you, Sug Brooks, for answering the knock.  May we all be blessed with neighbors like you.