BOOK FAIR

Joseph A. Zapalac, far right, was among the twenty-seven authors featured in Bolingbrook's Fountaindale Library on Saturday, April, 16. It was a great day rubbing elbows with collegues.
Other book fairs and readings are planned in the near future.
~Vada and Joseph

Two Gems for Treasured Memories?

While rummaging around in a lot of Mama's many photo albums, I found a treasure that her baby sister had given her as a gift long ago.

I saw my grandparents wedding certificate. This amazed me because it was dated February 14, 1905. However what amazed me even more was the wedding certificate of my grandparents parents. Yes, it was a certificate of my great-grandparents.

As I continued to flip through the pages my heart was stirred with each handwritten note, photograph, and even some postcards from 1918. I know I have a treasure in this album.

My aunt has a way with words, and throughout the album, I saw her unique writings. Then...something caught my eye. It was eight pages of double-spaced typed 8.5x11 sheets of paper, stapled at the top left corner. The title was "My Story."

I began reading and soon realized it was my aunt's twin brother telling his story. I began reading and could not put it down. When I reached the bottom of the last page, there wasn't any clue as to had written it.

I called my aunt and she had no idea what I was talking about, so I believe she did not write this story. I read parts to her and she agreed that it should be included in our book Treasured Memories.

The last treasure I found in this album was a tribute, or eulogy, from this same Uncle's funeral. I've gained permission from the minister to use this in our work in progress.

Now, comes my question to you...our readers. Do you think it in poor taste to put those two articles in our book?

Excerpt from "My Story"

In the summertime, our mother canned a lot. Like cooking corn in wash pots outside with ashes they took from the wood stoves. After the corn cooked, we pumped water and packed it to the house until Mother got the husk and ashes all out of the corn…then we had good hominy.

Dad, at times, would be lucky enough to kill a wild hog, and Mother would fry it and put hog lard over it in stone jars. We didn’t have a freezer or refrigerator.

Excerpt from Eulogy:

Often it took a great deal of effort, and under abnormal circumstances. Yet day after day, weed after weed was pulled. Thorn after thorn was removed. Stone after stone was thrown out and what was once a wasteland of human life became a beautiful garden of sharing and caring, that enriched every other life it touched.

The time for planting has come and gone, the time for growth has taken place, and no wonder the time of harvest would leave us with an empty feeling inside.

~Vada and Joseph

Title Change

Originally we had planned to do a book titled Lost in the Fifties. However, plans are now to do a sequal to our last book. The work in progress now is Treasured Memories: A Collection of Short Stories.

Stories and memoirs are separated in the six following subjects: Childhood, The Fifties, Love, Faith, Memoral Moments, and Special Men.

Excerpt from Treasured Memories (Childhood)

Smoking Behind the Barn

Born in 1932, the third of six children in Wharton County, I went through difficult times while living on the farm. My parents worked hard on the farm, as did my brothers and sisters. My youngest brother and I worked and played together. As teenage farm boys, we had lots of fun. One day we tired of playing, so we decided to do something different.

“Geeze, I’m tired of racing the John Deer and Farmall tractors in the garden. We’ve played just about every game I know. What do you want to do now?” I asked my youngest brother.

“I don’t know…what do you want to do?”

I thought a bit, and then said. “I know something we can do, but you have to not let Daddy catch us.”

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READ THE ENDING IN OUR BOOK...COMING IN THE FALL 2011

~Vada and Joseph