Building Blocks (How’d you know that…) (Repost)

When writing we should remember that not every potential reader will envision a person, place, or thing as we do. As mentioned in my ‘About’, my writing has been described as a voice of the urban South flavored by my travels. Thanks to my journeys, both within the United States and afar, I have learned to appreciate that people who come from a specific geographic area do not all dress or act the same, or speak one well-defined colloquial language, with the same regionalism, or accent.

Nevertheless, people are people, and many people will subconsciously key in on something and leap to a conclusion about the speaker’s ‘origin’, or what an object looks like. For example, in my novel Simplicity Lane I purposely use the word ‘village’, not ‘town’ or ‘city’. How large is a village? How can a village have ‘avenues;’ and how can a village be in the US South?

When I have a cold, a nasality becomes more noticeable; thus, I will retell a favorite story (Yes, retelling stories is a Southern tradition…caught you, didn’t I).:

In 2009 I was in a restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama and, while the nice waitress, age? late fifties, was telling us more about her family than what was good on the menu, the other person at the table pondered out loud, ‘was the Zac Brown song playing on the sound system from a CD or the radio’. I responded, “It’s not from the CD.”
Waitress: (With a questionable look) “How’d you know that?”

Steve: “The lyrics on the radio are ‘toes in the water, toes in the sand’. On the CD it’s ‘toes in the water, ass in the sand’.”

Waitress: (With a very questionable look) “Hows someone with your accent know so much about country music?”

Steve: (Time to order food.) (Smile) “I like the Zac Brown Band.”

Toes written by Zac Brown, John Driskell Hopkins, Shawn Mullins, and Wyatt Durette, 2008.

I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today. Life is good today.

Time molds vivid memories from one’s past into the building blocks of one’s writing…

Boos and Booze (Homophone Flash Fiction)

The band was banned from playing at the pub again due to their recent bad performances. Someone even scribbled on the bulletin board how bored the audience had become at the base player’s sick jokes. While their bald drummer bawled, the clientele rendered lots of boos as they toasted the announcement with their booze. Thus, red as a beet, the drummer could no longer keep beat. And the blue faced trumpeter blew sour notes. It was bartender Fred who suggested the patrons form a bloc to block further atrocious music. “But,” said Fred, as he smacked a beer butt, “I would rather be bored than being smacked by a board. And their music made you want to leave your beer on the bier!”
(Bar None, © Steven S. Walsky, April 2018.)

belong and run (haiku repost)