I've spent my entire life with one foot stuck in the Blue Hair Zone -- that world of genteel decorum which doesn't exist today but from which there is no escape.  This is the world I write about. 

The Blue Hair Zone's not on the map.  It never was.  In order to get there, you had to be from there.  Your daddy had to be from there and your mama's people had to be from there.  Then you belonged, no matter how sorry you turned out to be.

The Blue Hair Zone has gone the way of pink hair rollers and children who say "ma'am."  It dissipated slowly and we called it progress.  You might run across a patch of it in a small town today and you'd react the same way as if you'd run into some backroad store and found a bottle Coke nestled in a tub of crushed ice.  You'd smile, feel a twinge of nostalgia, and then go on about your business.  In a thousand years, archeologists will dig into the rubble of this world and pull out the artifacts:  white gloves and tea cups. 

Some future anthropologist will write a dissertation on how the women of this society subsisted on a diet of cheesestraws and cucumber sandwiches, but the quaint customs will be lost.  We no longer feel it's necessary for our pocketbook to match our shoes. 

A few truisms linger today:  we still watch what we say about others; Heaven forbid we should criticize someone in front of their husband's cousin's sister-in-law's mother.  After all, rudeness is the cardinal sin.  We don't admit it in public, but deep in our hearts, we still believe men should pay for dates.  And when we meet someone, we can tell if they "were raised right."  We don't talk about it, but we know. 

Every action was a reflection on our parents.  We didn't have to be pretty or smart, but we were going have good manners.  Don't talk back to your elders.  The salad fork goes on the outside.  Ladies don't chew gum in public.  It's not polite to talk about money.  Or sex.  Don't wear black to a wedding.  Never create a scene in public.  You be a good girl and when you grow up, Prince Charming will come along and marry you and take care of you for the rest of your life.  After all, marriage is forever.

The Blue Hair Zone began to lose its grip during the late sixties and today, the rules have changed completely.  I'm quite sure nobody asked my mother.  She simply wouldn't have allowed it.  Nowadays, it's apparently okay to break in line and slam the door in someone's face. 

We shared our first telephone with four families on our street.  We couldn't use our phone on Saturday because Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Poss spent three hours on Saturday afternoon planning their Sunday School lesson.  It would have been rude to ask them to let us make a call.  Today, you can talk on your phone in the middle of a wedding and it's okay.

My stories come from the Blue Hair Zone.  I hope you enjoy them.

"Southern Moments" was the Essay Runner-Up in the William Faulkner Competition at the 2001 Words and Music Conference in New Orleans.

"My Dearest Hattie . . ." was published in FreeFall Magazine, Alexandra Writers Centre, Canada

 “How Will We Bury Cousin Dub?”  Glimmer Train Spring 2001 New Writers Contest Finalist

“Bucket of Worms,”  Zoetrope’s All-Story Extra, January 2000, co-authored by Betty Jane Hegerat, author of Running Toward Home and a volume of short stories to be released in the Spring of 2008. Betty Jane and I wrote this via email without planning in advance what was going to happen.  I traveled to Calgary to meet her in 2002 and the Alexandra Writers Centre held a wine and cheese party for us to read this story.  Here's a picture of us in costume.   

For a while, I wrote a gardening column for the internet site Suite101 and you will find a sampling of those on my Gardening Page. 

My novel, Ada Alice, was a Finalist, Novel-In-Progress, in the William Faulkner Competition at the 2001 Words and Music Conference and won First Place, Historical Fiction, Authorlink, Harriette Austin Conference at the University of Georgia in 2002 . My agent is presently shopping Ada Alice to New York publishers.  Here's a snippet.  Ada Alice.