The Stanley Transplant
An unnatural respect for John Deere tractors gets you an honorary uncle title in my mom's family. We don't have a guidebook to family inclusion or an official ceremony of any sort, but experience shows this to be the case. We adopted Stanley, a country-solid lover of green farm equipment he never uses and the polar opposite to my Aunt Nora, the proper anecdote to unsightly manners and dirty boots. Stanley came to Christmas gatherings, once deducing "that ain't no shop vac" while manhandling a freshly unwrapped box clearly labeled "Shop-Vac" but housing rather facetiously John Deere salt and pepper shakers and a matching hardback picture book.
Once, on our way to surprise Uncle Hughey preaching at Highlands United Methodist Church in downtown Birmingham, our car in the lead, Stanley caught up to us, his head out the passenger window, his arm wildly waving a two-way, informing us that Aunt Nora needed coffee. It was a cruel prank of my mom's to put Nora and Stanley in the same car, Nora's lips pursed, her eyebrows perfectly painted, her consternation conspicuously awkward.
I remember Nora's outstretched manicured hand, the starched dollar bill poised to pay for her java, followed by Stanley's large labor-marked counterpart forcing hers down to her side. "Put your money up. It ain't no good here, woman."
Later during church service, Stanley went missing, returning a good half hour later with a steaming vessel of Starbucks between his palms, scooting back to Nora's side, her guardian for the day. I later learned he had offered to bring her a cup back, which she politely refused. Church concessions, I suppose, being too avant-garde for her taste.
You have a wonderfully-engaging style to your prose, very distinct in flavor and construction. Great work.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I wonder at times if it might get a little unwieldy. But too much of a good thing, especially in drafting, is awesome – so while I caution on the wordiness of “ her consternation conspicuously awkward” and “ large labor-marked counterpart,” I also think what these phrases move toward is solid work. It just needs some cutting and restructuring in places, maybe some discarding of too many Latinate words in a row. “Consternation conspicuously” is just a lot of syllables to absorb at once.
The subject matter of this piece calls for a draft, I think. Where did we acquire this Stanley character? I get the custom of “adopting” close friends as family members—I often called some of my parents’ closest friends “uncle” and “aunt” when I was little—but I’m not sure I’m clear on where we found Stanley in the first place. His love of John Deere is not enough for me, but I want to keep reading about him as a person. He sounds fascinating.
In such a short space, you have managed to create a strong framework for two very interesting characters – Stanley and Aunt Nora. The fact that they seem to be very different or opposite from each other only adds to humorous nature of their friendship. The strong characterization comes through the small, but telling details such as Stanley's lines and Aunt Nora's facial expression and refusal of coffee. These rich details speak volumes – so much more than if you just told us that Aunt Nora prefers not to drink coffee at church. Instead, you show us something deeper through her refusal by juxtaposing her character with Stanley's. After I finished reading this journal entry, I got really excited about the idea of reading more about Stanley and Aunt Nora, and also about this trip to Birmingham. I see a lot of potential here for a great essay built around these dichotomous characters. As far as future drafts, because the characters are so strong, it would be great to see more of Stanley and Aunt Nora held together with some kind of reflective thread that runs throughout the essay. Apart from the obvious material of relationships/friendships, I wonder if you could reflect more on this idea of being inducted into a family. How does this slow process unfold? How does it start? Is there a defining moment, or are people inducted naturally and casually over time? Honorary family members might seem commonplace (for some), but I feel like it's fair game for non-obvious writing material. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't imagine a lot of people have tackled the complicated phenomenon of gaining an honorary family member. The idea would be familiar to those who have experienced this, and interesting material for those who have not. Finally, I just have to say that this is my favorite sentence in the entry, and one of the best sentences I've read in a while - "Church concessions, I suppose, being too avant-garde for her taste." I love it. I hope to see more!
ReplyDeleteMacKenzie stole everything I was going to stay, starting off with how much I enjoy this piece. You know how to put words together--and the choices, such as "java" when you switched to Nora, are perfect.
ReplyDeleteMy main concern lies in readability for your audience. As MacKenzie said, some of the discomfort results from very dense phrases packed in to your paragraphs. They're great for an analytic paper, but I'm not sure this is the right canvas for that skill. Furthermore, I'm not quite following the actual storyline just yet. I don't understand how he's become part of your family--I initially thought he married in via Nora, but that's obviously incorrect. I would suggest picking a few distinct stories about him and molding this other good stuff you've got, like the Christmas present thing, around that to further flesh out his character. Either way, you've got gold with this guy. He's demanding to be written about.