IWSG, News and Onward into the fog...er New Year

Posting the First Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate.

Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.

Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts:    Erika Beebe, Olga Godim, Sandra Cox, Sarah Foster, and Chemist Ken!

This month's question is: What's the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

The only thing I regret about my "writing career" (if you can call it that) is that I didn't start submitting and looking for an agent when I was younger. Though I've written on and off most of my life, I didn't make the effort to get "mainstream published" until I was much older - I won't say how old because now I'm REALLY old and I don't seem to have the drive to spend hours every day at the computer. 

That said, I'm happy and content with what I've done so far. Maybe some other things will get published, maybe not. Either way, it's okay.

***

On that note I'm pleased to share my article in the travel magazine, Destination: US Virgin Islands. This article is about how my grandparents came to own Trunk Bay, considered to be one of the most beautiful and most photographed beaches in the world, and how my grandmother ran a guest house there for years, without electricity.

So, Happy New Year, to me!!

This is my second article with this travel magazine. You can read my first article from 2020, HERE. The company did not print a magazine for 2021 so it was a pleasant surprise to be invited to write an article for the 2022 issue.

Trunk Bay was my first home. This is 

place where I learned to swim, body serf, and fish off the rocks with a handline.

This is probably explains why you can take the girl out of the islands, but you can't take the islands out of the girl. 

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Tomorrow is Three Kings Day, a holiday celebrated with much gusto in Puerto Rico. 

My mother was one of those children who put straw and water under her bed for the camels 

only to wake in the morning to find presents.

Happy Three Kings Day to all!

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Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful to be here and to have made another revolution around the sun.

There is SO much to thankful for, despite what the news says or what people complain about.

Now it's onward into 2022. Who knows what it will bring? More of the same? 

Something worse? Something better? 

Whatever comes, 

may we all be a calm during the hard times and joyful during the easy times. 

I pass on this Tibetan Buddhist prayer to one and all.

May you be at peace.

May your heart remain open.

May you awaken to the light of your own true nature.

May you be healed.

May you be a source of healing for all sentient beings.

Happy New Year Everyone!

A Caribbean Fish Dinner

Below is an article about my grandmother, Erva Boulon. It was written by Clementine Paddleford, a food writer who wrote for The New York Herald Tribune, The New York Sun, The New York Telegram and a magazine called This Week. This Week, was a Sunday magazine supplement that was read by as many as 14.6 million people.

The article appeared in This Week on January 26, 1958. It was recently discovered in the archives of the St. John National Park while they were cataloging and organizing. My cousin Rafe, who is Chief of Resource for the park, emailed me a copy.

I love the drawings that accompany it.

Do you think you'll try the fish and coconut torte? I can assure you, from personal experience, it's all quite tasty.

Grammy's Cookbook

I have mentioned in several past posts that my grandmother, Erva Boulon, wrote a cookbook. It is filled with recipes and anecdotes from her life.

Grammy was born in 1895 in Ada, Ohio. The opening pages of her book tell the story of how, in 1904 while living in Lincoln, Nebraska, her father announced to the family that they were moving to Cuba.

Her father, Eugene Hartwell, was a weatherman who worked for the Federal Weather Bureau (now known as NOAA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admistration) and was being transferred.

They traveled by train from Lincoln to St. Louis. From St. Louis they floated down the Mississippi on an old fashioned river boat to New Orleans. At New Orleans they got on a small freighter to Havana. The ultimate destination was the town of Cienfuegos, on the southern coast, 160 miles away. It took a day to reach by train.

As one might imagine it was a totally alien environment for Grammy's mother, Bertha. "When the question of milk arose, we discovered that the delivery was very simple: the cows were driven from door to door and milked at your door step."

"Mother was very anxious to try all of the strange new fruits and vegetables which she saw on the push carts about town, so one day she arrived from a shopping expedition with a green avocado, our first. The vendor had been reluctant to sell her the fruit as he knew it was green, but Mother had insisted. All that she had understood of his directions for using the fruit was the Spanish verb "to cook." We had green avocado cooked in syrup for dinner that evening. It tasted strangely like sweetened laundry soap and was promptly dropped from our menus."

Here's a recipe that's come a long way from green avocados cooked in syrup! Sometimes her instructions are not always clear, so I've done a little editing.  My additions are in blue.

Avocado Mold

2 envelopes of Knox's gelatin
4 cups mashed avocado
1/4 cup lime or lemon juice
3 bird peppers (a small very hot pepper) or Tabasco sauce to taste
1 cup of cold water
2 cups of boiling water
1 tsp salt (to taste)
Cooked shrimp, lobster or chicken pieces marinated in a small amount of gelatin

Soak the gelatin in cold water. Melt with boiling water. Pour a little of the clear gelatin into the bottom of a ring mold. Arrange shrimp, lobster or chicken which has been marinating in this small amount of gelatin.. Set the mold into the refrigerator to harden quickly. Combine mashed avocado, lime or lemon juice, hot sauce and salt and add to the rest of the gelatin mixture and allow to cool. When the clear gelatin has set in the mold add avocado mixture, set mold back in the refrigerator until the gelatin has hardened. Unmold on a bed of crisp lettuce leaves, fill the center of the mold with chunks of peeled tomatoes, serve with tart mayonnaise.

Check out this video of Cienfuegos, Cuba. Many of the buildings pictured were there when my grandmother was little girl of nine.

Miss Agnes

When my grandparents, Erva and Paul Boulon, began building a summer home at Trunk Bay on St. John in 1929-30 they required help.

This first building constructed at Trunk Bay, was on the beach. It's where the family lived while the main house was  being built just up the hill.

This picture shows the almost completed main house. The "roof" of the front building, with the two windows and door, had a roof added and it became the Upper Porch. I have no idea who the people are on the beach, a woman and a little girl. The woman could well be Agnes....

One of the people they hired was Agnes Sewer. It was probably Miss Agnes who taught Grammy about acquiring local food and cooking what was available. She became a member of the family, an invaluable person who not only helped Grammy take care of four rowdy children, but who also cooked delicious meals. For if there is one thing Miss Agnes knew how to do, it was cook.

My mother, having three younger brothers, was quite a tomboy. Miss Agnes was concerned about Mom running wild and felt there was need for some feminine influences.

As luck, or the Universe would have it, just over hill at Peter Bay was the perfect candidate. A year older than Mom, Ethlyn Hall had grace and intelligence. Miss Agnes made sure the two girls met and the friendship they form lasted a life time. I'll share a bit about Ethlyn next Monday.

By the time my sister Erva and I came along, Miss Agnes was an elderly lady living in a small house right on the road just outside Cruz Bay near The Pond. She had high check bones, as if there might have been a trace of Native American blood. She seemed ancient to me. More astonishing was that her mother, Miss Missy, lived across the street!

This picture, taken in 1999, is of my mother and Miss Agnes's younger brother , Roy Sewer.  You can see the same cheek bones in him.

Miss Agnes spent her days sitting in a chair in the doorway watching for people as they passed by. If she was there, you had to stop and pay your respects. Greetings and the latest news were exchanged, then, no matter how much you might insist it wasn't necessary, Miss Agnes would shuffle into her kitchen and return with a small brown paper bag containing something to eat. It might be a hard boiled egg, a johnny cake, some cheese and crackers, or a piece of coconut candy. It might be a sandwich. You never knew what you had until you opened the bag. With a hug and kiss, she sent you on your way.

If you were lucky, her mother Miss Missy would NOT be sitting on her porch because if she was you had to go see her too, which wasn't bad, except that she always insisted on "kissing you up," which wasn't bad except that she was quite toothless and her kisses were quite wet.

Some years back as Mom and I sat together reminiscing she said, "I miss Agnes as much as I miss my mother."

Well, if the Universe will have it, I'd like to think that Grammy, Mom, Ethlyn and Miss Agnes are all together in some fabulous kitchen cooking up a feast for the angels.

Before and After - Cruz Bay

This is a picture of my grandmother, Erva Boulon, riding her horse into Cruz Bay. It was taken in 1945. Almost every day, she rode the twisting, turning two miles from her guest house at Trunk Bay, to pick up the mail and do whatever shopping she could.

The large building on the near point of land is called The Battery. It was built by the Danes and was a kind of small fort. There are protecting walls and places for cannon. And...there is a dungeon. If you look closely you can see there are actually two buildings. The long one in front of the larger two story building (with stairs and balcony) was the post office. Everyone picked up their mail there. WE had our own cardboard box on the floor into which all our mail was tossed.

The far point of land that sweeps away to the right is called Gallows Point. I don't know if anyone was ever actually hanged there. However, my best friend and I certainly had fun pretending the place was haunted by blood thirsty pirates who'd been hung from the old genip tree. Sometime in the early 1950s Duke Ellington and his wife Kay built several cottages there and a had bar where locals met after work. Duke was a mystery writer. You can read a little about him here. Duke was the older brother of Steve, of Steve and Nora fame who helped us out during the drought of 1960-61.

This picture was taken at least six years ago. The seven tiny cottages at Gallows Point are long gone, replaced with resort condos. That large ugly gouge in the hillside has been filled with an equally large and ugly condominium and/or apartment complex, I'm not sure which. The only thing that has remained the same is The Battery, the ocean and the sky.

Nothing stays the same, but sometimes I wish things wouldn't change so drastically. Are you facing a change you'd rather not deal with, but must?

X is for Xenial

Xenial (pronounced zee-nee-al) New Latin from the Greek for hospitality from xenos, meaning guest. Of or relating to or constituting hospitality or relations between host and guest, especially among the ancient Greeks between persons from different cities.

So basically being xenial means being hospitable to visiting strangers or foreigners. (Notice how closely hospitable, hospital and hospitality are related.)

My grandmother, Erva "Love" Hartwell Boulon was a consummate hostess. She was xenial towards all her guests, making them feel welcomed and comfortable. (For those of you new to my blog, Grammy ran, at different times, two guest houses on St. John.)

It didn't matter to her who you were, where you came from, why you were there, she gave the gift of herself equally to all. She had a loud uninhibited cackling laugh. Sometimes a trace of it comes out of me. I love it when it spouts out of my throat, unexpected, a burst of noise. It sometimes causes people turn and look at me oddly, like if it explodes at a restaurant or in a movie theater.

Besides her laugh, I hope I have some of Grammy's xenial qualities as well. I hope this blog is xenial, a place where strangers feel welcomed.

Okay, so how can I relate xenial to writing. That's easy. I have "met" many wonderfully xenial writing people through the blog-o-sphere who have given me help, information, and encouragement. I am humbled and honored.

Thank you.

Arrival

This is an updated/edited post from 2007.

December 20th, 1955, marks the day we arrived in the Virgin Islands. I was five years old. We had journeyed all the way from California on a freighter called the Pasadena. (Pictured here.) The three week trip took us down the West Coast, through the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean.

It was growing dark as we came into the harbor of Charlotte Amalia. Christmas lights twinkled around the harbor and hills. They were colored jewels reflected in the calm waters of the bay.

At the dock we were met by uncle Ralf, my mother’s younger brother. As we waited for our personal luggage to be unloaded, we went to a small palm thatched bar at Yacht Haven. I had my first Virgin Island coke (there used to be a bottling plant on St. Thomas) but it was too sweet for my liking and I think that’s why I have never been much of a soda drinker.

When we finally got our luggage we piled into a Willy’s station wagon and drove over dark, steep, winding roads from Charlotte Amalia to Red Hook on the far east end of the island.

From there we got onto a 20 foot launch and traveled three miles across Pillsbury sound to the island of St. John.The night was clear and dark. The Milky Way was a silver sash across the sky. My father directed my attention to the wake of the boat. There, to my amazement and delight, were more stars! Dad explained about phosphorescence. But I knew better. I knew the lights in the water were shooting stars that had fallen into the sea. I couldn’t decide which was more beautiful, the diamond studded sky or an ocean full of stars.

At the Creek, in Cruz Bay, we got into a jeep and drove over steep, rough, dirt roads. In some places four wheel drive was needed to traverse the rutted trail.

By the time we got at Trunk Bay it was close to mid-night. Grammy, my mother's mother, had left instructions that she be awakened when we arrived.We waited in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs. A single kerosene lamp pushed back the darkness. Outside coquis, geckos and crickets sang. Palm trees rustled in the breeze. And behind it all was the low ever-present melody of the ocean.

I had never been to Trunk Bay, never met my grandmother, yet everything seemed very familiar. I had seen, heard and smelled it all before. I recognized the small table in the corner, knew where the door on my left went. I had a wonderful feeling of coming home. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was my first deja vu.

Then, from the top of the darkened stairs, Grammy appeared. She carried a glass lamp in her left hand. Her right hand rested on the banister. She was wearing a long white night gown. Her waist-length silver-white hair lay in a long braid over her left shoulder.

The soft light from the lamp she carried enveloped her like a halo. As I watched her come down the stairs I knew I was seeing an angel descending from heaven.

“Is this my grandmother?” I thought. “Do I have an angel for a grandmother?”

Suddenly she was among us, turned into a human being. She showed us to our rooms and put us to bed.

In the morning I awoke to the sounds of thrushies whistling, banaquits chirping and mourning doves cooing. And there behind it all was the low ever-present melody of the ocean.

I got up and went outside. Out of the darkness a miraculous view had appeared. An ocean was spread at my feet containing more colors of blue than I knew possible. Islands of different sizes and shades of green floated on the waves. Above me great towering clouds of white and gray and lavender hung in a azure sky.

I knew in that moment I belonged, that I was home.

All my life I have remembered that night and the following morning as clearly as is if happened yesterday. My grandmother turned out to be a wonderfully warm and loving human being. But in my little girl’s heart she remains my fairy god-mother, my guarding angel, a star come down to earth to help light my way.


The 20th of December was a gift. It became a family anniversary of our homecoming. It became the day we put up our Christmas tree and marked the beginning of our Christmas holidays.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you make many wonderful Christmas memories.

And here's one way to make a memory. Between 11:55 PM tonight and 2:53 AM (CST) we have the opportunity of seeing a winter solstice total lunar eclipse. The last time this happened was like 400 years ago. Get your kids up, make hot chocolate and go watch it. I hope it's clear where you are.

Grammy

My mother's mother was born on this day in 1895, in Ada, Ohio. Her name was Erva Love Hartwell. The middle name of Love was dropped when she got married, at which point she became known as Erva Hartwell Boulon.

At around the age of two or three, she was chosen to be the face for Mellin's Food, a brand of baby food. This is the original ad, not a copy.

Here she is with her dolls when she was about six or seven.

At around nine or so, she and her family moved to Key West, Florida because her father, Frank Hartwell, was a weatherman for the newly formed Federal Weather Bureau. The Bureau now bares the name of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Below is Erva Love in Key West.

In 1909 Frank Hartwell was transfered to the weather station in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Erva Love was about 14. She graduated from Central High School in San Jaun. This beautiful building is now an art school.

Erva Love Hartwell at 19.

She was fun-loving.

This is my favorite picture of her. Imagine how long her hair was when it was unbraided! I don't know how old she was when it was taken, but I estimate somewhere between 18 and 20.

She married Paul Alfred Boulon in Puerto Rico and had four children, my mother being the oldest.

In 1928 they bought Trunk Bay on St. John. In the years that followed the family build a summer home there. I'm not sure if that's her in this picture or our dear family friend Charlotte.

After World War II Grammy ran Trunk Bay as a guest house. She did it without electricity, cooking three meals a day for her guests. John Dos Passos, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife were among some of her more well-known guests. She gained the reputation for being a superior hostess and an excellent cook. Using local foods, she learned how to prepare them in ways that would please American taste buds. An article was written about her in the cooking section of the New York Times and she wrote a cook-book call My Island Kitchen. I loved having breakfast at her table because she would toast your bread on a charcoal pot set on a small table next to her chair. Below is a postcard of her kitchen.

Here she is on horse-back about 1945 going into Cruz Bay to pick up the mail. There were no vehicles on the island at that time. Everyone rode or walked.

Grammy had a wonderfully loud, uninhibited cackling laugh. Her hair turned silver by the time she was in her forties. She wore it a single braid on the top of her head and dressed up her do with hibiscus. She liked large, avant-garde jewelry. She was a pioneer.

She died on December 27, 1972. We all still miss her.

Among those who share a birthday with her: Henry V, king of England. William Wilkie Collins, writer. Jose Ferrer, actor. Bill Graham, rock promoter (Fillmores East and West who stayed at our guest house at Lille Maho.) Elvis Presley and David Bowie.