Pam Keaton - Artist and Author

 

2 Excerpts

Published by Mountain Girl Press  

EXCERPT FROM THE ZINNIA TALES: "Road Trip to Albany" by Pam Keaton

 

 Mom did not leave the family reunion with her former brother-in-law as a boyfriend, but I suspect that she didn't have any serious expectations along those lines.  She had likely been more like a girl going to a school dance to see who might be there and what might happen.  Misty left with two twelve-year-old girl cousins hugging her neck and hanging on her as she promised them she would be back next year whether her grandma and Aunt Lizzy came or not. 

 

 

I left with telephone numbers and an assignment to create the family tree because, as my mother loudly announced when they were looking for volunteers, “Liz is real good on the computer!”  I tried to decline, saying that I thought it should be someone who was more familiar with all of their names.  I wanted to flatly refuse because I didn’t want the responsibility, but they insisted that they would help me with the particulars.  I did have an entire year for the appropriate inspiration to strike, so I gave in.

 

 

As I drove north through the town that final time, I pictured my family tree as a blossoming magnolia deeply rooted in the rust-colored southern soil—some of its flowers missing due to their migration to parts unknown.  As I remembered the smiling faces we had just left, a vision of my grandmother came to mind.  She was sitting in her front porch lounge chair smiling with her arm raised high over her head and her hand flapping an exaggerated good-bye.  “I’ll see ya agin, but I caint say when!” she used to call.  My grandmother—who I so adored for her warm hugs, hearty belly laughs, and blackberry dumplings—was a grand-daughter, daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and long-time friend to people in this town long before I came to know her in Ohio.  

 

 

As I watched the familiar names on mailboxes sail past one last time, I had an incredible feeling of belonging.  I had no intention of packing up and moving to Albany, Kentucky; but I had the warmly comforting feeling of knowing that if I did, somewhere farther back on the tree a blossom would form so similar in size, color, and fragrance that no one would know or care that it hadn’t been there all along.

 

 

We rode in silence for several minutes until we noticed that Mom had begun softly singing to herself as she rested her head against the rear window.  “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”  Misty and I began to sing too, me taking the lead and she doing a beautiful job of harmonizing.  We continued throughout the verses, singing slowly and softly to the beloved words--not realizing that Mom had dropped off to listen.  When we got to the end of the verses, I began a final verse that I have heard done in a couple of churches I have visited.  The entire verse is sung with two words over and over again.  “Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.  Praise God.”   We slowed the final praises—placing meaningful emphasis on the words—with me raising and lowering my voice through several added notes and Misty masterfully harmonizing along to a truly beautiful end.

 

 

We were both letting our minds absorb the meaningful words in a satisfied silence, when suddenly there was a shriek from the back seat that made both Misty and me scream in fear.  I jerked the wheel, certain that my mother had seen something in the road that I was bound to hit.  Then as Mom’s entire sentence registered in our minds, we laughed so hard at ourselves that our stomachs ached.  “Aaaat was beautiful!”  Mom had declared about our performance.  Her outburst was so unexpected and so forceful that the first word, pronounced the way she pronounced it, sounded like a fearful shriek of warning.  Whenever we tell the story about our road trip to Albany, this rush of adrenaline is what we remember and laugh about the most. 

 

 

 

 Published by Mountain Girl Press   

EXCERPT FROM SELF-RISING FLOWERS: "The Baker's Cabinet" by Pam Keaton

 

 

In the past twelve years of their marriage, Abby was the main preparer of meals, but she had never been quite the type of wife who went above and beyond, canning, pressure cooking, making candy or baking extensively.  Each Christmas, Tom’s head got filled with story-book visions of twenty different kinds of home-made cookies and candy.  One year, he even came home from the wholesale warehouse with several ten pound bags of flour, sugar, brown sugar, and powdered sugar; not to mention the huge bags of chocolate chips, almond paste, and marzipan.  Now what in the world was marzipan?  Not to worry, Tom told her.  He had purchased several holiday and cookie cookbooks, and he was going to help.  In the end, between working on their house remodeling, shopping for gifts, creating custom Christmas cards, and cooking their assigned portions of the family holiday meals, Tom and Abby were lucky to get one batch of gingerbread or chocolate chip cookies baked. 

 

 

Standing in front of her baker’s cabinet seemed to awaken some domestic urge in Abby.  She felt a warmth flow through her when she thought about all of the homemakers who must have stood in that very spot over the years making meals for their families.  It made Abby want to put on a frilly flowered apron and take her place in the timeline--making those other women proud.  Perhaps when Tom came home, she would straighten her rumpled hair, cast the apron aside, and greet him at the door with a kiss.

 

 

Abby poured herself a cup of coffee and pulled a stool from the corner so she could sit at her baker’s cabinet.  This had become part of a morning ritual that began with twisting open the blind and looking out the kitchen window at the sunlight washing over the grass and the weathered boards of the old covered bridge—the small town’s main landmark.  Each morning she compared the light patterns with the morning before and wondered if she could paint well enough to do it justice.  Several other artists had photographed, drawn, and painted that bridge; but not many could actually stand in their own kitchen and study it.  Abby promised herself that she would do at least one painting of that old bridge before she and Tom moved away.

 

 

Abby had learned a long time ago that Tom was not a morning person like herself; so she spent this early morning time alone with her thoughts.  As she sat there, she gently ran the fingers of one hand along the top of the pulled-out countertop and studied its surface.  The scratches would have happened naturally from constant use, but she wondered what particular events had caused the chipping on the front edge.  Having decided it was probably hit by falling pots or unopened canned goods, Abby raised her gaze to the wooden doors of the upper cabinet. 

 

 

Whoever gave this cabinet its most recent face lift had elected not to strip off the old paint first.  The loose paint had been scraped, but the surface had not been sanded smooth; so that now Abby could see a crackled pattern beneath the thin coat of new paint.  She ran her fingers along the pattern and thought how the lines reminded her of human wrinkles.  In fact, the "scars," "age spots," and "life lines" of this piece warmed Abby.  She was in the presence of a veteran of the turn of the Nineteenth Century; of the Great Depression; of both World Wars; and many other events that Abby had not witnessed herself.  Still, this cabinet was as solid and functional as it had been the day that it was made.  Lillian Turner—and any other prior owners—had well cared for that baker’s cabinet over the years and had appreciated it as Abby did now.

 

 

One of the many things that Abby and Tom had in common was an appreciation for well-constructed furniture and a love for the past.  They often said that they should have been born fifty years earlier because they related better with the people of that time period than they did with their contemporaries.  They both loved the older music, movies, clothing, ethics, patriotism, and overall class that they saw in photographs and heard about in stories.  That common respect for the past was a large part of what had drawn Tom and Abby together.  Their favorite date and vacation memories involved tours of historic homes, museums, and preserved train terminals.  They often stayed after the tours and talked with the docents who always seemed willing to share more information with those who sought it. 

 

 

That is what Abby would do now, she thought.  She would get more information.  She would do this because those old recipe and note cards that she found inside the baker’s cabinet made her feel a connection not just with the cabinet; but also with Lillian Turner and the people of this town who had been Lillian’s friends and neighbors.  Abby so wished that she and Tom had been a part of their lives.  She could have helped the ladies make butter, or soap, or sourdough bread while Tom helped the men plow the field, smoke the meat, or build that new barn.  Then later, she and Tom could have sat in the porch swing talking about their day; and they could have fallen asleep on the screened porch listening to crickets and watching the flashes of fireflies.