January 28, 2021
Volume 51 - No. 04
The Land Editor’s Note: We have found a stable of new, outstanding writers, with great new reads!
They, are located in a website known as The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. They have fiction, non-fiction, essays, poems, a blog, and archives with loads of outstanding stories, many of which we hope to present here, in The Paper.
Each writer is asked to file an opening statement, establishing his or her right to claim status as a The Paper - 760.747.7119
website:www.thecommunitypaper.com
email: thepaper@cox.net
“southern writer.” Fact is, everyone is south of somewhere, so you’re likely to find writers from just about anywhere . . . but all have a fascination with the South, and with good writing. This week’s offering comes from another local writer, Michele Ivy Davis, a member of the Writer’s Group that met in the Escondido Public Library that was mentored and led for the past five years by our old friend and brilliant writer, Pete Peterson:
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have almost always lived in the South (Southern Maryland, Southern India, Southern Florida, and Southern California). Give me an afternoon under live oak trees dripping with swaying Spanish moss, sweet tea, and a good book, and I’ll be happy. Humidity? Bring it on. It’s just part of life in the South. Maybe we should have called it something grander, like “Twisted Oak Estate” after the oak tree at the curve of the driveway. Or
The Land See Page 2
“Raspberry Cascade” after the way the wild raspberry plants grew when full and ripe. But we never did. Our weekend property was always just “The Land.” * * *
In 1968, the view from our first apartment was a parking lot, other apartment buildings, and the complex’s trash shed. Even closing our door tightly didn’t shut out the shouts of children as they ran up and down the