Friday, September 7, 2012

Write On Edge: Local Items Challenge

Red Writing Hood this week, challenges us to develop our setting by referencing an item or industry specific to a locale to help enhance a story. We have 350 words.


I grew up in Southern California. The history around here is rich, but fewer and fewer people each year remember that orange groves dominated what landscape the dairy farms didn't cover. Hollywood and Disneyland have both served to drive the entertainment industries and transform the individuality of the surrounding communities. What was once vast, never ending farm/ranch lands are now a giant, widespread, concrete jungle, saturated with heavy traffic on the freeways and granite counter-tops in the humblest of homes. Time is the great equalizer here, I think. When one local item fades by the wayside, another rises to take its place. And sometimes, sometimes that item reaches global success and no longer belongs entirely to its beginning.

I'm stepping back in time to an item, a product created and nursed to health in 1932 that no longer belongs to one man in Buena Park.



I offer the following in response: A Pie of a Different Berry




Lily peered into the basket of fruit, “Them blackberries ain’t ripe, E’gar.”

Edgar looked up from his newspaper, “T’ain’t blackberries, Lil. Got them from Walt’s berry place just off of Highway 39.”

She brushed flour from her hands and picked a purplish berry for closer inspection. “I don’t know…you sure them’s safe to make a pie with?”

“Them beachy folks bought them by the bucket-load, an’ they’s all gossipin’ about how Cordy’s pies and jams were the cat’s pajamas.” Edgar returned to his paper. “That Sharp woman committed suicide, according to this.”

She rinsed the debris from the berries, trading their basket for a bowl. “Well them cops oughta be ashamed of themselves, driving a grieving woman to that.”

“Maybe she was the kidnappers’ inside man?” he challenged.

“I don’t buy it.” Lily stared at the berries for a moment, wondering what her options were. A cobbler, maybe? The unfamiliar color of the fruit made her hesitant to taste one. “That sweet woman wouldna put Little Lindy in danger. No sane woman could.”

“Lil, I don’t think suicide is the sign of a sane mind, nor an innocent one for that matter.”

“That’s ‘cause you ain’t a woman, E’gar. Women’ll kill to protect their babies. But murderin’ a baby? I tell ya no woman’ll do that.” Cautiously, she bit into the end of the darkest berry. The tartness made her jaw tingle. “Oh, them’s gonna need sugar. What are these called again?”

“They called them boysenberries.”

She picked a large seed from her teeth, still unsure. The berry aspired to be a raspberry in flavor, yet there notes of wild huckleberry in its finish. The juice stained her fingers pink. “Well, I don’t know about them.”

Edgar rose from the table and wrapped his arms around her waist, causing a giggle to work its way through her heart and escape through her mouth. “Well, I know that Cordy’s pies might be famous, but that’s ‘cause them beachy folks never tasted yours.”

She laughed again, kissing his cheek. “I guess a cobbler just won’t do then. A pie it is.”

26 comments:

  1. I love the last line "... A pie it is." and to my "ears" you had a great accent going in your characters too! Well done!

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    1. Thanks! I wrote this without an accent the first time through, but it just didn't seem to fit. I'm glad the accent didn't detract from the story. I'm thrilled you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  2. I loved this, I've been to the Berry Farm many times. I like blending the Lindberg news into the story, and the beachy people. This is excellent.

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    1. Thanks! I worked at the Farm for five years, so I think boysenberries are in my blood. The flavor makes the best Icees and the punch concentrate makes a pretty rockin' martinis. I'm thrilled you loved this. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  3. I love the conversation in between the description of the berries. Your details were amazing. I really felt like I was in the room with them.

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    1. Thanks! I'm glad you felt the scene was real. I'm thrilled you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  4. This is so well done-I'm a big fan of vintage inspired writing. Very clever with the newspaper story about the Lindbergh baby, and the dialog between Edgar and Lil is fun to listen in on, too.

    I loved the bit about the giggle-as sweet as that pie of hers is going to taste:)

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    1. Thanks! I, like many, am drawn to the Lindbergh tragedy. The senseless death rocked the nation, and there was no shortage of opinions about what happened to Little Lindy.

      I'm thrilled you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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    1. Thanks for the love! I hope you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  6. Your accent is spot on, at least that's how it "sounds" to me! Great job using the boysenberries as a backdrop to the conversation, which was so interesting to me.

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    1. Thanks! I thrilled it worked and I'm glad you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  7. Loved the accent and the flow of dialogue. But I was a bit worried about the berries at first! (Too much poison-berry-reading-books for me I guess!) And HAD to smile when you said "cat’s pajamas", because my sister uses that and thinks it's hilarious. Loved this piece!!

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    1. Thanks! No, my original thought was to have stolen them from the farm, but make them poisonous? Nah, Edgar loves Lily too much to bring home poisonous berries, I promise. :)

      I'm thrilled I made you smile. "Cat's pajamas" pops up in my own conversations from time to time. It used to make my niece giggle when she heard it.

      I'm glad you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  8. I grew up in Southern California in the early 50's to mid 60's and there were plenty of orchards and wide open spaces depending on where you were. One of the places we lived at was an apartment across the street from a commercial dairy farm. Such fragrant memories. I loved your story. It really took me back.

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    1. Thanks! I lived down the street from the last working dairy in Norwalk during the eighties. I remember there were times in the summer, when the Santa Ana winds picked up, that the fragrance was as strong as if I was standing in the middle of it all.

      I'm thrilled you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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    1. Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  10. This conversation a great, but very typical, example of the mingling of a day in the life of a married couple. I loved how you mixed the current events of the day, hinting at a tragedy, with the mundane, yet very tasteful, topic of dessert. It is exactly how we live our lives: dealing with sorrow yet always moving on. You painted such a vivid picture and I had visual upon visual of the couple, their dress, their home, where they came from. It was just wonderful and I'm so glad I read it.

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    1. Thanks! I am absolutely thrilled that you were able to capture an image of the couple and location in your mind. Even if I don't write about it, each character I write has a past, some more complex than others. I'm glad you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  11. Nice! I'm doing my visits appallingly late, and everyone else has already said everything I wanted to say, so I'll just add my dittos and congrats. :)

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    1. Thanks! i love dittos so I'm happy to get them. And by the way, there is no statute of limitations here, you can visit and comment whenever you like! I'm glad you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  12. Your lead in reminds me of Central Florida. It was farmland and gravel roads when we first arrived, but once Disney moved in that started slipping away. Concrete jungle is an accurate description now.

    Enjoyed this. Now that I live in a quiet place, the baking of farm fresh berries is pretty common around here. Your characters were very convincing.

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    1. Thanks! The older I get, the more I want to be in those quiet places. Don't get me wrong, I love Disneyland and the convenience that the cities afford, but I find I dream of tilling the soil and canning the harvest. I'm thrilled you believed in Lily and Edgar, and equally thrilled that you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

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  13. Time and place and history. This is really strong stuff, Americana even. Sorry it took me so long to get here!

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    1. Thanks! Sorry it took me so long to reply! These last two weeks have been INSANE. As always, I hope you enjoyed your stay. Thanks for stopping y and sharing your thoughts!

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