...from Decatur to SC and back. I was invited to go to an author's talk that was part of the Decatur Book Festival, which happens once a year on Labor Day weekend. Lots of authors are invited to come and speak, talk about their craft, promote their work and literature in general. We went to hear Joyce Carol Oates being interviewed, by a professor from Emory who the author of her biography. She read several passages from recent publications, and talked about her life, work, history.
Pretty interesting. I knew nothing about her - had not read anything she wrote. Which is surprising, as I have heard of her, knew of the name from all my years of being literate. We googled and got a bio. from Wikipedia, but that was the extent of our knowledge. My feeling is her subject matter seems to be dark. I might request something from the library to determine if her writing will capture my interest, but from the little bit she read, and conversation with the biographer about her topics, I do not think I would enjoy. She has a large body of published work: screenplays, poetry, short stories, in addition to longer works of fiction, based on historical events. I think I recall that she is still teaching writing or lit., maybe at Harvard?
I got up early on Saturday morning, and hit the road. After spending the night in Decatur, to give me a jump on driving over to SC to visit my pen pal, and cousin who lives near Greenville. It is so amazingly easy to get out on the normally chaotic interstate highway on a Saturday morning. Especially when you get going before anyone else is awake.
A nice visit with my pen pal. We just sit around and chat, talk about family doings, gardening, his activities with American Legion. Lunch. Then I went down to Simpsonville. I won't pay to drive on I-185, which is a the toll road. I am sure, a shorter, more direct route. But we all have little quirks, ways we pinch and justify - me? I'm not paying tolls for the use of public thoroughfares and bridges. If taxpayer money paid to build it, it seems to me like double taxation to require additional fees by motorists in order to use it? Let's dress up like Indians, climb on board the ships anchored in the harbor, and dump the boxes of freight overboard!
Enjoyed a good visit with the cuzzin. And left there about 6, to head back to Decatur, hoping to get back into town before dark. Makes me sad that dark is starting to come earlier each evening. I used to be able to leave home after 8:30, walk a couple of miles and get home before it got too night to see. But now, it's already too dark by 8:30! :-(
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