A very long time ago, in a land two floors up

I have a framed card on the wall of our offices that announces the formation of Sherman & Co. Public Relations on April 1, 1991. On that day, in the guest bedroom, I sat down to a big boxy computer (green lettering on a black screen), a thermal-paper (read: slimy) fax machine, a huge photocopier, and a 300 dpi gigantic printer nearby. Logo, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, phone and fax lines - all done.

Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and barefoot, I sighed, reached for the phone, and began making calls, since I didn't have e-mail, not even my first one: five numbers, a comma (yes, a comma) and four more numbers @ Compuserve.com. (If you remember those, you're older than you are admitting publicly). That, and so much else, came later. Oh, and I didn't have a single client, so there was a bit of pressure, shall we say, to get on the phone and make appointments (but, "no dress shirt, no shoes, no clients" requirements).

This morning, just for the hell of it, I'm sitting here, barefoot (appropriate "attire" for the farm boy that I am), in a T-shirt that I can now wear again, having lost weight - has "Paris" written on it in wild colors -- and a pair of shorts that are dangerously loose around the waist (see "lost weight" above). Feels good. Makes me want to go back to Paris. And eat.

This morning, I counted the plants in our offices (now occupying all of the rooms in our large basement, with an outside entrance and nine glass-block windows) and I came up with 35, but I may have missed a couple. Perhaps I forgot to count the two wheezing, brown ones in the far corner? Big, small, all subject to my role as a self-proclaimed "tough-love gardener" who will be nice to them, as long as they return the favor, or else I replace them with my take-no-plants approach.

The tropical rain forest complements an uncountable number of framed works of art and prints, awards, and photos of all sorts - even have an aerial view of the crowds on the bridge connecting the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery, taken on Monday, November 25, 1963, that I am going to caption, "John, others at JFK Funeral" - somewhere, near the Lincoln, I'm standing, having driven all night from Bloomington. (Technically, since I didn't know yet how to drive a shift, I rode all the way, as we careened in the middle of the night around the curves of West Virginia mountains in those pre-Interstate days.)

But I digress. Also down here, surrounded by plants and paintings, are computers, printers (1200 dpi, color, etc.), a plain-paper fax, photocopier, scanners, and so on and so on....And copies of the five books I've had published since 1991, along with one revised edition of another. And the libretto of the opera "Biafra" (www.mesaverdepress.com to view what's been performed of it so far).

So, today we begin our 20th year. Seems like five. Seems like 40.

Wiggling my toes, enjoying the sunshine, the good memories, great employees, great clients.

Catcher in the Rye

I was 17 when I read Catcher in the Rye. Seeing today's announcement of the passing of its author, J.D. Salinger, takes me back to one of the most important books I've ever read.

Our high school English teacher, the wife of a pastor, recommended it to a few of us. She was speaking almost in a whisper, as she leaned in to the small group she had led to a corner of her room. She knew the book was considered a provocative work for its language and subject matter, yet she also knew we'd benefit enormously from reading it.

A few years later, one of my sisters, then in her late 20s, read it and couldn't figure what all the fuss was about. I told her she was too old. And she was. It's one of those works not to be read too young nor too old.

Thank you, J.D. All of us writers hope to publish something that will have an impact on others' lives. Any discussion on the power of writing will almost always contain a reference to Catcher in the Rye. You scored big, Mr. S., and I'm glad you knew it decades ago.

All A-Twitter - Not!

It seemed like a great idea.

And it gave us a lot of words to make fun of - twitter, tweats, twit, twittering. (Or maybe "twit" is the name I use for drivers who blow their horns at me just because I don't begin to move when the light is still red.)

We never followed anyone on Twitter. Couldn't figure out why we should. It never made it on our "Ya Gotta Love This" list. We had followers, but once we caught on to -- and blocked -- the scam artists and the questionable invitations from women with provocative names, we had still a pretty good number of followers, but we weren't sure they were paying any attention. After all, some of them were following a gigantic-mongous-normous number of people (now, I've heard of being bored, but reading tweats from twitterers every hour?) and others seemed pretty unlikely to care what we said.

We bragged about client accomplishments, mentioned some of our own stuff, and then got tired of thinking up something new that would fit in that tiny space and go, mostly, unnoticed or unloved.

So, perhaps we're at the beginning or the end of a trend, or maybe we're just alone in this. We've killed Twitter. Well, our Twitter, that is.

We'll continue this blog posting. We have our company website for new and exciting things and our "creative writing" website - www.mesaverdepress.com - is going strong. In fact, we're at the onset of redoing it, so we can continue to promote my books (selling some, we hope) and raising funds for the opera, "Biafra." Sure do want to get it funded so awesomely talented composer Nathan Blume can finish scoring it and I can hear my libretto sung through all three acts. But, as you know by now, when that's said and sung, I won't be tweating about it.

So, good-bye, ol' Twitter. Facebook is a-comin', LinkedIn, Smaller Indiana, and Plaxo are alive and well (once the blitz of unintended LinkedIn invites were stopped!).

See you there. Or, hey, pick up the phone, write a letter, send an e-mail. Wave to me. Just don't blow the horn. I tend to wave back with only part of my hand.

Back Home Again in…Nigeria

You can go home again.

In 1969, I flew north from Kano to Cairo, after completing my Red Cross work during Nigeria’s civil war, on my 25th birthday.

A few weeks ago, I returned to Nigeria, carrying my Medicare card.

This time, I attended a conference in Abuja where I spoke about my war-time experiences, using my book, War Stories: A Memoir of Nigeria and Biafra, and my libretto for the opera, “Biafra.” I was pleased to have my presentation so well received, especially by those who had lived through the war, inside Biafra, fleeing from the shrinking front lines.

I had hitchhiked through the 1969 version of Abuja on my long, long journey from Lagos, then the capital, to Maiduguri in the far northeast. In the intervening 40 years, Abuja had changed from a very small city to the country’s capital, mushrooming, by some statistics, to 1.5 million inhabitants.

The Indianapolis Star published some of my observations about the return visit. In the article, I described the warmth and friendliness of Nigerians and how that had not changed – I hadn’t expected it to. I told a journalist in Abuja that I have always felt “comfortable” in one of my favorite countries. I was, once again, using the snapping-finger handshake, speaking a few words of Igbo, reminiscing about Nigeria of the 1960s, comforted by the familiarity of Nigerian stews, fried plantain, and Star beer, but now in the midst of cell phones, laptops, and CNN.

If you didn’t get my email with the links to the photos I shot in Abuja and to the Indianapolis Star piece (“I Just Got Back From…..Abuja”), let me know and I’ll send them to you.

I will not be able to say, truly, how I view changes in Nigeria until I get the opportunity to re-visit Port Harcourt and nearby Eleme where I taught secondary school as a Peace Corps Volunteer and return to Elele, north of P.H., where I was stationed with the Red Cross. That, I hope, will come soon, as I am eager to see the former Eastern Region (that became, and then ceased to be, the Republic of Biafra) and to meet the people – or their relatives – in those areas where I was either a teacher or a relief worker so long ago.

Some weeks after my return home, I participated in a conference at Marquette University in Milwaukee where the sole topic was the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War. I spoke about my experiences and the participants viewed the 20-minute DVD that presents the portion of the three-act opera “Biafra” that has, thus far, been scored by composer and conductor Nathan Blume. You can view it on YouTube (it’s in three parts, to fit on YouTube, but you can easily click from 1 to 2 to 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px3ddjcPWOk or go to my website, www.mesaverdepress.com, to see that performance and, if you like, hear my remarks about the war that I made just prior to the performance. Paula Dione Ingram is the lead singer, portraying Ruth Okonkwo, a nurse in a clinic inside Biafra. Paula’s costume includes my Red Cross badge, which I’ve saved since I worked with that organization in 1968-69.

And next? The Igbo Studies Association conference at Howard University in Washington, DC, in April 2010 where, once again, I hope to discuss the civil war from my perspective (including my memories of the events leading up to secession, the day of secession, and the onset of the war).

While these conferences bring up many difficult memories for anyone involved in the war, they have been enormously encouraging at the same time. The opera has been very well received. At Marquette, many who recalled the war, including former Biafran army officers and boy soldiers, Biafran Red Cross workers, and civilians,, told me they found the performance “powerful” and looked forward to seeing the complete performance. So do I! Once we raise the funds, we will be able to complete the scoring and offer “Biafra” to opera companies everywhere.

The opera will provide a vivid, anti-war performance piece that uses stories of real people I knew to illustrate the futility of war.

The Zen of Sauna

I have just returned from my workout that includes the most peaceful time of my week: sitting in the sauna, deep in the heat of the night in a relatively dark room with one or two others as quiet as I am.

Oh, that’s right. That’s my dream sauna experience. Tonight, for example, I was subject to yet another gulper. These are the guys who feel compelled to drink incessantly, gulping some liquid down, taking deep breaths, gasping for air just prior to – did I use this word already? - gulping their liquids and then exhaling loudly. Five, maybe six seconds later, just when they are on the verge of death from the sauna’s dry, hot air, they begin again. They do not notice my involuntary, incessant twitching.

Where have I heard this before? Ah, yes, in the movie theatre where the trough-of-popcorners gasp and wheeze and smack their mouths, not having eaten for at least 25 minutes, performing the seemingly impossible task of shoveling a large handful into their mouths before they could possibly have swallowed the previous one while I, silly person, actually try to hear the dialogue. (This is driving me not only to thoughts of criminal action but to the decision only to see foreign films with subtitles.) While I’m still digressing, consider with me the thought of a Corn-Smackers-and-Drink-Gulpers section as far as possible in the theatre from the I’m-Just-Here-for-the-Movie section.

But, back to the sauna. There was also the guy who was listening to “music” (I just know that, somewhere, both Beethoven and the Beatles were sobbing) on whatever it was he owned: an iPod, iPhone, iNoise, Boom Box. Even with his earphones, discordant sounds were blasting into the room, almost – but, sadly, not quite --drowning out the guy taking the 666th slug of his liquid near my other ear. Way too near. The twitching continued.

Isn’t the idea of the sauna not to sit there, rapidly and massively (and, of course, noisily) over-replenishing the liquids we pay to have drained out of us? I so, so wished for him the bus ride I took from Kano to Maiduguri, Nigeria, many years ago, where the heat and the lack of potable water almost made me hallucinate and give in to the repeated offerings of kind strangers to drink from their bottles of water that would have done me in. Instead, I dashed into each petrol station and downed as many Cokes as I could at our short stops, realizing the sugary drink would make me thirsty, but also knowing I had to consume some boiled-and-filtered, water-based liquid to keep the insides of my mouth from bursting into flames. If anyone on the bus said, “Oh, but it’s a dry heat,” I didn’t hear him. I was inside, swallowing my third bottle of Coke in one…..gulp.

Oh, yes. Again, the sauna. I forgot to mention the guy who was reading a magazine. I might have forgiven him if it had been the New Yorker, but it was People with big teeth, big hair, big headlines, necessitating the way-too-bright light that I hadn’t even known was there. Had he not been so intellectually involved, he would have seen me twitch.

So, drink-gulper, too-loose-earphoner, and the purple-prose-people-reader.

Some nights, I am there alone or with those who understand the point of a sauna: Quiet. Dark. Quiet. Dark.

Is it permissible to yearn for moments of Zen? Or do they have to come to you, uninvited, dark, and quiet?

Now, More Than Ever

We’re just like an air conditioner. We help create the environment that makes you feel good, look good, and get reinvigorated.

We are not fundraisers or sales people, we’re attention-getters who wave a newspaper story, an e-mail blast, a jazzy/user-friendly/informative website, a magazine profile, a TV spot, and/or a radio interview in front of those who will be enticed to write you a check, buy your product, or, as one client once put it, “put butts in those seats” (of auditoriums, chapels, or classrooms). In other words, you could say we offer booty calls. Never thought I’d put that on our list of PR and marketing services!

And now, as August looms, with the economy s-l-o-w-l-y heating up, you need air conditioning like never before. And, come November, you’ll need heat (we’ll go with the image of a comfy, roaring fireplace) – the other side of that environment-creating business.

In this challenging time, when the markets are hot and cold, those of us in public relations, marketing, advertising/underwriting, graphic design, printing, photography, and related businesses strongly believe – and we want you to raise your hands and say, “I believe, too! I really do!” -- the way to combat this slump is to make use of our talents, as the above headline says, “now, more than ever.”

My nephew Mike provided me with a link to stories of companies in the Depression that spent money on advertising as if there were no downturn, as if there were a tomorrow. They survived -- and they’re still with us today (unlike their competitors). No hesitation, no slowing down, but plenty of grit and determination, along with PR and promotions.

That ol’ power of positive thinking, through display advertising, now offered in print and electronic formats, will see you through.

We have a vested interest in this strategy, but we are also common-sense, cost-effective folk and have been, in our case, since 1991. Actually, I think it’s on record somewhere that my mom invented common sense back in the early decades of the 20th century. So, we come by it naturally. (Her use of the same piece of tin foil for decades suggests she invented recycling, too, but I’ll save that for another blog.)

Take advantage of the fact that a lot of your competitors have cut back, so that leaves you with an advantage – I’d say a full-court advantage, but, not knowing anything about sports, I’ll leave that to those of you who do. (I am guessing that’s a basketball thing, since even I know football isn’t played on a court. Or is it tennis? Or Supreme Court nominations?) It’s time –chant once again our mutual mantra, “now, more than ever” – to give us the opportunity to hit hard at creating and implementing an aggressive, focused marketing strategy.

The dollars spent when there were a few more dollars in the drawer now seem to be the ones you want to hold on to, while you wonder why your market share is suffering. It’s time for us to provide you with snappy press releases, smart collateral materials, friend-raising events, fresh website copy, and colorful photos.

Let’s work together to create hot campaigns that are cool.

Booty call!

Blackberry Winter

This poem seems appropriate now, with the cool June days we've been having - more or less - not so cool perhaps as indicated in the poem (which appears, by the way, in my book, Marjorie Main: Rural Documentary Poetry, Mesa Verde Press, 1999, $8.95, available on amazon.com and, in Indianapolis, at the Indiana Historical Society gift shop).



BLACKBERRY WINTER
________________________________________

blackberry winter my wife calls it
when june turns cold after hot may
and sweaters are unfolded
when not already mothballed
and coffee cups are held in two hands
as we purr in the chilled sunlight
fighting its way
through the window glass
to get inside to its own warmth

blackberry winter she calls it
and I remember picking berries
and seeing my pigment change
finding relief in standing up
and rubbing the small of my back
and arching my usual stooped shoulders
backwards wanting it all somehow
to snap and pop into place
but instead bending over once again
to reach for the stainers of my fingers
privately throwing some now and then
into my mouth
and later grinning away my secret
by showing my two tone teeth

blackberry winter:
a nice name for a respite
before the sidewalks
fry eggs for front pages
and the intensity of the weather
again becomes the first thing
one mentions when one walks
through dark wooden screen doors
marked wonder bread and welcome
greeted by sure hot ain't it
and you say sure is
before you dare ask for
whatever you want to carry back
into that heat that reminds you
not of other hot times
but of your wife smiling at you
across the ray of sunshine
holding her coffee cup
in her strong brown hands
telling you of the
blackberry winters of her youth