Donna Sundblad, author of Pumping Your Muse - Page 3

Recollections also covers other islands in the area. The Old Timers light up when they talk about the old days. Life before refrigerators, going to market, the school boat, and watching pilots train in the Gulf of Mexico from the schoolhouse window during World War II gives you a glimpse of the recollections. Other trivia has to do with historic buildings or places no longer in existence such as the phosphate dock, the four-cell jail, the Albatross or Boca Grande Hotel. Information is in story form, based on people’s recollections capturing the original flavor and voice of the teller.

One man I interviewed tells of life as a child of the constable. “We lived upstairs of the jail. It had a porch, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. No bedrooms. Us kids lived on the porch. It was a wood porch. That’s where my daddy shot the guy that night. Shot him three times.” Some stories are funny and others serious, but all of them carry you back to another time and place.

Have you written much about your extended family?

Not directly, but glimpses of their real lives show up in my writing. My great-grandmother’s first husband was a drinker. During one of his drunken rages, he threatened her with a gun. She ran out the door to get him away from the children and cut through a field as he fired the weapon. The bullet grazed her and she stumbled and went down. Her husband thought he’d killed her and turned the gun on himself, leaving her with four children to raise. My grandmother recalled that her sister Opal went to live with a nice family, while the family she stayed with was mean. A couple of years later my great grandmother married a hard working Polish immigrant and the family was reunited. Telling this slice of the story leads me to think I will write about it.

What do modern day families miss from their separation from the extended family?

They miss knowing and learning from the past and most of all the love. We grow up in isolation. Children each “need” their own room instead of learning how to share and get along.

I remember living in a two bedroom house with one bath as a child. At that time, I was seven with three younger siblings. My grandparents fell on hard times. Grandma and her two daughters moved in with us while Grandpa looked for work. My parents didn’t complain.

Article Author: Parker Owens

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