Sing Me A Story and More (eBook)

Jean King (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
212 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1607-0 (ISBN)

Infos

In Sing Me A Story and More, author and musician Jean King combines music lyrics-her own and others-with short stories and poetry. As with previous works, her writings are based in the Midwest where she grew up, on the East Coast where she lived, and upon her travels in the Middle East and India. 'I like to let my imagination create stories about the people and events in my life. And sometimes, I hear music while writing the story. That's how Write Me A Song in this book came about.' In her fantasy story, A Beginning Place, Jean takes the reader into a cave where the girl JP and her astute guide, Brook, befriend animals and encounter a monster that challenges JP to overcome her fears. Jean King's books include Knowing the place..., Child's Play in the Seasons, and Poems from Rockport and Other Enchanting Places.

In Sing Me A Story and More, author and musician Jean King combines music lyrics-her own and others-with short stories and poetry. As with previous works, her writings are based in the Midwest where she grew up, on the East Coast where she lived, and upon her travels in the Middle East and India. 'I like to let my imagination create stories about the people and events in my life. And sometimes, I hear music while writing the story. That's how Write Me A Song in this book came about.' In her fantasy story, A Beginning Place, Jean takes the reader into a cave where the girl JP and her astute guide, Brook, befriend animals and encounter a monster that challenges JP to overcome her fears. Jean King's books include Knowing the place..., Child's Play in the Seasons, and Poems from Rockport and Other Enchanting Places.

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In Sing Me A Story and More, author and musician Jean King combines music lyrics-her own and others-with short stories and poetry. As with previous works, her writings are based in the Midwest where she grew up, on the East Coast where she lived, and upon her travels in the Middle East and India. "e;I like to let my imagination create stories about the people and events in my life. And sometimes, I hear music while writing the story. That's how Write Me A Song in this book came about."e; In her fantasy story, A Beginning Place, Jean takes the reader into a cave where the girl JP and her astute guide, Brook, befriend animals and encounter a monster that challenges JP to overcome her fears. Jean King's books include Knowing the place , Child's Play in the Seasons, and Poems from Rockport and Other Enchanting Places.

Textauszug

Tell Me A Tale

 

 

Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn

(A Tall Tale)

 

ONE

‘Tis night, and a rainy one at that, as the lone traveler guides his horsedrawn carriage along Atlantic Road. The Harvest Moon, though partially hidden, dances on the glistening waves like pearls freed from their oyster shells.

For comfort on this stormy night, he hums the Swedish folk song My Name is Yon Yonson making up his own lyrics as he rides along. Words come to him as he sings them over and over, like the song itself repeats, and he chuckles, amused with his own version of My Name is Yon Yonson. Not bad for a travel writer, he tells himself. If all goes well, he might even give his rendition of the song to the innkeepers of Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn, his destination.

 

My name is Shortfellow

My wife I call Bella

We live at our Inn on the Bay

Everybody we greet

As we walk down the street

Says Hello, what’s your name?

My name is Shortfellow

My wife I call Bella

We live at our Inn on the Bay

At five feet I’m tall

Not a short guy at all

So what’s in a name?

 

My name is Shortfellow

My wife I call Bella

We live at our Inn on the Bay

Our guests are discreet

That I’m only five feet

‘Cause they know of my fame

 

Our reporter hopes to start out on a sound footing by sharing his made-up tune with the innkeeper, Tom Shortfellow. Surely, he would have a good sense of humor having had a lifetime to explain his surname to everyone he meets, especially those at the popular guest house he runs with his wife, Bella Tiberi. Regardless, our writer likes his lyrics, so why not give it a shot—not to be heard around the world, perhaps—but right here at an Inn on a rainy night in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Rounding a bend on Atlantic Road, he turns off the music in his head as he sees in the distance colorful wind-swept balloons waving frantically to each side of a stone wall entrance. Like lighthouse beacons, he fancies, they’re a sure sign to visitors that they have reached the Inn, and for him a welcome sight on this stormy night. Yet even on a clear night one would be hard pressed to find Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn, as he will soon discover.

Turning his carriage into the muddy drive, he comes upon a two-story clapboard house partially hidden by bushes and overhanging trees, invisible if it weren’t for an array of windows where

 

Bright lights

Erased my fright

On this dastardly night

As the Inn came in sight

 

Later, he would write that Shortfellow himself made

 

Lamps of all sizes

To fill the room

From front to back

Dispelling the gloom

Arriving at the front door to Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn, our reporter pulls his horse to a halt. Hastily, he steps from the carriage.

 

TWO

Santo Fama is on his first assignment for Who’d A Thunk It Magazine, the family-owned publishing business located on Charles Street in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The last of seven brothers to join the business, he is eager to learn first-hand why everyone is raving about Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn, a popular seaside guest house on the North Shore. He has at his disposal scant information, only that it is owned and operated by an itinerant man named Tom Shortfellow who also has made a name for himself in the woodworking business. Fama is as eager to cover a story about the man as he is about Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn. Fascinated by the Shortfellow name, he hopes to uncover its lineage. Might there be a connection between Tom Shortfellow and the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of Cambridge, the famous man of literature? he wonders. These questions arouse the rookie reporter’s interest.

 

By whatever claim

This Shortfellow name

Has risen to fame

One and the same

 

THREE

Since 1906, when the first travel magazine came to the United States, the industrious Fama brothers Frank, Sam, Harry, Joe, Maurice, John, and Neno had worked tirelessly to make their magazine a success. Early on, they marketed their travel publication door-to-door by horsedrawn wagon in competitive downtown Boston, gradually branching out to surrounding towns delivering their quarterly magazine in covered wagons. By the 1920s, they had expanded their business to coastal residents in Massachusetts, where they delivered their publication in a Ford Model TT pickup truck.

The Italian Famas were jacks-of-all-trades: reporting, marketing, designing, editing, and printing Who’d A Thunk It Magazine all under the watchful eye of Editor-in-Chief Maurice Fama. An enterprising team, their diligence over the years paid off when in 1928 they received a prestigious New England award for “Best Off-The-Road Travel Magazine.”

Running a feature article on Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn for its 25-year anniversary was the brainchild of Neno Fama, the marketing guru of Who’d A Thunk It Magazine. Always on top of the goings-on with tourists to the North Shore, Neno knew an article highlighting the Inn would appeal to adventurous people looking for a unique place to stay on vacation. The issue would sell like hotcakes, he believed, and the enterprising Neno was certain he saw greenbacks floating in the air and into the pockets of the Fama brothers. With his ear to the ground, Neno understood that Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn was the place to stay on the North Shore. And this was noteworthy. In the past, vacationers flocked to the South Shore of Boston to Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, or Nantucket. But in recent years, the tide had turned north to Cape Ann, all because of Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn, as Neno pointed out to his editor-in-chief Maurice.

So when Santo Fama joins the family business, Neno speaks to Maurice on his brother’s behalf to write a feature article on Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn. Skeptical at first, Maurice points out that Santo was more a lyrical poet than prose writer. But Neno argues that Santo would lend an artistic flair to the story while still writing enough nonfiction for readers to obtain information. Moreover, his writing style would attract vacationers who were seeking a lighthearted out-of-the-way place to stay on the eastern seaboard. And wasn’t that what Who’d A Thunk It Magazine was all about?

Senior Editor Sam Fama also spoke on his brother’s behalf, pointing out that here was an opportunity to introduce Santo to their readers. Aware that Santo was given to rhyme over reason, Sam argued that his brother was

 

A splendid writer

All the same

So give him a chance

To prove, full rein

 

Maurice knew that Sam was meticulous in editing, smoothing stiff phrases and dotting every ‘i.’ So in that knowledge, Maurice felt assured to assign Santo the feature article. Ironically, Maurice displayed a poetic flair himself when recording his misgivings in the company’s ledger.

 

My brother Sam’s praise

Of Santo to write

Our feature story

I ponder tonight

 

With every ‘t’ crossed

And every ‘i’ dotted

If there is a flaw

Samuel will spot it

So I am assured

To avoid a mishap

Sam will take care

No doubt about that

So now during the erratic late November weather in 1932 on the East Coast, Maurice sets in motion the Spring issue of Who’d A Thunk It Magazine with Santo Fama writing the feature article “Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn.” As any managing editor worth his weight would do, Maurice had listened to his brothers Neno and Sam and had come to believe that in Santo Fama he had his man. “Salute!” the brothers cheerfully called out, raising their glasses of wine in tribute.

But not in their wildest imaginings, and they had many, could the Fama brothers foresee how Santo’s reporting would uncover a surprising revelation, all because of Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn namesake, Tom Shortfellow.

 

FOUR

Braving the storm, Santo Fama splashes through mud puddles to the entrance of Shortfellow’s Bayside Inn and lifts the knocker on the massive wood door made of black cherry. Once, twice, three times he knocks, and as his hand lingers in mid-air, the door opens.

“Come in! Come in! Oh, you must be drenched to the bone!” a woman cries out as she steps aside for him to enter. Our reporter obliges, his dripping raincoat creating rivulets upon the Italian mosaic tile floor in the foyer.

 

Just as I entered

I tried not to stare

For directly before me

A woman’s blue hair

 

Shone bright like the ocean

Wind-swept, indigo

I’m eager to learn

Why she fancied it so

 

“I hope you haven’t been waiting out there long. I didn’t hear anyone knock,” she tells him, apologetically, as her words are drowned out by a clap of thunder that shakes the house. “It’s deafening!” she exclaims, laughing now. “I’m Bella, Tomo’s wife,” she greets him, extending one hand while holding a fluffy white puppy in the other. “And this is my little Bolo...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1607-0 / 9798317816070