New sl et te r - Ju ly 2 00 2

Table of Contents

Section

Number of Entries

The Write Stories

.............................................................................1

The Write Poetry

.............................................................................4

Learn from the Masters

.............................................................................1

The Write "Stuff"

.............................................................................2

THE WRITE STORIES


Out oozes a saliva-like slime filled with diabolic white pustules from putrid green globs coated with fur. I dig my fork into the repulsive mess, internal juices squirting onto my plate. Me: 1, Okra: 0. I might have won the battle, but that said nothing of the war. I must always remember that I am fighting against one of the fiercest enemies of civilization as we know it: the devilish okra. Especially when it is boiled in a cauldroneyes of newts, toes of frogsnothing else comes close. It surfaces from the sewers atnight, strangling its enemies with long tentacles of slime as it shoots poisonous seeds to the ground, which soon rise up as yet another row in the phalanx of mutant vegetables. The opposition slips on its trail of mucous, whence the green scoundrel spirits away to its secret lair, where it is joined by its companions in crimethe ever-so-malicious squash, eggplant and zucchini.
I have fallen in with a society opposing these evil forces, called CHEETOS, or the Civilians who Have Eliminated Every Threat of Okra (and Squash). It has expanded to include the capture andsuppression of okra, zucchini, eggplant, and any other ill-tasting vegetable. We patrol the streets, following the trail of goo and rancid seeds that constantly threaten to spew out more demons to obstruct our path. The monsters against whom I have dedicated my life are very cunning, indeed. They disguise themselves as friends before they decide to turn on you. They fool adults into believing that they are healthy and that they taste good, but I am too smart for them since I see through their faade. Brace yourself for another round in the ring of deception when you hear the fateful words, Honey, have some more okra.


THE WRITE POETRY



Those Dammed Rivers [jessica_nixon_04@hotmail.com]

Sparkling rivers and grand old trees,
Bunnies in springtime and honey bees.
The trees are cut down, the rivers are dammed,
On the bunnies homes, new houses are crammed.
Future lives will be changed by our actions,
Instead of dealing with the problems, we lose ourselves in distractions.
While our nations prosper, nature is destroyed,
What once had meaning, is now null and void.





Your Eyes

Once upon a time
I looked into your eyes
And saw nothing but
The love you had for me.
I knew you truly cared,
Meant every word you said,
And would never hurt me.
I even anticipated our
Relationship lasting a long time.
The love we shared was strong,
Something nobody could come between.
Nothing else mattered any more
Because we had each other
And that's all we needed.
I loved you with all my heart
And you claimed to feel the same way.
Why did you have to lie?

~Scoobygirl0403




TOM'S SONG

It's over,
It's his fault,
She would have done anything for him,
She could have been everything for him,
Yet he didn't see it.
He used her.
She knows it,
But still it makes no difference,
She's lost all intrest in the world without him.
She told him
Her secrets,
And he just threw them in her face.
He didn't care that it hurt her,
He said he
Cared for her,
But it was just another lie,
He had other girls on the side,
And now her
Tears have dried,
And she just wants to forget him.

~no_zd124@hotmail.com

Gliding
by Kathryn McNally
[DamslNdstrs]

All these things I feel inside
Kind of like the Texan wind
Never walking, now I glide

It's like a kid down a slide
These are the things I like to find
Never walking, now I glide

But if you dare put me aside
Out of sight, out of mind
Always walking, no more glide

LEARN FROM THE MASTERS

"Born in Salinas, California, in 1902, John Steinbeck grew up in a fertile agricultural valley about twenty-five miles from the Pacific Coast--and both valley and coast would serve as settings for some of his best fiction. In 1919 he went to Stanford University, where he intermittently enrolled in literature and writing courses until he left in 1925 without taking a degree. During the next five years he supported himself as a laborer and journalist in New York City and then as a caretaker for a Lake Tahoe estate, all the time working on his first novel, Cup of Gold (1929). After marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California fictions, The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a Gd Unknown(1933), and worked on short stories later collected in The Long Valley (1938). Popular success and financial security came only with Tortilla Flat (1935), stories about Monterey's paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class: In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and the book considered by many his finest, The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Early in the 1940s, Steinbeck became a filmmaker with The Forgotten Village (1941) and a serious student of marine biology with Sea of Cortez. He devoted his services to the war, writing Bombs Away (1942) and the controversial play-novelette The Moon is Down(1942). Cannery Row(1945), The Wayward Bus (1947), The Pearl (1947), A Russian Journal (1948), another experimental drama, Burning Bright (1950), and The Log from the Sea of Cortez(1952), an ambitious saga of the Salinas Valley and his own family's history. The last decades of his life were spent in New York City and Sag Harbor with his third wife, with whom he traveled widely...He died in 1968, having won a Nobel Prize in 1962."

Introduction to Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. Penguin Books. 1993.

THE WRITE "STUFF"



"Here is a little something I wrote for my school paper. They're published every month for the school paper. I also host a Jibber Jabber site, so if you or anyone would like to visit it: The URL is http://www.geocities.com/jibberjabberonline

I also have an e-newsletter if anyone is interested."

---

Jibber Jabber Volume
**School Time Confusion**

You know, the other day I was thinking. This may alarm many of you, to think a man of my caliber would be thinking, but yes-I was thinking. I was thinking of all the years I've spent in school. I was also thinking of the many awesome teachers I had, and the many mean ones.
To everyone else, am I the only one who gets confused at school? Now settle down, I don't mean algebra or anything like that, though it isn't my friend. I'm talking about the basics, the things we're all supposed to know like the back of our hands. The things I believe they (the people who run the National School HQ somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin) made purposely difficult for us to understand. Keep in mind, by us I mean the "thinkers."

Let's take a simple thing like English, which is one of my favorite subjects, mind you. Let's say you're in class, well, way back in first grade, I suppose. The teacher takes some chalk and makes a dot on the board. Then she turns and smiles, "Class, can anyone tell me what this is?"

A smart youngster such as yourself raises his/her hand and immediately says, "A dot!."

"No! Wrong! It's a period!" the teacher says hastily.

"Ri-i-i-ght"

So, there you have it. We started with a dot, and now we have a period. What was once a dot is now a period, and when your Great Aunt Mertha-May comes over with a dress with dots all over it what do you say she has on it? Periods? No, she'll tell you they're dots, so when you go back to school on Monday the whole cycle starts all over again.

Now this madness could all end here, but no. Let's all take a walk over to math class. Take a seat in the back, so you can see the whole board! Okay, the teacher has some stuff scribbled on the board. What's that in math? A period! How absurd, who does she think she is, an English teacher?

So being the perceptive one you are, you raise your hand.

"You, with the hand raised. What?"

"Miss Featherdrizzle, why do you have a period on the board? Doesn't that belong in English?"

"Good question kid. That's not a period. It's a decimal point!"

"Ri-i-i-ght"

So now we add another chapter to the confusion. Now they're no longer dots, no longer periods, but now they're decimal points. So, we take this perfectly innocent dot, morph it into a period, then morph it into a decimal point. They always wondered why I got confused, because I was a thinker.

Once again, thanks for reading all my Jibber Jabber.

Email any questions, comments, or suggestions to me at: Jibberjabbercomments@columnist.com



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