On Writing & Storytelling: Reunion: Coda’s Commencement Day 1983 Chapter Gets a Third Scene – Now It’s On to Scene Four

Mid- to Late Morning, Thursday, February 1, 2024. Madison, New Hampshire

“This must be Thursday,’ said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. ‘I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hi, everyone. It’s almost 9 AM Eastern Standard Time here in Madison on this first day of February 2024. It’s – to no one’s surprise – a chilly mid-winter day. The current temperature is 23°F (-5°C) under cloudy conditions. With humidity at 78% and the wind blowing from the west-southwest at 1 MPH (1 KMH), it feels like 30°F (-1°C). Today’s forecast calls for cloudy skies and a high of 38°F (4°C). Tonight, the skies will be mostly cloudy, and the low will be 23°F (-5°C).

This morning I woke up around 6:20; I didn’t want to be up and about so early, though, so I tried to close my eyes and go back to sleep, if only for another 20-30 minutes. Nope. Instead of falling asleep, I tossed and turned and just couldn’t get comfortable enough to take a catnap. So…I got up, walked across the hall to my office, and logged on to my computer to check my emails (nothing important), social media feeds (nothing really important), and the stats on my Blogger and WordPress blogs (trivial, but I check my pageviews and comments sections daily, so….)

On Writing & Storytelling: ‘Goodbye, Farewell, and Adios’ Gets a Third Scene

Despite a later-than-usual start to my writing day (I sat down at my desk around 2 PM, but my Muse was capricious and didn’t send me any inspiration until well past 3 in the afternoon), my Wednesday writing went well, all things considered. Just as on the day before, I thought that because I had started late in my “Novel Writing Shift,” I would only get half, two-thirds at best, of the third Commencement Day-set scene in Reunion: Coda’s thirteenth chapter.  

Happily, after I stopped writing sometime after 5 PM and read what I’d written, I discovered – to my surprise – that I’d ended up with at least a passable first draft of a complete Scene Three for Goodbye, Farewell, and Adios.

Here’s a brief excerpt from that scene:

3

12:30 PM, Miami-Dade Community College, South Campus – Theodore R. Gibson Center

The sun was blazing in the sky, and the heat was unbearable. The thermometer read 95°F, but it felt like 110°F with the humidity. We had just parked in Parking Lot 9, the closest one to the Gibson Center, where we were supposed to graduate. I could see the building’s white walls and blue roof, but they seemed far away. I wished we had gotten here earlier, but Mom said we had to be considerate of the other members of our party – Mark’s mother Dale, and younger sister Leslie, who had followed us in Dale’s canary yellow 1979 Toyota Corolla. They’d been right behind us for much of the commute to Miami-Dade South but got separated when we entered the heavy traffic on Kendall Drive.

Mom was still sitting behind the wheel of her old white 1964 Buick, the one that she had owned since Dad died in Vietnam in 1966, a year after I was born. He was an Army helicopter pilot, and he was shot down near Dak To during a “routine” combat mission that only brought death and sorrow to American and Vietnamese combatants alike but didn’t bring the end of the war closer. I never got to know him, but Mom said he was brave and kind. She had kept his car as a reminder of him, and she had taken good care of it. She had tried to cheer me up during the drive from our house near South Miami High, but it didn’t help. I was too nervous, too restless, too eager. I was about to graduate from high school, and I had achieved something no one in our family had ever done before. I had won a full-ride scholarship to Harvard to study history. I had worked hard for this opportunity, and I didn’t want to waste it.

“Jim, honey, you’re going to do great,” Mom said, squeezing my hand. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve come so far, and you have such a bright future ahead of you.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I replied, forcing a smile. “But I’m still scared. What if I can’t handle Harvard, or I get homesick, or I miss out on all the fun things here?”

“You won’t, sweetheart. You’re smart, confident, and handsome. You have nothing to worry about. Just enjoy this moment. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

“I know, Mom. I know. But I can’t help it. I’m nervous.”

Mark was sitting next to me, his curly brown hair and blue-grey eyes standing out in his gray suit and black tie. He looked personable, but also unhappy. His dad, Frank Prieto, had promised to be here, but he had ditched him at the last minute. He said he had an emergency, but Mark knew he was lying. He had seen him with a new girlfriend, some blonde tramp who was younger than Dale, his ex-wife. Mark despised his dad for that, for leaving him and his mom and sister for another woman. He despised him even more for missing his graduation.

“Hey, Jim, don’t sweat it, man,” Mark said, nudging me. “You’re not going to step on the heels of the kid in front of you, or trip on the dais, or look stupid when they take your picture with Dr. Burke and your diploma case. Just don’t stare too hard at Cindy Garcia’s ass during the procession, okay?  You’ve got this.” 

Action This Day

Today, of course, is a working day for me, so my plan for this first Thursday in February is to follow my usual routine of blogging in the morning, resting and eating lunch at midday, then work on Reunion: Coda for several hours until sunset or some time after sunset.  As I said yesterday, it’s a simple plan for a workday; I should be able to stick to it. Right?

I don’t have a lot of personal news to share – I’ll be going to the local Division of Motor Vehicles office on Wednesday of next week with my friend Patti to get my New Hampshire state ID card and register to vote, but other than that, no hay novedad.

Okay, even though noon is still over 90 minutes away, I will close this post here. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, stay warm, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.