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A few opening lines from my novel A Three-Turtle Summer. Paperback and Kindle on Amazon. Paperback at Barnes & Noble.

1.   A Sister in Trouble

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, July 1949

         It was too hot to play cards, especially if someone was keeping score, and Vera was.

     “Ay, carumba! You can’t stand to go two hours without beating someone at something can you?” Grace Tyler playfully pouted.

       Vera ignored her little sister, and began shuffling cards as she gleefully announced, “Senoras, the game is canasta, and we’re going to play according to Hoyle.” She began to deal the cards like a Las Vegas gambler while Pauline laughed and pointed at her mother, a notorious and frequent card cheater.

          Everyone was hot, but in her long-sleeved shirt and long skirt, Grace was sweltering. Sweat beaded up on her forehead and neck and she kept stretching her legs out because the backs of her knees stuck to her skirt.

             “Gracie, for God’s sake, go put some shorts on,” Vera said.

          Grace ignored her sister, pulled her shirt away from her perspiring chest, and asked, “Anyone want more iced tea before Vera whips the pants off of us?”

             Momma and Pauline both nodded and Grace poured tea over fresh ice cubes while Vera got a tablet and pencil out of her purse.

             The room was almost silent as each woman arranged her hand. Only Momma barely tapped her foot and softly sang a song from her childhood under her breath:

          “The fair senorita with the rose in her hair …

          worked in the cantina but she didn’t care …

         played cards with the men and took all their loot … awh-ha!

        went to the store and bought brand new boots … ”

         “Awh-Haaa!” Grace’s five-year-old daughter Glory joined in.

          Unconsciously, the other two women started to hum along while they looked at their hand. About the second “Awh-Haaa!” Vera abruptly stopped humming and looked at her sisters with a raised eyebrow. Something was fishy; Momma was much too happy. Barely containing their amusement, they watched as she cheerfully arranged her cards.

          Finally, unable to suppress her laughter any longer, Vera jumped up, snatched the cards out of her mother’s hands, and fanned them face-up across the table.

          “Ay, ay, ay!” She cried out, “Momma, tell me how can you have a meld and eleven cards in your hand when we’ve just gotten started?”

          The fun escalated as Vera rushed around the table and ran her hands all around her mother and the chair she sat on to feel for extra cards.

          “Stand up!” Grace and her sisters said as they pulled their mother to her feet. They shook her blue calico dress and screamed with laughter as extra cards fell from every fold.

          “Glory,” Vera told her young niece, “crawl under the table and get those cards for your Auntie Vera, okay?” Grace moved her feet to the side so that Glory could scramble under the table. Her childish giggles danced around the women’s feet as she scrambled for the extra cards that dropped from her grandmother’s dress.

          “Momma,” Vera laughed, “you’re a born cheater. How did you know we were going to play cards today?” she asked.

          “I’m not the only one in this family who’s been caught with a few too many cards,” Momma said in her defense.

          “Yes, but you’re the family matriarch. We expect better of you than we do our good-for-nothing brothers,” Pauline said.

          “Huh! Matriarch, my foot. You girls never listen to a word I say,” Momma grumbled.

          “Maybe that’s because we can’t trust you,” Vera said.

          As another card dropped from Gregoria’s dress and slid across the floor, Vera added, “We’ll strip you down to your rosary before we ever play cards with you again, Momma.”

          “Yeah,” Pauline, chimed in, “the next time you’ll play in nothing but your lace step-ins and a bra made from two tortillas.”

          “Well, at least I’ll be the coolest one at the table,” Momma chirped.

          Vera reached across the table to gather all the cards and reshuffle them. “We’re going to start all over, and we’ll watch you every minute.”

          Grace felt a sharp pain in her stomach when she looked up and saw her husband’s scowling face through the screen door. Why was he home so early? She didn’t have to look at him again to know his normally handsome blond features smoldered with disgust…

See my books and stories here: https://www.amazon.com/author/janellehooper

Please share this post! My thanks, Janelle
Visiting my mother in Lawton, Oklahoma
A long time ago! A Three-Turtle Summer,
fictional autobiography,
was written about our life with my father.

Fatigues and Fox-Fur Coats at Christmas

Fatigues and Fox-Fur Coats at Christmas
A Snowy Day at the Airport

Janelle Meraz Hooper

   I love airports. Years ago, due to a family emergency, I was stuck at a Lawton, Oklahoma airport just before Christmas. Due to a sudden snowstorm, the weather was so bad that none of the commercial flights could get in or out. The airport was near Fort Sill, the Artillery Training Center of the World, and the floor of the terminal was jammed full of weary and worried soldiers hoping—desperately–to get home in time for the holidays.

   Just when chances of a flight were at their bleakest, two Lear jets, smaller than  commercial aircraft, landed on the airstrip. The door opened and two women in full-length white fox coats, and dripping with diamonds, gingerly tiptoed their way through the snow, hopelessly trying to save their high-heeled shoes. The soldiers watched the beautiful women deplane, then, lost in their own problems, turned their attention elsewhere.

   There wasn’t enough seating for the stranded soldiers, so once inside, the women picked a new path through the floor crowded with reclining troops. As they walked, they pointed at each soldier, smiled, and asked, “Where are you going?” When the soldier answered, one of them said, “Go get in that first plane,” or, “Go get in that second plane.” I don’t know why they could fly when the bigger planes couldn’t, but they took two planeloads of grateful soldiers home for Christmas that day.

   Like the rest of the civilians, I was stuck in the airport for another six hours or so before the weather cleared and my commercial flight could land. There was no snack bar there at that time, and I survived on a box of stale Crackerjacks and a half-eaten roll of Lifesavers that I had in my purse. But I had a big smile on my face the whole time. Not only would the soldiers get a free ride home, but they’d get there in a Lear Jet. Most of us would never have that experience!

   Over the airport’s intercom, I could hear the sound of Christmas music softly playing…God rest ye merry gentlemen…let nothing you dismay…oh, tidings of comfort and joy…

   A true story.

The End

Note: The Lawton Airport has now been renamed The Lawton-Ft. Sill Regional  Airport.

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Merry Christmas, from my heart to yours, Janelle

Booking video for Geronimo, Life on the Reservation

The booking video below was made with my own two little hands. What fun! Many thanks to the talented people who graciously allowed me to incorporate their work. Anyone can tell you, this story of Geronimo is a true labor of love!

https://youtu.be/cnY2zVmKpZM

August 25 & 26th, 2017, Rudy will be performing his show in Kenab, Utah, during The Western Legends Roundup https://www.westernlegendsroundup.com/  the Roundup runs from August21-26th, 2017. Don’t miss it!

Tickets for Geronimo:

http://westernlegendsroundup.com/geronimo

A Three-Turtle Summer, #1 in my Turtle Trilogy

kindleturtletues

#1 in my Turtle Trilogy
suitable for most NA and adults
Amazon and others, PB & Kindle.
Published by iUniverse.

See this book on Amazon

See all of my books and stories: Janelle Meraz Hooper

Read the book- Amazon and other Internet bookstores. Published by iUniverse. 


Reviews:
Janelle Meraz Hooper gives us more than a story. She gives us a cast of hilarious and memorable characters in a vividly drawn scene. Libroseninguana.com

 Light-hearted writing, deep and disturbing content, October 31, 2013 by James R. Muri
This review is from: A Three-Turtle Summer (Paperback) 4 stars
Janelle – our author – has written a novel that disguises years of horror and despair behind cozy country anecdotes, dialogue, and situations. To me, this reads like a psychological thriller / chiller, made all the more so by the calm and carefree rhetorical style used throughout.

To some this would be disconcerting; to me, Janelle has produced a piece of genuine art. If you’re looking for warm fuzzies in a story, the only warm fuzzy you’ll find in this one is basic survival and triumph. I found it impossible to put down. I was struck – to keep hammering on this – by how deeply contrasted the prose and peril were. Excellent read, excellent work, Janelle.

By Marmalade on May 3, 2014 5 stars
This is a gripping story of domestic abuse fueled by the high level of racism existing in Oklahoma in the late forties. It documents the cruelties suffered by the Hispanic, Japanese and African American of that era.

Grace, the youngest daughter of a close-knit Hispanic family, lives in constant terror of being assaulted by her bigoted, mean-spirited husband, Dwayne. She suffers her beatings in silence fearing he will take her daughter, Glory, away from her. Grace is a talented seamstress and with the help of her family devises a plan to be free of her abuser while he is away on military leave.

The characters are fleshed out and the action is fast paced and full of suspense. This is a terrific read that offers hope to the victims of abuse and racism. Well done.


2002 Bold Media 1st place fiction award

Next: As Brown AS I Want: The Indianhead Diaries

Custer & His Naked Ladies

(All books stand alone)

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Custer & His Naked Ladies. #3 in the Turtle Trilogy

finalcustercoverSee the book on Amazon

A modern-day Western novel…
PB & Kindle, suitable for New Adult (NA) and up. Amazon and others.

Published by iUniverse.

A few lines from Custer & His Naked Ladies, the third book in my Turtle Trilogy. Glory, all grown up now, lives in Seattle and has unexpectedly been left by her husband. She’s on a commuter plane between Ft. Worth and Lawton—on her way home to see her family…while she’s looking out the plane’s window, she ponders the past… 

Glory looked down at the barren landscape, after recognizing the pain and suffering of the settlers a part of her switched sides…A good example was Cynthia Ann Parker, a settler’s child who was kidnapped by Comanches in 1836 when she was nine-years-old, and later became the mother of Quanah Parker, who grew up to be a great Comanche chief. As a child, she must have been terrified when the Comanches carried her away but years later, when she was “rescued” by the white man, she didn’t want to return to the white settlement. She had become a Comanche heart and soul. She died of a broken heart when she was separated from her Indian family. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?

Glory had read the stories about the Indian cruelty to the settlers, but little was said about the whites, like Cynthia Ann Parker, who had embraced the Indian way of life.
Still, the pain and suffering of the settlers couldn’t be ignored. Glory couldn’t imagine how she could survive if she were a mother whose child had been ripped away from her and carried off by a band of screaming Indians. Many of them never saw or heard from their child again. They must have spent the rest of their days wondering if it were alive or dead.

Glory looked down at the barren landscape. A part of her switched sides. So, you couldn’t wait to get rid of the Indians and get our land. What have you done with it? Nothing! Except maybe pollute it. Give it back! Glory tried to imagine the plains once again filled with buffalo and other game. Peaceful Indian villages would nestle next to the creeks…yeah, Glory interrupted herself, until a neighboring tribe came and set their teepees on fire…okay…so not all of the Indians’ troubles were caused by the white man.

The drink cart began to move down the aisle. A gray-haired woman on the other side of the plane leaned over the arm of her chair and softly asked Glory, “Pardon me, but I’m from New Jersey and I’m wondering if you’re a real Indian?”

“Funny you should ask. I’m going back home to try and figure that out!”

The woman didn’t know if Glory was being funny or rude. Why shouldn’t she be confused? She was!

“No, really,” Glory continued, “I was part-white and part-Mexican when my mother got remarried to a Comanche Indian when I was eight-years-old. I’m not really sure what I am!”

“I see. Perhaps you should convert to Judaism like me. Then your confusion would be complete.” She looked out her window, “We did our share of wandering in the desert. Of course, we didn’t have RVs,” she joked. Her eyes followed a caravan of recreational vehicles as they moved down the road, red dust billowing behind them.

“That’s not a bad idea. The only problem is I don’t think all of those cultures would fit on my sweatshirt.”

The stewardess came around with cold drinks and the woman struck up a conversation with her.

“Do you have any kosher Coke?” she teased.

“No Ma’am, but I have some kosher Pepsi.”

“That’ll do.”

Custer & His Naked Ladies. Book 3 of the Turtle Trilogy. Paperback and Kindle (etc.). Suitable for New-Adult and up. Published by iUniverse.


Reviews

 “Janelle  Meraz Hooper has done it again! Custer & His Naked Ladies is filled with quirky and likable characters in a richly detailed setting. Humor, family, and love come shining through. There is a poignant line in the book that has stayed with me, “Old age had crept in and stolen their bodies while they were dancing through life…” These women have danced! VF Gibson, Seattle, WA

“I purchased Custer & His Naked Ladies at your booth on July 4th in Steilacoom and promised I’d let you know what I thought of it. After I finished it my husband decided to read it (We had both enjoyed A Three-Turtle Summer a few years ago)  so I waited to hear his comments. We thoroughly enjoyed the book. We both agreed that you are excellent at spinning a yarn and at painting a verbal picture of people and places. You can quote us on that! P.R., Tacoma

“I just finished reading your book “Custer & His Naked Ladies LOOOOVE it, excellent writing and story. It gave me a nice inside view of the wonderful culture of our American Indians. Good job, Janelle S.Z., Puyallup, WA


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