My Speckled Tales and Other Dimensions - Hardcover

Bates, Eve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1425709850 ISBN 13: 9781425709853

Publisher: Xlibris Corp, 2007

Synopsis

With her roots deeply nurtured by things ancient and mysterious, Eve Bates has written in "Speckled Tales and Other Dimensions" a collection of stories that embrace all the myriad aspects of her widely varied experiences. Told in her uniquely forthright voice, with its combination of humorous insight and folksy wisdom, each story presents a special viewpoint-a unique "dimension"-about people and life. As a daughter of country people, the author bears witness to "America the Beautiful" from the perspective of one born to poverty but transformed her life to one of great prosperity and open-mindedness. It is pivotal to some stories in this personal collection that their roots stem from a childhood steep in passed-down mystical tales of ancient Baltic People. The first section of "Speckled Tales and Other Dimensions" are folktales from the author's ancestral background. Here in this section the stories are traditional myths told to all Lithuanian-American children of pre-radio and television days. "Eglute" is a story about a young maiden who married the King of Snakes. A lesson or two is contained in the author's adaptation of Eglute's fated union. The second section of Bates' book presents stories of Americana. "No Schtick Nose in Dat 'Ting" is the tragic story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder trial, which haunted the author's family until they died. Her people sincerely believed the wrong man, Richard Hauptmann, died in the electric chair for the crime. Bates tells a riveting story of how and why they planned to intervene in Hauptmann's trial and why they did not. The third section relates to more recent times. On a visit to Soviet Russia in 1971, Bates purchased a book entitled, "2017" in which the Soviet bragsters listed many propagandized "accomplishments" the world might see at the end of a hundred years from when Lenin's Bolsheviks took over, in 1917. One of the tales in "2017" explained how Soviet scientists were preparing to melt the ice cap over the North Pole so that "citrus fruits could be grown in the rich soil there." The author worried about this "melting" until she consulted the famed oceanographer in the vignette called "The Jacques Cousteau Interview". This collection combines anecdotes from Bates' earliest years when the author grew up on an isolated farm in rural New Jersey, to her life as a young woman far removed from that protected, rarified environment, to her golden years as an active storyteller. These stories portray how we humans deal with the extraordinary in ordinary life. Truly, the author sees a poignant story in even the simplest thing. In these "speckled tales," whether fiction, based on fact, or a mix of both, or a poem, Eve Bates has made life itself a tale worth telling. Eve Bates' life, as her stories reflect, is as multifarious as a homemade patchwork quilt. Her stories are interjected with the fine stitching of nicely put together words. Each story creates a vivid picture of a whole and rewarding life, for the diversity of experiences that are shared with us. From myth's ethereal mystery to the raw gustiness of war, "Speckled Tales and Other Dimensions" offers a smorgasbord of life experiences, gripping, personal, and always, almost unimaginably-honest. These eclectic stories, Each as far flung and varied from the next as life itself, and especially the life of their author: a little girl who grew courageous and adventurous enough to travel six continents of the world. Eve Bates' insatiable love of storytelling, born from hearing fairytales as a child, is what led her to share her adventures and the people whom she encountered on her journeys. It is a fitting paean to Eve Bates' triumph of storytelling here in "Speckled Tales and Other Dimensions" that her last story is about the challenging trip (for a woman no longer in her prime) to Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incans. Indefatigable and always looking for the next story with every turn of the road, Eve Bates is

About this title

About the Author:

Eve Bates transformed her life from the child of immigrant tomato-growers to that of a sophisticated world traveler. From the New Jersey farm which Bates left, she found a most fulfilling life not only as a wife, mother and grandmother, but also as a writ

About this edition

• Publisher: Xlibris Corp
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1425709850
• ISBN 13: 9781425709853
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214