I just posted a story called Idlewild on my other blog--check it out here--and I thought I should at least jot down a few things about the process. While there is no doubt that much of my work springs from some memory of something that happened to me or something I read in the newspaper or something someone told me etc., this story was written as a sort of tribute to my grandfather.
Leroy Quitman Miller--known as Quittie by everyone who knew him--bears many of the same characteristics of the "Quittie" in this story. While he died of natural causes and never killed anyone (to my knowledge) or took in an orphan (to my knowledge), he did own a convenience store, was married to a woman named Jean (my grandmother), drank his coffee so black and bitter it could have probably fueled his old blue Ford truck, and had a heart as big as Texas.
I miss him.
I forgot to mention that my grandfather and grandmother lived on a street named "Idlewild" and they grew tomatoes, okra--and a various assortment of other vegetables--in their backyard.
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