Confessions of a 4th Grade Athlete by L.T. Garvin

Summer is here which brings it closer to the upcoming football season which brings it closer to unleashing the whimsical characters in my book, Confessions of a 4th Grade Athlete.  There are many valid questions that begged to be answered:

Why are we football-obsessed in the South?

Why do we love working out in 100+ degree weather?

Why do we chase an oblong leather ball around like our lives depended on it?

None of these questions; however, are answered in this book.  Nope, for those answers you will have to look elsewhere, but in this book you can discover a boy named Nate and his quest to become a star athlete amidst the scholarly demands of elementary school.  So I will be writing, blogging, promoting, reading and generally working pretty hard this summer.  I am not sure at this time if the saga of Nate will continue or not, as the Attention Monster is apparently holding my imagination hostage as he sometimes did when Nate attempted to concentrate in class.

If you would like some insight on the crazy game of football, and how we glorify it, then here is my  nostalgic summation of that all-important last game:

https://broussardlana.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/last-game-upon-the-green-grass/

You can also see that Nate may closely resemble this young man who did achieve a measured amount of local glory upon that hallowed football field that holds the dreams and aspirations of the populations of both large and small towns all over the nation as we grasp the long and wondrous days of summer and watch them unfold into the promise of fall.  You can also see that this sentence is much too long.  Hoping everyone in WordPress Land has a great Memorial Day weekend for those who celebrate it.

Illustrations by: Corbin Hillam.  Publication by Crystal Publishing, LLC

Through the Window

Mesh wire laced windows

with pulley closures

like Popeye the Sailor Man

rigged them up

sun streaming on the gym floor

basketball goals sans nets

inner city school in a town

that doesn't know it's a city

disconnected masses

someone asks

"Howya doin' Miss?"

if they slip by

they'll wander the dungeons

of this old school

linger in its haunted auditorium

spirits leftover from the 1920s

are we here the sum total

of its morter and brick?

living off the glorified past

of its now defunct alumni

no one here drives those

oak-lined streets now

glimpse through the spruce hedge

that deflects the wind

see a real life hustle outside

every year closes out the former

as decades carve themselves

upon stone memorabilia

and those that remain

climb the fracture-laden cracked steps

meeting the struggle

transcending time

Lee and the Evil Mrs. McLoon

The librarian at our school is a witch

I do believe

We haven't seen Taylor Jones

since she grabbed her by the sleeve

With powers supernatural

that's old Mrs. McLoon

she turned Evan Jones

into a hairy baboon

The principal Mr. Ned,

away from her did he scoot

When she arrived wearing peace signs

and waving eye of newt

They say Mrs. McLoon

dances in the dead of night

Her house is haunted

it is really quite a sight

She tends, combs and cuddles

a whole herd of black cats

When she opens up the windows,

out comes the black bats

The math teacher zombied out

and almost fell

Mary Alice White saw her

cast that spell

Don't go in the library

and ask for anything factual

Because like I said,

Mrs. McLoon's supernatural!

People are disappearing in this town

left and right

And it's still three weeks left

until Halloween night

Why does everyone act

like there's nothing going on?

At night you can hear the wind

make the spirits moan

She gave my mom chocolates,

I tried to intercede

Now she has her evil sights

set solidly on me!

I'm sitting in class when the teacher

says, "Hey Lee..."

"Go and find Macy,

she's in the library!"