My mother's memoir, written seventy years ago, is finally making it into print. My sister and I have had the manuscript all these years, and are finally having copies made by a print-on-demand print company. Our goal is to have a copy printed for every grandchild, but the project has taken a r_e_a_l_l_y long time.
My mother wrote of the post-empty-nest period in their lives when they tried to establish a new mode of life, running a bait business in my father's native state of Arkansas. They had chosen the Lake Norfolk area. By way of a little explanation my sister wrote a prologue of the history of the lake. And for an epilogue I wrote of the history of the book, how my mother had chosen the name, Hot the Coffee, Mama, because that had been a cry she frequently heard when my father thought visitors were drawing near. I had also written of how the book would be printed by the espresso book machine at a nearby library. Because of our delays the espresso book machine was no longer available and that section had to be edited.
My sister's daughter, my niece, prepared the flashdrive, and we recently received three proof copies. She did a great job -- there were very few corrections. We have now ordered a dozen more copies, for the grandchildren and perhaps a few interested parties. Our pleasure is laden with emotion, and deep regret that the manuscript remained unpublished; the bait business did not bring in an adequate income.
Looking for errors, I read my proof copy word by word. And I was struck by what a defining snapshot Hot the Coffee, Mama is of that period in north central Arkansas when the native dwellers, the Ozark hillbillies, were unknowingly trying to preserve their sometimes contradictory lifestyle beliefs against the invasive ingress of moneyed resort developers.
