The Wisdom of Home Friday, Feb. 5

“If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character,

if there be beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the family home.

If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation,

when there is order in the nations, there will be peace in the world.”

-From the home of my friend Lela Boggs Harper

I grew up in a rural culture where wisdom flowed from one generation to the next.  It was, and is, the perfect place for a boy to grow up.  That’s partly why I always seem to have a young boy/man in all of my novels.  (People ask me,  “Is Mayo/Eli/Joe supposed to be you?”   I laugh,  “No way, they do all the types of things I’d never do.”)

Lela Harper was a special friend who encouraged and taught me much during our long friendship, especially during the last decade of her life.  She was old enough to be my grandmother, but not too old to be my friend.  the quote above hung in her country home near Wye, Louisiana.

More on naming the character in A Spent Bullet:

Floyd or Herman.

Cyrus  “Cy”