When I wrote Possum Living, I did it in long-hand but, of course, I was going to need to type it up sooner or later.  I scoured the thrift shops for a typewriter but couldn’t find one.  Mom offered me her old manual one if I would do her a favor—get a General Equivalency Diploma (GED).  So, I took the test, got my high school GED, and mom gave me the typewriter.  It turns out it was broken.  To get the return mechanism to work I attached an enormous rubber band to the carriage and taped the other end to the wall.  Then I got a book on teaching yourself to type and went to work.

When I was done typing the manuscript, I went to the library and looked up publishers.  None took me on, but one suggested getting an agent.  I went back to the library and got a list of agents.  An agent accepted it and sold it to a small publishing house.  That publishing house sold it to a big publisher and the rest is history.

I was sent on a national publicity tour.  My first major television interview was in New York City on the Bill Boggs show.  I put my stuff in a burlap sack (not having a suitcase), slung it over my back, and headed for the big city.  When I got to New York, I didn’t know how to hail a taxi.  So I watched what other people did, stepped up to the curb, and raised my hand.  A taxi stopped, I put my stuff in the back, sat in the front, and handed the driver the studio’s address.  He laughed and asked if I had ever gotten a taxi before and suggested that the next time I sit in the back.  I gave him a copy of Possum Living.

At the studio, I spread out a sample of possum food on a display table and sat down for the interview.  At first I was startled because the interviewer, Bill Boggs himself, made a snide comment about my dress.  After I snapped back that it was a nice dress and that his people had told me to wear one of my gardening dresses, he became as nice as could be and we had a wonderful time.  When interview was over, he brought out plates and cups.  We feasted with the crew and drank moonshine from a Mason jar.

When Possum Living was reissued, my editor and publicist at Tin House Press, Nanci, got in touch with Bill Boggs and, lo and behold, he remembered interviewing me.  When Nanci told me this, I was surprised that he had remembered me after doing thousands of interviews.  “Well,” Nanci said, “you were the only one who brought him moonshine.”

(Below is a picture of a possum feast on the porch in Pennsburg—rabbit, fresh corn on the cob, garden tomato and basil salad, mashed potatoes, homemade pickles, fry bread made with hand ground wheat, and mint iced tea with a dash of moonshine.  Ah, summertime and the living was easy!)

August in Houston is like January in Pennsylvania—you’re damn tired of the weather, there’s still another month of it to slog through, it’s too nasty to do much outside, and the vegetable garden is kaput.  Except here we also get to anticipate having hurricanes.

Maybe to make up for the hurricanes, we actually can garden all year.  In truth, the garden isn’t quite kaput.  We are still getting black-eyed peas and the okra is roaring into full production.

Okra is one of those vegetables that can really produce, but most people don’t know how to use it to its full potential, like zucchini except more obscure.  It’s good in gumbo, breaded and deep fried, stewed with tomatoes, or pickled.  But our favorite is grilled.  I grow Simpson Spineless which is best harvested as a medium-sized pod between 3 and 6 inches.  I snip the pods off with pruning shears, rinse and dry them, and cut off the tip and the top.  The tip is OK to eat but it’s the toughest spot on the pod and if I have to use much force, I know that pod is too hard and stringy to eat.  The good pods I slice in half long-ways, coat with olive oil, and grill at a medium temperature.  I use an electric grill (a gift from my hubby) on my porch to keep the house cool.  How long you cook the okra slices depends on the condition of the pods and the temperature of the grill, but it can be as short as 10 minutes or as long as 20. You want the ends to be crunchy and the seeds brown but not burnt.  Turn them once while grilling and judge by eye.  They should look like this… Put them on a rack to cool a few minutes, and serve with lime slices.

This morning, I harvested okra to take with us to Austin to visit our friends this weekend.  We’ll grill it, sprinkle it with lime and salt, and have it with cold beer while sitting on the back porch in the late evening swapping stories.

When we get back to Houston, it’ll be time to start the fall garden and dream of cooler weather.

How my funky, nature-loving dad and my nearly-respectable, nature-loving-as-long-as-it’s-on-the-other-side-of-a-pane-of-glass mom ever got married, I’ll never know, but I suspect it was pure lust.  Mom said Dad was incredibly handsome in his Air Force uniform and my mom was, in my dad’s words, “built like a brick shithouse.”    Here’s a 1961 photo of us at the Philadelphia Art Museum during summer vacation. 

Dad had joined the Air Force after a few teenage dustups brought him before a judge who told him to go into the military or go into jail.  After his four-year stint as an electronic technician, he left the Air Force, married Mom, and got a job in Florida working for a NASA contractor.  When I was born, Dad was 21 and Mom was only 18.  My brother was born five years later.

Once married, my parents fought constantly and viciously.  When I was fourteen, they moved outside a little Pennsylvania town called Pennsburg.  The move didn’t help and they got a divorce soon afterwards.  I chose to stay with Dad and my brother went with Mom.  Dad and I started turning into possums.

Once we moved to Pennsburg, I was old enough to pull off the idea that I had graduated early.  I could go out during school hours and do whatever I wanted. I was free to just go.  It was wonderful!   I could pack a lunch and go walking through woods and neighborhoods, along streams and over hills, all day long, free to relax, observe, and think any time I wanted to.  Possum living was a pure blessing to me.

However, I was always a little paranoid that I wasn’t getting a “proper” education, so I kept reading voraciously.  I was personal friends with the local librarian.  I also wanted to make sure I didn’t have any gaps in my math education, so when Dad thought that one section of my math book was a waste of time and told me to skip it, I snuck over to a friend’s house and studied it anyhow.

After a while, we realized that we were going to make it as possums–it wasn’t even particularly hard.  With the recession of the ‘70’s raging, we figured a lot of other people could use help gaining control over their lives.  It was the perfect time to write Possum Living.

The Carolina Wrens’ babies successfully fledged from the nest in the pot on the porch.  Even as I write, they are out hunting bugs in the garden, jauntily flipping their tails up as they hop along the fence, and buzzing madly at anything that annoys them.  I love Carolina Wrens.

Speaking of the garden, the tomatoes are completely caput.   I pulled them out and hung up their cages.  We had a great harvest this year and I froze several gallons of delicious tomato sauce.   Soooo good!

The green beans are done, too, as are the green soybeans.  (Green soybeans are usually called by their Japanese name, edamame).   If you haven’t grown edamame, I’d recommend it.  The plants are compact and the beans very tasty.  There are a couple of tricks, though:  The seeds rot easily so don’t soak them before planting.  Mine even rotted in my raised beds after a downpour.  I finally planted them in small 4”x4” pots with Bean Booster mixed in the soil.  (“Bean Booster” is granules of the bacteria legumes need to fix nitrogen in their roots.  Not having the bacteria in the soil is the reason why beans and peas don’t do well in a new bed and why they are one of the few garden plants you want to put in the same spot year after year.   I got my seeds and booster from Burpee.com.)  When they were about 3 inches tall, I transplanted them to a raised bed, and added more Bean Booster.  Since they don’t get tall, I can put them in front of the pole beans.

You don’t harvest soy beans one at a time like pole beans.  When the pods are very full but before they turn yellow, you pull the whole plant out and snip off the pods.  To have edamame for several weeks, you need to plant it in succession, say, a small row every few days.  To eat them, bring a pot of water to a boil, throw in the edamame pods, let them boil till they are just tender, drain, rinse in cool water, and let dry a bit.  Sprinkle salt over the pods and serve.  You probably know this, but you use your fingers or teeth to pop the beans out of the pod and throw the pods into an extra bowl. 

One more update–the audio blog interview I mentioned awhile ago has been posted.  It was for Modern Hippie, a fun on-line magazine with nary a peace sign or marijuana plant in sight.  You can access it at http://www.modernhippiemag.com/2010/07/15/possum-living-live-job-money/

When I was eight, my parents separated and my mom took my brother and me to live with my great-grandmother in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Now, you might think that New Mexico is hot, but it can get cold in the winter and the nearby Sandia Mountains get a fair amount of snow.
That year, the absolute in thing for girls to wear was a wooly, white bonnet tied on under the chin with strings that ended in fuzzy pom-poms. Every girl in the neighborhood had one except me.  I begged and begged my mom for one but money was tight.  At Christmas, to my great joy and surprise, I got the coveted hat.  Here’s me wearing it while hiking in the Sandia Mountain in 1968 (dig the colors, man). 
Later that year, my parents reunited and moved to Pennsylvania.  When the cold came, my mom dug out my winter clothes including the fuzzy hat.  But now my beloved hat was no longer in fashion.  I was the only one wearing this very distinctive hat for years!  The damn thing wouldn’t wear out.  And since money was tight and I had begged for it, I was too proud to ask for a replacement.  Even if I lost it, everyone knew it was mine and would thoughtfully bring it back.  Wearing that out-dated hat for years made me hate fashion.
Now style is different.  I like style.  I have had plenty of style—thrift shop style, engineer style (is there such a thing?), nature girl style, and frumpy middle-aged lady style.  But fashion?  Phhht!  Just an excuse to sell you stuff.