The words echoed and re-echoed through my mind. Mom was gone. Her words remained. "The one thing I wish I could have done in my lifetime was to read your book."

Dreams, just dreams. For years I had promised myself, "Someday I want to write a 'Dear Mom' book," and use the carbons of letters I wrote to her over 25 years—letters of survival when we were trying to raise four boys—letters of humor.

Now my husband added, "I want to read that book too. Hurry." I had never written stories. I didn't think I could write. I didn't know how to start. I didn't have time. Her words were an idle dream. But the echoes kept resounding. What if I tried? Where could I get help? Suddenly help arrived in the form of a flyer from the Memorial Union advertising mini courses. I wouldn't have to make a commitment. I could take this short course on Creative Writing and test the water.

Parking in the underground lot, I entered the Helen C. White Library building. Zooming up to the sixth floor, I felt lost until someone directed me to room 19 where I hesitantly took a seat. Tables arranged in a U shape forced us to face each other. Facing the unknown is difficult and I was uneasy. These kids looked younger than my children. Surely we had nothing in common.

While we eyed each other cautiously, the teacher walked in. She was short and willowy, dressed in a tight T-shirt top and full, peasant skirt that swirled as she walked. Sitting, she immediately crossed her legs Indian style underneath that skirt. Dark hair waved down to her waist, and when she talked, long circular earrings dangled amidst her hair as it billowed around her face.

She did not look like a teacher, but she did talk like one. Words like alliteration, metaphors, and publishing littered her conversation. What little confidence I had fast ebbed away. By the time she started talking about poetry, I was trying to figure out how to sneak out the door. When the hour of agony ended, I trudged home with an assignment-to write poetry, in rhyme or not, whichever we chose.

Each morning I agonized and rationalized that I didn't have time to think about writing. When the sixth day arrived I realized I would have to fish or cut bait, either produce something or throw away my class fee and never go back. Did Grandma Moses go through all this? Sitting on the couch with a pad of paper and pencil, I stared at the blank page until finally deciding, "Okay, Mom, you got me into this. You can just get me out." I knew that I had to write about what I had personally experienced and my most vivid memory was the night Mom died and my thoughts as I had held her hand throughout that long night.

The next night I returned to class. I had typed my poem, leaving off my name and had slipped it on the bottom of the pile of manuscripts. I was so new at this that I didn't realize we were expected to read aloud. One by one, we did. The young man to my right, who was a Freshman at the U, read about walking in the woods. The young man to my left wrote about philosophy. The talkative man in shirt and tie, a new lawyer in the city attorney's office, wrote about what a lawyer carries in his briefcase. The recently married secretary wrote about studying herself in the mirror. Another woman wrote about the mechanics of how a toilet flushes, and the kid in blue jeans and the girl with purple eye makeup just wrote about sex. Either their poems were too short or the hour was too long, as there was still enough time for mine.

Taking a deep breath I started reading "Hands Across the Bed," not daring to look up at my audience. I finished and waited for criticism. Only silence. Startled, I finally glanced up and saw tears in John's eyes, and Susan's, and all around the table. The only comment came from Paul, the lawyer, "My God, but I would have liked to have known that lady."

Their expressive faces bolstered my confidence more than any comments they might have made. Thanks to that class of eager young people, I realized that I can make people cry and laugh and I CAN write.

One might call it a kitchen appliance, but for her it was a cooking weapon. She had some sort of death wish with food, even dead meat. And used it profusely, experimenting on her children.

They would hear the whistling, the hissy fits, the rumblings on the stove burner. Aromas, not always pleasant, like sauerkraut, wafted through the house. When she lifted the lid, it could be smoked butt. Imagine eating something with that name. It sounded more like a cowboy, his behind stuck in a campfire. After she steamed this smoked butt to death in a pressurized cooker, it looked like a stringy mass of colorless rubber bands accompanied by potatoes and carrots gone to mush.

The real menace, though, was the round metal gauge with holes she placed over the steam coming out of a small vent on the cover. There were different sized holes depending on how much pressure needed to be vented. When the steam was about to burst, the gauge would wiggle and gyrate like a belly dancer, start rattling and lifting up and down like a loose rusty muffler. The hot gauge could roast perfectly good fingers even when handled with a padded mitt. If not caught in time, it'd blow like a geyser.

And that is exactly what it did one day. Green pea soup, like the green slime on TV game shows, splattered all over the ceiling wall, stove, and floor covering like a quick growing chia pet. But that didn't stop her from using the evil device. Her children wanted to build a tunnel to China and bury the demonic contraption as far down as hell if they believed in one.

Food was obviously her enemy. Cooking a meal in 1/4 time signatures meant more time out of the kitchen, more time to scour antique shops, bury herself in fabric shops or read romantic novels. Toss a few morsels into the cooker, forget about it and hope her family would actually eat it. And they did-because that is all there was. When the children reached high school, they promptly obtained jobs in bakeries, delis and supermarkets. No surprise there, at least they'd find edible food.

The moral of this story: Run as fast as you can if you ever encounter the "evaporator" AKA a pressure cooker, a pseudo canon, possibly a detonator, but please don't ever call it a cooking vessel.

Now, don't get me started on what she was capable of doing with an electric frying pan.

The photo on my wall near my computer shows forty-one young nursing students all holding lamps. No electric lights for this ceremonial photo-op. The light from our lamps is reflected on the parquet floor and the chandelier above. The place is the drawing room of our nurses' residence. The date is February 16, 1950 and my classmates and I received our nursing caps that day. The four and one-half month probationary time was over. We began with fifty-six in September 1949 and by 1952 we would graduate with only twenty-eight.

Why the lamps, the ceremony? The meaning of it all is the original lady with the lamp, Florence Nightingale. Over the years, the starchy uniforms, caps reflecting the diploma school we graduated from, the nurses' residence, and even our dear Milwaukee County General Hospital School of Nursing, would all vaporize. Alas, the $100 first year fees we paid are hard to believe and gone, gone, gone. The school pin with the motto: CRUX MIHI ANCHORA (The Cross be my Anchor) went with me through twenty-three years of active nursing.

Florence Nightingale is still a hero to me. In a world where there are few heroes except in romance novels, and heroines even less likely, it is good to remember the influence that nursing has on us all and where it began. In a time when marriage and family were the primary option for most women, Florence wanted to be a nurse. Modern nursing began at the time of the Crimean War (1854). She made her rounds tending to the soldiers while holding her lamp.

Florence Nightingale served the wounded in the Crimean War with the help of volunteer nurses she brought with her. She also furnished many of the supplies. The service she gave affected her health in later years. Nursing is still physically demanding. Nightingale had the resources and the connection to those in power to do what she did. She was an upper-class woman who chose to become a nurse.

Our class of 1952 gave a memento to Milwaukee County General Hospital School of Nursing in memory of Florence Nightingale as a graduation gift. A bust of Florence on a pedestal perhaps lives on at the College of Nursing that is now part of Milwaukee School of Engineering. Our beloved MCGH School of Nursing became a part of MSOE and the principles of nursing live on.

I am peeling apples to make applesauce. This year, as usual, I am using the old standbys: Golden Delicious, and its cousin, Red, Granny Greens, and a few Macintosh. We love applesauce and my husband, Toby, always tastes it to give it a thumbs-up when we feel it is done. I am nearly finished with the cooking and turn to dispose of the peelings in the sink when Toby comes in with an over-full bag of bag of apples our neighbor kindly delivered.

"We're eclectic apple tree growers. Lots of diversity," Dan, the neighbor had explained. Though it's just a hobby, we know he devotes major retirement time to spraying and fertilizing the trees, then picking the fruit. He had labeled those he brought, saying that he was sure we would love to know the names of each.

I examine the various apples, read the labels as I move them into the sink for washing. Now that my sauce was finished, it seems a daunting task to peel all these apples, different sizes, shapes and colors to make a different sauce. But should they be kept separate? Wouldn't each particular taste spoil the others?

As I begin to wash them, I note how beautiful they are together! And the combined fragrance! Warm! Sweet. Pungent! Some are so unfamiliar I cannot find a word to describe them but they tickle my nose with anticipation and delight. Carefully I rinse them, pronouncing the names stuck on each apple. Some are poetic. Just saying the names enhances my anticipation. And of course, I must have small samples as I peel.

Spit Gold: huge and round, with a burnished glow. The tiny speckles on the skin hasten my procrastinated peeling chore. The name and the firm sweet meat fill my mouth with desire.

Spitzenberg: its hard, rusted-red outside belies its interior. Soft juices run down the edges of my lips after the first bite.

Crispen: also known as Mutsu, for a reason I do not know; perhaps my neighbor does. I will ask him later. This apple has a muted yellow exterior. Its crunch astounds my ear.

Then there are the WINDFALLS, thus labeled in capital letters that may mean, HURRY! Eat before they soften or HURRY and peel before their meat browns, or perhaps WATCH OUT for possible worms. The "possible worms" thought reminds me of the story my brother told me when I was a child, about finding one half of a worm in his apple. As a four-year-old, I wondered whatever happened to the other half. I would not eat an apple for a long time, unless it was peeled and sliced.

That was long ago. After I grew up, my own family made and enjoyed sauce every fall. But we've never before had such a rich supply of unusual apples. Here there are none of the common grocery store types, those familiar fruits with which we have become comfortable in our lives.

I think to myself, my mouth watering. "Cut a few samples from each of these special apples. I must experience each unique taste. Then perhaps I will combine to see what the final result tastes like."

After I have labeled the dishes: Spit Gold, Spitzenberg, Crispen, WINDFALLS, I peel, watching the long trails and curled rings of apple skins drop into the sink, a mélange of color! Carefully I allocate bits of the apples to their specific dish, tasting and humming with pleasure as I cut.

I turn and stir the sauce I have already cooked with the usual apples. Those new apples are making me feel creative. Certainly a mix of those with the usual ones could be interesting. Each tastes so very good alone that combined there will be added flavor and crunch.

I place small chunks of the naked white fruit so they lie together in the sauce. Then I peer closely. Lacking their exterior and the labels, each defies categorizing. As I add a bit more sugar and cinnamon, staples, that with apples, have always formed the base of a quality sauce, I cook some more and taste. Suddenly I realize that this mixture is creating a stronger, new product that varies uniquely from our past sauces made with customary apples. These new immigrants add a flavor I never expected.

I call to my husband to have him taste. He makes a vigorous "thumbs up" gesture and says that this sauce deserves a special name. Together we decide it will be called "All American Applesauce." We know it will become our favorite traditional applesauce over the years. It is an original in its own right, just like the many different originals from which the mixture comes.

"Kill the darlings." As a modern writer, I understand how difficult it is to highlight a passage, then hit delete. We toil over each sentence, each word. They become our darlings. Bits and pieces of writing wander across the page. We created them. They're beautiful. But they occasionally have no purpose. They don't further our story. But kill them? Hit delete and send them into an electronic black hole? Inhuman, I cry. But go they must.

It was a sad day to discover that by holding on to my darlings, be they words or convictions of where my story should go, I did something more heinous than kill darlings. My entire story suffered. It suffered because "what if" found no place to bloom. Creativity withered, leaving behind a lifeless, dull story. To bury a nugget of truth or entertaining story under a landslide of verbiage invited disaster. Thou shall not bore the reader with excess. Make each word, scene, character, sense and emotion count.

In 1862 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "The art of the writer is to speak his fact and have done. Let the reader find that he cannot afford to omit any line of your writing, because you have omitted every word that he can spare." As a reader I've skimmed across pages, slogged though unnecessary words looking for something of substance. This type of reading is most unsatisfactory. Why would I want to write this style?

Because of my affection for darlings? May it never be.

I must leave you now. For there are stories to write. Darlings to slay.

When someone offers "a penny for your thoughts" I always grin and think of tootsie rolls, jawbreakers, and candy buttons.

I'm back in 1968 as a carefree, freckled-face, eight-year old. St Mary's school is closed for the summer and Mom has just brushed my long, straw-colored hair into high pig-tails and swabbed bright pink mercurochrome on sister Toby's skinned right knee.

"Girls, could you run to the store for me?" Mom hands me a list and a five-dollar bill.

"Can we keep the change?" Toby asks hopefully.

Mom smiles and nods yes as she wipes her hands on her big, flowered apron.

We dash outside and I make sure the white wicker basket is fastened tightly to my new blue bike. Toby hops on her red Schwinn and we zoom away, past fragrant purple lilac bushes, over the old, cracked sidewalks in our tiny village of Hilbert, Wisconsin. My stomach flies into my throat as my bike coasts over the bumpy railroad tracks.

"Hey, Darlene. Wait up! My legs are only seven!" Toby yells from fifty feet behind me.

I wait patiently as Toby carefully puts her kick-stand in place and we hold hands as we skip up the cracked, cement steps into the old grocery store.

Toby heads straight for the check-out counter, but I quickly grab her lime green tie-dyed T-shirt.

"Help me get Mom's stuff first," I order.

Toby grins weakly as Mr. Krautkramer, all 6 feet 6 inches of him, glares down into her big blue eyes. Before Toby gets scared, Mrs. Krautkramer waddles over with a red flowered muumuu covering her ample five foot frame. Toby and I giggle when we notice that Mrs. K's Yum-Plum lipstick is the same shade as Mom's.

As I grab the bright dots on a loaf of Wonder Bread, my nose wrinkles at the strong odor of summer sausage and the stinky cheese that I hand over to my little sister.

"This smells like Grandpa's work socks," Toby makes a sour pickle face.

I gather a 6-pack of Fresca to complete Mom's list as Mrs. K. looks on.

"Did you find everything girls?"

I answer for both of us, since Toby already has her nose pressed to the glass encased candy counter.

"Yes, thank you. Mom said we can get penny candy if there's change left," I answer shyly.

Mrs. K. chuckles as she punches numbers into the big, black cash register, while her husband wraps the stick of sausage in white paper before adding it to our brown grocery bag.

"Twelve cents back, dearie." Mrs. K. drops a dozen shiny pennies into my sweaty palm.

Since I got an "A" in Second Grade math, I know that to be fair I would get six pennies and Toby would get the other six. Since Sister Barbara can probably see me from the rectory three blocks away, I decide that, "Yes," I will be fair.

"Here, Toby. You can get six pieces," I drop half the pennies into the pocket of her peddle pushers.

"Wow, we're rich!" Toby beams.

Now it's my turn to stare at all the goodies behind the glass. My eyes bug out as lollipops, tootsie rolls and sugary pixie sticks call my name. I'm almost drooling as I check out the second and third rows of candy where red licorice whips, candy buttons, and big, blue jawbreakers are making this a tough decision.

Ten minutes later, Mrs. K. is dropping my sweet treasures into a tiny brown bag as Toby finally plops her six treats and six pennies onto the scratched, wooden counter.

"Thanks girls. Say 'Hi' to Mom and Dad." Mrs. K's grin shows us steaks of Yum-Plum on her old, yellow teeth.

As I skip out the door, with my candy tucked safely into the big grocery bag, I glance over my shoulder to spy Mr. K. hand his wife a big blue bottle of Windex and a fat roll of white paper towels. I know she will smile and cluck her teeth as she cleans the glass of every little fingerprint-making the candy counter ready for the next pig-tailed girl or freckled-face boy who gets rich with a fistful of pennies!

Just as the Wisconsin Regional Writers' Creed states, "Let our purpose be to encourage literary expression, appreciation for the fine arts, cultural aspects of rural Wisconsin life, preservation of the local history and folklore of the passing era, enrichment of our lives through self education and worthy discussion," so are the contributions made by poet and writer, Dorothy Schwenkner over the years to the WRWA. Dorothy joined the WRWA in 1969. She served four four-year terms on the Board of Directors.

Dorothy lived on the family farm between Beloit and Janesville and attended a one-room schoolhouse where she started creating her poems. She sang her way through graduation with a parody she wrote. She soon broadened her writing skills by attending various writing courses. She attended two sessions of a creative writing class at the Janesville vocational school and two similar classes at UW-Rock County campus in Janesville. The courses were taught by Professor Al P. Nelson from the university extension in Madison. She states that attending several sessions at the Rhinelander School of the Arts has encouraged her to keep writing.

Over the years she has had many poems published in various publications and shared her talents in anthologies, limericks, and contest jingles. She is also a member of the Janesville-Beloit Area Writers Club and WFOP.

She has really enjoyed her membership in the WRWA. She has attended various conferences throughout Wisconsin. She helped host two WRWA conferences in Janesville. She states that meeting other writers has helped her develop friendships that she still has today. Some of her favorite poets include: Ellen Kort, Richard Roe, Mardi Fries, and Peter Sherrill. Fellow poets describe Dorothy as "a creative and talented poet." Ellen Kort comments, "Dorothy is a generous woman, who has always been there. She has touched the lives of many and has a delightful sense of humor. She was an inspiration to others in stepping up to make a donation to form the WFOP." She also enjoyed Dorothy's readings, in which she loves to share her poetry with others.

Dorothy was a co-chair of the WRWA Jade Ring contest. This is a contest she enjoys and encourages others to enter. She won First Place in the photography category in 1979, but did not receive a ring. She jokes, "There must be an extra one out there somewhere."

Dorothy's talents also included a $50.00 prize for designing a logo used on a tote bag for the Rhinelander School of the Arts. The bag was sold at the school.

Her advice to others in writing is, "Keep writing. Try to create and work on something everyday. Even if it is a phrase or sentence. As you work on it, it will come together."

Dorothy is currently at the Beloit Rehab and Health Center after a recent sudden illness. She is getting stronger and continues to create.

[Editor's Note: Julie Cousin is Dorothy's daughter. A poet herself, she share's Dorothy's love of writing and is a member of both WRWA and WFOP. She and her mother co-wrote a book, Partners in R]

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