BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE
MOVING TO THE (LAUREL RIDGE) MOUNTAINS
Mustang Sally
We did that a year ago. Moved to the mountains. So here we are. We drive into the driveway and sit for a moment, overwhelmed by the beauty of the sunlight filtering through the hemlocks and the roar of Pike Run as it tumbles down the mountain. We have learned to say Don-e-GAL is where you get off the turnpike. We can now refer to LAY-trobe as the home of (more…)
TURKISH TOILETS IN A DARJEELING (India) TRAIN STATION
Sally Martin
An excerpt from
MUSTANG SALLY’S GUIDE TO WORLD BICYCLE TOURING
During the Beanery Writers Group meeting the Friday after the President Obama Barack’s Inauguration, I shared a post from my site on one of what I considered the most difficult of the problems facing the Inaugural committee—the title tells all: PONDERING THE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION PORTAPOTTY PROBLEM—(this post actually inculdes historical events: Louis Phillipe and his travels through Southwestern Pennsylvania in the 1790s, and the Essenes in much earlier times). Then Sally Martin, author of the boom Mustang Sally’s Guide to World Bicycle Touring, read the following excerpt from her book, written in the humor her friends know is only Sally. She preceded the reading with a warning: it isn’t for the faint hearted!
Read on…if you dare…
I wouldn’t write about this if I had not read all of Bill Bryson’s novel books. Bill tells it like it is. If you don’t really want to know how it is, don’t read this.
I had to get my ticket for the train to Darjeeling. Mr. Singh, my dear taxi driver promised to take me to the ticket place and wait there while I bought the ticket. It was a handsome building, built, no doubt, by the British in better times. There were huge, multiple ticket lines inside the building. Perhaps three light bulbs brightened its dank interior. I had need for he ladies room. That is not unusual.
At a huge train station there should be a ladies room. Right? I could not see one and when I asked there were a lot of (more…)
MOTHER TERESA: IN MEMORIAM
Mustang Sally
On one anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death, Mustang Sally sent the Beanery Writers Group members an excerpt on her from the book Mustang Sally’s Guide to World Bicycle Touring. It was a telling of Mustang Sally’s meeting with Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa was born in Skopje Macedonia. She was seven years old when her father was murdered and her family fell into poverty. She decided to follow in the footsteps of the Irish missionary nuns who educated her. She trained in Dublin Ireland at age 18. Her first assignment was in Calcutta, India, where she taught high school and worked her way to principal.
One day she found a woman dying in the street and sat with her, stroking her head until death came. This experience inspired her to found a new religious order. The Order of the Missionaries of Charity devoted itself to anyone who was “unwanted, unloved and uncared for.” By the time she died the Order included more than 5,000 nuns and brothers who operated over 2,500 orphanages, schools, clinics and hospices in 120 countries, including the United States.
10.18.95 Calcutta. Tomorrow is to be the last day in Calcutta and I will spend it going to the Lepers’ colony. It is fairly far from the city and is quite extensive when you get there. The ill are given a place to stay and work so that they can be self-supporting. Linda wants me to go to the Varinasi with her and I would like to do that but I have my schedule.
The place we visited today was for women from a prison. These women were in terrible condition when Mother Teresa got them out of prison. They had been kept in (more…)
BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE
Mustang Sally
Why, you will ask, would I need to carry a weapon?
Well, my mind is going a bit and I don’t exactly remember. There was a time when home invasions seemed threatening. However if you produce the “Permit” as picture identification, people (more…)
I rode a bicycle around the world. That took 18 months. I wrote a book about my travels. That took 10 years. Publishing the book is taking the rest of my life.
Mustang Sally’s Guide to World Bicycle Touring is shockingly cheap on Amazon, but you can get an autographed copy from me! I can cut you a deal, but it starts at: $34 for the bound copy, $24 for soft cover, cheap at twice the price.
CONTACT: SalnChasMartin@lhtot.net or 724 593 6921, where Chas or I or the cat will personally answer the phone.
—written by Mustang Sal
I have been ordered by our leader to write on this matter of self-publishing.
I rode a bicycle around the world. That took 18 months. I wrote a book about my travels.
That took 10 years. Publishing the book is taking the rest of my life.
I found and chose (more…)
| —written by Mustang Sally NOTE: View photo illustrations by clicking on:http://www.flickr.com/photos/beaneryonlineliterarymagazine/ We went to the memorial at Shanksville on 9/11. We often do and find it moving. This year in addition to General Tommy Franks, Tom Ridge, Fast Eddie Rendell, Santoroum, Specter, and the families of the heroes who were on Flight 93, there were some who use the pain of others to try to make their living. These wretched, heartless, scums have an interesting scam. Their signs read: “Thank God for 9/11”! “Fag Vets”! “ America is doomed”! Note the child holding the sign that says “God hates your tears”. “Thank God for dead soldiers”! “Thank God for 9/11”! I was first struck by the professional signs. Most protesters scratch their rage on poster board and staple it to a lath and it looks original. This was a bit too slick and totally insane. Anyhow, these worthless cruds were protected from the wrath of little old ladies like me by about ten hefty PA State Police. The next morning Jim Quinn told who these dedicated folk are. They show up at funerals protesting homosexuality(?)… funerals of West Virginia miners???? Their meanness is so hard to understand until you learn that they are from a bogus church that has a bogus minister. Most of the sick rotters in the church are related to the minister…..who is also a lawyer. The scam: these creeps ask for a permit to protest at some poor soul’s funeral and if the community should refuse………they sue! If they are permitted to protest and if some old lady punches one of them out…………they sue!!!!!!!!!!! I am not sure if you can simply spit on them with impunity. I just don’t know. The moral of the story is: keep cool. Yes, just ignore them. They were gone when we left the memorial. I think we can all thank the ACLU for greatly diminishing the civility of American life while making it possible for lawyers to go way beyond ambulance chasing. But, look at it this way: to just ignore the dirt bags will build your character. |
Vanessa
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BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE
VANESSA
Sal Martin
Another sleepless night. The third action hero has won out over the bad guys. The same news report has been reported for the hundredth time. I have memorized the weather into next week, not that it matters to me. I’m not going anywhere. I have an emphatic limp. I walk with a “walker” while my new knee heals. I try to show gratitude that such miracles are available for me instead of the rocking chair and cane that would have been my fate (more…)