A Freckled Girl
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As he followed me to the kitchen, I had trouble believing any of the happenings to this point. I fixed him a bologna sandwich and offered him another beer. My thief ate with much gusto and began talking again. At some point during this verbal exchange, he made a comment that startled me. It startled me because of the unfathomable circumstance under which he made the statement. He said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to anyone like this.” I began to wonder if I was going to go into a space-like trance before this saga would end. We must have talked for at least an hour, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table.
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About the Book
Truly a girl with freckles, being of Scottish and Irish descent, Sidney Mack has been writing her thoughts down in pencil for years. She touched, and was touched by, many lives and places as the daughter of a USMC aviator and continued her growth and high exposure while raising two sons, embarking upon motherhood at age nineteen. Amidst roles as a mother and wife, and then as a single mother, Sidney earned Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in North Carolina. Her career of teaching and performing spanned a period of twenty-five years. One major life trauma in 1972 compelled Sidney to record her experience in writing and on tape. More pencil scribbling emerged again in the 1980s until Sidney decided to compile her past and present recorded thoughts into a little book in hopes her reflections might benefit another who battles through this fascinating thing called life. A Freckled Girl is the result. Any reader may choose to freely develop one opinion or another while reading the text and can enjoy brief or not-so-brief writings at any given hour. A reader might just abandon the partially read book for a while until personal experience causes one to be drawn back to a freckled girl''s freckled happenings and a possible significance to one''s lifelong yearnings, hope for peace, moments of enlightenment, and desire for wisdom.
About the Author
My credentials as an author would have to be traced back to fourth grade. I loved to spell. At age nine, I helped other students who were weak in spelling and writing skills. In my junior year in high school, I entered a writing contest on discussing the branches of government. My composition advanced to the top three entries, but I was advised to lengthen my piece by five hundred words. Since I had written what I thought needed to be expressed, I became disinterested. In my senior year, I was awarded first place in a graded writing sketch of a single character following the reading of William Shakespeare''s Hamlet. I chose Hamlet.
My college years were intense as I perfected my piano and vocal skills, so a welcome respite was creating required five-hundred- to three-thousand-word essays in various non-music classes. My public speaking professor urged me to consider a career in verbal and written expression. Beyond that experience, my drive to write actually emerged through letters to friends and family, then finally took hold as a necessary expression when I recorded my account of being robbed at gunpoint in 1972. Worth mentioning is that my maternal grandmother, Myrle Dickinson Dees, was second cousin to Emily Dickinson; that connection to a historical figure spurs thought as to a possible inherited gene of talent with words.
Just as composers and visual artists create many works while in a high emotional state, so it has become evident in my writings. I find glorious experiences to be as noteworthy as tribulations. Whatever the mood, writing has become my best friend. A Freckled Girl is a step like all others in my writing development. I believe in it and cherish it, and now hope others might benefit from my expressions.