Memorial Day 2021

May 30, 2021May 30, 2021 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 2 Comments

May 31, 2021 is the day the USA remembers the fallen heros. It’s a day to celebrate the lives of the ones fighting for freedom, for rights, for country, home and family, and paid the highest price for what they believed in.

~ Dear Father in Heaven. Thank you for welcoming the Fallen’s souls in Heaven. Protect their families, and help them with their grief. Let the Heroes rest in peace. Amen ~

Tour was up, middle of June
She was plannin’ a welcome home barbecue
Green bean casserole, Grandma’s recipe
There was a knock on her door ’round two o’clock
Two uniforms and her heart stopped
Yellow ribbon ’round an oak tree
Blowing in the breeze

Here’s to the ones that didn’t make it back home
The ones we ain’t seen in so long
The hold up a beer ones, the wish they were here ones
The not forgotten but gone
They’re in a better place up there
But they sure left a hole down here
We just go on livin’ and go on missin’ the ones
The ones that didn’t make it back home

The whole town shut down, the whole town showed up
Sang Amazing Grace, watched a slideshow of
His twenty-two years
There was laughs and there was tears
And that preacher talked about sacrifice
And traffic stopped for them Cadillac lights
Johnny sold beer half price that night
And everybody raised ’em high, singin’

Back to that front porch
Back through that front door
To the life they were fightin’ for

The ones that didn’t make it back home

(Justin Moore ,The Ones That Didn’t Make It Back Home)

Memorial Day 2020

May 24, 2020 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 6 Comments

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”

– John F. Kennedy –

50,000 names (George Jones)

There are teddy bears and high school rings
And old photographs that mamas bring
That daddies with their young boys, playing ball.
There’s combat boots that he used to wear,
When he was sent over there.
There’s 50, 000 names carved in the wall

There’s cigarettes, and theres cans of beer
And notes that say I miss you dear
And children who don’t say anything at all.
There’s purple hearts and packs of gum
Fatherless daughters and fatherless sons
And there’s 50, 000 names carved in the wall

They come from all across this land
In pickup trucks and mini vans
Searching for a boy from long ago
They scan the wall and find his name
The teardrops fall like pouring rain
And silently they leave a gift and go

There’s stars of David and rosary beads
And crucifixion figurines
And flowers of all colors large and small
There’s a Boy Scout badge and a merit pin
Little American flags waving in the wind
And there’s 50, 000 names carved in the wall.

Remember 9/11 – We Will Never Forget

September 9, 2019 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 4 Comments

On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed, 400 were police officers and firefighters, in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in NYC, at the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C., and in a plane crash near Shanksville, PA.

[1] 9/11 was not the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. A bombing in February of 1993 killed six people.

[2] On any given workday, up to 50,000 employees worked in the WTC twin towers, and an additional 40,000 passed through the complex.

[3] After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, the rescue and recovery clean-up of the 1.8 million tons of wreckage from the WTC site took 9 months.

[4] Passengers aboard United Flight 93, heard about the previous airplane attacks and attempted to retake control of the plane from hijackers. As a result, the hijackers deliberately crashed the plane in a Pennsylvania field instead of at their unknown target.

[5] While video accounts of the WTC attack aired immediately, no video footage of the Pentagon attack was publicly released until 2006.

[6] Though both the police and fire departments of New York City had their own emergency response procedures, the two departments did not have a coordinated response plan to a major incident.

[7] In 2001, New York City fire evacuation procedures only required mandatory evacuations for floors immediately surrounding a fire. After a plane struck Building 1 of the WTC, Building 2 employees were initially told to stay in the building.

[8] The attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 resulted in the largest loss of life by a foreign attack on American soil.

[9] 18 people were rescued alive from the rubble of the World Trade Center site.

[10] Cases of post-traumatic stress are common among 9/11 survivors and rescue workers. Respiratory problems, like asthma and lung inflammation, also developed at abnormal rates for those in and around the World Trade Center during and after the attacks.

[11] Cases of post-traumatic stress are common among 9/11 survivors and rescue workers. Respiratory problems, like asthma and lung inflammation, also developed at abnormal rates for those in and around the World Trade Center during and after the attacks.

God, our father in Heaven

Please, let us not forget, let the sacrifice of the victims lives not to be in vain. Please, dear God, help us to remember the sadness, the despair, the helplessness, the evil – for we also remember your mercy, your support, your kindness and your unconditional love that helps us heal.

Please, remind us to stand united against the evil on this Earth and protect us from further horror as it happened that day – 9/11 – when the fire swallowed our loved ones when the terror shook our world and the smoke darkened the sky.

We pray for your love and peace to the loved ones who had to leave us that day and who still are in our memory and in our hearts and who we never will forget.

AMEN

My Article On ‘Brainhackers.com’ Has Gone Live!

July 24, 2019July 24, 2019 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 19 Comments

I’m very proud to present the article I wrote for ‘Brainhackers.com’ earlier this month.

I was asked to write an article for that website and I’m quite honored about that. Enthusiastically I started writing and I hope very much not only the ‘Brainhackers’ readers are going to have a good read, but also my readers here on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’.

You will find the article here:

Brain Lethargy – Age Or Technological Development

http://brainhackers.com/brain-lethargy-age-or-technological-development/

Let me know in the comments how you find it please, I’m curious.

A Kiss – A Memory – A Scene In The Book

May 17, 2019May 16, 2019 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 13 Comments

It’s been a long, very long time I’ve been kissed the last time. I already started feeling like an old withered shed on the edge of the woods.

But last month, exactly April 18, at about 1 pm, after lunch, I experienced the sweetest, cutest kiss in about ‘a century.’ It wasn’t an ‘intimate’ French kiss, as some would suspect. It wasn’t a long, lustful, greedy ‘smooching,’ nor was it just a peck.

It was a gentle, soft touch of lips, filled with affection and attraction, tender and delicate.

Someone else might think: “Where’s the point? What’s the big fuss about it?”

That kiss, however, didn’t go out of my head. In silent moments I remember it and catch myself wistfully smiling at the memory.

Currently, I’m writing book seven in ‘The Council Of Twelve’ series and yesterday the story turned into a situation where a kiss like that would be just the perfect thing to happen.

But for some reason, I cannot describe what I felt when I got that kiss. I’m at a lack of words for my emotions.

Now I’m lost. I’m writing paranormal romance. In the six books, I wrote for ‘The Council Of Twelve’ series, I described several scenes with wonderful loving and tender kisses – and each one of them is good the way it is.

But in this case, I don’t know how to describe my own experience and wake the feeling I had when I got that particular kiss a month ago.

What am I doing wrong?

Does anyone have a hint or tip for me how to do that? Did anyone try to interlace their own experiences into their stories, and how did you do that? Let me know in the comments. I need your help. Thank you.

P. S. I was asked about the man who kissed me that day – I hope you’ll understand I won’t mention any names here. That’s my secret.

One Very Lucky Dog & Doris Day – Written By Darlene Craviotto

May 15, 2019 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 2 Comments

Today I found this really wonderful, heartwarming story about Doris Day and Mary Hartmann – written By Darlene Craviotto. I was weeping when I read the blog post and I thought I needed to share Darlene’s Memory. I’m sure, it leaves you with a smile – and tears in your eyes, just like me.

Doris Day died yesterday and that’s why I’m writing this post.

I wasn’t a friend, or a member of her family; just like everybody else, I knew her from the movies. I used to be a tour guide at Universal Studios, and I got to meet a lot of big movie stars there, from Lucille Ball (who hated it when the tour guides leaned on her Rolls Royce to talk with her) to Paul Newman (whose piercing blue eyes locked with mine one day at the studio commissary, and my knees have been weak ever since). I never had a chance to meet Doris Day on the Universal lot. But one rainy night in Hollywood she was a good friend to me and a beautiful Golden Retriever named, “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

Golden Retriever It was long ago, when I was a member of a struggling group of actors who worked all day at the tours at Universal, so we could work all night (for free) performing plays at a little theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Seven nights a week, one block down from the Weird Museum, above a toy store and Fredericks of Hollywood Sexy Lingerie, overlooking the stars of Ann Margret, Gene Barry, and James Cagney, we practiced our craft and shared the Hollywood dream.

Continue reading HERE

Why Do Writers Make Such Great Listeners

September 13, 2018August 18, 2018 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 10 Comments

Picture courtesy of http://www.success.com

Let’s start at the very beginning. What are the things a great listener is doing differently than “normal” listeners?

One of the things is the focus. It seems many people are concentrated on what they will say, they forget to listen to what the other person says. Thinking during listening isn’t very helpful. Writers know how to focus. They know how to concentrate on the most important things, and they recognize a story and its thread.

But what do great listeners differently? They keep their mouth shut, they listen without judging, their entire body language is turned to the speaker, their facial expression is interested and open, only to name a few. Of course, now the important part starts, listening and taking in. By asking questions in our own words, to make sure we are interpreting the speaker’s words correctly, we are showing we absorbed the given information. Additionally, there’s one more thing: consciously memorizing.

Let’s say: we are listening to someone who tells us a story and we’d like to repeat it at some other occasion, we will memorize it. If the speaker is our friend and entrusts us with a problem or secret and asks for help and support, we will memorize it to give it some thought and come back later with a solution.

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” Ernest Hemingway

I think it’s significant these words were spoken by a writer.

I’ve always been a very helpful person. It came naturally to me to listen to my friends’ problems, support them, help them. I was trained in memorizing what bugged them to be of the most effective help I could be. The best listener cares.

But being a writer taught me to listen to more. I’m taking in as much sound and noise as all the other people around me. But instead of blanking out some of the ‘noise’ I start concentrating on it. Occasionally I ‘threw a look’ over to the speaker who waved me over and included me into the story as an additional listener. And that’s what I do. I listen, I take in, I separate ‘nonsense’ from ‘maybe useful’ and I memorize.

I’m not only talking about ‘conversations,’ or ‘secrets’ I pick up. I’m as well listening to descriptions, of people, of landscapes, of personalities, even of cars. I never know when it comes in handy. Imagine one of my characters driving in some sports car; I might be using the description I heard of how the driving feels like.

I’m listening because I’m interested. I’m interested in people; I’m interested in helping. I will never use what I hear to expose someone. Not all experiences I hear are of interest to me. I’m writing fantasy and paranormal romance. Maybe an author of love stories or thrillers can use more of what he listens to. You might tell us below in the comments.

Sometimes Empaths can experience one of the ‘hard sides’ of listening. The emotional toll it takes on them. I was going through that before. Occasionally it still happens to me, even though with age I became more and more able to shield myself from that painful side effect of being helpful. So, good listeners might be aware that listening isn’t always about hearing secrets, problems, good stories or jokes. Sometimes listening needs guts!

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Winston Churchill

picture courtesy of: http://www.google.com

To My Dad

June 11, 2018June 9, 2018 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 19 Comments

21 years ago exactly on that day

I got the news off horror

that threw me off my way.

My Dad was in an accident

he wasn’t doing well

he needed some heart surgery

a bad night, that much I could tell.

Late that night I made a call

Only to hear the worst

I hardly could believe my ears

had problems with that first.

But I got confirmation

that it really has been true

my Daddy’s heart had given up

despair, it washed me through!

The greatest Dad, he was no more

his smiles are with him gone.

But still sometimes I see his face

At sunset, at full moon and dawn.

I’ll never forget what you have taught

us then, us kids and too your wife,

the lessons you gave all of us,

we needed for our life.

Never will I leave the house

no day will ever start

without a smile and a thought to you

who will always be in my heart!

THANK YOU DAD!!

*****

Memorial Day 2018

May 28, 2018May 27, 2018 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 4 Comments

“Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.”

— President Harry S. Truman—

We made it to Arlington.

(Memorial Day Song by Trace Adkins)

I never thought that this is where I’d settle down

I thought I’d die an old man back in my hometown

They gave me this plot of land,me and some other men, for a job well done

There’s a big white house sits on a hill just up the road

The man inside he cried the day they brought me home

The folded up a flag and told my mom and dad

‘We’re pround of your son’

And I’m proud to be on this paecful piece of property

I’m on scared ground and I’m in the best of company

I’m thankful for those thankful for the things I’ve done

I can rest in peace, I’m one of the chosen ones, I made it to Arlington

I remember that my daddy brought me here when I was eight

We searched all day to find out where my granddad lay

And when we finally found that cross

He said, ‘son this is what it cost to keep us free’

Now here I am a thousand stones away from him

He recongized me on the first day I came in

And it gave me a chill when he clicked his heels and saluted me

I’m proud to be on this peaceful piece of property

I’m on scared ground and in the best of company

I’m thankful for those thankful for the things I’ve done

I can rest in peace I’m one of the chosen ones, I made it to Arlington

And every time I hear twenty-one guns

I know they brought another hero home to us

We’re thankful for those thankful for the things we’ve done

We can rest in peace, ’cause we were the chosen ones

We made it to Arlington, yea, dust to dust

Don’t cry for us, we made it to Arlington

Father’s Day 2017

June 18, 2017 ~ aurorajeanalexander ~ 3 Comments

June 11 it’s been 20 years ago my Dad unexpectedly had been called from this Earth. Still I miss him, but I do carry him in my heart and sometimes I still hear his heartily laughter.

What I regret is, that I can’t tell him anymore what an amazing Dad he was to me!!

Happy Father’s Day up there, Dad.