I went to a bull sale with my dad a few weeks ago and have been wanting to write about it since then. I've also been thinking about the "Old Indian Tales" books and characters, and the characters around my county, and The Salebarn is the result of all these things coming together. Yes, this story is fiction, but it's based on a lot of real stuff. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is just up the road and over the state line from Rushville, NE where I worked during high school. I worked at the newspaper, not the salebarn, but I was in 4-H, with the auctioneer's son, who never showed me around the salebarn at night.
I've only posted the first part of the story here, hoping to capture and evoke the feelings of confusion, fear and familiarity I found when entering the sale barn and falling backward into my old memories of 4-H and cattle sales and time spent at the salebarn with my dad as a little, little girl. I'll post more, but I didn't want it to be a waay long post.
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I loved the story, so inspired. And I hope you will think about writing down some of the ones you have in your memory too!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I have to tell you.. I guess I've written before that I'm not a fiction writer, and I'm definitely not as in love with that genre as I am CNF, or just NF, but this course, as well as eFem really helped me see the value in it as a social tool. I guess my willingness to play around with ideas and work on some fiction is largely due to that. So thank you, Mel, for your encouragement!
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