Determination allowed Mike Mulligan to fufill his promise to his town: that he and his steamshovel, Mary Anne, could dig the foundation for the new Town Hall in just one day, something even the new, fancy, diesel-powered machines could not do!
My 'Just One Day!' lasted seven years or so, when I wrote hundreds of songs, dozens of stories, one musical, two books with soundtracks, a few novelettes, painted and sketched---so, so prolific.
My seventh day has lasted nearly five years now.
The last time I was on stage, Sam and I were opening for Sister Hazel at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, in March of 2007. Our band, The Sams, had laid down most of the tracks for our first album.
Sam killed himself in May.
I went into a tailspin, and had my third major breakdown.
I believe in the power of the mind, but clinical depression is not something you can will away. Purists can disagree with me all they want, but there are some of us who are short on joy juice and wouldn't be alive except for meds. I have fought hard to be here, and I am convinced that Depression is an adversary that cannot be vanquished alone.
I found myself working in the photo lab at Wally-World for three years. I met some of my favorite people in the world in my co-workers, like Miss Doris, Jerry, Parnell, Edmund, & Gene. I also learned about working for an anti-union, militaristic, greedy, lying Big-Brother corporation in the land of big butts and crying babies, bings and bongs, the same commercials booming, or the same Christmas songs blaring over, and over, and over, again and again.
Later when I studied carnivorous plants, it reminded me the importantance of environment. The Venus Flytrap, indigenous only to a roughly 60 mile radius around Wilmington, NC, adapted to nitrogen-poor bogs by becoming carnivorous. I searched Wally World for my fly but with Miss Doris out with pneumonia, the fly had flown. I, too, fled to school and bed.
This Future Librarian's 'Not to Miss List'
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (ISBN 0-590-75803-9) is a classic children's book by Caldecott Medal-winning author and illustrator, Virginia Lee Burton, published in 1939. The steamshovel's name, "Mary Anne" is based on Marion Steam Shovels.
My 'Just One Day!' lasted seven years or so, when I wrote hundreds of songs, dozens of stories, one musical, two books with soundtracks, a few novelettes, painted and sketched---so, so prolific.
My seventh day has lasted nearly five years now.
The last time I was on stage, Sam and I were opening for Sister Hazel at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, in March of 2007. Our band, The Sams, had laid down most of the tracks for our first album.
Sam killed himself in May.
I went into a tailspin, and had my third major breakdown.
I believe in the power of the mind, but clinical depression is not something you can will away. Purists can disagree with me all they want, but there are some of us who are short on joy juice and wouldn't be alive except for meds. I have fought hard to be here, and I am convinced that Depression is an adversary that cannot be vanquished alone.
I found myself working in the photo lab at Wally-World for three years. I met some of my favorite people in the world in my co-workers, like Miss Doris, Jerry, Parnell, Edmund, & Gene. I also learned about working for an anti-union, militaristic, greedy, lying Big-Brother corporation in the land of big butts and crying babies, bings and bongs, the same commercials booming, or the same Christmas songs blaring over, and over, and over, again and again.
Later when I studied carnivorous plants, it reminded me the importantance of environment. The Venus Flytrap, indigenous only to a roughly 60 mile radius around Wilmington, NC, adapted to nitrogen-poor bogs by becoming carnivorous. I searched Wally World for my fly but with Miss Doris out with pneumonia, the fly had flown. I, too, fled to school and bed.
This Future Librarian's 'Not to Miss List'
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (ISBN 0-590-75803-9) is a classic children's book by Caldecott Medal-winning author and illustrator, Virginia Lee Burton, published in 1939. The steamshovel's name, "Mary Anne" is based on Marion Steam Shovels.
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