Pick Up Sleeping At The Starlite Motel: And Other Adventures On The Way Back Home Scripted By Bailey White Listed As Script

matter how unlikey the situation, Bailey White can make you laugh, And laugh out loud in public, For me, this was just one of those books that's enjoyable from beginning to end, Each of the stories left me either pensive or happy, often laughing out loud, This collection of short stories about family and Southern characters, I enjoyed most of the stories especially Garden of Eden which brings us the theory that the Garden of Eden of the Bible is actually on the Florida panhandle.
I also really enjoyed The Retired Russian Colonel, An easy, entertaining collection. Some funny parts, but not nearly as hysterical as the first book Mama makes up her mind Visualize many unrelated stories that portray eccentric individuals.
The location of these anecdotes take place largely all over the south one in Vermont, Frankly, this was an almost book, Almost but not quite: funny, engaging, realistic, entertainingyou get my drift, I almost want to read another book by the same author, I don't usually give books two because if I don't at least like it, I never finish it, But this book had enough interesting stories and was short enough that I read it to the end, I'm glad I found a used copy, though, because it wasn't worth full price, Though this collection of vignettes was published in, it could have been written any time since, Bailey White, humorist and Southerner, writes about the oldfashioned South, where ancient aunts live in crumbling houses, treasuring letters from Robert E.
Lees wife. Her outlook is kindhearted and tolerant of foibles, qualities one acquires when dealing with eccentrics,

Few of the pieces run more thanpages, and though her writing is primarily about the South, she also visits a oneroom schoolhouse in Vermont.
Mostly shes writing not with nostalgia, but with openeyed admiration, for how things used to be, She has an eye for absurdity, and it must be fun to live in her skin, with her opportunities to participate in it.
For example:

“We were here in Virginia, Lilly and me and our old aunt Eleanor because of eight Chippendale chairs.
There had been twelve originally, made infor an ancestor of ours in Jamestown, Over the years four had been lost, and the rest had drifted around in the family and ended up in the possession of various scattered cousins.
Mandon, our richest cousin, had made millions in the cable TV business and had tracked us all down and organized this gathering of the chairs and their owners.
Mandon was a perfect host but his guests, in spite of the blood tie, were not congenial, and once begun, the conversation

skewed off in odd directions.
”

Whites all about skewing off in odd directions, Consider the subjects of her pieces: an old hippie who runs a fruit tree nursery in coastal Alabama a retired Russian colonel who visits Whites first graders in Georgia Mr.
Grange, who operates a roadside produce stand and dreams of having visitors from Idaho the woman who runs a fish camp in rural Florida Nockerd Sockett, a restaurant coworker who seems destined for greatness an ancient folk artist whose works are being overtaken by decay and vines.


This anthology is a slice of life a life we miss when we encounter the familiar parts, The stories are short and funny, and Whites light touch is droll and factual, Go spend some summer afternoons with her wandering her South, I thought this was an enjoyable book of short stories, I enjoyed the author's sense of humor and her interesting takes on the world around her, I liked that she is a first grade teacher, I was also a first grade teacher and enjoyed some of the things she felt about teaching, It was a good book and I'm glad I read it, Its alright. This wont hurt much. Take an insulin shot and prepare for a massive dose of sweetness,

Bailey White is a precise articulate writer, Without any discernable agenda, she observes the tenderness, often quirkiness around her, Her imagery is straightforwardall unnecessary alliterations gone, Its like Sun Tzu for the soft and fluffy set, what isnt needed, isnt needed, What is left is writing at its most elemental, Add the strange peculiar oddities of characters living in the linear world of the deep south, stir with sly wit and you have a wonderful series of road trips.


“My Aunt Bella loves rocks, Her whole house used to be filled with rocks, Every flat surface was covered with slabs of amethyst crystal, piles of rainbow colored labradorite, bowls full of fossilized sharks teeth big as a childs hand, and agate geodes lined with quartz crystals.
Outside, bigger rougher rocks were piled up to the eaves, with scant little chinks left for doorways and windows, Every afternoon, my Aunt Bella takes a bagful of rocks down to Shoneys restaurant where she spreads them out on the Formica tabletop and says incantations over them while she drinks iced tea.
”

In one episode Bailey takes Bella on a day trip to visit Mary Lawrence Shepard of Thomas Country, Georgia, a locally famous folk artist who began sculpting oversizes cement statues of famous people in.
The author describes Miss Shepards now forgotten, overgrown yard littered with white crumbling monuments in loving detail, The artist offers tea and a guided tour, In hers Ms. Shepard pulls mounds of honeysuckle off a buried chunk of concrete, fiddling with a hose, insisting she make the fountain of a young girl sitting on the edge of a pool flow for a few minutes.
Now after dark and lit by the moon, Bailey describes the statue of the girl at the edge of the pond.
“Her head was lowered and her eyes were looking down, There was no twinkle in her eyes and no coy smile on her lips, Her shoulders drooped, and her hands lay limp in her lap, Her feet in their cement shoes were the saddest feet I have ever seen, A jet of water rose into the sky, arched smoothly, then sobbed magnificently into the pool, We stood and watched it for a long time, The moonlight and the mist from the slashing water gave everything a strange luminescence, ”

I realize the quotes dont necessarily smack of great literature, Perhaps it is not. It is, however a brief gentle foray into rural Georgia seen through a chronicler with a deep sense of delicacy and charm.
It is writing with such simple succinct straightforwardness, it will catch you off guard in strange unpredictable ways, Her observations are a delight,
Bailey White is a wonderful find, I carried this book throughout the last few months of this year and last year in my backpack so that I could pull it out whenever I found myself waiting in doctors' offices or sitting in our car while my beloved shopped.
It was perfect for this kind of reading since I could get through one or two entries for each reading moment.
She specializes in vignettes, short moments in time with very little emphasis on plot, Dickens' "Sketches by Boz" is similar, White seems to look for common moments that in themselves carry some powerful and often humorous emotional element, The Starlite Motel which is featured in the last reading stands more as a metaphor for nostalgic comfort and values.
I now need to go back and get our copy of "Momma Makes up Her Mind, " Not much on plot but a lot of textual environment, This book captures perfectly the odd happenings in the little town in Georgia that Bailey knows so well and makes me laugh every time I read itwhich is about twice a year.
Essays, short pieces on family members, places, adventures, This author is known for her humor, but I can't seem to appreciate it, or even find it at times.
I know when I should think something this supposed to be humorous but it doesn't work for me, This is probably my problem and not the authors, She seems rather successful with her 'Mama' series, But in this and the other book I read years ago she comes across as a sad person, a lonely person.
Ive had this book for more than a decade, Somehow it always ended up on the bottom of my piles, But Ive been having trouble sleeping lately and found that these short “adventures” helped me to relax and smile, and then sleep soundly.
I am not saying that they are soporific, They are engaging and quiet, like comfort food for the mind, I loved the black and white barely legible maps on many pages, I know those places in Georgia! My favorite piece was An Old Lepidopterist, bittersweet, but mostly sweet, This book had its charms, but wasn't really my style of reading, A collection of short stories, it told life through the eccentricities of people, White's actual style of writing is engaging and characterization is definitely a strong point of that writing,

As said before, this is a collection of short stories, They aren't really related to each other, but could almost be framed as all people the author knew or had encountered or heard stories about.
Some of them could have true aspects, others seemed kind of fantastical, but all were relatively interesting,

The characters were the strong point just because they were so quirky, Sometimes they bordered on bizarre, While I enjoyed reading about them, I was upset at the abruptness of some of the stories and would have liked them to be a bit longer to really delve into the people instead of just snapshots.
But again, this is not my preferred genre of story, so someone who likes those snippet of life type stories may have more appreciation for it.


Interesting, short read, and great characters, this is a comforting if odd type of read,

by M, ReynardThis was a family read when I was eleven or twelve and recently decided to reread,

Sleeping at the Starlite Motel is a collection of short stories about life in the South, White's witty style easily captures her quirky characters and beautiful settings, Some of the stories are humorous and others are more melancholy, but they all record colloquial life as White experiences it.
I also give White props for her excellent vocabulary!

The second time around, I perceived that many of these stories have to do with decline and loss whether that be a once sharp mind going senile, a grand house becoming dilapidated, or a tradition becoming obsolete.
While not as funny as some of her other works, I still enjoyed it thoroughly, I definitely appreciated the life lessons more now that I have experienced some of them first hand, .