—O Willie, my darling

Love and rhyme / out of time

 

Janice Luckey, who lives in Davidson, North Carolina, is a member of the Write On! writing group sponsored by her local library as well as the online writing group Impromptu. Writing became a rhythm of her life when she scribbled a romance novel in a 3-ring binder in junior high school. This sparked a life-long love of all things writerly—writing, reading, journaling and hoarding office supplies. Janice was a contributor to the 2020 and both 2021 Personal Story Publishing Projects. You can see more of her stories at LKNConnect.com. When Janice isn’t writing she can be found encouraging her four granddaughters’ creativity or roaming libraries, bookstores, and Staples.

Author’s Talk

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What pure joy to write about my great aunt’s songbook! The unassuming little book became a portal I slipped through to glimpse a supernatural event—my beloved family going about their day-to-day lives in 1928. I had photographs of them, of course, but those depict frozen moments in time. In the precious songbook my relatives seem to move and breathe through the pages. I delighted in the remarkable opportunity to “know” them as young people, before their dark hair changed to white, before they were portly, before their voices were raspy with age.   

Perhaps it is the writer in me that especially treasures this priceless book filled with lyrics and rhymes and who wouldn’t be intrigued by the hint of an unrequited love story. It’s a piece of tangible nostalgia I can come back to time and time again. As the writer of Ecclesiastes laments, “Of making many books there is no end…” but no matter the endless array of books, this one I will always cherish. I hope you enjoyed this step back in time. —Janice Luckey

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