By author Martha McMullen The road to Driving Woodie has been long and circuitous. Amazement strikes when I look at the cover! I have been telling stories of my childhood most of my life. While taking simultaneous courses on leaving a written legacy and shaping life into stories at the College for Seniors, Asheville, North Carolina, in 2001, I began writing them down. Unaware I was embarking on a book, I started the tales in Driving Woodie in Asheville where I participated in a writing critique circle and ClarityWorks retreats led by Peggy Millin. Some of the tales were set in World War II; others in the ten years after the war that the Woodie stayed in our family.

In 2005, I started working with Julie Gilbert at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, in a series devoted to learning the craft of short story writing. The Writers’ Circle at the Kravis, an ongoing facilitated group, was formed in 2006. Julie welcomed my material, and I began the strenuous work of developing my drafts into finished products.

Several other writing experiences have been important in my development as a writer.  Most notable is the Green Mountain Writers Conference in Tinmouth,  Vermont,  directed by Yvonne Daley.  Courses at the UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program, Asheville, North Carolina, where I have had the opportunity to work with Neal Thompson and Sebastian Matthews, and conferences of the North Carolina Writers Network, especially workshops conducted by Sean Murphy, have also made meaningful contributions.   

Some of the material in Driving Woodie: Tales from the Home Front in World War II comes from stories I have related at dinner tables through the years.  Other memories have their first telling in this book.  In both these ways, I continue to share what life was like for a quirky American family engaged in supporting the World War II effort. 

Other books, of later years and other experiences, are in the development stages.

 

From The Book

"Gliding"

“Hurry, hurry!”  Danny’s hushed voice over the telephone pulled me into his drama.  “Tell Mother there’s gasoline at Tighe’s!  The Esso truck’s still here.”

“Why are you whispering?” I asked my older brother.

“Mr. Tighe said ‘keep it quiet’ -– the office telephone is not supposed to be used by customers.  Mac has Jolly in line.  Mother needs to bring the Buick right away.”

Jolly was the vehicle we usually took for family errands.  Eleven-year-old Danny’s delivery was soooo exaggerated. I can visualize him now, shoulders hunched, bent over to keep from being heard, waving his head hypnotically as he spoke.

Mother quickly bundled herself and me up against the January cold, called to Lilly that we were going out, and sped us off to Millburn, New Jersey in the ’36 Buick.  She had no need to prod me.  Even at five years old, I knew the importance of getting gasoline. 

Gas rationing, at first voluntary and then with its coupons and car stickers, mandated in New Jersey early in the war, had seen to that.  Early on in rationing, Jolly [the Woodie] would fill up each time, but we could get much less for the Buick.  We often waited in line, couldn’t always get the gasoline allowed, sometimes couldn’t get any.  Mac thought the now-greater restrictions and the whole nation going on gasoline rationing -- which had just happened in December 1942 -- would solve the problems.  It did -- for a few weeks.

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