Waleed Does the Jungle

Waleed, the Skinny Hippo, is off on another adventure. This one is full of dark shadows, scary eyes and strange thumping sounds off in the distance. All the ingredients wrapped around another enlightening tale for our loveable hippo. This new theme is one that’s been a thorn in my side since birth. The old familiar refrain from that older generation to mine that counters the truth: That is, that ‘being afraid doesn’t make you a coward’ and ‘strange sounds can be scary’ to very young imaginations.

This new Waleed story idea came into focus last fall. But truth be told, it had been hiding in the shadows of my mind for a very long time. Since its first publication, Waleed, the Skinny Hippo, book # 1, (Being Different) has been searching for a home. Individual purchases have been nice but I was looking a larger audience. I decided that having a second book in the series might make both stories more attractive to potential buyers.

The first Waleed book discussed the feeling of ‘being different from others.’ This second book would discuss ‘facing one’s fears.’ Without a lot of fanfare and deep thought, this second story also evolved into a children’s moral tale that I hoped might strike a chord of interest with children and their parents.

For as long as I can remember, my parent’s generation thought that ignoring a child’s fear or dismissing their concerns about scary things was the right approach to take. That generation wanted us kids to ‘man up’ and face our fears. That monster under our bed didn’t exist and we should know that. Hesitation and stage fright and being uncomfortable in front of others was a challenge to be faced and/or ignored but never addressed in a caring, comforting way. As young as I was, I knew that was bullshit but never had the courage to challenge my elder’s stance on it.

As with the first Waleed book, I wanted this new book to have strong, bright colors, cute animals, and attractive surroundings. Authenticity was important in that all the animals had to be indigenous to the location of the story. In this case, the story takes place in a dark, scary jungle.

Years before, I had initially worked with an illustrator who created one cover illustration which I loved. Unfortunately, over the ensuing months, nothing much happened in terms of creating this children’s story. Fast forward to a drought in my writing projects a while back and my editor, Vida, suggested we revisit my children’s story about the little hippo that couldn’t face the fact that he was different from his fellow hippos.

Back then, Vida and I found 92 different illustrators from five web sites to review. That, in turn, was whittled down to four characters I really liked. Finally, we settled on two artists who seemed to meet my criteria of a drawing of a cute and cuddly little skinny hippo.

Waleed, in Swahili, means ‘he who hides.’ That, in turn, seemed the perfect male’s name that best described someone who was an introvert and afraid of his own shadow. The name matched perfectly my loveable tiny hippopotamus.

The final winner was an artist out of Bangladesh who goes by the artist’s name of Shamima. Her drawing of little Waleed won my heart over. When we were ready for a second book in the Waleed series, Shamima readily agreed to draw it for us.

Marketing is always the Achilles heel for many writers, present company included. A couple of years ago, I entered Waleed in the Minnesota Children’s Book Festival in Red Wing and got some nice comments but no prize. Then I thought a very nice article our local newspaper published last summer might spur some interest but it didn’t.

So, this spring, another new marketing campaign will attempt to bring the story of Waleed, the Skinny Hippo to youthful populations in the Twin Cities and beyond. Waleed just might be the little hippo that shows all of us a new way of looking at life.

There’s even a third book idea edging its way into my consciousness, ‘Being kind.’ But that’s shaping up to be another story entirely.

Pure as Folk

Most of us have a musical window inside our head. It’s that time period when music played a critical role in imprinting images and emotions into our brain. These are feelings that generally stay with us for the rest of our lives. My musical window extends from roughly the mid-fifties through the sixties. Folk music, now labeled Americana music, was one of the driving forces behind my rabid interest in music of many different genres, styles, and forms.

I recently finished a book that brought back a lot of memories of that period and some interesting footnotes for that style of music. It’s called: ‘Always A Song; My Story of the Folk Music Revival by Ellen Harper.’ Ellen is an accomplished folk singer and mother of Ben Harper, another well-known singer in that tradition.

One of the dichotomies of that period was the conflict between the folk purists and the new musical explorers. While I couldn’t define or even explain it, folk music struck an emotional chord with me. As the book points out: ‘Many in this largely affluent, well-educated, and restless generation, seeking inspiration and hope, embraced the authenticity of folk music as a powerful medium for expression.’ But storm clouds were on the horizon.

The book continues: ‘There has always been a tension between what is considered authentic and what is thought of as commercial. The folk music revival is a story of blurred lines, and navigating those often poorly defined boundaries as complicated. There can’t be a folk music revival without the music industry.’

Authentic folk singers such as Pete Seeger, Bud and Travis, The Steeple Singers, Hedy West, the New Lost City Ramblers, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Huston, and many more were always on the hunt for traditional material. They mined the hills of Appalachia, the printed volumes of English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish music and other cultural artifacts for long lost musical treasures. The thought seemed to be that if it wasn’t over a hundred years old, it wasn’t authentic.

I, on the other hand, was raised on the button-down folk groups like the Kingston Trio, Chad Mitchell Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary and many others of their style. Folk purists thought these new groups had sold out with their crass commercialization of their traditional music. I found the music easy to listen to, with a message that grabbed me on an emotional level that few other experiences had before that.

Folk music has been around forever but changes shape and form as new generations discover its power amid its simplicity. A new trend I’ve discovered on my Facebook newsfeed are the offers of free music from these folk types with only charges for shipping.

The old mechanism of music publishing and distribution has been thrown for a loop with the advent of the internet, YouTube and other streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. If I want to check out a group, old or new, I can either go to their web page or YouTube to see and hear them. Singers today must be their own best advocate with their home page on the internet and other means of reaching their intended audiences.

Talk about coming around full circle. So, here I am at age Eighty-One trying my hand at writing lyrics and creating songs of that style and period. I’ve been so fortunate to have met a fellow traveler who has been an enormous help in crafting nine original songs for one of my plays.

I’ve also written a play about an aging folk group still trying to make a dent in the music business. It’s a combination folk concert and a play. Both plays PTV and Tangled Roots are looking still for a home.

Added to that rucksack of stumbling ambition, my mind (as untethered as it is) has wandered off in a totally different direction. It’s the creation of a full-blown album called: ‘Made in Minnesota.’ My fantasy is that it would highlight periods, incidents, fellow travelers of my past through songs. It would be wrapped up in the cloak of folk and its universal themes of love lost and found, the angst of youth and pleasures of being raised in the North Country.

Where it might go is anyone’s guess at this point in its development.