Farewell to Moristotle & Co.

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

Dear Morris, thank you for being in my life for over 60 years, first as my high school student and since then as my friend.
    Your eagerness to publish my poetry, especially the Vietnam poems, made me very happy. And I appreciated your willingness to publish the first chapters of my books.
    You might not post to your blog anymore, but you will always have a place in my heart. ❤

Copyright © 2023 by Shirley Skufca Hickman

Announcing My Latest Romance Novel

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

Sometimes a character I’m writing about refuses to leave. In my previous romance novel, The Tangled Web of Love, Priscilla didn’t have a boyfriend. In the sequel, Love Finds a Way, she finds Randall.

    After I narrated their first meeting (see the excerpt below), I found I liked Randall and wanted to continue to write about him: he is illegitimate and poor and can’t pursue Priscilla. Love Finds a Way goes on to discover the two characters’ journey, which becomes the book’s major love story, with many disappointments and a final, romantic ending. Love finds a way.

Excerpt from
Love Finds a Way

Loving – 1975 (a poem)

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

When wisps of fear
encircle all my thoughts
and turn my thinking
into tears:
My husband gently
kisses me.
My small boy brings
blue candy to my bed
and tells me stories
of his school,
about the way he
makes his A’s,
about the magic
of the seeds in fruit.
And all my friends,
those whom I hold most dear,
bring poems to me, and flowers.
and I, so full of love
from them,
can find no room for sadness or despair.

Copyright © 2021 by Shirley Skufca Hickman

Who? (a poem)

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

Who will dry my tears
    when you are gone?
Who will hold me tight
    when you are gone?

Who will talk with me
    when you are gone?
Who will hold my hand
    when you are gone?

Who will kiss my lips
    when you are gone?
Who will warm my bed
    when you are gone?

Who will dry my tears
    now that you’re gone.

Copyright © 2021 by Shirley Skufca Hickman

Two Poems from America’s Vietnam Era

By Shirley Skufca Hickman


Withdrawing

He hands me a form:

Permission to withdraw from English 1-A.

His hands shake but he jokes.
“I got caught in the draft.”

Highways and Byways: The Dreamers

By Maik Strosahl

I really enjoyed Shirley Skufca Hickman’s poem “The Old Songs,” from March 5. It got me exploring immigration from the early 1900s compared with today. Spent some time digging into Ellis Island, where some of my ancestors came from Europe. My father’s family came over in the early 1900s, his father from Germany, his mother from Sweden. My mother was born in a small town in Germany on the Polish border. She learned Russian as her second language and only learned English when she came back with my father after his stint in the Army. I let my mind follow their path, then the path that some take to come to our borders today. My, how things have changed.
    Footnotes give the translations of lines in foreign tongues.


Ellis, oh Ellis,
do you see me?
I am coming on a steamer,
I am coming as a dreamer
a man, a woman, a child
homeless not hopeless,
with eyes cast
from these dark seas
upon the torch of Liberty.

The Old Songs (a poem)

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

They wiped their feet politely,
Knocked at Ellis Island,
And came to find America
Singing the old songs in their fear.

Men packed into black trains
Like fat sausages rode
To Colorado mining towns
Singing the old songs on their way.

The Parting (a poem)

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

He hands me a form stating:

Permission to withdraw from English 1-A.

His hands are shaking,
and he tries to make a joke.
“I got caught in a draft.”

Old Age

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

“You still have a nice figure,” he says.

I know he’s lying, and he knows I know.

What he means is he remembers how I used to look,

Just as I remember his thick, curly hair,

His strong arms tight around me.
Firm thighs pressed against mine.
Now, not so firm, not so tight.

We close our eyes and remember how we used to be.

His experienced hands know how and where to touch.
Our kisses less exciting but more loving.
We are like sturdy oaks surviving savage winds.
We shade each other from the scorching sun
And give protection from the crippling chill of age.

Copyright © 2020 by Shirley Skufca Hickman

In This Difficult Time

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

Our county of Tulare in California has had 3,000 cases of the coronavirus and 95 deaths. What have I been doing during this difficult time? I’ve made over 100 facemasks for our hospital, three cradle quilts to give to children at Christmas, and revised a romance novel. I’m also writing a book about my days at Cal Poly and my involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

The Militant

Looking back 52 years

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

I wrote the poem below at Cal Poly [California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo] after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated [on April 4, 1968]. A black student and I were friends, but after King’s death, he had nothing to do with me. When I asked his friend, also black, why, he said, “He doesn’t like white people now.” I protested. “I’m not prejudiced.” My student’s friend replied, “It’s hell to be judged by the color of your skin, isn’t it?”

Side Story: California versus Colorado

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

What besides snow drove you from Colorado to California, Shirley Skufca? My wife and I both love Colorado.
—Chuck Smythe

Reply by Shirley Skufca Hickman

Interview: Autobiographer Shirley Skufca Hickman

Shirley Skufca, in her years
at Tulare Union High School
(1958-60)

On the 4th volume of her life story

Interviewed by Moristotle

Early on, as I luxuriated in reading Shirley Skufca Hickman’s Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar, I determined that I had to interview Shirley, if for no other reason than to try to find out how she could remember so much of her life of 60 years ago – even stuff about me that I don’t remember. Yes, I am mentioned a few times in the book, which includes the story of her two years as a new teacher at Tulare Union High School – my junior & senior years and, more prominently, William Silveira and Jim Rix’s as well. Bill & Jim have already announced and written about Shirley’s book on Moristotle & Co.
    And as I continued to read, even more intriguing questions arose than how she could remember so much. Let’s see what the questions were, and how she replies to them. They are in italics.

Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar (Excerpt 2 from an autobiography)

Chapter 3 concludes

[Editor’s Note: The first day of the author’s first week as a new high school teacher appeared on Monday.]

Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar (Excerpt 1 from an autobiography)

Chapter 3 opens: A new teacher’s first day

[Editor’s Note: Jim Rix has introduced us to the 4th volume of Shirley Skufca Hickman’s autobiography in his own autobiographical column, “My Life,” and William Silveira reviewed the book on March 18. So, today, we present an excerpt from the book, the opening of Chapter 3, in which the author describes the first day of her first week as a new high school teacher. The rest of the chapter will appear on Wednesday. And remember, if you know how to access Amazon.com, you can “look inside” the book there.]

Book Review: Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar

The fourth volume of Shirley Skufca Hickman’s autobiography

By William Silveira

Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar is the fourth volume of Shirley Skufca Hickman’s memoirs. The first volume started out in the small coal mining settlement of Crested Butte, Colorado, where she was born. She now takes us to her first job as a teacher after graduating from Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado.

My Life [5]

From contract programming to software ownership

By Jim Rix

When I began contract programming, around 1980, computer software lagged far behind computer hardware. Skilled programmers were consequently in high demand, and contract programming was quite lucrative. I contracted with companies like Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, two semiconductor manufacturers, as well as companies with federal aerospace contracts.

West Coast Observer: A Library Fire

By William Silveira





I live so close to Porterville, California, that I didn’t need to read Time’s article “Boys, 13, Charged with Murder for Fire at California Library That Killed 2 Firefighters” to learn about the fire on February 28:

My Life [2]

High School Days

By Jim Rix

“After being graduated from TUHS.” I know that Chapter 1 said the next chapter would begin that way, but let’s pause a bit before we proceed to pick up with the autobiography I sent to the teacher who is writing her own biography of her days in Tulare. Maybe I shouldn’t have given high school such short shrift in what I sent to her.

Same popular book, but with a new cover

Lots happening with its author

By Moristotle

Prolific author Shirley Skufca Hickman’s popular book Fall in Love with an Orange Tree or a Book, about a teenager whose immigrant parents are deported back to Mexico, has a new cover. Explains Shirley: