Author puts his language art to good use

Not many people can stand in front of a crowd, waving a cucumber, and engage everyone in the room.

Not only that, make it a teachable moment.

Terry Winet can.

In fact, it's one of many skills Winet possesses -- an author, teacher and founder of bilingual educational programs.

The cucumber turns out to be a prop during a lesson on vocabulary in an English as a Second Language class Winet teaches two nights a week to farm workers in Wapato, a program offered through the United Way.

He's been teaching the class, which meets October through May, for eight years.

Student Ruby Gonzalez, 27, of Wapato gives the class high marks: "It's good, good, good," she says, in English.

Mostly retired -- he's 65 -- Winet spends a good deal of his time (at least five hours day, six days a week) writing in his Terrace Heights home.

Using the pen name T. Lloyd Winetsky, he's authored two novels; the first, "Grey Pine," was self-published in 2007, and the latest, published by Sunstone Press of Santa Fe, N.M., is "María Juana's Gift."

More than 1,000 copies of "Grey Pine," out in its second edition, have been printed.

After "María Juana's Gift" came out in mid-September, Winet began making the rounds of book signings and other appearances.

Locally, he'll sign books at Borders Books in Union Gap from 4-7 p.m. Nov. 20 and Jerrol's Books in Ellensburg from 4-6 p.m. Dec. 10.

Though fictitious, his books reflect events in Winet's life. Themes of alcoholism, depression and suicidal tendencies weave through "Grey Pine," which follows a young teacher in a fictional town in Eastern Washington.

"It's a rough story," Winet admits. "The main character gets about as low as he can go."

He pauses. "I've been there."

Winet quickly adds that the book conveys a hopeful message.

In "María Juana's Gift," Winet tackles consumerism, or dealing with a sometimes frustrating health-care system.

"One of the really good things that came out of our generation in the '60s is that it was the beginning of people standing up to big business and how they were treated by doctors, lawyers and other authority figures."

The book describes a young couple, living along the Mexican border in Arizona, as they struggle with a catastrophic event in a hospital with their newborn.

It, too, had its provenance from an incident in Winet's life.

The character of María Juana is based on a real janitor in a hospital in the Southwest, "a wonderful woman who gives the couple the gift of the chance to save their child," explains Winet, who has four grown children.

Bits of the dialogue in the book are in Spanish, a language he picked up as a youngster in Los Angeles. Winet further honed his linguistic skills when he lived in Guadalajara, Mexico, the summer between his junior and senior year at the University of Arizona, where he earned his bachelor's degree. He has a master's degree from the University of Washington, and administrator's credentials from Central Washington University.

He also spoke fluent Spanish during a stint in the Peace Corps in Puerto Rico.

Still, wanting to make sure conversations in his latest book sound credible, he decided to ask a native Spanish speaker to check various passages. He approached Jesus Lemos, who works as a court interpreter for the Yakima County District Court.

"Terry asked me, 'Does it sound genuine, is this how people talk?'" recalls Lemos, who was impressed with what he read.

"I think the dialogue is very authentic," Lemos points out.

Lemos, who has read both of Winet's books, has known him since Winet came to Yakima in the mid-1980s to help establish alternative schools for migrant students in the Yakima School District.

"Terry has done a lot of good work here, and he's still doing good work," Lemos said.

Winet's good works began in 1968 in Los Angeles, where he was teaching seventh-graders in an impoverished school in Watts. That was the year Martin Luther King was assassinated, and it had a profound effect on the young teacher. Not long after, Bobby Kennedy was also killed in Los Angeles.

Like many areas of the country, riots erupted in Watts that spring, laying bare the crushing poverty and hopelessness of life there.

Winet realized then that he wanted to continue devoting his life to educating those who lacked access to quality education.

"That's what got me started," he recalls. "It was quite a wild ride, with the two assassinations and riots."

Soon thereafter, Winet and his wife, Kathleen, also a teacher, moved to the Southwest to teach English as a Second Language on the Navajo Reservation.

After spending five years teaching in New Mexico and Arizona, the Winets also taught in Skykomish, Wash., and Alaska before moving to Eastern Washington to continue their work in education in Connell and Othello.

Winet also began developing bilingual programs and taught migrant education at night.

The couple moved in 1984 to Yakima, where Winet worked as a principal and administrator, establishing migrant alternative high school programs. He retired from the district in 1998 after surviving a brain aneurysm and stroke.

Those 30 years of life experiences crop up as motifs in his writing. For instance, the Winets were living in Othello when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, so the volcano, and its attendant ash, play a part in the first novel.

In the book Winet is currently writing, titled "Happy Ranch to Watts," the action takes place in Los Angeles during the turbulent late '60s. After that, he intends to write about life in Alaska.

But that's his day job. Meantime, in his night job, he's intent upon helping farm workers in Wapato learn English. He's moved by how ardent the 16 students in his class feel about mastering the language.

"Bless their hearts, they show up early; I'm really impressed," Winet says. "Last year, 12 students made it through the whole year and into the second year."

One of those is Marta Reyes, who jokes that her first year was "a piece of cake." Winet is following her progress with keen interest in the second-year class, taught by Brinda Quintanilla of Wapato.

The ESL program is funded by United Way and the Presbyterian Church of Wapato, where the free classes meet.

"When people walk through the door, it's so patently obvious that they want to learn," Winet notes.

Ramon Ventura, 20, explains that he's taking the class because "it's frustrating not knowing what everyone is saying."

Winet knows frustration. He struggled writing his first book, working on it for two years, then setting it aside for another five, before finally finishing it.

"It took forever to write," he sighs.

But "María" went much faster and was complete in two years. By then Winet had built up confidence; now he can't imagine a day without writing.

" 'Grey Pine' taught me I could do what I wanted to do," he says.

* Jane Gargas can be reached at 509-577-7690 or jgargas@yakimaherald.com.