Expressions from the Varenna Writers Club
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Transcript of Expressions from the Varenna Writers Club
i
EXPRESSIONS Selections
From
The Varenna Writers Club
Vol. 1 No. 1
2011
ii
iii
Expressions Selections
From The Varenna Writers Club
Volume 1
2011
Edited by Susan Bono
iv
Copyright © 2011
Susan Bono: editor
Jennifer March: book layout
Laurie MacMillan: cover design
Elisabeth Levy: back cover photo
ISBN: 978-1467998222
The Varenna Writers Club is sponsored by Varenna at Fountaingrove.
v
Dedicated to all the stories a heart can hold
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CONTENTS
Dorothy Herbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Varenna
A Poem to Celebrate
The Old Rocking Chair
Karin R. Fitzgerald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Fade to Orange and Black
Sally Tilbury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
A Good Scout
Helpless
Nancy Humphriss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
A Horse is a Horse, of Course, of Course
The Turkey and the Chicken
Jack Russ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
The Pink Letter
Elisabeth Levy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Is There a Wolf in the House?
Maybugs
John H. C. Riley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
An Embarrassing Success
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Renee McKnight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45
The Party
The Decision
The Trees
Bernice Schachter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Homage to Pietra Santa
Loisjean Raymond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
The Tree in the Middle of the Garden
The Inner Me
Shirley Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
A Class on Demand
Susan Bono . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Go Fish
Words from the Wise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
Dolores Giustina Fruiht . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
More Contemplating
A Nostalgic Drive
Joyce Cass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
Up in Smoke
Here and Now
1
Dorothy Herbert
Dorothy Herbert was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1924. Her
childhood was split between Ohio and Southern California.
She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley.
This was followed by a year of training in laboratory
technology at Western Reserve in Cleveland. Her career as a
lab tech allowed her to spend two years in Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia and later, a year in Oxford, England during her boss’
sabbatical. After her retirement from UCSF, she happily
settled in Sonoma and then Santa Rosa, California.
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Varenna Dorothy Herbert
hile young, yet viewing advancing age,
I sensed that I was all at sea,
Riding the waves as fortune might decree,
Driven at will by currents of fate,
Lacking means or desire to navigate.
Now I’ve evolved and become more sage,
Tired of floating as in the past,
I searched for a port . . . until at last,
I am cast ashore, as if by chance,
On a beautiful island of elegance,
VARENNA!
W
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A Poem to Celebrate Fellow 1924-ers on the Occasion of Our 80th Birthday
Dorothy Herbert
t all began in twenty-four,
And now it’s been a neat four score,
Since that eventful date of yore,
When all of us were given birth,
And still we grace this lucky earth.
We must admit to slowing down,
Which gives us time to look around,
To seek the knowledge yet unfound,
To understand and contemplate,
This wobbling world’s uncertain fate.
Younger folk will seek advice,
When books and gurus may suffice,
They willingly pay any price!
How can this be? Can they not see,
Not even asked, we give it free!
I
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As collagen and fascia fail,
In turn will gravity prevail,
And as we climb the bathroom scale,
There is no longer any doubt,
We’re way too thin or far too stout.
TV and pamphlets entertain us,
Saying exercise will sure maintain us,
And proper diet can sustain us,
So if we walk and drink Ensure,
It’s in the cards—we shall endure.
When all is done and all is said,
We’ve ended where Dame Fortune led,
And now renewed we surge ahead,
No looking back—but onward go,
Lunging toward the great nine-o.
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The Old Rocking Chair
Dorothy Herbert
he old rocking chair had lion heads on the
ends of the arms. It resided at my
grandparents’ when we were all quite small. We took
turns rocking and putting our fingers in the lions’
mouths. The chair eventually ended up in my possession
and a procession of young nieces and nephews rocked
happily as part of their childhood. Eventually I passed it
on to a niece to calm her two little boys during manic
moments and lull them to sleep. The benefit to me was
that on visits to their home I could still claim time
rocking back and forth as visions of my younger days and
of my grandparents renewed happy memories. It was a
nice continuum as life hastened on.
T
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To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence.
Tobias Wolff
7
Karin R. Fitzgerald
Karin R. Fitzgerald was named Rose Karin after her German
and Swedish grandmothers, and called “Rose” by her family.
She knew at a very young age that “Rose” didn’t fit her, but a
given name is a lot like a porcupine quill: once embedded, it’s
hard to remove. She tried unsuccessfully to ditch the “Rose,”
but the name stayed with her like an unwanted house guest.
Love solved the problem when student nurse Rose Karin met
handsome law student James Martin Fitzgerald. For sixty-one
years of marriage, darling James called her Karin, and so did
everyone else.
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Fade to Orange and Black
Karin Fitzgerald
t’s eight in the morning, Michigan time, and I’m
looking forward to another blissful August day
swimming and boating in the pristine waters of Lake Huron.
I’m the pampered guest of my daughter, Denise, and son-in-
law, George. Sharing the comfort of their wonderfully cozy
summer home on Marquette Island is always a pure delight. I
settle back into an old blue wicker chair, take my first
grateful sip of coffee and gaze out the wide windows of the
screened-in-porch. That’s when the first tiny blip of orange
catches my eye as it disappears into the trees. I am
immediately on high alert as another and then another blur of
orange is swallowed by the forest.
I stand up for a better look and hope that what I have
just seen might be the forerunners of the migrating monarch
butterflies. Everyone wants me to experience this incredible
phenomenon before my vacation ends. Through the screen
door I hear the phone ring, then my daughter’s excited voice.
I
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“Mom, they’ve arrived! Grab your jacket, we’re leaving in five
minutes!”
The three of us hurry down the winding path to the
dock and jump into the boat. George revs the motor and we
leave a churning wake as we head across the water to Point
Brule, the lovely mainland home of George’s sister, Cara, and
brother-in-law, Fred. The anticipation grows. We cruise into
the boat slip, tie up and climb the ladder to ground level. Fred
and Cara are waiting for us.
They lead the way. Up ahead is a grove of enormous
cedar trees. No one speaks as we step into the shade and
quiet of these giants. I stop dead in my tracks. Nothing has
prepared me for this. I see thousands of swirling orange and
black shapes. They float silently in and around the cedar
branches, fluttering by our faces and bodies, as if to offer a
silent benediction. The air is soft and warm. A slight mist
curls and drifts languidly through the trees. This contributes
to my sense of having stumbled into a different dimension.
I’m awestruck and honored to be a witness to one of nature’s
most magnificent wonders.
I float up out of my reverie. Fred taps my arm to get
my attention. “Do you know what the monarchs are doing
now?” I shake my head. “They need liquid to keep hydrated.
They can’t regulate their body temperature and dry out so
easily. They suck up moisture on the foliage with a little
flexible tube like a sippy straw.” He holds out his hand. A
butterfly alights just long enough for me to peer at
something that looks like a leg, except it’s curled under the
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tiny head. Fred is looking at his hand too. “That curled thing
is called a proboscis. It unfolds when a butterfly needs to
drink.”
Grateful for the explanation, I realize that everyone
else wants to tell me what they know as they gather around.
The snippets of information are delivered in whispers
because we all feel like we are in a leafy chapel. As we slowly
walk beneath the trees, I learn that the female monarchs look
for milkweed plants to lay their fertilized eggs. Once that’s
done, both the males and females die. Their busy lives only
last two to six weeks, but make way for the next generation of
monarchs to carry on. I find out from George and Cara who
have grown up in this part of Upper Michigan that one
generation of butterflies east of the Rocky Mountains will
migrate to Mexico and one-generation west of the Rockies will
migrate to Pacific Grove, California.
I feel like a human sponge, soaking up these whispered
insights. I want to fill up with monarchmania and squeeze it
out later to enjoy. The gentle rain from a late summer shower
starts to fall. We stand together and look up, blinking away
the light drizzle, anxious about the butterflies and reluctant
to leave. The monarchs quickly begin to light on the branches
and fold their wings. Satisfied now, as if we are the caretakers
and know that our little charges will be fine, we turn toward
the house. I look back. A few of the little beauties still dip and
turn, soar and glide in all their orange and black elegance.
Once in the house, Fred fires up the computer, finds a
good website and prints information that I can save and read
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at my leisure. I’m happy about this because there seem to be
so many generations of monarchs, such a huge family, and I
am not at all clear which relatives live and which die. The
computer pages are passed around. Many of the facts are
known by the initiated four, but some of them are new, even
to them. They are very surprised to discover that the
milkweed plant the egg-turned-caterpillar feeds on delivers a
potent poison to protect the adult monarch from being eaten
by birds and small mammals like mice. Nature does a great
job keeping her most fragile creatures safe.
All too soon the wonderful afternoon has slipped
away. I gather up the stack of printouts and we take our leave
with affectionate hugs all around. We three move past the
cedars, empty now except for the sighing breeze. We board
the boat; it’s cold now on the Bay. Back home on the island,
we sit down to a relaxed dinner and decide to retire early.
Denise and George each have a favorite book and I have the
many, many pages of monarch information. I settle down on
the big comfortable bed, pillows propped up behind me, the
occasional hoot of an owl an appropriate introduction to my
reading.
I know from the afternoon tutorial that four
generations of monarchs are born each year. The stunning
finale to this unique life cycle extravaganza is the wildly
wonderful, mind-blowing fourth generation of butterflies
born in September. These creatures do not die in two to six
weeks, but live for six to eight months. Called the
“Methuselah generation,” these “Methuselahs” are destined to
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become the senior citizens of the butterfly world. It’s these
same young and innocent butterflies who will make the
dangerous 2,700 mile, two-month long journey to reach their
Mexican hibernation colonies. Their November arrival in the
evergreen forests of Mexico’s Sierra Madre Mountains must be
a thrilling sight as the Methuselahs fold their wings and cover
the trees by the thousands.
Five months later, these same Methuselahs will receive
an urgent message with the tick-tock of their biological
clocks: “Wake up, find a mate and lay the eggs.” In a short
time these eggs will become a new first generation of
monarch butterflies. The fabulous Methuselahs, old and tired
now, their work complete, will be taken into Mother Nature’s
arms and this new generation of monarchs will start their
northward trek. Once again the magical monarch migration
will begin. I yawn as the pages slip from my hand and I fall
asleep with a smile on my face.
13
Sally Tilbury
Sally Tilbury and her husband worked in the family business
prior to retirement. Beverly Hills Travel, Inc., a commercial
travel agency, had five offices, with their flagship office in the
Beverly Hills Hotel. She moved with her husband to Sonoma
County in 1990, and upon her husband’s death, she came to
live at Varenna. She has three daughters, six grandchildren,
and six great-grandchildren all living in Northern California.
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A Good Scout Sally Tilbury
e was squeaky clean. He smelled of soap, strong
soap, almost like naphtha. It was obvious his
haircut was the homemade "sit on the kitchen stool and do
not move" type. His hair had been slapped with Dad's ancient
pomade. I could see the tracks of the comb through his hair,
his ears scrubbed red. What a joy to sit in the pew behind him
and members of his troop.
An expert mom had ironed his uniform. Those pants
had not just been pulled from the rumbling dryer. They had
knife-sharp pleats. This great-grandmother did not know
there were any expert ironers left.
What a lift in these worrisome world-weary times, the
rock-throwing, the hate. He represented something decent to
me, something outdoorsy, young and hopeful. It made me so
proud to sit behind his troop.
Each of the boys was to receive an award this day. It
would be a document with a gold star on it. Each of the boys
had created a book of writings about Scouting, its virtues,
principles, kindness to others, peace and love in the world. I
prayed their lives might be fruitful and peaceful.
It was only when he turned around that I noticed the
fresh black eye.
H
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Helpless A Drabble by Sally Tilbury
wo large men wearing green scrubs placed her on
the gurney and began to roll toward the surgery.
Our four-year-old daughter appeared to be a small bundle
on the cart. I was terrified. She had been born with
strabismus, or crossed eyes. Early surgical intervention
was so that her eyes and brain could work together. This
was her second surgery.
As the doors of the scary elevator closed, the small
bundle raised her finger toward one of the men and said,
"I'm not going to do this today, but I'll come back
tomorrow."
The elevator door clunked shut.
T
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I don’t know exactly how it’s done. I let it alone a good deal.
Saul Bellow
17
Nancy Humphriss
Nancy Humphriss grew up in the small town of
Northampton, Massachusetts. After graduating from the
University of Massachusetts, she married her hometown
sweetheart, raised a family, and followed her husband to
seven different states, Sydney, Australia for four years, and
one year in Jerusalem. Her teaching career began with first
graders in Florida. After earning her Master's Degree in
Comparative Literature from Indiana University, Nancy ended
her career teaching foreign students for 17 years at San Jose
State University. She and her husband retired to Santa Rosa in
1997, and moved to Varenna in 2009. She feels very fortunate
to have had such a satisfying life.
18
A Horse is a Horse, of Course, of Course
Nancy Humphriss
y sister and I lived with our parents on a modest
five acre spread in a small town in
Massachusetts. Although he had a regular job, my father was
a farmer wannabe. Therefore, he was delighted when my
older-by-five-plus-years sister showed enthusiastic interest in
owning a horse. He bought her one, and she quickly became
very proficient in handling and caring for Topsy, as she
named her. Thus began several years of memories, not all
positive, but many funny.
Part 1: The Horse and I
I watched with envy as Shirley developed her
horsemanship, entering contests, riding with friends, and
spending much time grooming and pampering her new horse.
She was thirteen and I was eight, so she decided she would
teach me the techniques of being a horsewoman. The first
time I sat myself on the saddle, Topsy quickly decided I was
not her master, so she headed at a vigorous trot toward the
barn, planning, of course, to behead me and free herself from
M
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what was on her back. In panic, I managed to slip from the
stirrups onto the ground, shaken but not yet cowed.
The second attempt proved no less frightening, since
now Topsy noticed the clothesline was much closer and
therefore quicker. Again, I failed, falling in a heap. After a few
days and some more verbal and “watch me” lessons, I was
ready to try again. This time Topsy realized there was an even
quicker and easier way to rid her back of me, so she lay down
and began to roll over. Obviously, this ended in the same way.
Crying, stamping my feet, and hurling hard words at my
sister and her horse, I ran upstairs to my room, slamming the
door behind me. At this point both my mother and I decided I
needed to find another sport, something not involving horses!
Part 2: The Horse and My Mother
Not long after my dad bought Topsy, she presented us,
unexpectedly, with a baby horse, a foal. My sister named him
Teddy, and he was darling, left free to roam around, usually
following his mother. After a few months he began to be a bit
aggressive, nipping our hands and trotting after us. Soon he
revealed his even stronger male tendencies, and my mother,
who loved gardening, became a bit intimidated by Teddy, but
she still felt in control. One day, as she was taking dry
laundry off the line, I saw her, clothes basket in hand,
swinging it at the angry colt. She finally took off running with
Teddy close behind. She made it to the porch and into the
house, slamming the door on Teddy, who stood on the porch,
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nose to the glass window, peering in at my terrified mother.
At this point my dad decided one horse was enough, and
Teddy was sold to a stable owner where my sister had visiting
rights for the duration.
Part 3: The Horse and the Wagon
Shirley wanted to be able to take her friends for buggy
rides, so she borrowed a cart and hooked Topsy up. Off she
went with her friend, down the lane and out of sight. How
cute they all looked, like a storybook picture. After fifteen
minutes or so, we saw Topsy galloping at full speed, dragging
a very broken wagon, wheels coming off, and no Shirley or
friend. Topsy ran into our yard, across my dad’s carefully
tended lawn and into the flower garden, wreaking havoc all
the way. Nor did she stop there, but continued through my
dad’s corn field, making a swath three feet wide before
disappearing down the hill. Fear and panic ensued, but soon
my sister and friend appeared, looking bedraggled and
defeated, but not harmed. Needless to say, when Topsy was
found, safe but tired, she knew she had won again. No more
pulling carts for her!
Part 4: The Horse and the Porch
My sister took very good care of her charge, and
keeping her clean, shod, well fed, and loved came naturally.
One day Shirley decided Topsy needed a bath, so she tied her
to the post of our back porch and approached her with a
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bucket of warm water, soap, curry comb, and towels. Topsy
gave my sister a baleful eye, then began to rear and buck
until the post gave way, along with the roof of the porch.
The whole back porch more or less caved in, and
Topsy once again took off, dragging the post behind her.
Shirley managed to find her, calm her down, and bring her
home. How well I recall sitting on the steps of our now
demolished porch, waiting for my dad to come home from
work. I secretly found some ill-willed delight in knowing I was
not in any way to blame, and that whatever followed wouldn’t
involve me. But my father was a relatively understanding and
gentle man, so the “punishment” was simply not to ever again
hitch Topsy to anything, be it a post or a wagon.
Part 5: The End of the Story
We had Topsy to the end of her years, and Shirley rode
her almost daily until the horse was put out to pasture and
retirement. My sister continued her love of riding and horses
until her age, 80, prevented her from participating in her
favorite sport. Although I never was able to enjoy horseback
riding, I certainly did enjoy watching from the sidelines, and
these remain some of my favorite memories of my childhood
on the farm.
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The Turkey and the Chicken Nancy Humphriss
t seems to me that the world is getting more and
more angry, threatening, chaotic, disturbing and
violent than I ever remember it being before. The news
continues to emphasize our need to be more tolerant of those
with whom we may disagree, more understanding of other’s
ideas and viewpoints, and, in general, more civil. This little
vignette I am about to relate is no great expose or even “big
deal,” but it spoke to me in its small, rather simple way.
I was sitting in the chair in my beauty salon, awaiting a
haircut, gazing out the side window at the sidewalk, when
suddenly a magnificent turkey gobbler came into view.
Alongside him, trotting to keep up with the long strides of
the turkey, was a beautiful black and white feathered rooster.
Stopping to look around, something interested them and they
ambled over to a glass door on the other side of the sidewalk.
They peered together into the glass door, appearing to wait
for someone. Obviously they were together in the sense of
companions or friends, and while I may be assuming more
than was actually happening, they looked as if they were
I
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enjoying each other and were somehow communicating as
they stood there. One of the hair stylists had granola she had
brought for her lunch. She grabbed a handful, carefully
opened the door, and gently scattered the food along the
sidewalk. The poultry couple lifted their heads, not at all
alarmed at the sudden appearance of a human, and
considered the idea of eating the granola. Evidently they
agreed to go for it, and they both began to peck, more or less
taking turns. Someone in the salon took out her cell phone
and photographed the scene.
It was an episodic minute that somehow shouted the
much needed point, to quote the clichés of the past: “Make
love, not war;” “Opposites attract;” “Celebrate diversity,” etc.
I know turkeys and chickens are not mortal enemies
like mountain lions and deer, but this little scene, sweet,
unusual, and very, very pertinent considering the current
state of the world, seemed to speak to those of us witnessing
it. It saddens me to think how different the world would be if
we could only learn from the turkey and the chicken.
24
The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions.
Susan Sontag
25
Jack Russ
Jack Russ shifted his writing focus to fiction in 1999, after
years of professional non-fiction. He earned awards for three
short stories and published his first novel, In Dangerous
Waters, in December 2010. For three years he served as
President of the Mt. Diablo Branch of the California Writers
Club, and concurrently formed and promoted the Tri-Valley
Branch of CWC. Jack holds a MA in Management and is a
retired Navy Captain and carrier pilot. He and his wife Arlene
moved to Varenna in May 2011.
26
The Pink Letter Jack Russ
teve stepped into the red gloom of the aircraft
carrier’s ready room, sweaty and tired from the
night’s second mission over Vietnam. A short, by now routine
mission debrief helped him escape the ready room’s somber
atmosphere and the absence of the usual chatter.
Steve checked for mail from Becky at the Duty Officer’s
desk before heading for a shower, food and overdue sleep, in
that order. His only letter was junk mail offering a credit
card. What would he do with a credit card at sea?
“Guess you’re taking care of these for Brick now,” the
Duty Officer said. He handed three envelopes to Steve.
Steve stowed his pilot’s flight gear next to the empty
peg for helmet and harness assigned to his roommate, John
“Brick” Goretti. He downed a paper cup of the last of the
quick-mix lemonade, and left for his stateroom.
Steve tried to ignore the ominous silence of the
cramped stateroom. Brick usually had his tapes going full
blast. One of their ongoing hassles had been Brick’s
insistence on playing his tapes loud. Steve’s distaste for
Brick’s choice in music gave them something to argue about
S
27
other than their missions and the deadly routine of round-
the-clock combat operations.
Steve’s eyes couldn’t escape Brick’s three letters. He’d
dropped them on their shared desktop with the other
magazines and stuff he’d promised himself he’d clean up one
of these days. He hesitated. Would he be violating Brick’s
privacy if he opened the letters? What would Brick do in his
place?
The top letter was more junk mail. Steve tore open the
envelope to be sure and trashed it. The second was from a
sporting goods company advising they’d sent the boots Brick
had admired in a recent catalog. Steve made a note to expect
a package sometime in the future.
He stared at the last letter, the pink one. No need to
turn it over. It was another from Brick’s fiancée, Trish. There
had been many of the same pale pink envelopes since they
had left San Diego five months before. Steve remembered
Trish as the gushy, southern belle type. He had only met her
once, at the squadron’s pre-deployment party. A pretty girl,
blonde with pale freckles, and barely up to Brick’s shoulders.
They made an interesting couple on the dance floor. It was
quite a sight to see the ex-football linebacker from Alabama
twirling a miniscule partner less than half his weight. But give
them credit. Their dancing was show-stopping. Her feet were
in the air more often than on the floor. Brick hadn’t been
considered graceful before. He took on new stature that
night.
28
He reached for the envelope but stopped before
touching it. Was he ready to deal with another man’s mail? A
quick check of his watch showed he still had time to get into
the early sitting in the wardroom. He couldn’t think clearly on
an empty stomach. He’d deal later with the pink letter.
Later turned out to be after a quick lunch, a short nap,
and a special intelligence briefing for an upcoming mission.
The pink envelope, like a magnet demanded his attention
each time he entered or left the room.
He and Brick had enjoyed a special bond. It hadn’t
involved reading each other’s mail, although they talked
about people and events and things their infrequent mail
contained. Steve had pictures of Becky and his baby son
Bobby taped to the bureau, the son he’d never held. He would
though, and soon, unless their deployment was extended
again.
Brick’s few pictures were of his mom, dad and sis, a
picture of Brick and Steve at one of the squadron parties at
the Cubi Point Officer’s Club early in the deployment, and a
couple of snapshots of Trish taken before they left San Diego.
Brick was the neat one, a relative term, Steve decided, looking
around the cramped stateroom.
Trish’s letter was postmarked nine days ago, March 21,
1967. Not bad, considering how slow some mail had been.
From the heft of the envelope there couldn’t be more than a
couple of sheets in it. He laid it back on the desktop. Should
he open it? Would he object if he and Brick changed places?
29
Probably not. He paused again, unsure. After all, he had been
designated to clean up Brick’s affairs.
The “Dear John” opening gave him pause. Hadn’t Brick
always chuckled at the way she began her letters? He’d read
some of the openings to Steve, things like, “My Dearest,” or
“You Big Hunk.” He suspected some letters opened in a more
intimate tone. Brick hadn’t chosen to share those.
Trish’s first paragraph didn’t sound like much of a
love letter. Becky’s letters usually started off with something
like how much she missed him.
Trish began with “Hope you are well and getting your
sleep.” Brick had mentioned that he told her of their back-to-
back missions during the past month. That tempo had
everyone dragging. There’d been some let-up since, but not
much.
Trish wrote that she’d talked with Brick’s mom the day
before and all was well there. His dad had to go in for some
dental work. His kid sister was looking forward to her senior
prom. Trish hadn’t seen her dress. She said his sister
described something in pale blue and slinky on the phone.
Steve remembered the skinny teenager and thought the kid is
really growing up.
Page two, a half page long, must have been written
later because the ink was different. He thought he detected a
slight change in the handwriting.
“This is very hard for me to tell you. Please don’t think
unkindly of me,” it began.
30
Steve stopped reading. He really didn’t want to get into
Brick’s truly personal affairs. Maybe he should slip the sheets
back in the envelope and hold them. But, hold them for what,
and for how long?
“You remember my neighbor, Dick Lambert?” her letter
continued. “You knew he works in the building next to mine.
We went to lunch once about a month after you left. We
began seeing each other more often. Well, to cut it short, he’s
asked me to marry him. I didn’t know what do. Guess I
should have told you sooner. I’m sorry. You’ve been gone so
long, and well, Dick kept pushing. Besides, mother likes Dick.
Last night he gave me a ring, and I told him yes. Please
forgive me for not telling you sooner. I love Dick and believe
I’ve made the right choice. Thank you for all the good times. I
hope your life is full and happy.”
Steve stared at the sheets for a full minute, hands flat
on the desktop, letting his anger subside so he wouldn’t
succumb to an urge to crumple the letter and toss it. He
stared at Becky’s picture. What would she advise him to do?
He stuffed the pages back in the envelope and resealed
it. Across the front he wrote,
“Return to Sender. New address is
Hanoi Hilton Prison,
Hanoi, North Vietnam.”
31
Elisabeth Levy
Elisabeth Levy was born, raised and trained as a registered
nurse in Switzerland. In 1958 she immigrated to the USA,
working a few months in Portland, OR, Galveston and San
Antonio, TX before settling in San Francisco, CA. She worked
in Dermatology with her husband, Dr. S. William Levy until he
died in 2005. She always liked to write, and in 2006 started
getting serious. She joined the Oakmont Writers and
published Destiny, a translation of her friend’s life as a
paraplegic and several essays in the yearly Oakmont Writers
Anthologies. She helped get the Varenna Writers off the
ground.
32
Is There a Wolf in the House? Elisabeth Levy
n a small village in Switzerland, in a big 200-year-old
house, lived Heidy with her parents and three older
sisters.
The living quarters were on the second floor. At the
top of the creaky wooden stairs, a glass door opened into a
long stretched-out hallway. To the right was the kitchen with
the pantry. In the corner sat the living room. The main
attraction in the living room was the large blue tile stove with
a tiled bench, a great place to relax and read any time of the
year. In winter it was truly appreciated, as it kept the room
nice and warm. Heidy loved to hold her hands on the tiles. It
made her feel good and the warmth went through her whole
body. There was a little opening for keeping those 12” x 12”
cotton bags filled with cherry pits warm.
The bags were recycled flour bags, soft to the touch.
Grite, the maid, would wash them, cut them to size and sew
them together. At cherry season the family would carefully
collect the pits, wash and dry them, and fill the bags.
I
33
At bedtime, Heidy would grab a bag and put it into her
cold bed. It warmed the sheets until she was ready to slip
under the covers. The only problem was that sometimes the
cotton bags broke and the cherry pits spilled into the bed.
Heidy had a ritual; before she put the bag to her feet, she
would hug it and feel the warmth next to her heart.
This monstrous tile oven was heated by shoving two-
foot long sticks bundled together into the oven opening in
the kitchen. Heidy loved to watch the sticks burning and
becoming glowing embers. At that time Grite would shut the
valve, and like a miracle, the heat would penetrate the tiles
and warm the living room.
On the south side, adjacent to the living room, was the
bedroom Heidy and her older sister Erika shared. It had three
doors, one to the living room, one to the hallway and one to
their parents’ bedroom. In the hallway between the two
bedrooms was a small coal stove, heated only when the
outside temperature was below freezing. Across the hallway,
tucked in the corner, was the separate toilet and next to it the
bathroom. To enter the bathroom was like going through a
dark little alley containing an old wooden toddler’s bed and a
chest of drawers. A door with opaque glass separated it from
the actual bathroom, which had a sink and a tub. Every
Saturday evening Mother would heat the bathroom oven for
their weekly bathing time. She would scrub the girls’ backs
and made sure they did not linger and have fun for too long.
In the hallway, across from Heidy and Erika’s bedroom,
were four wardrobes, one for each girl. They fit exactly
34
between the bathroom and Margrit and Lily’s bedroom, which
was adjacent to the glass door leading down the stairs. This
long hallway had only one light bulb down by the kitchen and
living room. The other end with bathroom and toilet was
dark. Most of the time there was no heat except in the living
room.
At the age of five or so, little Heidy loved to hear
stories. She had just started to read stories on her own. She
loved the Grimm’s fairy tales, like “Little Red Riding Hood,”
“Snow White,” “Cinderella,” and others. Grite was a good
storyteller. Sometimes she even made them up, like the one
of Mrs. Milk. As the two of them watched the milk coming to
the boiling point, Grite would say, “Mrs. Milk and her children
were on their way to catch the train. All of a sudden, they
heard the train coming. They ran, but of course, they always
were too late.” If the milk did not flow over, Grite told her,
“Mrs. Milk and her children had no chance.” Other times, the
theme would vary. Maybe those stories spurred Heidy’s
imagination.
When it came to the Grimm’s stories, her imagination
ran wild. Little Red Riding Hood? That wolf with its gray
unkempt furry coat and his huge white teeth, could he hurt
her? Where did he hide, somewhere in the house?
During the summer Heidy had no problem. It was light
when she had to go to bed and the wolf had no place to hide.
The winter was another matter. During those long winter
evenings the family would gather in the heated living room.
35
Heidy learned to knit. They would listen to radio plays and
music. All seemed well, except now Heidy had a problem.
Going to the bathroom was scary. She had to leave the
warm, brightly lighted living room, enter the long shadowy
hall and pass the dark little room behind the row of closets
before she could reach the toilet. It was so dark, like in the
forest, and she was sure the wolf was hiding in that dark
room. She tried to be very quiet and tiptoe to the toilet. When
she thought nobody would notice, she would sneak out of the
living room, leaving the door open, just a little. But soon
she’d hear an angry voice: “Don’t leave that door open; we are
freezing.” Usually by that time she was far enough, she could
run the rest of the way to the toilet and be momentarily
saved. The way back was not so bad. She could quietly sneak
out of the toilet and run into the light, reaching the living
room safely. Her sisters never asked her why she wanted to
leave the living room door open, and she was sure if they
knew, they would mock her and laugh.
A few years later Heidy had a little brother. Poor Heinz,
one day when he was three years old, their oldest sister
opened her closet and showed him a mask she had used a
few days before to entertain a group of seniors. He got such a
shock, screamed hysterically and called the mask “the wicked
doll.” In contrast to Heidy, he would not pass Lily’s closet and
the dark little room to go to the toilet by himself, day or
night, summer or winter. Their mother even burned the mask
and showed him the empty closet, but it didn’t help. The
damage was done.
36
MayBugs Elisabeth Levy
emories happen to come back. Susan Bono, our
writing group facilitator, gave us twenty minutes
to write about a summer morning. Only when the class was
over did lightning strike me: the maybugs, of course. And
here is the story.
During my childhood in Switzerland, I remember how
every three or four years we had a maybug invasion in May or
June. They would make themselves at home in oak, fruit, and
other trees and feed on the new and tender leaves. After
about five to seven weeks they became larvae, dug themselves
into the soil and played havoc with root vegetables and fruit,
such as strawberries. We would hear their churning-humming
sound in the evening before they went to sleep. Needless to
say, it was very important to catch these one-inch long
creatures with their hard brown shells promptly.
For the fun of it and to make sure that my memories
were more or less correct, I checked with my sister, a friend
from the same village, two friends from neighboring villages,
and my cousin. We all clearly remembered similar
experiences.
Every village was responsible for collecting as many
maybugs as possible. A bulletin instructed the villagers how,
when, and where to deliver them. Collecting was mandatory
M
37
for every family who had trees in their backyard. The farmers
were required to deliver a certain quantity of bugs and only
got paid for the surplus. People like my family who had just a
few trees got paid for all the bugs they delivered. The evening
before the designated day, our parents made sure we knew
the importance of following the protocol.
I heard my Mother’s voice, “It’s time to wake up.” It
was 4:00 a.m., and not even daylight. My clothes were ready
on the chair. I dressed quickly, put on shoes and off I ran
down the stairs to the back of the house. My Father had
already put heavy sheets under the first tree. Mother had
gotten the big kettle of boiling hot water ready.
“Come on, kids, let the fun begin,” my father said in a
low voice. He didn’t want to wake up the maybugs.
We gathered around the first tree and started shaking
it as hard as we could. We began to hear this crackling sound
as the sleeping maybugs came tumbling down. As they
favored the new leaves, they were mostly closer to the ends
of the branches. We shook the tree until the noise stopped.
Next, we had to be very quick, fold the sheets, hold them
closed, and empty the bugs into the hot water before they
woke up. One or two escaped, crawled out of the cloth and
flew away.
My sisters and I were fascinated, but had no time to
loiter. We had only enough time to shake our heads to get rid
of the maybugs in our hair before we started shaking the next
tree. The same thing was repeated a few more times until we
were done.
38
My parents gave a sigh of relief and told us we did a
good job and earned the money we were about to get. We
looked into the hot water kettle. It was hard to figure the
amount of bugs swimming in there. Soon the bugs and the
smell began to bug us and we decided the sooner we got rid
of them, the better off we’d be. By now it was daylight and
the whole village was on its way to the designated collection
place, a farmhouse with a big barn on the main street. We
loaded our kettle on the cart and pulled it the few blocks up
the street. The arriving villagers were all in party mood.
The men chosen by the city council, plus the owner of
the farm, were prepared. It really was a well-organized affair.
One man lifted the kettle, poured the water through a
strainer, weighed the bugs, called out the number of pounds.
Another one took the smelly bugs to the back of the barn,
while another calculated how much money was owed us. It
was not much, maybe a penny or two per pound, but we were
proud to put the money into our savings, knowing we did an
important job. Fewer larvae would dig into the ground and
destroy the roots of the new harvest of vegetables and fruit.
As a final note, there was no waste; the maybugs were
ground up and used as fertilizer.
Illustration by Alexa
Rhoads
39
John H. C. Riley
John H. C. Riley was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved
to Canada as a young boy. During World War II he served in
the Canadian Navy. A 40-year career in the newspaper
industry in Canada and the USA followed. An active athlete
until recently, John played for Charles Schulz’s Diamond Icers
Hockey Team for 30 years and was Master of Ceremonies for
Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament for 37 years. He
and his wife Mary Louise, whom he met on a university tennis
court, were recently honored by the Schulz family and the
Redwood Empire Ice Arena for their service to the
tournament.
40
Embarrassing Success John H. C. Riley
y parents were in their mid-forties when a
Canadian snowfall piled snow four feet high on
their driveway in suburban Toronto, Canada. Well may you
ask the whereabouts of their only son when they needed him!
Courtesy of Canada’s federal government, I was
participating in an all-expenses paid cruise to that northern
pile of coral in the Atlantic Ocean known as Bermuda. But
there’s always a catch, isn’t there? Instead of fascinating
shore excursions, each day would entail that navy routine
known as “work-ups”—the process of putting a new naval
vessel (in this case, a frigate) and the crew through all its
paces: engines, all armament including depth charges
projectors, ASDIC and radar, and all communications
equipment. All this, of course, was supervised by highly
skilled training officers.
As the gunnery officer, my men and I were under the
scrutiny of a warrant (i.e. non-commissioned) officer. He
deserves some sympathy for his behavior during the incident
I am about to relate. He was a permanent navy individual
who, along with almost every member of the very small
Canadian navy at the beginning of World War II, had become
M
41
submerged by a host of volunteer reserves who had joined
the navy after the start of the war in September 1939. The
spectacular growth of Canada’s navy to the status of third
largest navy in the world meant that the permanent force
formed roughly less than fifteen percent of all of Canada’s
naval personnel on active duty. This was a source of
occasional resentment—not always concealed. The day on
which the focus of attention was on the twin four inch guns
provided an illustration of this.
Today’s training with offensive weaponry is done with
“high-tech” virtual reality computerized equipment. World
War II’s equivalent for big guns amounted to a large box with
an aperture by which the trainee could see a model of a
submarine on the surface of the ocean and the fake splashes
of a shell hitting the water in front of or behind the broadside
of the submarine. The trainee, having been given a broad
range in yards in which the submarine was located,
proceeded with a fake attack based on the traditional artillery
procedures. The distance estimate was changed up or down
appropriately until the projectile crossed the target again.
The reversal of range and change of range up or down
continued until the target was hit.
At last, the big moment had arrived when the big twin
four-inch guns would open fire for the first time since being
installed on the new frigate. This was the real thing, certainly
no puppet show. I got a range estimate from radar, checked
the wind, response of the ship to the ocean and gave the
order to fire the already loaded dummy shells. Surprise! The
42
first shot hit the target. Result—momentarily stunned! Brief
mental paralysis! Never, never, never in all the puppeteering
“virtual reality” practices did the trainee hit the target with
the first shot!
Pause. What to do? Inadvertently—almost
automatically—I gave out the instruction I had used so often
in the puppeteering practices, “Down 200!” Now I was
embarrassed on top of stunned! I kept the binoculars glued to
my eyes as the warrant officer volleyed a six word epithet at
me. The first two words lowered the level of my intelligence
considerably and the other four insulted my mother. “Rapid
salvoes!” I blurted out correctly. My gun’s crew obliged and
shattered the rest of the target.
That worn-out phrase, “All’s well that ends well,” applies. I
had an embarrassing success. Meanwhile, the warrant officer
was unaware, as I was also, that the admiral in charge of
operations in the Bermuda area had come aboard the ship to
see how the “work-ups” were going. He was standing behind
the warrant officer and me during the warrant officer’s
somewhat less than complimentary description hurled at me,
and later dealt with the insubordination. Best of all, over a
few days, my father and mother removed all snow from the
driveway in time to access the street coincidentally with the
snow plow’s clearing of the street by the city employees.
43
Renée McKnight
Renée McKnight, a recent arrival to Varenna in Santa Rosa,
was born in New York, but has lived most of her life in
California. She is a mother of four sons, grandmother of ten,
and a tennis player. She has always loved to keep house and
cook and bake for her family. She has traveled extensively
with her dear husband Ed and her family. She has never
written anything before, but plans to continue writing and
learning. She hopes these little vignettes will be entertaining.
44
The Party Renee McKnight
t was a surprise party for me at my house, with all
my family, and I wasn’t supposed to know about it.
However, I soon found out and arranged things accordingly in
the dining room with the dishes, silverware, napkins, etc., and
eagerly awaited the rest to come.
About three o’clock in the afternoon the bearers of
wonderful food started to arrive, and one by one began to
assemble their goodies. There was the smell of seafood stew
simmering at the stove as Debbie quietly stirred things
together; Tiffany put her stuffed peppers into the oven to
heat, a green and red vision to behold. You could almost taste
them already. From Cov’s kitchen came his homemade chili in
a deep pot, ready to entice with rice on the side. The salads
were glistening on the table, green with lots of vegetables,
pasta salad made by Sue and Nancy, and platters of cheese
and crackers and a savory baked brie cheese with brandy and
brown sugar by Becky. There was even a fabulous fruit salad
made by my grandson Kyle, which really surprised and
delighted everyone. The desserts were things of beauty: cakes
and pies and cookies made by Monica and her mother, Sally.
Everything was colorful on the white tablecloth and it smelled
wonderful. The sound of the others doing the cooking in my
kitchen was music to my ears and what a symphony it made.
After eating all this wonderful food, I didn’t mind so
much that today I turned eighty.
I
45
The Decision Renee McKnight
e were at the train station, full of excitement
and trying to get the next train to Paris. We had
just turned in the canal boat after an adventurous week of
traveling the small canals of France, discovering and enjoying
France all by ourselves, my husband Ed, his son Cov, his wife
Suzanne, and me. It wasn’t easy at first, but we soon got the
hang of it, and it turned out to be a remarkable experience,
one we will never forget, worth every moment of anxiety and
pride in our accomplishments along the way.
We had already turned in the rented car after leaving
the boat and found our way to the local train station, hoping
to be in Paris in a few hours. There we were, looking a bit
worn, and trying to read the signs on the platform. Everything
was written in French, of course, and the word “Paris” was
mentioned on several signs, only confusing the issue.
“How are we going to choose the right sign?” That was
the dilemma. After taking a two-month course in the
language from Alliance Francaise at home, I seemed to be the
only one able to speak and understand a little French. I was
immediately looked upon as the “knowing one” and I have to
say it elevated my standing momentarily! All of a sudden I
was supposed to get us to Paris with my vast new knowledge!
W
46
There was no one around us on the platform to ask for
help, so I intensely studied each sign, hoping to find a clue
for the correct route. All the while, everyone was yelling and
talking and giving me their advice, until I shouted in
frustration, “Shut up and let me think!”
There was complete silence as I made my decision, all
the while shaking in my shoes and praying they wouldn’t
notice that I was unsure. We boarded the train and sat down,
cautiously looking around to find some clues until I was able
to ask a fellow passenger if this train was going to Paris. The
answer was, “Oui, Paris, oui!” A big sigh of relief was heard all
around and smiles remained on our faces all the way to Paris.
It felt good to have made the right decision.
47
The Trees Renee McKnight
s I sit and look out through the sliding glass
doors of my kitchen and beyond the deck, I
see a stately group of Redwood trees, just four to be
exact. They have been there since 1994, almost seventeen
years, and I have watched them grow from tiny plants, no
more than a foot high, to become such a proud and
magnificent group.
My husband Ed and I planted them after the
Oakland Hills fire in 1991, where there wasn’t a shrub or
a tree left on the burnt and barren hillside. It was a very
sad sight to behold. A very kind gentleman from Berkeley
offered six “baby” trees to us, four redwood and two oak.
We happily accepted his gift and couldn’t wait to begin
digging. It wasn’t easy on the dry hillside, but for us, it
was a joyful labor of love to be able to replace what was
lost.
I now look upon these wonderful gifts from nature,
the redwoods now about forty-five feet high, giving me
privacy and a sense of peace, and remembering that
lovely time spent with my husband.
A
48
It’s never too late—in fiction or in life—to revise.
Nancy Thayer
49
Bernice Schachter
Bernice Schachter was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and
lived in the town of Linden until she moved to Southern
California in 1973. When her two children were in college, she
completed the college education that had been interrupted by
WWII and a 25-year marriage. She earned a master’s degree in
sculpture from Goddard College in Vermont, studied Art
History at California State College in Northridge, and taught
sculpture part-time at Everywoman’s Village in Van Nys for
twenty-five years. She spent summers in Pietrasanta, Italy
teaching the Italian method of stone carving. After retiring to
Laguna Woods Village, Bernice found the time to write two
books, The Masks of My Muse and The Creative Quest.
50
Homage to Pietrasanta Bernice Schachter
runo Lucchese, a world famous sculptor, agreed to
accept the role as my faculty advisor while I was
working for my master’s degree. When he learned of my
interest in stone carving, he said in his charming Italian
accent, “We go Pietrasanta with mio amico Isolanni, from
Pratt Art Institute in New York. I meet you there in the
summer.”
Bruno spends every summer in Pietrasanta at his
charming villa in the shadow of the duomo in the town’s
square. For centuries, the city of Pietrasanta was the Mecca
for sculptors from every part of the world who came to learn
sculpture from the local craftsmen working in bronze and
marble. Long after Michelangelo built the roads to the
quarries, great sculptors such as Henry Moore, Isamu
Noguchi, Fernando Botero, and countless others great and
small, lived and worked in this small city at the foot of the
great marble quarries. All found a welcome and inspiration in
the beautiful region of Tuscany. There we experienced a
sense of community, found the material to work with, and
studios to work in for both students and professional artists.
B
51
I had hesitated about going to Italy for the first time
until my dear friend Sally booked us both on a trip to Europe.
She promised to put me on the train to Pietrasanta in time for
the Pratt Art Institute Summer School. In spite of my fears of
joining a group of twenty-plus college kids all thirty years
younger, it all worked out after I moved from the crowded
shared dorm to the local pensione nearer the town’s square.
There I found a new home with friendly faces of adult
sculptors who had the same passion for stone carving. We
thrived on wonderful Italian feasts for ten dollars a day that
included a single-bedded private room.
Sem Ghelardini, the local artist, was the unofficial
ambassador to all who came to work in the arts. He
originated the slogan that still stands today, “Pietrasanta: City
of Art and Artists.” He took an interest in the Americans
attending the School of Stagio Stale and arranged transport to
the great Henraux quarry where we first faced the marble at
its source. Sem selected a pure piece of statuario especially
for me and assured me it would carve well. This was the first
piece I ever carved in marble. It became “The Fallen,”
symbolizing the many soldiers who died in Viet Nam.
The School of Stagio Stale was an industrial school for
the young Italian students who were learning to perpetuate
the trade of marble workers and artisans. While they were
away during the summer, Pratt arranged to use the facilities.
It was there I learned how to use the tools and machines that
would lift, cut, shape, turn, bore, and polish marble. We were
52
assigned the space and were required to turn in a finished
project at the end of the summer semester. On seeing
Botticelli’s “Venus” for the first time on a field trip to
Florence and the Uffizi Gallery, I found my inspiration for my
class project. It was an abstract form in black Belgian marble
standing three feet high. I spent the mornings utilizing the
machines at the school and became proficient with the use of
the pneumatic air hammer (the Italian invention that
revolutionized the art of marble carving.) I was able to
complete the finished sculpture polished and mounted on a
marble base by the end of the three months.
I called it “Venus Rising.”
But there was more learning to be had. Every
afternoon, after my class at the school on the outside of the
town square, I mounted my rented bicycle and pedaled over
to the Tomassi Foundry to work beside Bruno to learn the
techniques of sculpting in wax and casting in bronze. As the
casting was very expensive and far more than I could afford, I
did small works that taught me all I needed to know about
the intricacies of mold making and the lost wax process. I
completed a group of small sculptures in bronze that was the
beginning of a Mythological series that I continued to work on
from time to time.
At the completion of the program and a good
evaluation from Bruno, I knew I had to return to Pietrasanta. I
made plans to rent a studio to teach the Italian Method of
Stone Carving on the completion of my Master’s Degree. My
53
thesis involved research into the Venus figures in sculpture
from the cave goddesses to contemporary Feminine forms.
Going home to Linden was not a happy time. I missed my two
kids who were now living in Southern California. My daughter
expressed the desire to present me with my first grandchild.
This made me anxious to find a new life in California as a
grandma and an artist.
With a separation agreement from my marriage in
hand, I moved into The Casa De Vida (the Good Life
Apartment) in the San Fernando Valley. My sister Phyllis,
who lived nearby in Encino, helped me make a new
beginning. I was able to find a part-time job as a sculpture
teacher in a school called Everywoman’s Village in Van
Nuys that was a featured story in Life Magazine. I knew
this would be the place for me. I spent the next twenty-five
years on their staff. This allowed me to take three months
off every summer to go back to Pietrasanta with new and
eager students to learn about the joys of stone carving in
Italy. Despite the noise, dust, sweat, some blood and tears,
all who went with me loved the experience. Many of my
students returned to Pietrasanta time and time again as I
did for the next twenty-four years. Each summer was filled
with the excitement of new discoveries for myself and the
people who joined me in their creative quest. It was there
in beautiful Tuscany I completed my legacy carved in
stones.
54
I write for myself and strangers. The strangers,
dear Reader, are an afterthought.
Gertrude Stein
55
Loisjean Raymond
Loisjean Raymond, born on a cold January afternoon in
Great Falls, MT, was baptized Lois Eugenia Balyeat. Before she
graduated Ukiah High School, she had attended ten schools
and lived in sixteen houses. She got married the day she
graduated from UC Berkeley (1948). She and her husband,
Bob, had five children and lived in Little River, CA for 40
years. After Bob’s death in 2009, she moved to Varenna. She
was active with Varenna Writers until she re-connected with
her friend John Simmons, a widower. The two are married
and making a new life in Ukiah.
56
The Tree in the Middle of the Garden Loisjean Raymond
The tree there in the middle of the garden . . .
I must not touch nor look upon to see.
I’m free to feast on every fruit around it,
But can’t enjoy that single, center tree.
A plentitude of riches—oh, such bounty
And all the gifts God freely gives to me!
Such magnitude, my human nature baffles!
And I recognize my own perversity.
For do I focus full upon my blessings
Or lust, instead, for that which cannot be?
What spirit in me turns my eyes upon it,
To gaze upon that one forbidden tree?
57
The Inner Me Loisjean Raymond
Read on, my friend, feel free to see,
About the thoughts of “Inner Me,”
The “Me” of me that seldom shows,
That very rarely I expose.
I always try to keep “the pace,”
And scarcely share that secret place,
That inner heart that wants to bloom,
But never finds the “elbow room.”
Perhaps, if reading to the end,
You may identify a friend,
That “Me” of me I tend to hide,
May be like you, yourself, inside.
58
How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
E.M. Forster
59
Shirley Johnson
Shirley Johnson studied Foreign Languages at the
Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin. After marrying and
having three children, she taught Spanish in a California
community college for some twenty years. While always a
constant reader, she didn’t write until she joined a memoir
group while living in Carmel. Using materials from those
memoirs, she put together the story of her life in a self-
published book for her children and grandchildren. When she
arrived among the first group of residents at Varenna, she
was happy to find others with similar interests and joined the
writing group.
60
A Class on Demand Shirley Johnson
n the twenty-some years I taught Spanish at
Monterey Peninsula College, a community college
that prided itself on its location and on being responsive to
student and community needs, I had a number of different
assignments, but the strangest one came about at the height
of the Civil Rights Movement, after sit-ins and strikes at many
major universities in the country were already old news. The
ideas that fueled the unrest at those institutions had arrived
at ours, and our president, Bob Faul, was faced with student
demands for Black Studies. He found teachers for a Black
History class and one in Black Literature, but when he was
confronted by a delegation of young, angry black students
dressed like African warriors in fake tiger skins, carrying fake
spears and demanding that he also provide them with
training in Swahili (the language of their ancestors), he was
caught off guard.
That Swahili was not a tribal language but the lingua
franca used generally for government and business was not
of concern to them. Swahili spoke to their romantic notions
of “roots,” of great African cultures on the continent lost
during European enslavement. So, being a smart
administrator aware of experiences on other campuses, he
I
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wisely agreed to their demands. The students simmered
down, and he set about to find a teacher. He knew a young
Kenyan student on campus who spoke Swahili, but he still
needed a credentialed teacher.
I entered the picture when one evening I walked into a
dinner party where Bob Faul was a guest. As I was about to
greet everyone, he suddenly exclaimed, “Here at last is my
Swahili teacher!”
I looked around and realized he was pointing to me—a
very white middle-aged woman who worked hard to pass
muster in Spanish. I thought my teaching Swahili was a joke,
but Bob was serious and determined to keep peace on his
campus. I had a credential, room in my schedule to add
another class, and being a creative administrator, Bob was
able to work around regulations to give the warriors their
language class.
I make their demand sound rather foolish, and I
suppose it was in a way, but the movement had energized
and excited young black students by giving them the feeling
they might have the power to change society and their lives. It
was important at that moment for them to be heard.
I wish I could remember the name of the young Kenyan
who worked with me to organize the course, but I no longer
have records of those days and I lost track of him when the
course ended. For several tedious weeks in the fall, he and I
sat together in a small, stuffy recording room off the
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language laboratory and repeated phrases which I first read
in English, and he then pronounced in Swahili, pausing to give
the student time to repeat. We recorded dialogues and
vocabulary this way, day after day, until we had enough tapes
to last two semesters, a boring job using a dull Swahili text
procured from the Foreign Service.
When classes began, I introduced the students to their
Swahili teacher, sat in the back of the class, gave him
suggestions during the week about teaching methods, and
tried to cheer him up in the face of the rapidly diminishing
enthusiasm of his students, who were not only required to
attend class, but also to spend two hours a week working
with our mind-numbing tapes.
Would they have been more enthusiastic had there
been more professional tapes to work with? I doubt it. No,
they had won their battle and now had to memorize
dialogues and vocabulary, always a task demanding
discipline. Other courses in the program, like Black History,
were more immediately gratifying, even when poorly taught.
Hundreds of schools across the country were hastily patching
together programs in Black Studies, creating departments,
and searching for qualified black instructors—and they were
very scarce.
Our Swahili class lasted two semesters until, as the
enrollment declined below the number required to justify a
class, it quietly met its end, and my career as the teacher of
record for a language I could neither speak, read, nor
understand, came to an unheralded end.
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Susan Bono
Susan Bono is a writing teacher, freelance editor, and thirty-
year resident of Petaluma. She founded Tiny Lights: A Journal
of Personal Narrative in 1995, and its online counterpart,
www.tiny-lights.com, shortly after. She serves on the advisory
boards of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference and
Petaluma Readers Theatre. She co-founded The Writer’s
Sampler series for the Sebastopol Center for the Arts and
currently co-hosts the quarterly Speakeasy literary readings at
Aqus Café in Petaluma. Her writing has appeared in
publications such as Sheila Bender’s Writing & Publishing
Personal Essays, the St. Petersburg Times, the Petaluma Argus
Courier, and Passager Magazine.
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Go Fish Susan Bono
obby Schallis was the thorn in our fourth grade
teacher’s side. I’m sure Mrs. McCrary would have
sold him to slave traders if any had showed up at Dingle
Elementary School. I think back on him now and see a small,
wiry, buzz-cut bundle of energy only marginally contained by
a wooden school desk.
Bobby was brilliant in the dodgeball circle and on the
kickball diamond, his short, swift legs pumping as he ran. In
class, he did what he could to remain in motion, which, in
Mrs. McCrary’s rigidly constructed realm, was limited to
stirring up trouble with flicked erasers and other projectiles,
and shooting off his mouth. Mrs. McCrary, in her never-
ending quest for the silence of the grave, was often heard to
say, “Mr. Schallis, be quiet!”
I’d like to think I knew even then that Bobby was bright
as well as complicated, a freedom fighter with enough spunk
to protest the stifling atmosphere Mrs. McCrary was so eager
to maintain. But in reality, I ignored him whenever possible. I
was intent on maintaining my Good Girl status. I had learned
to handle my boredom by looking out our second story
classroom windows at the tops of the rustling sycamore
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trees. Besides, I was a full head taller than Bobby and
obsessed with someone more my size: Scott Leathers, the
blond, blue-eyed alpha male of the fourth grade. Bobby had
showed no interest in me, but he didn’t fit my romantic
notions anyway.
But at Coffee Hour one Sunday in March, I found
myself face to face with Bobby Schallis in the fellowship hall
of the United Methodist Church. I’d never seen him there
before. Suddenly, he appeared before me, looking as if he’d
spent all morning trying to worm his way out of his dark
wool slacks, ironed white shirt and clip-on tie. He asked me
the last question I expected to hear from a boy who
pretended to catch cooties from girls at recess, “Wanna come
over to my house and play?”
Dumbfounded, I could only mumble a stunned, “I
guess.”
With disquieting speed, Bobby darted off among the
coffee drinkers congregated on the slick linoleum to ask his
parents. Moments later, he clattered back in his scuffed dress
shoes, grabbed my arm, and propelled me on a search for my
own mom and dad. With Bobby standing at my elbow, I was
unable to communicate my deep reservations concerning his
plan, and my parents failed to notice the panic in my eyes.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the bench seat of a
Buick between Bobby and his older sister, heading off into the
unknown.
Once we got to the Schallis household, misery seized
my young swain. He had been released to the comforts of a
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tee-shirt, jeans and tennies, but I remained in my Sunday
finery. That hardly mattered to me, as I didn’t go in for
rugged entertainments. Coloring books and Barbies were
more my line. He was equipped with neither, so we shuffled
from room to room in his family’s tidy tract house until he
offered to show me their fish pond. Cautiously, I agreed.
The oval concrete trough in the middle of the backyard
was something of a wonder. The suburban landscapes of the
1960s rarely featured more than a patio, a swing set or
sandbox, and maybe a barbeque. This fountain, the legacy of
a previous homeowner, had murky water choked with tangled
plants and the look of prolonged neglect. I was about to
comment on the smell of stagnant water when I noticed
flashes of orange and gold among the crowding plants.
“Koi,” Bobby said, marking the first time I ever heard
the word. “From Japan.” I’d seen big goldfish before at places
like the zoo and William Land Park in Sacramento. But until
that moment, I had no idea they were actually something
exotic.
We quietly looked at the fish going about their
business, although quiet was not a state Bobby could
maintain for long. Soon, he was taking off his shoes and
socks, rolling up his pants, and wading in. Ever the
gentleman, he invited me to join him, but I backed away in
my patent leather maryjanes, white tights and taffeta skirt to
watch from a safe distance as he scooped up water with a
peanut butter jar.
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Just when I was starting to wonder how long I could
maintain my polite expression of feminine interest, he
sloshed over and handed me the jar of dirty water. In it was a
tiny, pale yellow fish, smaller than any I’d seen in the tanks at
the Sprouse Reitz or Woolworth’s.
“Here,” he said. “A baby koi. For you.”
My heart leapt, not for my brave cavalier, but for the
miniature creature in the container his mother obligingly
found a lid for. Its small bright eyes and nearly transparent
fins were utterly adorable. I was returned home that
afternoon dreaming not of the romantic overtures of Bobby
Schallis, but about how big my new pet might get.
Back at school on Monday, Bobby tried to act as if we
had some sort of understanding, but I rebuffed him, figuring
the best way to deal with the ambivalence this public display
of affection generated was to pretend nothing had happened.
The fish, symbol of love’s mysterious, uncharted depths, was
dead by Tuesday. Chlorinated tap water probably did it in,
and the confining routine of Mrs. McCrary’s classroom never
allowed Bobby’s tender side to resurface.
The seeds of my relationship with Bobby, if that’s what
it was, did not fall in fertile soil. I was too busy pursuing my
unrequited love affair with Scott Leathers to encourage a
young rebel’s latent gallantry. I never saw his family in church
again, either.
Bobby Schallis moved away at the end of 5th grade. I’d
like to think he grew up and found profitable ways to channel
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that boundless energy, and that he eventually linked up with
a girl who enjoyed his kind of fun. But I know the people we
are now are not so different from who we were as nine-year-
olds. I suspect Bobby is still out there making grand gestures
no one fully appreciates, while I’m busy looking off into the
distance, not recognizing love when it’s being handed to me.
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WORDS FROM THE WISE One-liners Worth a Second Look
The Varenna Writers Club is always up for a challenge. From
time to time we assign ourselves the task of summing up a
lifetime of learning in a single sentence. The gems featured
here deal with resolutions, love, hard times, and life in
general. More pop up on our website from time to time:
http://varennavoices.blogspot.com..
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Words from the Wise One-liners Worth A Second Look
“Assume assumptions are to be avoided.”
Bernice Schachter
“The best resolutions are those that are
easier done than said.”
Susan Bono
“Be careful what you ask yourself to resolve.”
Ellie Rutigliano
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“Making resolutions has the power and
the permanence of a snowflake.”
Shirley Johnson
“Love is a renewable resource.”
Shirley Johnson
“Love: the best show in Vegas.”
Bernice Schachter
“Love: the best show anywhere.”
Dolores Fruiht
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“There's always enough love to go around, even when
you don't know where you've misplaced yours.”
Susan Bono
“Love is a strong emotion; when honest,
it improves those involved.”
Sally Tilbury
“Hard times get harder the more you dwell on them.”
Susan Bono
“You can't get anything from prunes except the pits.”
Joyce Cass
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“Maybe my next collection of essays
will be called, My Life, Lately.”
Shirley Johnson
“The more foolish we become, the wiser we become.”
Dolores Fruiht
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Dolores Giustina Fruiht
Dolores Giustina Fruiht was born in Portland, Oregon in
1923. She received her education from the University of
Portland and served as an overseas nurse during WWII. The
mother of five children, she moved to Santa Rosa in 1952. She
is an accomplished potter, photographer, philosopher,
graphic artist and writer. She has written, designed and
published the books Becoming, Contemplative Vignettes from
a Potter’s Spinning Wheel, and In Silence. She’s attended the
Varenna Writer's Group from the beginning.
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More Contemplating
Dolores Giustina Fruiht
part of me still grieves for the loss of a long held
dream. How do I move beyond? Intellectually I
know how to discipline my emotions; I practice, then all of a
sudden, the volcano erupts. Oh, the uncertainty of “journey,”
the paradox of life.
I must “let go” of this world, not just the difficult
issues of the world, but all of it. That I find mighty hard to
do! I want to keep the joy, the success, the blossoms, the
warm colors, even the challenges she presents. I am in this
world. I have created many dreams, or have the dreams
created me? The fibers from the broken dreams are the ones
that keep tripping me. Why? Why can’t I cut them, prune
them like an ungainly shrub in my garden. Gather the
clippings and allow them to become compost for the new.
Even return the beautiful, fragrant rose blossom back to the
soil out of which she grew; another blossom, different, but
just as beautiful, can emerge.
A
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I am a good gardener. I can and do remove that which
does not lend to the whole. Certain spontaneity is able to
arise and surprise. Integration is not a problem for me in a
garden; rather, it is a challenge. There is always opportunity
to diversify. There is always time for a solo. The harmony and
peace a garden of care emits speaks to all who walk in her
presence. As I watch, the birds flit from shrub to shrub,
splashingly bathe in the pottery bird bath. I, too, with them,
give thanks for the majestic “race” the world shares.
Creatures and creation becoming one.
Then why, why cannot I apply the same truths to my
response in relationship? There is no absolute. There is no
one way. There is no right way. So much remains invisible. So
much remains unknown. It seems so easy to accept, trust,
and surrender to a garden. It is beautiful in spite of, or
because of. It is a work of love and beauty, yet it changes with
the seasons, dies, renews, only to die again.
Nature is wisdom; silence in nature is more wisdom.
Perhaps I do not hear what I am listening to—too busy
listening to dreams. The broken dream will only dissolve as I
return it to the world out of which it came, plow it under,
below the reach of any desired echo. In this inner space of
nothing, in this inner space of silence, there will be no
expectation, no cultural or worldly placed values, only divine
wisdom carrying you to a deeper level of “being” just who
you are, when you are what you are, with awareness.
I sit on the steps this foggy but silent morning and
meditate on a painting that hangs in my stairwell.
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It is always interesting to pause and reacquaint oneself
with some intuitive response rendered at a crucial moment.
An emotion temporarily frozen with a spontaneous splash of
form and color via the paint brush. Frozen, yet very fluid, as
one watches the movement of life’s winding stream bounce
her way in between, across, down, and over nature’s collected
matter.
The slim figure—standing—ready to toss her long held
mask into the fiery abyss before her becomes stilled.
Archetypal faces watch from the Tree of Life as she
consciously prepares to jump into space unknown.
This image gives me goose bumps, and yes, sends
chills down my spine as I once again contemplate the external
and internal stimulus that allows such a breakthrough.
Forces, you keep coming, sweeping me into unknown ends.
Ends that are only beginnings, as life extends.
Beside this young stilled figure rocks a canoe, the
canoe that carried her across the river. Her canoe of truth, of
discernment for life’s sacred passage, the canoe bearing the
symbol of ancient past. The canoe that now must be cut
loose.
Sitting on my stairway, I can even now feel the texture
of the canoe, the womblike entrance, the cool breeze of dawn.
I was there and at the same time I was (am) here. I was (am)
both places at once. Time was (is) vertical; time was (is)
timeless.
I can also smell the old oak that gives rest to the raven
high above and see the shadow her spreading limbs cast
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below. I actually become the raven, and for a very brief
moment, see into all dimensions of the earth.
The course of this quest into a new consciousness was
a lengthy one. One of persistence and survival, of chaos and
complexity. But from this challenge came unity, a new state
of being. Be it the morning sun breaking through a standing
forest of trees or the human ego becoming transparent as the
spirit falls upon her, it is the spirit that quickens the soul. Are
we not but spirit unfolding?
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A Nostalgic Drive Dolores Giustina Fruiht
y daughter drove down from Red Bluff for the
President’s weekend to visit me. We decided to
continue the drive on to the coast and pack a few more boxes
from my Bodega Bay home that I was trying to vacate.
It was an overcast day but the colors were so vivid and
carried such energetic power. Bright, radiant mustard covered
the fields of neglected apple orchards that border Highway 12
en route to Bodega Bay. Freestone’s gentle rolling hills were
verdant green with spring’s recent rains. And the acacia trees,
erect as vigil guards, aglow in full blossom, escorted us into
this countryside of beauty.
Nostalgic memories glided through my mind as easily
as Tina’s car glided upon the open roads before us. Just
yesterday (well, more like forty years ago) we drove the same
winding highway, stopping at the then-young apple orchards
with our then-young family of five, gathering the aftermath of
a bumper crop. We would then trek to the nearby cannery
with our worthwhile yield and can applesauce for winter’s
pantry. Apple and cherry gleaning were a yearly Sunday
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afternoon affair. We would return year after year to the same
orchard, creating a comfortable relationship—friendship,
actually—with the owners.
The present fruit trees, the few that remain standing,
are as gnarly as my hands. Guess we are probably the same
age, and even perhaps weathered by the same forces of
nature. A concrete foundation, now stark in appearance, is all
that remains of the once bustling cannery.
On toward the ocean we drifted, enjoying the
countryside.
A great number of black crows were lined up on the
old Bodega schoolhouse fence, the very spot where
Hitchcock’s “The Birds” was filmed in the ‘60s. We lived in
Santa Rosa at the time of this big event. This sighting gave an
eerie feeling to the overcast day, as if for a moment it was
then.
I looked to my right where an old sawmill also once
stood. Our son served as night watchman one summer when
he was in high school. Through the fog, I could visualize its
ghostlike appearance revealing to me the mark it had once
played in time’s history.
These memories kept flashing, but I became more
conscious of all the symbols that were formed by them, and
the metaphors of meaning they in turn birthed. Birds, I
mused, are a symbol of freedom—freedom from material ties.
(Was I not moving from the Bodega Bay home to a smaller
residence?) They are also a symbol for spiritual freedom, an
ability to soar to higher awareness. As I stood before the vast
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span of window in my (to be leaving) Bodega Bay home, the
symbol of “window” shouted its message to me. “Window”
gives one an ability to see beyond a given situation. It also
provides an inter-dimensional awareness. When we sat
momentarily in chairs around the dining table, I applied my
knowledge of the chair symbol. A chair in a dream depicts
one’s attitude, position, how one sees oneself. What was my
attitude regarding this move—honestly?
It was interesting to treat our nostalgic drive from
Santa Rosa to Bodega Bay as a dream. As in a dream,
yesterday and yesteryear slid in and out of focus. Just as a
musician plays his slide trombone, one realizes it is the space
between the notes that creates the music. It is the space
between the notes that creates the journey. It is the space
between words that writes the story.
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Joyce Cass
Joyce Cass was born in San Francisco, leaving her heart there,
but moving around in Northern California ever since. She
published her memoir in 2006, A Leaf from the Family Tree,
and has been delighted to be a member of the Varenna
Writers group.
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Up in Smoke Joyce Cass
he taxi’s tires alternately hummed and slapped
against the surface of the Bay Bridge as we neared
my beloved city, San Francisco. The familiar skyline defined
itself for my eyes—an eagerly awaited sight. Oh, how I had
missed it these four months of the fall term stuck back there
at Ferry Hall enduring loneliness and homesickness that no
amount of studying, learning, or meeting new friends could
will away! But forget that for now as I was home for ten full
days, and my head swam with the prospects of all the fun
and parties that lay immediately ahead for this Christmas
vacation.
Inside the taxi my mother and I sat together on the
back seat while Dad faced us, seated uncomfortably on the
edge of the jump seat. He made a handsome figure, and
today, because it was Saturday, a day of leisure, he wore a
sweater vest under his sport coat. His tie was knotted with
care and its grey pattern brought out the shine of his
whitening hair, full and wavy. Because I was home, his hazel
eyes sparkled with humor and he was in rare form, full of
stories and small talk.
T
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Mother, too, looked all shined up, full of warmth and
good spirits. She wore a soft suit of royal blue with a single
rope of pearls around her neck, her “good ones” given to her
long ago by my father. The blue suit emphasized her eyes, the
color of cobalt. I didn’t see any gray strands in her hair, so I
assumed that she’d recently been to the hairdresser. Both my
mother and father cared a great deal about their appearance.
Was it only four months ago that I climbed aboard the
Challenger bound for Chicago and boarding school? The trip
seemed an endless four-day and three-night ordeal, with
devoted hours spent writing letters to those left behind as
well as playing card games with some of the servicemen who
were aboard. Luckily Mother was traveling with me, so I
managed to avoid the amorous advances of the most
persistent of these “Railroad Romeos,” and chose instead the
light-hearted ones, most of them heading home for brief
leaves or furloughs before the serious business of warfare
began. They were all amazed that my parents were sending
me all the way from California to Illinois for school. I secretly
agreed with them and thus remained resentful about the
whole decision.
But for now I was briefly home and the dreariness of
the past few months faded from my mind as I noticed for the
first time all the battleships and aircraft carriers sitting in the
middle of the Bay and docked in the piers lining the
Embarcadero. Earlier that morning, after my parents had
greeted me at the train yards at the Oakland Mole, and after
all the hugging and kissing was done and the bags loaded
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into the cab, they had begun the recent wartime stories of all
the changes that had occurred in the city. I looked and saw it
all about me. The war all at once became very real for me and
nothing I’d seen in the Midwest prepared me for this sight as
we headed off the bridge and looked west on Market street.
“Yes,” Mother smiled, noting my wide eyed stare. “The
Fleet’s in this weekend—you and Dick had better stay off
Market Street tonight. Speaking of Dick, I forgot to tell you
that he called last night—he wanted to know if your train was
on time, but I really think that he wanted to come with us
today. Dad and I knew that you’d have plenty of time for him
for the next few days, so we thought we’d just come alone.”
She smiled again and patted my hand. As she spoke I was
glimpsing a vast sea of milling sailors crowding up Market,
their white hats breaking the monotony of navy blue.
Well, now is the time, I thought, as we headed west up
Pine Street. I’d better put my plan into action, seeing now that
we’re together in the cab and they’re in such a good mood. I
had to show them that during my months away I had grown
up some, and reached an independent decision on my own.
After all, my sixteenth birthday was coming right up!
I swallowed nervously as I shifted, reaching for my
purse on the seat next to me. No, I cautioned myself, don’t
chicken out now, this is the perfect time. I reached in and my
fingers closed around the smooth surface as I withdrew the
flat sky-blue cigarette case trimmed with shiny gold. A flip of
the release switch opened to reveal ten neatly laid out
Chesterfields, my parents’ favorite brand.
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“Care for a cigarette, Mom?” I barely got the words out
as I held the case in front of her. I didn’t dare look up and
over at my father. There was an imperceptible moment of no
movement or response as I held my breath, waiting. I forced
myself to look directly at her and caught her eyes searching
tentatively my Dad’s.
“Well, Joyce, well—what a pretty case. Well, no, I don’t
think I’ll have one just now, we’re almost home.” I reached
over to offer one to Dad, my hand shaking only slightly.
Elaborately, with exaggeration, each movement sharply
defined, he lifted up the little gold bar that held the cigarettes
in place and selected one with one hand, while the other
fished in his jacket pocket for matches. He said nothing as he
went through the ritual of lighting up, and then, exhaling, he
said in a pleasingly serious manner, “Needless to say, Joyce,
you’ve caught us both by surprise. I don’t know quite how to
respond—give me a minute.”
He looked out the window as the tiny cab filled with
his exhaled smoke and the meter ticked loudly behind his
head. I followed his lead and lit up my own cigarette, trying
desperately not to cough. The Fillmore Street arches flashed
by my vision. Another deep drag, and then the merest of a
sigh escaped him as he looked at me.
“I must say that in one way I’m quite proud of you.
You’ve faced up to the fact that you are smoking now and
you’re not going to hide it from us. I certainly didn’t do that
when I started, and for that reason I give you a lot of credit.
Of course I’m happy that you can be truthful with us, but—“
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As he went on, I stubbed out my cigarette in the filthy
cab ashtray and experienced a euphoric feeling of acceptance
and relief. It was almost as if he was seeing me in a new light.
Could it be that I was finally stumbling down the hallway
leading to the rooms of their world? He continued to speak.
“I’m also sad that Mother and I, by our own actions, have
perhaps led you to start this nasty habit, and I’m very sorry
for that.” He looked down at his smoldering cigarette with
distaste and released another heavy sigh. His father voice
took over. “I’ve read recently that smoking at an early age is
very likely to stunt your growth and we certainly don’t want
that. Also, you’re still a very young lady, you know, and
people don’t look kindly at young high-schoolers with
cigarettes dangling from their mouths. We can only hope that
your habit will be very limited and maybe—“
His voice trailed off, and at that moment the taxi
pulled up to the curb in front of our house. I was grateful and
elated to have the critical conversation over with, but excited
to be home. I ran up the stairs to see if my room had
changed, but somehow I realized that maybe, maybe, the
change would turn out to be just within me.
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Here and Now Joyce Cass
e wear our robes of conviviality well
We women of a certain age.
Accustomed to years of civility
We have attained our resilient phase.
Conversations demand less than full attention
Our occasional responses too offhand to mention.
A short amiable time talking together
(With much of it spent focused on the weather!)
Our sisterhood, well-trodden beyond the fragile stage
Binds us close, we women of a certain age.
W
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