Author Archives: Susan

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DREAM VACATION BECOMES A NIGHTMARE?

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PART 1,  part 2 will be posted next Wednesday, March 24th, 2021

The Mile HIgh Swinging Bridge - NC

The Mile HIgh Swinging Bridge – NC

Life has been particularly difficult and stressful in the last year. I’m completely swamped at work. My boss keeps assigning more and more work for me to complete in an already impossibly overcrowded schedule in my working twelve-hour days. And then I go home with two to three more hours of work to do. And forget about weekends, they ceased to have any meaning a long time ago.

I would have gone completely off the deep end except for the light at the end of the tunnel. I have a vacation coming up in one week, seven more days. And the best news of all is that I got a terrific deal on both the hotel and air costs.

Each day of the last week before my vacation I check off my calendar. And finally, tomorrow is the day I leave for my vacation. I’m so excited that my heart is beating faster because of the adrenalin rush. I went to bed early the night tonight before my trip but I can’t fall asleep I’m so excited. I packed my bags a week ago. I check and rechecked them to make sure I didn’t forget anything.

Mile-high swinging bridge- Grandfather Mountain

I arrive at the airport three hours early for my check-in. It’s a long wait for my plane to arrive for take-off. I drink so much coffee I have trouble sitting still. By the time the plane lands and was getting refueled and checked out, I was so high on caffeine I could probably fly without the plane by flapping my arms up and down,

It’s less than a two-hour flight. I’m jazzed when we arrive. I rented a car in advance and once we deplane, I pick up the keys. And I’m on my way to the Crepe Myrtle Lodge. It’s located outside the Boone, NC area in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The Blue Ridge Mountains are breathtakingly beautiful, the air is cool and invigorating. I can feel my mind and body start to relax. It takes me about three hours to drive to the hotel. I feel like a new man by the time I arrive there.

As I pull into the hotel parking lot, I realize that there aren’t any cars in sight. Oh well, I think everyone is probably up and about hiking and enjoying the beautiful landscape. The hotel advertises that the area has tons of activities like trout fishing, horseback riding, golf, and whitewater rafting. And it’s within minutes’ drive to Grandfather Mountain, Blowing Rock, and Caverns. And of course, the biggest draw, the lowest hotel rates in the area.

I rented a small studio since it was just me and I plan on spending most of my time hiking, and fishing, and investigating as much of the area I could in one week’s time. I get out of my compact car and walk towards a sign that says OFFICE. I yank on the door and find to my dismay that the door is locked. “Well, that’s weird,” I say out loud. I decide I’ll walk around the buildings and see if I can find the manager in one of the rooms or cabins.

No luck, I can see that some of the rooms or cabins are occupied because their curtains are closed. But, many of the rooms and small cabins aren’t occupied at all. And that’s strange because this is the time of the year when people come to this area in droves.

I can’t help but notice that the whole place is in disrepair. I have to say it a mess, trash on the grounds and spilling out of the trash bins. Some of the curtains on the hotel rooms are missing curtains or the curtains are hanging askew. There are cigarette butts everywhere. The more I look around the more anxious I become. I walk back over to the Office and yank on the doorknob, it’s still locked. I walk over to my car and prepare to wait for someone to show up. So I can check-in, unpack and unwind from my long ride and flight.

Two hours later I see a pick-up truck pulling into the parking spot in front of the Office. “Finally,’ I say out loud. I give him a minute or two to get into the office, turn on the lights. And then I walk over and yank on the door, and nearly dislocate my shoulder I pull it so hard. Unbelievably, the door is still locked. I yell out an expletive and start banging on the door when I realize no one is sitting at the desk. I keep banging until I see a middle-aged guy wearing a faded flannel shirt and beat-up jeans hanging in tatters coming to the door.

He looks at me through the window of the door. I try yelling, “My name is Joe Wadsworth. I have a reservation. He glares out at me, and finally opens the door. “What’s the problem, hold your horses already?”

“I have been waiting in my car for two hours to check-in. I confirmed my reservation and arrival time yesterday. I’m tired, I had a two-hour flight and drove three hours to get here.”

“There was a problem at one of the cabins, it was an emergency.”

“You have my cell phone number why didn’t you text me and let me know you weren’t going to be here?”

“As I said, it was an emergency. I didn’t have time to do that. Why don’t you calm down and come in and register?”

“Ok, fine, let’s do that. I’d like to take a shower and then get outside and start exploring the area. I don’t want to waste any more time. I’m only here for the week.”

He tosses the room key across the counter. I catch it before it flies off the counter. I stand there thinking, this guy is a complete ass. But I say, “thanks, is the room ready?” Do I need to get towels from you before I go to the room?

“Everything is ready, no problems, call the desk if you need anything.” Then the phone rings and he turns away from me. So, I walk back to my car and drive around looking for the studio. Which was supposed to be a small cabin with a kitchen and dining area and sleeping area. And have a couch and chair and working TV, and a bathroom with a shower.

After driving around in circles for several minutes I finally find my “studio.” I back my car up and park and start taking out my suitcase and fishing equipment and my hiking equipment, and jacket and my camera equipment. I grab my camera and take a picture of the studio. I’m dreading going in there because I just know that it will probably be disgustingly dirty.

It turns out that disgustingly dirty would be a step up from this dump. I unlock the door I realize that one of the door hinges is missing and the door is only attached by the bottom hinge. So, I quickly shove my suitcase up against the door so it doesn’t become detached altogether and fall on me. I pick up my gear and bring it into the studio.

And that is when the stench hit me full-force. It smells if a giant ashtray has been dumped multiple times in the space. I mean it absolutely reeks. I go over to the front wall to open the windows. As I pull the dingy curtains aside, I realize there are only about three curtain hooks holding it up. I try to carefully push it to the side and I realize there’s a huge hole in the curtain from what looks like a burn of some kind. As if someone put a cigarette to the curtain and burned it intentionally. I’m flabbergasted.

Only half of the glass panes in the windows have glass in them. And the ones that do have glass are cracked. Well, I say to myself at least I can air the room out. I look around the room and low and behold I see the kitchen area. I walk over there trying to keep my eyes straight ahead. I can’t take everything in at once or I will probably have a mental meltdown.

The kitchen area consists of a counter complete with cigarette burns and a dirty electric coffee pot. And one cracked coffee cup with a cigarette butt floating in the bottom in whatever liquid used to reside in the cup. I sniff it and if my nose is telling me the truth it’s piss.

There is a plate, a glass, and a set of plastic knives, and forks and spoons available, pre-used. I see a hot plate, I plug it in, the rings start getting how and then smoke appears. I unplug it. Then I see the “refrigerator.” I open it up. It isn’t cold and only big enough to put a hamburger and a coke in there. That is if it were working. Which it’s not.

There is a small table and chair. The chair only has three legs. So that should be challenging to sit on. I’m somewhat reluctant to look into the bathroom. I push forward because I have never been afraid to face anything. But even I must admit there’s a limit to the horror that I can take in one day.

There is a standing shower. It looks like a coffin standing on end. Its shower curtain is only wide enough to cover one-half of the entrance of the shower. And it has a tear running across the middle horizontally. There are no words to describe the condition of the bottom of the shower. It would be best if I describe it as beyond filthy and it smells like someone recently took a dump in it and vomited simultaneously. I’m serious.

I step backward out of the shower coffin area and back towards the open space to look at the sleeping area. I bravely move forward. I have to admit this has now become morbid curiosity at this point. I can not imagine worse than I have already witnessed.

The bed is actually a folding cot circa WWII. I kid you not. I know because when I was a kid my great grandfather passed away. And my grandfather took me to his father’s house to help clean it out and possibly take away a souvenir if I found something I liked. My grandfather was something of a collector of sorts. Other people might call him a hoarder.

Suffice it to say that my grandfather never threw anything out. And while I was rooting through his attic, I found his folding cot from WWII. And the cot I was looking in this moment bears a striking resemblance to my grandfather’s. On top of the “bed” is a pillow so flat it no longer fits the description of pillow. And there’s a blanket that probably was the original blanket from the WWII cot. I let out another expletive. I didn’t have the courage or the fortitude to look any further.

I double-time it to the door and as I was departing, I slam the door so hard that it falls off its’ hinge. I don’t even look back. I march up to the office door and find it’s once again locked. I start hammering on the door with closed fists. I can not recall ever being this angry in my life. I know I’m out of control but feel it’s righteous anger. I also know if I don’t calm down I will either kill the owner or have a heart attack right here at the door of this shitty hotel. I ask myself, “is this where you want to die?” And I say to myself, “it might be worth it.”

After about three minutes the sleazy low-life manager comes to the door. “What do you want now?’

“What do I want? What do I want? I want a clean room with a door with two hinges and intact windows and curtains. And if it’s not too much to ask, a real bed, a clean bathroom with a clean shower and toilet. And a room that doesn’t smell like someone died there after a prolonged illness. Can I get that buddy?”

He gives me a long, long look and say’s, “So, you’re saying you’ re dissatisfied with your accommodations. Is that it?”

I think for a moment that my head might actually explode. I stand there with my mouth hanging open. I take a deep breath and spit out. “Yes, and that is the understatement of a lifetime. I want I different, better room or I want a complete refund for my money and my deposit. Right now, not in five minutes, right now this second.”

It‘s at that moment that I realize this guy is chewing tobacco, as a brown liquid comes oozing out of his food encrusted lips and over his dark brown teeth. I feel my stomach lurch.

“OK, here are the keys to a room with a bathroom with a shower, and tub, single bed, table and chair and TV but we don’t get cable so it has limited channels but no kitchen area.”

“Is it clean? Does it have curtains and intact windows? Does it smell like an ashtray?”

“It was cleaned yesterday, new curtains and all windows intact and it is a non-smoking room. But it will cost you $10.00 more each day.”

My first impulse was to punch him right in his ugly kisser, but I control myself. “OK, if everything is as you described, I’ll take it. If you lied, I will come back here with a bad attitude and kick your ass. Do you understand buddy?”

He works his jaw and another line of tobacco juice escape between his missing teeth. He wipes the back of his left hand across his mouth and swallows. He hands me the key, and says, “it’s on the other side of the building and then he walks away and spits on the floor. I hear him plop in a chair and turn up his TV.

As I leave the office, I contemplate how such a being exists in the world. And then I realize there are thousands, if not millions of bottom feeders such as this guy. I shake my head and look for the room. This whole place is an absolute maze with no rhyme or reason to how the it’s organized. After about ten minutes of walking around the maze of rooms, cabins, and even a few broken down trailers I find it. It’s at the end of a long line of rooms. I consider the horror I might encounter and take a deep, deep breath of fresh air and unlock the door. The door creaks as it opens, but on the plus side it doesn’t fall off the hinges.

I step into the room and to my utter surprise it isn’t the completely filthy pit I expected it too be. It’s not even close to neat and tidy either. I close the door behind me and walk over to the bed. It has a double bed which is miles ahead of a folding cot from WWII. It has two pillows, a sheet and a thin blanket. Someone else probably slept in by last week, but still, I’ll take it over the cot. I take a sniff of the air and the sheets, not too terrible.

I look under the bed, just dust. I walk across the room and open the bathroom door. There’s a shower and tub with a sliding glass door. I open the door, not clean but not filthy, no roaches running around in there. The toilet wasn’t flushed last couple of times it was used, so I close the lid and flush it.

The next time I go out I decide I’ll buy some clean sheets and some towels since the bathroom has no towels, soap and some room deodorizer and cleanser. It’s not the room I thought I would stay in for my one and only vacation this year. But I hope I ‘ll be spending most of my time in the great outdoors and not in this stinking want-a-be Bates Motel.

I head out to the car to get some supplies and something to eat. But first I change into my hiking boots and clothes. I should have broken the boots in before I got here. But I didn’t. I put on an extra pair of socks to protect my feet. I bring along an extra jacket just in case it’s colder than predicted.

Against my better judgement I go back to the hotel office to see if they have any pamphlets or handouts of any kind for local places to eat. Of course. When I get to office the door was locked again. I get back in my car and turn on my cellphone and ask google maps for local restaurants.

I end up buying lunch at a local take-out for Chinese food. It isn’t half bad. So, I tell the guy at the counter I’ll be back around 6PM to pick up dinner. He’s pleasant enough. They also have some pamphlets on a rack with local sites and activities which I appreciate. I should have planned what I was going to do at home before I got here. But I didn’t, that’s on me. I tend to be somewhat of a procrastinator that’s how I ended up at the hotel. I wait too long to make reservations and they were the only ones to have any openings. And now I know why. Live and learn, I guess. I stop at a nearby Dollar Store and buy my supplies plus a few snacks and a paperback novel to read since I just realized there wasn’t any TV in the room. Oh boy, that’s a real shocker. Yeah, right. And then I’m on my way.

I take the Blue Ridge Parkway to Grandfather Mountain. And I have to admit that this is some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen and I have traveled a lot over the years. Grandfather Mountain is my destination today because it’s only about ten minutes away. The speed limit is twenty-five miles per hour along the parkway so I have time to take in this magnificent area. I arrive and decide that I will park my car and hike the four-mile train to the top.

I have to admit I’m somewhat out of shape and the air becomes thinner the closer I get to the top. Still, I’m determined to do it. When I arrive, there’s quite a crowd because people took the shuttle up. As I stand there drinking in the view, I realize that I have forgotten my camera equipment. I could just kick myself. I consider hiking down and getting my camera gear and then coming back up. But I realize how tired I am after the plane ride, driving to the hotel and putting up with all the malarkey at the hotel.

I decide to look around the whole area and scope out where I’ll like to take my shots when I return here. Once again realizing how disorganized I am. I’m going to have to work on that. My next stop is the-Mile-High Swinging Bridge. The reason I chose this as one of my destinations is because one of my life-long fears has been bridges. You may be asking yourself the question than why go to the mountains and then cross a mile-high bridge. Well, the fact is I’m trying to overcome some of my fears and anxiety.

When I was a young child perhaps five years old, I was in a car going over The Ben Franklin Bridge from New Jersey to Philadelphia, Pa. I was sitting on my mother’s lap. I guess I was leaning against the door as we drove slowly across the bridge and the door wasn’t locked or closed properly. And then it suddenly flew open and I fell out of the car and onto the bridge. My father slammed the brakes and ran over and picked me up and put me in the back seat. Yelling the whole time at me, telling me how I almost killed myself. And since that day I have been fearful of heights and bridges. So, here I am thirty years later, on my way to cross the Mile-High- Swinging Bridge.

I see all kinds of people walking towards, and across the bridge, young and old. I take a deep, deep breath and start walking ever closer to it. And then I see the bridge is right in front of me. I walk onto the bridge. I grab ahold of the railing and I look down, down, down. My head is swimming, I hear ringing in my ears. For an awful moment I’m afraid I just might fall. And then I have a moment when I feel like launching myself off the bridge. My heart is beating like a drum and my pulse is rapid, I can’t catch my breathe. And then the moment passes. I had this feeling before and I know that it is a common experience. I step back and start laughing for a moment. I notice several people are staring at me. And inexplicably I say,” Don’t worry I’m not going to kill myself.” And then I laugh again. All but one of the people laugh uncomfortably and walk away from me. One woman says,” are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to freighted anyone. It was just a weird impulse. I’m working on overcoming my fear of heights.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, thank you I’m fine.” And she goes on her way and when she gets to the other side of the bridge. She looks back at me. She’s gesturing for me to come to the other side. I wave at her and start slowing walking to the other side. I stop in the middle of the bridge and look down. The view’s amazing. And then I continue to the other side and where she’s waiting for me.

“Congratulations you made it. Isn’t it beautiful here?”

“Yes, thank you. It’s stunning.” I smile from ear to ear. She smiles back, and that is when I notice that she’s beautiful with gorgeous red hair. I’ve always been a sucker for redheads. I decide to take a chance and ask her out. “Are you here by yourself?”

“Yes, and believe it or not this is the first vacation I’ve taken by myself. So, I guess I have something to prove as well. Are you here alone?”

“Yes, I’m sorry what’s your name?”

“My name is Joe Wadsworth. What’s your name?”

My name is Emily Van Patten. So, do you have any plans for dinner, Joe? Because I know of a fabulous restaurant nearby. If you would like to meet-up?” I hope that doesn’t sound too pushy?”

“No, not at all. That’s sounds great. What time would you like to meet?”

“How about around 6:30. It’s a casual place so no need to dress up. Here ‘is my cell phone number if something comes up and here is the address. I’ll see you at 6:30.”

I look at her and smile ear to ear and she smiles back. “Great, I’ll see you then.”

And she goes on her way. I stand at the end of the bridge and look at the beautiful valley below and think, maybe my luck is changing. I start walking forward on my trek. I start walking onward and upward as I admire the bounty of multi-colored Fall leaves. I have to admit Fall is my favorite season, the wonderful foliage, the cool, crisp weather.

And then as I’m contemplating all this beauty, I see something moving across the path or should I say slithering. I’m ashamed to say it, but I have a fear of snakes, I don’t know why since I never really encountered one or bitten. But still, I’m terrified of them. I decide to wait until it leaves the area. I hope it’s not a poisoness ’snake, that’s all I need. It looks like it could be a Copperhead, or possibly be a Corn Snake. Which can look similar if it flattens its head and then resembles a Copperhead. I wait and I wait some more. I can’t help but think maybe I shouldn’t have taken this trip alone. But here I am, and decide I’m going to make the best of it, instead of quitting as I usually do when I get frustrated.

The snake finally moves out of sight. And I continue you down the path. I take a couple of steps forward and then trip on my own shoe lace. It apparently came untied at some point. As I lean down to retire my hiking boot, I feel something latch onto my ankle. I look. And I see to my horror snake has its teeth firmly attached to my ankle and is trying to constrict around my ankle. Momentarily I feel as if I might faint. I try to relax since I read the worse thing you can do with a corn snake is try to pull it off since its teeth latch on and they are slanted backward.

I try to remember what I’m supposed to do. And then I remember you’re supposed to pour something ice cold on it and the snake will release its grip. I grab my backpack and look for my thermos that is filled with ice water. I calmly pour the ice water over the snake. In a few minutes that seem like a week to me the snake releases its grip and unwinds off my ankle and once again slithers away. I lean down and look at my ankle and I see the fang marks and a few drops of blood. I grab my pack and find my first aide supply kit. I disinfect it and slap a band aide on it. I promise myself I will be more aware of my surroundings. Still, I count myself lucky that it wasn’t a copperhead. I keep moving forward.

I keep following the trail for another half-hour. I stop and take a drink from my pack. And take another look all around me. I realize that I feel relaxed and happy, despite the snake bite. I lean down and take a look at my ankle and it’s a little sore, but I think its going to be alright. I was lucky, this time.

 

 

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THE BASEMENT

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The Basement in my childhood home held a certain fascination for me. Whenever my parents weren’t home, I would quietly make my way down the cellar’s stairs and snoop to my heart content.

Why? You may ask because that’s where my father spent most of his free time when he was home. He wasn’t home all that much. Well, that’s not entirely true. That is where he spent most of his waking hours. During my childhood, my father worked as the Head Dispatcher for PTC, the Pennsylvania Transportation Company (the bus company) in Philadelphia. It was later called SEPTA. He worked there for over forty years, either on the second or third shift, which meant he often slept during the day and worked at night.

Carberry Home Maple Shade, NJ 1950

His daytime sleeping schedule meant that everyone who lived in our house had to be quiet while my father was sleeping. No one wanted to risk waking my father up. Believe me. My father’s nickname was the Grouch and sometimes, the Old Bear. You know how you are never supposed to wake a bear in hibernation. It was the same with my father.

I was so curious about the basement that I wanted to know what my father did down there for all those hours. My father was a brilliant man. He had many hobbies. He was a voracious reader, interested in many subjects, including religion, although he was an atheist. He was fascinated by all things related to the Asian Culture, although he was prejudice against Asian people and called them all Chinamen regardless of their country of origin. My father was prejudiced against anyone that wasn’t white or Irish, for that matter.

He was an accomplished woodworker and builder. He had every type of woodworking tool that was available in the 1960s in his basement. My father took me for a ride one time and showed me a house that his friend Dar and he built. It was a Cape Cod Cottage which was similar to our house. He used to repair and replace electric wiring in our house. However, later after he passed, I learned that he always used lamp wire which wasn’t up to code. He painted our house inside and out. I have to admit that his choice of colors and his decorating taste were somewhat Avant Guard at the time. He was a gardener, and we had a beautiful rose garden in our backyard. I believe his love of gardening led me to become a gardener when I grew up.

And then there was my father’s private life. My father was a gambler. He had a group of friends that he played cards with every week, although I never met them. He was a regular at the Cherry Hill Race Track. He had a different group of friends there. I never met them. My older brother told me that my father had taken him to the track on several occasions and introduced him to his friends.

He had a bookie in Philadelphia that he placed his bets with on the phone, and occasionally he would take my mother and me with him to make bets we waited in the car. It was a treat for us since we rarely took a ride in the car. The only place my mother went was to Mass every day at the Catholic church, which was two doors down from our house, and she walked there.

My father also had a part-time job working at Johnny Marrow’s Auto Supply Store, located on Main Street in Maple Shade, where I grew up. So, as you can see, my father had a full life. Most of it spent outside our home. Much of it unknown to me until I was a teenager or older.

As a result, I was inquisitive about my father and all his activities. I would snoop in his basement to see what he was up to all the time when he wasn’t home. I knew that my father was a perfectionist. And he knew exactly where everything was in all his tool drawers, and cabinets, and on the shelves. And most importantly, on his desk. I, too, was somewhat of a perfectionist and was able to open all his drawers and look inside, and put everything back the way I found it. I inherited my father’s great memory.

The day I decided to look in his desk, I knew my parents would be out for at least an hour. The top of his desk was pristine. He only had his favorite pens and pencils all arranged in a line. Then there was a file drawer with all his papers. They didn’t really hold any interest for me. In the middle drawer, I found several magazines. I was about eleven years old at the time. And had never seen anything like them. They were Playboy Magazines. I was shocked by the pictures of the mostly naked woman. I had never seen any woman in my neighborhood that looked anything like these women.

But the thing that drew my curiosity and held it was a cartoon called The Naughty Granny. I was shocked by the depiction of an older woman barely clad whose intentions were clearly not anything I could imagine at the time. But somehow, I found it to be so shocking and funny and disturbing at the same time. I wanted to talk to someone about my discovery. But really, who could I ask? Certainly not my mother. I was sure she would not understand it. At least that’s what my eleven-year-old self thought. I couldn’t ask my father, obviously, since I was sure he would cut my head off for sneaking around his basement into his sacrosanct desk.

After I discovered the Playboy magazine, I looked at my parents in a whole new way. I no longer looked at them as just my parents. I looked at them as people separate from me who were individuals. People I didn’t really know as well as I thought. People with friends of their own and interest of their own. People who did more than go to work and come back. People with flaws.

It seems strange now as I reflect on this experience that the discovery of this magazine changed how I looked at my parents. They weren’t just my parents; they were people. My father wasn’t just the grouch who seemed to be mad at the world all the time. He was a man with friends and a job who went places and did things I didn’t know anything about.

And my mother was more than the person who loved me, and washed my clothes and cooked my meals, and went to Mass every day of her life. And she probably had friends too, even though I never met them.

And that is when I started talking to my parents and asking them questions about what they were doing and where they were going? I ask my mother one day,” Mom, what do you do for fun?”

My mother just stared at me. I realized that she didn’t really do anything just for fun. That her life was not as complicated as my father’s appeared to be. Her life was mainly taking care of the family and the house and going to church. But I knew at some level at one time during her life; she too had friends and siblings. And I hoped that somewhere during her life, she had the time to have some fun. My mother was nineteen when my parents were married, and she proceeded to have ten children in twenty years, six of who survived. I knew my mother had lost her parents. So, I knew she had loss and sadness in her life. I hope she had happiness as well. I rarely saw her laugh; she didn’t joke around. She rarely mentioned her childhood or her parents.

I think it was the first time I thought of my parents as people as individuals, not just my mom and dad. It made me start thinking about my life when I grew up and what I wanted to do with it. And I knew I wanted it to be more than getting married and taking care of kids, and cleaning a house. Although as I grew up, I knew I wanted to have children someday. But I wanted more than that.

I was a quiet and thoughtful child. I kept my thoughts to myself for the most part. Most people interpreted that as me being shy. But I wasn’t shy, just quiet, but always listening and trying to understand people and the world around me.

I never talk to my friends about their parents because I didn’t really know how to ask them. I thought they would think I was weird or something. But here I sit many decades later, trying to discover and understand the person I am now in this moment. And I know evolved over the many years trying to understand myself and the world I live in, and I fit into it. I am a part of the world, but I am also an observer.

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LIFE OFFERS US OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN

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I wake up soaked in sweat, and the sheets are wound tightly around me. And I have the worse headache of my life.

By Agoda

Photo by Agoda

I reluctantly open my eyes, fearing the worse. Dear god, what have I done? I try to recall the previous night. It’s all a blur. I remember an acquaintance of mine texted me and asked me to meet him at a local bar for a drink. I’m not much of a drinker, but it had been a long work week, and I decided I could use a change of scenery and some friendly conversation.

It seems l must have met him at the bar and then overindulged. But frankly, that’s just not my style. As I said, I’m not much of a drinker. Usually, I just sip a glass of white wine the whole night. But the pounding in my head and nausea indicate that I’ve done more than sip a Chardonnay. I use the wine glass as a prop so I don’t look out of place. Really.

As I look around the room, it suddenly dawns on me that I’m not in my bedroom. I’m in a kind of dark and creepy cellar or something. As I attempt to get up off the bed, I realize I can’t move. My wrists are tied to a rusty metal headboard. I suddenly have the urge to scream at the top of my lungs. I open my mouth and yell at the top of my voice,” hey, let me the hell out of here. Come and let me the hell out of here, now. You better let me out now. This isn’t funny.” No one comes, and no one answers. I scream louder, “help, help let me out of here, now. I’m supposed to be meeting my mother for lunch.”

I start struggling, but the more I struggle, the tighter the ropes on my wrists feel. I begin crying hard. I cry so hard I start sobbing and can’t catch my breath. I feel as if I might throw up. I realized if I threw up, I could choke to death. So, I take deep, slow breaths to calm myself.

I slowly gain control of the panic I’m feeling, and my breathing becomes easier. But my heart is still beating irregularly. I keep breathing slowly with my eyes closed, and a few minutes later, my heartbeat is back to normal.

I consider what my options are at the moment. I can’t just lie here until the person who tied me up comes back and unties me. But then what? They could murder me and then ditch my body in the woods or something. I don’t like that scenario at all. But isn’t that what always happens in the cheap movies where some woman is stupid enough to go to a bar, get drunk, and is taken advantage of, murdered, and chopped up in pieces.

I decide that my best course of action is to stay calm and wait for the perpetrator to return and then outsmart him. I’m an intelligent woman and used to thinking on my feet under pressure. I’m a lawyer, although I would be hard put to explain to a jury how I was stupid enough to get myself in the predicament I found myself in today.

I have the added benefit of being quite attractive. At least, that is what I’ve been told. So, I decide that I would outwit him and use my female wiles to get my way. Well, maybe I should stick with the intellectual approach as I’m probably not looking my best right at this moment.

And it was at that moment I heard someone unlocking the door. My heart skips a beat or two. I try to keep my calm. I close my eyes, and then the door swings open with a bang that echoes down what sounds like a long empty corridor.

And then someone dressed all in black comes through the door. He has a black hood over his head. I feel as if I might faint. But I don’t. I wait a few moments, and then I say nonchalantly, “OK, the jokes over. Can you please untie me? I have a lot of things I have to get done today.”

I hear breathing, nothing more. And then, the man in black walks slowly over to the bed and stands over me. He’s tall and thin, and his breath smells like something died in his mouth and is rotting there. I try again, “OK, OK, that’s enough for today. I have to get going. I’m on a deadline and don’t have any more time to waste.”

I feel him loom over me. I gulp hard. He unties one of my wrists and says, “alright, let’s take this slow so nobody gets hurt. Lie still, and everything will be alright. Don’t struggle, don’t yell. And don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand. I’m calm. I’m not going to do anything crazy. Just untie me and let me leave. No one ever needs to know about this ever. I promise. Now let me go.”

“You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No, should I? Why don’t we let that be your little secret? Why don’t you just untie me, let me get dressed, and get out of here? I won’t tell anyone about our little “party.” I’m sure it was all meant to be fun. So, we had a few too many drinks, and we got carried away. That’s how I’ll remember it, anyway.”

“Really, tell me exactly what you remember.

I lie there for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action. And my mind is a total blank. I don’t have any memory of how I came to be here in this nightmare. But obviously, I made some really poor choices last night. And then it occurs to me I don’t have any idea if I’ve only been here one night or one year for that matter. My sweating begins anew.

“Honestly, I can’t remember how I came to be here. I recall that a friend of mine texted me and asked me to meet her at a bar for a drink. I vaguely recall going to a bar on South Street in Philadelphia called the Tattooed Mom. I waited at the bar for about fifteen minutes, and she didn’t show up. I ordered a glass of white wine, took a sip or two, and then made a trip to the Ladies’ room. When I came back to the bar, she still wasn’t there. I texted her and asked if she was on her way. She never answered. So, I gulped the rest of the wine, and that’s the last thing I remember.

And it was at that moment that I realized what had happened. And how I could only blame myself for my current predicament. It was clear now that when I went into the bathroom, this freak dropped a Roffie in my drink. Why the hell did I do something so thoughtless and stupid? Even teenagers and college girls know not ever to leave their drink unattended. But what about my friend Silvia? Why would she text me and not show up? Was she all a part of this nightmare? And then I thought, no way would she do anything like this. She’s one of the most thoughtful and kind people I know.

I look up at the hooded kidnapper and say, “what did you do to my friend Silvia? I know she wouldn’t have any part of this. Did you hurt her? Where is she?

“Alright, Elizabeth, I see your memories are starting to come back. And don’t you worry about Sylvie. I have her, and so far, she is just fine. She’s taking a nap right now. Perhaps I’ll let you see each other later, that is, if you are a good girl.”

“What did you do to her? I want to see her right now. I’m not going to cooperate with you at all until I know she is alright.

“You don’t really have any bargaining power here, Elizabeth. I’m in charge. It’s not like this is Bower and Sons, where you are the boss. You always act like you’re superior to underlings. But not here, I can do anything I want to you, and you can’t do a thing about it. You’re the loser here. You will do exactly as I say, or I will make your friend Sylvie pay the price. And I’ll make you watch the whole time.”

So now I know that this nutjob is somebody from my workplace, and he has Sylvia, and that is how he texted me. He was using her cell phone. I also know that somehow, I’m going to make this monster pay big time. “OK, I understand you’re in charge. I have to do what you say, or you’ll hurt Sylvie. I’ll cooperate, but can I please see Sylvia now?

“You can see Sylvia after you do what I tell you to do and not before. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand, I have to do exactly what you tell me to do, and then I get to see my friend. I promise I’ll be a good girl. What do you want me to do?”

“That’s more like it, I’m going to untie you, and you’re going to slowly stand up and take off your clothes.”

My heart started beating irregularly. And I start thinking, and now I’m going to be raped and murdered. And no one will ever know what happened to me, including my family. And then I thought, wait a minute, I’m not some poor helpless woman. I have the smarts and ten years of Marshall Arts training. I’m going to wait until he unties me, and then I’m going to give him the beating of his life. He’ll cry for his mamma when I’m done with him.

“OK, OK, whatever you want me to do.  Please just untie me. My arms and legs feel numb. You have the restraints so tight. I probably won’t be able even to stand up yet. I feel kind of nauseous too. I need to go to the bathroom, please. I promise to cooperate. I’ll be a good girl, whatever you want. “

“Alright, Elizabeth, now you understand who’s in charge now. And it isn’t you. You get that, now, don’t you?”

“Yes, I understand. You’re in charge. And I apologize if I ever made you feel bad or humiliated you at work. I see now how wrong that was, and I won’t do it again.”

“Alright, I’m going to untie you and let you go to the bathroom. And you aren’t going to try any funny business, or your friend Sylvia will pay the price, go it?”

“Yes, yes, I understand. Please let me go to the bathroom; I can’t hold it in anymore.”

“Stop whining.”

“OK, I’ll cooperate.”

He comes over and looms over me. And I think now he’s going to kill me? I close my eyes for a moment, and I can feel him untie the ropes. I know this is going to be my only chance to overcome this psycho. While he unties my right leg, I pretend to be crying and say, “please, please don’t hurt me.”

He laughs. I had never heard anyone laugh like that before or since, and it was truly the laugh of an insane and evil man. It sent chills down my back. As he unties my left leg, I get ready to kick him in the solar plexus as hard as I can. I know this is probably my one and only chance, and I’ll take it to a higher level. I’ll make it the kill strike if I have to.

“Oh, thank you so much,” I say, and then I kick him so hard his mama can feel it. And down he goes like a sack of rotten potatoes. I kicked him so hard that my legs muscles cramp up, and my hips hurt. And I grab the ropes and start tying him using all the knots I learned in the ten years I was a Girl Scout. I know they would come in handy someday. I finish it off with the constrictor knot. He’ll have to be cut out of these ropes.

He’s having trouble catching his breath. I give him another kick just for the hell of it. And then I go looking for Sylvia. I hear a muffled moaning from the other side of the wall. And there she is, tied with her arms behind her back and her legs tied tightly to the steel bunk she’s lying on. There are tears running down her face making clean tracks in her face, which was covered in some kind of filth.

“Oh honey, it’s alright. I’m here now. That piece of shit isn’t going to hurt you anymore. He’ll be going to prison for a long, long time. I carefully untie first her wrist and then her legs. She begins sobbing and choking. “Come on, try to sit up. You’re alright now. No one is going to hurt you anymore. I help her sit up, and she hugs me like she’s never going to let go. “You’re safe now, try and stand up.” She gets unsteadily to her feet, shaking like a leaf from head to toe. I hug her again.

“Elizabeth, you’re alright. I was so afraid he was going to kill you. He absolutely despises you. He told me that you were always emasculating him at work. And he was going to make you regret the day you were born. He told me he tailed you one Friday after work, and he saw us meet up, and then he followed me home. And then he found out who I was through your Social Media. I never realized how dangerous it was to put all your personal information on the internet. Anyone can find out where you live, where you work, who your friends are, and where you work. I’m going to delete any personal informant today.”

“Do you know where he put your cell phone?”

The last time I saw him talking on it, he put it down on that counter over there. But I don’t know if it’s still there. Since he kept drugging me until I stopped eating, then he put it in the water I drank.”

“How awful. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I can be somewhat difficult at work after years of working for men treating me like their slave or their mother. I got sick of it. And then, I started moving up in my company. I started doing the same to them. Come on, can you stand up? Let’s go call the police.”

After the police arrive, Elizabeth and Sylvia give their statements, and the paramedics look them over. They decide Sylvia needs to go to the hospital to be checked out because of dehydration and not eating for several days.

“I would like to go with Sylvia to the hospital if I can?”

“Of course, you can ride in the back with her. I’m sure she would feel better with a friend accompanying her. She’s had a really rough time of it.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that. She’s a good friend. And it’s my fault this happened to her.”

“No, you both are victims here. None of this is your fault. Go ahead and climb in the back and take care of your friend. You’re both in good hands now.”

Elizabeth and Sylvia sit quietly in the ambulance the whole ride. Before they pull into the Emergency parking at the hospital, Elizabeth leans down and kisses Sylvia on the cheek and hugs her, and says, “don’t worry, I’m going to stick with you like glue from now on.”

“Thanks, Elizabeth, you saved both of our lives. I’ll be careful and stay on your right side because you are a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure.”

They hold each other’s hands the whole time that Sylvia is being examined, and then the doctor tells Sylvia it would be a good idea for her to stay overnight for observation, and she will be released in the morning. “Can I stay with her doctor?”

“Yes, of course, but wouldn’t you like to go home and get changed?”

“No, I’ll just wash up in the bathroom and sit next to my friend until she’s released. Then I’ll call a cab to take her home. I’m sure I’ll fall asleep sitting up, no problem. Thank you for taking care of us. I appreciate that. I know I don’t tell people often enough that I appreciate what they do. I will from now on, that’s for sure.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll come back later before my shift is up to check on you both.”

“Thanks again.”

Elizabeth steps into the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror. She looks like something the cat dragged in on a cold night. She washes her face and hands. And then runs her fingers through her hair and goes to the bathroom. She returns quietly to the room and sits next to her friend, who is fast asleep and breathing evenly.

“Good night, Sylvia.” Then she stretches her legs out in front of her, puts her head down, and falls asleep. She doesn’t wake up for four hours until the night nurse comes in to check on Elizabeth. And then she wakes with a start. “What’s going on?”

“I’m the nurse I’m checking on your friend. She’s doing fine. Can I get you a pillow or anything?”

“No, I’ve never been better in my life, and then her eyes close, and she is off to the Land of Nod.

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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

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We have been searching for our perfect dream house for almost a year. It’s a tight real estate market. The interest rate is low at 2.6, and every house that comes up for sale is snapped up in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. That’s a weird expression, isn’t it? I guess it means that it happens quickly, but still a weird comparison.

Free Spirits Marie & Stan

We find a house on a real estate website, and by the time we contact the realtor, it has already been sold. Or the realtor contacts us, and we go to see a house, and it is a total do-over or, in some cases, knock it down and start over from scratch.

I was on my way to work when I had to take a detour from my regular route because of a car accident. It was really off the beaten path. As I drive down the road, I notice that there’s a For Sale sign on the house to my right. It was a three-story Georgian Colonial House. Perfect, I think to myself. I pull over to the side of the road and call my realtor. Strike while the iron is hot and all that. Her answer machine picks up, so I leave her a message. “Hello Stella, this is Karen Wilcox. I just found a house that’s for sale on my way to work. I’m going to text you the address. Could you please, please check it out. If it’s anywhere near our price point, would you set up an appointment for James and me to see it asap? Thanks, so much. Karen.

I text her the address and the name of the realtor and realty company that listed it. I’m really stoked. I pray that no one will buy it from under us. I’m afraid to get my hopes up again only to have them dashed. And then I recall my mother’s old saying, To live without hope is to cease to live. So, I’m going to keep my fingers crossed until I hear from Stella.

I have a busy day at work and don’t even have time to check my personal texts or emails. And I didn’t even think about the house I saw for sale until I was on my way home. And I realize that I didn’t have to take the detour that I took that morning. When I saw that house, I want it so badly.

As I pull into our apartment complex’s parking lot, I‘m again reminded of how much I want to have my own house, driveway, and yard with a garden. We’ve been living in this apartment for almost ten years. I cannot even think about living here another five years. I pull into my parking space and turn off the car and grab my purse and briefcase.

Today is one of the days that I have to cook. I am trying to think of what I can cook for dinner. I climb up the three flights to our apartment and unlock the door. I can hear Bowtie, our Tuxedo cat purring on the other side of the door. I open the door, and he rubs against my legs.

“Hi Bowtie, hi Bowtie. Come on, let’s go in, and I’ll get you something to eat.” I pull off my jacket and hang it in the coat closet. I drop my briefcase on the desk and sigh, knowing I have at least two hours of work to do tonight after I cook dinner. I regret I didn’t put something in the crockpot to cook before I left this morning.

I have about forty-five minutes before James gets home. And then another half hour because he likes to decompress for about a half-hour before dinner. So, I have time to put some brown rice in the rice cooker with some veggies. And I can defrost some fish fillets and bread and cook them in the toaster oven. I start the rice cooker and go in and take a quick shower.

What a long day it has been. It feels like days ago since I left for work. And that reminds me of the house I saw for sale this morning. After I jump out of the shower, I check my text messages and, sure enough, I heard from Stella. She set up an appointment for first thing Saturday morning for us to view the Georgian House. God, I hope it doesn’t get sold before Saturday. That’s how cutthroat this market is.

James arrives home; he looks exhausted. His job is an hour away, and he has to drive through a great deal of traffic on an expressway to get to and from work. I think that is what bothers him the most. I have to admit that the driving won’t get any better if we live in the suburbs. But at least he’ll be coming home to our own home and not a one-bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen and one bathroom.

If we live in a neighborhood, we could go out for a walk when the weather is nice and see people and families, not just people jumping in and out of their vehicles and dashing up to their apartments in a rush.

I call James into the dining room. The dining room is a table and two chairs next to the stairway. The door to our apartment is at the bottom of the steps. You wouldn’t believe how much we pay to rent this place and it isn’t even maintained. It hasn’t been painted or the carpets cleaned, let alone replace. I’m so over living here. The worst part is there isn’t even any green space, just a parking lot, nothing more.

After James takes a seat and I bring the dinner to the table, James says, “dinner looks, great honey. Thanks so much. Anything new at work today?”

“No same old, same old. I had to bring about two hours of work home with me. My deadline is tomorrow. Oh, but there is some good news. This will cheer you up. Today on the way to work, I had to take a detour off my regular route because they worked on the road. And guess what?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you just tell me? I don’t think I have the energy for any guessing games.”

“Oh wow, you are exhausted. I saw this beautiful house for sale, a Georgian Colonial house. And I contacted our realtor, and it’s still for sale. And we have an appointment to meet her there on Saturday at ten 0’clock. Can you believe it?”

“Really, you’re not just yanking my chain, are you?”
“No, of course not. It is a two-story brick house. Beautiful windows, great entranceway. It has a small garden in the front with a brick wall on the property line. I couldn’t find it on the internet, so I don’t know what the inside of the house looks like. But by the size of the house at least three bedrooms, two baths. Can you believe it?”

“No, it’s hard to believe; I hate to get my hopes up and then be disappointed again. But I will try to remain optimistic.”

“Me too. I can’t wait to see it. I know I will love it. I just have this feeling that this is going to be our house.”

“Almost too good to be true, but I will keep my fingers, and my toes crossed if that will help. After all these months, it didn’t seem like it would happen.

“Oh, I almost forgot there are several chimneys, so I’m certain it has at least two, maybe more fireplaces. Can you imagine us sitting in the living room on a cold, winter’s night roasting marshmallows or making popcorn over the fireplace?”

“It sounds like heaven. What was the neighborhood like?”

“You know James; I didn’t even look at the neighborhood. I was so enthralled by the house. And that it’s perfect and in our price range. Can you believe it?”

“It’s hard to believe Karen; I can’t wait to see it either. Let’s think positive thoughts.”

It was an unbelievably busy and stressful week at work. I’m so looking forward to seeing the house on Saturday. I’ve had my fingers crossed for so long I can hardly move them. I haven’t heard from our realtor, and I take that as a good sign. But somewhere in the back of my mind,  I have this fear that the house must have some fatal flaw, or it would have sold long ago. I know I’m pessimistic. It’s hard not to be. We have been disappointed so many times.

On the short drive to see the house, I talk non-stop about nothing just to keep myself distracted from thinking the worse, that we will drive up and see an Under Contract sign. Or that Stella will call at the last moment and cancel. But none of that happens, and James and I arrive in front of the Georgian property without incident. I scan the whole front yard and don’t see a Sold or Under Contract sign, and I sigh in relief.

James puts the parking brake on but leaves the heat running because Stella hasn’t arrived yet. Just as I’m thinking, Where’s Stella? Where’s Stella? She pulls up behind us. She gets out of her car at the same time as we do. “Good morning, Karen and James; how are you two on this fine day?”

We laugh because this is the same thing. Stella says every time we see her. If there were a snow blizzard, she would say the same thing. She is an optimistic person. Probably one of the things I love about her the most. “We’re fine, Stella, we are really excited about seeing the house. Did you find out any information about it or its owners?”

“Well, I can tell you this the owners were elderly and passed away within two months of each other, and the house has been empty for over a year. The realtor I spoke to said it’s a beautiful house, well-maintained with no real problems. But for some unknown reason, no one has made an offer on it. Shall we go inside, or do you want to take a walk around the property first?”

“Let’s go inside first, shall we. I’m so excited about seeing it. I couldn’t sleep all night.”

“Alright, let’s do that. Oh, one other thing. When the owners passed away, there were no living relatives nearby to clean out the house. So, whoever purchases the house can keep all the furniture or sell it if that’s what they choose to do. But I imagine that the house needs to be cleaned from top to bottom since it has been empty. Let’s go in, shall we?”

“Do you have any idea why the house hasn’t been sold? Does it need a new roof or some other expensive repair done?”

“Not that I have heard from the realtor I spoke to. But if you decide to make a bid on it, it would certainly make sense to have an inspector come and look over the entire property from top to bottom. It would be well worth the expense, Karen. I can give the name of someone I worked with before; however, if you know someone, that’s fine. Let’s go, shall we?”

As we walk toward the house, I fell more in love with it. The outside of the house is pristine, aside from the fact that the grass hadn’t been cut in a long time. And the landscaping is overgrown. As we step up onto the front porch, Stella punches the key code into the lockbox and pushes the door open.

It has a large entryway in ceramic tile. I can see that underneath the dust and dirt is a work of art. “Wow, look at this floor; it must be the original flooring. Magnificent.” To the right of the entryway is the living room with Victorian furniture and a brick fireplace. And beyond that are double doors into a dining room that looks like it could seat ten people. I walk through the double doors, and I can see that the furniture is antique. It wasn’t in pristine shape but still wonderful. The upholstered cushions on the chairs will need to be replaced. The china cabinet still had china inside of it.

Beyond the kitchen is a door. I step through it, and there is a small pantry and a kitchen. The kitchen has appliances that appear to be from the 1950s. They will have to be replaced as well. But still, it was charming and welcoming. “Oh, James, come look at the kitchen.”

As I look at the kitchen, I glanced out the back door windows. I noticed that the backyard is small, but there is a large two-car garage and a small pond with a waterfall. I think to myself, good less yard work to do. “Hey James, there’s a two-car garage and a small pond out here.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, come have a look. Let’s go outside and see if there are any fish in there.”

As James comes into the kitchen, he looks all around and says, “will you look at this kitchen. It feels like we just stepped into the 1950s; everything is hot pink and turquoise. And look at this stove, a double oven above the stovetop, and you have to pull out the range. It’s hidden. Wow, can you believe it? I wonder if it still works. The electricity is turned on.

We step out the back door and realize that the back steps are a death trap. Every time we took a step, the bricks would move under our feet and fall to the step below. “Woah, we better look back here after we are through looking at the rest of the house. These steps aren’t safe to walk on.”

We walk back through the kitchen and the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. There are three large bedrooms up there and two full baths. As we came down the steps, we stand in the living room and look around. “you know James, I would want to buy this house for the living room alone. The beautiful fireplace, the built-in bookshelves, the walk-in closet, and all this awesome antique furniture.”

“Me, too, but still. I think we have to get an engineer here to look the place over. And make sure there aren’t any major repairs that have to be made that we don’t have the money to repair or replace.

“Karen, let’s take a look around the grounds and then, on the way home talking about whether we want to make an offer. We can tell Sheila the offer is contingent on what the engineer says about the house, of course.”

“I agree, James. This is going to be our house. I know it is. I’m in love with it already.”

“I have to admit I love it too, Karen.”

The engineer comes two days later and inspects the property from the roof all the way down to the basement. There are some minor repairs but no big issues. Our realtor, Sheila, made our offer, and the sellers accept it almost immediately. We are somewhat surprised that they didn’t make a counteroffer. But, didn’t think about it too much. I want that house so badly. When I receive the call from Sheila, I immediately call James and give him the good news.

A month to the day after we made our offer, we went to settlement. We go out to lunch to celebrate the purchase of our first home. The engineer found no immediate problems. The basement is dry; however, they did mention that the roof would probably have to be replaced in the next ten years or so. We decide that by then, we would have replenished our savings and be able to afford it. Plus, we both expected pay increases in the next year.

After lunch, about ten minutes after we arrive at our new house, our movers arrived with our belongings. I was busy cleaning and know I would be busy cleaning for the next week or so. All the floors were the original hardwood and hadn’t be cleaned or waxed in a decade. We worked all that day and were just finishing up when the doorbell rings.

I see the top of the heads of several people in the windows on the front door. And I thought, who could that be? We don’t know anyone in the neighborhood yet. I yelled up the steps.” I’ll get it, James. I run my fingers through my hair and hope I don’t have any dirt or cobwebs on my face. I put a smile on my face and pull open the front door. I’m about to say, Hello, how are you when I saw my new neighbors standing there. There was a middle-aged woman, a teenage girl, and a middle-aged fit-looking man.

I open the door and stand there transfixed by surprise, unable to utter a single word. Because standing before me are three people completely nude, naked, without any clothing of any sort, naked as Jaybirds, naked as the day they were born.

They smiled in unison and said, “Hello.”, and then the woman says, “we’re the Henderson Family. We live two houses down on this side of the street. We just wanted to be the first people to welcome you to our neighborhood. We were so afraid no one was going to buy this beautiful home. We knew it would be hard to sell because of our community’s nature, but we didn’t think it would take as long as it did.

She reaches out her hand to shake mine. I hesitate for a moment since I had never shaken a naked woman’s hand before. “Hello, and thank you. What may I ask is the nature of the community?”

She looks at me as if I must have lost my mind or something. And she says, “Well, of course, I was referring to the fact that we are Naturalist, or perhaps nudist is a term you would recognize?”

My husband and I look at each other with our mouths open and then snap them shut. We look at them. Both of us keep our eyes averted. And the woman says, “Harry, I don’t think they knew.” And they all burst out laughing. And then she says, but don’t worry, it’s not a requirement. We are open-minded, you don’t have to participate, but you have to accept and not judge our community standards. As we will be about your lifestyle.”
I look at James, and he looks at me, and he says, “of course, we knew. Thank you all for coming by. We appreciated your warm welcome, and then he takes a step backward.

I suppose he’s fearful that they might start hugging us. I did the same.

Then the woman who was doing all the talking says, “oh, forgetful me. I forgot to introduce ourselves. I’m Jillian, and this is my husband, William, and my daughter, Sandy. We’re so looking forward to getting to know you all. Oh, I brought you a basket of fruit as a welcome. I hope you like tropical fruit.”

“Oh, we do, thanks again. And I forgot to introduce ourselves as well; I’m Karen, and this is my husband, James Conway, and down there at your feet is our cat, Bowtie, she’s very friendly. We hope to see more of you all in the future.” And that’s when I started laughing and couldn’t stop myself. Talk about putting your foot in your mouth. They all started laughing and then so did we. They thanked us and went on their way. We backed into our front door and sat down on the floor. “Well, that was a surprise,” says James. And we laugh until we ran out of breath.

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THE DAY WILL COME

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Fortune Teller from Sheroes Entertainment.com

Once every couple of years, my siblings and I get together, and we hire a psychic to predict our futures. I know it sounds ridiculous. I’m a skeptic of the group, but still, I go along with them every time. We rarely get together, so I prefer to think of it as a family outing.

And however slim, there’s a chance we might actually find a real psychic to tell us our futures. My sisters truly believe if they find the “right psychic,” they will hear whatever it is that they need to hear.

Personally, I would like to hear good news for once, even if it is fictitious. The psychics in the past have told me I will develop a nerve issue and even that I will get Lupus. Thank god those two things never came to pass. They told me my daughter would eventually decide to have children and have twins, a  boy and a girl. My daughter is now past childbearing years and never wanted children. So, I take everything they say with a grain of salt.

Not that I believe in a god any more than I believe in psychics. But I do understand why people want to believe in god. It’s reassuring to believe that there’s this Supreme Being up there watching over us and keeping us safe. And he’s offering us an eternity of happiness after we pass away and that we will see all our loved ones that have passed again.

I do not try to talk anyone out of their beliefs because what is the point? For one, they won’t believe me, and two, who am I to take away their hope? Even if it is false hope.

The day finally arrives when we’re all going to see the psychic. It’s being held at my oldest sister Irene’s house in her living room. The rest of us sit in the kitchen, awaiting our turn. And even though I do not doubt she is a fraud, I know that no one has psychic ability. I still sit there waiting my turn to talk to her somewhat anxiously. And in addition to that, I believe if anyone were going to have any psychic ability, it would be me. Yes, I know that is a ridiculous statement to make,  considering I have said there are no “psychics.”  But even I have my moments of being illogical.

I’m a  sensitive person. My feelings are easily hurt. In addition, I am sensitive to how other people are “feeling” even if they don’t say anything. I can tell when people are not truthful. Yes, I’m able to read body language,  but it’s  I feel what they’re feeling. That is the ability I think these psychics have, the ability to sense what others are feeling. They don’t have the ability to foresee the future. And I think people give “psychic” hints by the questions they ask. And if all the participants are related, they will tell the psychic things, and she or he can put all this information together and make predictions, not unlike creating a quilt from different patches.

The psychic arrives as we all patiently sit in Irene’s kitchen. We share pleasantries and drink coffee or tea and eat homemade cake. It’s my favorite yellow cake with white icing and shredded coconut. I could eat a couple more pieces, but I stop at one.

She walks gracefully into the living room. It almost seems like she is floating. She’s an attractive thirty-something. Her hair is long and wavy, halfway down her back, and light brown with blond highlights. She has the palest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. It’s hard not to stare at her. Her eyes are mesmerizing. And her smile could light up the darkest room. She stands in the middle of the living room and introduces herself, “Good afternoon, my name is Aislee.  I’m from County Down Patrick in Northern Ireland. I’m from a family with a history of psychics going back over hundreds of years. A gift that was inherited from my great, great, great, great grandmother. All the women in my family have this gift.

She has a beautiful voice with an Irish lilt to it. It’s wonderful to hear. I could listen to her all day even if everything she said were full of malarky, as my mother used to say. She scans the room and makes eye contact with each one of us. I have the urge to look away from her, irrationally feeling she might look deep into my psyche and read my deepest thoughts. I know I’m being illogical, given the fact that I don’t believe in psychics. She is convinced I give her that.

My older sister, Irene, is the first person she “reads.” All of us bring paper and a pen with us to write down her “predictions.” We never discuss what the “psychic says until after she leaves, and not everyone wants to tell others what was told to them. I have recorded all the predictions told to me over the years. And not one of them came true. I can’t speak to my sister’s experiences.

I’m the last one to go into the living room to sit for the reading. I say, “Hello.” And she says, “Good afternoon, Kathleen. How are you feeling today?” No, she didn’t miraculously know my name. She has a list of our names. And since I was the last one, it was just a matter of elimination of who she already spoke to.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

“So, Kathleen, you’re the youngest in the family?” Again, she knew that ahead of time.

“Yes, yes, I am.”

“Do you have any issues that you would like to ask about or anyone who has passed over that you would like to ask a question?”

I stare at her for a moment and wonder what I should ask her. I know it seems disingenuous to speak to these mediums or psychics, anticipating that everything they do or say is some trick. Maybe I want them to have this ability on some level. Maybe, I would like to know the future. I have many experiences in the past that could have turned out better if I had known in advance how I could avoid them or mitigate the problem before it happened.

“Well, I don’t know if you can answer this question,  but I often think about my older sibling that disappeared when I was relatively young. Can you tell me what happened to her? Do you know if she is still alive somewhere? Or if she suffered before she died?

Aislee closes her eyes and becomes quiet, almost too quiet. It seems as if she has gone to sleep. And after a couple of minutes, she opens up her eyes as if she’s waking up from a dream. You know when you begin to wake up from an afternoon nap. And you’re not sure where you are or what day it is, like that. She keeps blinking her eyes as if the light is too bright. And then her eyes open really wide as if she’s surprised by something unexpected.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, but I have something to tell you. Your sister, Carol,  ran away from home with some boy. When she was in high school, she was no longer alive now,  but she passed away recently from an illness of some kind. I’m sorry. That’s all I can tell you right now.”

“You’re kidding? Did any one of my sisters tell you her name? Tell me the truth.”

“No, no one told me her name.”

“Can you tell me where she was living after she ran away? Or who she ran away with? Was she still with the same person until she passed away?”

“No, she was alone when she passed away. That’s all I can tell you right now. Maybe I will be able to tell you something more at another time.”

“Alright, I guess that’s all for now. I walk out of the room in shock. And when I return to the kitchen, I grab a glass and fill it with cold water from the tap and gulp it down. I rinse the glass out, walk over to the kitchen table and flop down in the nearest seat.

My sister, Terri, stares at me for a moment and says, “You look like you saw a ghost. What happened?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it right now.”

“OK, but now I’m really curious.  I thought you didn’t believe in psychics. What have you so spooked?”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it right now. I have to think about it for a while. I know there has to be some trick to it.”

After Aislee left, my sisters and I sat at the kitchen table. I still hadn’t said anything about what Aislee said to me. And then my sister, Irene, said, “Spill Kathleen, what did she say to you? You’re not leaving here until you do. And in unison,  my sisters said, “spill.”

“OK, OK. Aisling asked me if there were any questions I wanted to ask or anyone I wanted to contact that had passed. And I said no, but I would like to know what happened to my older sister, who disappeared when she was a teenager. We never heard from her again. And then I asked if she was still alive. Aisling said, your sister Carol ran away from home with a boy. But she’s no longer alive. She passed away recently from an illness. And then I point-blank asked her how she knew my missing sister’s name. I asked her if one of you had talked about her. And she said, no.”

“She also said it was possible she would be able to tell me more sometime in the future. And now I want to know if any of you told her about Carol, or did any of you even mention Carol’s name?”

They all sit at the kitchen table with their mouths hanging open and say in unison, “I didn’t mention Carol or another sister.”

“Irene, you are the oldest. Do you remember anything about Carol’s disappearance? Or do you remember anything that our parents believed happened to her?”

“Honestly, Kathleen,  I don’t remember many details. That was a long time ago”, said Irene. And Mom and Dad didn’t talk to any of us about it. I do remember Dad seemed angry for a long time, and Mom cried and cried. Even years later,  I recall hearing her cry in their room at night. After a year or so, neither of them mentioned the disappearance or Carol at all, for that matter. I don’t think either one of them ever got over it. That’s probably why they were so overprotective and controlling of all of us when we were teenagers.

How about you guys? Kathleen looks at her remaining sister. Terri looked at Kathleen and said, “No, I don’t really remember much at all. Maybe I blanked it out. And you’re right. Kathleen, Mom, and Dad were never the same again. And they were extremely controlling with us as we got older.”

“I’d like to know how come the three of us never talked about this before. Did either of you ever ask the other psychics about Carol?”

Both Irene and Terri shook their heads no.

“Wow, that is really weird. We all acted like Carol never existed. We are really messed up. And I think we started this psychic thing because of Carol. At some subconscious level, we all wanted to know what happened to her. But none of us said it out loud.

“But at the time, did you two talk about it at all? Were the police involved, was her disappearance publicized? Did the neighbors or the townspeople look for her at all?”

“Honestly, the only thing I remember is one night Carol didn’t come home, but I didn’t hear about it until sometime the next day. Which was a Saturday, and I used to sleep- in since it wasn’t a school day. I heard a loud knocking at the front door, and then Mom and Dad let them in, and I heard them talking to the person at the door. I got up and looked down the steps, and there was a cop and a guy in a suit standing in the vestibule. I tried to hear what they were saying, but it was kind of muffled. And then I heard what sounded like Mom crying, and Dad sounded angry. “

“What about you, Terri?” I had my radio on pretty loud, and I didn’t hear anything. When the cops left, one of them slammed the door hard, and that’s when I came down to find out what was going on. Mom and Dad looked really upset., Mom was crying. Irene was in there with them,  and tears were running down her face. She looked over at me, and I started crying even though I didn’t know what was going on.”

“Yeah, I remember that because that’s when Dad said Carol didn’t come home last night. We called her boyfriend’s house, and he didn’t come home either. I guess they ran off together. We called all of Carol’s friends, and they all said they didn’t see them last night and don’t know anything that could help us. That’s when we called the police. The police just told us that they would put an All-Points Bulletin out. And they suggested we start posting pictures of Carol around town to see if anyone had talked to her or her boyfriend and might know where they planned to go. I guess the police are going over to the boy’s house now to talk to the parents.”

Mom and Dad kept calling the police every couple of weeks, but the police never found them, Nor did they have any idea where they went. The officer contacted all the police in the state, and then later, the FBI got involved, but as far as I know, they never found any trace of them.

We didn’t talk about it anymore because Mom got so upset. And Dad would be angry for days when we did. So, after a while, we all stop talking about Carol. As if she never existed. Every once in a while, one of the kids at school would say, “Hey, did you ever hear from Carol?” We never did, and after a few years, no one asked anymore.

“So, life just went on as if Carol never existed. And now we hear from Aislee that up until recently, Carol was alive. Why the hell wouldn’t she contact us? What happened to her? I can’t believe this. On the other hand, I’m glad I finally talked to you guys about it. Sometimes I used to think Carol was a figment of my imagination since no one ever talked about her. Even when Mom and Dad grew old, they never mentioned her. And I couldn’t find any pictures of Carol in our photo album.”

“Oh, Dad got rid of all the pictures because Mom would spend whole days staring at the pictures of Carol and crying. After Dad died five years ago, when I went through his personal items, I found a picture of you, me, Irene, and Carol when we were young in Dad’s wallet. I still have it.”

“You have it. Do you have it with you?”

“Yes, it’s in my wallet in my purse. Hold on; I’ll go get it.”

“Here, Kathleen, here it is. That’s Carol holding you in her lap.”

I took one look, and tears started streaming down my face. “Yes, yes, that’s her. She looked just like Mom. Then we all started crying and hugging each other. Kathleen said, you know, we could post this picture on the internet and see if anyone recognizes her. I don’t know how helpful it would be since she was just a kid in this picture. I could post a picture with the story of her disappearance and see if anyone knew her. It couldn’t hurt.”

“You know, it feels better to talk about Carol out loud. I thought of her so much over the years. And I wondered what happened to her. Why didn’t she try and contact any of us in all these years since she only died recently? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I agree, Terri. It doesn’t make sense. But we were all really young back then, and we didn’t really know what was going on with her. Maybe she got pregnant or something, or she was doing drugs. Let’s try and see if we can find someone that might have to know her. And you know what else? I bet some of her old high school friends might have pictures of her in high school, and then we can post them. What do you say?”

“I say, let’s go for it. Tomorrow I will call the High School office and see if they have records going that far back and get a list of the kids in her class. And then I’ll check out the internet and see if any of them are still living in the area or maybe some of their relatives still live in town, and I can talk to them. What do you say?”

“Let’s go for it, Kathleen, do it. I’ll help. Once you get the list, I’ll take half and start making calls.”

“Hey, me too, you guys, we’ll all do it.”

And that is how we began our search for our long-lost sister, and in the end, that was what brought us all together more than once a year. We realize that we were a family, and we needed one another through thick and thin. So, our sister, Carol, was the reason we are now a more loving and caring family.

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BOOMER

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Twins Susie on the left & Karen on the right

“Yeah, I have to confess I was born a long time ago. No, not in the caveman days, as you seem to think. But, in the 1950s. You don’t have to bug your eyes out like that. You are young, so young that your Wisdom Teeth haven’t fully erupted yet. Why don’t you sit down and let me tell you a story, and maybe you can come to a better understanding of why people my age have a different perspective than your generation does.”

Many people have described my generation’s childhood as idyllic. And in some ways, it was idyllic. That is if you only scratch the surface. And secondly, even though most middle and working-class people lived in similar homes, most kids attended public school. It doesn’t mean that everyone’s childhood was perfect. Every family was different than you might realize.

I grew up in the small town of Maple Shade. It could have been any small town in America. But mine was in New Jersey on the other side of the Ben Franklin Bridge from Philadelphia. Most families were large. There were six children in my family. Why you may ask would anyone want six kids? There was a reason for that, lack of adequate birth control. And the fact that many families were either Irish or Italian and therefore Catholic. And the Catholic church put the onus on birth control.

In other words, if you were Catholic, you were forbidden to use artificial means of birth control, including condoms. They did allow the rhythm method of birth control that meant keeping track of when the woman ovulates. This was not a guarantee of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. As I have explained, many families were large. I had friends who had fourteen siblings in their families. When the birth control pill was first made available, only married women were allowed to get it with their husbands. Doctors would not prescribe birth control to single women.

I recall when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old, my mother confided to me that when she was younger, she envied women in town who only had two children. I can remember being somewhat taken aback by her statement since I was number six in our family. It made me feel like she thought I was a burden that she wished she hadn’t had. I don’t think she meant to hurt my feelings. She was expressing how she felt being a mother of a large family. Still, her statement hurt me.

My mother was a kind and caring person. She put all her energy into being a parent and wife, which left precious little for herself. I rarely saw her sit down. In fact, even at meals, if she took the time to sit down and eat with us. She would get up and down, wait on everyone, and clean the table off and wash the dishes. She never asked for help, and none was offered. She wasn’t a great cook, but she was a great baker of cakes and cookies. Almost all the meat was fried except for roasts, which we had once a week on Sundays. She fried the meat in the bacon fat leftover from the bacon she fried on Sunday mornings.

The rest of the time she spent cleaning the house, endless washing of clothes, and ironing. I remember coming home from school, and she would be standing at the ironing board ironing the seemingly bottomless basket of clothes and sheets. There was no wash and wear clothes back then.

My mother was a quiet woman; she would listen while I recounted my school day. She undoubtedly grew tired of my complaints of how I hated schools and the nuns that taught me. Since from my perspective, they were mean spirited. In reality, they were overcrowded with fifty or sixty students in each classroom. Whenever I had a  difficult day and had been punished for one reason or another, my mother would offer to go up to school and talk to the nun in question. That would put an end to my complaints for a while. Since I was terrified at the thought, she might tell the nuns what I had said. And I believed they would go to even more extraordinary lengths to punish me. I had already been locked in the boiler room all day, had my head banged hard on the blackboard, told I was stupid daily. And compared unfavorably to my sister.

Now you may think this was just because I attended a private school. But no, corporal

high school graduation picture

Susan Culver- high school graduation picture

punishment was the norm in all schools in those days. And so was verbal abuse.

“Oh, you want to know if I have any good memories. Yes, plenty. Because my mother and most mothers back then were so overworked, they didn’t have time to micromanage their children. We were often told to “go outside and make sure you are home on time for lunch or dinner.”

And the fact is, neither my father nor my mother ever questioned what I was doing or where I went. If my mother said, what did you do today?” I would answer, “I was out riding my bike with my friends.” And no further questions were asked. Even if I had been gone for five or six hours, I guess it was all a part of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell mindset of their generation.

And believe me, they should have asked, because my friends and I would ride all over the place on our bikes. Sometimes several towns away. We used to sneak into swimming pools at the hotels on route 73, which were only a fifteen-minute bike ride from my house. I used to like to take long walks by myself and often talk to people I didn’t know. If someone asks me if I would like to come in and have a cookie, I would say,” Sure, I love cookies.” And off I would go with strangers. Luckily, no one ever hurt me. My parents never ask what were you doing all day? If we came back alive, then all was good in their minds.

There was no stranger- danger back then, no fingerprinting; on the other hand, the schools did have a bike safety lesson, so we all knew we were supposed to ride our bikes on the right-hand lane. So, there was that; we were completely unprepared.

And corporal punishment wasn’t off the table if you got into any terrible trouble, like talking back to the teachers or your father. Suppose you didn’t have a desire to live longer. Talk back to your father, and even I never did that. Well, I did talk under my breath, but my father was partially deaf and didn’t hear me.

We weren’t given an allowance, so if you wanted to buy anything, you had to become an entrepreneur at an early age. I started babysitting when I was about eleven. I loved little kids, but I really didn’t have any experience since I was the youngest in my family. It was a learn on the job kind of thing.

I used to walk all over town and pick-up soda bottles. Then I would take them to the local store and turn them in for either 2 cents or 5 cents. After I got the money, I would spend it on candy at Schuck’s. It was a store that sold candy, hoagies and had a soda fountain, and had a Jute Box in a separate room, and the teenagers used to dance in there.

You could say that my generation was the first to recycles glass bottles and then spend it at local stores, which benefited everyone. Plus, we picked up the glass bottles that were left in the street.

If I didn’t spend the money on candy, I would feed my addiction to comic books. I was a die-hard enthusiast for Superheroes and Wendy the Witch, and Casper the Ghost. I used to buy them and then sneak them into the house. Before I graduated from grade school, my father found my comics stash and it was the last I ever saw of them. Of course, I never questioned him. Since I wasn’t interested in my father being angry. You didn’t want to see my father angry, believe me. It was a terrifying sight.

When it was time for me to enter high school, my parents decided to continue our Catholic School education. We had to take a test to get into the Catholic high school. There were two Catholic High Schools, Saint Mary of the Angels Academy and Holy Cross. By some miracle, I passed both tests. My parents thought an all-girl school was the best choice.  So away, I went to four years at St. Mary of the Angels Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. I wasn’t a good student as I rarely put much effort into schoolwork or homework due to being told how stupid I was since first grade by the nuns and my father. So, I thought, why bother? I won’t be able to do it anyway. I had no self-confidence at all.

People try to keep in mind if and when you have children that children believe what you tell them about themselves. If you tell your child he or she is stupid repeatedly, they believe you.

In my senior year, the Principal of St. Mary’s Sister Eileen Marie called me into her office and told me they had found a job as a dental assistant for me in a nearby town. Since I had nearly all the credits I needed to graduate; I started working part-time there until I graduated. And so, I did, and I worked there until I was twenty-one or so.

I found out that I was indeed quite competent, capable, organized, friendly, and outgoing. And the most surprising thing of all I realized that I was not stupid as just about every adult told me most of my life, but I highly intelligent. I believe Sister Eileen Marie had insight into me that even I wasn’t aware of until I started working. And also, Sister Venard taught me French for four years. She encouraged me and assured me repeatedly that I was indeed capable of learning French. And here I am some fifty years later, still able to read and write French to some degree. And for these two dear sisters who believed in me, thank you.

And so, straight out of high school, I had a full-time job that taught me many things, including a sense of responsibility, being organized, and be reliable and trustworthy. And I believe I have done just that my entire life. I have always given my all to every job to every commitment I ever made.

When my parents were in their last years, my mother developed dementia, and my father was diagnosed with lung cancer and emphysema. These were long, sad, painful days. They passed away eight months apart.

The years when my children were young, and I watched them grow and learn and hopefully taught them what they needed to know in life and left them with some happy memories that will remain with them long after I’m gone. I was fortunate to learn what intelligent and incredibly talented people they would become.

At thirty-six, I decided to go to college. I didn’t have the opportunity to do that at the traditional age out of high school. My parents didn’t have the money, and at the time, I wasn’t inclined to go to school when I graduated from high school. Then, my father believed and shared with me that it was a waste to send girls to college since they would end up just getting married and having children. This was not an unusual belief for fathers in 1969. Girls and young women were not looked at as people that really needed higher education.

I prepared a portfolio of my work and applied at three different schools: Temple University, Moore College of Art also in Philadelphia (an all-girl university and Hussian School of Art, which was at a school that concentrated on graphic arts and illustration. I was accepted into all three schools. I was offered a full scholarship for my first year at Temple and grants for some of the three years after that. I never made a better choice than going to school. It was hard because my children were relatively young, my oldest was six, and my youngest was three. I graduated in the top 10% of the entire Temple graduating class in 1991 with a double major in Graphic Arts and Art Education with a teaching certificate when I was forty-years-old.

If I had a wish, it would have been that my parents were still alive to see me graduate. I wonder what my father might have said to me on my graduation day.

After graduating from college with a teaching degree, I found out that schools were phasing out art in schools across the North East, and retiring teachers were not being replaced. I was unable to find a teaching position. It was beyond discouraging.

I decided to find a job helping children. I worked at a residential treatment program in Alloway and New Jersey called Ranch Hope. I was a houseparent responsible for kids from the inner city, Camden, NJ. The courts had adjudicated them. These were boys at risk because of poverty, drugs, gang violence, family problems, or kids who grew up in foster care tossed from one family to another. When I left, I was the Assistant Supervisor in Turrel cottage with fifteen boys ages fourteen to seventeen. Also, I took these boys to Scared Straight Programs in Federal and State Prisons to speak to prisoners and hopefully learn from their experiences.

My next position was in Camden, NJ. At Project Cope, I worked with five churches with kids at risk and matched them to mentors in the churches. I also visited all the prisons in South Jersey and Philadelphia area to talk to incarcerated parents about their at-risk children.

And now here I am thirty years later after a lifetime of hard work of being a wife, mother, student, and advocate. I’m retired, it’s true. In the last four years, I have become politically active. My husband Bob and I were volunteer Captains working in Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign for President. During the last election, I was a volunteer for the Democrats in Johnston County here in NC.

I  started this blog in 2018 and wrote one or two stories a week since that first story was published. I volunteered in the NC courts protecting at-risk children with the Guardian ad litem. And I volunteer three days a week at an animal sanctuary taking care of exotic birds for the past four years.

I look to the young people to take the torch I and the rest of my generation carried, and it’s time to pass it on. And know that I and the majority of my generation worked hard, did what we thought was right. I know we made mistakes along the way. And we tried but did not always succeed in leaving the part of the world we lived in a better place. Nothing was ever handed to us. We worked for it every day.

Please try not to judge us too harshly. Know that most of us did the best we could and forgive us for our mistakes along the way. Be aware that your generation and the ones that come after you will judge you as you are doing to us; your generation will make its share of mistakes and realize as you get older.

And here I am now in the Winter of my life and have concluded that overall, I have lived a good life with ups and downs as everyone has. There had years when things were so bad that I didn’t want to get up out of bed, but I did anyway.

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TICK-TOCK, TICK TOCK

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The last two years have by far been the most difficult years in my entire life.  I’m not trying to be overly dramatic or garner attention or sympathy. I’m just stating the truth. Yes, I’m speaking from my perspective. Who’s else would I speak from?

Home in Moorestown, NJ

First, my mother developed terminal cancer, and then my father started exhibiting memory issues that worsened over time. I’m an only child, and there was no one else to help me. In addition, I have a high-pressure job. I couldn’t just stop working and stay home with my parents. Who was going to pay the bills?

After my mother passed away, I had to make the difficult decision to place my father in an assisted living residence. I wasn’t selfish. I

was practical. The day-to-day care of my father as he declined was more than I could handle. I was exhausted. Sometimes, he would roam around the house at night and come into my room crying that he wanted to kill himself or just come in and wake me up several times a night.

I never got enough sleep. I had to bathe him and change him several times a day because he became incontinent. He had to be watched while he ate. Because sometimes he forgot to chew his food and would choke on it. You can’t possibly understand how stressful and exhausting it was unless you experienced it yourself.

I made the decision that was the best for both of us. He was safe. And caring people took care of him twenty-four hours a day. I saw him as often as possible. He passed away after six months while he was living in the nursing home. After he fell and broke his hip, I did the best I could; it wasn’t my fault that he fell.

My script is due in less than a week, and I can’t afford to be late. On the other hand, I don’t want to send in a script that will be rejected. I have a reputation to uphold. I’m running out of capital, and so I’ve been writing non-stop scripts hoping that one or all of them might get approved and get me back in the black and out of the red.

Being a writer is not an easy job, not by any means. You spend a lot of time alone. Writing is a lonely job. Then there’s the additional bugaboos, procrastination, and writer’s block.

My biggest problem is procrastination. I can find reasons to delay writing for hours, days even. After all, I’m a creative guy. I have to take Al to the park. He hasn’t been anywhere except in the backyard for a week. I need a haircut. I have to get a haircut; I’m starting to look like a hippie. I haven’t had a decent meal for a week; I go out to lunch with a friend. This takes care of loneliness and hunger at the same time, a twofer. Unfortunately, I like to have a shot or two or three when I go out to lunch. And that tends to put a dent in both my creativity and my typing.

If I’m able to get past the procrastination, the blank page can deter me for quite a while. But eventually, eventually I get an idea and type away, and before you know it, I’ve finished the script or the screenplay, the short story, or even the book.

But it doesn’t look like today is going to be one of those days. I’m staring at the laptop screen, and I find myself humming “Troubled Waters.” And then, out of the blue, there’s a loud knocking at the door. It startles me so much that I scream out, “holy shit.” And then I laugh at myself. Who do I think it is, the bogyman? Or the bill collector? No, it can’t be that no one really sends out bill collectors anymore.

Well, that’s not entirely true once last year, I fell six months behind in my car payment, and they came and towed my rental car away. I have terrible credit. I’m not entirely reliable in either paying my bills on time because of lack of funds or just plain undependable, I guess. I make good money when I work. But as I said, I have a problem with procrastination and the fear of the white page.

I hear the knocking again. It is more insistent and louder. Al starts barking in earnest and goes so far as to stand up and look towards the sound of the knocking. Al isn’t a very energetic dog. He sleeps about fifteen hours a day. But the loud knocking keeps disturbing his naptime. Finally, we both get up and head toward the front door. Al takes the lead, barking the whole way. If you ever heard a Basset Hound bark, you know it’s no joke. It can be loud and resonates through the whole house. The knocking continues.

We arrive at the front door, and I look out the glass windows on the door. I see a brown cap. He’s still knocking. I quickly unlock the door with one hand and pull it open. I hold Al by his collar with my other hand. A surly face is on the other side of the door. “I have a delivery. You have to sign for it.”

I grab the clipboard and quickly scribble my illegible signature. And then he hands me a small package. I take it and shut the door. “Asshole,” I say to the closed door.

Al and I retreat to the living room, and I sit down on the couch, and Al lies down on the area rug and falls asleep in moments. I will never understand how dogs can fall asleep in a single moment. I envy him.

I carefully open up the small package. Inside I find a key. It looks old. Like the kind of key that my grandparents had on their doors. The one that could open all the exterior doors. I think they used to call it a Skeleton Key.

The key is taped on a handwritten note. It bears the legend; this key is for the house that belongs to you now. You are the last living member of the family now. If you have received this key, it is because I am no longer among the living. There is a signature on the note, but it isn’t legible, no phone number, just an address. 2567 Crofton Way, Moorestown, New Jersey. It sounds familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

“Come on, Al, let’s go have lunch, and then I will try and find out what this is all about.” Al doesn’t answer me. Al isn’t much of a talker, probably because Al is a Basset Hound.

And then the two of us head toward the kitchen. I sure could use a strong hot coffee right now. I pour dry dog food into Al’s bowl and make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Whenever I’m stressed, I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Probably harkens back to my long-ago childhood days. I spread the peanut butter twice as thick. And I pour myself a steaming hot coffee. I’ll be the first to admit I am addicted to caffeine. Al looks up at me as if to say, any dessert?”

“No, that’s it, Al. How about I let you out in the backyard to relieve yourself.” Al looks up at me with his sad Basset eyes as if I’m asking him for a payday loan. He reluctantly heads toward the back door. I hold it open, and he goes out into the yard and is soon consumed with smelling all the smells. A Basset Hound is really all about the nose and smelling.

I pick up my phone and google the address. And Google magically comes up with the information that the address is the former home of none other than Cecile Menlo, my mother’s brother, who has apparently passed away.

Cecile Menlo, wow, now that’s a blast from the past. I scrounge up a memory of my long-ago childhood. I have to dust it off it was that old. I drink down the first cup of coffee quickly and scorch my throat. I pour a second one and sip it ever so slowly as my childhood memory comes flooding back to me.

It was in the mid-sixties I was in middle school. And that my friends were a long, long time ago. But still, those are the years of my life that I always felt I were the happiest. The endless summers with no responsibilities, swimming at the lake or my neighborhood friends above ground pools, riding my bike all over town. As long as I was home for meals on time, no one questioned my whereabouts or what I had been up to.

And then there were the summers I spent with my uncle Cecile Menlo. He lived in a house in Moorestown, NJ; it was so enormous, so over the top, it was hard to believe it was real. He had made big money as one of the original investors at RCA in Moorestown, NJ. RCA was a large facility that developed and manufactured government apparatus. And eventually became a division of RCA Government and Commercial Systems.

My uncle retired at forty, which was unheard of since most people worked until they turned sixty-five or older. Summers at his house were a kid’s dream come true. He had several pools and tennis courts and property so immense it would take hours, if not days, to see it all. He used to show movies on a screen so large that it felt like you were at the movie theater. He had horses, and I used to ride all over the property. My friends would come over, and we would play crocket or swim or hide and seek. His Fourth of July parties were out of this world. He had fireworks that could be seen all over Moorestown by everyone that lived there.

My uncle was a big influence on me as a child. He taught me self-confidence and said if I worked hard enough and long enough I could achieve anything, I set my mind to it. He was the one adult that encouraged my creativity. Everyone else thought spending most of my time writing stories was a waste of time: even my parents, but not my Uncle Cecile.

As I sit here thinking about those summers with my uncle, I wonder how I ever lost contact with him, he meant so much to me as I was growing up. Why did I drift away from him? And then I remembered that when I first achieved some fame with the first books I got published, I let go of all the people from my past and left them behind. I made new friends with the rich and famous.

I vaguely remember that my Uncle reached out to me over the years, and I never contacted him. I was too important, too busy to care about an old relative. And now here I am, all alone in a house struggling to make ends meet. Struggling because I don’t have the self-discipline to work hard and work smart like my uncle always told me to do.

And here he was, reaching out from the great beyond once more to give me yet another opportunity to do better. And to lift me out of my self-indulgence and self-pity. I have to admit to myself that I don’t deserve his help, but I need it. And this time, I decide I will do the right thing. I’m sure I don’t need a huge house and property. But I could sell the house pay my bills, get back on my feet. And then invest whatever money is left to help kids like I was. Kids who needed someone to care about them and mentor them and encourage them to realize that they too have what it takes to make something of themselves when everyone and everything around them says differently.

I pick up the phone and call the lawyer whose name and number are on the letter I received. “Hello, could I speak to Taylor Brown. My name is Johnathan Cummings. I received a letter and key this morning stating that I was the sole beneficiary of a house that once belonged to my Uncle Cecile Menlo in Moorestown, New Jersey. Would you possibly have time to speak to me in the next couple of days about this inheritance?”

“Tomorrow at one o’clock would be perfect, thank you. I will see you then.” I hear Al scratching and howling at the door, and I go over and let him in. He rubs his neck against my leg. He does this to put his scent on me. So, all the other dogs know I belong to him. But to tell you the truth, Al is my best friend. “Al, guess what, tomorrow we’re going to take a road trip, and you’re going to get to see a place where I spent the best years of my life when I was a kid at my Uncle Cecile’s house in New Jersey.”

Al looks up at me with his big, sad eyes and his doggy smile and lets out a howl. I lean over and hug him. And say, “who’s the best dog in the world, Al? You are Al, you are. And I smile at him and feel the best I’ve felt in years.

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TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

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I met someone so unique and so special. She changed me for the better. And it all began with her smile.

I met her by chance, really. If I had arrived at the park an hour earlier or an hour later, our paths might never have crossed. I recently moved to the area and didn’t know a soul. I had been unemployed for several months. And then finally, finally, I received a call asking if I was still interested in a job I had applied for two months before. 

I barely remember applying for the job. I could paper the walls with all the rejection letters I received for my job applications. Anyway, I think this job has something to do with selling high-risk auto insurance. Not my dream job, of course, but when you’re desperate and need to pay your rent and keep body and soul together, you can’t afford to be that picky.

The interview is scheduled for today at ten o’clock sharp. They told me not to come too early or late because they had interviews scheduled back to back. I decided it would be better to arrive early and wait than to arrive late and miss out on my job interview.

I had to take public transportation to get to the office for the job interview. My car broke down several weeks ago. It turned out that the transmission needed to be replaced. I don’t have the money in hand, nor did I have a credit card that isn’t maxed out.

I took the bus across town that would bring me closest to my destination. As I arrived,i t started to drizzle. I glanced at my watch and realized I was a half-hour early for my appointment. I didn’t bring my umbrella, so I just pulled my jacket hood up over my head.

As I stepped down from the bus, I noticed a park bench that was situated under a large flowering tree and thought it might offer some protection from the rain until it was time for my interview.

I walked across the grass towards the tree, and I noticed there was someone about to sit down on the bench. The rain started coming down harder, and I picked up my pace and ran toward the bench.

I was out of breath by the time I arrived and more than a little damp. I plopped down on the bench and took a deep breath. I kept thinking, why, oh why do I have such bad luck?

Apparently, I said it out loud without realizing it, and the girl sitting next to me turned toward me and said, “Hello, my name is April. How are you today?”

I was somewhat taken aback by her appearance at first. She had straight brown hair, parted in the middle, with bangs high above her eyebrows. Her eyes looked somewhat unusual. They were tilted up somewhat. At first, I thought she might be Asian. But I couldn’t put my finger on just what made her face so unusual.

I’m not the most socially outgoing person, and ordinarily, I don’t feel comfortable talking to strangers. But there was something about her face, her smile that is so welcoming, so endearing that I couldn’t imagine not answering her. She seems so open, so innocent somehow. Although I can see now as  I‘m looking at her more closely, she isn’t a child at all but a young adult. She has narrow shoulders. Her hands are small, almost like a child’s, and folded in her lap. And I can see that she’s petite, less than five feet tall.

She smiles again, a sweet smile. The smile reaches her eyes. I smile back at her. Her smile is contagious. I can’t remember the last time I smiled. I have been so distracted by my unemployment and lack of funds in the last months.

I have always been told I was reticent. In other words, I’m not the type of person that starts having conversations with people I don’t know. I realize now that’s probably the reason I haven’t made any friends since I moved here.

I say, “hello, April, my name is Jeanie.” At first, I’m so shocked by the fact that I’ve spoken to her that I laugh out loud. And then she laughs too. Then, we were both laughing at what I don’t know.

She says, “I have an umbrella.” And she picks up her umbrella that had been resting next to her feet. “Would you like to share it with me?”

“Really? Yes, I really would. I have a job interview across the street in about a half-hour.  I forgot my umbrella, and I really don’t want to go in there soaking wet.”

She smiles again and moves closer to me so I can share her umbrella. I hear her humming under her breath. It sounds like When April Showers Bring May Flowers. I can’t remember all the lyrics but I find myself humming along with her.

She looks over at me and says, “I hope you get the job.”

“Thank you, I hope I do too, I really need it.:

She says, “I will keep my fingers crossed for you.”

I smile at her again. I can’t remember the last time anyone said that to me. Probably when I was a kid. In fact, there’s something childlike about her. As if she hadn’t been tainted by the thousand negative experiences, we all have as we grow from children to adults.

I look over at her, and I can hear her still humming quietly to herself as she looks around the park. I look in the direction she’s staring, and I realize she’s watching three kids about eight or nine years old. They’re swinging on the swings and going up and down the sliding board, over and over again. They keep yelling out “yey” every time they slide down the sliding board.

I can see her mouthing “yey” when the girls yell. She seems to be enjoying it almost as much as they do. I watch her in wonder and think who is this young woman?

After about fifteen minutes of watching the kids, I realize I better be on my way to my interview. I stand up and say,” April, I just want to say thank you for sharing your umbrella with me. I enjoyed meeting you so much.”

“Oh, do you have to go?”

“Well, April I have to go on that job interview I was talking about earlier. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck, Jeanie. I  know for sure you’ll get that job.”

I headed toward my interview with a lighter heart than I had arrived and sat down on the bench in the park. I walk across the street to the office building through the swinging doors and up to the receptionist’s desk.

“Hello, my name is Jeanie Haskell. I have an appointment with Mr. Peabody for a job interview.”

“Oh, yes Ms. Haskell, I see a note here, it says you are to go straight to his office. His office is number 254. Just take the elevator up to the second floor and make a right and walk down the hall until you see office number 254.”

“Thanks so much. Wish me luck I’m applying for a job.”

She looks up at me and smiles, good luck Ms. Haskell, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

I wave at her and smile and walk toward the elevator across the room. As I walk over there, I start thinking what in the world is going on with me? Wish me luck.

And then I think, well, she was so friendly to me, maybe because I talked to her like she’s a person just like I am. Everyone wants to be treated with respect and kindness. In the past, I rarely talked to people unless I absolutely had to. I was always afraid that they would ignore me or reject me. Maybe I’m the one that has to change how I interact with people I meet.

I arrive on the second floor without any incident. I’ve always been somewhat frightened by elevators. I hate the closed space, and the possibility that it might fall and crash and I’ll be killed. And then I start laughing because even if it fell it would only go to the first floor or maybe the basement and I wouldn’t die.

The elevator doors open after the bell rings and I step out and look from right to left. I see an office marked 254 to my right and walk over to it. I take a deep breath and open the door. I walk over to the receptionist and say, “Good afternoon, my name is Jeanie Haskell. I have an appointment with Mr. Peabody.”

“Yes, we’re expecting you. You’re right on time. Do you have your resume with you?”

“Yes, I have it right here.” And I take it out of my purse and hand it to her.

“Well, Miss Haskell, have a seat it will just be a few minutes.”

“Thank you.” And then I sit down across the room from her desk. I take a deep breath. And I say to myself, so far, so good. At least the waiting room isn’t packed with twenty other people applying for the same job.

About five minutes later, the receptionist called out my name. “Ms. Haskell, Mr. Peabody will see you now.”

I walk up to Mr. Peabody’s door, and as I’m about to open it, I turn around and say, “thank you, Miss Turner.” I had noticed her nameplate sitting on her desk.

“Good luck, Ms. Haskell.”
I knock quietly on the door. And I hear a deep male voice call out, “Come right in.”

I take a deep breath and quietly pull the door open. There’s a thirty-something man sitting at his desk, which is piled high with folders. “Good morning you must be Ms. Haskell, have a seat.”

“So, thank you for coming in today. I see here in your resume that you have some experience that might be beneficial to my business. However, there has been a recent gap in your work history. Would you care to explain that?”

“Well, my mother was sick, and I had to take considerable time off to take care of her. And then I couldn’t find a job. Well, that’s not entirely true, I found quite a few openings but there was so much competition for the jobs. I had that big employment gap and that made it more difficult to get hired.”

“Yes, I can see how that would and does happen. Do you feel that you are able to be a reliable employee now? Or do you think you will still be missing work because of your mother’s health issues?”

“No, I don’t. My mother passed away. And that is when I began searching for a job full-time. But I haven’t had any luck. I promise you I will be a reliable and trustworthy employee. I’m a hard worker.”

“Yes, I can see that all your past employers said you had been a highly reliable and diligent worker. Have you ever sold high-risk auto insurance.? I don’t recall seeing that on your resume.”

“No, but I have had jobs with customer service and sales. And I don’t think that selling high-risk auto insurance would be that different from my past work experience.”

“I agree, are you able to start working immediately, say this coming Monday?”

“Yes, I can start today, if you like.”

“No, I think Monday would be just fine. Would you ask Ms. Turner to give you the forms that you will need to fill out before you leave? I look forward to working with you Ms. Haskell. I’ll see you at 9 am sharp on Monday.”

As I left his office I sighed with relief. I somehow feel lighter and less weighed down by worry. When I arrive at Ms. Turner’s desk, she said,” Well, Congratulations Ms. Haskell. “I had a good feeling about you. Here’s the paperwork. You can sit over at that desk and fill out the papers and then bring them back to me.”

“Thank you, Ms. Turner. I’ll take care of that right now.”

After I finished the paperwork, I brought it back to Ms. Turner with a big smile on my face. Thanks so much. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Thank you too, by the way, my name is Kerry. I look forward to it.”

“See you then, Kerry.”

I take the elevator down to the first floor. Honestly, I feel twenty pounds lighter. As I walk across the street, I decide to talk to the young woman sitting on the bench. She waves at me as I came closer to her.

“Hi!” she says with that smile of hers that goes from ear to ear.

“Hello, I just wanted to let you know that I got the job. She smiles again and says, “I was about to eat my lunch. I have two peanut butter sandwiches; would you like one?”

“Well, I didn’t have any breakfast. Are you sure?”

“Yes, I always bring an extra one for a friend, just in case. You can sit here with me and eat it.”

“I would love that, April. I haven’t had lunch with a friend for a long time. Do you eat here often?”

“Well, yes I do, I come here for about an hour every day until it’s time for me to take the bus home. Here’s your sandwich, and you can share my drink too.”

I take the sandwich gratefully. ” Thanks, April. So tell me about yourself. How far do you live from here?”

I take the 424 bus until I get to my street and then I get off and walk a block to the second building on the left number 63 Harrington St.”

“Oh, this sandwich is great, I don’t remember the last time I had peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I used to eat it all the time when I was a kid. Thanks, April. Maybe we could eat together again sometime. I’ll bring lunch. What do you say?”
“I say great, I like cheese too, or peanut butter and jelly.”

“Well, how about next Monday at noontime? When  I have my lunch break?”

“Yes, I would like that. It’s good to make a new friend.”

“Yes, yes, it is April, and today was my lucky day when I met you and got a new job. I think you are my lucky charm from now on. I’ll see you then.”

As I walk toward my bus stop, I turn around and wave at April she’s watching the kids again, I wave at her and smile. I realize she’s the one who put a smile back on my face. I look forward to spending more time with her. I find myself humming When April Showers Bring May flowers and smiling from ear to ear.

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California Dreaming

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It was in the Spring of 1976 when my husband Bob and I moved from Jupiter, Florida to California. Bob decided that he wanted to become a professional photographer. And to that end, he had applied to Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. We were living in Jupiter, Florida at the time. He was put on a waiting list for two years.

This is me and co-worker Stacy Smitter at St. Vincent’s in 1976

During the time that we waited to move to California, I worked at Colonnades Health Center on Singer Island. It was located in a hotel owned by John D. Mac Arthur. America’s second-richest man, owner of a $1 billion empire of insurance companies, land in eight states, including 100,000 acres in Florida, and investments as varied as Alamo car rental and MacArthur Scotch.

I was working at a spa, giving facials to wealthy people from all over the world. I often saw Mac Arthur while I was sitting at the reception desk in the Spa. There was a huge window on the wall facing the reception area. And an Olympic size pool just on the other side of the window and MacArthur would walk around the pool area or sitting at the poolside with his nurse. He was nearly eighty at the time and quite frail-looking. But he still admired the beautiful ladies lying out in the sun.

One day his nurse brought him into the spa for a massage and a facial. Luckily, I didn’t give massages only facials. I knew he was the owner of the hotel and a wealthy man. However, I treated him the same as any other client with respect and kindness.

I was paid about four dollars an hour while I worked at the Colonnades Health Center which was considered to be quite generous in 1976. As the minimum wage pay was $2.30 an hour at the time. So, I was able to save all the money I made during the two years that I worked there. And we had enough money for our trip to California and rent for a year. And in addition, I purchased a van for Bob and a tripod for his view camera that was required at Brooks Institute.

We were notified by Brooks Institute when Bob would be able to begin his classes. So, Bob gave his employers Pratt and Whitney United Technologies his notice. At that time, he was working as a New System Coordinator for IBM components.

These are some of my kids at St. Vincent’s during Special Olympics

I will always remember the trip across the country from Jupiter, Florida to Santa Barbara. The only other trip I took across the country was when I moved from New Jersey to West Palm Beach Florida. I took the Auto Train from Lorton, Virginia to Sanford, Florida by myself. I was twenty-two at the time. It was a twenty-four-hour train ride. I never traveled anywhere except to the shore in Southern New Jersey.

Bob and I enjoyed our trip across the country. It wasn’t until I took that trip, I realized how big America was and how beautiful. Bob drove his 1969 Ford Econoline van and towed my 1970 yellow VW behind us. There were great expanses of unoccupied, undeveloped open land from Florida to California at the time. It was amazingly beautiful and unspoiled. It took us about ten days to drive to Santa Barbara from Florida.

Bob and I ended up renting a duplex in Lompoc, which was located in the mountains.

We lived there for about a year and then we rented an apartment in Carpentaria. They raised the rent and we had to move again and we found a place in Santa Barbara.

Two of the children in my group at St. Vincents

I found a job in Santa Barbara at Robinson’s Department Store. I worked there for a year. I sold hats and wigs. And if there was a job more boring than that one, I don’t want to know about it. I met a young woman my age while I was working there she told me she volunteered at a school called St. Vincent’s. She worked with mentally handicapped children. The more she talked about it, the more I wanted to work there. I loved kids and it sounded like the perfect job for me.

I did not hear from St. Vincent’s. So, after a week I started calling them every day for a month. After a month, they called me in and hired me. About a week later I started working a split shift from 6 am until 9 am and then the 3-11 PM shift five days a week. My title was houseparent. I was in charge of eighteen girls ages twelve to seventeen. In the morning I woke them up, supervised them while they got dressed, ate breakfast, made their beds, and got ready for school. I had to dispense any meds that they were on as well. The school was on the grounds. When it was time for school, I escorted them to school and then went back to the dorms and cleaned the kitchen, and made sure the bathrooms and dining area were in order.

In the afternoon I returned and walked over to the school on the other side of the campus and brought the kids back to the dorms after they were dismissed from school. On the way back to the dooms the kids would all attempt to tell me about their day and what kind if any homework they had to do. When we got to the dorms, they would change to their play clothes and do chores. I would check in on them to see how they were doing. And if they completed their chores, I would put a star on their star charts. Star charts were used as a behavioral modification to reinforce good behavior rather than punishing bad behaviors. It was quite effective for most of the children.

Special Olympics at St. Vincent’s School

If all the chores were completed, I would go to the office downstairs and sign out a van, and take all the kids out to go hiking or some kind of outside activity. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how much I enjoyed spending time with these kids. How much fun I had with them. And how much I came to love them. When we returned from our outings the kids would set the table for dinner and then watch TV or play games. On my day off I would take one of the kids out for the day and they would spend it with them. Sometimes, my husband, Bob would go with us. It was great fun and truthfully, they became family to me.

After dinner, the kids that had homework would do it. And the rest would begin getting showers and then watch TV the rest of the night. I would watch TV with them and we would all lie on the floor with pillows. What stands out in my memory the most is that all the kids wanted to lie on the floor close enough to me so that they could touch my hand or my shoulder. I understood that they missed the loving touch of their mothers, fathers, and siblings. And I was the closest thing they had to a family now at St. Vincent’s school.

On Sundays, the kitchen at St. Vincent’s was closed and I had to prepare their breakfast, lunch and dinner, and dessert for them. I would take one of the vans and take the kids out for the day. If it was summertime, I would take them swimming at the pool at the apartment complex where I lived. It was only about a ten-minute drive. If it was wintertime, I would drive them up to the mountains to play in the snow. It was great fun. We would sing on the bus trip to and from wherever we were going.

Shawna Stutzman one of the kids in my group at St. Vincents

Sometimes I wonder how I wasn’t overwhelmed by the responsibility of taking care of eighteen teenagers. But really, I wasn’t. I loved them through and through. I didn’t see their physical or mental shortcomings. I saw wonderful young girls who wanted to have fun and friends just like any other kids would want.

Of all the jobs I’ve had over my lifetime, this was the one that I enjoyed the most and looked forward to going to every day that I worked there. I never had another job where I felt more needed, more appreciated, and more loved.

They are the ones whose faces I can still summon up from my memory of long ago. If there is a time in my life that I would like to live over again, it would be this time with those wonderful girls who loved unconditionally and put everything they could to do as well as they were capable of doing. I often wondered what became of those kids? What kind of adults they grew into, were they able to support themselves? Did any of them live independently, get married, and have children?

I wrote them for a year or two after I moved back to New Jersey and some of them were able to write me back. Although they needed assistance from the house parents that cared for them. My time at St. Vincent’s was one of the best experiences in my entire life. And California will always be a place that I loved more than any place I lived in before or since.

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Taking A Week Off

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Hello Write On Followers,

I wanted to let you know that I am taking this week off and will be posting three of my most popular stories between Wednesday of this week and I will post a new story on Wednesday of next week.

Best Wishes, Susan A. Culver  Write ON 

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