SOME SHORT STORIES FOR
                         THESE DIFFICULT TIMES                                

                                            FELIZ NAVIDAD

             Diego Enrique and his wife Maria Alicia were tired virtually every night when they got home. They worked hard. Maria Alicia would pick up their little girls from daycare and the three of them would ride the bus to the tidy little apartment. 

        Diego found he could save several dollars a week by walking to his jobs.   Despite being tired from his regular job, his part time work at a little "mom and pop" market in a tough section of town was a financial necessity.  Maria Alicia always worried about the dangerous neighborhood where her Diego worked at his 2nd job, but the money allowed them to afford a much safer neighborhood than they’d had when they first moved to America. 

His main job was in an assembly plant for cheap furniture and he worked with several men who relied on Diego to translate English instructions into Spanish. His second job was in a bad neighborhood and Diego had been robbed and beaten once as he walked home and once when he closed the market on a Friday night.

Maria Alicia anxiously awaited Christmas because Diego’s final night at the second job was the night before Christmas.  He was able to quit the market job because he was starting a new position with his main employer.  The promotion included a good and much needed pay raise.  There would also be the opportunity for overtime work so he could give up the part-time job.

        Despite trying to obey the rules in their new country, what little savings they had brought with them had been used up for an immigration lawyer.  It was a records snafu but it was still costly to straighten out.  Also, the two illnesses their little girls had experienced not only took their meager savings, they were still making payments.   The doctor had kindly discounted his charges but the hospital and pharmacy expected full payment.

        Anarosa and Daniela were both under 5.  They didn’t understand a lot of things that went on but like the few little friends they had, they were mesmerized by Christmas excitement.

        By scrimping and saving, the parents were able to put the girls in an excellent day care center and preschool. Mrs. Jean Watkins owned a group of these very popular centers.  As Christmas approached, she and her office staff filled in for workers who were allowed time off for shopping.  She spoke fluent Spanish and enjoyed talking in both languages with the Enrique girls.  She helped them and the others write letters to Santa.  She’d often do this and then secretly share the letters with parents before the letters would be “sent off to the North Pole.”

        Anarosa and Daniela were wide eyed as they heard more stories about Santa. Their letter to him explained that they still had the very special dolls he’d brought them last time and didn’t need anything new.  They asked Santa if he could bring warm gloves and hats for their parents because they both had to stand out in the cold waiting for busses or walking to work.  They told Santa they really liked their new country but it was very cold compared to Mexico.  Anarosa added that their Daddy had a hat but it was lost the time he was hurt and robbed.

        “They took his gloves too, Santa.”

      Mrs. Watkins had a tear trickle from her eye as she wrote what the girls explained.  She didn’t share this letter and she smiled at the thought of not wanting to risk it getting lost on the way to the North Pole. She knew the Enriques were struggling financially. She went out and bought 4 hats and 4 pairs of gloves.  She made sure 2 of each were adult sizes.  She hatched a plot to deliver the gifts on the doorstep, ring the doorbell and run.

        Maria Alicia opened the door and found the present addressed to all of them.   She suspected Mrs. Watkins had done it.   They really didn’t know anyone else very well and the kids talked glowingly of her.

        Maria Alicia couldn’t wait for Diego to get home on Christmas Eve to tell him of the package.  She had hidden the package from the girls along with the sweatshirts and hair ribbons they had bought as presents for them. That afternoon she had purchased a little Christmas tree from the lot near their bus stop.  There were only a few trees left on the lot and the man sold Maria a scrawny one for just a dollar. She told the girls they would make decorations for the tree.

“This is the best Christmas there could ever be,” shouted Anarosa.

        Maria was mildly concerned when Diego didn’t arrive at his regular time.  Her apprehension grew when he became over an hour late.  Suddenly there was a knock and she hurriedly went to the door.  She didn’t even check the little peephole as she undid the security chain.  Her heart pounded as she opened the door and found Oliveira, one of Diego’s co-workers.

        “Maria, it was a sweep.  ICE raided the plant and took everyone.”

        “But Diego is legal, we have cards and he has ID.”

      “They took everyone’s wallets and purses and everything and threw them in a bag.  Maria, Diego and some of the men tried to explain and they used those Taser guns on them.  They dragged everyone off to an unmarked bus and no one knows where they took them.”

                        FOR THE LOVE OF HOLLY

My name is Holly Bond.  OK, add your joke.  My teachers were nice.  They gently teased me about being one of the Bond Girls.  It was a joke you had to explain to a lot of the kids in my generation.  James Bond was known as secret agent 007 and he had a series of glamorous girlfriends in his movies.  I was the fifth and final member of the girls from the Michigan Street Bond girls.  We also had 3 brothers but there were no Bond Boys in the movies.

My older sisters were athletes and I was no exception.  I always liked sports and my particular pursuits were basketball and track.  I didn’t set any records but it was fun.  Two of my sisters and two of my brothers actually got partial scholarships to college but I wasn’t at their skill level.  My parents treated us “second-stringers” like we were just as important as anyone.  Truthfully, all of my siblings were better athletes than I but I enjoyed playing.  Looking back, I can see that maybe I hid a little bit in athletics to avoid what I considered my failures at being real popular socially.  I mean, I had friends and a few dates but my siblings had all been very popular.

My dad called me princess and he had a cute nickname for each of us as we came along.  My parents were good parents.  There was not a lot of arguing and when it came to one of us challenging the rules, we generally were up against a united front.  I guess we all took our turn at being a little rebellious and Mom and Dad would sometimes make us laugh when we took an especially preposterous stance.  I love my mom and dad.  My sisters were cool and I could always go to them with problems when I was too embarrassed to talk to Mom.

By the time I hit high school as a freshman I had a brother who was junior class president and a prominent athlete and a sister who was a senior and co-captain of the basketball team when she wasn’t runner-up as homecoming queen.  Some of the older kids were in college and one had already married and presented 2 delighted grandparents with babies we all couldn’t get enough of.  I may be a little prejudiced but my niece and nephew just may be the 2 cutest and smartest babies ever. 

It was clear from day one I’d never be a great athlete.  Mom and Dad still drove me around to every event and while there weren’t many clippings, Dad added mine and all the pictures he took to the family scrapbook.  I worked hard to please them and while I sat the bench a lot, you’d have thought I was a star.  Mom always prepared a special pre-game meal for us on our game days.  I sometimes felt like the chief klutz of the Bond Girls (and boys) but you wouldn’t have known it from watching my family support me.

I wanted to think I was kind of cute but I was probably just real average looking. I tried to have a perky personality like my sisters but I guess I was a little self-conscious.  I didn’t exactly ever have a movie star’s figure. Dad always said I was a “knockout” but he was a dad and probably had to say stuff like that.

I wasn’t much into boys and dating.  I read a book in junior high about a girl who thought she was the ugliest girl in school even though she wasn’t.  In the story she would always say smart aleck things to anyone, especially boys, if they looked like they were trying to get to know her.  She pushed everyone away before they had a chance to push her away. I wasn’t that bad.  I had friends and I’d had a boy or two ask me out.   I didn’t try to drive anyone away but I wondered if I was doing it without realizing it.  The book I read said the girl was subconsciously trying to keep from getting rejected or having her feelings hurt.  She didn’t want to be embarrassed so she always struck first.

I tried to talk to one of my sisters about how I felt about myself.  Andrea had once been nominated for homecoming queen and she was really popular.  I told her I felt like I was dull looking with a zero personality.  She said everyone thinks that and she added, “In the back of my mind I’m always thinking that.”  I was stunned. I’d gone to her hoping for support and she said everyone thought I was dull looking with a zero personality including her.  I was crushed but suddenly she caught on and laughed. “No, no, I meant all of us think that about ourselves sometimes.” She assured me I was as pretty and interesting as any of my big shot classmates.  She said everyone secretly worries about stuff like that.  She said even she does. That really helped and I felt a lot more confident. I still had doubts but I knew I was in good company.  All in all, school was pretty good and I had a lot of fun.

I had a social life but I think my older brothers and sisters were the real social creatures of the family.  My girlfriends all had steady and/or serious boyfriends.  And they talked about how serious they were.  Sometimes it seemed like I was the only one without an active love (read: sex) life.  Mom had had “the talk” with me and I had the advantage of older sisters who schooled their little sister in all things she needed to know. Mom was pretty open about stuff and she told me to always be sure what I was doing was what I wanted to do, not what I was pressured to do. Ours was a progressive school district.  Sex education started in elementary school and by high school we’d heard the whole drill from condoms to STDs and beyond.

I was pretty sure I knew it all.  I just didn’t feel inclined to have the kind of serious boyfriend everyone felt was such a mark of belonging.  I had dates but I just never felt the excitement the videos said I needed to keep in control of if I was going to protect myself.

William and I dated my senior year.  He was also a senior and we both had missed a full year of schooling in elementary school due to illness.  We were both a year older than the other seniors and I probably had some stupid sense of urgency about turning the ripe old age of 19 as an old maid. We got a little serious once in a while.  I can’t say I was especially enjoying everything but it was a new experience to have someone be that interested in me. One night I finally decided to find out what all the excitement was about.  His parents were away and we were in their family room.  He was determined but I was willing too.  Romeo had a condom and he pulled it from his pocket and left it unopened on the table as we gyrated and maneuvered.  I tried to be eager and I don’t think he had to make a conscious effort to be excited.  It hurt and I wasn’t feeling anything like the Roman candles or skyrockets I’d expected.  Twice I reminded him of the condom and he agreed, grunted and continued what he was doing.  I finally used that great Bond Girl athleticism to get free of him and try to open and apply the condom as we had been taught in sex ed class.  In class we giggled as Mrs. Wallace had us practice putting a condom on a fairly large cucumber.  I’m not sure why she chose that particular vegetable.  Maybe it was to intimidate us or maybe that was all she had in the refrigerator that morning.  Those thoughts crossed my mind as I worked to equip my writhing “lover” and I wanted to giggle at the thought I was dealing with more of a carrot than a cucumber. I was struggling to accomplish the task when William, how shall I say this, when William “finished” his mission.  It was a mess and he groaned like the piano had suddenly fallen on him.  He tensed and I could only think about how we’d hide the evidence of our “love affair for one.”  I eventually just reversed the couch cushions, hoping our encounter would go unnoticed until I was long out of the picture.  Prince Charming took the princess home after we rearranged clothes and put throw pillows back in place.  I honestly felt nothing good or bad and had no problem returning William’s good night kiss. I went to sleep assuring myself it would probably be a lot better when I met the right guy.

We dated several times and made love twice more.  Well, actually, he had sex with me twice.  Again I was eager to experience what this was all about.  His hands, his lips, nothing seemed to mean more than just an experience.  I liked him as much as any boy I’d known but I didn’t lust after him in my secret moments.  He at least got a little smoother at using a condom.  He would have been a good friend but sex kind of complicated that and we became just acquaintances after we broke up.

 I eagerly looked forward to college.  I thought I could find that special guy there.  I didn’t.  I had 2 dates and I was wondering if I was some kind of weirdo.  I didn’t even get a good night kiss out of either date. 

Athletics had always been my passion and I began working out in the college gym as kind of a comfort activity.  There were several intramural sports for women and I found myself enjoying learning to play tennis.  I played a girl in the fall league and she told me about a loosely organized women’s athletic center called “The Island.”

I had tried working out in the coed gym but college men can be kind of boisterous and obnoxious.  It was harmless I guess but you had to encounter stares and sometimes cruel and obnoxious comments.

The Island was formed by a woman’s coach and it was a safe haven for women to work out.  They’d had a few fundraisers and had accumulated some used treadmills, elliptical trainers and free weights all of which were made available in a large room provided by the university.  It was fun and safe and they even had a Yoga instructor provide a regular class.

I was at the Island when I met Lisha. That’s how she spells it—it was short for Alisha.  I’d always respected an athletic build.  My brothers had trained for football and basketball with weights in the garage.  Some of the boys in high school had been in bodybuilding and the college gym was always populated with guys working out specific muscles in front of a mirror.  I said I appreciated the look but to be honest, I never found it attractive and certainly not sexually stimulating.  And then I saw Lisha working out.  She was trim and her muscles were smoothly defined but not bulky. Her skin was tanned and smooth.  I found myself watching her the very first day.  She looked up and smiled a most beautiful smile.  I felt something stirring in my body and I busied myself with a barbell.  I looked at a chart and began doing what it called curls.  I was never a weight lifter and even without weights on the bar, I was struggling to throw the device into the prescribed position.  I tried to do 20 repetitions and eventually I lowered the bar in exhaustion.

I was embarrassed to see the woman I’d watched, now watching me.  She introduced herself and I responded with my name. I felt nervous.  She asked me if I would accept some advice and I joked about how big my muscles felt already.  She laughed as she took the bar and had me rest before having me shake my arms to relax them further.  She demonstrated the curl, making sure I saw that the back was to be firm and motionless. She handed me the bar and showed me how to slowly raise it and lower it.  “You should feel this right here,” she said as her fingers gently grasped my bicep with a slight wiggling motion.  I almost dropped the bar.  I couldn’t explain the almost electrical stimulation I felt.  We worked out the rest of the night and she walked me home to my dorm.  I had the most powerful desire to touch her as we walked.  My mind was going a mile a minute.  I had trouble getting to sleep that night.

We had agreed to meet the next night for another session—this one on the treadmills.  We met 2 more nights and interspersed our workouts with stories about our families and high school years.  It was driving me crazy.  I never felt what I was feeling ever before.  Whenever she touched me I felt warm and excited.  One night we walked home and I was wondering if she was having similar thoughts as I was having. Suddenly her hand found mine as we walked and it was not the platonic grip of two friends.  We got to my dorm and I couldn’t take my eyes off her lips.  She moved closer to me and I responded by eagerly almost bumping her.  She guided us over into the darkness and I got a most wonderful and passionate kiss.  My knees were week and I could almost feel my heart pounding.  I pressed myself to her and she responded similarly. The next night we went to her dorm suite.  She had arranged for us to be alone. She had 2 roommates who were “Island Girls.”  I didn’t think we could go to my dorm as I had three roommates.

While I was alone with Lisha the first time  I learned who I was and I learned I really liked who I was.  I learned a lot of things that night and the following nights.  I found the Roman candles and skyrockets that had always eluded me in the past.

It’s been weeks since I willingly and eagerly came under Lisha’s gentle and passionate attention.  I was in romantic love for the first time in my life.  In an hour I would be driving home to see my family and my old friends. It was the Christmas break and I thought about my older siblings and how they came back from their first semester in college.  I was able to hear some of the gushing talk about dating and the breathless freedom college afforded. In a short time I’d be home and girlfriends would be calling and we’d get together just like my older sisters had.  There’d be parties and boys and I remembered how different my sisters had been when they returned.

I guessed I was going to be the most different of all.  One day it dawned on me just which mythical island the Island Girls had named their haven after.  It was appropriate. And we were on an island—isolated and sometimes made to feel less than good and valuable by those who didn’t understand us. I’d soon struggle with coming out to my parents and the rest of the family.  My new friends had told me personal stories of acceptance, rejection and parental disbelief.  I wanted to have my dad call me his princess again.  It wasn’t for me, I’d long outgrown that; it was for him.  I wondered what my mom would say. I wanted to tell her about Lisha.  I wondered, hoped actually, that they already knew. I worried I would crush them.  They didn’t deserve that and I thought about not telling them my secret. I needed them to know what I knew.  It was bad enough people tried to make me feel so different, so terrible.  I felt cold and alone.  I started to panic when I turned onto Michigan Street.  I had absolutely no clue how they would respond to their princess.  I was so scared I was trembling.

                            ALONG THE RED CEDAR

            I was born in far western Wisconsin.  It was a few years after the Great War ended.  I came into the world in a small cabin near the banks of the Red Cedar River.  A midwife who was my mother’s oldest sister attended my birth.  She had come down from Canada. She was unable to prevent the hemorrhaging that would take my mother’s life.  Such was the state of medicine in the 1920s.

            My father was left with a newborn son and a 6 year-old daughter.  He was also left with a lot of anger.  He worked as a section hand on the local railroad. Section hand work was hard.  I can remember later seeing men trudging from work to one of the two taverns in town.  My father would stop in the cabin and begin cooking supper.  He would send my sister Avril to the tavern with a quarter and his beer bucket while he prepared a meal.  When beer was illegal, he would send her to the secret location everyone, including the sheriff, knew about.

When I was older I’d be the beer runner while my sister would cook a meal. My father would collapse exhausted in a chair.  Beans and cornbread were sometimes augmented with smoked fish and, when times were better, canned and fresh vegetables and fruit. Sometimes a neighbor would allow my sister to make lutefisk when she made a batch. One of them taught her to make lefse and we ate that potato dish often. Norwegian people are friendly and generous.  Ladies taught Avril to make a great fish soup called fiskesuppe.  She sometimes cried when recipes turned out bad on her own and I tried to comfort her.

When the money wasn’t tight we had some fresh and processed meat and canned sild.  We had pea soup and at Christmas our father found the money for Avril to make krumkaker, rulle polse (meat roll) and rosettes. Christmas days are my happiest memories from growing up.

 We pumped water from a community well but our father drank more beer than water.  A neighbor had dairy cows and we were allowed to milk one of the cows in exchange for doing odd jobs around the small farm. 

Avril was my whole world for as long as I could remember.  I don’t know who took care of us in the early years but I vaguely remember different older women spending time with us.  However, from about the first time I have clear memory, Avril did everything.  I know she washed and cleaned and cooked.  And she wouldn’t let the older kids bully me.  When I was little she’d tell me stories and make me feel safe.

The railroad work was killing my father and the booze didn’t help.  At night he’d sit before the fire and we’d listen to this old wind-up phonograph. It was his prized possession. There weren’t many records but we could hear music and crackling voices from what I could only imagine were far away and exotic places. It always seemed to make him very moody.  He spoke little.  He would eventually turn off the record player and send us to our beds. 

Ours was one of the few phonographs anyone had in our part of town.  I found out later that our father had earned the device because he made numerous trips hauling things he wasn’t supposed to into and out of Canada.  I know it had something to do with the man who sold all of the alcohol in town.

The cabin had one tiny bedroom and the main room had what served as a kitchen and living room for most of the space.  My sister and I slept on what could best be described as cots in the main room. On cold nights Avril would call me to her bed and try to keep me warm.  In the morning she’d get up to tend the fire and I could see her breath in the dim light.  At night, my father would sit in front of the fire, or, in the hot months, in front of one of our four windows.  I’d hear the far off train whistle and it was obvious the sound affected my father.  He’d stare out the window and sometimes turn the phonograph back on.  Sometimes he’d finish what beer he had left in his bucket or find one of the whiskey bottles he’d always have stashed.

Many nights he would go to the local tavern.  Sometimes he’d come home stumbling with a loud, laughing woman.  I was usually awakened by the noise but I would pretend to be asleep.  I could hear them laughing behind the closed door and I would hear sounds and noises I couldn’t figure out.  The first time it happened, I wondered if Avril was awake and could tell me what was happening.  I heard someone say give me that bottle and it was followed by laughter.  It sounded like someone fell out of bed and there was more laughter.  I looked over at Avril.   In the darkness I could see her holding her ears and keeping her eyes tightly closed.  It wasn’t until I was much older that I discovered what was happening.

Some communities and parents were always very diligent about children attending school.  Ours were not.  My sister and I attended as frequently as we could but our father never encouraged it.  The house and garden needed to be tended and God help you if he thought you were putting “that damn school” ahead of what you were told to do. Winters were cold and we often didn’t have clothes to match the more brutal weather. We would go outside only to get the firewood we needed or make a hurried trip to the outhouse.

School was held in the local Lutheran church and the minister’s wife taught all grades in one room.  It was about 2 miles away.  Learning to read opened a world to me.  The county had a library and once a month or so, a wagon would arrive from which we could borrow books.  It was magic.  In summer we couldn’t wait for our father to leave for work so we could pull out the books and read.  Without the library books, we had little to read.  We had a Sears-Roebuck catalog.  Everyone called it a wish book and for us, wishes were about all we could do with it.  Avril had a hymnbook she borrowed from the church.  She would read it over and over as if it were a book of short stories.  I borrowed a dictionary from the school and I’m embarrassed to admit I used it like Avril used her hymnal. 

On warm weekends the community would gather for a baseball game.  The local team was called simply The Cedars and they entertained, and visited, teams from all the nearby towns.  I loved the games—partly because my father was the pitcher.  During the week he was just like everyone else, maybe just a little poorer. On Sundays they cheered his name and suddenly we were somebody important.  He could really throw hard.  I think the other teams were a little afraid of him because he could throw so hard but was also wild.  He’d sometimes hit a batter and step menacingly toward the other team if they protested. 

My father seemed always to be angry.  Sometimes he drank and got kind of mellow.  Other times he got drunk and even more angry than usual.   The ball games were different and we lived for the reprieve.

At the games people were always talking about him going off to Chicago or New York to play where people were actually paid to play baseball. It was the one time I would see my father happy.  The local tavern owners were the unofficial sponsors and would provide free beer for the players. Food would be cooked over open fires and women would bring covered dishes of food for all to share. Teammates would be pounding my father on the back and stories of the day’s game would be told, retold and exaggerated.  It would be after dark when we guided our stumbling father back to the house.  There’d be no phonograph those nights.  He’d stumble toward his bedroom and Avril and I would talk quietly in the dark as he snored and sputtered.

Two things happened when I was about 10 that would change everything forever. 

My sister left home. She was about 16.  She had managed to somehow save $7 from babysitting and little odd jobs—enough money to head for Chicago.  My father had been arguing with her often.  I overheard him telling her it was time she got married.  I can remember hearing him shout about this man or that man and how it was time she got a husband.  I do remember him bringing some of his fellow railroad section hands to the house.   I believe some of them were even older than our father. He’d make Avril go for walks with the men or sit on some old bench by the river.  I think Avril cried herself to sleep those nights. 

It seemed sudden, but now I realize there had been many angry arguments leading up to it.  One day Avril told me she was leaving in two days.  My father arranged for her to get a free ride on the train. The conductor was his catcher on the baseball team.  Our father patted her on the back, wished her luck and walked away. I never had much money if any. It took all I had to buy the red ribbon I gave to her to wear.  She squeezed it with both hands.  She then hugged me and kissed me and I hugged her back. As far as I could remember, she was the only person who had ever kissed or hugged me. I think we were going to start crying when she turned suddenly and ran to her train car.  I don’t know when I ever felt more alone. I watched long after the train disappeared along the tracks.  I missed her so much.

That same year, the economy of the nation was in free fall and the worst of it hit our valley. Something called a depression was snuffing out businesses and fortunes.  We had little of either but what we did have disappeared one Friday when my father returned from work in the middle of the day.  All of the local workers had been laid off.

For 3 years we got by on money my father could scratch from odd jobs he arranged for each of us. He began hunting and fishing to supply food.  I cut firewood and milked dairy cows for pennies.  He sometimes drove a team of horses, and later a truck, for hauling milk, but the pay from all of the jobs was sporadic and barely kept us in beans and buckets of beer.  I wanted to go to the county high school.  A lot of kids were in my boat and the school allowed for a certain degree of lax attendance.  Missing so much school made it hard to keep up and I guess it was pride that forced me to give it up.

I learned early that things could never be so bad they couldn’t get worse. 

Around the time I became a teenager, 2 hunters brought the lifeless body of my father to town.  There were whispers that he had committed suicide.  I was even asked by the sheriff if my father had left a note.  A note?  He would have had to dictate it.  He could neither read nor write.

I guess I just grieved for my father but maybe, I was only feeling scared about my future.  My father rarely smiled and his conversations with his kids could have been mistaken for someone merely giving orders.  My sister and I had both learned early not to cross him.   However, he was the adult in my life—my security.  I was a youngster, alone and on my own.

The year was 1938.  I didn’t know where Avril was.  I lived in the old cabin and survived on things I could hunt and fish with my father’s old equipment.  I relied heavily on handouts from the local minister’s family and others who could spare anything in those hard times. It was rural Wisconsin. Firewood was free for the cutting and gathering. I sold the phonograph and a few other things but they brought little money.  Kind folks would frequently invite me for dinner. I was hungry often. Times were hard for everyone.

I had no relatives other than Avril and I had no idea how to find her.  She had written for a time and twice included a dollar.  However, the last letter I sent to her last known address was returned by the post office.  I believe that my father was himself an orphan and from near the Minnesota border.  I’m pretty sure my mother’s people were all from Canada.  As far as I could figure out, I had no relatives I could hope to find.  I really was on my own.

I lied about my age and got into the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Men lived in tents and we worked 40 hours a week.  We got paid $30 a month—most of which we had to send to our “family.”   “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” the local minister said when I tried to enlist his support for my plan to enter the CCC.  I think it was only after I began dating his daughter that he decided I might thrive by being far away in a labor camp.  They agreed to be “my family” and hold the money sent home for me by the government.

Life in the camps was hard.  We lived in tents and worked hard building fire roads and fire towers.  Living in tents was uncomfortable and there was little privacy. We planted trees and fought forest fires.  I stayed for the 6-month period and applied for a longer enlistment.

We weren’t always welcomed in nearby towns and the rules kept us busy and mostly out of trouble.  The men gambled where it was allowed, or where they could get away with it, and we spent spare time playing baseball or reading what books we could find.  It was after dark by the time we would return after work so there was little light to read by.  Boxing was allowed in some units and it served as a way to avoid more serious fights in disputes between men.  There were bullies and there were thieves and scoundrels.  However, I was usually safe, warm and well fed.  I never thought of the Corps as family but looking back, I’m not sure how I would have recognized family anyway.

I got out of the Corps and returned to the only place I’d ever known.  I caught on with a farm family.  I worked for room and board.  On weekends, I earned a small amount of spending money as a fishing and hunting guide.  I rowed hours on the local lakes for rich men who seemed only to know there was a depression when it was time for paying the guy who rowed for them.

The next paying job I found was with Uncle Sam.  I was drafted into the Army and for about the next half dozen years, I had steady work.

I will jump ahead to now.  I’m old and I’m entitled. Hey, even my kids are getting up in years. My grandkids know I’m sad today.  My kids know what’s on my mind.  The young ones are something else—they’re a joy even amid sorrow.

I’ve just returned home from the cemetery.  We buried my sister Avril today.  Her husband had passed several years earlier and she eventually moved in with my wife and me.  My wife Elizabeth is a lot younger than I.  At times like this, it seems as if the whole world is younger than I.  Liz is the one who insisted I write this.  She said,  “It’s the little people who have done the big things.”  I think that’s the retired junior college literature and English instructor in her.  I told her all I ever did was put one foot in front of the other.  She responded that I had just found a theme if not a title.

Avril and I had found each other years ago in one of those miraculous episodes that just seem to happen to people.   Oh, I’m sure we would have eventually looked for, and found each other. In this case, it just happened in storybook fashion.

I was injured during WWII.  No, I’m not a hero. I never made combat.  I was assigned stateside as an ambulance driver for a military hospital.  I was sent to Chicago.  I was hit head-on by a drunken driver on my second night on the job.  Cars and ambulances were huge back then but reports said he was driving over 60 mph when he hit me.  Seat belts were non-existent and I was severely injured.  I would be in the hospital for almost 5 weeks and would have rehabilitation after that.  I will always walk with a slight limp.

A nurse was making the rounds in my ward and stood and stared at me.  She quickly grabbed my chart and grinned,

“Corporal, I order you to get well right now.”

The voice stunned me. She got closer and kissed me on my forehead.  It was Avril.  I never allowed her out of my life for the next half century. She married the young doctor she was dating and the two of them encouraged and financed my education.  The GI Bill paid for a lot and they supplied the rest.  I eventually became a hospital administrator.  That’s as close to the medical field a grateful guy with a squeamish stomach could get.

Avril and I guided each other through careers, marriages and a torrent of kids, grandkids and recently, the perils of old age. We made a couple of trips back to the old Red Cedar River Valley.  A lot had changed.  The old cabin was gone but some of the foundation and its footprint, and that of the privy, still remained.  We found our parent’s graves and Avril told me what little she knew of our mother.  We talked about our father and I think we both agreed to forgive him for not doing better.

We found a woman we had known growing up who was about our age. We were graciously invited to her family reunion where we made old acquaintances and sampled the old recipes of our youth.

Through it all, it was me and my big sister—putting one foot in front of the other.  In the childhood years it was pretty much Avril and me against the world.  Somehow, she made it a fair fight. 

When I came in to see her in the hospital, she was tightly clutching an old faded red ribbon.  She smiled. She died in my arms as I kissed her—just like that day she kissed me goodbye on the banks of the Red Cedar River.  Some kisses aren’t goodbye kisses; they are “I’ll love you forever” kisses. Yes, through it all, it’s been a good life.

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