The Bob Pearson Writings

THE BOB PEARSON WRITINGS

Preface

I first met Bob Pearson during early September 1981. A group of teachers were having a start-of-the-new-school-year party at a colleague’s house after school one day. I had just started teaching in the Concord, New Hampshire school district with the wonderful Barbara Pearson as one of my teammates. Fortunately, she brought her husband Bob, another Concord educator, to the gathering and he and I hit it off instantly. Bob and I were close friends from that time until his passing on June 28, 2019, five days after his 87th birthday.

I found Bob to be a cultured local. He lived his entire life in either Penacook or Concord, but he developed a veritable passion for education; literature; classical music, including opera; film; politics; travel; and theater. I enjoyed my times with Bob immensely and learned a lot from him, often over bourbon. My greatest lesson however, and one I don’t believe Bob ever intentionally tried to teach me, was how to conduct a life well lived. Such was Bob’s.

Over the last two years of Bob’s life he and I shared pieces of writing. I like to think that my encouragement aided him in this pursuit, despite his declining health. Regardless, Bob wrote and in some cases resurrected about twenty pieces, many eclectic anecdotes or memoir tales of stand-out events from his life, while others are fiction and poetry samplings. All are descriptions containing his characteristic grace and humor. These pieces are collected here roughly in the order in which I received them from Bob.

From memorable events of life to imaginative flights of fancy, Bob Pearson paints his narratives consistently with a goal to entertain. This was often his purpose and it didn’t require much effort on his part. He was a natural performer. I encourage readers to sip these stories slowly and to enjoy—perhaps over bourbon. Bob would be touched.

 

A STRANGE DAY IN JULY

It started as a silly game—who could throw a rock farther into the lake? Of course, my

Uncle Pete always won—I was only twelve—but then we moved on to stone skipping and the score evened up just a bit. He usually got a few more skips, but sometimes I won. Then we kicked it up a notch.

The lake near his cabin had a wide inlet, about 25 feet across. We would stand on opposite sides and try to skip the stones so they would actually land on the shore. The game was to keep the same stone going between us for as long as we could. A lot of the stones went to their watery graves, but after a while we got three or four stones going back and forth. Those we finally set aside as the very best.

We had bigger plans for the game—maybe a championship tournament with trophies. But those plans were put on hold until Uncle Pete came back from Iraq. But the army pulled a dirty trick—they sent back another man.

My Uncle Pete was easy going, always laughing, always ready to try almost anything, always thinking of a new adventure. I wanted to be just like him when I got older. This other man was bitter and quiet and always angry He didn’t talk much and when he did he said awful things about himself. Nothing I could say to him mattered. He would sit for hours that July, just staring out at the lake and brushing back the empty sleeve where his pitching arm used to be. No more baseball, no more skipping stones, just sitting and staring and complaining. Any suggestion I tried to make was met by a “no” or a grunt or a shake of the head. Even worse was a quick, “I can’t do that anymore”. He was defeated and so was I. I wanted my Uncle Pete back again. I don’t know what happened that July day, but somehow I got up enough courage to try to shake him.

“Uncle Pete, can’t we just try some stone skipping?” I asked him. “What are you, blind?” he spat out. “You know I can’t do that. I can’t do anything”, and he slapped his stump hard enough to make him wince. “You could maybe use your other arm,” I suggested. Uncle Pete’s face got red. “Leave me alone, Jack. Go play with your rocks”.

But I kept at it and Uncle Pete’s face got redder and redder and his voice got louder and louder as he repeated “ I can’t! I can’t!.” Just when I thought he was going to strike out at me, his voice got quiet and cold.

“All right, Jack”’ he said. “You need convincing that I’m crippled, don’t you?—that I’m useless, and not good anymore. You’re cruel, Jack, you are. But you’ll see. Get the stones”.

Silently we walked down to the inlet and he watched while I gathered a pile of stones from the shore and I watched him cross the tiny bridge we had built back when he had both arms. “Ready?” I asked. Uncle Pete only muttered, “You’ll see”.

At first the stones just went into the water. Uncle Pete was awkward. His left arm wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do. His face began to redden and I could hear his mantra, “I can’t! I can’t!.” But then one of his stones managed to dip into the water and emerge briefly before sinking.

I gathered more stones and for an hour we threw. I got a few all the way across to Uncle Pete, but he just shook his head and watched the stones he threw back disappear and he continued his mantra.

Finally he’d had enough.“I quit”, he yelled. “See? I told you I can’t do it! I quit!” I couldn’t let it go.

“Wait a minute. Stay right there.” Five minutes later I was back with The Stones. These were the three special stones we had saved, the ones that had skipped back and forth between us and seemed to bring us good luck. We even numbered them, backward, yes, but it had made sense at the time. Number one was painted in bronze, number two in silver and number three, of course, in gold, our own Olympic Stones.

“Not those,”’ Uncle Pete protested, “Those aren’t to be used. They’re keepers”. I said nothing. I held Stone number 1 and with a flick of my wrist, hurled it and watched it slip through the water and land perfectly on the other side.

“Try that one,” I said. “It’s a good one”. “I’ll just lose it,”’ he called back.

“I told you I’m quitting”.

“Just throw it. It’s only the bronze”.

He looked at me for a moment and I thought I saw the tiniest spark in his eye. He adjusted his fingers around the stone and threw, cringing when he heard the plop of the stone as it sank.

Without thinking I quickly tossed the silver stone through the water to the opposite side. Uncle Pete picked it up, shook his head, took a different stance and tried again. The stone went further but also sank.

My heart dropped. Number three, the gold stone, was the champion. We had planned to make it part of our trophy someday. But I couldn’t go back now. With a quiet sigh, I threw the stone. I counted five skips before it reached the other side.

My uncle picked it up, looked at it and put it in his pocket.

“Throw it back,” I cried. “That one can’t miss!”

“This one stays”, he said. “I’m never going to throw another stone. I mean it. I’m not good for anything. I’m never going to be good for anything again. I quit!” He turned his back to me and I could see his head was down and his shoulders were shaking. And I got angry.

“OK, quit then. You’re a quitter, just like you told me. I don’t know you anymore.

You’re not my uncle! Why don’t you go back? Go back to Iraq and stay there. Send back my Uncle Pete. He’s not a quitter—never was. I love that Uncle Pete. You, I don’t know. Go on and quit, ‘cause I’m quitting, too. I’m quitting on you!”

Out of breath, I stopped and I was crying, too. Uncle Pete turned slowly, blinking as the tears ran down his face. For a long moment he stared across the water at me.

Carefully he took Stone number three, the Gold Stone, the Champion, out of his pocket and looked at it. Then he threw with all his might, and the third stone came skipping back and landed at my feet.

 

A STRANGE DAY IN JULY (Version 2)

He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back.

“Whoa!” thought Tommy, staring down at the flat, oval stone lying near his feet. He picked it up and noted that it was as curiously warm as it had been when he had thrown it out into the fog-draped water.

He had hoped to take one quiet last visit to the lake he had enjoyed so much before the family headed home from their vacation. But there was no lake to see except the narrow fringe of water between the sandy shore and the grey line of fog that blocked his view.

“Just one more look”, he had told his mother in answer to her question, “and, yes, I’m all packed.”

Irene had wanted to go with him but she still had to determine which of the rocks and driftwood would fit into the nature basket she was bringing home with her.

“I’ll be down as soon as I can”, the eight year old had promised him. Tommy, at 12 and wise in his old age, knew he would have some time to himself and had suppressed a small grin. “See you there”, he had called back as he headed down the path to the shore, just out of sight of the small log cabin his folks had rented every year.

He had been surprised to see the small cairn of stones piled just out of reach of the lapping water. There were no other cottages near, not for at least a mile, and no footprints on the sand. The stones hadn’t been there yesterday. Who could have left them? And why were they so warm to the touch?

He had hurled the first two stones into the fog and had heard the satisfying plop! beyond the fog line. But the third stone that followed the other two had had no sound at all.

“Strange,” Tommy said out loud. “And now this. Well, let’s try it again.”

Holding the still warm stone firmly, he wound up and threw it as hard as he could and watched as the stone flew unerringly into a small pocket in the fog and disappeared. Tommy waited. Nothing. No sound. No returning missile.

And then he saw vaguely the prow of a small boat, cutting through the heavy mist and gliding directly toward him. Tommy could see no ripples in the water, as if the boat were floating just above the lake. When it bumped against the sandy shore in front of him, he reached out and touched its side. It was warm, just like the stone.

“Somebody’s lost a boat,” Tommy thought. “Strange.”

He jumped in, hoping to find some identification, but as he did the boat suddenly jerked and backed rapidly toward the deeper water. The move threw Tommy onto the seat and then onto his back in the bottom of the boat, his feet flying wildly into the air.

By the time he righted himself the shore was out of sight and he was surrounded by the grey fog. He shouted but sensed that no one would hear him.

Suddenly he emerged into bright sunlight. He had left the fog behind and the lake was sparkling and still. The boat had now stopped as if at anchor. Tommy noticed there was no sound—no bird calls, no splashing from jumping fish, not even insects buzzing.

He looked down and saw his reflection staring up at him—so clear and perfect, like looking in the hall mirror at home. And yet, his other face had a hint of a smile that Tommy knew was not on his own. As he watched he saw the image’s smile grow wider and longer and Tommy knew this could not be happening. But still the smile grew broader and the lip parted and the mouth began to open. Tommy, mesmerized, could not move his eyes as the mouth continued to grow, indeed, the whole face began to enlarge. His reflected features, the eyes, nose and dark thatched hair ran together and blended into that awful black chasm that had once been his mouth.

He heard a scraping noise behind him and started to turn when he felt a cold, slimy something brush across his shoulders and wrap around his shivering body. The thought quickly flashed through him.

“Tentacles, that’s what they are, but this is crazy. In a lake?”

He opened his mouth but the scream died in his throat as he felt the little sucker mouths coldly attach themselves to his body like masses of tiny needles. He was now lifted up over the wide, gaping mouth and lowered closer and closer to the row of sharp, glistening teeth.

From a distance somewhere beyond the fog he heard a voice calling his name, but all he felt was the tearing of his flesh and then blackness.

“Tommy! Where did you go?” Irene stood by the lake staring out into the fog and calling. There was no answer—no sound at all.

“He’s got to be somewhere. He’s hiding on me”, she thought.

She looked down at the small pile of rocks. She picked one up and threw it, calling “Tommy” as she saw it drop close to shore. She called his name again with the second throw and was amazed by her strength when it flew over the water and into the fog. The flat, oval, warm stone was next. She threw with all her might and the third stone came skipping back.

 

THE MARTINI STORY

Back in the late 60’s when we were all immortal, the New England Reading Association was holding its conference in Boston and Barbara and I were invited to handle the information desk for a few hours. The textbook publishers had receptions with plenty of free food and drinks. On our modest teachers’ salaries, the word “free” sparkled like the lights of Las Vegas. The plan was simple; Barbara’s mother would stay with Liz, our three year old, we’d run down to Boston, do our two hour stint, enjoy a couple of drinks and a lavish dinner, and head for home. Simple, right?

Luckily we found a parking place about a block away from the Sheraton Hotel, reported for duty and gave out all the information or misinformation we had. A couple of sales representatives I knew dropped by with invitations to their receptions, which we cheerfully accepted. One of the reps, Ralph, insisted we come up to his party to see the view from the 23rd floor—”The best in town” he bragged.

When our shift was over, we stopped in at one of the events. The lavish feast was, well, not so lavish–cheese and crackers, small sandwiches, a few platters of mystery food, but the drinks were plentiful and more food awaited us on the 23rd floor. Barbara opted for a Martini and I asked for bourbon and seltzer. We were moderate drinkers, generally no more than two, and even then, the second could sometimes bring us a bit close to the edge.

“How’s the drink? I asked.

“I can’t taste much of anything”, Barbara answered. “I think it’s been watered down”.

I pondered that. Most reps like their clients in a happy and careless mood that doesn’t always occur with water. The pondering ended quickly when the tray came around and we both took a second drink.

While we were talking to some of the other guests more drinks were offered and, having finished the second, Barbara took a third. I raised my eyebrow and she said, “I’m just thirsty. They’re mostly water anyway”.

The tiniest warning bell sounded in my ear, but Barbara looked and acted completely sober, so I ignored it and took a third bourbon.

This time I slowed down as I remembered the drive ahead. We both sipped, although Barbara’s sips seemed larger than mine. And when her glass was empty mine was hardly dented.

“I’ll just have one more“, she said and grabbed a fourth Martini. Before I could say anything, she smiled and said, “It’s all right. They aren’t affecting me at all”, and from what I could tell, she was right. But she did slow down, while I continued to nurse mine.

Finally, when the glasses were empty, she said. “I’m tired. Let’s go home”.

“I’m ready to go” I answered. “But I did promise Ralph that we’d drop by. Let’s just go up to see the view and then head home.”

“Well,” she said, “I don’t want any more to drink.”

“Neither do I,” I replied. And that’s when I spoke the fateful words. “We’ll order a couple of drinks and just hold them until we leave. We don’t have to drink them.”

The elevator eased us upward slowly and gracefully. Sheraton elevators tend to make you feel you have all the time in the world to stop and smell the luxury. When we reached the 23rd floor we followed the sound of partiers to Ralph’s suite. There were probably fifteen to twenty people there, each with a glass in their hand. Ralph spotted us as soon as we stepped in.

“What are you drinking?” were his first words and before I could say anything, Barbara spoke up. “I’ve been drinking Martinis”, she offered. I ordered my usual.

Ralph pointed to the window. “Have a look while I get your drinks”. The view was gorgeous. Boston was spread out before us, its lights competing with the setting sun. We looked at each other and smiled; we were millionaires sharing our own private view.

Ralph appeared and handed us the drinks. Barbara sipped hers and said, “This is really good!” I just held mine. Unlike Barbara, I was beginning to feel the effects of the earlier drinks. Ralph chatted for several minutes about his textbooks and the view, especially the view. I watched Barbara take a few more sips.

Ralph left us then and we were soon joined by a young man, another rep, who also remarked about the view and then asked us where we lived. Barbara cheerfully countered with, ”And where are YOU from?”

“Well, said the young man, “I’m from California”.

“Really,” Barbara smiled. “My nephew lives in California. He’s ten and his name is Todd.” Somehow Todd’s parents had disappeared into the ether.

“What a coincidence,” replied the young man. “My son is almost ten. Let me show you his picture.” He reached for his wallet. There must have been a full moon that night, for suddenly a werewolf appeared by my side.

“I don’t want to see your damn kid,” she snarled. “I don’t care about any of your damn kids. I want to tell you about my Todd, my little Toddywink.” Where was my sweet, gentle Barbara?

The young man froze and took a step away from the glare of the werewolf and suddenly discovered someone across the room who needed his immediate attention.

A cloud must have passed over the moon because my Barbara was suddenly back. She smiled and sighed, “My Toddywink. I love my Toddywink.” She turned back to the view and raised her glass to her lips. And that’s when it happened. The glass slipped from her fingers and headed downward. Quick as a Toddywink her other hand whipped out and caught the glass at just below waist level, not a drop spilled, a sight I had never seen before and never expect to see again.. She smiled at me, raised the glass again and took a big gulp and I knew we needed to leave right away.

“OK”, she said and finished the rest of the Martini in one more gulp. It hit her hard. Her eyes were now glassy and she began to sway. I grabbed her arm and we began to weave toward the door. The young man noticed us and came to what I thought was the rescue.

“Can I help?” he asked. I nodded and he took Barbara’s other arm, led us to the door and opened it. We went through; I heard the door close behind us and we were alone in the corridor.

Fortunately the elevator was only a few steps away. As I pressed the down button I watched Barbara slip quietly to the floor and sprawl on her back directly in front of the elevator doors. If anyone had emerged at that moment, there would have been a pileup with Barbara on the bottom.

By the time the elevator arrived I had gotten her in a more or less vertical position and our luck held. The elevator was empty. I managed to get Barbara situated in a corner and we started the slow Sheraton descent. All went well until the 11th floor when the elevator stopped and the door opened, revealing an older couple dressed for a charity ball or an opera performance. He had white hair and a trim white beard and was wearing a tuxedo. She was blue haired with a gown to match. He nodded at me and then gazed at Barbara, wedged in the corner with her eyes closed. His wife glared.

He looked at me again with understanding and asked, “Do you need some help?”

“Oh, I think we’ll be fine,” I answered with false confidence.

He nodded again and the elevator resumed its stately journey. Then Barbara slumped further and I knew the challenge ahead was greater than expected. As the elevator neared the lobby, I faced reality.

“Excuse me, sir, but I may need a bit of help after all, but only to the door.”

The man nodded while his wife glared and hissed, “We’ll be late!” The man only smiled at me.

As the doors opened, we each took an arm and headed across the lobby. By this time Barbara’s knees were bent and her legs trailed after her. One of her shoes came off and his frantic wife snatched it up and ran behind us. Apparently, the Sheraton’s efforts to please included placing a cement block just outside its doors where we could ease Barbara onto it.

“Please, sir,” I begged. “Could you stay with her while I get the car? I’ll be less than five minutes.”

“Of course,” he replied. “We’re going to be very late!” his glaring wife reminded him.

I dashed around the corner, dodged the traffic and in three minutes our red Beetle was parked directly in front of the hotel. Together we managed to get Barbara to the car and spilled into the passenger seat. The glaring woman threw the shoe into Barbara’s lap and grabbed her husband’s arm.

“We are very late!” she announced.

I thanked the gentleman profusely and he nodded. “It’s fine,” he smiled. “Good luck!”

As the blue hair dragged him off, he turned back and waved and I knew he was remembering some idiotic adventure of his earlier days.

We now headed for N.H. Somewhere along the route I spotted a hamburger joint and remembered black coffee is the perfect cure for the overindulgent. I was soon back with a steaming cup of antidote, forgetting coffee only works its magic from the inside. Try as I might, Barbara refused even the tiniest sip and I had no intravenous tubing in the car.

The rest of the trip remains a haze. I remember not going too fast or too slow and concentrating very hard on painted lines. If there is a god, he or she must have a soft heart for fools, because we finally arrived safely on Jordan Avenue.

Across the street from our house was the Neighborhood Watch Society, namely Edith. Edith took her work seriously. She patrolled the street from her window on a twenty-four hour basis and duly reported any movement to other neighbors. I knew Barbara would be totally embarrassed if she were reported, so I drove the little car into the garage and closed the door.

The next task was to get Barbara inside and past my mother-in-law. The plan was to somehow walk Barbara through the dining room and up to our bedroom. But I looked at Barbara, still asleep in the car and knew it would be easier to climb K-2 without ropes and crampons than to attempt the stairs.

So it was Plan B. I rushed into the house past her mother, who by now was standing in the kitchen.

“Barbara’s not feeling well,” I tossed over my shoulder as I headed into the den where I opened the sleep sofa. “She’ll be fine in the morning,” I added as I headed back to the car.

Barbara seemed to have gained some mobility by now, even though her eyes were still closed. Half piloting and half dragging, I managed to get her to the bed and covered with a blanket. I returned to the kitchen where her mother was still standing with wide, unbelieving eyes. She had not spoken a word.

“Well,” I said cheerfully. “Can I take you home now?” She just nodded, so I checked on Liz, locked the door and we were off. Luckily, she lived only five minutes away and I made it in three.

“Much traffic?” was the only question her mother asked. No word about Barbara’s condition.

I left Mary Ellen in her apartment and made it back home in two minutes. All was well. I wrestled Barbara’s dress off and left the rest. I slipped in beside her and fell asleep immediately.

Sometime in the night I heard Liz cry and, forgetting where I was, jumped up and crashed into the den wall where the bedroom door was supposed to be. Her uncle’s handmade clock, a wedding gift, hit the floor and disintegrated, but I sorted out my location and went upstairs. After calming and watering Liz, I sat down on the floor and waited a few minutes for her to fall asleep.

When dawn struck, I found myself sprawled on the floor, Liz still asleep. A bit stiff, I went downstairs to the den. Barbara was lying on her back with her eyes focused upward. She turned to me and asked, “Where were you? And why am I down here?”

All the data of last night had been deleted. Without waiting for an answer she turned back and stared upward again. “You know?” she said. “For a moment I thought heaven looked like a dusty white ceiling.”

And that’s the Martini story. I can’t say I’m proud of my actions that night. It was foolish and dangerous, but it happened and we moved on, older and, I hope, wiser. For two years Barbara wouldn’t allow me to tell the story to anyone, but then she relented and after awhile insisted on telling the story herself. And that was that.

There are some people who insist a story like this has to have a moral. So for them, the lesson might be this: If you are intent on duplicating the glass dropping trick, don’t bother to practice: It comes naturally with the fifth Martini.

 

THE THIRD FLOOR BEDROOM

Arnhem, The Netherlands 1908

It all began when someone left the window open. But that was later. Now he awoke in the darkness in a strange room. He had no idea of how he had gotten there. He was hot and his throat hurt.

Slowly the images came back. He could remember only yesterday Mama crying and the doctor comforting her. “The high temperature and the rash are signs of measles, madam, but with good care and this medicine, he should recover,” he told her.

“Then he won’t die?” she asked.

“That is a possibility, of course, if we aren’t cautious, but I think he has a good chance of recovery. The important thing is to isolate him from your other children so they will not become sick also. And light―there must be no light or he could lose his eyesight.”

“Papa”, Mama said, “Where can we put him? We have no other room away from the others. And it must be dark.”

“There is the room on the third floor,” replied Papa, “the one we use for storage. I’ll clean that out and move his bed upstairs.”

“But the light,” Mama reminded him. “There can’t be any light.”

“I’ll paint the glass black,” said Papa. “That will do for now.”

The doctor left after handing Mama a large bottle of brown liquid, and Papa cleaned out the storeroom which had been a bedroom many years ago. Once Morrie’s bed had been moved and the windows painted, Papa carried the boy up to the third floor bedroom.

During the next two weeks, Morrie lay in total darkness. He saw no one except Mama, and occasionally Papa. Mama brought him food and medicine and comfort.

“Mama,” he had asked, “Why do I have to stay in the dark?”

“It is for your eyesight, darling boy,” she had answered. “We don’t want you to be blind. How could we live without your little drawings?”

Morrie’s family enjoyed the little sketches the ten-year old made to amuse himself when he had time. “It won’t be long before you will be better.”

The days passed. One morning Morrie awoke to a blinding light. During the hot August night someone had opened the bedroom window for the cooler air and had neglected to close it before morning. The bright sunlight stung Morrie’s eyes at first, but gradually things came into focus. He sat up and looked around. He was surrounded by birds―flying birds everywhere. As his eyes adjusted, he saw they were only a part of the wallpaper, old, dusty and faded, perhaps, but to Morrie it was the most beautiful paper he had ever seen.

“Morrie! The light!” Mama cried as she ran into the room.

“No, Mama, it’s all right. My eyes are good and I feel so much better. And Mama,” he continued, “I love this room. I want this for my bedroom forever.”

And so it became Morrie’s own bedroom. He sketched the birds in the wallpaper over and over again in all different positions. When he went to bed at night, the half-light from the window, now scraped clean of paint, made the birds appear to move, to gather close together and merge into each other. Morrie knew it was only a trick of the light, but he sketched them like that also.

A few years went by. Morrie continued to draw pictures of animals, of waterfalls, of abstract designs and of buildings. Buildings intrigued him. He sketched them from all angles and decided to become an architect. But he continued to draw birds also, perhaps his favorite. All these drawings he kept in a box on the floor of his closet.

When his first year at architectural school ended, he returned to Arnhem. Mama and Papa greeted him with a surprise. “Go to your bedroom,” they told him.

Morrie rushed up the stairs to the third floor and opened the bedroom door. He saw new furniture, bright curtains at the window, and freshly painted white walls. The birds were gone.

“The paper was so old and faded we took it down,” Papa explained. “You now have a new bedroom!”

Morrie was silent. His birds, the beautiful birds, were gone forever. “Thank you, Papa. Thank you, Mama. It looks so nice.” But his heart was broken.

Over the next few days Morrie pondered, then talked to Mama and Papa. They agreed and Morrie went to work. By the end of the week his bedroom walls were covered with birds flying together, melting into one another, turning into fish and back again into birds, all painted with Morrie’s sure brush.

“Ah!” Papa exclaimed. “These are wonderful! But you must share these with others! They are too good to be seen only here!”

Morrie laughed. “Yes, Papa, I intend to, and that is my surprise. I have shown my drawings to an art dealer in Amsterdam and he wants to buy them and have me create more. I have a new career, Mama! And it is what I’ve always wanted!”

“I love what you’ve painted here, my darling boy,” Mama said. “I will come up here often to see your work.”

“Thank you, Mama. But I have yet to sign this work.” Morrie picked up his brush, and in one corner of the wall he placed his signature―Maurits C.Escher.

 

THE THIRD FLOOR BEDROOM (Revisited)

From the Journal of Charles, August 4, 1912

I am not mad. Mother has said that I am, but she is wrong. I heard her tell Aunt Nell that I am mad and that they needed to do something. I was listening with my ear pressed against the door. Mad? Perhaps clever, but not mad.

Yes, I am clever. I know things that others do not, like how to talk with the birds. Yes, with the birds. It all began when SOMEONE left the window open. Mother never likes the window left open because it would be very easy for anyone to fall and it is a very long way down. But SOMEONE left the window open and the birds came in. They all flew in and settled quietly behind the wallpaper. They are still there. Mother says they have always been there, but she is wrong. They were not there before the window was left open. I saw them fly in and go into the wallpaper.

They are very quiet at the moment. They are resting. I hear them mostly at night, rustling their wings and cooing. Sometimes they invite me behind the wallpaper with them. I press my back against the wall, feeling their fuzzy wings behind me. I blink three times. That is the secret signal, and I am behind the wallpaper with them. We have long conversations and we share secrets. I can look out and see everything from there, and no one can see me. It feels safe there.

Sometimes when Mother unlocks the bedroom door and comes in, I hide there. “Oh, dear,” Mother says, “Charles is not here. Where could he have gone? Nell, have you seen Charles?”

Aunt Nell looks all around the room. She looks right where I am, as if she is looking right into my eyes, but she doesn’t see me. She just smiles broadly and replies, “Perhaps if we go out and come back, Charles will be here again.” They smile at each other and I watch them close the door behind them. I come out from the wallpaper and hear them laughing softly from the other side of the door. They come back in and I say, “Here I am!”

“Oh Charles”, Mother says, “Where were you?” I only smile. I am too clever to let them know I was with the birds behind the wallpaper. No one can ever find me there. Mother and Aunt Nell exchange mysterious smiles.

I am not always locked in the third floor bedroom. Almost every day I am allowed to go into all the rooms in the house to look at the little figurines and dishes in the cabinets and to gaze at the pretty pictures on the walls. I like the shiny silverware in the drawers, especially the sharp knives, but I am not allowed to handle those. Someday I might hide one in my pocket and play with it when I am alone in my bedroom, but not now.

I don’t leave the house because Mother says being outdoors is too dangerous and I should always stay inside. I have not been outside since that bad time with the neighbor’s cat. Mother says I should never have done what I did, that cats always chase birds, that is just Nature’s Way. I said I was sorry, but I was too clever to let her know that inside I was glad I had done what I did. I was sorry that the neighbor was so upset, though, and that the bird was dead. It was just before that when the birds came to stay in the wallpaper. They told me I had done the right thing and Mother was wrong about Nature’s Way.

This morning after Mother let me out of the bedroom, I explored the closets of the house. It can be fun to sit in a darkened closet and believe I am far off in a dark jungle with leaves and vines brushing my face and hair, even though I am clever enough to know it is really Mother’s dresses and belts hanging over my head.

That’s when I heard Mother telling Aunt Nell that I was almost twenty-one now and the madness was getting worse. She was afraid of what might happen if something wasn’t done and that was why some people were coming this afternoon to take me to a place where I could be cared for and watched carefully. Aunt Nell agreed with Mother and they both cried. But I just smiled because I know I am not mad. I am clever enough to know it was only a game they were playing. Mother would never send me away. They must have known I was in the closet and were teasing me.

Later, after Mother locked the bedroom door again, I told the birds what I had heard, but they didn’t laugh. They said that people might come and if they did, I had to stop them. They suggested a plan that would scare the people away.

Just a little while ago I heard an automobile come up the road and stop near the house. I watched an unfamiliar man and woman get out and disappear around the side of the house. I heard several footsteps on the stairs and Mother said quietly, “If he is standing with his back to the wall, pretend not to see him”. I don’t know what she meant by that.

Then I heard the key in the lock. I was hiding behind the wallpaper again. Mother stood in the doorway while the strange lady came in and looked around, her eyes sliding past where I was hidden in the wallpaper. SOMEONE had opened the bedroom window again and she strolled over to it. While she was looking out SOMEONE pushed her hard. Her scream made the birds rustle their wings softly, not like the time the cat fell, when they made a happy, cheerful sound. I heard a loud cry from the doorway and the sound of Mother’s feet clattering down the stairs.

Now I am looking down at the lady lying there, sprawled on the grass like a rag doll.

Mother and Aunt Nell and the man are kneeling around her. And now they look up and see SOMEONE at the third floor bedroom window. But I am safe because I followed Mother downstairs and got a shiny knife from the silverware drawer. I have locked the bedroom door from the inside. When the man leaves, Mother and Aunt Nell will come to the bedroom and I will unlock the door and show them how to blink their eyes three times. They will see how clever I have been and know that I am not mad.

The birds say the man may come back with others, but I will lock the door again. I have the sharp knife in my hand and they will never find the three of us because we will be hiding behind the wallpaper, safe with the birds.

 

BECKY

Will you be there

When the cold light of December

Touches down between the trees?

Girl of golden hair, so young, so thin,

Must you leave the two behind?

Eyes of one filled with wonder

Not comprehending the commotion,

The whispered stories, questions not yet answered.

The other, too occupied with little ducks and bears

Dangling noisily over the rocking cradle

To notice a life slipping slowly down the pathway.

Though memory fades with time

And you become a flattened image

Pressed between the leather coated pages,

A trace of you will remain within them

Unspoken and unknowing,

But still there.

Becky Morrissey, Died November, 1986

Written September, 1986

 

SHARED LAUGHTER

Seoul, Korea, 1955

Hot, bright light from sandy soil,

A small stream spread thin and rushing

Over cobblestones of red and yellow.

Women, chattering, laughing, sharing idle gossip;

Beating white cloth with rock on rock.

We stood above them on the bridge, at one with them,

Sharing our sun’s warm rays

Until we heard, from the bridge’s other side

The laughing and calling of three young men.

Soldiers, perhaps, indifferent now to life’s importance,

Beckoning us, pointing, nudging each other,

Watching us intently.

And there below we saw, rising, falling, floating in the clear bright water

That rushed toward and past the unknowing women,

Caught among the cruel and grasping rocks,

A naked corpse.

 

BASIC BASIC TRAINING

1954. College graduation. The Korean War was over, but so was our college deferment. Selective Service was rubbing its hands with glee. All those newly graduated college boys were now eligible.

Signing up for the draft meant we could get it over with and if we signed up right away, as we did, we’d have the summer before the Army got around to finding us. For college graduates, we were pretty naive. Two weeks later, the letter arrived: I was to report to the Selective Service Agency on July 5th, dashing my summer plans completely.

Now, I never hated the Army. Actually, I was grateful for them sending me half-way around the world to a place I would never have seen otherwise. Basic training, however, was the fourth ring of Hell. Years later I even had nightmares that the Army had lost my papers and I was forced to go back and repeat this training. I would literally awake in a sweat.

On the appointed day, I said my goodbyes and reported to the office at 9 A.M. where I was happy to see some of my college buddies waiting. Someone gave the tallest man all the tickets and appointed him our leader. We were escorted to the bus for the Manchester Railroad Station where we were met by a gentleman who informed us we had the rest of the day free until 9 P.M. when the train would arrive. Apparently, “efficiency” was not a word the system used often.

As we gathered at the appointed time, the train rolled in, we boarded, and were off, heading for Fort Dix, New Jersey. We even had sleeping bunks, which was a novelty. I was excited to watch New York City slide by from my upper bunk.

In the morning we detrained and rode a bus to our 8-week detention quarters. We were given new uniforms and handed a box for our “civvies” to be shipped home. I imagined my parents suddenly receiving a package with nothing but the clothes they had last seen several days before filled with their son. I was sure Mother shed tears.

We were issued several odds and ends and assigned to our new living space for the duration, my classmates being scattered among the various barracks. In my barracks, at least, no one knew anyone else, but we were quick to share our misery.

Our second day was a preview of how our life would be led. After some lessons in lining up and marching and a lecture on what to do and what not to do (mostly what not) a large group of us were gathered in front of a warehouse with a platform holding several battle-scarred corporals. The weather was hot and humid, but this was New Jersey, after all. What else would you expect?

“We’ve got some jobs here for you,” said one tough older corporal. “Who has a driver’s license?” A lot of eager hands went up immediately. Although it had been my college philosophy to try to volunteer first for reports or projects as it could mean the professor would be impressed and the job would be over with, driving a truck was not one of my life’s goals, so I passed.

The corporal chose six or eight men, called them to the platform and handed each a broom. “Here,” he said, “drive these around the warehouse!” O.K, I thought. So we’re here to play games. I was immediately on guard and ready to match wits.

“All right, picking fruit. Who’s up for that?”” Although we were mostly recent graduates who should have known better, again many hands were raised. The men selected were given shovels and told, “We need to get the trees planted first”, so off they went to dig holes for the day.

This game went on with each job seeming more difficult, and I was getting more wary. When it came down to a group of 15 or so, I knew we were close to the end. I was sure the last group would have the worst job of all so when they mentioned Utilities, my brain froze. Utilities? Only telephones came to mind. I took a chance and raised my hand, as did five other men.

“All right”, said the corporal. “That’s it. The rest of you men are dismissed for the day.” We had been tricked. Again. The freed men marched off, all with smirks on their faces. We unlucky ones were lined up and marched out behind the warehouse to an enormous pile of heavy railroad ties. I should have remembered the Monopoly game, Railroads were considered Utilities.

“OK men,” said the corporal, “the ties need to be loaded onto the trucks, then we’ll show you where to unload them”. It was a very long, hot day.

What we had learned was the old Army adage, “Never volunteer”, and we didn’t. Except for R.A. We never did know his name, but we all called him R.A. R.A. actually stood for “Regular Army”, meaning those suckers who volunteered for at least a three-year hitch. Draftees were known as U.S. and served for two years.

Our R.A. was actually a U.S. He was bright-eyed and eager to please, telling everyone who would listen how great Army life was going to be. He volunteered for everything. I was sure R.A, drove his broom around that warehouse at least three times and then sought to do something else.

We thought R.A. was a bit loony, but harmless. About six months later, we heard a rumor that R.A., wherever he was, had lost it and tried to burn down his barracks. It didn’t surprise us, but we never heard any more about him.

As the days passed, we learned all the important skills of warfare, including the most basic: how to make the sheets and blanket on the bunk so tight a quarter could be bounced on it, and that meant literally; how to organize your footlocker so that the inspecting officer could find your underwear immediately; and how to buff your boots with spit and polish so the sun’s rays could blind the enemy.

I often wondered whether the idea was to confront our foes with “Nyah, Nyah. My bunk is tighter than yours!”, whereby the enemy would immediately turn and run for their barracks to practice bunk making skills, thus leaving the field to us.

Oh, we also learned how to take an M1 gun apart, clean it and eventually put it back together with all the pieces inside. And we learned how and when and who to salute. Once we learned that, some of us added a twist: when walking up to an officer, we would wait until we were nearly past him to salute, making the officer salute so fast he would usually slap his forehead.

That was enjoyable, but basic training still puzzled me: there seemed to be an undercurrent of purpose I didn’t recognize. And then one day I discovered what I was looking for. It occurred during one of our bivouacs (French for sleeping on the ground). For some reason, I forget what, I approached an officer, perhaps a lieutenant, to ask a question. Bad timing, I admit. He was holding a tray and was eating while standing. When I drew near him and saluted, he looked at me and yelled, “Git off ma mess tray!”. He was clearly a white southerner. I backed away.

“Excuse me, Sir,” I replied. “I thought…”

“Yer a sodjer”, he yelled louder. “Yer not sapposed ta thiank. Yer sapposed ta do whatcher tole ta do. Now git!”

That was the key. We were being trained as robots! Not to think, but to do. I can understand the logic. During battle, ordinary grunts can’t spend time making decisions, but just do exactly what the thinking officers have decided for us. But still…….

I began to see that others of us had already figured out what I had just learned. Little acts of subversion were becoming clear. The challenge was to think without showing any sign that we were thinking. For instance, once when a group of us were heading toward the base pub, we spied our captain approaching. Knowing his penchant for tasks for any idle soldier, we immediately formed into two lines, with the tallest man keeping cadence―“Hep two three four”. We marched past the captain, making him slap his forehead with a late salute. “Good job, men,” we heard from behind us as we continued down the road.

A more sinister act of subversion occurred at the firing range. Each man had to ‘qualify’ for target practice midway through our training. This meant firing at distant white sheets with a bull’s eye painted on them. Five or six of us lay on our stomachs, aimed our M1’s, and pulled the trigger. Each time we fired a round the target was pulled down and a pole with a number on it was raised. Hitting the bull’s eye got us a 5, piercing the outer circle got you a 1, and a 3 for somewhere in between.

After 10 rounds our score was added up and we qualified―or not. I had little hope; the only rifle I had ever fired had “Ranger Rob” painted on the side and popped out a small cork when the trigger was pulled, and that was when I was about 8. But I aimed carefully and pulled. The shot went wild, I knew. With great surprise I looked up at the score―a 3! My eyes must be better than I thought. My second shot earned me a 5, a bull’s eye, as did the third. Next I was off, only a 1, but I rallied with another 5, before settling down to a couple of 3’s.

When the ten rounds had been fired, I discovered that I had qualified. I looked around. Actually we all qualified, although with different scores. But we certainly felt proud of our ability.

Then it was our turn to pull the targets. We marched down the field and into a wide trench, safely well below the firing range. I wondered if this was where the fruit trees were supposedly being planted. Each of us was assigned a station. We were to pull the target up, wait till all guns had been fired, pull the targets down, and held up the score. Last we patched the holes, if any.

When all was ready, we heard the cry, “Fire!” and a barrage followed. We pulled the targets down. Mine was pristine. A seasoned corporal who was in charge looked at it and said, “Looks like a 1 to me.” I opened my mouth, but shut it again when he stared at me and then went on, giving similar advice to the other pullers. I held up a 1.

When we checked the next round, I saw that my man had at least hit the target, if just barely. The corporal came back. “Your guy’s improving”, he said, “Worth a 5.” I looked at him. “We’re all buddies here, Just don’t go overboard.” and with that he moved on to the next station. I held up a 5.

No wonder we scored so well. It was an act of subversion and I appreciated it. I learned later that the sooner soldiers qualified, the sooner corporals could get to the pub. It was a bit self-serving, but so what? I joined the game until all had made acceptable scores. I don’t know how R.A. handled this; he must have been horrified, but he never reported it, as far as I know.

I engaged in a bit of subversion myself at times. For instance, one day we were being trained to use gas masks and what tear gas was like. Then eight of us were sent into a large dark hut with two doors. When we heard the gas turn on we were to take off our masks, count to ten and wait for a sergeant, wearing a mask, of course, to pat us on the shoulder to go out the exit door. I was able to be the second or third man in and made sure I was as close to the sergeant as possible. At the signal we removed our masks. Damn, it stung! At the count of 4, I stumbled slightly against the sergeant, he put his hand on my shoulder to steady me and I was out! When all eight men were freed, the sergeant came out and looked at us suspiciously, but said nothing. I’d won a minor victory.

Another time we did the “Crawl Under Fire” exercise. There was a cage-like structure, maybe 50 feet long with ten lanes that led to a platform, on which sat a soldier behind a deadly looking machine gun. The whole pen was covered with barbed wire. We were to crawl toward the platform while bullets raked back and forth about 4 feet over our heads, the barbed wire keeping us from standing up, not that any of us ever considered doing that, so it seemed relatively safe, but still worrisome.

I had lucked out again; I was in the second lane (I’m sure R.A. would have gotten into the middle track somehow) and saw that after about 10feet I’d be out of range. So I began crawling slowly and then moved over to now empty lane 1, meaning I’d be crawling the last 45 feet completely bullet free. No one seemed to notice or care, but I was happy.

I have said that basic training was hell. It was, but the worst parts have disappeared from my memory, and that’s all to the good. The training was, I’m sure, necessary to condition us if another war broke out and to give us survival techniques. But I think our resentment stemmed from another source. We had been dependent on our families through high school. College had changed that; it was our first experience in what we felt was independence. Now we were dependent again, doing what we were told to do without question. The resentment was a natural result. It galled us to feel our newly found freedom had been snatched away so quickly.

One of our last activities on the base was a hike and camping out for several days, perhaps a kind of wrapping up exercise. We had to get up early, get our backpacks ready and report to the field. The backpack was supposed to carry everything essential, pup tent and poles, blanket, mess kit, and sundry other things. It even contained a tube of atropine, with an ugly, lethal looking needle. In case we were attacked with nerve gas, we were to uncap the needle, jab it fully into the back of our leg and squeeze the tube. I felt our greater problem might be distinguishing the nerve gas from the New Jersey air.

Back packing took a lot of practice. Everything is arranged inside just so and then the tent poles are rolled into the blanket. The blanket is then tied to the top of the pack and the two ends are folded down and tied, making a neat, orderly appearance. By 7:50 everything was ready to go, except for tying the two ends down, and that’s where it stayed. No matter what I did, I couldn’t bend the blanket around. I repositioned the poles and rerolled the blanket but that didn’t help. Several of my buddies tried to help me, but to no avail. The blanket just wouldn’t move. With 2 minutes to go, my buddies ran out to formation, leaving me with a less than regulation backpack. So I placed what I had on my back, the blanket ends straight out. I grabbed my M1 and sneaked into formation with 30 seconds to spare.

Our drill sergeant was tall, at least 6 feet, muscular, deep black and formidable. He was very strict, but I admired him. He was honest and didn’t play games. Now he was standing on a platform in front of us and at exactly 8 A.M. called us to attention, “Now men,” he began, and his eyes swept the formation, passed me, then jerked back. His laser eyes widened. In front of him was a soldier looking more like a single winged, stubby airplane. Our eyes met. There was a momentary pause. He raised his long arm and pointed directly at me. In his deep stentorian voice, he roared, “That man is a disgrace to the Army!” He held my gaze for a minute longer and then turned and finished his instructions.

Just before ordering us to march off the field, he turned back to me and stared. I swear he raised his eyebrow just an iota and bit his lip, and I’m almost positive there was a twinkle in his eye. I held my gaze until he looked away. As we were marching to the trucks, the man next to me said quietly, “I think you won,” And I thought to myself proudly, “Yeah, I think I did.”

 

BROKEN COUNTRY

And so we live―

A mind of trouble and grief and fate

With a feel of touch and that is why

The rabbit runs with even pregnancy.

Not a song we sing,

But a dusty prose of distant fortune

Followed first by talk of night

And grime of long-burst buildings.

The hills have given

What rock and coin could change the valleys,

And still we labor for bread and moldy rice.

Our children, silent, will silently hunger.

The world will note

The sea that cruelly chews our rocky shore

To pity and neglect with falsely aching heart

Our hollow cries of misery.

 

AN ADVENTURE IN MOSCOW

1980. We were in Moscow. Our clothing wasn’t. An explanation:

Our family, Barbara and I, Liz and Cara, had chosen Russia as our third overseas vacation. Why Russia? I guess the best answer is: “why not?” However a mix-up with flights made lost luggage inevitable, although we didn’t realize it at the time. We were nervous enough as it was. After all, in those days Russia was supposedly forbidding and possibly dangerous. In addition, I had been, years before, in the U.S. Army Security Agency. Would the Soviets be watching out for me?

Our tour flight had been booked on LOT, the Polish airline. We were to fly from NYC to Warsaw, where we would have a city tour before flying into Moscow. However when we arrived from Boston and found the LOT terminal, we saw a large notice saying, “Due to technical problems the LOT flight has been cancelled. Please report to the Pan Am desk.”

There we discovered we were now booked on a Pam Am flight which didn’t leave until four hours later, leaving plenty of time to increase our anxiety and question whether a trip to the Galapagos might have been a better choice.

Finally, the flight took off and hours later landed in Frankfort, where we boarded a Lufthansa to Warsaw. Our last flight was to be on LOT. Four flights on four airlines. Our luggage never had a chance.

A brief aside. At the time, and perhaps still, the Polish were subjects of many jokes: “How many Poles does it take to change a light bulb?” But you do have to give them credit for attempting to be progressive. LOT came up with several innovations. One was a small basket that slid under each seat in which to place a baby during flight. Maybe not great sight lines for the baby, but it was convenient for parents.

The other innovation was even more progressive. In the 80’s smoking was still allowed during flights in all countries. LOT went further by designating specific smoking sections. Smokers were placed on the right hand side; non-smokers were seated on the left. We watched the smoke drift slowly across the aisle toward us and just shook our heads.

When the plane landed in Warsaw we met the rest of our tour, about twenty of us. It was very late and no one was there to meet us. There was no tour of the city, of course, Our little band, looking weary and forlorn, huddled together like refugees lost in a storm. We introduced ourselves and commiserated over our ominous beginnings.

Finally, after hours of waiting in the dark, deserted airport, our flight was called. Eventually, we were in Moscow, but without our luggage. Correction: Liz’s suitcase did finally come sliding down the luggage chute, giving us temporary hope that was soon extinguished when the gate closed.

Customs took a long time as each suitcase was examined, item by item, by possible secret KGB agents searching diligently for any contraband our group might sneaking into the country. Naturally, they spent little time with our family with its one lonely bag. When we were released and were marched to the bus that took us to our hotel, just off Red Square. It was late and we were very tired, so even the prospect of no toothbrush and deodorant didn’t bother us.

The next morning our group gathered for breakfast in our private dining room (ham, toast and eggs) and we were able to slip out and buy some essentials. Then we gathered in the lobby and met our guide. She was tall and thin with long black hair and had a suspicious look on her face. Her name was Tanya, although she looked more like Rocky and Bullwinkle’s evil Natasha. I didn’t trust her.

After preliminaries and rules―there were always rules―I was able to speak to her about our luggage. “Ah,” she said, avoiding my eyes, “Zhey are not open today. I call tomorrow. Today I show you Moscow.”

The next morning, I reminded Tanya/Natasha of our problem. “Ah, yes’, she said. “I call now”. She went to a phone and had a long and apparently unpleasant conversation with a LOT agent. Finally she returned, shaking her head.“No bags. Zhey vill look,” she said. “But they haf to see your claim in person”. She shook her head. “LOT!” she snarled,” Vot can you expect? Zhair POLISH!”, making the last word sound like something you might step in at a dog park.

She then explained we would be traveling on the Moskva River that morning and to the Metro subway in the afternoon. The Metro, by the way, was well known for its architecture and beauty. However, instead of the subway, she would be sending me to the LOT offices to clear up the problem. She would give me instructions and addresses.

The river trip was interesting and we got acquainted with our fellow travelers. Sometime in the afternoon the boat docked in a place we had not seen before and were escorted to a restaurant for lunch (ham sandwiches, warm beer). Tanya/Natasha pulled me aside and handed me a business card with the Hotel address. On the back she had hand-written the address of my destination. “Show dis to the taxi man and he vill take you zhair”, she instructed, “and DO NOT let your baggage claims out of your hand! Remember, dere POLISH!”. She then hailed a taxi; I got in next to him, waved to my worried family and we were off.

The driver was large, heavy-set and sullen, and I was sure he was another KGB agent. I had an image of being driven straight to interrogation headquarters and then off to a gulag in Siberia. There was no conversation. We did communicate slightly, me pointing to something and he shaking his head no and we continued heading away from where I judged the center of the city was.

After a number of twists and turns we were on a broad street in a run-down section of the city. Finally, he pulled up in front of a series of low, boarded up buildings. I looked at him. He shook his head yes and pointed to the card with the address. This was obviously not the right place. I shook my head no. He glared and pointed again at the card and then at the building. I was insistent, as insistent as one can be without using words.

Finally, he reached across me and opened the passenger side door, and firmly pushed me out of the cab. He held out his hand for the fare. Reluctantly, I handed him a ruble or two. He again pointed to the building, shook his head and drove off. and there I was, somewhere in the outskirts of a large, unfamiliar city.

It came to me that, either accidentally or purposefully, Tanya/Natasha had written “South” rather than “North”, so all I had to do was to go in the opposite direction from where the driver had pointed. Besides, the way south looked was even more dreary than the buildings I saw in front of me.

As I made my way north, I noticed shops beginning to appear. True, they weren’t that much different from the abandoned buildings I had left behind, but at least I was seeing people, and the buildings ahead were taller and more substantial.

And then ahead I saw rescue―a policeman who would straighten out the situation. I went up to him, smiled and handed him the directions. He took the paper, studied it and pointed to the way I had come. I shook my head no; he shook his head yes, and we stood facing each other shaking our heads in opposition. When he had had enough, he placed his large, beefy hands on my shoulders and turned me around, giving a push back the way I had come. I turned to him nodded my head to thank him and started to walk away. After a few steps I looked back. He was now engaged in a deep conversation with an older lady by the curb, so I headed back toward him with my head down and managed to slip by him and continued heading north.

And then, there it was. I was standing in front of an old, deteriorating building with a LOT sign attached and an arrow pointing up. The stairs were well worn, no doubt from all the travelers whose baggage had been lost. The hall smelled strongly of old cabbage and beets. On the left of the second floor was a door with LOT etched on the glass. I was at my destination.

When I walked in I saw seated behind an ancient wooden desk a middle aged woman with a blonde wig slightly askew and lipstick that seemed to have been applied with a trowel. She looked me up and down without expression and waited. I said, “English?” She continued to examine me and then drawled, “Yas.” I slowly explained the situations while she stared at me stone faced. She nodded her head and asked me for my claim check. I took it out and showed it to her, holding it firmly in my hand. She reached for it and tried to take it and it became a power struggle. Finally she sighed and gave up.

“You vill haf to fill out a form”. she said. She turned to a battered filing cabinet and rifled through it, coming up a document in English and presumably Polish. She handed this to me and pointed to a spot in the corner with a tiny desk and chair. I sat down and proceeded to fill it out, keeping a close eye on my claim tags as the woman stared at me.

When I handed her the completed form, she inspected it closely and nodded. “We vill let you know about dis,” she said handing me a receipt. I nodded and turned to go. Feeling generous, I turned back to her and said, “Spa sibo” (Russian for “thank you,”)

She froze and glared at me. In a loud, cold voice she snarled, “I’m Polish; Dat’s HROOSIAN”, making the last word sound like something you might step in at a dog park.

Once outside I began looking for a taxi to get me back to the hotel, wherever it was. Tanya/Natasha had warned me to find transportation as quickly as possible as most taxis in the city went off duty at 5 PM, except for major spots in the city. It seemed clear I wasn’t in such a place.

It was quarter to five and already the street was full of taxis, most of them with their overhead lights out. I stepped out into the street and began waving my arms. One car stopped and I showed the driver the hotel card. He read it, shook his head no and drove off. Another taxi soon stopped, with the same reaction, and then another. No one seemed to be going anywhere near the hotel.

As 5 o’clock drew near, I became a bit panicky. I hadn’t thought of myself as particularly brave and the idea of being stranded in an unknown part of town didn’t help. The cars raced by. Then a car stopped. This wasn’t a taxi but an ordinary Russian citizen. I quickly showed him the card, and he shook his head and shrugged. Sadly I watched him drive off.

And out of the blue I had an epiphany. I don’t know why I felt that way, but I suddenly knew I’d get back to the hotel and that everything would work out well. I would be reunited with my family and we’d have a wonderful tour. I was no longer worried. I think I even laughed out loud.

I began waving at any car that passed by and in just a short while, another passenger car stopped. The driver looked at the card, smiled and reached across to open the door. Without a thought, I jumped in. “You American?” he asked. “I learn English”. And for the next half hour we were able to communicate fairly easily. His English was far from perfect, but he enjoyed being able to practice what he had learned. And he never asked for state secrets.

We finally arrived at the hotel and we shook hands as I thanked him. He waved as he drove off. I had made a friend. If I had been thinking, we might have exchanged addresses for later correspondence.

The group was just beginning dinner (ham, potatoes, vegetables and warm beer) and was talking about what they had seen. Tanya/Natasha looked a little disappointed when she saw me I thought, but she only asked how things went. I related my story to the group and Barbara told me how she had worried. I reassured her that it was an unexpected adventure and I had learned a lot from it. I did miss the Metro tour, but did see a part of Moscow that is unlikely to be on any tourist map. I was happy.

As for the luggage, it did turn up…..eventually. But that’s another story.

 

A MUSICAL EDUCATION

SPOILER ALERT! If you enjoy classical music, read no further. What follows may corrupt your listening pleasure.

When I was young, I didn’t think much about music, Both my mother and father had good singing voices and sang in the church choir, although I believe she stopped after I was born. My father continued into his sixties. He was a soloist and also sang in oratorios and the like in both Penacook and Concord. Neither parent paid much attention, as I recall, to classical music.

My introduction to the genre came in elementary school. We had a traveling music teacher, Martha Gale. She had white hair with tiny curls, a robust figure, and had what looked like one long, rectangular breast above her stomach. Her head seemed too small for her body, making her look like one of the Weebles, if you remember those.

Miss Gale instituted a music appreciation course meant to cover grades one through eight. Each year she would introduce us to five classical music pieces, so they would accumulate to forty by the time we finished. We were expected to recognize each piece at the drop of a phonograph needle. We kept a list of each piece of music by dividing a paper into three neat columns, and copying the information from the blackboard, thus: NAME • SOURCE • COMPOSER, for example: To a Wild Rose • Ten Woodland Sketches • Edward McDowell.

My memory fails me as to when the list was started. Likely it was second grade when writing would have been more fluent. but whether the list followed us each year or we recreated it annually, I have no recollection.

We also had tests. Miss Gale would crank up the old Victrola and place the 78 records in random order while we wrote down the title of each piece. As an aid to recognition, Miss Gale wrote lyrics to most of the selections. Sadly, as I recognized much later, her talent was less than we thought. For example: Waltz of the Flowers • Nutcracker Suite • Peter Tchaikovsky, “Waltz of the flowers fair, Waltz of the flowers so fair.” Her intentions were good, but her creativity could have used some work.

Yes, the technique did help, but I didn’t realize at the time how intrusive the words would be in later life, and, once learned, never forgotten. They get in the way of truly enjoying the music. ‘Humoresque’ by Anton Dvorak; This is Dvorak’s Humoresque, Oh, this is Dvorak’s Humoresque; This is Dvorak’s Humoresque; Dee dah, dee dah, dee dah, dee dah.” She ran out of creative steam on this one but it didn’t bother her.

Perhaps the “dee dahs” were place holders for future work. It didn’t matter that none of us had the slightest idea of what ‘Humoresque’ meant. She would just drop the needle and point to us at the right moment and we would burst in song. Morning • Peer Gynt Suite • Edvard Grieg; “Morning is coming, Oh, morning is coming; Oh, morning is coming; Oh, morning is here.”

Most of the pieces had Gale lyrics, but a few were more descriptive. For the ‘Introduction to Nutcracker Suite’, we were to listen to the curtain going up. The music actually does glide upward and I still have a mental picture of a red curtain ascending while the stage lights go on. For ‘The Storm’ from Overture • William Tell • Giacomo Rossini the sound of lightning and thunder from the orchestra was enough, and the final section needed no help at all. The moment it was played all of us inwardly cried “Hi ho Silver! Away!” as the “Lone Ranger” radio program theme burst from the phonograph.

Somewhere in the upper grades the overture to ‘Carmen’ was supposed to bring gypsies into our classroom. She painted a word picture of women in bright costumes dancing wildly and clicking their castanets. It worked. Perhaps to prevent gypsy confusion, Miss Gale wrote more lyrics to: Anvil Chorus • Il Trovatore • Giuseppe Verdi; “Gypsies are singing, While hammers are ringing, On anvils so shiny bright!”

While this might not have been much better than previous attempts, Miss Gale had at least discovered rhyme. Not even ‘Liebestraum’ by Franz Liszt was safe from the Gale treatment. I can still hear the words: “Oh, dream of love, Oh dream of love di-vi-ine, Beautiful dream of love.”

While we never thought about it, we never heard more of the selection than the first few bars, but enough to sing along with. We knew, of course, there had to be more to each piece. Yet there was always a tiny bit of surprise when I later heard the entire selection.

Then Miss Gale introduced a story line for: Surprise Symphony • Andante • Joseph Haydn. Apparently Herr Haydn, referred to sometimes as ‘Papa’, was angry that audiences often fell asleep during his concerts, so he wrote the second movement softly with a loud crash at the end. That this story had little to do with the truth didn’t matter. Miss Gale outdid herself with the lyrics: “Papa Haydn played a joke; On the people fast asleep; When the people all awoke; Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, HA!” I admit I am now a bit suspicious. The other Gale lyrics lack the sophistication of this work. I hesitate to use the word plagiarism, but it seems out of character for her. Otherwise, I would have to say she had reached the heights with this one.

And now we come to the ultimate. This one included physical motion, the only one like that I can recall of the Gale repertoire. ‘The Carnival of the Animals’ by Camille Saint-Saens. (! AGAIN: SPOILER ALERT!) Everyone knows this one, a quiet, lovely melody that rises and falls gracefully, played on the cello. You can close your eyes and see in your mind’s eye that peaceful swan gliding smoothly over a mirrored surface of a lake lake: “Beau-ti-ful swa-an; How white you are; Raising your heh-ed; Up so-o-o-o-o high”. While singing, our hand forms the head by holding the fingers together with thumb touching the tip of the index finger, with wrist bent, at the word “raising”, the arm moves sinuously upward while the “head’ moves from side to side. This may take some practice, but is something that may be safely tried at home.

My memory is faulty, but as far as I know, Miss Gale never mentioned the three major composers, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Perhaps she thought these giants were untouchable or perhaps she recognized her talent wasn’t sufficient for tackling such greatness. I am grateful for that.

Lyrics from other pieces are lurking out there somewhere, but for the moment have escaped my memory. After all, forty selections had to provide many more. I am sure that words to other pieces will pop into my head when I encounter the music. Case in point: Earlier in this essay I had written that somehow ‘Liebestraum’ had escaped the Gale treatment. Upon hearing the piece recently, though, I automatically began singing the words, making a rewrite here necessary.

So that was my introduction to classical music. It’s not pretty, but it worked. My suggestion to you is forget everything that has been written here, but you WERE warned. So when you attend future concerts and during an encore you see in the audience one or two arms slowly rising snake-like into the air, you will know the Gale method is still out there. You can’t escape.

 

THE WITCH IN THE WOODSHED

Games were always a big part of our childhood. Ten to twelve children lived in our neighborhood, and sometimes others joined in. A dead end street gave us plenty of space to play, as well as our backyards. We played the usual games: Tag, Hide and Seek, Red Light, Red Rover, Giant Steps, Kitty in the Corner (we called it something else in our innocent days) and Cowboys and Indians (or more politically correct: Beef Technicians vs. Pre-Illegal-Immigrant People).

One game was called “Witch in the Woodshed”. I’ve never run into it anywhere since those early days, so I believe it was an invention of our own. It required a minimum of five people, with no maximum and needed three locations: home, a woodshed and the witch’s house. We played it only in my backyard. Home was the small open porch off my aunt’s kitchen, the woodshed was an apple tree a little distance away and the witch’s house was somewhere in my uncle’s disused flower garden.

This game involved imagination, dramatics, speed and even B&D, well, spanking anyway. The game was pretty much scripted, but still allowed for creativity. What follows is the complete guide to the game, in case anyone wishes to liven up the next cocktail party:

The cast: a mother who could be played by either sex, we were indifferent, a witch, and three or more children. The mother asks one of the children to go to the woodshed to get wood for the oven. The child goes to the tree and the witch jumps out. The child runs home to tell the mother there is a witch in the woodshed. The mother scoffs, saying. “That is nonsense”, and sends the child back twice more. On the third time the witch grabs the child and put him behind the tree. Mother then sends the second child to the woodshed using the same script. This is repeated until all the children have been captured by the witch.

The witch then takes all the children to her house in the garden, and gives each child the name of a pie and goes back to the woodshed. The mother goes to the witch and asks the witch if she has seen her children. The witch replies, “I think I saw them on…(here the witch names a street that indicates action, such as “Rolling Street”, “Briar Street”, “Tickle Street”, or “Scissors Street”) The mother then reacts appropriately with cries of “ouch”, giggles, or rolling on the ground. Here imagination takes center stage. This is done three times. When the mother comes back the third time she tells the witch she is hungry after all that work. The witch invites her to the house in the garden as she has some pies there.

Once there, the witch asks the mother what kind of pie she would like and the mother names a pie. If the mother chooses a pie, which one of the children has been given, the child starts running for home with the mother chasing him. This often involves a chase all over the yard. If the child reaches home first, she is safe. However if the mother catches the child she gives him, gasp!, a spanking. Spankings were generally light as the mother is aware in the next game she might be a child. Then the mother returns to the witch for another pie. When the last child is freed, the game is over, and the roles are recast.

If this game were truly developed by our neighborhood, were there others? And could we have made a fortune by marketing it? There were no entrepreneurs among us to reap fortunes from Wall Street. Perhaps some enterprising reader can turn this into a video game, if a spanking attachment is added. Who knows the heights that can be attained? At least it might be an interesting adult party game!

 

HELLO, MR. CELEBRITY

Some years ago ten members of the Community Players packed into a van and headed for New York City for a weekend of theater, dining and sightseeing. Ten people and luggage in a van may be efficient and cost effective, but it’s also a windfall for chiropractors. That didn’t stop us, though.

When we arrived at our hotel, we oozed out of the van, quickly registered and scattered to the theaters for a matinee. I chose one of my favorites, a revival of Sondheim’s “Follies”. It starred Polly Bergen and Marge Champion, among others, and involved a reunion of former show girls. The songs are wonderful (I’m sure almost everyone knows “I’m Still Here”) and the plot is heartbreaking.

After the performance, several of our group talked about it and about our choices for the evening show. I wanted to see a revival of “Bells are Ringing” starring Faith Prince

whose star was rising at the time. Songs from the show are still popular, like “Just in Time” and “The Party’s Over”. One of our group, Eileen, said she would go with me. We picked up tickets and met the others for dinner.

We had great seats, on the left side, about 5 rows from the stage. As I was reading the playbill, Eileen suddenly clutched my arm. She pointed and coming down the aisle were Adolf Green and Betty Comden, the show’s writers and lyricists. Their work is legendary, like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Wonderful Town”.

We then realized they were going to sit directly in front of us!. They came into the row with Comden in front of Eileen and Green in front of me. And then it happened. Green began to sit but his seat was still up and he went down and was wedged between the seats, gasping and floundering. Without thought we rose to the rescue, Eileen under one arm and I under the other. We soon discovered Mr. Green was no light weight. We tugged and pulled, while a smiling young man sitting next to him and apparently Mr. Green’s aide, watched us struggling, Eileen and I looked at each other.

I’m not sure what she was thinking, but my thoughts were of my back; one wrong move and I’d be hobbling all the way back to the hotel. With some extra effort, we finally managed to get Mr. Green standing upright. I put his seat down and the three of us talked a bit until the show began.

During intermission, perhaps feeling he owed us something. he talked with us some more and we got autographs from both members of the team, having the opportunity also to talk with Ms. Comden. When the show ended we told them how much we enjoyed the show and hoped it would run for years. Of course, we both had visions of being invited to the after-show party, but our luck didn’t get us that far. Heroic rescues are sometimes unsung.

Sadly, the show was panned and lasted only 56 performances. But what was lost to the public was a great celebrity meeting for the two of us. For a few minutes we were with the doyens of the theater world. and that was enough for us.

 

LUCILLE IN SIX CHAPTERS

Chapter 1

A week or two by the ocean would be perfect. We had driven across the country; traveled to various countries in South America, Asia, and Europe; spent 6 years, off and on, in the mountains of North Conway; and enjoyed weeks on Webster Lake; but never by the Atlantic. So we said, “Why not?”.

We had recently retired and were looking for someplace to relax for a while. Retirement can be exhausting; why else would “tire” be in the word? We loved the ocean and visited it often. We had collected enough rocks over the years to build our own stone wall, indeed, enough to build stone walls for all of our neighbors. Not that we ever did; the rocks we amassed were round and slippery. Perhaps gluing them? It was not to be.

Once we even transferred an abandoned lobster trap from a cove in Rye to our garage, A gentleman who saw us carrying it to our car made some comment but the wind was strong and his words blew away as he spoke them so we weren’t quite sure of what he said. The word “illegal” might have been used, so we put the trap back until he left, then rescued it. It was meant as a coffee table once we found a glass top for it. However, we never did finish that project and at some point it ended up in a yard sale, going to someone who presumably had more ambition than we did, or else the person intended to do some trapping. But I digress.

One nice spring day the five of us, Barbara, Liz, Cara, Murphy and I, drove to York, Maine and began to look for rental signs. There were plenty of places, but nothing that appealed to us. Cottages were either too close, too crowded, too rundown, or too expensive. Most of all, though, very few places allowed dogs. Murphy was a retired greyhound and we had sworn we’d never leave her in a kennel. She’d had that experience and we knew she would be extremely unhappy. At one cottage a fellow told us there was a kennel not too far away and we could visit her every day, but that wasn’t what we wanted.

Somewhat discouraged, we stopped at the Nubble to view the lighthouse, a habit of ours each time we came to Maine. We noticed some small cottages as we drove into the parking area. A sign was posted on one of the cottages, so we drove past the notice, “Residents Only”, and sure enough, a “For Rent” sign was tacked to the grey shingled building. We copied the telephone number, noting it was owned by someone in Meredith, N.H. There was some hope anyway.

The next day we called and inquired. Yes, the cottage was indeed for rent and yes, dogs were allowed. In fact, Lucille had several dogs and cats and she really loved animals. We were high. Then she told us she was booked up and had no free weeks. We were low. She did say she would keep our telephone number and call if she had an opening the following year. So that was that. We decided our ocean vacation would have to wait and moved on to other plans. We could have continued looking but somehow we put things on hold and forgot about this.

In 1996 Barbara was discovered to have breast cancer and all thoughts of vacations took last place in our plans. After chemotherapy and near death situations, she stabilized and things looked better. In February, 1998, four years after we contacted her, Lucille called. We had completely forgotten her. She told us she had a free week in July if we were still interested. We told her we would get back to her, and the next day all five of us headed for York to take another look.

No one was around, of course, but we were able to look through the windows of the cottage. It looked fine to us, a bit run down and basic, and in the living room was a stack of new windows waiting to be installed. This was a sign of good upkeep and we said “yes”.

In April, Barbara died. This made a difference; we had envisioned the change of scenery and the sun would make her happy. After consideration, we decided to go anyway. It wouldn’t be the same without her, of course, but life goes on.

When we arrived in July, it didn’t surprise us to find a woman with grey/white hair and a nice smile. She said she was there to fix a couple of the cement blocks that held the cottage off the ground, but of course we knew she was checking her new tenants out. I helped her with the blocks (it does give an idea of what the cottage was like. All the others in the complex had cement foundations and were more up to date.). She asked me when my wife was arriving, then told me her husband had died in December.

We had an enjoyable time that week. We met several people who either rented or owned the other cottages. There was a couple from Chichester, N.H., only about 20 minutes from our Concord home. They became good friends for years. Murphy, greyhounds being unusual at that time, thoroughly enjoyed all the attention she was getting and loved lying in the sun beside the water. She quickly learned that when tourist buses drove into the Park, she needed to be out there to greet them. The tourists loved her, taking more pictures of her than the lighthouse. The moment she heard a bus driving in, she was up and tugging at her leash.

We spent our time sitting by the ocean, climbing on the rocks, exploring the town and eating out, things anyone does at the ocean. We decided to come back the next year and perhaps rent a second week, if possible. When we called to ask, Lucille told us that she was able to get us a second week, but only a week in July and one in August, which we accepted as better than nothing. The following year, and the rest of our time there, we had consecutive weeks in July, which was much more convenient.

And so we had found our Eden by the sea to relax and take us away from the outside world. While the cottage was more rustic than we hoped, it wasn’t that expensive and made us feel like we “belonged”. Our heads and noses raised a bit whenever we drove past the “Residents Only” sign. We had arrived.

Chapter 2

We enjoyed the seaside cottage. While it was in the second row, the other cottages were placed in such a manner, the back row buildings still had a good view between the others. For a few years, we saw something had been added to the cottage each time we arrived. Windows were installed the first year, a new and larger than needed refrigerator the second. The third year saw a new rug in the sitting area and the fourth year a new bedspread. A new table runner was next and after that the lessening renovations came to a halt.

We had hoped Lucille would replace the old shower in the bathroom. It was metal and narrow. Each shower was accompanied by the drum beats of elbows connecting with the metal sides. However, the old shower remained.

We almost always went to Fox’s Restaurant right across from the cottages. No other fried clams taste quite the same and it is so close. We also ate at the Lighthouse Restaurant, again almost next door. Sadly that was torn down a few years later and a monster mansion took its place. There were other places also. One year we splurged and ate out every night for two weeks We tried most of the restaurants in the vicinity and found places that became our favorites.

We also cooked in the cottage. The kitchen was small; two people, if they were skinny, could fit, but that was the limit. The stove was small and the refrigerator large. Storage was tight and we kept the food in a couple of drawers in one of the bedrooms. There were plates and cups and saucers and bowls enough to feed twelve, though not enough room inside to feed that many people.

We also tried barbecuing. This is not easy at the ocean if you are in line with the wind. We often used up a couple of packs of matches to light our little hibachi, and more than once, gave up and baked the chicken inside.

On one occasion, I had the idea of placing our hibachi on one of Lucille’s wooden benches from her outdoor dining set. That consisted of a very large and heavy round table and four matching benches. I realized wood probably wasn’t the best surface to place a hibachi, so had the brilliant thought of lining the bench with aluminum foil. What was I thinking?

After dinner I removed the foil and discovered a large charred spot in the middle of the bench, one that couldn’t be explained as a freak of nature or the work of termites. The only thing to do was to somehow repair it. It looked like it had been painted a redwood color, and one of the people there chipped off a tiny piece and agreed with me. So I carefully dug away and cleaned all the burned spots and then purchased a similar color paint. It didn’t take long to make it look like the rest of the set. However, when the paint dried, it had a distinctly different look. There was nothing to do but buy more paint and do the entire set. When I was finished I was quite proud of my work, but my conscience bothered me. Lucille would certainly notice the difference.

When we returned home, I wrote a letter to her, explaining just what had happened, that I apologized, and if she wished I would replace at least the bench. I also said I would be willing to do anything else around the cottage to atone and that I enjoyed doing small jobs while vacationing. In return, Lucille sent a long letter forgiving me. I wish I had saved it, but it was along the following lines: “Don’t worry about the bench. I should provide the cottage with some small metal table to cook outdoors on. That set was made by an old craftsman from Maine, but it’s no matter. He died a few years ago and I don’t know anyone else who makes these sets, but don’t you think about it anymore. I’m sure the set looks fine. The old fellow did such good work. You just can’t find anyone who works like he did.”

This is the kind of letter that makes one feel relieved, doesn’t it? And she also mentioned, if I enjoyed that sort of thing, the rose bushes would need trimming next July, if she didn’t get down before then. I wrote back that I actually did like cutting bushes and would be happy to accommodate her.

Rosebushes indeed did need trimming when we arrived the following year. They were large and covered the front of the cottage and had been given a cursory working over, but, being a sort of perfectionist, I knew I could do better. I had brought long sleeved working clothes, clippers and heavy gloves, and with vengeance tackled the work. Lots of dead branches and other debris soon was cleared out and deposited in the trash bins. When finished, I felt proud of the job; it looked quite professional, I thought.

Other people there also mentioned how nice it looked and hoped I got paid or at least got a cut on the rent, but nothing like that happened and I wasn’t expecting it anyway.

In another letter, Lucille mentioned she knew the cottage needed staining, but she hadn’t gotten around to doing that. This was more of a challenge, but I replied I wouldn’t mind staining; the cottage wasn’t large and most of the sides were low enough for a stepladder. A longer one was needed for the peaks, but also not that high off the ground. I was a restless person. While I enjoyed sitting and reading by the water, I could take only so much of that and needed to be doing something, constructive or otherwise. So, a few odd jobs was fine with me.

However, I was beginning to see Lucille was not above a bit of conniving, so I told her I didn’t mind doing this if she would get the stain and leave it in the cottage for the coming year. It would only take parts of two days to do this. A quick response to my offer showed up. Apparently, she was less interested in paying the cost of the stain, but she covered this glitch easily. Her letter said she was not sure I should do this as I might fall off the ladder and my daughters would sue her. Not a word of possible injuries, although she did mention she knew of a fellow who had fallen off a ladder and broken his back.

In another letter, and yes, we exchanged a number of letters, she mentioned she hoped to get around to repainting the cottage door, so, if I had the time…and she reminded me the roses needed trimming again.

Chapter 3

Yes, I had the time and the inclination. The door did look bad and it took little time to paint. I did buy the blue paint and the door came out well. I was pleased and I expect Lucille was also, although I never heard from her about it.

When we arrived one year, we opened the door to be greeted with a pungent odor coming from the bedroom I slept in. It was obvious it was where her pets slept also. We opened the windows and tried to air the room out. I tried sleeping there, but finally had to go to the living room and sleep on the old sofa. (The word “sofa” is an exaggeration. It was actually two twin mattresses on top of an old cot with a bed cover over it.) With the door to the bedroom closed it wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t intend to sleep on the lumpy couch for two weeks. We decided the smell came from the large rug which covered much of the bedroom floor, so we bought some heavy plastic sheets, rolled the rug up, and tied it securely. We then carried the package out and left it in the little shed behind the cottage.

That was a good idea. However, the odor lessened, but remained. Apparently, the urine had seeped into the floor. Our next step was washing and we moved the furniture out. As the room contained a bed, bureau, end table, and small chair that step was easily handled. We scrubbed furiously to no avail. The odor remained.

We had a choice―go home and give up the cottage or to take a bold step. I chose bold. I purchased a can of varnish and a brush. Now for some people this might seem incredibly brash, perhaps illegal. If I had owned a cottage and had renters paint it or do some other sort of permanent action, I’d have been upset. It is not something a renter should do.

However, we couldn’t think of anything else. We couldn’t spend two weeks with the odor. We couldn’t contact Lucille easily. By this time she wasn’t answering her phone and had no recording device. We could have driven up to Meredith or sent her a letter, but that didn’t seem practical. By this time we had figured out we were the only renters and Lucille needed us. She seemed willing to accept whatever we did to the cottage and the cottage was being improved with no cost to her. So I felt confident she wouldn’t object to almost anything we did, short of burning it down. That would have taken care of the odor but would create other problems.

So, we varnished the floor and the odor disappeared. We moved the furniture back in, and the room looked and smelled much improved. Things were back to normal. The night before we left, we pulled the rug inside, unwrapped it and laid it down, and the odor returned. I slept that last night on the living room “couch”.

When we returned home, I wrote to Lucille, explaining we thought the floor could use another coat of varnish and hoped she would approve. I was sure she would have taken offense, if I had mentioned the urine smell, although I can’t imagine she didn’t already know about that.

Her response was typical. She made a mild objection, (“I never varnished the floor because I didn’t want to make the floor slippery”), but said nothing more. She apparently forgot most of the floor was covered by a rug and wasn’t slippery at all; just smelly, but it was her problem now. And the following year, both the rug and the odor were gone and she had a couple of bright small rugs in the bedroom. She had accepted our work. And the rosebushes had been trimmed.

Chapter 4

A year or two later, we arrived in York and were greeted by the owner of a nearby cottage. He told me Lucille’s cottage had a water problem, not a good start to our vacation. Lucille had left us a note. By this time, communication with her had dwindled. She had sent one letter each year asking for our commitment to the two weeks and what the rent would be, but that was all. I’m including the note in full and verbatim:

Bob,

You have electricity and a water meter — no water coming through.

I’ve left you water jug to make do. You can fill it next door!!

Leave empty jug under cottage near rose bushes.

The rose bushes need to be trimmed a bit so you can put screens in

front windows!

This is what they call camping.

I’ll work on getting you phone service + gas next week.

Have fun!

I was here Friday in the rain.

Lucille

“This what they call camping”? She had increased the rent that year and now we are “camping”? No water? No gas for the hot water tank and no phone? In addition to that, “filling the water jug next door” works only if the people next door are there. They weren’t. In fact they never showed up for the two weeks we were there. And cold water showers are very low on our “fun things to do on our vacation” list. Installing the screens was a new request. I’m not quite sure why they hadn’t been left on or at least put on in May or June. Another indication that why she had lost her other renters.

We had a decision to make: do we stay or go back home? We would have a tough time getting our money back, that I knew. The telephone was not a problem; we had our mobile phones. (Not that the reception was worth much there. The only way we could get a signal usually was standing on a large rock by the entrance to the parking lot). The other problems were more serious. Incidentally, the phone issue never was solved as far as I know.

I decided to check the water. I knew the shut off valve was under the cottage, so I crawled under, turned the valve and the water came on immediately. Why no one else thought of this, I’m not sure. Why Lucille didn’t mention it, is beyond me―but at least one problem was solved.

I decided to call the gas company to see what could be done. The gentleman who answered was understanding but told me that Lucille owed about $90 and that had to be paid before anything could be done. He suggested I pay the bill and then be reimbursed by Lucille. For me, this was not an option. I knew Lucille only too well.

When he said he would call Lucille and talk with her about this, I gave him Lucille’s telephone number and wished him good luck. He said there wasn’t anything he could do until Monday anyway, but he’d work on it. It took a while to figure that statement out. Just then one of the residents, Jan, walked by and asked how we were doing. She then offered to let us shower in her cottage as long as we needed to and that gave us all we needed to stay. We “camped out” that weekend.

On Monday morning I was about to call the gas company when I saw the truck pull into the parking lot. The worker told me he was there to fill the gas tank. Apparently, things had been worked out; whether Lucille had been contacted or not was unknown. This fellow then discovered the tank was full. All that was needed was to turn the valve on, However, he was not authorized to do that; he knew how but someone else was supposed to do this. Bureaucracy never changes! Bending to my pleading looks, he called his supervisor and after a long conversation, told me he had gotten permission and that it would have taken three or four days for someone to come and turn on a valve. The fellow then suggested he go inside and check the heater. I said I didn’t think it was necessary, but he said it was part of the job. He came in, looked the heater over carefully and declared, “The gas goes to the cottage furnace in the living room; the water heater, is electric!” All I had to do was turn on the switch in the fuse box in the kitchen.

We had never turned on the water heater in all the times we had rented. Perhaps, Lucille used the gas furnace in the fall or spring, but we never had. This was one more problem we didn’t have to deal with, anyway. I offered our Saint Gas Man a tip, but he refused it and wished us good luck.

While the rest of our time there that summer went smoothly, we began to think it was time, indeed past time, to consider renting elsewhere. The cottage rent went up and the place seemed to get shabbier. Well, except for the rose bushes. Those got trimmed nicely each year.

Chapter 5

Gradually my correspondence with Lucille waned. There seemed little to say except for the possible dates to rent, and it became my job to ask. She would write back and agree. Then the year after our “camping” experience, we got no response from her. We waited and waited. As time grew short, we began to wonder what had happened. Telephoning did no good; she never answered the phone and had no answering machine. She had told me that she didn’t answer the phone because it was in the kitchen, and she was seldom in the kitchen.

One day in mid-June Liz and I headed north to Meredith to confront Lucille in person. After inquiries, we found her house, an average sized home built on a hill and from the bottom looked quite high. We rang the front door bell but no one answered. We went down the hill to the back and rang the bell at the garage door. We heard a bark and saw a dog, perhaps two, on the side porch above our heads, but again no human stirred. We checked the mailbox by the road. It was full, no, more than full. A tiny elf couldn’t have found a place to curl up for a nap. The door wouldn’t close. I wondered why the mailman wasn’t more curious. A station wagon with current license plates was parked in the back yard and when we peered into the garage windows we saw another car, also currently licensed. This was surrounded by piles and piles of yellowed newspapers, neatly stacked. Boxes, tools and odds and ends filled the entire space except for a narrow path from the stairs into the house to the door on the side of the garage.

We heard no other sound from the house, so decided we had been defeated and left. As it was nearly lunch time, we stopped in town to grab something to eat. When we finished, I suggested we try once again, just in case Lucille had returned, if indeed she had ever left.

We rang the bell again and were surprised to hear sounds of movement from the house and a minute or so later the side door of the garage opened and there, standing with one hand on her hip, was our elusive prey, Lucille, looking a bit suspicious. I wondered if she might be holding a double-barreled shotgun behind her back.

I quickly introduced ourselves and she seemed to relax and recognized us. We passed a few general comments and then I asked about renting, which she was agreeable to. I explained I had written to her but hadn’t gotten any reply. She countered she seldom got to her mailbox. I offered to get the mail from the box and she quickly replied that she left her mail out there because she had no room in the house for it. We continued chatting, she still standing in the doorway, we in the yard. It was pretty obvious we weren’t going to be asked in for coffee or anything else.

She began talking about her family, primarily her sons. She had referred to them in her early letters as her “ex-sons”, although never gave reasons for that name. She told us about an encounter with one of them earlier that month. It went something like this:

She had been in town eating lunch when she noticed a younger couple sitting at another booth close to her. They seemed to be staring at her, and then the man got up, walked over to her and asked if they might sit with her. She agreed and they joined her. After a few moments of idle chat, Lucille asked him to remove his cap as she felt all gentlemen should do at table. He obliged and then said, “Don’t you recognize me?” It was her younger son, Jon. The last she had known he was in Alaska. He told her they had come to New Hampshire and thought they would visit her. She invited them back to her house, had a “nice” visit, and hadn’t heard from him since.

Lucille then proceeded to tell us both sons had been adopted. Her other son, Steven, lived in Laconia, N.H. and owned one of the cottages in York near hers, while his ex-wife owned another of them. They apparently weren’t on speaking terms either.

After a few more minutes of inconsequential talk, we left and drove home. I immediately sent the rental fee, which had been raised again, and once more we were able to spend two summer weeks in York.

A few years later, after Lucille died, I received a letter from her lawyer stating that she had never cashed that check and would I please issue another so the estate could be settled? Was I tempted to ignore this? Of course, but I knew better. They probably found it somewhere in her mailbox.

Chapter 6

We had had enough dealings with Lucille. It was time for a change. We had been thinking of moving into another cottage in the same complex. By this time, Murphy had departed us and now rests on our fireplace mantle. Jan gave us a list of the cottages that were rentable and there we saw the name of someone from Concord, whom we had met briefly once some years ago. We immediately called Jane as soon as we got home from York that year.

She was pleasant and open to renting, but we would have to talk with her friend and companion, Karen, who took care of Jane’s business dealings and who would get back to us. As is usual, “getting back to us” is some sort of code, meaning. “we’ll call you if we happen to think of it”. We waited a few months, and called again. Naturally, the answer was “She hasn’t contacted you yet? I’ll remind her”.

We decided not to wait. We had friends who owned a condo in Ogunquit and asked them if they would rent it to us for a couple of weeks, which they were happy to do. It was a nice place, not directly on the ocean, but close and from their second story balcony you could see the water and Marginal Way. We thought it might be fun to see what Ogunquit was like up close and personal. The condo was small, living-dining area, tiny kitchen, one bedroom, a murphy bed, and two bathrooms with a heated pool was on the property.

Within a week of making these arrangements, Karen called, saying she had one week open; luckily it was the week following our last week in Ogunquit, which made it very convenient to leave the condo and move directly to York.

This cottage is in the front row with two bedrooms, kitchen and living room with a large picture window framing a gorgeous view of the ocean, with lobster boats, kayakers, and in the distance, the Isles of Shoals. Yes, it is nearly the same view from Lucille’s cottage, but now, instead of looking between other cottages, we had the whole ocean at our feet. And, even better, the whole place had been renovated. No more creaky floors, no more metal shower, no large heater in the living room, and best of all, no more “camping”.

The following years saw us increasing our time to three weeks, which is about right for us.

One summer, York celebrated their 350th Anniversary, including fireworks. They were set off from a barge anchored just off our complex. So while hordes of people gathered at Long Sands beach and the Nubble, we had our own “private” showing close up and personal. We had arrived!

From what we have heard, Lucille’s ex-son Steve helped her to get care, although the details are hazy and when she died, the bulk of her estate, or perhaps all, went to an animal rescue group. The cottage was sold and torn down. According to the owner’s organization, at least one original wall had to remain, but the two story replacement effectively erased Lucille’s cottage forever.

In spite of the conditions and the problems we had with Lucille, we did enjoy our time in the old cottage. The memories are still with us. And now there are no rosebushes to trim.

 

THE PIANO

This story, while true, contains memory blanks. I don’t remember some of the details and am not sure why. Bear with me.

I was 11 or 12 when my mother came home one afternoon, probably after a bridge game, and told us one of her friends wanted to get rid of a piano that belonged to her daughter and had not been used for a while. The woman wanted the space for some other piece of furniture.

I don’t recall my father’s reaction to the news. He was something of a stoic, so he was probably noncommittal. My mother apparently thought I wanted to learn how to play. I wasn’t averse to doing so, but had never actively campaigned for a piano. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have the feeling that my mother knew how to play the piano, although I had never seen her play and never knew where she might have had access to one, unless it was the old pump organ in my grandparents’ parlor.

My father discussed this offer with my aunt and uncle, Harry and Edith, who owned the house. Harry was actually was my mother’s cousin and we lived above them in an apartment consisting of two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and dining room, which was the largest room and the only one that could possibly contain an upright piano. They agreed and gave us permission, not realizing what lay ahead.

My mother called the woman and we acquired a piano. A week or so afterward on a Saturday, a truck showed up with the piano and three or four men. Whether my father hired the truck and men or whether he had gotten some of his friends to help, I’m not sure. The truck backed up to the front of the house. Our back stairs were too narrow and the angle too sharp to turn, so the front door was the only access. To get the piano into the house, it had to be carried up three granite steps, over 8 feet of walkway and then up three more steps into the hall. From there it was up a flight of stairs and a right turn.

My job in this venture was to keep out of the way. I stood on the side of the upstairs hall overlooking the stairs. My uncle stood in the downstairs hallway where I couldn’t see him but could hear him well. He seemed to be very nervous about the bannister, which might have been difficult to repair. The men began to move up the stairs slowly, grunting and no doubt using colorful language under their breath. Partway up I heard my Uncle crying out something about the bannister which made the men lurch into the opposite side, ramming a corner into the wall and creating a large dent and torn wallpaper. I remember a loud, unintelligible noise from my uncle.

When the piano finally rested at the top of the stairs, the next step began. Our dining room was one step down from the living room and bedrooms. The doorway was a bit narrow. In addition, a heavy pull out couch sat next to the door and partially blocked it. The couch had to be moved.

The designated place for the piano was occupied by a sideboard where the silverware, napkins, and table cloths were kept, so that also had to be moved. To where? I can’t remember. It was either placed in the corner or in the shed next to the kitchen. When all this moving was finished, the piano was carried into the dining room and the men left. From below I could hear my uncle’s voice, but although I couldn’t make out the words, I could tell he wasn’t happy.

I enjoyed the piano for several weeks, experimenting with the sound of random notes and trying to pick out tunes I knew. I tried writing my own music, although that didn’t amount to much. My aunt finally requested me to use the soft pedal whenever I sat down at the piano. It didn’t take long for my mother to contact Miss Gale, our school’s music teacher, for piano lessons. When school started again, she was to come once a week in the late afternoon. By now I had gotten excited. I imagined playing in front of a vast audience and taking bow after bow. Then came the phone call.

The woman who had given us the piano told my mother the piano meant more to her daughter than she had thought. She wanted it back. By rights, of course, the piano was ours. It had been given and accepted in good faith, but my folks weren’t like that. The piano had to go back.

I wasn’t there when my father broke the news to Uncle Harry, but I can tell you he was less than pleased. After a while my father came back upstairs and told us Harry had refused to allow the piano to come down the stairs. Perhaps he was still worried about the bannister or perhaps it was the threat of a law suit if anyone was crushed by a wayward piano. He suggested using the living room window. At least it was better than completely dismantling the piano and carrying it down in pieces.

The window was taken out and I remember seeing the large gaping hole where the window was with the piano teetering on the window sill. Again I was doing my job: keeping out of the way. How was the piano lowered? There had to have been some sort of winch and pulley system, but where were they anchored? I have no answer.

I clearly remember hearing the sound of glass breaking from below and Uncle Harry’s loud cry of, “JESUS CHRIST!”. Harry went to church only once a year, on Easter. so he obviously wasn’t religiously inclined. I was pretty sure Harry wasn’t praying when the piano went through his living room window.

The piano was loaded onto the truck and I watched it being driven out of sight, the last I ever saw of it. The window was repaired, the hallway was patched and re-papered, and no mention was ever made in my hearing of the incident. I’m sure my parents had a long discussion with each other and with Uncle Harry, but never in my presence.

You must know by now there was never another piano in our apartment and I never took lessons. When I was in college, my frat house did have a piano on the back closed-in porch, along with some sheet music. I did teach myself how to partly play a simple version of “Girl of my Dreams”, but it didn’t amount to much.

Later, when I was a teacher, the music teacher showed me how to play simple chords to music, but I didn’t have much success with that. One colleague brought me sheet music for “Moonlight Sonata―the simplified version, and I practiced that during lunch breaks until the other teachers asked me to stop. I did learn to play Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C sharp Minor”, but only the first three notes. It was exciting, though, to sit down, hold my hands above the keys dramatically and play those three notes, especially when others were waiting expectantly for more.

But, alas, the trauma of the lost piano cut short my potential career as a world class concert pianist, one that I will forever mourn. Well, for a minute or so, anyway.

 

HAVING FUN WITH PHONE MARKETERS

Do you have time on your hands? Do you enjoy upsetting those pests that try to sell you things you don’t need? Let me give you some ideas. Some years ago I began to play with misdialed calls. That was when you actually did dial. The phones were larger and had a circular piece with holes in it so you could put your finger in and move it around for each number you needed. You can see those phones in some museums now.

Our phone number was one digit off from that of the local convent, so when someone called and asked for Sister Margaret, I would tell them, “I’m sorry Sister is upstairs with a customer right now”, and hang up. Or sometimes, “Bless you, my child. Say 20 Hail Mary’s and call me in the morning”. One line I wanted to use, but never did, was, “I’m sorry. Sister Theresa is cleaning her chastity whip right now”.

For other calls, I might just go along with whatever was being asked. “Sure I can meet you at the restaurant today”, or “I’ll give Sally that message”. This is sort of mean, so I stopped. After all, they were not bad people, just bad dialers.

I switched to targeting those callers who were trying to sell me things. One approach was telling the caller I was busy, but if the person would give me his/her home phone number I would call them back. When the person said that wasn’t possible, I would say, “You don’t do your business from home?” Upon the response, I would then offer, “Actually I don’t either”, and hang up.

Another technique which I still occasionally use: When the caller asks, as most do, “How are you today ?” I will respond, “I’m fairly well, and thank you so much for calling and asking”, then quickly hang up. Or give them a long description of my aches and pains, inventing symptoms rapidly. I’ve also used George Carlin’s response, “I’m moderately not unwell, thank you”, stopping the caller cold to try to untangle the double negative. By that time I will have hung up.

Then I decided to go on the attack. I wrote a three page script and had it ready by the phone. When the caller started in, I began reading: “I’m glad you called. I’d like to tell you about a new insurance policy you might be interested in”, and, ignoring any interruption, went on reading the script that started normally, but then got more and more ludicrous. It included pet-driveway fire insurance (in case your pet caught on fire in the driveway), broken bed insurance (in case your bed breaks during intimacy), and more.

I concluded my sales pitch with a special offer described as a two for one deal, in which two policies could be gotten for the cost of the lower priced one. “For instance, if you purchase a $1000 life insurance policy and a $20 cat-on-fire policy, you pay only $20 for both. However, this offer is good only today, so if I could have your credit card number…..”

I did not expect to ever get to the end of my routine, and most callers hung up long before, but I was surprised some lasted to the end. During one call, I could hear laughter in the background. Almost immediately the salesman called back, saying he had put me on speaker phone so the entire room could hear and it made their day. They wanted me to repeat it, but I told them to call another time.

More recently I’ve been getting multiple calls, mostly from men speaking in heavy accents. They were named Roy Smith, Peter Williams, and the like. I begin by telling them I like to write down the names of people who call me and to please give me their first and last names. I always spell their names wrong and that takes time to straighten out. Then I ask where they are calling from and what the weather is like there. Sometimes I ask about their state and get some interesting answers, such as the Grand Canyon being in Louisiana and the Alamo in Indiana. People from other countries really should check out the state they purport to inhabit.

These calls concern the danger I am in from my Windows account (never mind that I own a Mac laptop). I will tell them I think my windows are fine. I’ve just washed them and they look good. It takes a while for them to convince me they are talking about the window on my PC. Of course, I have to tell them I didn’t realize my computer had a window and whether I can actually see inside. When asked to sit in front of the computer, I tell them my computer is upstairs, but I will go up and sit in front of it. I’m slow on the stairs, so it might take a while. They are patient. After waiting five or six minutes I pick up the phone and tell them I have been sitting in front of the computer, but nothing happened, so I came back downstairs to talk with them again. They ask about my phone and I tell them it is on a long cord downstairs. I can go partway upstairs with it, but that’s as far as it reaches, and if he wants me to sit on the stairs and talk with him I could do that. By this time, the caller usually says good bye or just hangs up, but sometimes they put their supervisor on the line and the conversation begins again. Even better, twice I’ve been told “F— Y–!” which is clearly a win.

Other times they have been told how honest they are and how proud their mothers must be of the work they do and urge them to call their mother and let her know she was complimented.

On several occasions I have told them I had the solution to my computer problem. My granddaughter will be coming to visit in 15 minutes. She is a computer expert and I could have her talk to the caller. He then tells me he will call back shortly and hangs up. I never hear from him again.

My most unusual call was one lasting 45 minutes. It started out as usual, with the warning of hackers in my Windows, but suddenly the caller asked my age and if I was married. He proceeded to talk about his love life. It seems he is in love with a girl who doesn’t show much interest in him, and another girl he doesn’t care for that much does love him. He asked my advice, and discussed his feelings and what he thought about each girl, their good points and bad. At the end of the conversation he thanked me and said he was going to take my advice and hung up, with no further sales pitch.

Lately the calls, mostly by women, have been from a Medicare related company who wishes to help my pain with a brace for shoulder or knee. All is free, of course. I pretend to not understand what she means. We talk about where the pain is located and how the brace will help. I often say the only pain I have is from a cut on my finger and whether a knee brace will help. I ask if they have free bandages or band-aids for my finger. One woman, who caught on to what I was doing, remarked, “And it’s your middle finger isn’t it?” I laughed and admitted it and she thanked me for my time and hung up.

I’m sure there are other ways of countering such calls, but right now these are ones that work well. In a way, I am doing a social service. The more time I can keep these leeches on the line with me, the fewer calls they can make to others. It’s my gift to humanity. And for me, it is fun.

If you are so inclined, please feel free to use any of my ideas. One warning I was given, though. Avoid saying “yes” on the phone. It’s easy to do, but apparently it can be recorded and then used as proof that you have agreed to some sort of business deal. Whether this is true or not, I am not sure, but don’t take chances. Don’t waste your time arguing with or threatening these people. Telling them you are on the Do Not Call List only gives them a chance to laugh at you. One caller actually told me they change numbers daily so chances of tracing them are low. And remember, cleaning the phone lines of cheaters and scammers is an act of environmental integrity. It is a blow for humanity.

 

FUNERAL FUN

I lied. This isn’t really about funerals, but it’s a better title than “Death” or “Corpses”, though the three short stories here deal with those subjects. I hope you enjoy them.

#I

This one was told to me by (get ready for this) my wife’s brother-in-law’s mother’s second husband, Jim. While I can’t verify his story, I have no reason to doubt him. He was a stoic, rough around the edges guy and could be contrary, but I always found him truthful. Jim had different jobs in his life, among them administrator of the fish hatchery in New Hampton, N.H. When he was younger, he was an assistant to an undertaker. He, along with another fellow, would transport the corpses from their place of death to the undertaker’s work room.

One night he got a call to pick up a body from a rural farmhouse on the outskirts of New Hampton. He and the other man drove out to the house and were shown to the grandmother’s upstairs bedroom. She had died sitting up in her chair, but wasn’t discovered for quite a while so rigor mortis had set in. Pretty obviously she couldn’t fit easily in the wicker basket usually used. The solution was to carry her down the stairs as she was.

They quietly closed the door to the sitting room where the mourners had gathered, then carried the corpse to the top of the narrow stairs. They quickly decided to slide the corpse down the bannister, then carried the body to the hearse and placed it sitting up in the passenger seat. As Jim said, ”It was lucky it was night and dark; it was a small town and people might have seen her, waved and wondered why she wasn’t being friendly”.

#II

My friend Wendell and I grew up together. According to my mother, she and Wendell’s mother were in the same hospital room when we were born only three days apart. He was born first and I’ve often bragged he was older than I was. We officially met in first grade and went through the grades together. Wendell was my best man when Barbara and I married.

When Wendell returned from serving in the military, he apprenticed himself to his father, who was a mortician and funeral director. He thought at the time he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. In the winter, Wendell would drive the hearse around to make sure it was running well. I would often accompany him. He would never pick me up at my house, rumors would start quickly. He would park in a dark place next to the schoolhouse and blow the horn.

We would drive almost anywhere, listening to the radio and talking. Many plans were laid but few ever were realized. One night I got a call from Wendell, asking if I wanted to accompany him to pick up a corpse in Manchester. A veteran had died and had been brought to a well-known undertaker for preparation. Wendell said all we had to do was drive down to the funeral home, have the body loaded into the hearse and drive back.

When we arrived, we were met by the funeral director and taken to the preparation room where the body lay on the table covered by a sheet. With a flourish the man whipped off the sheet as though the body were an art piece being unveiled. On the table lay the body of a man probably in his sixties, and wearing nothing but a skimpy loincloth. He was enormous. If he were able to gain another twenty pounds he could easily pass as a sumo wrestler.

The director proceed to give us a rundown of how he had prepared the body and what difficulties he had run into. I looked at Wendell, he just rolled his eyes. While he was used to this, he knew this was a whole new world for me and was somewhat embarrassed. Then the fellow told us the body was all ours. Wendell and I looked around. Where were the people to load the body into the hearse? It seemed that was to be us.

Wendell and I looked at each other. Wendell was upset for me. I just shrugged and nodded my head. Wendell told me to take the feet and he would take the shoulders as the body’s mouth might have been wired shut and he didn’t want anything to go wrong with that. I grabbed the feet. I had never touched a dead body before and was momentarily shocked at how cold it was. Lifting a sumo wrestler was not easy, but after several attempts and a tiny bit of help from the funeral director, we managed to get the body into the wicker basket we had brought along.

Then, lugging and grunting, we carried the package out to the hearse and slid it in. Wendell then told me to wash my hands in the dirty snow that was still on the ground. He explained the body sometimes had some traces of formaldehyde and it was safer. When I asked him why we didn’t ask to wash up in the home, he said he wanted to get out as fast as he could. Wendell spent the drive back apologizing for the unexpected experience, but I reassured him I hadn’t been traumatized. The funeral director assumed we were both assistants and used to this sort of thing. Wendell’s father was livid when he heard of our adventure. He insisted on paying me, though I tried to resist. Perhaps it was hush money. For me it was another experience.

After two years, Wendell decided a funeral director’s life was not for him and he eventually became a psychologist. I think he made a wise choice.

#III

When Barbara died, I bought a cemetery plot, and, seeing as the spot next to us was available, bought that also for our girls, just in case. We chose the headstone and four corner posts. It is a nice spot and several neighbors and friends are buried close.

Some years later, on a visit to the grave, I noticed a headstone that looked too close to ours. There didn’t seem to be enough room to place a couple more bodies. I went home and dug out the deed to study, then went to the cemetery office. The woman checked the records, showed me the map and reassured me everything was fine. Just then a man dropped in. He was in charge of the burials. The woman explained the situation and asked him to bring me to the grave so he could assure me things were fine.

We got in our cars and drove to the grave site. The man had his map with him and standing in front of the stones, looked from one to the other. He did this several times, even turning the map around, then uttered one word, “Oops”. It seems Mr. Schmidt had taken over our empty lot. When I asked him what came next he said simply, “We’ll have to dig up Mr. Schmidt”, and he told me not to worry. It would be done shortly. It was and everything, as far as I know, went well. We asked that the corner stones be moved to include our empty plot and they were, at no cost.

As Mr. Schmidt had died only a week or two before I have had mixed feelings of whether or not I wanted to hear the reactions when the cemetery office called his widow to say, “Mrs. Schmidt, we seem to have a little problem”. Part of me wishes he would have included his little word, “Oops”.

 

ENGLAND, HERE WE COME!

Barbara and I often thought alike. For example, one day in 1972 we were cleaning the cellar and talking about possible vacation trips. We said we’d like to visit foreign countries, perhaps England as a start. Then maybe Japan. After that, who knows? We thought when the girls got older, Liz being 9 and Cara 4, we could plan something.

One moment later, we looked at each other and exclaimed in unison, “Why are we waiting?” ‘Great minds’, as the saying goes.

We were excited. England would be perfect. We knew the language, more or less, the natives would be welcoming and friendly, and the sights wonderful. Stratford on Avon, Big Ben, Windsor Castle, things we read about, films we had seen.

Then Barbara got cold feet. She had never flown, and the thought made her ill. I had been in the air six or seven times, but couldn’t convince her it was safe. So we compromised. We drove across country to visit her sister in California. We stopped at numerous places and got to know our country much better. But that’s another story. Looking back, statistics seem to show that air travel is safer than driving, but Barbara wouldn’t be convinced by that.

The next year Barbara bit the bullet. She got up her courage and agreed on England in the summer. To prepare, she bought a novel called, “Fear of Flying” by Erica Jong in hopes she would learn from it. What she learned was quite different. She didn’t realize until she started reading “Fear of Flying” that it had nothing to do with air flight. It was more earthy, and the book featured the term “zipless fuck”. I read the book also, but failed to see, besides the obvious, what zippers had to do with sex.

We had no idea of what to bring, this being our first trip out of the country. My flights all had been arranged by the military, and they knew what was needed, so there was no help there. We overpacked, of course. Everyone does. We chose a fly-drive plan, that is, our flight, a two week rental car, and several vouchers for hotels as one package. We were free to go where we wanted and all we needed was a road map.

Several places were a must. London, of course, and a small village called Ashton-under-Lynne where my grandparents were born. Then there was Stratford-on-Avon, and several cathedrals. We planned a route and were ready to go.

We were driven to Logan airport by a friend, and boarded a late night plane. Barbara and Cara sat across the aisle from Liz and me. The engines started up and the plane began to move. When we felt the lift off, I turned and looked at Liz. One tiny tear ran down her cheek but she smiled at me and I knew we would be fine.

This plane actually had a cocktail lounge, but for first class passengers only. One had to go up a narrow spiral staircase to get there. I don’t think that feature lasted long in planes. Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” was being shown. “Good”, I thought, a silent film means we can sleep. The film was silent but the audience wasn’t, the laughter making it nearly impossible to even doze off. Barbara and I were awake most of the flight. The girls slept easily.

After collecting our luggage we looked for the car rental station, but not before running into a former school music teacher and his family. It was a total surprise on both our parts. They had just flown in from Washington, D.C. where they were now living. At the rental booth we were given the keys to a small British car and told where to pick it up.

Driving was not easy. I had forgotten the steering wheel was on the right side, and we had to drive on the right side as well. We were about eighteen miles from the center of London and traffic was very heavy, going probably no more than twenty-five miles per hour, but that was fine with me. I got used to driving the “English Way”. We got to our hotel and left the car in the garage for the five days we spent in the city. Due to time differences it was about 1 PM, but Barbara and I desperately needed sleep. The girls needed activity. We slept; they read or played with whatever they could find.

When we awoke, we walked outside and found a park right across from the hotel where the girls ran around and used the swings and other equipment. Afterwards, we ate dinner and spent time planning where to go in London. Before we left home Barbara promised we would go out twice together by ourselves. I knew hotels often hired baby sitters for tourists, so there was nothing to worry about.

A new show had opened in London, called “O Calcutta” which had good reviews. So one morning we went to the theater to get tickets for the evening performance. While I bought the tickets, Barbara and the girls looked around, evidently missing the pictures in the lobby. When the baby sitter arrived, we went to dinner at an interesting little pub featuring mismatched chairs and a really lived-in atmosphere, as though we had moved back to an earlier century. We ordered steak and kidney pie, just to get in the “English” mood. It was passable, but kidney is far from our favorite dish.

We then attended the performance. The first number was entitled, “Taking off the Robe”, in which the four couples came out dressed in robes singing the glories of the human body and then demonstrated the title, disposing of them like candy wrappers. The audiences cheered. Barbara grabbed my arm hard. “My God, they’re naked!” she exclaimed loudly. Some people turned to her and smiled. “I told you this was a nude show!” I whispered back. “Nude?”, she responded. “I thought you said it was a NEW show!” After the initial shock, she settled back and began to enjoy the show. And it was really a lot of fun. After a while you could easily forget (well “easily” may not be accurate) naked people were performing in front of you. We returned to our hotel, where we found the girls had not been kidnapped, but eager to tell us the fun they had in the park.

During our time in London we visited the British Museum; the zoo where we saw the featured panda; and walked through the bird aviary. We watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (where Christopher Robin went with Alice);10 Downing Street up close; toured Charles Dickens’ home; and many other sights. We toured the Tower of London and took a boat ride on the Thames. Of course, we couldn’t pass up Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum where we ate watercress sandwiches for lunch. We stopped in front of 32A Baker Street, though Mr. Holmes wasn’t at home. We also visited Somerset House where vital statistics were kept and found mention of my grandparents, though not enough to give much information.

While London was wonderful, there were other places we wanted to visit. So we got into the car and slowly drove out of the city toward Hampton Palace. We found a hotel in Maidenhead, near the palace, and just by chance ran across a tiny village for children called Bekonscot. We walked on the pathway through the village, avoiding the train that ran around it and feeling a bit like Gulliver. The girls loved it, going around the trail several times and peering in the windows of the houses.

The next day we toured the palace, expecting to see the ghost of Catherine Howard that runs screaming through the building. Alas, no luck, but we did enjoy the maze, and, like most others, had difficulty finding the exit. The gardens were gorgeous.

On we went. A highlight of our trip was being in Stratford on Avon. I was feeling more comfortable driving the “English way”, but on the way a car passed us and the passenger was pointing downward to our car. I stopped and checked to see we had a flat tire (or, if you prefer,“tyre”). I sat on the side of the road poring over the directions, but it was twenty minutes before I understood how to change the tyre.

We were lucky to have made reservations to stay in Stratford at the White Swan Inn, a sixteenth century hotel right next to a garage where the tyre could be repaired. Our room was in the front so we had a great view of street activity, although we wondered why the spot directly across was just an empty lot.

We owed it to ourselves to see a Shakespeare play, so we went to get tickets for “Comedy of Errors”. Unfortunately, there were none left, but we could have some for “Coriolanus” the next night. As we had no schedule, we said, “why not?” and bought two tickets. We visited the bard’s birthplace and Trinity Church where he is buried, birth and death combined in one visit. We particularly enjoyed eating cornets (ice cream cones to those of you who don’t speak English English) served from a flat boat tied to the bank of the Avon. Many swans gather there and we ate among them. And, yes, we had a long boat ride on the river.

After dinner we arranged for a babysitter for the next night and sat in the tavern enjoying good English stout. When, at 10 PM playgoers began coming in, Barbara sighed relief the play was short so we wouldn’t worry about the girls. Barbara had seen the Bette Davis film, “The Nanny” and wished she hadn’t.

The next day we awoke at 6 AM to loud noises across the street. The empty lot was empty no longer; it was filled with stalls of homemade goods and food. It was market day. We had fun wandering around and buying souvenirs. We walked around Stratford. The girls were invited to sit on the bench in Anne Hathaway’s cottage where William wooed Anne (and according to history got her pregnant, but that wasn’t mentioned). We had lunch at the Black Swan Tavern, also called the Dirty Duck. The beer is excellent! Then we drove to the home of Mary Arden, Will’s mother. It was a working farm as it would have been in Will’s day. In the evening we had dinner, welcomed the babysitter and went off to the theater.

We were especially pleased to learn playing a large role was Margaret Tyzak, one of our favorite actresses from the television series “Forsythe Saga”. Coriolanus is a very different play. It’s not comedy, far from it. The scene that stands out in my mind, besides every word that Tyzak spoke, was near the end when Coriolanus face is pushed into a pot of flame and rises blackened. Gruesome, yes, but effective. I’ve never seen that done before or since.

What affected Barbara more was the time. The show was at least an hour longer than “Comedy”, and Barbara was getting nervous. I told her I had no idea the play was longer, but if she really, really wanted to leave we would. She said she’d stick it out, but spent much of the time checking her watch. When the play ended, I knew there was no time for us to see if we could get a close glimpse of Tyzak, or even an autograph, so we hurried back to the Inn where we found the girls very happy with whatever they had been doing with the babysitter. And the bathtub was dry.

Our journey continued. We were headed for Manchester, of which Ashton-under-Lyme was a suburb. We stopped at Blenheim Palace, the Churchill Estate where Winston was born in a small anteroom off the main hallway. The palace is enormous and the grounds beside the Thames are beautiful.

We finally reached our destination. Ashton-under-Lyme was a quiet, peaceful village with thatched roof houses, sheep roaming the hillside, and the tiny church sat patiently awaiting us and ready to divulge all the records of my ancestors. Unfortunately, that Ashton-under-Lyme existed only in my mind. I’m sure the place did look like that once, but now it is a poor extension of Manchester; rows and rows of factories and row houses. Dusty, dirty and unpleasant. There are at least twelve churches, which would have taken us a very long time to explore for records. So, I packed up my dream and we drove back to Manchester, where we spent the night in a gloomy old hotel. Mr. Hyde might have been prowling the hallways, as far as we knew.

We left early in the morning; we had seen enough of this part of England. I felt sorry we hadn’t found what we were looking for, but happy to see other parts of the country. We stopped at Stonehenge and climbed on the rocks. We have pictures of the girls sitting and waving on one of them, and also of a little girl crying. She was obnoxious, making loud rude noises, and complaining constantly, so when she fell and cut her chin, I bit my lip to stop chuckling and snapped her picture. Today, the whole site is off limits, You can get close, but touching the stones is out of reach.

We stopped to see the cathedrals of Salisbury and Winchester and of course they are magnificent, but cathedrals are, after all, just cathedrals. We finally got to Portsmouth where we expected to see the English Channel, but that didn’t happen. We arrived after dark and all the hotels were full as the Regatta was in town that week. The clerk asked where we were headed and when we told him we were going back to London, he called an associate hotel and made us reservations for Dorking, another small marketing town.

We drove about 40 miles north and came to the town, a lovely little old fashioned place right out of the story books. And we were booked into another 16th century Inn, similar to the White Swan. Like Stratford, it also had a market place across from the hotel. And, like Stratford, the market was going full blast when we awoke the next morning.

Sadly the panda we had seen in London had died. The girls bought stuffed pandas to remember Ling Ling. We wandered around a bit then headed back to London. The next day, seeing as it was our last, was spent on making sure we had visited everyplace. One of the most memorable was Westminster Abby. Not only beautiful, it was filled with the tombs of poets, statesmen, inventors, royalty, and other citizens of honor.

We were standing beside the grave of Queen Elizabeth when a bell rang and a stentorian voice called for prayers for anyone traveling the next day. It seemed someone beside our travel agent knew we were flying home that day. Barbara looked reassured.

The flight back was uneventful, smooth and safe. Home, as always, looked welcoming. We were happy to be back and were already looking forward to our next trip.

 

THEATER MOMENTS

I have loved theater since early childhood. My first exposure to stage work happened at about five. My mother took me to a matinee live performance at the Palace movie theater in Penacook. It was thrilling to see “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” right before us up on stage. They were real! I was horrified when my father came home from downtown and told me he had seen the characters getting on the bus together. I worried all night the wicked witch would get too close to Snow White and harm her.

My first stage performance occurred in third grade when I stopped the show, literally. In “Peter Rabbit” I was cast as the second carrot from the end in Mr. McGregor’s garden. My costume consisted of an orange top and green trousers. Evidently the costumer had a vague understanding of how carrots grow. The carrots’ only duty entailed no lines, only one chorus song and a dance around the garden for the fairy princess, a neighborhood girl on whom I had a crush. The song went well, but the dance was another matter. I hadn’t been feeling well that day and each time we circled by the princess I threw up at her feet. The horror on her face as I approached her is still seared in my mind. Clearly my chances of a romance were dim.

The director ordered the curtain dropped and my mother came backstage to take me home. As there was only one exit from the theater, we had to walk through the audience, a very embarrassing experience. The teachers must have cleaned the floor and restarted the play. By that time I was home in bed.

My second performance was in 7th grade. I was dancing once more, this time the minuet. Again the performance stopped briefly, though this time it wasn’t my fault. The girl I was dancing with wore a long gown, which, when the curtain rolled up, was caught by the hem and rolled up with it. By the time the dress had reached her waist. the show was stopped and we started again.

I performed once in high school and several times in college, including a blonde wigged Little Eva in the annual Alpha Opera. I delivered the immortal lines, “Ahh, thank ah’ll die now. Give mah wig to Miz Merrill (the college’s art teacher)”.

Spending four summers in New York City while working on my Master’s Degree at Columbia, gave me lots of opportunities to attend live theater on Broadway. I’ll never forget seeing Ethel Merman making her appearance from the audience in “Gypsy” nor having Tammy Grimes using my hands so she could sign autographs.

I’ve been a member of the Community Players of Concord for thirty-six years and have experienced nearly all aspects of theater. It has been a rewarding experience.

My cousin Sandy reminded me of the following story. Barbara and I often went to Boston to see shows before they opened on Broadway. We saw some winners and some losers. Sadly I was not a great judge of selections. When we saw “A Little Night Music” I thought it would never make it on Broadway. It was unlike other shows and the music was boring. The only enjoyable piece was something called “Send in the Clouds”, but that made little sense to me. How do you send in clouds? Perhaps hearing aids might have helped.

Fairly soon though, I discovered the wonder that is Sondheim. So when we asked my cousin and her husband Bob to join us for a Boston theater experience, I wanted to be sure we picked a winner. There were two shows in town. One was obviously going to be a hit. It was called “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, produced by theater miracle man, David Merrick, book by Abe Burrows, based on Truman Capote’s book and film. It starred Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain, so how could it miss? The other choice, if you could even call it that, was going to be a flop. It was a musical about life in Berlin in the early thirties. Who would want to see that?

Yes, it was that show. And “Cabaret” is still an important piece of theater today. “Breakfast” closed two weeks before it was to open on Broadway and, except for a show album made years later with a different cast, is hardly mentioned. However, we did enjoy the experience. And to top it off, afterward, as we were headed to a restaurant, just ahead of us and walking at our pace, was Mary Tyler Moore, alone. I made a start to catch up with her and speak to her, perhaps get an autograph, but Barbara put her hand on my arm and told me to leave her alone. She obviously didn’t want company. Regretfully I acquiesced.

One last piece of this story, which Sandy remembered: In Boston we frequented a restaurant called Jake Wirth’s. It was established in 1868 and remains open today. It serves German food and at that time it served two kinds of beer, a lager from a bottle or Jake Wirth’s dark from the tap, a smooth and tasty stout, no choice, really. Sawdust was sprinkled on the floor, since removed as a fire hazard, and the waiters were old. We used to joke they had been there since it opened. They wore black coats and white shirts, with a towel draped over their arm. They never smiled. When you finished eating and lingered, the waiter would stand close to the table and wait, clearing his throat often.

We ordered our usual, ham and cheese on rye, a very filling sandwich with a side dish of cole slaw. As we were eating, Barbara discovered a piece of glass in her cole slaw. Calling the waiter over, she showed him what she had been served, In response he assured her the glass had to have come from the kitchen which meant the glass was clean so she need not worry. He then offered another dish of cole slaw, which she refused. There was no other compensation for her unhappy situation.

All in all, it was a good day and created fond memories and a few laughs of our theater trip. More trips were in store.

 

GUANO

In my second year of teaching, my principal asked if I would mentor a student teacher. Sensing some hesitation, he assured me of his confidence, so I agreed. Many more student teachers followed, almost all of whom turned out well. One of them stood out. Ruth was a strong teacher who began playing little games.

One day Ruth was teaching a geography lesson on Peru. The textbook briefly mentioned one of the leading exports was guano, although it didn’t mention exactly what it was. Ruth wasn’t going to get into that. In case you don’t know, guano is bird droppings used as fertilizer. This was in the late fifties, when even mentioning that term in front of children would cause much giggling and red faces. It was a more innocent era.

I was watching from the back and quickly wrote a note asking Ruth what guano was and slipped it to a student who promptly raised her hand and read the question. Ruth’s face turned red and she hesitated before giving her an answer. “It’s fertilizer”, she said and quickly moved on. Afterward she berated me before we both began to laugh. It was that kind of relationship.

That summer I was in Manhattan, working on a Master’s degree at Columbia, when I remembered that moment. A sample of guano for Ruth would be a good joke. I checked the telephone book and found a corporation, which sold the stuff and gave them a call. A gentleman answered and inquired as to how many boxcars would be needed. Correcting him, I informed him I was a teacher who needed a sample for my students to analyze to determine just what the stuff was. He understood and invited me to his office to pick some up.

The office, was located on the 40th floor of a building on Madison Avenue and it was very classy, almost like a movie set. The gentleman greeted me and gave me a tour. There were probably fifty workers scattered among all the little rooms. Art work on the walls, flowers in vases, expensive looking curtains. Who would have thought bird droppings would have created such a place? Those birds would have been proud of their work, if they had known.

At the conclusion of the tour, the gentleman assured me he would be happy to help in any way he could. He handed me a large jar of a reddish powdery material and wished me and my students well. Arriving home after my time in the city, I carefully wrapped the jar in colorful paper, attached a brightly colored ribbon and brought it to Ruth, who screamed with delight when she discovered just what was in the jar.

This little story has no purpose except as a brief remembrance. It’s just an example of a bit of silliness and of the willingness of people to help others.

 

MY FILM CAREER

I have arrived! Google me! Eventually you will see “Bob Pearson, actor” And no, that isn’t me standing in the bow of the Titanic, screaming “I’m the king of the world!”, my many fans to the contrary. I haven’t yet arrived that much. But I did do a film. I actually got third billing. Here’s the story of how my career started.

I had a friend, well, let’s call Jeff an acquaintance. We had met when Jeff joined the Community Players sometime in the early 2000’s. We chatted a lot on IM, if you remember that messenger service. One evening he told me a friend of his was making a movie and was looking for an old man (Jeff is not particularly tactful) to play a big part. He was going to be in it as well. Although I have done amateur acting numerous times, I had never done a film and was intrigued.

A few days later I received a phone call from someone named Jamie, who said he was the director of the film and would like me to audition. We arranged a time and a week or so later we met in Derry. I found a large white farm house just off the main street and parked. As I removed my glasses. The frame broke with the lens falling to the floor. I needed my glasses to read.

Inside the house was quiet and looked, well, lived in, discovering later it was the home of several disparate people. It was never clear just who lived there as people would come and go at all times, day or night. A large friendly fellow named Eric introduced himself as the producer. He told me Jamie was running late, but would be there shortly. It was a phrase used often in the coming weeks. Eric then left me alone in the dining room.

About thirty minutes later, Jaime showed up and introduced himself. He was stocky, somewhat heavy, with a dark beard and piercing eyes. He found Eric and the three of us went to the glassed in porch. They quizzed me about my experience. When I mentioned producing for the Community Players, Eric immediately asked if I had any interest in producing the film. Eric looked quite disappointed when I told him live theater is very different from film. I got the distinct feeling he was not that enthusiastic about this project.

With the broken glasses, it was not easy reading the script, but I persevered and at the conclusion, was immediately given the role. They told me two other people had tried out, but I was better. I knew the two people they mentioned, and could see Jamie and Eric were, if nothing else too honest, or at least naive. They gave me a copy of the script to read along with a request to ask others if they cared to join the cast. I sent out a general email to a group of Players who might be interested. Jamie cast three or four others from our amateur group.

There was never a full cast meeting. The filming was on a scene by scene basis; but that’s the way filming works. I saw my friends’ work only after the film had been completed. Reading the script, I discovered there was a gay sub plot. It was so incidental it could easily have been dropped. With the director and producer being gay, I suppose it made them feel better.

The story line concerned a cult that was attempting to gain power over a town. In order to gain this power, a sacrifice in front of the skulls of past leaders had to be carried out. The cult’s leader (me) sends his grandson, David, to recruit Rob, the new boy in town as that lamb. Simple plot, simple dialogue.

Unlike stage plays, movies are made in assorted scenes, many times out of order and almost always filmed several times at different angles. One scene may be done a number of times, all to be sorted out later in some small, crowded dark room somewhere. I never did know where.

My first scene was in an antique shop in Derry. There were a number of “takes” as I was having problems with my lines, but Jamie was very patient. Looking at the finished product, I thought my performance was weak, but Jamie said he liked it. In this scene, I make a remark about going upstairs to where the books were kept. Weeks later we “went upstairs”―in York, Maine. The bookshop in that town has since gone out of business, but it was a nice place to film. While the shop in Derry is in the middle of town with shops all around, the upstairs windows in York shows we were in the middle of a forest. Jamie was not especially concerned with consistency.

One scene was done in a nature preserve in Derry. Dressed in a black robe I was filmed limping down a path and through the woods and over a bridge. That was it, although it took hours to get it just right for Jamie. Later Jamie wanted me to go to some place near the coast to film me going into a house. That was it, going into a house. Driving to the coast and back to film a ten second bit when anyone there could don a robe and do the role was a bad investment of time, so I refused. Jamie agreed and someone took my place, but without the limp.

One of the more memorable filming sessions took place at night. I was supposed to be threatening Rob in the back seat of a car driven by one of my minions. We were to meet at the Derry house at 7. Jamie and Eric showed up at 8; Rob came in at 8:30. I wanted to go over our lines. Rob wanted to make calls to his girlfriend. Reluctantly he agreed to go over them once. Jamie wasn’t happy. And predictably, Rob had lots of difficulty once the camera began rolling.

It was Halloween, so the car had to be driven slowly, both for safety and to get a steady picture. Rob and I sat in the back with lamps pointed up at our faces. making it look spooky to trick or treaters. Jamie was kneeling on the passenger seat while Eric drove. The scene actually came out well, but looking at the finished product we could easily have filmed it parked in the driveway. As it was dark, there is no indication the car ever moved.

Another interesting scene took place in a Derry church graveyard. We were dressed in black robes again, with shovels and buckets of dirt. We were supposedly digging up a body to recover a skull. The digging was fake, of course. We used the dirt to pretend we were actually digging. It was on a Sunday, around noon, and just in time for the end of church services, so we managed to startle a number of passersby. One member of our crew didn’t sooth them by yelling out, “We’re just looking for our ancestors!” One man smiled and waved. A woman who looked startled grabbed her daughter’s hand and hurried along. The scene was darkened through some photo magic to make it seem it was night. When the skull was found, it was handed to me. I held it up, said a couple of lines in Latin, wrapped up the skull, and off I limped, camera following me out of the graveyard.

SPOILER ALERT ! Near the end of the film I lose my head, which required a mask of my face. A plaster casting was needed. Jamie had a friend who had done makeup and odds and ends in Hollywood and he was willing to work on me. He had done makeup on Kevin Bacon, which puts me as two degrees of separation from Mr. Bacon. I do give autographs!

I was startled to walk into the Derry house to see David stark naked in the middle of the living room. Three or four people were watching a televised football game while two girls painted scars all over his body. He seemed oblivious to all of this. The purpose was to test the material for a later scene, but it seemed to me all he had to do was remove his shirt. David seemed to be a bit of an exhibitionist.

I was on my back with goop all over my face, a straw in each nostril for twenty long minutes. What we actors do for our art! The finished product, which I saw several weeks later turned out well. My head is somewhere in a bag in the garage.

Jamie saved the climax of the film for last when the leadership is contested. At some point my character is supposed to swing at a skull and crush it. As this was constructed especially for that, it had to be done in one take. Not having great eye-hand coordination, I backed off and insisted Jamie do the honors, which, in my black robe and hood, he did.

The garage at the Derry house had been turned into the “sacrifice” room. Jamie and Eric had cleaned the building out and draped the entire space with black cloth with a sacrificial altar as the focal point. Candles were lit. Skulls lined the wall. For the head cutting, Jamie wanted a stream of blood shooting out from my neck. Again, this was a one take scene as the blood would be everywhere. Jamie insisted on doing a test run of the blood spurt but it had to be done outside so the blood wouldn’t be noticed in earlier shots. This was in April, with a small amount of snow on the ground and it was cold. I was rigged up with hose and the blood pack. Air was pumped into the pack. The idea was, at the crucial point, I was to press some sort of button and the air and blood was to shoot out of the tube attached to my neck. It took some time to get the whole thing adjusted and the rest of the actors came out to watch, including David, who was by now completely naked again. My first thought was of how cold he must be. He was standing in snow, but seemed as oblivious of that as he was of being naked. Eric was much more concerned about what the neighbors might think and insisted

David cover himself. Reluctantly David got a blanket and threw it over his shoulders, although left gaping enough so he was still somewhat exposed.

The test went well, although Jamie wasn’t completely happy and insisted on putting more air into the pack. He added quite a bit more and we went inside to begin the scene. As I was standing there, delivering my last line, David swung a machete. I immediately pushed the button and the spray shot out. As I fell to the floor, twisting my body, the blood covered everyone and everywhere―except me. Well, some dribbled down my robe, but I was clean. I lay there while the filming went on, but it was hard to not laugh at all the bloody faces and clothes surrounding me. Jamie decided the blood looked good and added a brief scene of David flailing at my body and spreading the blood even more.

I was able to watch the rest of the scene as it was being filmed. David was naked and bouncing around, first with a fight scene and then with a machete and staff fight. He had insisted he didn’t mind being naked in the scene, but did not want his penis shown. It must have been very difficult editing that scene, as his penis was everywhere.

That was my last scene and I was no longer involved for a while, but filming continued. Then there was quiet. I heard nothing for some time. The boys were busy, cutting, pasting, editing, adding music, and in general getting the film together. With the film completed, Jamie called some of the actors together for a screening. The film actually looked better once it was in order and edited.

Jamie wanted a “The Making of….” feature, so we reran the film with Jamie recording our commentary on the scenes in front of us. The film actually made it to Amazon, and today it is still available from there. Several other films have the same title, but the cover for this one is that of a gravestone with a skull and pentagram in red imposed on the stone.

One day, I got a call. The film had been accepted for the Gaylaxia Film Festival in Boston and cast and crew members were invited to attend our presentation. Gaylaxia is a club for fans of gay science fiction films (talk about a niche group!). Some of us decided it would be fun to see how this works. On the night of the screening, with David driving his van, we headed to Boston to watch the film and get the audience’s reaction. No one said anything negative and there were a lot of great comments, especially on the acting. And David actually kept his clothes on.

Jamie mentioned he had toyed with having the two leads kiss, but Rob was averse to that. However the audience strongly urged for that bit to be added. Rob changed his mind and agreed. The kiss is now in the film.

By this time Dave and Rob had been bitten by the acting bug. They urged Jamie to do another film. Jamie had been writing a sequel to Sacrifice but they wanted a short film based on some sort of futurist tale that was popular at the time. Jamie was a bit reluctant, but finally agreed.

He wrote in a small part for me before he asked if I would do it. I agreed and we had a couple of short scenes, mostly just me and the camera. I don’t recall much of anything concerning this as it was never finished. Then came the sequel, this one called, “Resurrection”. Again, Jamie wrote me into the script. As I ended the original film headless, I couldn’t see where I fit in, but Jamie explained I was to be the spirit haunting my grandson. It would be a smaller role, but that was fine with me. I had gotten tired of the delays and unpreparedness of Jamie and Eric and had other things to do.

Let me tell you of the last, and only scene I did on that picture. We were to meet at noon at a farmhouse someplace near Derry. I arrived promptly at 12, introduced myself to the farm owner and waited. Jamie and Eric managed to get there at 1, along with two crew members. Jamie had forgotten the red food dye for painting blood on David and asked the farmer’s wife for some, which she didn’t have, Jamie then sent the two crew members to the market seven miles away to get some. They were gone for an hour, with various phone conversations concerning directions, what brand of dye, and other meaningless items.

While we were waiting, Rob and David showed up. They apparently were converting to “Jamie Time”, in which appointed arrival times were flexible. When the long awaited dye finally arrived, Jamie applied the red color to David’s body. For a change, David was NOT naked. He wore a very mini-sized white bikini and was supposed to be hung from a sort of X shaped cross. While filming, several cars drove by and slowed down. When we waved at them, they sped up. We wondered what story the drivers told at the dinner table that night.

Let me say Jamie was not the most efficient director I have worked with. He got David tied up to the cross, then set the camera up, talked to David about his lines and began the scene. The problem was he didn’t want David in that position for longer than 15 minutes because of blood circulation, so after a few minutes he would untie David and get him down. While David was exercising his arms, Jamie filmed one of my lines, then got David back up on the cross, readjusted the camera, and so on. It took hours. I told Jamie I intended to leave by four, so he got just a bit more efficient, and I left on time.

This was the last I saw of Jamie and company. I later heard from one member of the cast that there was some more filming done, but then that seemed to stop. Whether Jamie ran out of material, cast, inspiration and/or money, I’m not sure. He was puzzling over how to film a woman being run over by a steam road paver and perhaps that was the sticking problem. I had visions of the film turning into a Flat Stanley animation.

Other than a couple of nursing home commercials, that is the extent of my film career. It was fun to do, but I am now officially turning in my dressing room star and becoming once again one of the little people out there in the dark.