The Lambeth Literary Journal Issue No. 6

the

Literary ambeth journal

Our Mission: The Lambeth Literary Journal is comprised of memoirs, essays, poems, and fictional works by residents of Lambeth House. It provides an active forum for the sharing of ideas and experiences between Lambeth House writers and readers, their families, staff members, and other interested persons outside of Lambeth House. The Journal is also a recognition that creative talent is not limited by age.

All past and future issues of the Journal are reprinted in full on Lambeth House’s website, LambethHouse.com.

The Lambeth House Literary Journal Editorial Board:

Penick Past Editor-in-Chief

The Journal appreciates the financial support of the Lambeth House Foundation, which also provides philanthropic assistance to the Lambeth House community in many other ways.

Topper Thompson Member

Aggie Richards

Member

Dr. Rosemary Hays - Thomas Member

Carol Deas Member

Bill

Dr. Elaine Coffin Member

Ellen Bellone Member

Julie McCollam Editor-in-Chief

Pat Mason Managing Editor

Sue Marchal, Lisa Jackson, and Anne Honeywell Support Staff

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Albert Cowdrey: Hot Nights And a Chilly One 2

Bob Sakakeeny: Ain’t Dead Yet .............................................................................. 5

Ellen Conway Bellone: Holy Innocence ................................................................ 10

Joyce B. Mathison: The Resurrection Lady ........................................................... 11

Russ Herman: Crossing the Bridge ........................................................................ 12

Bill Penick: The Perks of Pregnancy ...................................................................... 13

Charlotte Travieso: The Invitation to Dance ......................................................... 16

Carol Gelderman: The Henry Ford Motor Camping Trips ................................... 17

Charlotte Travieso: The Four-Fold Way ............................................................... 21

Aggie Richards: A Lament for Honey Island......................................................... 22

Ginger Vehaskari: Granny on the Roof 25

Jane Fox: Fabergé’s Russian Fantasies and Treasures ........................................... 36

Ginger Vehaskari: Helene’s Story ......................................................................... 39

Vincent Drago: Roaming in Rome ......................................................................... 45

Pat Mason: Burma Shave ....................................................................................... 47

Elaine Coffin: Lady Pam of Mt. Vernon ................................................................ 51

Ken Kneipp: Headwaters ........................................................................................ 53

Ellen Conway Bellone: An Unexpected Memory .................................................. 57

Sam Rosamond: My Trip to the Emergency Room ............................................... 59

Gladys LeBreton as told to Carol Deas: An Unforgettable Summer .................. 61

Charlotte Travieso: Bridge Riders 65

Carol Gelderman: The Lure and the Love of Trying to Write a Serious Book that Makes a Fortune.............................................. 66

Irene Poe (with assistance from Beth): “Let the Beauty We Love Be What We Do” ........................................................................... 72

Anonymous: Romance in the Fifties ...................................................................... 73

Elliotte Harold: A Modern Christmas Carol (with apologies to Charles Dickens) .............................................................. 75

HOT

NIGHTS —

AND A CHILLY ONE

by Albert Cowdrey

We all remember those stifling summer nights in the days before airconditioning. I’m not sure how we survived them, but on the evidence, we did.

From childhood I remember the feel of summertime skin, alternately slippery and sticky; the tiny Salt Lake that filled my bellybutton as I lay sweating in the dark; the hypnotic roar of the attic fan; the currents of lukewarm air blowing through windows that were always left open three inches to concentrate the breeze.

The mattress heated up where I lay on it, so I’d roll onto an unheated part, which felt delicious until it heated up too, and I had to roll back. A Cajun neighbor’s dog barked until dawn, when his fighting cocks awoke, flapped their wings, and with brazen throats began crowing to greet the sun.

When exactly did I sleep, anyway? In class, I guess, at Gentilly Terrace School, while Miss Davis was explaining the basics of algebra. Or anyplace else when a sudden cloudburst dropped the temperature by twenty degrees, populating the house with shadows, turning the far side of the street into a dim old sepia photograph, and bringing the kids out in their bathing suits to send toy boats coursing down the foaming rapids that filled every gutter.

I was 28 when I acquired my first air-conditioner. A lady friend I’ll call Lili – a sophisticated older woman, maybe 30 at the time – had found a rewarding gig in PR and moved from the Marigny to a posher apartment on Royal Street. I inherited her old one, which came equipped with an A/C unlike any I’ve seen since. It was about the size of a subcompact car, lacked a thermostat, and had two speeds, Off and Hang Meat. Lili hadn’t made much use of it, because she got chilblains if the temperature dropped below eighty, but I used it every night and some days. I didn’t yet own a bed, so she left me a box spring and mattress, plus a couple of blankets that I needed when the monster got going – otherwise, I’d have become the first recorded case of a New Orleanian suffering frostbite.

Along with the coolness came the joy of privacy. The 1830’s-era camelback on Dauphine Street had been divided into small apartments, and all except mine were occupied by garbage men, their women, and swarming children of varied hue and parentage. Perfectly honest, hard-working folks – but loud, very loud. And frank, very frank Chatting with them made me realize that in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams hadn’t been inventing, he’d merely been transcribing. One evening when I was seated on my doorstep, smoking an after-dinner cigar, a garbage lady emerged from the adjacent alleyway and summoned her kiddies home by bellowing, “You git in dis house, or I’m a make ya BLEED!”

Great line, that – I’ve never forgotten it. But also great that I could go inside, shut the door, fire up the A/C, and get back to reading for my PhD exams (though the language of the textbooks was a lot less vibrant and original than hers).

Then I began a new living arrangement. I kept the small, cheap, chilly apartment where I worked and stored all my books and stuff, but started to spend the dark hours in Lili’s dwelling on Royal Street. True, it wasn’t air-conditioned, because of her aversion to chill, so in a sense I was back in the nights of my childhood. Only now I enjoyed them a lot more. The Quarter had been built for hot summers, and for a while our lives there were total New Orleans, from the bubbles all the way down to the dregs.

We spent long hours on her gallery in the company of a 6-foot papier-mâché rabbit from a performance of Harvey at La Petite that she’d played in. Man, woman, and rabbit lounged in the dark, surrounded by the murmur of voices from neighboring balconies. An occasional laugh would break from the shadows, maybe a jazzy riff, a tinkle on somebody’s piano, or the deep thrumming of Segovia’s guitar on a hi-fi. I did the bartending, always providing a cinnamon stick to swizzle Lili’s Old Fashion – she insisted on that. If the night was especially steamy, we’d move to the roofless gallery of an empty apartment next door, put down a bedspread, and sprawl. It was a great place to snuggle, despite the metallic grating of four rusty bolts that seemed to be the only things holding the balcony to the building. Down below, a bus might roar past (buses still ran on Royal Street), or a clot of crapulous tourists debate loudly how to find their way back to Bourbon.

We didn’t do much cooking – too hot – but we enjoyed Cantonese shrimp at Dan’s International, followed by beer and Beethoven in the Napoleon House. Louder and raunchier was the thundering rock at La Casa de los Marinos, where one night we watched an uptown lady throw a remarkable number of her garments on the floor and dance on them. Post-midnight hours brought the illusion of

coolness; foghorns brayed on the river and showers as heavy as torrents of buckshot fell on the streets, churning the reflection of the lights. Maybe what James Lee Burke meant by his haunting title The Neon Rain.

Then harsh realty intruded. I’d finished most of my work as a grad student at Tulane, and if I was to avoid the Baptist Rescue Mission, had to find a job. I prepared to leave town, drawn by the glamor of Frisco and the report of an attractive teaching position there. The heat had broken, and a cool wind was blowing when I headed back to the Marigny to bag up my few belongings. I remember a million bits of waste paper parading down Dauphine Street like midget second-liners waving tiny flags.

For me, for a while at least, the hot nights had come to an end. And so had my time with Lili. A lot of different kinds of warmth went out of my world that night, some to return later, others not. Maybe my memory’s playing tricks, but I seem to remember that while I worked on my possessions – take this, ditch that – a Beatle (Lennon? McCartney?) was on the radio, singing, “Oh, I believe in yesterday.”

Portrait by George Schmidt

AIN’T DEAD YET

by Bob Sakakeeny

After returning from Frankfurt, I resumed my day job. I had expected to be assigned to the second Cuban but learned later that my replacement was a guy out of our base in Zweibrucken, Germany.

My team was severely understaffed, so we were on 12-hour shifts six days a week. Although recruitment had ramped up for all commands, Vietnam was getting most of the new personnel. More importantly, it took at least nine months to train analysts, so getting new staff was painfully slow.

Since my base commander hated my guts, when I got called to his office, I fully expected the Colonel to assign me to latrine duty. Instead, he gave me orders to go to GCHQ in Cheltenham – about an hour away – to be the liaison with the Five-Eyes.

We need to take a quick break for a history and acronym lesson. Most fans of British TV know that MI-5 and MI-6 are the British intelligence services responsible for monitoring internal (MI-5) and external (MI-6) threats (think FBI and CIA). GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) was the British signals intelligence operation. During WWII, America, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand shared resources to capture, analyze, and report on enemy communications. For a non-technical understanding of this work, watch the great movie The Imitation Game And, for a higher-level understanding, talk to the lady in our building who spent 26 years working with the NSA.

Post-war, the Five-Eyes collaboration was formalized, and because of the sheer size of its budget, the NSA was the acknowledged leader of the pack, with GCHQ a feisty second in command. At the time of this story, the NSA relied on the armed services to collect the vast amounts of intelligence data and do the initial analysis, but everything was sent back to NSA headquarters in Maryland. The Army Security agency monitored enemy army units, the Naval Security Group had its obvious assignment, and I was in the Air Force Security Service. Pre-satellite listening stations had to be located near a signal’s source, so most of the listening posts were outside the US.

The base I was on had a two-fold mission: monitor the Soviet air force activities between Murmansk and Moscow and consolidate and transmit all the communications from the various listening posts in Europe to the US.

Thus endeth the lesson.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” the 34th president {Eisenhower} warned. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

One night an analyst and an operator on the mids-shift woke me up with an urgent request to go back to the bunker. They had intercepted a radar signal from a station outside of Moscow and needed an immediate ruling on how to alert Washington to it. As we watched the replay on a small screen originally used as an oscilloscope, we saw an object flying at a high speed coming from the north and heading toward Moscow. Suddenly, a smaller object was seen rising from the ground, intercepting and then destroying the larger object.

I got on the phone and called my counterpart at GCHQ, and he used another phone to call NSA headquarters. While we were talking, I had my operator duplicate the tape, so when ordered to go to Cheltenham I was able to grab it and set off in my trusty steed – a god-awful 1957 VW Bug. I had to wait at the GCHQ security gate because the guards did not believe that a lowly American enlisted man was allowed to see a senior UK officer at 4 in the morning.

Once inside the compound, we replayed the tape several times at various speeds. We finally agreed that we had witnessed a test of an Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM). We agreed that I would return to my base, send out an alert (called Critic), and continue analyzing the tape.

After a week of bleary-eyed work and constant calls, it suddenly dawned on me that I had screwed up. I had watched the transmission too many times but had failed to listen to it. I went back to the operator’s rack and had them mount the tape on the best audio equipment we would find.

Since I was not an operator, I had to rely on their expertise. After playing the tape’s audio a few times, we called over the section chief. This was an old veteran who had started in the Army Signal Corp during WWII. He listened twice and said with a scowl that it was a fake. I didn’t understand his reasons for determining it

was a fake until he said it was too smooth. In the days of analog transmission, there was always a lot of noise which caused little blips in a track. Like the difference between AM and FM radio.

My little pea brain reacted – finally. The boys at 5-Eyes must have realized this before I did, given their superior equipment and much longer experience analyzing signals. I finally understood that I had screwed myself and had been screwed

I found an isolated teletype machine, turned off the noisy punch tape recorder, and sent a second Critic correcting the first. There wasn’t a test of an ABM system but instead an advancement in the creation of flight simulations.

Within 24 hours I got calls from the head of the Security Service, the Pentagon, and the White House telling me to retract my retraction. The President and Congress had used the first Critic to request funding for the development of an American ABM system. I was too dumb to give in to the pressure – picture saying no to LBJ. In a short time, the issue became moot as Congress passed the first of many bills funding the ABM development – a technology that still doesn’t work.

I took a short time off, and when I returned to duty, one of the linguists I worked with brought me a printout of a message just intercepted: будьте осторожны, Сак вернулся. {watch out, Sak is back}.

When the base commander sent for me again, I learned that my section was to be grown to full strength, but I had to train some who would be reassigned to Vietnam. Reward and punishment for the ABM fiasco.

My chief came with me – he wanted to verify that I was having one-onone’s with the CO for legitimate reasons. NCOs were the backbone of the Security Service while officers were necessary pimples.

As the new analysts arrived over the next few months, my chief and I had conversations about how to select the three who would be sent to Vietnam. He said he had one seasoned analyst who was crazy enough to keep volunteering for Vietnam, so we agreed to swap him for one of the Jeeps.

As the training continued, our small group met weekly to review our assignments and get some quick weapons training. While troops in Vietnam were

issued M16’s, most of the Air Force was getting M14’s – similar in many ways but prone to jamming

The intercept site on Monkey Mountain, outside of Da Nang, was operational but was just having its equipment upgraded to intercept digital signals the North was thought to be adding to its air defense. Another analyst from San Vito, Italy, was assigned to the group to provide 24-7 coverage.

I won’t bore you with the details of our 36-hour flight except to note we were flying East from England, and we used prop airplanes, not jets. My ass still hurts with the memory of that ride.

We were given 24 hours to rest up and adjust to the heat. On the 2nd day, we met with our Marine escorts – Monkey Mountain was a joint operation between the two services. We choppered from sprawling Da Nang to the base of the mountain, and then walked to the top. Wait, what? The Marine escort needed to assess the vulnerability of our site to a ground attack, so they decided to combine their missions.

Our first surprise was that we were walking through woods and not jungle. As we walked up the slope, we felt the air get cooler – a welcome relief from the heat and humidity. One grunt, who had a radio strapped to his back, suddenly gave the halt sign. While on our haunches he whispered that the VC were on the mountain and launching mortars onto the edge of the airfield. Our group was to start moving East and a platoon of Marines from the base would be coming from the other side.

Our backpacks were relatively light, so we made good time. We also made a bad noise. We also were not listening. When the gunfire started, we faced uphill until realizing it was coming from downhill. We had to turn around while making sure we didn’t shoot our guys. As I turned, I felt a sharp sting above my left hip,

but it wasn’t debilitating. Just below me Andy, the gung-ho analyst who kept volunteering for Vietnam, was down and not moving. We were returning fire as best we could when my M14 jammed. All I could do was use my .45 – in the woods, facing downhill while the enemy was using superior AK-47s.

Fortunately, the Marine platoon arrived and soon the fighting stopped. In addition to Andy, one of the Marines was dead and two others were wounded. When the medic arrived, he noticed I was bleeding. A bullet had traveled through Andy and hit me.

After action, actions. The remaining analysts were taken up to the intercept site, the wounded were patched up at Da Nang, and I had the bullet removed and stitched under a local.

You won’t find Andy’s name on the Wall. The brass had his body flown to Clark Air Base in the Philippines and his parents were told he was killed during a training exercise. As I flew home my wound became infected and the bacteria ended up corroding the valve between my stomach and colon. To this day I cannot eat a full meal without getting sick to my stomach, since food only flows slowly through the damaged valve.

Monkey Mountain is now a prime resort where the Vietnamese can vacation with their families.

HOLY INNOCENCE

by Ellen Bellone

She is singing, leaping, twirling, Up, around the debris filled shelter Of adults on their cots, their new homes.

CLICK…

Punch balls, stick balls, stoop balls. Pink bouncing Spalding balls, Skate keys, jacks, jump ropes, dolls Fill our after-school street. Cars honk us to the curbs His stick hits the Spalding Which lands in Old Crank’s yard. “OUT”!

As the sun lowers, the sky darkens And we homing pigeons head home

The family dinner tests our mothers. Common foods are very hard to find.

Meat is scarce; sugar is scarce; coffee is scarce Brave, sad, troubled parents ask about school!

The punch balls, stick balls, stoop balls Skate keys, jacks, jump ropes, dolls abound, Creating our simple wartime surround!

THE RESURRECTION LADY

by Joyce B. Mathison

When my husband and I were young doctors, we volunteered to serve as medical missionaries for the United Methodist Church. We were assigned to a little 100-bed hospital in a very rural area of northern Nigeria, just 8° north of the equator. How rural? Well, the roads were closed nearly half the year because there were no bridges over the streams. Emergency medical transportation consisted of a bed made of cane stalks hoisted onto the shoulders of four to six men from the patient’s family and friends. And that’s how I came to meet the patient I think of as the resurrection lady.

I hope that doesn’t offend you, but I’ll always remember her that way, because – well, you’ll see. When her family carried her into the emergency examining area of that little hospital, they said she had died and come back. I knew they weren’t trying to deceive us, just relating what seemed to them to be the truth about what they had just experienced. When I first looked at her, it occurred to me that she might have gone back to being dead again. But when I laid a stethoscope on her chest, I thought maybe I heard a faint flutter. When we got IVs started, she began pouring blood, visibly thin blood, and the kind of bleeding that can’t be stopped in time without prompt surgical intervention.

A necessary moment to give the family an honest assessment: She’s in a dangerous situation and she’s already in pretty bad shape. She may die no matter what we do, but without a successful surgery to stop the bleeding, she certainly will. They said what the families always said, “Oh, please try!” I went to start my scrub while the nurses got her ready for surgery and an aide took the family over to the lab to see if any of them were potential blood donors.

She came through the surgery okay, but it was still a touch and go situation. Sometimes, when it seemed necessary, I would climb up on a gurney after an emergency surgery and give a unit of blood to help the patient through the next twenty-four hours. I frankly don’t remember whether this was one of those times, but it very well could have been. At any rate, she recovered well.

Later, talking to the nurses, I learned that when they were cleaning her up for surgery, they found sand everywhere, in all the cracks and creases. Bear in mind that this was in a very rural area of tropical West Africa in the 1970s: no refrigeration and no ice. So it was both customary and necessary for burial to occur

pretty promptly after death. The local burial ground was in a sandy field about two miles from the hospital. Putting all this together with the family’s story that she had died and come back, we surmised that, believing her to be dead, they had already started to bury her when she showed some sign of life (a little moan, a sudden gasp, or maybe a fluttered eyelid?). They would have been horrified at having started to bury her before she was all the way dead and would have pulled her out and rushed her to the hospital.

CROSSING THE BRIDGE

by Russ Herman

Though I have walked a little more than halfway across the bridge There is yet sap in my veins And my leaves have turned to autumn color But roots are deep And travel forward not so steep.

“Halfway through the sun the ram has run,” But there are many more suns to see And things to be. I do not look backward or retrace the steps But am ever forward so as not to fall.

There is yet fire in my belly and passion in my heart The warmth of love and laughter And music in my being yet unplayed And unfinished melodies to mark my way.

THE PERKS OF PREGNANCY

by Bill Penick

Of the countless books on the subject of pregnancy, not one talks about it as a golden opportunity to reap unimaginable rewards. What a pity! As a result, most moms-to-be are so focused on the baby or babies in their bellies that they completely overlook the plethora of possible perks that come with pregnancy – but not my very savvy wife.

As the proud parents of three perfect products of propitious procreation, Julie and I have experienced the miracle of creating a human life. It is a distinct honor for women to be the ones to compose and carry such a precious cargo in their own bodies. It’s also an awesome responsibility and we had some anxious moments during the course of Julie’s pregnancies, but they all turned well, in part because my wife gamed the system so perfectly. I know what you’re thinking: this sounds just like a guy who never had to deal with morning sickness, unpleasant exams, labor pain, or stretch marks, etc., but please hear me out. I’m not talking about mundane perks like maternity leave or not mowing the lawn. I’m talking about really important stuff like free beer and free grades.

Free Beer

Julie and I were season-ticket holders and loyal fans of the New Orleans Saints for several years at the franchise’s outset. Starting with the initial season in 1967, we sat on the hard wooden benches at old Tulane Stadium with several friends and watched in despair as our new football team usually got demolished. We all drained our sorrows in cheap beer on those long Sunday afternoons in a hot, uncovered stadium.

Julie was pregnant with our second (born 1/3/69) and third (born 2/13/71) children throughout the 1968 and 1970 seasons but still managed to attend all of the Saints’ home games. Between her enlarged uterus and compressed bladder, the usual mismatch on the field (the Saints were 4-9-1 and 2-11-1 in those two seasons), and the cold beer she drank in moderation, Julie spent a lot of time going to and from the bathroom. Since there wasn’t much happening on the field, her comings and goings were definitely observed by our nearby (mostly male) neighbors, not surprisingly, because Julie was a beautiful woman (and still is at age 69) who absolutely glowed during her pregnancies.

But her effect was not limited to the fans in the stands. In some mysterious way, Julie also galvanized the Saints on the field by just going to the bathroom. It was uncanny and even a little spooky: the few times our team ever scored any points occurred when Julie was in the bathroom. She was the Saints’ 12th player.

The causal connection between Julie’s bathroom visits and the home team’s success did not go unnoticed by the desperate fans around us. After the first couple of home games, they began by asking Julie to wait until the Saints had the ball. When she did go, our new, overly solicitous friends cautioned her to be careful and take her time. Then, in a “Eureka” moment, some beer-swilling dude behind us suddenly realized that beer and bathrooms were intimately linked and started buying beer for Julie in hopes of triggering her bladder reaction. Other fans picked up the cue and did the same, so we were rolling in suds. I happily drank most of the free beer but that didn’t matter to our generous pals, who figured if Julie only took a sip or two out of each beer, that could make all the difference in a close game.

Tennessee Williams was certainly right about “the kindness of strangers.” Never in the entire history of the human race was a single individual’s bathroom schedule manipulated, monitored, and anticipated so intently by so many observers. Julie’s fame spread like wildfire. Toward the end of the season, our section of the stadium erupted in loud cheers whenever Julie left her seat. It was like I was married to a real saint (which she is): Saints’ fans, who are a little crazy to begin with, jumped out of her way, reached over to touch her sleeve, and blessed her reverently for just going to the bathroom! Despite their adoration, I was always worried that some extreme fan would lock her in a bathroom stall since she was too big to crawl under or over the door.

Unfortunately, Julie’s bladder was not nearly as porous as the Saints’ defense and they continued to lose, but because of her offensive contributions, Julie almost won the team’s Most Valuable Player award twice.

Free A’s

It’s a small jump from Tulane Stadium to a Tulane classroom. Julie had finished two years of college before interrupting her education to help with her very sick father and later to marry me and start a family. In 1968, when Casey was three, Julie decided to resume her studies by taking a night class for credit. She took one or two classes at Tulane, Loyola, and UNO for almost every semester after that, in addition to raising three children and teaching at the JCC Nursery

School for 25 years. Julie graduated cum laude from Tulane in 1996 in the presence of her very proud family.

When she started that first class in the fall of 1968, Julie was about five months pregnant with our second child, Ginger. She enjoyed the class and did well, but when the date of the final exam was announced, it happened to fall exactly on her due date. She therefore talked to her professor about the conflict, which produced this memorable exchange a month before the exam:

PROFESSOR: “Well, Mrs. Penick, I can’t change my schedule.”

JULIE: “Well, Mr. _________, I can’t change my schedule either.” (Score 1 for Julie!)

So the impending conflict was not resolved. However, as Julie’s belly continued to expand, the professor finally started to realize he might have a serious problem if Julie went into labor in the middle of his exam and he, a music teacher, had to deliver a baby. Julie thought the issue was closed until, out of the blue, he promised her an A in the course if she skipped the exam! Now that’s an offer that very few sane students would not jump at with both feet, but he did not know my wife very well. What he’d done by arrogantly refusing her earlier overture was to arouse her fine sense of right and wrong, so she declined his new offer, to his obvious discomfort. He renewed the offer after every ensuing class, with growing urgency in proportion to her growing girth, but her mind was made up. He clearly had no previous experience with very pregnant women of any kind and was mystified by her determination (which he probably called something else).

By the time of the exam, the poor man was a nervous wreck. He could barely remember who wrote Beethoven’s Fifth. When the final exam took place, I waited outside the room with the car running in case Julie did go into labor, but that apparently didn’t ease the professor’s anxiety. Julie said he hovered nearby and came running over whenever she stood up to stretch her legs or even just frowned. She came through it all in good shape, no doubt better than he did, and aced the exam with a real A, the first of many in her subsequent college career.

As fragile as the professor was just then, it probably would have sent him over the edge if we’d told him that Ginger waited another three weeks after his exam to make her entrance into the world.

THE INVITATION TO DANCE

by Charlotte Travieso

The invitation to dance Was slow to come at first. For so long now They had seen each other From different sides of the moon Through the legs and arms Of other partners, already dancing.

He approached slowly, His eyes retreating when they Looked at her, asking.

She always looked away, Ashamed, afraid, a little cynical. There were so many others. There was so much to be done.

This time he came With a glistening heart cloth, On solid mammal footing, His eyes fixed and true. Will you dance with me, he asked, And opened his heart cloth to her.

She saw gems and stones and jewels Of other worldly brilliance. She saw the pearl of great price. Her eyes needed time to adjust to the dazzlement. Her heart wanted time to offer thanks For the sureness of it all. And then

Yes, she said, oh yes, I will dance this dance with you.

THE HENRY FORD MOTOR CAMPING TRIPS

by Carol Gelderman

Henry Ford once complained it was difficult for a famous man to make friends. It was the reason, he said, that he cherished the company of his equally celebrated contemporaries, John Burroughs, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone, and why he often reminisced about the annual camping trips the foursome made from 1918 until 1924. Although their expeditions were meant to provide the celebrities with backwoods pleasure, they were anything but rustic.

Clad in linen dusters and soft caps, Ford, Firestone, Edison, and Burroughs drove 70 miles a day along back roads in various parts of the northeast and midwest in a caravan of trucks and cars, “roughing it” with chauffeurs and cooks, table linen, and silver. Each camper slept in his own ten-by-ten tent complete with floor, electricity, screens. folding cot, mattress, blankets, sheets, pillows, and a name plate on the outside flap. There was a special kitchen tent with a refrigerator and a dining tent with a table that seated 20. Maybe because their equipment was so elaborate, no one wore casual clothes: each man appeared at breakfast every morning in shirt and tie.

The group moved quarters each day. “When we have settled on a camping site,” Burroughs wrote in his journal, “Mr. Edison settles down in his car and reads or meditates, Mr. Ford seizes an axe and swings it vigorously till there is enough wood for the campfire. Mr. Ford is more adaptive, more indifferent to places than

Camping trip 1918. Back seat (l-r) H.S. Firestone, Henry Ford. Front seat: Thomas Edison, H.S. Firestone, Jr.

is Mr. Edison.” And, for that matter, than all the others. He would bathe in a creek, whereas Firestone wanted to stop in a hotel for his bath. He was always up by fivethirty, no matter how late the men retired the night before.

Ford had been an admirer of Burroughs long before they met. He had been dismayed when the naturalist's writings began to indicate a “grudge against modern progress,” so he sent a Ford car as a gift, with the request that he try it out and see if it wouldn't help him “to know nature better.”

“One day I got a letter from the man at the head of Henry Ford's advertising department,” Burroughs related, “saying that Mr. Ford had read my books and they had given him a great deal of pleasure, and he wanted to make me a present of a Ford car. I didn't know what in the dickens to make of such an offer, and I talked it over with my friends. They advised me to take the car, and I wrote back, ‘If it would please Mr. Ford to present me with one of his cars, it would please me to accept the car.’” Six months later, in June of 1913, Burroughs visited the manufacturer in Detroit.

Ford's friendship with Firestone began as a business relationship, Firestone being a large supplier of Model T tires, but blossomed into a life-long admiration based on his respect for the tire-maker’s enlightened labor policies. Ford’s association with Edison, however, was entirely different. Ever since their first meeting in 1896, Ford had idolized the inventor. In the summer of that year, Alex Dow, Ford’s boss at the Detroit Edison Illumination Company, took his chief engineer to the annual convention of the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies at Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn. The highlight of the convention for Ford was a discussion the delegates had about what promised to be their biggest source of future revenue: storage batteries for electric automobiles. Nearly everyone present assumed that the horseless carriage of the future would be an electric vehicle, but Alex Dow, pointing to Ford, announced, “This young fellow here has made a gas car.” Ford described his engine, speaking loudly because Edison was hard of hearing. “Edison asked me no end of details,” Ford told his wife when he returned to Detroit, “and I sketched everything for him, for I have always found I could convey an idea quicker by sketching than by just describing it. When I finished, he brought his fist down on the table with a bang and said, ‘Young man, that's the thing; you have it! Keep at it! Electric cars must keep near to power stations. The storage battery is too heavy. Steam cars won’t do either for they have to carry a boiler and fire. Your car is self-contained – it carries its own power plant – no fire, no boiler, no smoke, no steam. You have the thing. Keep at

it!’ That bang on the table was worth worlds to me. No man up to that time had given me any encouragement.”

Edison promptly forgot the young man from Detroit, whose name he never caught anyway, but for the next eleven years Ford secretly worshipped Edison. In 1907, he ventured to write, “My dear Mr. Edison: I am fitting up a den for my private use at the factory and I thought I would like to have photographs of about three of the greatest inventors of this age to feast my eyes on in idle moments. Needless to say, Mr. Edison is the first of the three and I would esteem it a great personal favor if you would send me a photograph of yourself.”

“No ans.,” Edison scrawled across Ford's letter. Ford was only one of more than 150 automobile manufacturers; his name meant nothing to Edison. By the time of their second meeting in 1912, however, Ford, as producer of better than a quarter of all motorcars, was fairly well known. He went to see his idol at his laboratory in New Jersey to discuss using Edison batteries in the Model T. Other manufacturers had made inquiries at Edison's New Jersey office, but only Ford promised four million dollars in yearly orders. Edison, always slightly hard up for cash, joined forces with Ford. Six months after their business arrangement, he and his wife drove through New York state and Canada to Dearborn to stay with the Fords.

Edison worked on developing a suitable battery for the Model T two-and-ahalf years. Ford financed the unsuccessful experimentation to the tune of 1.5 million dollars. Already frustrated by his inability to produce a workable battery, Edison suffered further reverses when his factory complex at West Orange caught fire. Insurance covered only $200,000 of his losses; Ford made up the remaining $100,00.

Not surprisingly, relations between the Fords and Edisons became increasingly friendly. Henry started sending the Edisons a Model T each Christmas, and, in 1914 and 1915, he and Clara visited them at their winter home in Fort Myers, Florida. At the end of their 1915 visit, the four friends went to San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific Exposition, named for the just-completed Panama Canal, to see the replica of the Ford assembly line that was the highlight of the fair. It was here that the idea of the camping trips originated.

Edison, Burroughs, and Firestone made the first trip in the summer of 1916, Ford being unable to attend. Edison took care of the arrangements, providing for a touring car to carry the party and a Model T truck to follow it, bearing tents and camping equipment, servants, and drivers. During the short trip of ten days, the men covered hundreds of miles of unpaved country roads in the Adirondacks and upper Vermont. The next tour, through the Smoky Mountains, took place in the summer of 1918 and included Ford. The 1919 trip meandered through upstate New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

Mr. Harvey S. Firestone and Mr. Thomas A. Edison at the Edison Laboratory, East Orange, N.J., before first camping trip, August 28, 1916.

The wives of the original foursome came along on the 1920 trek through the Catskills and again in 1921 through Maryland and Pennsylvania, accompanied by the President of the United States, Warren Harding. Owing to Burroughs’ death in 1921, there was no trip in 1922, but in 1923 the party visited Calvin Coolidge in Massachusetts and, in 1924, the last year of the organized tours, the group journeyed in late spring across the upper peninsula of Michigan to visit Ford properties at Iron Mountain, Sidnaw, and L’Anse and, in late fall, the party assembled for the last time at the Wayside Inn, which Ford had just purchased, in Massachusetts. “The trips were good fun,” Ford wrote in My Life and Work, “except that they began to attract too much attention.”

In reality, Ford was intoxicated by the limelight – any limelight. Newsmen and photographers followed the campers everywhere they went, reporting their every move and utterance. Movie theaters throughout the country showed the men – Ford and Firestone in their fifties, Edison in his seventies, and Burroughs in his eighties – in running, jumping, chopping, and climbing contests, competitions staged, most likely, for their publicity value. Newspaper headlines proclaimed, “Millions of Dollars Worth of Brains Off On a Vacation,” “Genius to Sleep Under the Stars,” “Kings of Industry and Inventor Paid City Visit,” and “Henry Ford Demonstrates He's Not Afraid of Work: Repairs His Damaged Car.”

Both Edison and Ford complained about the ubiquitous reporters, yet both, like topnotch publicists, announced each trip's itinerary in advance and included professional photographers in the official party.

By the time wives and presidents joined in, the supposedly quiet time in the country for four famous friends had become a theatrical extravaganza. * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE FOUR-FOLD WAY

by Charlotte Travieso

The late cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien scoured peoples’ teachings from around the world looking for guideposts to successful living.

She diluted her findings Into a simple life formula And called it the four-fold way.

Show up and choose to be present. Be open to outcome, unattached to outcome. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Tell the truth without blame or judgment.

Simple dictums, easy to follow. Well, except maybe for that last one.

A LAMENT FOR HONEY ISLAND

by Aggie Richards

It started as a fluff piece. A feel-good informative story for our evening news program, Journal, on WYES-TV co-anchored and produced by Andrea Roane and Charles Zewe. This was 40 years ago. There was so much to see and learn for most of us about the Honey Island Swamp that as a contributor to Journal, I thought it would make an interesting segment. The feral pigs, eagles, water moccasins, alligators, wood duck, turtles, turkey, crayfish, egrets, raccoons, pileated woodpeckers, to name a few of the fascinating creatures that live there. This lush habitat for wildlife is also a source of timber, recreation such as hunting, boating, fishing, and bird-watching, and a natural water purification system, as well as a nursery for many species of fish.

The flood plain swamp forest lies between the East and West Pearl Rivers, the former being the boundary between Louisiana and Mississippi, roughly 20 miles of water that flows into Lake Borgne, which is 7 miles wide and encompasses 70,000 acres. Having existed under 6 flags, the Honey Island Swamp has a colorful history. Rumors of a Boggy Creek monster exist today and there is evidence that panthers, bears, and wolves were once plentiful there. Pearls were discovered in enough abundance to name the rivers, honey was everywhere, and buried gold for Napoleon in exile and a sunken pirate ship loaded with booty are all part of the area's mystique.

One of the area's most knowledgeable advocates was a federal wildlife agent, Dave, who was glad to be a resource and guide to take me with my cameraman, Paul, to places, but he didn’t want to be interviewed. In retrospect he probably was a whistleblower. Federal funding for the Corps of Engineers comes from Congress and Congress is very sensitive to the needs of big donors. The Corps of Engineers “policed” business activity in these precious wetlands. Dave wanted us to see illegal and unchecked activity. And so the story began to lose its fluff.

One interview included a trapper who had moved his wife and six children into the swamp to find more creatures to trap, but creatures like beaver had disappeared because salt water incursion, from the many canals dug to speed up getting workers out to oil and gas production facilities, had killed cypress and fresh water vegetation that sustained them. The I-10 East from Slidell at ground level had created a dam cutting off the natural ebb and flow of the Pearl Rivers (unlike

the I -10 raised over the Atchafalaya) and created dangerous flood areas, some where new subdivisions had been unwisely built.

Another interview was with a botanist from Tulane who boldly said he could show us a 1200 year old cypress tree that survived the almost complete clearcutting of the valuable timber harvested a century ago. So, with much logistical difficulty, we took him out to the tree which rose majestically above the swamp maple, tupelo, water oak, and sweet gum in the swamp. But as I interviewed him on camera, his story changed and the magnificent bald cypress suddenly became a mere 600 years old. He meekly admitted that he didn’t want to face the scrutiny of his peers and I resisted the urge to leave him with the tree.

With salt water incursion and over-harvested cypress trees, it was becoming evident this was no longer a fluff story. The Honey Island was being slowly destroyed, not so much by lack of laws but by lack of knowledgeable and honest enforcers, like Dave, and support for them from national, state, and local officials, as well as the general public.

Dave suggested we look at some illegal dredging along the West Pearl, a designated Wild and Scenic River protected by federal laws. So we ventured out again on a bitter cold day. We had a borrowed helicopter and a sympathetic pilot who had the back doors removed for better camera angles (obviously before drone videography). We rendezvoused with Dave, who met us in a small flat boat with an old-looking motor. Paul got the aerial shots hanging out of the open space where the doors had been, but I wanted to get closer, so we landed and joined Dave in the flat boat.

We motored close to ancient Indian mounds being destroyed by the wavewash of crew boats and other water vehicles speeding by, routinely breaking more

protective laws. Then we putt-putted close to an illegally dredged area where Paul shot some damning video of the harvesting of mud from a “protected” Wild and Scenic River to be supplied to offshore oil rigs. As we came about to head back to the helicopter, a large crew boat, 4 decks high, came roaring out of nowhere and headed straight for us. We could see the captain looking at us and laughing. They passed us within a few feet.

The helicopter was within sight but it seemed very far away. Paul, Dave, and I were doing our best to steady our little flat boat. The crew boat passed us and then went into reverse, once again coming right at us. We were being tossed about and splashed but Dave managed to out-maneuver the bullies. We scrambled to shore wet and very cold to board the waiting helicopter.

With proof now, it was time to talk to the Corp of Engineers.

Two representatives came from Mobile, Alabama, to our studio to answer our questions. They first told me I better have a good lawyer. Then they proceeded to bury me with information. After two hours grilling them, they finally admitted they were not stopping this law-breaking mud-dredging company. We all know that every time a barge full of mud taken from the Honey Island Swamp is hauled out offshore, more salt water moves in, destroying more of this fragile ecological system.

Months later, my contacts at the Corps called to tell me that our investigation had led to the B.O. Company admitting fault and being fined.

I was elated.

Not for long. The fine was $2500.00. To the B.O. Company, that was chump change and they were back at it the next day.

Being nominated for the Press Club's Investigating Reporting Award and being written up in the Times-Picayune in an exaggerated version of my so-called bravery was nice, but it didn’t soften the blow. We may have won a small moral victory but who will win the war to save The Honey Island Swamp?

GRANNY ON THE ROOF

by Ginger Vehaskari

PART 1

“MOM! In the one day you have been here, you have completely destroyed our reputations.”

“Well! What else was I supposed to do?”

A week ago, the excitement of my grandson being born gave me more twitters in my stomach than the bumpy flight from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. The little plane dashed head-long into the puffy white clouds and thrust out on the opposite side, then dipped down to evade an on-coming crush of black ink clouds lined with lightning. It seemed the little airplane was playing dodge ball with the clouds and the clouds were winning. The small yet thoroughly man-handled carryon suitcase banged around in the upper compartment. In between the plane’s bumps, lifts, and down winds, I prayed the case wouldn’t fall out and spill on the floor. It might be hard to explain.

I sat bolt upright in my seat, white knuckles gripped the plane’s armrests, my face was a pale green, and my red curls flattened to my head from the nervous sweat. I gritted my teeth and through tight lips spit out “This rattle-trap flying machine will not fall because I have a new grandson to see.”

The fifteen-seater airplane flapped its wings, hit the airstrip like a basketball, bounced to the end of the runway, skidded in a semi-circle, farted blue smoke, and stopped at the open-air terminal. Most of the passengers piled out of the plane, wet from crying or from other bodily malfunctions.

Thank goodness that’s over. Can’t anything be worse than this day. I burped up acid reflux as I lugged and bumped my case down the airplane’s steps. Good we have two weeks before the baby is born.

Well, babies have their own clocks and this baby’s alarm clock set off alarms at three in the morning. Big fire alarms. Like every minute and fifteen second alarms. Now if anyone knows anything about birthing, you’ll know that if the mother at this point just ekes out a sneeze, the surprised and ready-to-pass-out father will be receiving a sticky-wet screaming package in his hands.

Forty-five minutes later the peaceful sleeping baby snored next to the comatose and stunned parents in the hospital maternity ward.

Back at the condo, panic set my red curls twitching. The tighter they coiled, the faster I flew around the house. Wash, dust, scrub, clothes, dressing table, under the sofa, behind the TV table, diapers, vacuum, bathtub, dishes, floor, carpets…forget the windows…sheets, oh my god, the refrigerator is a disaster.

Done. Now for the patio.

My daughter shared a kitchen wall and patio wall with the neighbor’s kitchen and patio wall. The neighbor lady had been a lawyer in her youth but now unfortunately had stages of Alzheimer’s. She never took off her cookie-monster fluffy blue slippers, so that is what the neighbors called her.

“Have you seen Fluffy-Blue-Slippers today? How is she?”

“I bumped into Fluff-Blue-Slippers in Whole Foods trying to buy an oriental man to come drive her car and she doesn’t have a car, does she?”

“Fluffy-Blue-Slipper’s family should come to take care of her.”

Several months earlier, Fluffy-Blue-Slippers had stormed into the condo management association meeting. She padded down the center aisle, blue fuzz floating behind every step, waved a letter in her hand, shouted, “I demand retribution and justice.” She slammed the letter on the table in front of the administration committee. Two members jumped, another covered her face with her hands while the fourth one snuck out to get a sergeant-at-arms to take FluffyBlue-Slippers away.

Fluffy-Blue-Slippers turned to the stunned condo-owners in the audience and read her letter in ever-increasing volume. “Dear Condominium Association, I petition the committee to take immediate action against intrusive and illegal deeds engaged by my neighbors Kristina and Danny Fall.” She stopped and glared at each individual in the room daring them to contradict or oppose her. She cleared her throat and raised her voice to a window-rattling pitch. “My said neighbors have extended their apartment into my condo by moving their kitchen wall into my condo.” She stood tall and lengthened her body to the stretching point. “The said neighbors have also built an apartment on top of my condo and there are three spies coming and going at all times of the night.” She took off her glasses with a

dramatic sweep and raised her letter toward the ceiling. “I demand a thorough investigation.”

The police, architects, and engineers came and investigated. No structure had been built, no spies, nor had my daughter and son-in-law moved any walls.

Back to the present, the last to be cleaned was the patio. I slid open the patio doors and tried to stare through the brick wall between the two condos to see if Fuzzy was around. Got to clean this patio. I hope Fuzzy-Blue-Slippers isn’t bothered. The lemon tree was bug infested, the bamboo looked like dried desert grass, the hand-me-down grill was rusted with old food, flowers needed transplanting and repotting, the sofa and chairs were red under the two inches of grey dust, and the sugar ants were having a Mardi Gras Parade.

Hours later, wet sweat and dripping, I looked around with pride. There. Done. Clean and beautiful little patio.

“Wahmoonunroen?” A voice came from the other side of the cement wall. Fluffy-Blue-Slippers had heard either me or some strange noises. I did sing while I worked.

I froze. Oh great, Fuzzy Blue Slippers heard me. I didn’t have a clue as to what she just said. But I swallowed hard and answered, “Hello. Just fine, thank you.”

“Cameooeehowuther?”

“Yes, beautiful morning, isn’t it?” Boy, this is an interesting conversation. I stood with my fists on my hips and stared at the cement wall wondering how this chat was going to wind up. Nothing to do but be polite and answer. So, I lifted my head and threw her a comment over the wall: “Nice dog you have there.”

Dobi, short for Doberman, was Fuzzy-Blue-Slipper’s protector, a large, snarling, black, and mean animal. He’d probably heard my voice and now with a petrifying bark was throwing himself against the glass patio doors. Fuzzy-BlueSlippers went inside and closed the doors. There was immediate quiet.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad.”

I wiped off my flip-flops and turned to finish cleaning inside. “Crap. The patio doors won’t open.” I jiggled, pushed, banged, cursed, and rattled the doors. They wouldn’t budge. “Crap. They are locked from the inside.” I tried the windows. Locked. I took an old garden trowel and tried to pry open the windows. No luck. The trowel bent backwards. “Crap. You’d think that rusty skinny aluminum window frames would open easily.”

I stood still in the center of the enclosed patio. “Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Take a slow deep breath.” I turned around, took one huge deep breath, and yelled at the blue cloudless sky, “Crap! I’m locked in the patio, no phone, no key, no ladder. I could be here two days before anyone finds me! Shheeeeeattt!”

PART 2

My heart was beating so hard my fingers were pulsating, there was ringing in my ears, and my clammy red curls were like tight corkscrews trying to pull my brains out. Think. Calm down and think.

I took a thin metal fold-up chair and placed it next to the wall. It was slippery and my flip-flops didn’t have much traction, but with quivering legs, I stood on the rickety chair and reached up. My hands just reached the top of the wall. Pat, pat, pat, I tapped the top of the wall. “Hello? Hello over there? Hellooo?” Pat, pat, pat. It worked.

The patio door slid open. “Who are you and what are you doing over there?” Fuzzy-Blue-Slippers asked. Well, at least now I could understand what she was saying. Dobi was growling.

“I live here and I’m locked in the patio with no key.” I sighed; I knew that didn’t make any sense even to a normal person.

“Who

are you?”

“I’m the mother of Kristina. She’s in the hospital and she’s had a baby.” The chair wiggled and I grabbed the top of the wall.

“Oh, she had a baby?” A surprised and happy voice blew blue fuzz into the air.

“Yes, it is a boy.” I was getting tired of polite conversation, so I yelled up to

the sky and over the concrete wall. “I’m locked in the patio. I don’t have a key.”

A shaky frightened voice asked, “You don’t have a key?”

The chair wobbled again and I gripped the top of the wall. “No, I don’t have a key. I am locked in and can’t get out.” I hoped that short, direct, concrete sentences would be clearer to the old lady.

The suspicious voice asked in slow motion, “How …did …you …get …in …there?”

“I was cleaning the patio.” Grandma’s voice was louder than she intended. “I need help. Go get help.”

“Help?” A frightened Fuzzy Slippers squeaked, “What kind of help?”

I started knocking my head against the wall, “Dang it all, why me? Why is my rescuer an Alzheimer’s patient?” I yelled again to the wall, “Call security.”

“Se-cu-ri-ty?” Fuzzy tried to untangle the complicated word.

“Yes, that’s right. Call security. Get a key.”

“Security? We don’t have security.” Fuzzy was confused.

I began to panic. Oh no. I can’t have her getting confused. Her brain function will erase any immediate actions, sounds, and events. She’ll forget I’m out here. I called up to the wall again in a calm voice. “Oh, that’s ok. Call the superintendent.”

“Oh no, oh no. We don’t have a superintendent either. No, no. No superintendent.”

Just then Fuzzy began to shuffle back to her patio doors. Oh, no, she can’t leave now. Grab her attention. Something drastic. Maybe she recognizes the wordpolice. Great. Try it. “Call the police” I shouted to the top of the wall.

Fuzzy-Blue-Slippers screamed, “POLICE. Oh my. Oh my. Call the police. Call the police. Heeellllp.” She shuffled-ran to her patio doors, slammed them shut. Dobi again attacked the doors. Then, all was quiet.

I listened. Quiet. Then the TV came on with a game show program. My hopes sank. Unbelievable. A game show program? She’s watching a game show program. I stepped down off the chair and rested on the now damp red sofa, looked at the bamboo and the few leaves on the lemon tree and discussed the situation with the plants.

“Great. Fuzzy’s watching TV, but after all, maybe that’s a good thing.” She pointed to the wall and shrugged. “I have no identification on me. If she remembers to think, she might suspect me of being a thief or spy. She’ll now have proof there are spies in Kristina’s house. Great.” I took the straw hat off, wrung out the water – or sweat – and slapped away some leftover bugs. “I’ve got to think of something.”

In the corner was a light round metal table, still dripping from the jet shower. I pushed it over to the wall and gingerly placed the shaky metal chair on top. “I’m gonna kill myself, for sure.” I stood on the red sofa and stepped onto the table and sucked in my breath as the table teeter -tottered. The acrid smell that wafted up from the damp metal of the table and chair made my stomach do loopde-loops. It was a lot worse than the airplane ride yesterday.

In slow motion, I stepped onto the chair, held my breath, and snail-crawled up against the wall. Inch by inch I slunk up to the top of the wall, leaving a wet trail from my T-shirt and shorts. The top of the wall was now waist high. From this spot, I could lift and straddle the wall between the two patios. My right arm clung to the opposite side of the scratchy wall, the rough wall tore scratches in my right leg as I lifted it over the wall, while my left leg scooted the rest of my body up to the top.

Oh my God…Success! I think. I looked down into Fuzzy’s patio, no furniture, no plants, no barbeque pit…nothing, not even dog poop. Nothing to step down on and Dobi was crashing into the patio door. Got a bad feeling about that dog. For sure he’s upset at seeing a grandma in a straw hat sitting on his wall. I guess it’s not a good idea to try and jump down there. Where to then?

I realized if I could scoot over, I might be able to pull up onto the roof. Like an inchworm, I worked my way toward the roof. The concrete wall scraped my hands and the insides of my thighs but finally my fingers touched the roof. Oooeee, ouch, the roof tiles were like sandpaper. My fingers, arms and elbows dug into the scratchy red and grey tiles and as I pulled up onto the roof, I scraped my chin,

nose, cheek, knees, and toes. Jeeze. I’m gonna’ look like I’ve crawled through the jungle.

I took a deep sigh as I reached the top, straddled the peak, and looked around. There were blue mountains in the distance and the nearby green foothills. There were no clouds in the sparkling California blue sky. Man, I could stay here all day, but I guess I might get thirsty and I’m sure as hell not going back down in the patio to get water. I looked up at the variegated golden colors of the sun glad to have my hat. OK, how to get down.

My flip-flops flipped mud up the back of my legs and my wet shorts slapped my legs as I walked across the roof. Shoot. I thought I’d be all dry by now. I turned to listen to chopping noises coming from around the condo. Far in the distance, there were two Hispanic men with long ladders, trimming trees near the condo entrance. “Hooray I’m saved.”

I jumped up and down waving both arms, and straw hat in one hand. “Hello! Hello! Heeellloooo!” I shouted. The two men turned and looked at me. Good, they see me. Now they can bring over the ladder and get me down! Boy, was I excited. Thank god, thank god.

The two men watched me, raised their hands, and waved back. “Heeello. Heeelllo.” They smiled.

I froze, unable to believe. “What?” she yelled. “I’m a sixty-six-year-old grandma, on a roof, wearing shorts, T-shirt, flip-flops, and a straw hat!” I slapped my legs with the hat and yelled at them “Don’t you think this is unusual?” Got to try again, I groaned.

“HELLO. HELLOOOO” I yelled even louder, jumped up and down in a frantic panic. I hope I’m not putting a hole in the roof. I looked down and quietly moved to another spot. I hope no one’s ceiling cracked. Maybe I can blame it on an earthquake or tremor.

The two men watched with increasing interest. They smiled, nodded, and waved again. “Heeelloo. Yeees. Heeelloo.”

“Sheeeaat.” I screamed. “What is wrong with this picture? I’m an old woman on a roof. Do they think this happens all the time in California?”

I had to try again. This time I beckoned to them and shouted a word that is most easy to translate into Spanish, “Come. Come.” and gestured toward myself.

“Yees, yees,” they beckoned back to me, gesturing toward themselves. “Come, come” they yelled and smiled at me

Dumbfounded. The men didn’t speak English. I’ve gotta find my own way down. I walked over to the edge of the roof. There in the parking lot was FuzzyBlue Slippers in her pajamas calling the police. She looked up and saw me on the edge of the roof and screamed. “Oh my God! What are you doing up there? Don’t jump. Don’t jump!”

I looked down and said in a calm Kindergarten-teacher voice, “I’m locked out. I don’t have a key.”

Fuzzy looked up in shock, mouth wide open. “But what are you doing up there? How did you get up there? I’m calling the police.”

I looked down and thought, Be nice. Be nice. Be nice. Pretend it is ordinary to be on a roof and smiled at Fuzzy, “I climbed up here. I’m locked out. I don’t have a key.”

Fuzzy looked up confused, “You climbed up on the roof?” She was surprised and asked in a quizzical manner, “How old are you?”

I looked down at Fuzzy as if she were a tiny child, “I’m sixty-six years old and I’m locked out.”

Fuzzy stood with her hands and phone on her hips looking up. “I’m eightyfive years old and I can’t get up on a roof.”

“Well,” I replied, “When I’m eighty-five years old, I won’t be climbing on a roof either.” This was a strange conversation, and I thought the police might be here soon because I could hear voices on Fuzzy’s phone. It was going to be hard to explain how I got locked IN a house and had to climb on the roof to get out. I had to get down.

I walked around the perimeter of the roof checking to see which spot was the closest to the ground. But it was too far to jump. There were various bushes planted around and a few scraggly trees that wouldn’t hold any weight. Near one

corner was a bit bigger tree that looked like it might be strong enough, at least it might break my fall. It’ll have to do. The branches were thin but arranged in an easy climbing-down pattern. Hope they don’t break. I leaned over and shook the limbs to test their strength.

Around the corner in a slow plodding gait, one of the landscapers strolled with a most curious look on his face. “Heeellooo. Heeelloo.” He smiled and waved…quick learner. I couldn’t wait. I reached for the closest branches.

“Nonono. No Madam. No No,” he cried out waving his hands in the air.

Fuzzy-Blue-Slippers cried out, “Don’t jump. Don’t jump. You’ll hurt yourself. I’m calling the police,” and started dialing again. “Hello, hello, police. A woman is jumping off the roof. Come quick.”

I groaned. The thought of being a sixty-six-year-old grandma in shorts, a hat, and flip-flops in a California jail with druggies gave me the shivers. I looked down at my two impossible rescuers. Too late to stop now, and I grabbed the first limb. It didn’t crack but sure swayed and dipped low. I maneuvered down the fragile tree limb. I reached the last foothold, bent over, grabbed the lower branch with both hands, swung down, and hung suspended in the air, hat and flip-flops still intact and in place, but it was still too far to drop down.

Fuzzy was screaming into the phone, “She’s climbing down the tree! She’s going to fall!”

The gardener ran over and looked up. He offered up his small puny hand to help, which was at least six feet below my flip-flops. I hung there and looked down at the little hand waving like a weak wet tissue. Gawd, men are stupid. That scrawny hand wouldn’t hold melted butter. I looked around at the ground. There were big decorative rocks on the left and a sloping lawn toward the right. I knew that if I dropped to the ground, I might sprain an ankle or break a leg and that would be the end of helping my daughter.

I swung my legs hard, once, twice, gaining momentum with each thrust, then lunged and threw myself toward the man. Sure hope to hell he’s stronger than he looks. At least he’ll break my fall, I prayed as I flew.

My legs grabbed tight around the man’s waist, I grasped my arms around his neck and over we flew. My hat and flip-flops sailed off in various directions. The

look on his face was a mixture of surprise and pleasure. He grinned from ear to ear while looking shocked. I jumped up, wiped off the grass and sand, picked up the flip-flops, and crammed my hat back on my head, as if I did this sort of thing all the time.

Fuzzy screamed into the phone, “Oh my god, she just jumped on a man! We need help!”

I looked from one rescuer to the other; one didn’t speak English, the other wasn’t coherent most of the time. She turned to the tree-trimmer. “Call supervisor.”

“Oh, si, si call supervisor.” He pulled a beaten-up cell phone from his pocket, punched in the numbers and spoke in Spanish. He handed me the phone. “Here, to please speak.”

“Hello. I’m here from New Orleans helping my daughter who just gave birth to a baby. I’m locked out of the house. I was in the patio and the door locked, so I climbed up on the roof and climbed down a tree. Can you call my daughter please?”

The supervisor spoke English in a slow deliberate way, “Sooo, let me get this straight. You were locked IN the patio, IN the house and you couldn’t get OUT?”

“Yes.” It was plain to see that he was more than a bit suspicious.

“So, HOW did you get out of the patio?”

“I climbed onto the roof.”

“You climbed up on the roof?”

“Yes.”

The supervisor was silent. It was obvious he was going over his options. Either he was talking to a thief who got caught, a demented old lady, or a weirdo who liked climbing on roofs. His voice came in slow motion, “And- you- climbeddown- a- tree?”

“Yes, and I would like for you to call my daughter, please.”

“And you are a grandmother?”

“Yes, and I would like for you to call my daughter, please.”

“And you climbed on the roof?”

“Yes, yes, yes! I got locked in the patio and had to get out.”

I squeezed the phone, anger and frustration steaming up the already wet curls. I glared at the landscaper. “This is great.” I jammed the phone back into his hands. “I’ll just wait for the police.”

His head snapped around at the word ‘police’ and he took off running, smack into the second landscaper who was carrying the long ladder. After a few frantic words in Spanish, they both turned tail and ran, the ladder clanging and dragging on the ground behind them.

Grandmas shouldn’t cry but this was one time when it might be warranted.

Fuzzy-Blue-Slippers looked thoughtful, handed the phone to me and said, “Call the hospital. Your daughter must have a spare key.”

I stood, mouth open, shocked. Threw my arms wide and hugged Fuzzy, the only person to come up with a good solution was a lady with dementia.

I again hugged a smiling Fuzzy. “You are brilliant.”

Long after I’d found the spare key, the police came, interrogated me, examined the patio door, checked the chair stacked on top of the metal table, shook the frail climbing-down tree, looked at me disbelieving, interviewed Fuzzy, who didn’t remember anything, and searched for the gardeners.

“Oh Mama,” Kristina cried, laughing through her tears, “In the one day you’ve been here you have completely destroyed our reputations!”

For several weeks, the two gardeners continued to come by the house and ask if Grandma could come out to party, but by then I was back in New Orleans dancing zydeco at Mulate’s.

FABERGÉ’S RUSSIAN FANTASIES AND TREASURES

by Jane Fox

In Russia, the winters are long and cold. Throughout the vast countryside, the branches of the towering Fir trees are covered with snow and stand like sentinels guarding the immense frozen land. The Birch trees, bare of leaves, glisten with frost and give the illusion of crystal flowers.

In Imperial Russia, the Czars ruled from the city of St. Petersburg. Peter the Great’s capitol sprawled along the Neva River. The majestic blue or rose quartz palaces of the Russian nobility stood in magnificent splendor. There too-frigid winds swept down from the Arctic and enveloped this “Babylon of the North” in snow. The Neva was frozen solid. The nobility was wrapped in sable or mink, the more humble in sheepskin or wolf. Sledges and troikas sliced across the icy streets. On an occasional clear day, the gilded onion domes of the cathedrals, with gilt spires and gold crosses, sparkled in the crisp, cold air. The Hermitage, home to the Romanovs, was resplendent in the frozen, white world that lasted from October to April. When the snows melted, the celebration of “The Maslenitsa” heralded Spring and Spring heralded Easter.

Easter was the most important celebration in the Russian Orthodox Church. After devout religious services, families gathered to exchange gifts of gaily decorated eggs, symbol of renewed life and hope. The egg is one of man’s most ancient symbols. The Greeks and the Romans renewed their faith in life by eating an egg. The Chinese presented an egg as a gift at the birth of a baby. To the early Christians, the egg symbolized the Resurrection and life beyond the grave. Throughout Europe, natural eggs were colored and given as an Easter gift. During the 18th century, the practice of creating eggs out of glass, porcelain, wood, or cloisonné was begun. In Imperial Russia, Easter eggs were synonymous with the name Fabergé, which conjures up thoughts of artistic, fragile masterpieces of Russian “fantasies and treasures.”

Peter Carl Gustavovich, born in 1846, was a third-generation Russian. He descended from French Huguenots who fled from religious persecutions in France during the 17th century. The family eventually settled in St. Petersburg where Gustav, Peter Carl’s father, opened a small, unpretentious goldsmith shop. Known as The House of Fabergé, it was to become world famous.

The young Peter Carl had studied the art of jewelry-making in all the renowned capitols of Europe. He created a wide range of magnificent jewelry and became known as “The Master of Jewelry.” When his father retired, Peter Carl and his brother took control of the family business. The young men decided to add “fantasies and treasures” to the jewelry side of the business. After the premature death of his older brother, Peter Carl chose to call himself “Peter Fabergé” because the name refers to “an artisan who makes fine jewelry and other objects of gold.” He produced his exquisite jewelry and objects of beauty for the royal circle.

The broaches, necklaces, and pendants all glitter with diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. There are sumptuous silver bowls and candlesticks, cloisonné samovars, crystal and enamel vases that graced patrician tables. Tooled leather desk sets inspired writers. Elegant cigarette cases were the rage of gentlemen early in the 20th century. Fabergé produced an array of breathtaking fantasies. Each piece was executed with flawless perfection and original design. It is this craftmanship that made the works of Fabergé unique and why collectors of rare and beautiful things sought them. The Bolsheviks confiscated much of it after the Revolution. However, many treasures of the Russian Royals are now in museums and private collections all over the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, and the Cleveland Art Museum. To step into a room of some of these treasures in a museum is like stepping into another world. They are mementos and silent witnesses to the lost world of the Romanovs and the doomed Russian Dynasty.

Circa 1896 - 1908 Yellow and Rose Gold Faberge Cigarette Casevalued at $50,724.46

In 1883, Peter displayed his creations at a fair in Moscow. Fairs were an important part of life in Old Russia. There were peasants in their babushkas and swirling colorful dress. The Cossacks were in their shiny boots and silver helmets, their jackets draped over one shoulder. Gypsies, with their flashing eyes, could be heard playing their balalaikas. There were wealthy merchants from abroad. Middle class and upper class mingled together and gave the illusion of a twisting kaleidoscope of sights and sounds.

Strolling through the crowds in Moscow that day was a handsome couple dressed in Russian finery. The Czar Alexander and the Czarina Maria purchased a pair of gold cufflinks and an enamel cigarette case. It was the beginning of the Russian Collection of Fabergé treasures. The Czar consulted Peter for the perfect

gift for the Czarina. It was decided that he would present her with an Easter Egg. On Easter morning in 1884, the first Fabergé egg was delivered to the palace. It appeared to be an ordinary white enamel egg. When it was opened, one found a tiny gold hen with ruby eyes sitting on a nest of diamonds. With this egg, a tradition that was to last for 35 years was begun. Each egg was created of translucent enamel and was decorated in a lavish design of gold and precious stones. When opened, each egg symbolizes an event in the lives of the Romanovs and has a story to tell. Each egg is a masterpiece of creativity. The Easter Eggs are the supreme expression of Fabergé’s art.

Fifty-six eggs were created. Ten are in the Kremlin. Twelve are in the Forbes Collection in New York. Three are in the Royal Collection in London. Eight are thought to be in private collections. Five are in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Finally, three were in the New Orleans Museum of Art but are now in the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee. Over a hundred years have passed since the Fabergé workshops closed their doors forever. Peter Fabergé escaped the Russian Revolution in 1918 disguised as a foreign diplomat. He lived his last two years in Switzerland.

HELENE’S STORY

by Ginger Vehaskari

In World War Two, the German military helped the Finns fight off the Russian army. The Russian soldiers had been told that they were going into Finland to rescue and free Russian citizens who lived there. Neither the German soldier-boys nor the Finnish young men they were helping wanted to be in the shallow snow trenches as Russian tanks plowed from the east toward them through the dense forest, snapping frozen trees like old, dried, dead wood. Each tree screeched as it ripped apart, making the air scream like Valkyries coming for the soldiers’ souls.

It was in Finland during the Winter War of 1944 when cold so bitter that not only love, but all thoughts of warmth or kindness slipped away into thin steep crevices of dark frozen thoughts. There was no longer hate or ideas of freedom, only the survival instinct ingrained in the men from their Viking ancestors. Fight. Shoot. Hide. Shake with fear. No protection. Persevere. Their piss froze down their legs, first warm, then it tore the frozen flesh yet again. The stabbing cold crept through the rubber boots, as well as the woolen socks rifled with holes, and with insidiously shy tendrils it fooled the men into thinking their feet were warm. Their toes first felt the frostbite, then gangrene quietly spread up their legs, while their fingers froze on the metal triggers, refusing to pull, refusing to slap-click the round bullet magazine into place. They watched determined but unbelieving as their swollen fingers fed the bullets into the magazine one at a time and each time cursed at the Finnish-made machine gun.

The Finns didn’t know what happened, but Russians soldiers came from the west and rushed toward the oncoming Russian tanks, believing they were protected. They yelled in Russian at the tanks that they were comrades, but the men inside couldn’t hear them. The Russian foot-soldiers ran without caution toward the tanks and thought they were safe. The men in the tanks thought the soldiers were the enemy and roared to life, blasting and obliterating everything and everybody in gun-site. Surprised and screaming, the Russians fell through the slick snow that was hiding the trenches which were manned with the Finnish and German soldiers. Suddenly there was shouting and shooting in every direction. A German comrade threw himself on top of Pauli to protect him, and then shot the nearest enemy. The small round hole between the Russian’s dark eyebrows slowly dripped bright red blood down his nose and around his mouth. He was young and stunned that death could be so quick. His expression wasn’t sad, just surprised.

But that was twenty-five years ago. Now, Helene sat motionless in the cold metal chair at the kitchen table and listened as her mother told the story while Helene’s painful thoughts wandered back to her father, Pauli, in his hospital deathbed. There is no smell as stringent as a death-bed hospital room. Her dad knew she was there even if he could no longer see. “Dad, what was it you wanted to tell me?” The crisp, white pillowcase crackled as he turned to imagine where she sat. His dry, rattled whisper threw chill bumps over her body. “Ask your mother.”

The service was over a week ago, the speeches were made, and her father was praised as one of the last, truly honest men in the parish. She watched as relatives and friends she’d never known, dressed in deep dark black, placed mountains of flowers on top of the mound of fresh, gritty, granite sand. To her he was just Dad, but many thought of him as a respectful and forgiving police chief. How much of his life had she missed?

Her mom, always stoic to the point of being unemotional, sat unconsciously winding a white handkerchief around her fingers, scuffing them raw. The throbbing pain stopped her tears. The brewing coffee dripped in tandem with the ticking clock and spread a sensuous aroma around the small white kitchen. She played with the empty coffee cups that clinked against the thin china saucers while she waited for her mother to continue the story. Helene wondered what it was she had to hear. Why was it her mother who had to tell her and not her father? Why hadn’t her father told her when he was in the hospital? Why and what?

No one in her family showed emotions. It had been bred into them to hold all feelings inside, because showing emotions was deemed a weakness. Be tough. Persevere. Endure. She knew all this as did her brothers and sisters. The war had taught them this. The war so long ago lived as memories, hated and feared, but still vibrant in her parents as ever, and as a war-baby, Helene lived it second-hand, over and over again through them.

Red rings around her mother’s eyes was the only emotion Helene had ever seen in her. The war took away her warmth, like it had for many other Finns. The chair squeaked as her mother’s nervous legs kicked and scraped it across the floor, while she told the story. She was still afraid. She pushed up from the table. “Coffee’s ready.”

The aroma from the musky and sensuous coffee splashed in the china cup and slipped over into the saucer. Mother never spilled coffee, not since war times when it was made from some tree roots and not real coffee beans. You never wasted anything because “It might come in handy someday,” she said. Her hand trembled as she slipped the hot sweet coffee-bread on the dessert plates. “Eat it while it’s hot.” She stirred two lumps of sugar in her coffee and tapped the cup rim twice, as she always did. Helene stiffened – she knew that when her mother tapped her cup twice, she was getting ready to say something stern and unpleasant. “We didn’t have sugar during the war.” She folded her hands in her lap and stared out the small kitchen window seeing herself during the wars, cutting birch bark to make children’s shoes and to reinforce her own boots. She saw the dirt in the creases of her hands clawing at the mud looking for any vegetables that might have been overlooked. She smelled the fresh earth, cold and wet, and felt her stomach knot with hunger, but there was no time for tears; the children were hungry too. They had to live.

Wars? Yes. Many wars. There was the Second World War, the War of Independence, and the Winter War where the Finnish people fought the Russians each time. “We lost a generation of men during those times. Those were terrible times.” She looked down at her raw fingers and saw only hunger, death, and bitter cold.

Helene didn’t want to interrupt her mom’s memories but was afraid of what her mother had to tell her. She couldn’t leave for university, for a life of dancing, where she knew she would have to leave her old self behind and forgotten. She would have to concentrate on different ballet roles without her past dragging-up into the present. She had to know. “Mom?”

“Pauli had nightmares about the Russian boy. He never stopped feeling guilty. He would scream about the blood in the boy’s eyes, and he thought the Russians were attacking and coming in through the ceiling.” She stirred her coffee without looking at Helene. “You haven’t touched your coffee. You have to eat to keep your strength up to dance all the time down there in Helsinki.”

Helene tore a small piece of coffee-bread and played with it in her thin, smooth fingers. She’d always been a lively little girl and today doctors would say she must have had ADHD several times over. Probably back then, they would have given her Ritalin or some other drug to keep her still. But she loved to run, especially on the countless large granite boulders covering the shores of the hundreds of lakes around the countryside. She skipped over the rocks, using only

the balls of her feet, like she was skimming. As she twirled and jumped, some said she looked like she was flying. She out-ran and out-danced all the other village children.

“Mom. I have to leave soon.” Helene took a bite, then tore the bread into pieces, then wiped them off the table into her hands. “What did Dad want me to know?” She brushed the crumbs into the saucer and waited, but what she really wanted to do was reach across the table and shake her mother until her teeth rattled. How many times had she felt the frustration of wanting a warm hug, a soft complimentary word, a smile of tenderness and encouragement, but only getting monosyllabic grunts? She often felt that her mother’s spirit died in the war; at least she was sure part of her mother died back then. “Dad told me if I ever needed anything, or if I was in trouble for any reason, I was to contact a Mr. Siemens who works at Stockman’s in Helsinki. Why, Mom?”

“Your dad never forgot a kindness or a friend. He and Mr. Siemens fought together for months and almost froze together. It was the coldest winter on record.” She slowly chewed the coffee-bread and ignored her coffee. “He didn’t want to go back.”

“He who? Go back to what? The war?” Helene choked and coughed up her bread and coffee into the new cloth napkin, bought for the funeral lunch. Her mom shuffled around the table and patted Helene on her back.

“To Germany.”

“Dad go to Germany?” Helene’s face was blue, then red, from the coffee bread stuck in her throat, and the coffee stung the inside of her nose.

“No. Silly. Dancing must have cooked your brains. The German didn’t want to go back to Germany.”

Helene’s eyes watered, her throat burned, and she asthma-wheezed the coffee bread out of her lungs. She wondered where her brain had stored the history lessons from school, and if her coughing had shredded all studies from her memory. Why couldn’t her mother say directly what happened? Why was she putting her through this mental torture? She sipped the coffee and watched as her mother stood at the sink, looking at the past, out of the window. Was this her way of being dramatic or was she ashamed? Helene watched the back of the paleyellow dress that covered her mother’s round body, take a deep breath and sigh.

“Your father was the most honest man in the parish. If anyone had found out what he’d done, he’d have either been shot as a traitor or put in prison.” The yellow dress straightened tall and she turned to face Helene. “Now that he’s gone, he can’t be punished, and I can tell you, but you must only use this in an emergency.” She wrapped her arms around her soft body and under her heavy breasts. “He was so well-known for his honesty and fairness that he was chosen to be the police chief until he retired.” She shuddered and hid her face in her hands.

Helene doubted if she could move. Her mother lowered her tear-filled hands.

“Gerhardt hated fighting. He hated Nazis and he was in love with a Finnish girl.”

“Gerhardt?”

“That was his name then.”

“You mean, Mr. Siemens’ name was Gerhardt?”

“Yes. Gerhardt Schmidt … something. I don’t remember.” Mom waved away the memory and continued.

“The war went badly for the Finns, as you read in school. We had to give one third of our land to the Russians, and we had to push out the Germans who’d fought with us to keep the Russians out. War is really shit.”

Helene’s stomach clenched in a knot and she tasted acid. She’d never heard her mom curse.

“We hid him, and Dad falsified the papers so Gerhardt became a different person, then he went away to Helsinki.” She looked down and scuffed her shoe on the slick clean tile floor. “I never saw him again, but I think Dad did once.”

“Oh Mom. You hid the German?”

“He saved your father’s life and, in turn, we gave him a new start. He’ll do anything for us.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Not only alive, but very wealthy. I don’t know his full name because Dad thought it would be better if I didn’t know any details. Dad wrote to him about you studying in Helsinki and Gerhardt answered, “All I have is for you and your family, at any time.” At least that’s what Dad said. He wrote this for you and sealed it so I wouldn’t know, but I guess it’s Gerhardt’s contact number and new name.” She pulled the wrinkled envelope from a pocket and pressed it in her daughter’s hand. “You’d better go now. You’ll miss your bus.” She turned back to the memories out the kitchen window. “Don’t forget your back-pack.”

Helene massaged her legs to revive them. She squirmed in the chair, then slowly stood and put the used coffee cup and saucer in the sink. “Thanks, Mom. It’s good you told me. I won’t forget … anything.”

Years of work, children, and running a business had plumped her into a comfortable matron. Then she saw him, lovingly herding his three grown children into their extended BMW, all beautiful, well dressed, confident. She watched at a distance as the happy chatter quieted when the car kicked up the pink and grey gravel surrounding their idyllic home. As the car drove out into the country road, she whispered, “Dad would have been pleased.”

ROAMING IN ROME

by Vincent Drago

In my seventeen years living in Rome (2000-2017) and in several visits before that, I had many interesting experiences, some of which really stand out in my mind, even to this day, almost six years after my return to the States.

Many of these events revolved around a very gifted and intelligent Latinist by the name of Reginald Foster. He is deceased now but was very much alive during my many visits and stays in Rome. Foster was a Catholic priest and a Carmelite monk who spent most of his life as a professor of Latin at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome but also as one of a select few scholars who served as Latin secretaries in the Vatican. Foster himself served under four popes: Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Yes, Latin was, and remains today, the official language of Vatican City, even though the everyday working language is now Italian. Latin, however, is still very much used. Documents issued by the Vatican are written in the language of the person writing, but these are translated into Latin and stored in the Vatican archives. The translations are made by a handful of scholars like Reginald Foster working in tiny offices on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace just down the hall from the papal apartment.

Even before I moved permanently to Rome, I had traveled to the city many times, including a fifteen month stay on a sabbatical year, during which I observed, and participated in, many of Foster's classes at the Gregorian University. But the most exciting time of that year in Rome was when I had the opportunity to work one-on-one with Foster in his Vatican office. Heady stuff for a high school Latin teacher!

You can't just walk into the private area of Vatican City as you would walk into any other city in the world. So when Foster invited me to meet with him in his Vatican office to “play around” a little bit with Latin, incredulous, I asked him: “How am I going to get through the gate and by the Swiss Guards?” His response was: “Just tell them you have an appointment with Father Foster.”

On the first day I was to meet with him, I climbed the steps to the famous Bronze Doors, the entrance to the private area of the Vatican. Just as I reached the

top of the steps, a Swiss Guard appeared from behind a column and asked me in Italian what my business was inside. As directed by Foster, I answered that I had an appointment with Father Foster. With this, the guard walked behind a desk and made a phone call. I was not close enough to hear his part of the conversation, but I knew he was calling Foster to verify my story. The guard returned to me, all smiles, and asked me if I knew the way to his office. When I said that I did not, he pointed to a door across the piazza just beyond the gate. “Go to that door,” he said, “and take the elevator up to the third floor. Someone will be waiting for you as you exit the elevator.”

Sure enough, there was the elevator just beyond the door I had entered. When I got on, there was one other person on board, and as I reached around him to press the number three, he stopped me and asked me what floor I wanted. I told him third floor and HE pressed the button! One of the few places in the world where they still have an elevator operator on duty, especially one which covered only three floors!

When I got off the elevator, another Swiss Guard was there to meet me and escort me to Foster's office. As we walked down the corridor, I noticed an ATM machine. Nothing unusual about that, even in the Vatican. Except that when I got close enough to read the instructions, I saw they were all in Latin! Surely the only Latin ATM machine in the world! I knew I was in the right place!

After about my third visit, the guards no longer questioned my presence there and I just got a smiling “Buon giorno” from them. If all this seems like very lax security, it was, but that was before 9/11. Things are much tighter now in the Vatican, as they are everywhere else in the world.

I feel very privileged to have had these experiences and many others as well. They will not, and cannot, be repeated, except over and over again in my memories. We live in a different world today.

BURMA SHAVE

by Pat Mason

My brother, Price Crane (and his wife Ann) and my husband, Lee, worked together on a big gift for my 40th birthday. First thing that happened was I walked out of my door to begin my daily hour and a half run on Audubon Boulevard. First, I walked to Willow Street and Audubon Boulevard. On the house on the corner of Willow and Broadway was a big sign that said, “ONE OF THE GREATEST IS OVER THE HILL.” This was the first clue, but not the last surprise. When 1 crossed over Willow, I found several signs like those of Burma Shave, which was legendary for its rhyming ads along the sides of highways. All five of the signs I passed were nailed to different trees. The first read “JOGGERS RUN” and the second had “JOGGERS TROT.” The third sign was “BUT WHEN THEY ARE 40, KIDS THEY ARE NOT” and the fourth was “BURMA SHAVE.” And last but least was this: “COACH RAPPOLD WAS KNOWN TO SAY – ‘GIVE ME 5 LIKE CRANE AND I’LL WIN ALL DAY’ – BURMA SHAVE.”

Price and Ann had asked us over for dinner that night. We went and were surprised again. They had lots of our friends there and they all had on black mourning ribbons around their arms. There was a baby picture of me and a cake with a coffin on it. Everything was absolutely great. My birthday gift was a bumper sticker that read “Pat Mason is over 40.”

One person who saw the Burma Shave signs was Angus Lind, who wrote a popular Times-Picayune column every other day about something different. After seeing the Burma Shave signs, he wrote about them and my birthday. His story was a full page about all the ways my family tried to embarrass me. He first called Lee to see if I would mind an article in the Times-Picayune. Lee said, “I don't think so. We are really private people.” Then Angus called me and I said, “WHAT!!! I would love to have my name in the paper.” So he interviewed me and I told him about the party decorations and the bumper stickers. Many people enjoyed the signs. He told me later it was the only full-page column he ever published. It was certainly the one and only full-page story ever written about me.

And Burma Shave lived on to be advertised again. Its signs first appeared on small, slow roads in 1925 and continued until the Eisenhower Interstate System with its 70 mph speed limits and lack of picturesque little towns in the early '60’s. We could live without the jingles, but it was nice to be visited one more time with this little product.

FROM THE TIMES-PICAYUNE NEWSPAPER DATED AUGUST 3, 1977

"JOGGERS RUN, JOGGERS TROT"

By: Angus Lind

Pat Mason walked out of her home on Pine Street the morning of Saturday, July 23. Nothing much was out of the ordinary. Heat and humidity slapped her in the face, but that was normal.

She was on the way to her appointed round with her jogging course which turns at Willow Street, goes across Broadway to Audubon Boulevard, then to S. Claiborne Avenue and back home again.

It was 7:30 a.m. On the occasion of her 40th birthday, Pat was looking forward to a good workout, the kind of thing you like to do when you reach a milestone age. It's a nice little ego reinforcement to know that, yes, ten years have gone by and – yes, by God, I'm still good enough to do it.

I'm still in one piece, arthritis hasn't set in yet. Not too many aches and pains, just a few creaks, and maybe – just maybe, with a little help from Dr. Ben-Gay, I'd be able to bang another ten years, and do the same thing.

It would be a jog Pat Mason would not forget.

She closed the door to her house, and her eyes immediately darted across the street. On a large tree was a sign which read: “Life begins at 0 – Too bad everything else wears out.”

She laughed, figured it was her husband's joke for the day, and got her legs in motion. Just across Broadway, another sign jumped out at her. It was on the home of some friends, David and Pat Malone. It read: “One of the greatest is over the hill.”

“l wish she could have seen her own face,” said Malone. “My wife was looking out the window when she came by. She saw that sign in absolutely-stunned astonishment. You could see her thinking, “How could they do such a dastardly thing, much less know when my 40th birthday was?”

At Audubon Boulevard, more surprises lurked in the palm trees.

The first sign read simply enough “Joggers run.” But down the road, spaced about a hundred yards or so apart, came a Burma Shave sequence:

“l WAS SHOCKED. I was laughing so hard, I didn't think I could keep running,” said Mrs. Mason. “But I did – I ran the whole thing because I was afraid there would be more signs.”

Her fears were well-founded. Around the bend was:

“Coach Rapp was always Known to say ‘Give me five like Crane And I'll win all day.’ Burma Shave.”

“I'd have to say she was in hysterics,” said plotting husband Lee Mason. Pat went to grammar school at Holy Name and played basketball for Coach Rappold. Crane is her maiden name.

That night, the honoree, thinking things might quiet down, was treated to a gala surprise party, complete with out-of-town guests. By the time they finished working her over, if anybody in the Uptown area didn't know Pat Mason was 40, they do now.

“They even made bumper stickers that read: ‘Pat Mason is 40’,” said the birthday girl. “My sister-in-law had to go to the store and a lady in the supermarket parking lot spotted it and told her: “l don’t know Pat Mason, but she must hate you.”

“Joggers run Joggers trot But after 40 Kids they're not Burma Shave.”

On the cake, of course, was a tombstone. Guests wore black arm bands. There was a new sign in front of the house which read: “She's not getting better, only older.” And baby pictures were liberally displayed.

“It could have been worse,” Mrs. Mason laughed. “I'm glad they didn't think of a billboard or a sound truck. I went to church the next day and was scared to look at the altar. There weren't many places they didn't get to, and well, you never know.”

The bad thing about doing somebody in on a milestone birthday, is that eventually, the worm will turn, the shoe will be on the other foot, it will be Reckoning Day. “Unfortunately,” she said, “Lee is past 40 and it's a few years until he's 50. It'll take me some time to top this, anyway. And it'll still be tough to do.”

Some of the kids on Audubon Boulevard didn't understand the “Burma Shave” on the signs. “l guess Burma Shave is the dividing line, the generational gap,” said Mrs. Mason. “Those who know about it, well, I guess they're part of the Over-the-Hill Gang.”

LADY PAM OF MT. VERNON

by Elaine Coffin

Her kitchen was disorganized chaos. Clearing a spot, I sat down at the kitchen table to have morning coffee with her on many Maine mornings. She was an artist. Her medium of choice was an array of colored pencils. Not oils or even watercolors but simple colored pencils like I bought my children. Pam Jones wasn’t simple, but extraordinarily honest. She made art with what she had.

She wrote wonderful, wordy letters. Her letters were full of every detail about happenings in the village. When I read those happy letters, I laugh aloud. They featured the best of village characters – the Blooms, Bad Boy David Hilton, and certainly Helen Caldwell Cushman. When Elizabeth Enright moved to Rockport on the coast of Massachusetts, she took a packet of Pam’s letters to read the novel of the village.

In the midst of creative chaos, Pam raised six children. Five beautiful girls: Allison, Courtney, Caitlin, Megan, and Caragh. And one son, Johnny, who flouted authority with verve but grew into a responsible man who ran a successful plumbing business to serve not only Mt. Vernon, but Vienna, Fayette, Readfield, and even Farmington. Courtney was the smart one and went to a private school due to some sacrifice by her mother. Caitlin was the pretty one and Megan the athlete. Caragh had spunk and challenged Walter Seifert about smoking pot around young persons. She also appeared at our dinner table, crying that her father had promised to umpire her softball game but backed out. My husband got up from the table and went to the game as umpire.

That story is the stuff of Jones family legend, and Courtney mentioned it in a letter to me a year or so ago. She also shared with me several samples of Pam’s art that I cherish. I looked over those pieces wondering about the talent buried in a life unnoticed.

Her husband was a Mensa member and reminded most of us from time to time. Think now of the vulgar words one might use to describe someone totally

obnoxious and undeserving. Are you thinking? If I wrote any of the descriptive terms floating about me, this story would not be publishable.

John Jones left his family and went to live with another woman, I heard. When Pam drove there to ask him for some child support, he slammed the door in her face. Pam just continued to make art with what she had.

Courtney wrote that her mother died at 92 in a nursing home surrounded by love. Pam Jones was a saint. She was a tender soul that did not let the ugliness of others smudge her. A saint is someone who holds to the beauty of life and creates it with colored pencils. Pam Jones was a saint. Dear Lady Pam.

HEADWATERS

by Ken Kneipp

Many of us who are New Orleans natives have probably lived close to the Mississippi River for most of our lives. However, it is unlikely that any of us has ever lived closer to the river than we do today as residents of Lambeth House! The river view from my balcony provides continually-changing vistas that attest to the river’s power, vitality, and commercial significance. It also serves as a constant and comforting reminder for me that despite many years away from New Orleans, I am “home” once again

As a native of this city, my early years in its uptown neighborhoods came with a subconscious awareness of the river’s presence. In those sweltering days before air-conditioning, I could hear the muffled sounds of wharf, rail, and river traffic at night. And, from early childhood through my college years, I could have easily walked from our family’s uptown home to the edge of the river’s east bank. Five additional years on LSU’s Baton Rouge campus, nestled on the river just a bit upstream, imposed no real separation from the “Mighty Mississippi.”

My father worked along the riverfront in New Orleans virtually his entire adult life. Overseeing the handling of cargo that arrived on ships from all over the world gave him an intimate familiarity with the river and a thorough knowledge of port operations. Occasional short weekend stops at the riverfront wharves with him as a child taught me a few things, too. I learned what sisal is, what raw ebony wood looks like, and what natural rubber feels and smells like. And, I discovered that while plantains and bananas are similar in appearance, they are certainly not the same. Such childhood riverfront adventures were exciting and informative.

Following my first 27 years living along the southern stretches of the Mississippi River, my wife and I moved north to Saint Paul, Minnesota. This move enabled me to maintain that familiar close proximity to the river that was to continue uninterrupted for another 37 years. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul are situated on either side of the upper Mississippi, with the river serving in some locations as the boundary between the two cities.

While it is technically the same Mississippi River that we have here, the northern region of the river that we encountered in Minnesota would not be recognizable to most residents of south Louisiana. It is much smaller and much more approachable than the southern river we know. The size difference alone has

allowed for the construction of many vehicle bridges that span the river throughout this northern region. There are about thirty such bridges in the greater Minneapolis–Saint Paul urban area alone, along with numerous additional railroad bridges. Compare that to the major engineering challenges and enormous expense inherent in constructing bridges across our much larger southern river. The first bridge to be built over the Mississippi River in the New Orleans area, and the first in all of Louisiana, was the Huey P. Long Bridge, which opened in 1935. What we know today as the first span of the downtown “Crescent City Connection” did not materialize until 1958. And, it took another 30 years for the second parallel span to be completed.

There are other major differences between the Mississippi River we knew in Louisiana and the one we encountered in Minnesota. While there is some modest barge and tugboat traffic along with occasional summertime visits from paddlewheel excursion boats as far north as Saint Paul, no ocean-going ships can navigate the 29 lock and dam structures on the river that exist north of Saint Louis. And, the northern region of the Mississippi is much cleaner, too – by the time the river reaches New Orleans, it has passed through ten states and has collected drainage sediment and debris from a total of 31 states and two Canadian provinces, providing an ample opportunity for it to rightly claim the name “Muddy Mississippi.”

Just to the south of Saint Paul, in a shallow, widened section of the river known as Lake Pepin, this “clean” Mississippi River takes on the unfamiliar characteristics of a safe and pleasant recreational area, an attractive location today for swimming, hiking, fishing, birding, kayaking, wind-surfing, power-boating, and sailing. It was in this area of the river where, a century ago in 1922, nineteenyear-old Ralph Samuelson made the connection between snow skiing and water skiing. He invented the concept of water skiing at Lake Pepin, initially using ordinary boards strapped to his feet as skis and his mother’s clothesline as a towrope!

Even if you are not a Mississippi River enthusiast, you can’t live in Minnesota very long without learning that the river actually has its origin there. It flows north, and then east, out of a small glacial lake in north central Minnesota – a location known as “The Headwaters” – before beginning its long meandering southern journey to the Gulf of Mexico. The name for this lake, given initially by the native Ojibwe people, was “Omashkoozozaaga’igan,” but thankfully this name was later changed by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an American geographer, to “Lake Itasca,” the name it bears today. Schoolcraft recognized that this small lake was the

river’s headwaters, and the name “Itasca” resulted from his combining parts of the two Latin words, “veritas” (true) and “caput” (head) – verITAS CAput.

Lake Itasca – and the spot where the river flows from it – is anything but impressive. The lake itself covers an area less than two square miles, and the river’s initial flow is little more than a trickle. It is easy for a small child to hop from rock to rock or wade through the shallow stream in order to cross from the “east” to the “west” bank! Nevertheless, the significance of this location was not overlooked by the state of Minnesota – in 1891, Lake Itasca and the surrounding old growth timber was designated as the state’s first state park in order to commemorate and preserve the location.

For approximately the first 650 miles on its journey south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River flows through rolling pine forests, iron ore ranges, deep valleys, and small towns within Minnesota. One of the more noteworthy of these towns is Little Falls, population about 9,000, located in the center of the state about midway between Lake Itasca and the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolis to the south. Another Minnesota state park of historical significance is located in Little Falls – the Lindbergh State Park, preserving the home and commemorating the life of Charles August Lindbergh, father of the famed aviator, and a U. S. Congressman from 1907 to 1917. The family home still located here was the summer boyhood home of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, the national hero who flew the first solo nonstop trans-Atlantic flight in 1927.

Each end of the Mississippi River has its own unique and distinctive character. And, of course, the same thing could be said for all the places in between. There are major cities along the river – in addition to Minneapolis–Saint Paul and New Orleans, there is Saint Louis, Memphis, and Baton Rouge, all major population and industrial centers in their own right. And there are other interesting and historic locations, too – places like Dubuque (Iowa), Galena (Illinois), Hannibal (Missouri), Vicksburg and Natchez (Mississippi), and Saint Francisville (Louisiana), each with its own special story to tell.

It really doesn’t matter how the “Mighty Mississippi” is ranked by those keeping track of such things. Some geographers say the Mississippi is the fourth longest river system in the world, after the Nile, Amazon, and Yangtze. Others claim it is the second longest river in North America, just a bit shorter in length than the Missouri. However, the Missouri River, like the Ohio, is a tributary of the Mississippi, and these rankings might change if that is considered. No matter the precise statistics, we in south Louisiana stand in awe of the Mississippi River’s

magnificence – its width, depth, power, fearsome current, and the key role that it has always played in the life of our city.

It has been estimated that the river’s flow at its Lake Itasca headwaters source is about 6 cubic feet of water per second. At New Orleans, the flow is thought to be about 600,000 cubic feet per second, and much higher than that following the spring snow melt up north!

Ol' man river, that ol' man river

He don't say nothin', but he must know somethin' He just keeps rollin', he keeps on rollin' along

. . . right past our Lambeth House residence!

Lake Itasca, Minnesota – Headwaters of the Mississippi River (K. Kneipp, 2006)

Huey P. Long Bridge and the Mighty Mississippi River (at Lambeth House) (K. Kneipp, 2022)

AN UNEXPECTED MEMORY

by Ellen Conway Bellone

We rented a car to drive from the Tunis airport to Sidi Bou Said which sits atop a steep hill above the Mediterranean Sea. At our modest Tunisian hotel, we befriended a French woman and her British husband who were spending her inheritance from her parents’ French Colonial investments which had to remain in Tunisia.

Our bed had a bottom sheet that could not be tucked under the thin mattress, but our travels from luxury hotels to tent camping had made us adaptable; we worked it out. The unlocked door was roped by an arch of jasmine. It was a scent that I have never forgotten. Our new acquaintances had spent several enjoyable vacations with the hotel owners, their friends. We spent time with all of them in the beautiful ancient courtyard.

Walks down the steep hill to the sea for an evening cocktail were Hollywood romantic. We had come to Tunisia to visit ancient Carthage. A detailed map guided our walk from Sidi Bou Said. A spot on the map attracted our attention. Nearby was the North Africa American Cemetery. It is a beautiful spot with 2,841 tombstones and a Wall of the Missing bearing 3,724 names.

A young GI greeted us. He wanted company because often in a typical day not a single visitor shows up. He suggested that we return for Memorial Day when he said a group of Tunisian politicians and a couple of American diplomats would

gather. He called it a sad day because the gathered were not families of the soldiers or ordinary American veterans.

It was a sunny day. Warm but not hot. Our GI Joe greeted us warmly. We stood under the beautiful colonnade to await the ceremony. Only those Tunisians with governmental obligations joined the few US diplomats. There we were in hiking clothes, a bit embarrassed until our national anthem was played as only a very small Marine Corps band can.

Uninspiring speeches followed. But then the sound of a soulful trumpet played taps. I looked at my husband through my tears and saw him brush away his own.

Our visit to the ancient Carthage sites does not stand out like this Memorial Day in Carthage.

Thank you, GI JOE!

CNN (May 30, 2022): The US is set to bring home and identify the remains of unknown World War II soldiers from the only American cemetery in Africa, the US Embassy in Tunisia said on Monday, Memorial Day.

MY TRIP TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM

by Sam Rosamond

Disclaimer: This story is not a put-down of Doctors and Nurses that work in ERs and have saved lives for many years. This is especially true during the COVID 19 pandemic. This is a story about my going to the ER and thinking that my condition is the worse one in the ER. Wondering why the staff is not continuously hovering over me. I am not considering that the staff is down the hall saving lives of critical patients. I am sure many can relate to this feeling. If you cannot, best not to read the story and move on to another.

For families, without doctors or nurses being members, one of the biggest decisions made by the head of household is to decide whether to take a family member to the ER. Little Johnny’s high fever, Grandmother’s stomach cramps, and Dad being run over by the lawn mower never happen during doctor’s office hours. Family members spend hours weighing the decision, do we go to the ER, or will the problem solve itself?

When a construction project is ready to go because all requirements to start construction have been met, it is termed “Shovel Ready.” One afternoon, after my wife moved to Lambeth and I was still living at our house, I was working in my shop on a project. As fate would have it, I severely cut my left forearm. It was so bad that I could see muscle, sinew, veins, and arteries. I found a partially-clean shop towel, wrapped the wound, and was able to stop the bleeding. Believe me, there was no hesitation in deciding to go to the ER. This wound was “ER Ready.” I ran out of the shop, got in the car, and headed for the ER, not even bothering to lock the house.

At the ER I checked in at the desk giving them my insurance cards and provided them other necessary information, including date of birth, and was told to have a seat. Later, the Triage Nurse called me to her station. She took all my vital signs, list of prescriptions, and medical history (I just can never remember what my Great Grandfather Rosamond died of) and asked my date of birth. Why does everyone in the world now want to know my date of birth? She finally asked me why I was there. I am sure she noticed the bloody shop towel wrapped around my arm. I removed the towel and showed her the severe cut, muscle, sinew, veins, and arteries. I told her I was lucky to be alive. I could see on the monitor she was typing “bobo left arm.” BOBO!

I followed her through the code-protected door, past several rooms with operating like tables, huge lights over them, glass-fronted cabinets loaded with dressings and medical equipment. We did not stop at any of those, but she brought Bobo all the way down the hall to the last room on the left directly across from the staff’s toilet. She told me to take my shirt off and put on the gown that was on the bed and instructed me that it opened to the back. I was so terribly upset over the bobo comment and the location of my room that I wised off “this is not my first rodeo.” She went over to the computer in the room, and I could see her type in “Bobo has an attitude.” Before leaving she gave me a device with a cord attached to it. She said that if I pushed the red button at the top, it would call the nurse and the other buttons (all fifteen of them) operated the TV. Upon her departure, avoiding the red button, I attempted to activate the TV. After many tries, I could not figure out how to turn it on. The nurse on the other hand spent five minutes explaining to the man in the next room how to operate the TV and even left an operating manual with him. Obviously, Bobos do not get the same treatment.

A great amount of time went by, and no one came to the room. This ER was not operating at the same speed as the ones in Emergency and ER on TV. Finally, the nurse came back to check on me. I told her that I had observed a White Board in the room with all sorts of information on it. I told her that I noticed that Dr. Feelgood was on duty and that I had heard a lot of good things about him. She told me that Dr. Feelgood had been on duty three nights ago. That they did not have time to keep the board up to date, that this board was Somebody-in-theAdministration’s idea. OK. I said I noticed that Dr. Rad was the radiologist. She told me that Dr. Rad died three years ago, that they keep his name on the board to honor him. He was loved by all of us, and it keeps us from having to change that entry each day. OK. I then told her that stenciled at the bottom of the board was a telephone number I could call if I had any questions about my treatment and even the cleanliness of the room. She told me that that number had not worked for three months. That they keep telling Maintenance about it, but they have done nothing, they are not as efficient as we are. OK. On her way out she told me that the doctor would be in shortly. Her name was Dr. Hate Oldpeople. HATE Oldpeople! The nurse told me that I must be hard of hearing as she had said Kate Oldpeople, not Hate Oldpeople. OK. Well, eventually Dr. Kate came in followed by the nurse to check on Bobo and asked why I was there. I told her that I had a severe cut on my left forearm and that you could see muscle, sinew, veins, and arteries. She looked and said to the nurse, would you please go down the hall and get a bandaid out of my purse.

If anyone would like to see the scar, just call me.

AN UNFORGETTABLE SUMMER

by Gladys LeBreton as told to Carol Deas

We were the best of friends, Nancy Miles and I, two little girls fortunate enough to be growing up on sugar plantations. Then, later, when we moved to New Orleans, both of us attended McGehee School, one living on St. Charles Avenue and the other right around the corner. Nancy was one of five children. Her father, Dr. William Porsche Miles, had inherited Houmas Plantation, but he was less interested in being a sugar planter than in the practice of medicine. As a result, by 1934, most of the sugar cane land had been sold off, but the magnificent mansion remained, though in some disrepair.

The family, however, still enjoyed spending weekends there, where it was safe for Dr. Miles to do skeet shooting, which he loved. I would be invited to accompany them and we would have such fun, running in and around the house, up the winding staircase to the attic, peering out over the majestic avenue of oaks to the mighty Mississippi.

But, back to my subject. Why did this wonderful summer trip take place? Well, unfortunately, sometime during the spring of 1937, Dr. Miles became ill, and then, much to his family’s sorrow, he died. This was a blow to me as well; I was close to the family and had never before encountered death.

To remove themselves from the sadness of losing their father, Nancy's older brother, Henry, and sister, May, decided to take a trip to Europe. Henry would be taking his girlfriend and May would be taking her boyfriend, an unusual situation, to be sure. For that era, to be chaperoneless! But Mrs. Miles trusted them. Henry would look out for May; and if it was okay with Mama, then it was okay with everyone.

They traveled to New York by car, chauffeured by their mother, along with Nancy and Oliver, the youngest child, in a four-door sedan. I arrived alone by train. Along the way there was a stop at the George Washington Hotel, a bit south of Washington, D.C., where everyone had fun playing ping-pong, shopping at Saks and Lord & Taylor, and flirting with the handsome young man who worked the hotel soda fountain.

Then on to New York. I had been there once before for my brother Edward’s graduation from Princeton; and I do remember peeking through a hole in the fence

to see the Empire State Building under construction. On that trip, we had all driven there in the family car, old “John Buick,” and my father refused to allow us to read while we drove, explaining how important it was to enjoy and appreciate the scenery.

After depositing her two oldest children safely onboard the ship, Mrs. Miles’ intention was to head across the country to visit her brother, who made his home in La Jolla, California. I was also invited to go along, so Nancy would have a companion. My parents were quite surprised by this and were somewhat hesitant, but the two families were very close, and so I was allowed to go.

Almost immediately after arriving in New York, however, the youngest Miles’ child, Oliver, contracted pneumonia. His mother, understandably, was so concentrating on his illness that we got the message to “stay out of the way” and we were more than happy to oblige. We took buses all over Manhattan. We visited the fabulous aquarium, at that time the only one in America. We went to the theater on Broadway and saw quite a few good plays.

Nancy had a rich old lady aunt who lived in the Boatner Reily House on Prytania Street and also kept rooms in a hotel in Atlantic City. We wound up going there, walking the boardwalk, and going swimming, all unsupervised, of course. We had dinner at a ritzy yacht club on Long Island with friends of my parents, all of it a whole new world for me.

Nancy had a friend from McGehee’s who was related to the Reily family and was staying at the Waldorf Astoria at the same time. For reasons unknown to us but gleefully accepted, nobody else was on our floor. As a result, we got our own rooms, went downstairs to stores in robes and slippers in the middle of the night, and had a chauffeur and limousine to provide rides. No more bus!

After about a month, Oliver recovered sufficiently to continue the diagonal trek across the country to La Jolla.

On the first day of our journey, we stopped for gas in Pennsylvania Amish country. While there, Mrs. Miles struck up a conversation with another customer, who wound up taking us to an Amish home for dinner, which was delicious.

Next, on to Chicago, to pick up Mrs. Labouisse, a dear friend. While there, we visited the Museum of Natural History, which was, and remains, an extraordinary place. But now there were five of us in the car: Oliver, very quiet, in

the front seat next to his mother, and Mrs. Labouisse, Nancy, and me, in the back. We moved around frequently, however, so that nobody got stuck too long in the same spot.

There is no way I can remember all of our stops, but I do recall vividly watching the construction of faces on Mount Rushmore. I was able to stand on a ridge and watch them carving away on the mountainside. Some faces were completed, so what they were doing could be easily seen.

Then on to Yellowstone. A little wooden cottage with two bedrooms was rented for us there, and we stayed for almost two weeks. Such a beautiful place, and so much to do. Of course we saw the geysers, including Old Faithful, the most reliable. There were, however, no bathrooms in the cottages, so we had to walk about a half block to use the facilities. On one of our first nights at Yellowstone, just before bedtime, Nancy and I were walking to the bathroom building to the left of which was a storage building, and we noticed a commotion going on, accompanied by yelling and flashing lights. To our terror, who was in the storage room but an enormous black grizzly and he was headed straight for us! Well, needless to say, we flew back to the cottage. Whew!

Nancy’s brother, Oliver, only twelve, already happened to be an accomplished ornithologist. At school, he would bird-watch while the other kids played sports and he knew of a particular bird found almost exclusively at Yellowstone. He had asked some of the workers about it, but they paid little attention to this short kid. Finally his mother took Oliver to the head park ranger, who could see he was truly interested. As a result, one afternoon, armed with instructions, we all set out in the car to locate the bird, some sort of crane, I think, which was endangered.

We parked by the side of the road and Oliver set off by himself into a patch of reeds, just a little guy who hadn’t had his growth spurt yet. At first we could see reeds swaying, but soon nothing, as into the unknown Oliver ventured, clutching instructions. After about an hour, Mrs. Miles announced, “I’m going in” and for us to stay put while she searched for her child. Pretty soon, however, we couldn't see her either. After what seemed like an eternity, with us roasting in a hot car in the broiling sun, they both emerged, triumphant. They had found the bird. Oliver was ecstatic!

As a result of the search, though, we were late leaving Yellowstone, so by the time we got to town, alas, no vacancies. The hotel clerk told us, however, that

while there was no room at the inn, he could put us up with a nice family, consisting of a man, his wife, and their children. We were tired and desperate, so we agreed. The couple moved their sleeping children, and we went to bed. But what I remember most is this: We were all standing in front of the house talking, when Mrs. Labouisse reached behind herself and said, “What is this thing hanging behind me? Oh, for goodness sake, it’s my corset.” She forgot she’d taken it off due to the heat, whereupon we all dissolved into gales of laughter.

Next, onto Salt Lake City, where we visited the Mormon Temple and swam in the Great Salt Lake. We found it to be soupy, warm, and unpleasant, but unique.

At long last, we arrived at our destination, La Jolla, California, a very small town with houses painted pink, blue, green, and yellow, truly a fairy-tale place. Nancy’s Uncle Henry had no idea we were coming; it was a surprise visit. It was only after quite a bit of difficulty that we located him. We saw him walking down the street, and Nancy and I chased after him. Deaf as a post, he was completely shocked to see two young ladies chasing him down. He was very happy, though, to see his beloved sister and all of us as well. He found us a cheap but nice apartment for about two weeks, and even took us swimming in the Pacific Ocean. I recall how exciting that was but not such a great place to swim because of a dangerous undertow.

After saying goodbye to Uncle Henry, our next adventure began with a drive through the Giant Sequoia Redwood Forest, Muir Woods, and actually through a tree, mind-boggling! We continued north and stopped at a dude ranch, where Nancy and I rode horses, went on picnics during the day, and danced at night. We had only planned to stay a couple of days but ended up staying a week. On then to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, which had just opened in May. But San Francisco was not a favorite, just a little too foggy for us.

Next stop, Lake Tahoe, where the water was extremely cold and very deep. We really enjoyed Tahoe and stayed at least a week. I remember being impressed by the fabulous totem poles. Then up to the coast of Canada, where we took the ferry to Victoria and saw the Butchart Gardens, a paradise of flowers.

On this trip, we never had reservations; we would just drive until Mrs. Miles got tired. She was amazing; she always looked the lady, black skirt, blouse, sensible shoes, white gloves, and never without a hat. She would be the one of us to get out of the car to inquire about vacancies, instead of any of us, who much of the time looked like tramps.

All of a sudden, it occurred to me that only one week remained of my vacation, before the start of school at Warrenton Country School, forty miles southwest of Washington, D.C. I immediately got in touch with my mother, who, after some difficulty, transferred money for a ticket home. And then, after just a few short days and another train ride, I was off to school.

But, as these many years pass, I do think back to that wonderful trip, truly a summer to remember.

BRIDGE RIDERS

by Charlotte Travieso

Sometimes at night

If the sky is clear The bridge blinks at me

The lights on the bridge are red I guess So that they can be seen By boats in the river And planes in the sky And people watching From far away

White lights twinkle From cars coming Over the river

On the bridge Down the ramp In neat columns

One at a time

Good speed to you

All you bridge riders May your night be bright

THE LURE AND THE LOVE OF TRYING TO WRITE A SERIOUS BOOK THAT MAKES A FORTUNE

by Carol Gelderman

When as a new assistant professor of English, I read A. Alvarez's The Savage God, the 1972 best seller about the history and literature of suicide, I was thunderstruck to discover that a scholarly work that talked seriously about Dante, John Donne, and 20th-century existentialists could also be popular.

To think of reaching an audience numbering in the millions, when, so far as I could make out, literature appeared to be attracting fewer and fewer adherents with each passing year, excited me to rapture. And then there was the not-so-small matter of remuneration. That a book could be serious and at the same time make a fortune was heartening news. I had three small children to educate on an academic’s salary; why not try to write a reputable, and at the same time, money-making book myself?

I got busy right away. First, I had to secure tenure, which I did by writing articles for journals in my field (modern drama) and by publishing my dissertation and a book on writing. All the while, however, I was collecting material for the Big Book.

My best seller, I decided, was to be about the portrayal of alcoholism in American literature. Most people find it fascinating (l know I do) and perhaps sociologically significant, that American writers so often mix the martini with the muse. The litany of American alcoholic authors is appallingly long – Edgar Allan Poe, Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill, William Faulkner, Ring Lardner, Dashiell Hammett, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the list goes on.

I read them all. I subscribed to the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, and the Encyclopedia of Alcohol became my constant companion. I applied for grants from the National Institutes of Health and from a foundation that supports studies on alcoholism. I visited the Center for Alcohol Studies, and finally, I wrote a proposal for the book.

My only connection with trade publishing (it seemed unlikely that a university-press book would make the best-seller list) was a woman I had known in college. At the time she was a senior editor with Simon & Schuster and, although I hadn’t seen her in 20 years, I sent her the proposal.

“Why not a biography of Henry Ford," she suggested, ignoring the alcoholism-literature project. I had grown up in Detroit, she argued, and I had gone to school with the grandchildren of the “principals” of Ford’s story.

“Do you mean to say there's never been a biography of Henry Ford?” I wrote back incredulously.

“Well, yes,” she replied, "there have been a couple of dozen.” But, she hastened to add, “not one engrossing, single-volume biography in the lot.”

Two dozen should have given me pause, but who was I to question the wisdom of an eminent senior editor? So, mistaking her polite brush-off for intent to publish, I lost no time in organizing a summer in Michigan. We headed north from our home in New Orleans as soon as my children’s school was out.

When I presented my credentials for admittance to the Ford Archives, the archivists were dubious about the likelihood of publication, but because they were pleased that at last a native Detroiter would endeavor to explain Ford, they granted me total access to what is arguably the largest private archives in the country. The collection contains not only the Ford Motor Company’s historical records and the family’s private papers; it also includes personal papers of company executives, memoirs of people who knew the Fords, and more than 400,000 photographs. I spent 180 eight-hour days over two summers at a library table there, even bringing a sandwich from home every day so as not to waste valuable time going out to lunch.

Back in New Orleans, I read hundreds of articles and dozens of books pertaining to Ford and began to worry about how to organize the ever-increasing volume of material I was accumulating. Fortunately, I got my first sabbatical, which gave me the time I needed to pull it all together. (I was also lucky that my chairman and dean approved my project. Many colleagues – failing to find any connection between it and modern drama – looked askance at it.)

Imagine the surprise of a certain senior editor at Simon & Schuster when the

650-page manuscript landed on her desk. Along with my cover letter rejoicing that exactly three years after she had “proposed” that I write a new biography of Henry Ford, here it was! While she figured out what to do with it, I acquired an agent.

“What the publisher really wants,” the editor announced by phone a week later (and rather too blithely, I thought) “is a biography of Henry Ford II. We’ll gladly reconsider your manuscript, but only after we get the story of Henry Ford’s grandson out.”

I declined that offer and sought a more hospitable home for my labors, which my agent found at Dial Press

Emboldened by having brought order out of what had seemed at first to be a chaotic deluge of automotive information. I proposed the alcoholism project to my agent. Like my editor friends, she recommended other subjects, disregarding the one I wanted to work on. Then one day I happened to mention that Memories of a Catholic Girl was a favorite book of mine. I, too, had been a Sacred Heart pupil and Mary McCarthy’s descriptions of life in a convent was evocative of my own. “Why not write her biography?”

“But she’s still alive,” I protested. “I can’t write about a living person!”

My agent persisted, however, and before long I was on my way, uninvited, to Castine, Maine, where I hoped somehow to see Ms. McCarthy. Although I had no way of knowing it at the time, her unfailing courtesy was to be my ally, for when I telephoned her from the Pentagoet Inn only a few doors from her own home on Main Street, she invited me for tea, a civilized ritual she observes every afternoon.

She, too, was uneasy with the idea of a biography of a living subject. but my argument that I wanted to write the story while people who knew her well were still alive was persuasive.

After reading the Ford galleys, she agreed to cooperate, without once mentioning the odd juxtaposition of my chosen subjects – a nearly illiterate auto maker and a leading American intellectual. She gave me introductions to those who knew her best, access to her correspondence, and a willingness to answer a host of personal questions.

Thanks to an N.E.H. scholarship. I had a year and two summers to interview

more than 150 people all over the United States and Europe, to gather copies of her correspondence, and to examine the papers of dozens of her writer friends. At home in New Orleans, I pored over her 24 books and read the memoirs of a number of New York intellectuals in her circle.

During all that time, she never asked to see what I wrote.

Three years after our first meeting in 1980, I mailed her the manuscript, asking her to check it for factual errors. She found an abundance of them and stylistic and grammatical mistakes, as well. In fact, she ended the six-page, single-spaced letter she wrote enumerating her objections with the observation that I didn’t know grammar and what’s more, was too old to learn.

My response was to take off one more time for Castine, where (again, thanks to McCarthy’s courtesy) we talked for two days.

The discussion continued for the next year via the mails. Then in desperation, I said, “Are you or aren’t you going to give me permission to quote?”

“Well. the milk is spilt: let’s hope for the best,” she answered, with a sort metaphorical shrug.

I got the best of our bargain, and I am grateful. Not only was my world view changed by the six years spent in her company, but both my writing and grammar improved. So, she was wrong about one thing: I was not too old to learn.

“LET THE BEAUTY WE LOVE BE WHAT WE DO”*

by Irene Poe (with assistance from Beth)

I really shouldn’t be sharing with you what I am about to write. My sister Brenda has begged me not to publish this essay for fear that it will make our mom’s friends think less of her. But I reminded Brenda that most of Mom’s friends, like her, are humans, which means that it is unlikely they will take anything I say very seriously, given that I am a cat.

For the past five years, Brenda and I have been trying to educate our mom. We had hoped that she could learn to appreciate everything we do to make Apartment 1007 a more beautiful place. But those hopes were dashed a couple of weeks ago when we overheard what she said in response to a provocative question addressed to her by a visitor who apparently values upholstery more than cats.

The question was, “Don’t you have any scratching pads in this apartment?” To which Mom replied, “Of course I do: two wing chairs, a recliner, a sofa, a rug, and a yoga mat.” Whereupon, the visitor forced a polite smile, and Mom beamed with immodest satisfaction at her own cleverness, oblivious to the devastating effect of her words on Brenda and me. We were in shock, as we realized that we have been in total denial this whole time about our mom’s dearth of imagination and her lack of understanding of who we really are.

Mom’s disrespectful remark about what we do to the furniture makes it clear to us that she has forgotten the terms of the contract we negotiated before moving into Apartment 1007. In essence, it stated that she would pay the rent, in exchange for which we would allow her to live here, thus ensuring that not only the apartment itself but also its contents are ours, not hers. Yet, in spite of this agreement, she acts as though she were the primary, if not the sole, occupant of the place. She regards it as her sanctuary, her safe space. That may be true for her, but, for us, Apartment 1007 is first and foremost our studio, our atelier.

How can Mom be so blind? Somehow she fails to recognize that what she sees as, say, a wing chair, is to our eyes something else entirely. We see it as a blank canvas, to which we are naturally attracted, not because we are innately destructive (as many unenlightened humans firmly believe) but, rather, because we are artists. To be more precise, I am the artist; Brenda is my apprentice.

In my capacity as my sister’s mentor, I would describe her as a dilettante, content with producing small pieces of disposable art. With Brenda, it’s all about spontaneity. Seemingly from out of nowhere, in a rare burst of energy, she will stick her claws into a roll of toilet paper or paper towels, shredding square after square, until — just when she’s getting into a nice rhythm — Mom starts screaming and Brenda stops short. [See photo.] I keep telling her that great artists do not let themselves be deterred by their critics, even when their chief critic happens to be the one who feeds them. But Brenda won’t listen to me. It’s a shame, really, because the talent is there. What’s missing is the drive.

Meanwhile, I do my art whenever I can I am particularly pleased with a piece that I began several years ago. I would have finished it by now, had it not been for the pandemic, which forced Mom to stay home pretty much 24/7 for months on end. (I assume that I do not need to explain to you why I can get nothing done when she is around.) To be honest, I can’t put the full blame for my slow progress on her. The project is an unusually difficult one, requiring great ingenuity and persistence.

The work to which I am referring is an in-depth study of the wing of a wing chair. The challenge that presented itself to me when I undertook this project was that the aforementioned wing chair is covered in microfiber, an abominable synthetic material, which, having no discernible weave, is touted as “cat-proof.” I suspect that is why Mom chose it. But if she thought that I would not find a way to tear it apart, she grossly underestimated my abilities. Microfiber may be resistant to shredding, but it is not puncture-proof. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if you make enough puncture holes into any fabric, shredding is not just possible, it’s unavoidable. A smart cat with claws is all the brain power and equipment needed for the job. The attached photos prove my point.

*Quotation that I ran across one day in a collection of poems by Rumi, my favorite 13th-century Persian mystic.

Fig. 2: My Work-In-Progress: Before and After

Fig. 1: Brenda Interrupts Her Work When Mom Screams at Her

ROMANCE IN THE FIFTIES

by Anonymous

Summer. 1957. Camp St. John’s for Boys and its sister camp, Nagawicka, in Delafield, Wisconsin. Three Tulane Deke fraternity brothers, returning counselors in the know, are at camp several days early for orientation and are sitting on a fence outside the Mess Hall checking out the girl counselors.

He says, “That’s the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen,” pointing to a petit blond walking down the path. He notes she is wearing white terry cloth shorts and shirt trimmed in scotch plaid, with white tennis shoes and gym socks. He is fixated on her gorgeous and shapely legs, lightly tanned by the early sun of summer. His buddy turns to look, and his gravelly-voiced reply is, “She’s too young to be a counselor; she’s probably a Senior camper who came up early.”

She says, to herself, “Those guys on the fence are Bad News, to be avoided at all costs!” She is aware as they point, look, and comment among themselves, they are casing all the girls. No way.

The summer progresses. He is a good sailing instructor and spends most of his free nights cavorting among the near and far bars and breweries with his many male and female friends. It is a co-ed camp, and the counselors take every opportunity to be together. That’s why it is so much fun. She is a tennis instructor for the younger children and has a quieter summer, playing bridge and going out to dinner with a nice Vanderbilt pre-med student. As camp comes to a close, the premed student knows she is transferring from Hollins College in Virginia to Newcomb for her Junior year. He advises her, “Don’t ever date a New Orleans boy!”

Fast forward to fall semester at Tulane and Newcomb. He has returned from the summer and has begun his third and final year of Law School with a raging case of mononucleosis, well-earned by burning the candle at all ends. His parents drive him to and from classes, and the rest of the time he is briefing cases in bed, too sick and contagious to go out. She is a new girl on campus, meeting new people and learning her way around. After about six weeks, his doctor releases him from his bed, with warnings about drinking, staying out late, and not passing on any germs. He needs a date for a Law School party but has not been out in the

dating circuit. His gravelly-voiced friend suggests the girl from camp with the good lookin’ legs.

He says, more or less, when she answers his phone call, “Hey, I knew you at camp. I was a sailing instructor. Now I am a senior in Law School and a ‘Big Man on Campus.’ Would you go to a Law School party with me?”

She says, “Yes,” not having a clue as to who he is, but she is new on campus and glad to meet more people. She does keep in mind the admonition about “New Orleans boys.”

After the party he pulls up at the dorm, fairly early actually, in his father’s big white Cadillac. As he slides towards her on the red leather seat, she presses towards her door and assumes her defensive position. He puts his right arm around the back of her seat and leans forward. Her hands make knuckle fists. His left hand reaches towards her and at the last minute presses open the glove compartment. His hand disappears inside and then pulls out a handful of Hershey’s candy kisses, offering them to her.

He says, “This is the best I can do for now, Baby.”

She is speechless, thinks it is hilarious, and is impressed by his originality. Maybe New Orleans boys are not so bad after all.

Time passes. The Old European Coffee Shop has just opened on Royal St., a perfect place for someone who still cannot drink and does not have enough money for a dinner date. They get to know each other over coffee and European pastries and long conversations. They date off and on. He takes her to her first Opera, her first Symphony, teaches her to eat boiled crabs and shrimp, then crawfish. He introduces her to Nick Castrogiovani’s Bar and the “Pousse Café.”

May. 1958. He graduates from Law School and begins the practice of Law. She goes to Europe for the summer. He goes to Boot Camp. She returns for fall semester. They date more on than off. They wander endlessly in the French Quarter and break up, then make up, several times at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. He appears one Saturday morning outside the dorm standing atop a pile of dirt from road construction. He has his beagle hound, Poopy Joe, and an armful of black-eyed susans picked in a nearby field, offering an apology for…whatever.

May.1959. She graduates from Newcomb. He attends her graduation and brings a present, a small silver cocktail shaker engraved with her first name. Her mother does not know what to make of this present. She stays in New Orleans and begins the job search.

It is mid-summer. She lives in a third-floor apartment on St. Charles Avenue with a sorority sister. No job yet. One night she is babysitting for her brother and sister-in-law. Her brother is in med school and they live in the small upper apartment of a duplex. He joins her there and after the two children are asleep they watch TV. The tiny, worn linoleum-floored kitchen is adjacent to the living room and she goes to get him a beer out the 1948, freezer-at-the-top, refrigerator. As she is bent over double reaching into the back of the bottom shelf for a beer, she hears a voice behind her.

He says, “Will you marry me?”

She stops reaching for the beer, uncurls herself and stands, turns around, and just looks at him, totally confounded and speechless. This is a marriage proposal?? A few moments pass in silence. He is impatient. He wants an answer!

He says, “Well?” There is another long silence.

Then, finally, smiling, she says, “Yes!”

In October, 2022, they celebrate their 63rd Wedding Anniversary.

(We think this is better leaving the authors unknown – it adds a little mystery.)

A MODERN “CHRISTMAS CAROL” (with apologies to Charles Dickens)

by Elliotte Harold

Nestled against the banks of the Mississippi River in uptown New Orleans, Lambeth House offers an incomparable retirement loc ation for folks from far and near. It boasts comfortable accommodations, exquisite food under the guidance of a well-known French chef, and genial residents.

Everyone wants to know everyone else, so newcomers post pictures and biographies. Since these seldom tell the full stories of everyone ’s business, the ubiquitous New Orleans queries of “How’s your Mama an’ dem?” and “Where ya’ll at?” are often heard. No one keeps much hidden from inquisitive friends and neighbors.

Personally, I’ve been the object of curiosity about the scraggly beard I started to grow while displaced by Hurricane Ida. I could easily get by with the explanation that the daily scraping of my cheeks saves me about 10 minutes a day or 60 hours a year or 2 ½ days which could be put to better use. That should satisfy all the curious (nosy?) residents.

However, that is not the true reason. The true reason is so unlikely that many would not believe it.

On the first night of our evacuation for Hurricane Ida , I had a vision. Some skeptics would call it a dream, but I am convinced it was a vision. In the middle of the night, I awoke to a number of spectral shapes standing at the side of my bed. They did not appear threatening, so I asked “Who are you?” One responded ”We are the ghosts of hurricanes past.”

Another one said “I was in New Orleans in 19 17 before we were named. Your father has told you how he watched the fire house across the street from his home on Mandeville Street collapse. What a blast!”

The next said “I am the ghost of the hurricane of 1947; I also h ad no name. I laughed at how frightened you were when you went with your uncle to check on his cabin cruiser at Delacroix Island and found that I had dumped a lot of snakes into the boat.”

The third said “I am the ghost of Hurricane Audrey which devasted Cameron Parish in 1957. I learned that cows do not swim well. ”

After Audrey stopped bemoaning the drowning of the cattle, the next chimed in “I am the ghost of Hurricane Betsy, which was heading toward you when you were living on the Isle of Palms near Charleston in 1965, before I turned around and went all the way south and into the Gulf to hit New Orleans. Please, no comments about fickle women who can’t make up their minds.”

“I am the ghost of Hurricane Camille of 1969 which skirted New Orleans and hit the Gulf Coast. What fun it was leaving boats stranded on what was dry land, some even past the highway. One is still there in the parking lot of a restaurant.”

“I am Bill,” said another, “a mere tropical storm from 2003, but I regret wreaking havoc on your mother’s funeral. Sorry.”

“I am proud to say that I am the ghost of Hurricane Katrina , which is still talked about 17 years later.”

At this point I was tiring of the history lesson and broke in. “OK , folks, what’s the point, since you are all long gone?” Katrina seemed to be the spokeswoman. “Don’t get snippy. Yes, we are gone, but we are here to give you a warning. If you wish to avoid hurricanes in the years you have left, you MUST grow a beard. That will protect you.”

At this point, I awoke, wondering whether it was a dream or vision. I tend to believe it was a vision. Not being one to reject advice from experts, I started to grow a beard. My cheeks have not seen a razor blade since. It may not help, but what do I have to lose? Thus , folks, in the words of the late Paul Harvey, now you know “the rest of the story.”

Back cover photo taken by Julie McCollam