Reflections - LeadingAge Oregon

Reflections
A Collection of Writing and Poetry
by Oregon’s Elders
2015
published by:
LeadingAge Oregon
7340 SW Hunziker, Suite 104, Tigard, Oregon 97223
503.684.3788
2015
LeadingAge Oregon serves the not-for-profit, mission-directed organizations dedicated to
providing quality housing, health, community and related services to older Oregonians.
Reflections contains original writings submitted to the Oregon Alliance
of Senior and Health Services by residents of member communities.
These authors have vastly varying backgrounds and experiences.
Some have advanced college degrees, while others have limited
formal education. Some have had works published in national
publications. For others, this represents a “first time” experience.
All are published here in their entirety, as originally
submitted by the author.
“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and
more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself.
Henry David Thoreau
Contents
Judges Choice
Hansberry & Me, Ruth Gallagher, Willamette View................................................................... 1
I Came From the Corners, Darlene Girard, The Village Retirement Center...........................4
Kiplang’at, Millie Gackle, Homewoods on the Willamette........................................................5
Mister Sasaki-San, The Fix-It Man, Marsha Green, Willamette View..................................... 9
hg
The Accidental Courier, Harley L. Sachs, Terwillliger Plaza,.................................................. 12
Atmospherics, Irma Canan, Willamette View.........................................................................16
The Beach House at Cape Kiwanda,
Jean Brier Lusk, Rose Villa Senior Living Community.............................................................17
Cloudstreams, Pamela Stills, Mary’s Woods at Marylhurst....................................................19
Dandelion Kitten, Linda Daniel, Holladay Park Plaza...........................................................22
Dear General, Sam Berry, Rose Schnitzer Manor....................................................................23
Decisions, Florence Blitch, Rose Schnitzer Manor....................................................................25
Desert Haiku, Colombe Leinau, Foothill Retirement Community..........................................26
Fortune Cookie, Velma Stuart, Homewoods on the Willamette.............................................27
Garden Talk, Betty Hockett, Friendsview Retirement Community........................................30
Half Past Eighty, Marion Gans, Rose Schnitzer Manor............................................................ 31
He Said, Barbara Donner, Robison Jewish Health Center......................................................... 32
Hitch Hiking Education, James Reister, Mennonite Village..................................................... 33
The Hobo Cat, Bert Baldwin, Homewoods on the Willamette................................................ 35
Homeless In Anchorage, Lawrence Eby, Mennonite Village.................................................... 37
House Sitting, Joanne Reed, Ya-Po-Ah Terrace.......................................................................... 40
In Touch with Alan Watts, Veronica Yats, Ya-Po-Ah Terrace.................................................. 42
It’s Worth a Shot, Robert Thorley, Willamette Lutheran Retirement...................................... 45
The Lion’s Pace, Molly Gillcrist, Willamette View.................................................................... 48
Marriage of Heart And Mind, Gil Hilvie, Mennonite Village.................................................. 51
Memories from My Childgood, La Rhee Lewis, Homewoods on the Willamette���������������� 53
A Moment In Time, Bill Ousterhout, Capital Manor............................................................... 56
Natures Little Treats, Del Thomas, Hope Village...................................................................... 58
Of a Different Feather, Cheryl Koehler, Capital Manor............................................................ 59
One, Trish Gardner, Mary’s Woods at Marylhurst.................................................................... 61
One Day at the Beach, Gerald E. Pires, Willamette View......................................................... 62
Our Special Old Folks Home, Betsy Cameron, Holladay Park Plaza..................................... 64
The People Museum, Lois Johnson, Hope Village..................................................................... 67
Pride, Sandra Felkenes, Willamette View................................................................................... 68
Rain Time, Carol Bosworth, Rose Villa Senior Living Community......................................... 70
Sex Education in the 1920S, Bob Lustberg, Rose Schnitzer Manor.......................................... 71
Spring, Alice Gustafson, Holladay Park Plaza........................................................................... 72
A Terrestrial’s Lament, Martha Pomeranz, Rose Schnitzer Manor......................................... 73
Things Change, Lois Manookian, Holladay Park Plaza............................................................74
Third Floor View, Hannah May, Terlwilliger Plaza.................................................................. 75
Upon Finding Smuckers, Katie Eells, Capital Manor............................................................... 76
Wakulla River, Robin Gault, Holladay Park Plaza.................................................................... 77
Walking to School, Helen I. Reasoner, Homewoods on the Willamette.................................. 79
What Have You Learned, Mary Ann Hakin, Ya-Po-Ah Terrace.............................................. 82
Where Will He Go, Joyce Easton, Willamette View.................................................................. 83
Judges Choice
Hansberry and Me
Ruth Ryall Gallagher, Willamette View
hg
It’s May 1959. My husband Fred is a graduate student at the University of Chicago. We’re
among the last white residents of an apartment house “tipping” from white to black tenants.
Our rent’s just been raised, and maintenance has gone from bad to worse. The janitor
complains about “deese people” who’ve been moving in and overcrowding the place. Our
nice building is becoming a slum, largely due to banking and insurance practices and racial
biases that keep blacks out of white areas.
So I’m fascinated by a TV interview with two distinguished Chicago visitors. One is
Otto Preminger, director of two successful films using all-black casts: “Carmen Jones,” a
reimaging of Bizet’s opera “Carmen,” and George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” The other
interview guest is Lorraine Hansberry, the 29-year-old African-American playwright who
wrote “A Raisin in the Sun” currently playing on Broadway.
Hansberry’s play is an unlikely hit. She manages to find humor and high drama in a
depressing subject—the struggles of a ghetto family to escape their overcrowded apartment
where a daytime couch is a nighttime bed and irritations fester. The mother’s desire for a
home in the suburbs, with a yard out back, is the heart of the play, and the loss of her dream,
due to suburban resistance, its heartbreak. “Raisin” is a jolting look inside the unseen world
of our Chicago neighbors.
Lorraine knows her subject. Her father had been a Chicago real estate broker who fought
restrictive housing covenants. She never gave up on the USA. She says she feels so free
because she belongs to a world majority. Her goal is to change the media image of blacks as
a primitive version of white people.
Here she is on this interview show, telling Otto Preminger that she takes exception to films
like “Carmen Jones” – “bad art” that can cause “great wounds.” She claims these characters
1
are not real people. Instead, they reflect the way whites see blacks, as “sexy exotics.”
Preminger is mystified. “What do you people want?” he asks angrily. The interview ends
in mutual frustration.
I’m disgusted by Preminger’s deafness to anything but praise and charmed by Lorraine’s
beauty and wit. I send her a rambling two-page letter, even though I suspect it will never be
read. I write that she and Preminger seemed to be speaking to each other on two different
levels. Yet, by the end of my letter, I wonder.
Recalling pictures in my head of not very smart or attractive blacks that I’d picked up as a
child from 1930s movies, maybe Preminger did some good after all. I write:
“While Preminger portrays Negroes as exotics, they are laughing, loving, FEELING,
attractive stereotypes. I’ll even concede he has corrupted much that is genuine. But the
beauty and talent are there. Maybe it’s a half-step ahead of the Hollywood pack. Are not
stepping stones useful?”
A week later an answer to my letter arrives, even longer than mine, from Lorraine Hansberry
Nemiroff. Her return address is on Bleeker Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. She
Expresses pleasure at the “unexpected reward of public attention: that gives her the change
to exchange views with hundreds of people. She continues.
“I actively agree with you in your view that Mr. Preminger and myself were proceeding
on two decidedly different levels….it became distressingly apparent that he was far more
interested in defending himself than in discussing either art or sociology.”
She mightily resents Preminger taking credit for the fact that such an unusual play as hers
actually reached the stage. The financing of “Raisin” didn’t come from “Broadway angels,”
she writes, but from “not less than one hundred and forty ‘little people’ who thought this
particular play should reach the boards.” She’s became “tart bickering”… “quite silly and
very much beside the point.”
Then she takes on my “stepping stones” metaphor—
“Sensuality, simple-mindedness, primitive good heartedness and evilness are not alien or
new concepts. The Southern racists would be the first to tell you about ‘loving, laughing
2
FEELING Negroes’. They rather adored the image as a matter of fact. A ‘stepping stone’
then should get one someplace, don’t you think?”
Aha! I realize I’ve been as unaware in my white Midwestern American way as Austrian-born
Otto Preminger is in his. I try to imagine how it feels to have to live with this maddening
mix of fondness and lack of respect.
Lorraine brings me close to tears as she concludes,
“I have begun to bore myself, so I know I must be boring you by now. I will only say that
I was pleased and stimulated by your letter and hope that you share with me the wish that,
sooner or later, the human race get over most of the nonsense which prevails to keep us
apart and start drinking a little wine together and enjoying the good life it is altogether
possible to have on this planet. Humanity has thought up one or two lovely dreams in its
day—I say, let’s get to them. Please accept my best wishes, over and beyond my crummy
typing and punctuation.”
…….
Five years after our exchange, Lorraine Hansberry died of cancer at 34. More than half a
century later, her “altogether possible” dream is still a distant one. But media portrayal of
blacks has changed drastically since she brilliantly helped lead the way.
I have a comforting image of a much younger me and Lorraine sharing a bottle of chianti in
a Bleeker street loft. We talk a while, we sing, we get a little drunk. I forgive her crummy
typing; she forgives my naiveté. We hug and part.
3
I Came From the Corners
Darlene Girard, The Village Retirement Center
hg
I came from stoic German stock, whose work was never done,
I came from grieving grandma, who lost her only son,
I came from rigid working mom, who feared to have a dream,
I came from daddy’s donor genes, “not worth a hill of beans.”
I never ran, I never screamed,
I was not heard, and seldom seen.
I came from dusty bookshelves, where classics told their tales,
I came from gated front porch, I viewed the world through wooden rails,
I came from lovely gardens, where flowers paid me heed,
I came from steep roofed attic, with dolls that I could lead.
I never ran, I never screamed,
I was not heard, and seldom seen.
I came from East, and then from West, new father quickly added,
New house, new school, new neighborhood, my corners had expanded.
Then three small boys came rushing in, the weary had no rest.
I wandered, not alone at last, “My God, is this a required test?”
But I never ran, I never screamed,
I was not heard, and seldom seen.
4
Judges Choice
Kiplang’at
Millie Gackle, Homewoods on the Willamette
hg
One day in the 1950s I was examining a woman with heart problems who had come to the
missionary hospital where I was working as a nurse in Kenya. As I took her history and
did the physical exam, the little boy on her lap drew my attention. He was leaning against
her but sitting ram-rod straight and not moving at all except for his eyes. His attention was
totally centered on me. He followed my every movement. He showed no sign of fear even
when I got close and touched him or his mother. He was thin; even his little cheeks were
sunk in. He didn’t smile, so I could not tell if he had teeth yet.
When I finished with the mother, I told her we needed to send her to the government
hospital in Kericho because we did not have the proper equipment to care for her at Tenwek
Hospital. She replied that her husband would come in a few days and she wanted to stay
at our hospital until then.
Then I asked about the boy. “What do we call him?’
“Kiplang’at,” she replied.
“When was he born?”
“Just after we finished planting corn,” she said. That meant he was roughly six months old.
Little Kiplang’at made no protest and showed no fear when an African nurse took him
away to be weighed. His weight was 6 ¼ pounds – less than many new-borns! He was skin
and bones. His frame had grown some but not as much as it should have in six months.
When I tried to move him, he felt stiff--¬not the stiffness of tetanus, he had neither the
arched back nor the clamped jaw of tetanus. He gave the impression that if one was
careless in the way one handled him, he just might break!
5
His eyes were not pleading for help. They seemed to portray a solemn stoicism – acceptance
of whatever life handed him.
I admitted both the mother and the child. That afternoon I read about starvation. I learned
that stiffness is a sign of advanced starvation. Without intervention, Kiplang’at had at best
only a few days to live. His mother said he had no trouble swallowing and no vomiting or
diarrhea. But I didn’t want to take any chances. So for the first few days, I was going to
do the feedings myself. I wanted to know first-hand how he was reacting to food.
I chose a formula with cow’s milk as a base because that’s what was available and what the
family would use later at home.
Before my evening meal, I gave him his first bottle. I picked him up carefully and held him
to feed him. He took the bottle eagerly, but after a bit, he stopped and turned away. I tried
to get him to take some more, but he would not take the nipple.
I scolded him in English, and in what I hoped was a soothing, comforting voice said “You’ll
never make it if you won’t take more than an ounce-and-a-half at a feeding!”
I tried to burp him but got no response. I hugged him gently, tucked him in, prayed for his
survival and went to my house for supper.
Before I retired, I went back to the hospital and offered him another bottle. He took three
ounces, and I was encouraged. That time, I got a satisfactory burp!
In the middle of the night he took another 5 ½ ounces. He was showing no signs of gastric
distress or intolerance to the formula. I don’t recall that he had problems with elimination
even though little had gone through his system in recent days, and maybe for a long time.
By the next day, about 16 hours after he had taken the first three tablespoons of milk,
Kiplang’at was taking the full 8 ounces of formula. On the third day the sucking muscles
in his cheeks were back to normal, and he had fat little cheeks like a baby should have. I
wished that I had thought to take a picture of him on the day we first saw him. He still had
a lot of weight to gain, but his face no longer looked like he was starving. The stiffness was
disappearing, and he was beginning to demonstrate the random movements of babyhood.
His father came and agreed that his wife should go to the hospital in Kericho. “But
Kiplang’at stays here,” he said. “I can see that he is much better.” The mother was taken
to Kericho, and we got word a week later that she had died there.
6
On the third or fourth day, feeling the effects of sleep deprivation, I quickly made the
formula and hurried to feed Kiplang’at. He took one swallow and screamed. I thought the
formula must have been too hot, but when I checked it, that was not the case. I tried again.
Again he screamed. He didn’t cry; he just gave one piercing scream and looked at me with
his big solemn eyes. I sat there thinking, and suddenly I knew: In my haste, I had failed
to add sugar to the formula. I started to laugh and said to him, “Three days ago you were
starving, and now you refuse to eat because there is no sugar in your milk?”
Gone was the stoic acceptance of whatever life handed him. This boy was going to be a
fighter. That was good, and I was proud of him. He did not cry when I left the room to
correct my mistake, and when I returned, he took all of his feeding with no more complaints.
The African Nurses Aides gradually took over most of Kiplang’at’s care, but he was still
my “project.” In the African nurses, Kiplang’at had about a dozen big sisters and aunties
who loved him and looked after him. As he grew older, they would take him to their
quarters, play with him and feed him. They taught him to speak Kipsigis, to eat gimyet (a
thick cornmeal mush) and to drink mursik (sour milk flavored with charcoal).
The African nurses started calling me “Kobot Kiplang’at”. At first it was obviously a
tentative statement they said with smiling twinkling eyes and accompanied by a close
observation of my reaction. Would I accept the name or not?
The name roughly meant “Mother of Kiplang’at” but also denoted something special about
the child. Usually the Kipsigis used the title with the first child but sometimes with the
name of a favorite child or one who had accomplished something remarkable. Kiplang’at
qualified – he had been close to death and now was making a marvelous recovery.
Because of my love for Kiplang’at, my initial reaction was a big, uncontrollable smile. At
the same time, I felt the Kipsigis people allowing a foreigner--a white American woman-to use that name indicated a degree of acceptance into the tribe, and I liked that, too.
They called me Kobot Kiplang’at until one day when some patients who didn’t know me
started to call me by that name. The nurses aides quickly told them, “No, no, no. She’s not
his mother, but she loves him and takes care of him.” After that the nurses aides used the
name only in private conversations.
As I recall, Kiplang’at stayed with us for more than two years. Then one day his father
came and told us that he would be back on a particular day the next week to pick up
7
Kiplang’at and take him home. Seeing him go was hard, and I prayed that the Lord would
help him adjust quickly to life in an African hut.
A few months later the father brought Kiplang’at in for some minor problem. That was the
last time I ever saw him. Soon I left to come back to the States. I did not return to Kenya,
but I carried a picture of Kiplang’at in my wallet for years.
Although I was not Kiplang’at’s mother, I was the person who, with the Lord’s help, gave
him back his life. Almost anyone could have done that for Kiplang’at, but I was the one
who was in the right place at the right time, and I am forever thankful for that. I was given
an important role in his life for a short time.
Kiplang’at influenced my life as well; in a very subtle way, he changed my identity, and
that change has been permanent. No matter how old I get, no matter where I live, no matter
what language surrounds me, I know in my heart that I am and always will be “Kobot
Kiplang’at,” mother of Kiplang’at.
8
Judges Choice
Mister Sasaki-San, the Fix-it Man
Marsha B. Green, Willamette View
hg
The events described in this poem took place in 1955 when Mrs. Green’s husband was a
U.S. Marine stationed at Atsugi Naval Air Station near Yokohama, Japan and they lived
off base in the small community of Minami-Rinkan
Mr. Sasaki pedaled into my life
wearing coveralls with brushes that fit in his hip pocket.
Their bristles matched his thick black hair
that stood straight up like a rocket.
His mission in town, a rural one in Japan,
was the “fix-it man” for the newcomers around.
His English was limited, his manner eager to please
and when he flashed his gold and white smile
you were intrigued to meet this talented Japanese.
“I fix auto-ma-teek” he proudly said,
but it took awhile to figure out
just what he was hoping to do.
Then I recalled our water pump in the wooden tower outside
worked erratically and often stopped in the
middle of a shower!
Oh, “automatic” I repeated with joy
for we were tired of its irregular ways
and had requested some help to fix it
for several days.
9
We conversed in a limited way,
very thankful when the deed was done.
Since he serviced many Americans
it occurred to me, might be fun
to invite him back and practice
“auto-ma-teek” and other words
that would help him become
more comfortable speaking in his
new customer’s tongue.
He readily accepted the invitation
and returned one evening, all cool and clean
in his cotton Yukata
and pulled from his long pointed sleeve
a dictionary with Japanese to English phrases
and we began some understanding to retrieve.
After we talked an hour or so,
he bowed and started to leave,
turned back and asked “Next week bring friend?”
“Oh yes, please do; Your friends we’ll
be happy to receive.”
Each week a new face appeared.
Mrs. Nakayama lived up the street
and tended her garden and children three,
Mr. Nakayama designed new cars
in Yokohama in a then growing industry.
The gas station attendant at the Army PX,
a neighbor who taught school,
all gathered in our Western style home
to converse using newspapers as a tool.
10
We talked about pictures, people we saw
and places that might be seen;
a coming together of neighbors
who wished new knowledge to glean.
Mr. Sasaki and his “Auto-ma-teek”
opened up an exchange of friendship
that made our one year stay
automatically more memorable
in every way!
11
The Accidental Courier
Harley L. Sachs, Terwillliger Plaza
hg
Chapter One
It was September, the ideal time for European travel, for the college kids were all gone and
the weather no longer hot. The bus with the Magic Carpet Tours logo rolled through Spain
toward the French border. The driver was Muhammed, an Algerian, and there were twelve
passengers, mostly retired seniors, except for me and an Israeli, Nathan Golan.
I didn’t become suspicious of Nathan’s motivation until it was too late. Our conversation
started out casually enough. Where was I from? Oregon in the United States. What did I do
for a living? Until recently I had an orchard outside Hood River. What did I grow? Pears
and apples. What did I mean by “until recently”? I’d sold the place after my wife died.
What did she die of? Cancer. (Fortunately he didn’t demand the whole story of that, the
operation, the chemo, the hair loss, and the recurrence). Why was I taking this two week
European bus trip? To take my mind off the changes in my life, not exactly a fresh start,
but a different horizon, an escape, of you will. He was sympathetic, the kind of person you
want to tell everything.
I mean, who else did I have to share my story with? His disarming, sympathetic questioning
unleashed a flood of information I normally kept bottled up inside myself. He might have
been a psychiatrist, for all I knew, or maybe a detective.
Usually the pattern of questions when meeting someone goes as far as “Where are you
from; what do you do” and stops there. Most people aren’t interested and don’t care. It’s as
meaningless a convention as someone asking “How are you?” and not expecting or even
welcoming any answer but “Fine, thanks.” You don’t tell them your blood pressure or
temperature that day. If you do they think you’re weird.
Not Nathan Golan. He would probably welcome my blood pressure and a detailed medical
history. He cared, or appeared to care. His questions were disarmingly innocent, like he
was genuinely interested in me, a total stranger who happened to be on the same tour bus.
12
But what he asked, without appearing to pry, was personal, probing, as if he might be a
good cop making a friendly interrogation with a prisoner. He seemed, well, too curious. He
was sizing me up, but for what? Was he a con artist after my money?
I might have backed off, politely suggesting my personal life was none of his business, but
he was so charming, so concerned, that in a few minutes he had my whole life story, knew
what mattered to me, what my politics were, what I thought about our president, about
issues in the Middle East, the Palestinians and so on as if he were filling in the blanks on a
dossier. Yet I knew nothing about him.
I tried to turn the tables and get him to talk about himself. I learned he was of Polish or
Russian descent, a couple of generations back. In fact, from our physical appearance we
might have been related, distant cousins several times removed, but from the same gene
pool, sharing a lot of DNA. We did share a resemblance. People might mistake me for him
and vice versa, basically the same eastern European look.
He told me his name was Nathan Golan, a name he took when he made Alyah and became
an Israeli citizen under the Law of the Return. He didn’t actually say what he was before
that. It’s typical for Jews who become Israelis to take an Israeli name. He didn’t reveal
what his original name was or where he had come from.
My name would be Charles Wiskoski, but the family changed their name to Kosco when
they homesteaded in Oregon during the Gold Rush. Sometimes people who can’t spell
think I have some connection to the Cosco warehouse grocery chain. Sorry.
The other passengers? Mainly elderly American couples who had retired with enough
discretionary income for a bus tour, but not a luxury cruise. Mattie Smith said a cruise was
out of the question as she got seasick at the dock. Serious Christians, she and her husband
Butch, who had his hair in what we used to call a buzz cut, were primarily interested in
churches. To make sure she was admitted to churches where no shorts or bare arms were
allowed, Mattie wore knee length skirts and long sleeves, a large cross around her neck to
advertise her religious preference. One of their first questions they asked me at the kickoff
dinner was what church I went to. When I said I was Jewish but secular they struck me off
their list of desirable table mates.
Butch and Mattie Smith, being keen on churches and cathedrals, would not go into a mosque
and regarded the synagogue in Toledo, Spain as if it might have been a leper hospital and
still contagious though there had been no Jews there since the expulsion in 1492.
13
The Smiths asked me to take their picture outside some church or other. As a designated
photographer I was nominally acceptable as a casual companion even if they didn’t want
to lunch with me. After that I was conscripted for more picture taking. Maybe it made them
feel ecumenical. I suspect that when they got home the pictures would all blur together as
they wondered which church was that and where was it?
The O’Malleys were foodies. For Sean and Mary O’malley a trip through Europe was a
game of hopscotch from one restaurant to another, preferably five star. Mary O’malley
kept a notebook where she scribbled recipes. I suspected she had plans for a book. They
had a well thumbed Michelin guide to restaurants, pages marked with Post-It notes.
I suppose that people like the O’Malleys when on safari in Africa would not be as interested
in seeing wild game as they would be in eating it as in “Have you tried elephant steak?”
There were a couple of single women, both retired schoolteachers, who at the start each
had single room accommodation, but teamed up presumably to save money. They always
sat together at table.
All the passengers except Nathan Golan and I were in their sixties or seventies, fit enough
to travel and take advantage of their retirement to see something of the world, something
they had put off during their working years.
Nathan and I were younger and, being the only single men on the tour, tended to stick
together.
The Algerian bus driver, Muhammed, was also our guide. He was a refugee as a young man
from that awful French war. He in fact owned the bus and chartered out. In spite of being
Moslem, he was well informed about the Christian places we visited. Anything he didn’t
know I think he made up, but he did so with panache and humor.
What I found odd was that Nathan Golan wasn’t much of a tourist. He showed little interest
in the places Muhammed drove us to. Did he just like to ride around the country in tour
buses? He didn’t fit my definition of a tourist. I got the impression that the reason Nathan
was on the tour was to blend in with the crowd and, well, disappear.
In restaurants he always wanted to sit at the back, facing the entrance. At times he
even seemed furtive. Maybe because he was a Jew and our driver Moslem, Nathan felt
14
uncomfortable. Adopting a conspiratorial tone, he suggested that a tour bus among the
flocks of similar buses that crossed Europe could be an ideal vehicle for smuggling. I didn’t
ask if he were a smuggler himself, or just interested in everything, including crime. He
noted how adroitly Muhammed was when we crossed into France, joking with the border
guards as if they were old buddies or, possibly, partners in crime.
15
Atmospherics
Irma Canan, Willamette View
hg
Come.
You.
Nick.
Ate.
Move toward me,
The other part of we;
Create an opening
For us to consume.
Come. You. Nick. Ate.
Communicate.
16
The Beach House at Cape Kiwanda
Jean Brier Lusk, Rose Villa Senior Living Community
hg
It was his happiest place,
So it was for me also.
High on a fragile, sandy bluff
Overlooking the spectacular Cape
Flanked by the dramatic rock,
A solitaire in a platinum setting.
The round beach house smiled
With laughing, curved cheeks,
Filled with frolicking children,
Wistful “wannabe” salmon fishermen,
Plus sharp-eyed wave-comber wives
Who prized found flotsam and jetsam.
Its chimney puffed smoke circles
Of crackling wood smells
Into the wind that blew
Across the indigo blue deep,
As the red blaze below warmed
Frozen fingers, wet coats and soggy socks.
When we were alone
Its arms encircled us,
Sublime in its tender joy
Of being unique in shape,
New, handsome and beloved,
A place where love flourished.
17
Its outward eyes
Saw the ever changing sea scape,
A kaleidoscope of greens, grays,
Blues, topped with salty, white froth
That curled, swirled and crashed,
As the sun and moon made their rounds.
Under the glittering sunlight,
Behind the shadowy moonlight,
Storm clouds ominously swelled,
Until one night the swift darkness
Shattered his loving heart,
As salt tears were left to weep.
It was his happiest place.
18
Cloudstreams
Pamela A. Still, Mary’s Woods at Marylhurst
hg
On a late-summer afternoon at the Oregon Coast, a long rumpled sheet of white clouds
blew past looking much like the start of a marathon with its legions of runners all vying for
a spot. As the unbroken mass raced by, an occasional finger-swirl of cloud would swoosh
to the front of the pack, chased by a sudden wind gust. Then in a blink the swirl was
overtaken and once again just part of the pack. From time to time these small swirls danced
in and out of the mainstream as it continued a relentless race with the wind. Traversing the
ocean’s edge just offshore, the mass was pushing southward prodded by winds from the
Northeast. These wind directions are the determining factor in any cloudstream’s course.
For now, as if in deference to an invisible barrier, the stream did not cross over the beach
nor onto land. With that seeming deference, the amassed white clouds left humans and
other land dwellers to bask in the bright warmth of a blue, early evening sky. Feeling
warmed inside and out by the sight, the silent observer thought for a moment about the
winds of direction in their own life and wondered if their influence had ever brought to
others a gift as welcome as this quietude.
After several mesmerizing minutes the racing river of white began to look like it was parting
here and there to let in stray patches of cloud from outside the mainstream. Moments later
it was seen that these snatches and pockets of cloud were not joining the once-endless
highway of white as they seemed at first to do; instead they were displacing it. In just
moments the wispy intruders came further and further apart….then ceased entirely. With
that the speeding sky show ended--as silently and abruptly as it had begun. The sunny blue
sky that had been its backdrop was now the only sight in a look upward. From lifelong
experience, lore and learning living by an ocean, the observer knows that the cloudstream’s
southerly movement will continue its spin seaward. The influence of today’s Northeast
wind that blew it near, but not onto shore, assures the cloudstream’s slow sweeping arc
out to sea. Perhaps to be joined there by a setting sun. Ultimately it will dissipate and
its moisture drop into the embrace of the ocean below. For a moment that image brings
thoughts of one’s own abilities…are they as well-spent in this world as are the gifts of
clouds?
19
If today’s cloudstream had been influenced instead by a Northwest wind, then that same
swath of cloud would have hugged the shore and might next have bounced playfully off and
over a couple of jutting headlands to the south. In an inlet or two between those headlands
parts of it might have wafted on tiptoe across some stretch of Coast Highway 101. Its
presence there could have teased at the windshield of any passing motorist. But only
briefly, because now that bumpy bunch of rolling clouds would be heading further inland-leaving sea and shore behind. Its destination? East, across the Coast Range Mountains.
Unlike today’s ocean-going band of clouds blown from the North and East then out to
sea those, driven from the North and West, would probably have to linger with evening’s
approach. For evening brings fewer winds that provide the needed uplift for clouds to cross
the Coast Range. Thus these would settle for the night into valleys on the ocean side of the
range; thereby becoming the evening fog. The observer had often wondered if the woods
and cabins clothed in evening fog were as still and silent inside that blanket as they seemed
from a distance. Then with the arrival of morning’s light some of the fog would burn off,
and morning’s renewed breezes would lift the remaining clouds from forest and cabins
alike. As it did so part of their moisture will fall onto the earth below. For the remaining
clouds it would be time to head for the mountaints. There, with enough lift from the area’s
winds, they could glide effortlessly over any point in the range. If perchance the wind
spirits were not so favorable, then some or all of the cloud group might be seen pressing
against the tree-topped peaks that blocked them. This battalion of amassed cloud assailing
the mountains might well resemble an ancient army laying siege to an adversary’s castle.
Sooner or later however a crossing altitude would be reached and the remaining cloud
clusters either give a final bump or two to the peaks in their path, or sail unhindered over
those peaks. Once across to the east side of the range, the clouds will shape-shift some
more in their descent. Perhaps there too they will favor farmers and forests with some of
their remaining moisture.
Such could have been the scenario for today’s passing cloudstream had it been moved on
its way by a different wind. And these were just two possible directions among many in the
life course of those clouds. For today’s observer, silently watching here and now gave an
opportunity to appreciate both the beauty and symbolic relevance in the power, grace and
movement of passing clouds. They prompted a wonder about the ‘winds’ that pass through
and affect one’s own course in life. If one of the local artists had sought to portray today’s
cloudstream they would be challenged to capture its sweeping yet subtle sublimity. On
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the human side it is also a challenge to recount a time or event in one’s life that changed or
influenced their direction. Nature continually invites us to learn from its nuanced examples
some of the meaning in our own lives. We have only to look, and then to learn to see such
wonders. Nature can rouse the writer’s mind, and excite the artist’s eye, yet nonetheless
elude both pen and paintbrush. Even the photographers’ many and varied lenses cannot
capture all the dynamic influences of the natural world. As with our movement through
life, how after all can anyone convey in one dimension what was perceived on multiple
levels by the heart, mind, and eyes?
From the vantage of a kitchen table with a view out the patio door, today’s racing
cloudstream brought a welcome gift of reflection and renewal. Blessed with being truly
present at today’s cloud passage proved provocative to the mind and quieting to the heart.
It was a reminder that clouds do not fear, fret, bully nor resent: Gifting it, they do nourish
and refresh the world through which they pass. By giving themselves freely to the air, sea
and land that act upon them, clouds do not merely pass away: They are Transformed. Their
essence will form again and again, as new clouds in new places.
21
Dandelion Kitten
Linda Daniel, Holladay Park Plaza
hg
The dandelion kitten chasing leaf-fall
Across a clearing where cats have no names
Was caught and carried off by people knowing
That she could not survive when winter came.
Brave little wild one hissing at her captors
While shrinking back and cringing at their touch,
Felt heartbeats slowing as the hands proved gentle,
Dared not to fear the strangers quite so much
Dear golden-haired companion, snoring softly,
Curled in my lap, cocooned in sleep serene,
I wonder if so many years thereafter
Wisps of dandelion drift across your dreams.
22
Dear General
Sam Berry, Rose Schnitzer Manor
hg
Dear General,
I want to apologize. My only excuse is that I was exhausted. You see, sir, I was the
Communications Supervisor at the American Embassy in Seoul, South Korea. When the
North Koreans invaded South Korea, my three code clerks were evacuated along with the
other Embassy females. From that Sunday, until the Ambassador and I fled via the South
Gate as the North Koreans entered Seoul from the North, I had to handle all the incoming
and outgoing telegraph traffic by myself. Therefore, I got very little sleep.
Almost as soon as we joined your advance group of officers at the schoolhouse in Suwon,
south of Seoul, a Major approached me. He asked, “Are you with the State Department?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Someone told me you’ve got the codes.”
“I’ve got the code”, I replied.
“The plane carrying the Signal Corps group that was supposed to accompany us has flown
into a mountain”, he continued, “So we cannot encode our messages. Can you help us?”
I explained that my code was only good between me and the State Department. Any
messages I encoded would have to go to Washington D.C. to be decoded at the State
Department before being sent to Tokyo.
After a bit of discussion we agreed that we had no choice. Pretty soon I was swamped
with cables to be encoded. This work kept me up well past midnight. So I was sitting, half
asleep, waiting for the Ambassadors, in the room filled with Majors and Colonels when I
was abruptly awakened by someone shouting, “Attenhuuuut!”
I got halfway up when it hit me. I’m not in the Army anymore, I’m a civilian now. I sat
23
down again and looked toward the door. There you were, sir, GENERAL DOUGLAS
MCARTHUR, in person, less than five feet from me!
My mouth must have dropped open as I froze in my seat. I could have touched you as you
strode past me. You probably wondered who this idiot was; the only person sitting while
everyone else was standing at attention. Honestly, had I known it was you, I would have
stood up. Maybe not at attention, but I would have stood.
So you see, sir, I did not mean to disrespect you. I was so tired and sleepy, I could not think
fast enough. By the way, I am not complaining. I am glad and proud I was in the position
to be of use at that time of crisis. However, don’t you think one of your staff could have
thanked me? Incidentally, I enjoyed the food you brought with you. It sure beat the Army
rations we had been eating. I particularly enjoyed the fruit cocktail we had for dessert.
24
Decisions
Florence L. Blitch, Rose Schnitzer Manor
hg
I tumble through the days, the weeks
Un-encumbered by demands
I used to welcome.
No need to make the coffee, scramble the eggs--That’s already been done
By someone.
My glance around sees no disarray--None.
The chair holds out its arms to me,
And i accept.
We’ve gone through grief
Together, mourned our loss,
Worked our way through loneliness
But now this: i’ll say it like it is—
Uselessness.
This cushion i sit on has lost its bounce, its fluff
The springs within softly protest—“enough!”
My knees agree.
So arm in arm, my chair and i feel free
To be as useless and un-apologetic as we care to be!
25
Desert Haiku
Colombe Leinau, Foothill Retirement Community
hg
Desert chaparal
Ten thousand brisk chirps sounding
Finches fluttering.
26
Fortune Cookie
Velma Stewart, Homewoods on the Willamette
hg
“George, why must you always embarrass me every time we eat Chinese? You know I
can’t manage those chopsticks! They go crooked on me every time. Why can’t we use
forks like civilized people?”
Oh, Nancy, come on. You know you were doing fine until you insisted I order you that
third beer. You can’t handle the beer, Honey. When are you going to learn that?”
“Oh, shut up! Where did you park the car? Do you know where you’re leading me?”
“We’re heading straight to it, Dear.” Crooking his elbow toward her, George said, “Careful!
Here, you’d better take my arm.”
“Oh, don’t be condescending with me,” Nancy said as she jerked away from him. Then as
she found herself veering to the right, she quickly grabbed his arm, saying, “All right, I’ll
take your arm but not because I’m drunk. Just be a gentleman without insulting your wife
for a change, huh?”
As they neared the car, George halted and spoke in a hushed voice, “Wait! Something
strange is going on here. The light is on inside the car!”
He led Nancy to a nearby car and said, “You’d better stand here while I check this out.”
Nancy, quickly sobered, cautioned, “Oh, George, be careful! What if?…”
“Sh-sh!” George crouched as he approached the car. He listened and then cautiously peered
in the back window.
“My God, there’s a body in there!” he said.
“Oh, no!” Nancy squealed. “Is he dead? What shall we do? Oh, George, I’m scared!”
“Take it easy, Nancy,” George said as he opened the back door to get a better look. “Oh,
it’s just one of those bag ladies. She must have found a bag with some booze in it,” he said.
27
“Oh, George, don’t try to be funny. Let me look.” She cautiously moved closer and peered
in. “Oh, thank God, she’s breathing,” Nancy whispered.
“Well, of course she’s breathing. She’s just passed out.”
“Oh, the poor lady. Maybe she’s sick. Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?”
“Leave it to you to be sympathetic to a damn drunk!” He tugged at the woman’s arm and
yelled, “Come on, lady, it’s time to wake up.”
Not getting a response, he moved to the door on the driver’s side and said, “Honey, can you
pull her feet out the door while I lift her up? We’ve got to get her out of here.”
Together they pushed and pulled and finally got the woman to her feet as she muttered,
“Wha’s happ’nin’? Leggo a’ me! I foun’ this spot first—ya’ go fin’ ya’ own bed.”
Ignoring the mumbling, Nancy reached out to straighten the woman’s crumpled clothing.
As Nancy touched the back of her skirt, she said, “Oh, George, her dress is wet. We can’t
leave her out here. She’ll catch pneumonia.”
“Her dress is wet! Her dress is wet?” George quickly looked into the car again. “Nancy,
will you look at our back seat? The damn fool peed in our back seat!”
Moving toward her and throwing his arms outward, as if shooing away a stray dog, George
said, “Get moving, woman. Go find yourself a bridge to sleep under.”
Turning back to the car he said, “Get in the car, Nancy. We’re getting out of here.”
Nancy didn’t move, “We can’t just leave her here. Wouldn’t that be kind of like hit-andrun?”
“For God’s sake, Nancy, what do you expect me to do?”
“Well, I don’t know. You’re the one with all the answers. What should we do?”
Disgustedly, George said, “Get in the car.” He quickly slid in and said, “Come on, let’s go.
We should get out of here before anyone sees us. We should get that seat professionally
cleaned. That’s what we should do.”
“Oh, yes, we must take care of the car!” Nancy said sarcastically. “Don’t worry about a
distraught little old lady.”
28
George jumped out of the car and grabbed the arm of the bag lady, who was starting
to wander off through the cars in the parking lot. “All right, woman, come on. My dear
compassionate wife thinks we owe you a ride somewhere. Climb back into your sweetsmelling wet nest, and we’ll take you… where? Where do you want us to take you, Bag
Lady?”
The woman jerked away from George and spoke in a surprisingly coherent voice. “Look!
I ain’t goin’ nowhere in your fancy car. I been a listenin’ to the two of ya’. Ya’ look like
smart folks, but ya’ don’t got a clue. Land sakes, ya’ called me a bag lady but don’t seem
to even know what one is. I knowed that ‘fore I came to be one. You cain’t take me home,
cuz I ain’t got none.
“As fer me clothes, I’m a bag lady, remember? What do you think I’m a tot’n in this bag?
I’ze got clothes to change to. Jest leave me be, and I’ll get on back to me usual sleepin’
place. I got friends there—they’ll have a little fire a burnin’, and I’ll get changed into
something dry and share a story or two about my day. I don’t need no ride nowhere.
“And, by the by, I ain’t no drunk neither. And I don’t pee me bed nor me clothes.” Pointing
to the pocket on the front of her skirt, she said, “I carry this here bottle a’ water with me
wherever I goes. I been out walkin’ the streets most nigh all this day looking fer what I
could find to help meself to.
“I seen the two a’ you leave your car and go into that fancy Fortune Cookie Café. I figured
the back seat here would be a safe restin’ place fer a spell. You had it all nice and warm and
guess I jest fell asleep. I had a swaller of me water first and guess I didn’t get the lid back
on tight. Yer back seat will be jest fine soon’s it dries out.”
George and Nancy were awed by this sudden burst of words and stood speechless as the
woman spoke and then ambled away through the parking lot. Before getting too far, she
stopped and called back, “Say, wha’ di’ yer fortune cookie tell ya’ tonight? Hope ‘twas a
good one!” She laughed in a high-pitched voice and disappeared into the dark.
George and Nancy slowly got into the car and were silent as they headed for home. Finally,
George spoke, “What did your fortune cookie say? Do you remember?”
Nancy pulled the small piece of paper from her pocket, turned the dome light on and slowly
read, “You will soon have an unusual encounter with a most interesting stranger.”
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Garden Talk
Betty M. Hockett, Friendsview Retirement Community
hg
“I look into your face. I see comeliness, color, charm. No one can guess your age, but I
know you don’t feel well deep down where it matters. I dread to tell you, but I must: there’s
only one cure for your terminal ailment. I’ll wield my shovel. Out you go!”
Euthanasia for my iris.
Tall, ruffly, colorful flowers
Stand like ladies-in-waiting.
Then, brown streaks on green leaves ravage the assemblage.
I challenge, “What ruinous thing is this?
What has spoiled my garden beauties?”
I seek advice from a knowledgeable friend.
She shakes her head, in solemn tone pronounces,
“Too bad! You have a virus in your iris.”
30
Half-Past Eighty
Marion Gans, Rose Schnitzer Manor
hg
What do I want in my future?
I want the warmth of a friend’s firm hand
I want to dance with someone, or alone
To grow in kindness, and be more giving
To thrill when a bud becomes a flower
I want to swallow hard at a stunning play,
And the world to fade when I hear good music
I want to learn, to see, to understand
To say thank you, often, every day
To smile at someone I dislike.
I want my offspring to love each other always
With memories of childhood bright and happy
When you think of me, may it prompt a smile
What do I dearly need in days ahead?
I want life to be an awesome poem
I want -- I want to write the poem.
31
He Said
Barbara Becker Donner, Robison Jewish Health Center
hg
I reminded him of his mom, he said
A Viet Nam Vet today on the street
Waiting for the street car I heard wild stories
His words brave – his eyes said “I’m beat”
Talked of Armageddon – soon, he said.
No No, that’s an old old tale, you know.
His look hoped I’d be impressed – agree
But that kind of thought I brought low.
Vets Admin taking care of him, he said.
Doubt rushed my soul – I wanted to cry
Iraq Vets too? A dare for truth, my quest
Oh yes, he said – his eyes belie the lie.
If I could go back and really be his Mom,
I’d make sure he never went to Nam.
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Hitch-Hiking Education
James Reister, Mennonite Village
hg
As a student at the Perry Trade School in Yakima, Washington I had little money and no
automobile. This was a real hindrance since I had a girlfriend in the Wenatchee valley that
I was anxious to be with as often as possible. The only solution was to get out my thumb
and hitch-hike.
I was able to catch a ride part way with students going to the Seattle area. Some guys were
kind enough to take me as far as the Teanaway Junction. At that point I would disembark
and begin looking for a ride over Bleuett Pass.
On one occasion, as I waited, a big white Cadillac pulled up and the passenger door opened.
An older man behind the wheel asks, “Are you going to hold me up?” to which replied,
“No”. Then he asked , “Do you have a gun?” Again my reply was, “No”. So he was
satisfied and told me to get in.
After traveling for a few minutes he started small talk, asking me questions. “Do you come
up here often?” “Yes every week end”. “Do you have family up here?” “Yes, I have a
brother and sister that live up here.” “Do you have a girlfriend that lives up here?” “Yes I
do.” “I thought you wouldn’t come up here every week-end to see your brother and sister,”
he said. After a lapse in the conversation the man asked, “Are you going to get married?”
“Well,” I said, “I have been giving it some thought but I haven’t approached the subject
with her.” “Has she had her appendix removed?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “What does that have to do with anything?” He said, “You ask
her dad if she has had her appendix removed?” ‘Why would I want to know that?”
Then he said, “If you get married the first thing you will have to do is have her appendix
removed and have all her teeth fixed.” Well I thought this was really hilarious, but when I
mentioned it at the dinner table her dad didn’t seem to think it was funny at all.
33
We got married and, as usually happens, my wife ended up pregnant and had to go to the
dentist to have all her teeth fixed. Then when we had our second child she had an appendix
attack and I had to rush her to the hospital to get it removed.
Do these things just normally happen in this life? I sometimes wish I could have met up
with that man and ask him if he was a prophet.
34
The Hobo Cat
Bert Baldwin, Homewoods on Willamette
hg
Little “Bo” ran away from home,
Chose “48 states” as the place to roam.
Lost a piece o’tail in a box car door –
So Hobo won’t ride trains no more.
In Idaho little “Bo” met us –
Thought our motor-home was a “Greyhound” bus,
Crawled underneath for a place to ride.
Didn’t know that she could’a rode inside.
We took off travelin’ down the road.
RV and tow-car’s quite a load.
We cruised along at sixty or so –
When I heard a frightened cry below!
It sounded like a cat to me.
I asked my wife, “How can that be?”
We pulled into a truck stop ahead
And out crawled a kitten, about half dead.
I brought little “Bo” into our RV
To meet Miss “Ruby” and “Glori-B” –
So thin you could feel her every bone.
Ruby said, “You can’t leave her here alone.”
So “Bo” is now our “Hobo Cat” –
A little wild – I’ll grant you that,
But full of love when on your lap –
She’s little “Bo” the “Hobo Cat.”
35
Bo’s happy now and all grown up
Still hangin’ out with the “Glori” pup.
We found she is a “Russian Blue” –
If you lost tail, you’d be blue, too.
So “Swingin’ Cats” still tell tall tales
Of the “Hobo Car” who left the rails,
Following the road and “RV” trails –
Just upped her flag and set her sails.
“Bo” likes to play and have a ball
And race “Miss Glori” down our hall.
If she could talk, she’d tell you that,
“I’m the one and only “Hobo Cat.”
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Homeless In Anchorage, A Long/Short New Year’s Day
Larry Eby, Mennonite Village
hg
The day was to be quiet for me. It turned out otherwise. My wife, Mary Jane and I were
visiting our Anchorage, Alaska son and family over the end-of-year holidays. The snow
was deep and the days and nights well below freezing.
School holidays mean many Alaska families head for adventures in the snow. We had been
to Alyeska Mountain a week earlier where large ski facilities grace the mountain’s side.
A day after Christmas some of us had gone there to watch the skiers, and we also took the
tram up the side of the mountain. On top was a building with a restaurant from where the
view of the valley below was fantastic.
On New Years Eve, plans were made to return to the Mountain for a day of skiing. At this
time the family consisted of the parents, Doug and Rosene, and the adolescent children,
Brendon, Eryn and Delana. All were accomplished skiers. Would we go along?
Although I had grown up at the northern tip of the lower palm-shaped peninsula of Michigan
where the snow stayed from mid-November to mid-March and had skied on very primitive
skis down the low hills around our farm home, I was not interested in trying my skills on
the slopes of Alyeska. And my idea of a cold winter day was to be nearer the fires of our
family in Anchorage than holed up in the ski lodge or outside in the cold. I would stay at
home and read or write on my lap-top. Mary Jane, the social one, would go with the family.
At daybreak on New Year’s Day everyone but I headed for the slopes. But before they left
and I was settled down in my comfort zone, their friend Jim, a middle-aged man and whom
we had met on previous occasions, called to see if I would be interested in joining him for
morning coffee at a combination bicycle/coffee shop in the city. Along one wall was an
interesting painting of early cars in Michigan. He knew it was my home state. “Yes, I was
interested”, thinking it a good start to a day that could seem long and boring with everyone
else gone to the ski slopes.
The rest were gone for their day of excitement when Jim arrived. I went out through the
basement garage, pulling the unlocked door securely shut after me. It was a short drive to
37
the shop where behind the bicycles we looked at the painting as we drank warm coffee, a
pleasant experience from where we had been shortly before in the 10 degree temperature
outside. The details of the painting and reminiscing have been somewhat lost in in the more
sharp memories of the day’s later experiences.
Jim took me back, dropped me off outside the garage door, and disappeared down the hill
from which the house overlooks Sand Lake and the Chugatsch Mountains to the East. I
entered through the unlocked external door into the garage and continued to the entry door
into the first floor of the living quarters. The doors default position was unlocked but now
I could not open it. Then I remembered. For some reason the day before, I had turned the
small insert in the center of the door knob, locking the door and had forgotten to reverse it
to its usual unlocked position.
I was locked out! Homeless on New Year’s Day! Or at least out of the living space of
warmth, soft chairs and food. Unless I could get to the spare key inside their back yard
fence on top of one of the pillars under the deck overhang. But the snow on both sides of
the four foot high fence was deep. It would take a lot of energy in that frigid weather to
climb over. And then what if I did not find the key and would need to climb back out? I
elected a more conservative albeit complex and boring approach.
This was in the days before cell phones. The day ahead would be a long one, even if the
family quit skiing at the early 2:30 P. M. darkness. They would likely stop for food and
then the hour drive home. And what if something happened to delay even that? My worst
nightmare of a long stressful day would be actualized. How would I stay relatively warm
and wile away the hours?
There is a People Mover city bus line about 1/2 mile away as well as a Tastee-Freeze
which contrary to its name served hot chocolate. My billfold with cash and credit card was
comforting. So even though I could have survived in the partially heated garage, I took the
more adventurous route to the hot chocolate.
After sipping the largest container served, it was time to catch the bus. It came past at
regular intervals, but I was not sure of the time. So during a wait that seemed long. I
warmed my toes by kicking whatever firm object I could find, (a trick I learned growing
up in North Michigan). Finally the People Mover appeared. It was going in the direction
of the suburban mall. There I could count on warmth if not excitement. I toured some of
38
the shops, found the restroom, bought food at a nearby MacDonald’s, and soon it was time
to bus back to where I would do the ½ mile to the locked house. And hopefully, an early
return of my family.
So in that partially heated basement, I walked boring circles, I do not know how many. It
seemed better than sitting down. Especially with no chairs available. They live near the end
of a dead-end street. A few cars drove by, none stopped. What was certainly less than two
hours seemed much longer. Finally, as I was sitting on the floor, resting from the endless
circles, a car drove into the driveway and the garage door opened. Mary Jane and the others
were surprised to find a homeless man sitting on the garage floor. I was just glad to have
that inner door open to the warmth of hearth and home.
39
House Sitting
JoAnn Reed, Ya-Po-Ah Terrace
hg
I’ve been smug in believing that I have kept up with technology at my age, even though I
don’t exactly understand how Ap’s work and I don’t do social networking or have a smart
phone. Still I can use the computer on software that I am familiar with and I can keep in
touch via email. Last week, however, I lost my smug.
I was warned, my friend Roberta told me her experience with house sitting; I still didn’t
have a clue. We entered the house, got a brief lesson on how to log on their server and were
introduced to the four remotes for the TV and sound system. Then they left.
We missed four calls before we figured how to answer the phone. I was dismayed when I
picked the phone up and it kept ringing. After I put on my glasses, I saw that the arrangement
of keys was like my cell phone and pushed the buttons in the corresponding placement to
send and receive. That worked.
Then it was time to cook. The two ovens had multiple keypads. I pushed “bake” and 350
degrees lit up in a little window. But I wanted 400 degrees. So I went to the numbered
keypad and entered 400. The little window then read 150 degrees. So I pushed “off” and
started over. What the heck I thought, I’ll just bake it longer at 350. So then I pushed “Cook
time” and entered 45, which luckily turned out to read 45 minutes in another little window.
I put in the casserole and went back to my book. The oven bell rang in 45 minutes but my
casserole was not nearly done. It took another half hour. The next few days I cooked on
the stove top but I wasn’t going to let that oven get the best of me so I played with it until
I found out the “preheat” started when I pressed cook. After that, I waited until the temp
reached my desired level, set the cook time and the meals were done when the bell rang.
I had a similar adventure with the washer and dryer. Four wash cycles, four dry cycles, two
different kinds of soap, two kinds of bleach and so forth. I settled for “Regular”, “Large
load” and “Automatic” for every load I did and just used the soap in the little bubble packs.
After dinner we decided to watch a movie. We were told we had two choices for free
films Xfinity and Netflix. I turned on the TV and got golf. I pushed a “Menu” button and
40
started to go through the hundreds of available channels. I saw no listings for either Xfinity
or Netflix. So we settled for a network channel movie and sat through an hour and a half
of movie and two hours of commercials. We had the commercials memorized before the
movie was through.
The next night we were desperate and determined even though I was very leery of playing
with the remotes because my son had told me that they had several things set to record
automatically. Never the less we plunged in with fear and trembling. Here’s the way it
goes. Turn on the TV with the Yamaha remote and then press the green button on the Sony
Blue Ray player remote and you get HDMI3 menu. Scroll down the icons until you get
Netflix, select a movie and you are in. Xfinity is just as complicated but with two different
remotes.
Okay now, how about relaxing in a spa tub with jets to work out all the tension of a hard
day pushing buttons? Yep, sounds great. As the tub is filling, I add just a little bubble stuff
but it doesn’t make many bubbles so I add just a little more. Then I get in and turn on the
jets. Here come the bubbles and bubbles and bubbles. I am able to search under the foam
that is up to my eyeballs just in time to find and turn off the jets before the bathroom floor
is awash.
When the travelers got home, we were glad to leave the thirteen rooms on four floors
and confusing technology galore. I gratefully returned to my uncomplicated life in our
apartment where I can relax in two rooms with just the technology I can understand.
41
In Touch With Alan Watts
Veronica Yates, Ya-Po-Ah Terrace
hg
I caught the first clue that you were calling me when I took an absent-minded turn and
discovered a clothing shop, its entrance tucked within an alcove flush against the dry
cleaners. No signage, just one display window somewhat obscured by a hanging fuchsia
with its pink and purple outrage swaying in a sudden summer gust.
Idle curiosity drew me in—though you may question such a cloudy notion; it led me like
a magnet to a pair of wheat-colored, wide-legged pants painted with black Chinese letters,
finished off by satin-ribbon hems. That’s when The Way of Zen, the cover of your book,
flashed behind my eyes. I let it pass, or so I thought, and bought the pants.
I wore them to a party where a smiling Chinese fellow started pointing at me from across
the patio. He then turned to his female friend—his daughter, I would later learn— and soon
they were both pointing. I couldn’t stand it anymore; it felt like high school when the cool
kids snickered, and you knew it had to be about you. “What is it?” My ego had to know.
He replied in somewhat broken syntax that he and his daughter were simply “reading my
pants.”
I turned and bent over at the waist, showing them the rest of the story, when he shouted
in alarm, “No, no, too much infoh-mayshun!” By now they were laughing behind cupped
hands. When they’d recovered some semblance of composure, he told me that the “pantnotes” simply spoke of long life and great happiness. For a moment I was skeptical, fearing
I’d been tricked. What if the characters translated into English meant something vulgar or
wicked? I swiftly brushed this unwanted thought aside and replaced it with a better one.
I thought of what you once wrote about Zen and the arts, “One showing worth a hundred
sayings.” The ridiculousness of the moment, married to this random thought, seemed
anticlimactic—down to earth, and of course therefore perfectly flawed. Something that
also might have made you smile.
It has taken nearly 40 years for me to think of you again, not the decade a Jesuit had
predicted when I first began reading you in high school. “You like him now?” he’d said.
42
“You’ll like him even better in ten years.” He’d found me hiding out behind the camellias,
which was my attempt at avoiding the annoying, chatty reflection group, a place where this
Jesuit had been the keynote speaker the night before. I sense this may amuse you. Though
you are a man whose dislike for religious outlooks is well known, you did, after all, die
in your sleep, a peaceful way of passing often ascribed to St. Joseph in Roman Catholic
circles and in close company with other favorite Christian prayers and yearnings.
And this very afternoon, I know you would have thoroughly enjoyed the irony of watching
me stir up dust in the garage, rummaging through one storage box after another searching
for The Way of Zen and coming up empty. You would have particularly liked the “empty
part” amid my self-inflicted haze. Perhaps you would have ventured something clever
about my sweaty forehead and the box-kicking that ensued. A bit of needless frenzy, that’s
the stuff of laughter in your world—wherever that is now.
Sure, you’re dead, but I don’t have to like it.
Then two things hit me: never give away books; and even if your shelves are stuffed and
the corners of your rooms are crammed with them, resist the temptation. If you give them
away, you can’t in good conscious ask to have them back; and if you sell them at a used
bookstore, you end up buying them back for more than you were paid when first you’d
sold them. The latter is precisely where I found myself, still in a mindless whirl of agitation
leafing through titles in the Asian philosophy section at my favorite bookstore.
I soon found you sandwiched among the vintage giants: The Way of Zen, the cover pale
as wheat, black title overlaid the shaded, screened-back Chinese brushstrokes. The price
was penciled in on the title page, $5.00 top right hand corner (original price, new, sold
for $1.95 circa 1957). On the interior pages, I found your words crisp as grain against the
yellowed paper, rough to the touch. The edges of each page were framed and feather-matted
in varying tobacco hues. I started looking for coffee stains, or a ring line from the bottom
of a coffee mug—any indication that this book I now held might have been my very own.
I flipped back to the title page and rubbed my thumb over the penciled price. I smudged it
just a bit, to leave my mark of lingering resentment. For a moment, I considered how many
other hands had held this book, how far it might have traveled before it reached my own.
But more than that, I wondered if the last sad soul who’d let it go regretted the decision,
and would soon come stumbling down this very aisle as I’d been so compelled to do. No
43
patience to endure an online venture for a free Amazon shipping date. No impulse control
whatsoever.
As you can see, I’m much the same; I still like looking back and forward all at once,
straddling east and west, Buddha on one arm, Christ on the other. No wonder I walk with
a limp.
Infirmities aside, and years of missteps here and there, at least your writing still helps
soften some of this world’s trouble. Even so, I’m frustrated—no, make that thunderously
perturbed: When do we turn away from war? When do we get civilized?
Reminds me of the old joke about the journalist and the guru: “What do you think of
civilization?” the reporter asked.
“I think it would be a good idea,” the guru replied with a smile. Mmm. Sounds like
something you might have said.
Before I go nuts, I flip to a page of Zenrin verse, and land on the ointment in this couplet:
See the sun in the midst of the rain;
scoop clear water from the heart of fire.
Once again, you’ve skipped a stone across my mind. I could ask you where the ripples take
us now, but I know not to waste your time. Still, I’d like another sign.
Or as you like, do nothing.
44
It’s Worth a Shot
Robert Thorley, Willamette Lutheran Retirement Community
hg
There is a book titled Good Roots, which contains essays by prominent authors from Ohio,
including my fellow high school alumnus, P. J. O’Rourke. These writers reflected on their
background in my home state. That got me thinking. I may write about being raised up in
Toledo, Ohio, but usually it’s just about me and not my surroundings. So, I figured maybe
I should try it from the same angle as the famous authors. Hey, it’s worth a shot.
Toledo was a city of about 300,000. The Homeville neighborhood was a great place to be
growing up in the thirties. There were more kids than cars on the streets. Home building
had begun in the late nineteen-twenties. When the Great Depression brought construction
to a screeching-halt, it left a scattering of vacant lots which to us kids made it Never-Never
Land.
Dad, Mom, Sister and I lived at 4545 Westway. Down a block and around the corner, on
Eleanor Avenue, was the neighborhood shopping center: A dry cleaner, a Kroger store,
Red & White Groceries and Sam’s Confectionary. With home refrigerators and freezers
still on some engineer’s drawing board, cold storage was limited to your basic ice box, kept
working by the daily Ice Truck deliveries. It also meant everyday trips to the Kroger Store
for (whom else) me.
Unlike today’s mammoth super markets, it was just a single storefront. One side was mostly
shelves of canned beans, soda crackers and the fresh produce. A row of counters kept the
clerks in their place. On the other side of the store was the huge walk-in refrigerator and
fresh meat counter, home of the electric meat grinder. Watching strings of hamburger
oozing out of the grinder always would make my day.
Sam’s Confectionary was like a drug store. It sold tobacco and magazines and candy and
sundry items and patent medicine, but no prescriptions. However, there was a six stool
soda fountain and a pinball machine. Sam lived in the back room, a space slightly smaller
than a decent-sized living room. Somewhere in the depths of the depression, Sam moved
out and sold the business to Uncle Bill. He was not my uncle but he was uncle to my pal
Bud Nelson, who lived next door to me with his sister and mom and dad.
45
I remember two things, from when I was very young, about Uncle Bill’s Store. One day my
dad bought a funny-shaped bottle containing a dark liquid, removed the cap and offered me
a sip. I sipped and at that moment, if I’d had my own unlimited cash supply, I could have
become a Coca-Cola addict.
In another instance, Pop held me up to see a strange looking machine on the counter with
three little glass windows, a small coin slot and a handle on the side. Handing me a nickel,
he said to drop it in the slot and pull the handle. I did that and the machine went clink clack - clunk, the windows flashed multi-colored fruit pictures and an infinite number of
nickels spewed into a waiting coin tray on the bottom. Not long after that, slot machines
were banned from the great state of Ohio until long after World War II, thus saving me
from the throes of a second addiction.
Going downtown as a kid was always fun. Usually, we would take our local bus, the
so-called Eleanor Avenue “Bullet”. But, sometimes we would hike all the way down to
Sylvania Avenue (about a half-mile) and catch the Cherry Street “Bomb”. That was a
street car and much more of an adventure than a bus ride with its smelly exhaust. Attached
to the roof of each car was a long springy arm with a wheel at its tip which grabbed the
electricity from the trolley wire, one of a plethora of cables running above the main city
streets. Occasionally, when a street car crossed intersecting tracks, that wheel would jump
off the trolley line and the car would roll to a sudden halt. The motorman then had to get
out and yank that great arm about until the wheel was again able to supply us all with the
needed electricity. Onward we then would roll. And let’s not forget the street car windows
- talk about adventure! In summer you couldn’t get them open and in winter they would
never close.
The child’s joy of riding the bus and streetcar withered for the employed teenager. It was
replaced by that immense feeling of finally doing grown-up things like going to work or
going shopping!
Downtown Toledo, in those days, was wonderland. Tiedtke’s Department Store was a
behemoth where all the necessities of life were not only available, but in your face. There
was the pervasive aroma of all the great smells - fresh coffee, cheese and the other fragrant
delicacies of life.
46
The main floor was cavernous and included a balcony from where the exciting sounds of
a pipe organ would waft over everyone periodically. Even the rear entrance had its own
distinct smell. After you entered from Water Street, which was on the waterfront, you had
to climb two flights of stairs up to the main floor. Halfway up - you could smell it coming
-was a shoe shine parlor.
And then, not far from there was the Vernor’s Ginger Ale Shop where the golden soft drink
was drawn from a tap affixed to a giant barrel and served. Ah, sweet nectar! My memories
here are from a really young age.
“It’s the best show in town.” That was what O. Garfield Jones, esteemed professor of
political science at the University of Toledo, would say periodically. And, indeed he was
right. The subject of his critique was the giant coal-loading machinery on the east side of
the beautiful Maumee River across from downtown Toledo. Looking like some very large
child’s creative masterpiece assembled from a very large Erector Set, it could latch onto
a railroad boxcar filled with coal, lift it up in the air, extend it over a waiting Great Lakes
freighter and dump the contents into the proper cargo hold. I never tired of watching this
operation from across the river, whenever possible. That was, I believe, my first inkling of
what lengths big business would go to in keeping labor costs at a minimum. It was better
than any classroom lecture.
As for the citizens of Toledo and northwest Ohio that I had contact with every day while
growing up, what can I say? They were good God-fearing, hard-working and hard-playing
people. I really mean that. Besides, if I say anything unpleasant, most of them would
probably come and tear me limb from limb. So, I guess it’s still all about me.
And so it goes.
47
The Lions Pace
Molly Gillcrist, Willamette View
hg
Beryl slows as she passes the Douglas estate on five acres bordering First Avenue. There
the mansion stands in all its turreted brick glory, as it has since before she came into the
world.
She’s hurrying from the hospital to her father’s house to oversee the disbursement of his
possessions before she has to return to Portland tomorrow. He’ll never use them again, is
in the rehab unit, limbs intact but language erased by a stroke. He nods and smiles, opens
his mouth, but all he produces are chains of meaningless syllables sometimes punctuated
by a rising, questioning tone as he smiles at her. Television doesn’t hold his attention,
and he can no longer read. For the most part, he spends his days pacing in a circle around
the nurses’ station while his aide stands watch from the entrance to his room. She will
intervene if he steps into the room of another patient. And he will protest violently at being
prevented from making rounds, from assessing patients – which he had done both morning
and night for over forty years.
Beryl decides to take a short cut down an alley along the east side of the estate where there
once was a large cage shielded by a row of firs. Today she sees no trace of the cage nor the
lion once trapped in it by the Douglas family.
As she nears the end of the alley, she remembers often speeding down it on her bike to
Marian’s house and glimpsing the lion’s magnificent head and golden mane as she flew
by. Why, she’d wonder, would anyone want to trap and transport such a creature from its
natural home to Iowa? What shelter is it given from freezing winds and blizzards? What
does it think as it paces in the confinement of its cage? Does it wait, ears alert, for the roar
of the decrepit lion in the city menagerie two miles away? And, if so, how does it react? In
shared frustration? On summer nights when her bedroom windows were open, she often
heard both lions.
The alley was her fast route to Marian’s house where they sometimes studied together for
geography tests without the intrusion of Beryl’s pesky young brother. They’d put the atlas
48
on the floor of the den, open it to the illustration of the entire world. One would announce
the name of a country; the other would call back the capital and its location while Marian’s
mother read in her chair in a far corner of the room, occasionally brushing back a stray
white curl with her pencil or peering at them quizzically from over her book.
She wasn’t an about town woman with volunteer activities, a current affairs discussion or
Bible study group or garden club like Beryl’s mother and her friends. She seemed most
interested in philosophy, judging from the dog-eared books, some written in French or
German, Beryl noticed in the den. Beryl thought Marian’s mother must read from breakfast
until the time the cook announced dinner and supposed it was the gardener who put the
planter of red geraniums on the front steps; she couldn’t imagine Mrs. Von Houston doing
that.
She was a daughter of a judge, a magna Wellesley graduate, Beryl observed from a
diploma hanging on the den wall. She may have thought she was destined to live her
life in Cambridge or New Haven. Instead, she met Marian’s father, an internist named
Kenneth with an introductory von preceding his last name. It was at a Christmas party
her senior year. By the time of her graduation she’d been charmed into returning to the
Midwest and the pleasant but hardly bustling small city populated mainly by people one
generation removed from farming towns who didn’t share or, more likely, didn’t know
much of anything about her intellectual interests. She withdrew to her chair in the den and
the books that stimulated her mind while she turned and devoured their pages.
Other than smiles and hellos, Beryl had never interacted with Mrs. Von Houston until that
particular day she took the alley shortcut to study.
When she tore up the von Houston driveway, she turned too sharply onto the walk leading
to the front door, crashed her bike on the bottom step, and flew off toward the geranium
planter, hitting her shoulder and the side of her head on it. As she lay there recovering her
thoughts, she heard the front door open.
Then Mrs. Von Houston was bending over her and saying, “Oh, dear.” Beryl next heard her
call, “Marian, your friend’s had a mishap and needs some ice. There should be some in the
refrigerator. Put it in an empty bread bag and bring it to me.”
While Marian was doing that, Mrs. Von Houston sat down on the step next to her and said
with a slow shake of her head, “I’m sorry you had this accident, Beryl, and glad you’re not
49
much hurt.” Then her eyes brightened, and she added, “I once read – Moliere, I think – that
‘unreasonable haste is the direct road to error.’” She winked at Beryl and nodded, “You’ve
proven him right.” Then, as Marian came out the door, she stood and went back inside.
Beryl took Mrs. Von Houston’s comment to heart but found it often difficult to follow,
realized she hurried to most every place she went, as she is doing now. But finally she’s
reached the last block and slows to take an assessing look at the modest field stone house.
It and its inhabitants had seemed rooted forever, but the building is all that stayed.
She’s arrived before the movers and goes in to check that there isn’t anything important
remaining. She’s already given the kitchen contents to GOODWILL, and the counters and
cabinets are bare. The walnut dining room table and chairs will soon be gone, as well as
the beds and dressers.
She walks the length of the living room to the piano and when she turns to look back
toward the dining room, she notices two small framed photographs lying under the music
rack. One is of her mother smiling in her soccer uniform; the other is of her father in his
track shorts. He’s holding a cup-shaped trophy. She puts both pictures in her purse. On
the way back to the hospital she’ll have them copied, and when she arrives at his room
she’ll show her father the one of himself. She’ll point to him and to it, nod and point, point
and nod as they pace in the circle, hoping he’ll recognize himself before she must leave,
probably never to see him again.
50
Marriage of Heart and Mind
Gil Helvie, Mennonite Village
hg
The time has now come for many of us
To consider the wedding of heart and mind
Though living together, they go their own way
With no purpose having been defined
We sit in our pews, with bible in hand
And hear the word of God taught each Lord’s Day
Our minds being fed with the living bread
Knowledge absorbed and quickly filed away
We may attain an intellectual status
Facts and opinions at our beck and call
But the Spirit of God is being restrained
When lifestyle is hardly affected at all
And in the meantime, the heart goes its way
Ever more enamored by tinsel and fluff
There’s a vacuum in there that must be addressed
Made for God’s dwelling, but being filled with “stuff”
Though the heart’s being filled it is not satisfied
“Something” is lacking, for which it has pined
While in its compartment, safely stored away
Is that “Something” imprisoned in the mind
It’s a sad thing to see, and ought to bring tears:
This potential being held captive within
They dwell together in that temple God made
Yet held apart by none other than sin
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That wall must come down, and both come to know
What God meant when He said, “you shall be one”
The mind with knowledge that the heart can give life
And a new perspective for life has begun
So let’s have a wedding. Invite both to come
For a marriage of mind and heart
An ideal couple, all needs being fulfilled
And “What God has joined, let naught pull apart”
52
Memories From My Childhood
La Rhee Lewis, Homewoods on the Willamette
hg
I had a very happy childhood and I would like to share some of my memories with you.
I’ll share with you the first Christmas I remember. My parents were very poor and money
was not available for Christmas presents. My mother was determined each of her children
would have a present, so she made them. She took a cardboard box and cut out a body and
arms and legs for a puppet. Mom took crayons and colored the eyes, nose and mouth. The
arms and legs were fastened on with a string. When I pulled one string the arms would
move. By pulling another string the legs moved. This gift was for my little brother, but it
certainly fascinated me. Mom made a rag doll out of old socks for me. I don’t remember
the present Mom made for my other brother.
The next spring my third brother was born. I have no idea where I obtained the money, but
I had 53 cents in my piggy bank. My parents needed the money, so they borrowed it from
me. I know they must have paid it back, or I would remember that also.
I don’t remember any gifts I received at other Christmases, but I do remember one I bought
for my mother when I was in the 2nd grade. We used kerosene lamps for light. The wicks
would burn away and we needed a new wick. I bought a wick for the lamp for my mother.
It cost 15 cents. I was so proud of the gift I had for her that I couldn’t keep still. I gave her
many hints. Later she told me I had given her so many hints that she knew exactly what I
had bought for her.
We lived in a rural community with two other neighbors. Every Sunday afternoon we
got together and had Sunday School. One of the families attended the Nazarene church
in the morning, so they furnished picture cards for the children. The total family attended
including the men, women and the children.
One Sunday happened to be on Easter. It was also the first day of April. The men hid Easter
eggs for us children. When they told us to go find them, we looked and looked and couldn’t
find any. They finally said “April Fool” and then really hid them.
53
I remember very little punishment as a child. One day my grandmother (my Dad’s mother)
was telling us a story. She had already told it before and I thought she should know, so
I said, “You have already told us that.” She kept on telling the story, and I thought she
may not have heard me. I repeated, “You have already told us that before.” My Dad was
standing beside me, and he cupped his hand and put it over my mouth. He did not slap me,
but I knew it was time to be quiet. My grandmother finished her story.
Another time Dad gave me $1.00 if I could keep quiet for 5 minutes. It was difficult, but I
earned the $1.00.
As I grew older, I wrote plays that included each of us, and we performed them for Mom
and Dad. We put two chairs in the audience facing the performance. My Dad always sat
backward on the chair with his back to the performance. Half of the action was getting Dad
turned around so he could see the Play. He did this every time we performed a play.
We traveled from Nebraska to Washington during the years 1929 and 1930. It was getting
late in the year of ’29, so we decided to winter in the small town of Hawk Springs, Wyoming.
Dad bought an army tent. He piled snow around the perimeter of the tent to keep it warmer.
Inside we had a wood heater that was always burning. It was really very cozy inside.
On November 2nd, 1929, my second brother, Myron, was born in that tent. In the town
of Hawk Springs was a family named Arneson. They heard about the baby being born in
the tent. Twenty some years later, we moved to Winthrop, Washington. Also, the Arneson
family had moved to Winthrop, Washington. Myron met one of the Arneson daughters and
married her in Winthrop, Washington. We have a very small world.
On my fifth birthday, I accompanied Mom to irrigate on another place that Dad was renting.
When we arrived back from irrigating, Mom said to me, I just don’t have time to bake a
birthday cake for you unless you can wash up the dishes.” I got a chair, set it before the
sink, and stood on it to wash the dishes. Mom discovered I was able to do that, and I always
said I had been washing the dishes since Mom discovered I could do it. One of my younger
brothers dried them. Mom always washed the dishes after the Sunday dinner, but I washed
them the rest of the time.
When I was in the 4th grade, we moved into a three room house outside of Prosser,
Washington. Mom boarded up the front porch and made a kitchen. My two younger
54
brothers slept in one of the bed rooms, and the other bed room was mine. Mom and Dad
slept on a davenport in the living room. My three older brothers slept in an outside tent both
summer and winter.
Each Fourth of July we visited one of the families we had lived beside in the rural
community. They had moved to Kennewick, Washington. It was probably 30 miles from
where we were now living. On the way, Dad always stopped for gas, and he would buy us
a candy bar of our choice. Candy bars were scarce in those days. I always chose a Milky
Way because I knew I liked that, and I was afraid to try anything else. I still like Milky
Way candy bars.
One of my fondest memories was the evenings we spent together as a family. There was
no television and we related to each other. We often played checkers with my Dad. He
was good, and no one could beat him. Mom refused to play checkers with him. He always
explained the moves for three or four times and how he was going to get into the king row.
What I enjoyed the most was Dad playing the harmonica and singing for us. Mom would
sometimes sing with him. I still remember many of the songs that he sang.
One Christmas my two older brothers and I went together and bought Dad a larger and
better harmonica that could change keys.
My folks taught us many principles and morals in life that are indelibly written on my
heart. We were taught to say “Thank you,” “Please” and “You are welcome.” I thought we
were saying “You walk um,” and I didn’t realize what I was saying until I saw it written.
Dad taught us to be on time. In fact, he wouldn’t go anyplace if he thought he was going to
be late. Mom taught me to never us the words “I can’t”. She said “Can’t died a long time
ago”.
My childhood was happy because of my parents’ love and concern for me. I had a father
and mother, who gave me the freedom and confidence to become who God created me to
be.
55
A Moment In Time
William K. Ousterhout, Capital Manor
hg
Snowflakes fall gently on my upturned face.
Like tiny kisses from a frozen angel,
They quickly melt away, but leave
Small icy drops of fairy tears.
No cause for sadness from my soul,
It’s only frozen rain, no mystery.
It’s time for play, enjoy our days.
Winter is but a season, and will surely pass.
My whole world is mellowed by the snow,
With changing scene and silence,
And colors muted, misted grays,
The dark tree limbs all around.
The birds are silent, too,
Hidden in the depths of firs.
They wait for sun and warmth
To flit about and scratch for food.
The world seems changed, somehow.
Were that it were ever so,
No stress or strife, nor wars to fight,
With peace and friendship all about.
But our lives change, as does the weather.
When snowfall ends comes warmer days,
With bright sun’s rays the snow will fade,
And spring will come, with flowers bright.
56
The snows are gone, those freezing days,
Yet memories stay, of times gone by,
The real world moves with endless time,
And we move with it, only for a moment.
57
Nature’s Little Treats
Del Thomas, Hope Village
hg
Hummingbird Hummingbird from whence do you come,
Arriving on wings all athrum.
In spring and summer you flit from bloom to flower,
Succoring the nectar that supplies your power.
You rarely seem to pause for rest,
Except possibly when you return to nest.
Your movements and habits are so hard to measure,
Yet your arrival provides such a great pleasure.
At once seemingly curious and accepting our presence,
While leaving us to fret your occasional absence.
Your visits to our feeders are announced with a whirr,
And then you depart as not but a blur.
Your beautiful colors including red crests,
With shiny green bodies and bright ruby breasts.
You provide us with immeasurable joy,
During the maneuvers you fully deploy.
We so enjoy your personal attention,
During eye to eye contact and close inspection.
But the question remains we wish to know,
Is where do you go during the winter snow.
We know you remain somewhere quite near,
As when the feeders we refill you suddenly appear.
You remain a mystery as yet unsolved,
And quite possibly never to be resolved.
But of whatever your habits might consist,
The pleasures you provide are impossible to resist.
So go on your way whatever your reasons,
But please do return to complete our seasons.
58
Of a Different Feather
Cheryl Koehler, Capital Manor
hg
The penguin’s not the hummingbird
Though both of them have wings
And neither one, although a bird
Is known for how he sings
The heron and the cockatoo
While soaring through the heights
Prefer their separate zones
For tracking appetizing bites
Canary, robin, albatross
Or hoot owl in a tree *
A fool, to pick out one as how
A “real bird” ought to be
For instinct and ability
Are etched in DNA
And coupled with experience
Lead each his special way
So when another says to me
“I know just how you feel”
And then proceeds to hijack
What I meant, with earnest zeal , , ,
And circles ’round for morsels
That agree with his own taste
As I recoil, dejectedly
My wisdom gone to waste . . .
59
Am I not like the fool who says
“The penguin ought to fly
The albatross would find a fuchsia fine
If he’d just try”
When prized perceptions part their ways
No need to holler, “Foul!”
We‘re creatures, all * the hummingbird
The finch, the hooty owl
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One
Trish Gardner, Mary’s Woods at Marylhurst
hg
I am Aurora, the light of each new day.
I am the wind dancing with boughs of evergreen trees
as I pass through.
I am the glorious spray of sea breaking over ancient rocks.
I am the love between mother and child.
I dwell in heaven- that my heart may bless all those on earth
caught in the web of illusion.
I know your pain, your fears and joy,
for I am one of you.
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One Day At The Ranch
E. Gerald Pires, Willamette View
hg
The rooster stands upon his toes
tell the barnyard what he knows.
A young lamb in a wooly coat
Flashes a wise look to a shoat.
The way the ram smiles at the ewe,
I wonder if they know it too.
At the corncrib, the mourning dove
Seems to think I’m madly in love.
They all seem to know it’s true,
That I’ve fallen in love with you.
“Whoa! Hold everything,” squeaks a rat.
“Have you no more sense than the cat?”
“A female will divert his mind
And we will all be left behind.”
Several incensed cats then complained,
“The rat we smell has gone insane.”
The dog concurred, “The cat is smart
In matters of the purr-fect heart.”
A crow cawed for a magistrate,
Our wise old owl, to adjudicate.
“Love is not my jurisdiction,
But I will make a prediction.”
“A female will be just as kind
And loving, you are sure to find.”
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“I agree,” whinnied the ranch horse,
“And I do so without remorse.”
“I don’t know what love can be,
“But I think it’s sweet,” said the bee.
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Our Special Old Folks Home
Betsy Cameron, Holladay Park Plaza
hg
Our rooms face eastward,
thirteenth floor,
causing vertigo, until
seventeen potted plants
go in and line up
along that railing.
Mornings are an aria of light,
with the white mountain,
dark firs,
and a chorus of deciduous trees
singing to the streets
and old houses below.
We’re in the vapor trail
of dark crows and swifts,
but we’re told not to feed them.
It seems that
bird poop threatens balconies,
so we’re left only to watch.
We watch each other too
know when someone is ill,
or took a fall,
and
remind each other
to knock the phone
off the hook
if we feel shaky.
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We’re an independent lot,
familiar with work,
loss, travel, and have
known thousands of people
before,
but there’s a kindness here, that’s new.
Kindness makes us safe,
and lets us fly in our
imaginations.
Like well loved children
allowed to move to our own
rhythm. Allowed to eat
or not eat dinner. Where no one
tells us to go to our room.
It even felt like camp
the other morning
when the electricity was out,
and we sat in a circle
near the coffee machine
as if
warming our hands
around an invisible
campfire.
But we are not children,
we’re that aging group
of wrinkles and pains and
short term memory loss,
like those cartoon people,
that made us laugh as kids.
So,
will someone please tell us
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why we tell each other,
secretly,
that we feel
almost as happy here
as we felt
when we were twelve?
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The People Museum
Lois Johnson, Hope Village
hg
Imagine a museum featuring the lives of individual people.
The Museum of Modern Arthur.
The Museum of Millicent.
The Museum of Lovely Lucy.
Exhibits of quiet trials and triumphs.
Exhibits of bravery and kindness.
Exhibits of failures and shortcomings.
Exhibits of imagination and creativity.
Exhibits of love and compassion.
Exhibits of fear and grief and bad temper.
Exhibits of interconnections with family, friends, the divine.
Exhibits of faith and belief and doubt.
Who would be the curator of the museum?
Who would provide the commentary on the exhibits?
Who would visit the museum and look at the exhibits?
Would the visitor leave the museum able to understand Arthur
Or Millicent
Or Lovely Lucy?
Could Arthur visit the museum and look at the exhibits
And think to himself, “So that’s why I took the road less traveled”?
Or would Arthur go back into the museum and rewrite all the
Commentary
For the exhibits?
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Pride
Sandra W. Felkenes, Willamette View
hg
There was boredom in the prison at 3p.m.,
restless shuffling mixed with the clangs
of iron gating.
Some prisoners wanted to talk.
“How long you been here?” asked #420.
“Two years, three to go. Entered a home
and stole plenty to pay for a stash.
Almost got away with it, too.”
#420 scoffed, “I pulled 15
for dealing in plain sight; did so for years.
Dumb cops didn’t even know it!”
They heard snickering.
“You clowns, you think you’re real bad.
You don’t know what bad is.
I got revenge on a bunch of Crips
Trying to take over my spot;
killed two of them.
Would’ve gotten away with it, too,
if some broad hadn’t snitched.”
The guard on duty punched out and went home.
He opened the window to let a mellowing breeze
gently remove the soot and memories of the day.
As he stretched out with The Evening News,
he leaned forward to caress his aching joints.
“Others should suffer like I do!” he lamented
approvingly.
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Shrieks of gaiety and chatter from young
children playing in the front yard filled the room.
“Look what I can do,” exulted one, as he did a
double cartwheel.
“So what? Look at me,” yelled his friend.
“Bet you can’t stand on your hands!”
His little sister looked at all this disdainfully. “I can
do both those things and lots better than you two.
Watch!”
The guard smiled. “That’s my girl!”
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Rain Time
Carol Bosworth
hg
I listen to rain on the roof,
its song tapping out irregular time.
Runnels in the downspout
whisper rhythms so like a code my mind is caught
in passing messages-
“how long from here?” “when?”
My mind pushes on with inbuilt energy
like a clock spring,
measuring imagined hurry,
while time leaks downhill
through my life,
drips past my fingers,
pools briefly in “today’ “here’
like this singing water on the land.
I catch my breath,
hold still like the heron,
a study in waiting.
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Sex Education in the 1920’s
Bob Lustberg, Rose Schnitzer Manor
hg
On July 5, 1925, when I was 5 years old, my mom gave birth to her second child, my
brother, Arch. The big event took place at the Bedford Maternity Hospital, which happened
to be located just beyond the right field wall of the once hallowed and now defunct Ebbets
Field.
My father took me to visit mother in the hospital. I recall standing by her bedside thinking
how wonderful she looked holding the tiny bundle of a baby. “Papa,” I asked, “where did
the baby come from?”
Now, I should tell you that my father was not a very communicative person. For as long
as I knew him, he rarely initiated conversation. In fact, he spoke only when spoken to.
His answers to questions were always brief, and if a head movement or hand signal would
suffice, he seemed to prefer that sort of response. The question put to my dad by his 5-year
old son stopped him cold, and he was his usual silent self for the next few minutes.
Finally he said, “Let’s go up to the roof and watch the ball game.” Up on the roof, we had
an excellent view of the game that was in progress.
“Bobby,” my dad said, “yesterday Babe Herman hit a home run. That ball came over the
wall and through the window of your mother’s room and there was your brother.” This was
the end of my sex education lesson.
Was the explanation thrilling? You bet! Did it make sense to me? And how! In any case,
my question was answered, and from that point on, my father considered my sex education
complete.
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Spring
Alice Gustafson, Holladay Park Plaza
hg
They’re smaller than peas when put in the soil,
No need to tend them all winter.
Come January, if not later,
Small particles of white pop up like popcorn,
Their earth warmed by the sun.
Snowdrops aptly named ‘cause sometimes
They struggle with that white stuff
To be called first in the spring lineup.
Vying for attention the crocus sprouts quickly
It’s purple, yellow and white cups of color
Like tiny balloons ready to set sail
If given half a chance. But watch carefully,
Green stems suddenly performing
Like ballet dancers with tutus fluttering
In the wind, the yellow trumpet of the daffodils
Stately announce their arrival.
All the while, the robin flutters nearby
His head cocked to hear the worm squiggle
From the soil just in time for breakfast
Back at the nest
Everyone waits for spring.
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A Terrestrial ’s Lament
Martha Pomeranz, Rose Schnitzer Manor
hg
Alfie came to our house and asked for food to eat.
A feathered hat was on her head and shoeless were her feet.
She muttered and she groaned a bit, and she scratched her tiny head.
And she screeched, “Where shall I sit, and who will make my bed.”
I’ve come from outer space you see, to find out how you speak.
So many questions on my mind; but your answers seem so weak.
Your language I don’t understand, there are so many on this land.
You talk with tongue in foreign ways. I’ve traveled East then West some days.
I’ve listened in when humans preach and been to schools wherein they teach.
So many accents I cannot place; I find them all very hard to trace.
Some call a BIRD a tongue-twist BOID, while others try this to avoid.
When I stop to buy WHOLE wheat bread, I’m not in the market for a HOLE instead.
When you say one thing but mean another, it’s like calling me when you mean my
brother.
You use a PAIR; which means two shoes while the grocer’s PEAR is the one I
choose.
I hear you and your people cry. They want PEACE; not a PIECE of pie.
Have you all run out of words to say? Must you double up on them each day?
Your books I simply have not READ, when the cover’s colored RED instead.
You’re all invited to my planet, where you’ll know exactly what we say.
Not in many different contexts, for we speak the literal way.
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Things Change
Lois Manookian, Holladay Park Plaza
hg
Things change
when you finally move
to an old folks home.
I am liberated
I am entwined with people.
The daily routine announces dinner
before I am ready
but exercise is sacred
so I go to class
and I walk.
Sometimes I walk around our roof
overlooking a city
and the treees,
turning golden in fall
or golden in spring but in fall we have red
russet and red
so many hues
such air to breathe
in gulps
feeling quiet joy, a little lost,
wondering where I am.
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Third Floor View
Hannah H. May, Terwiliger Plaza
hg
1. Old Man
Above the noisy streets in my apartment
I see and hear the city sights and sounds
and wonder about all that happens
below my third-floor windows.
I see an old man, unkempt and soiled,
pushing his borrowed grocery cart
wherein is piled in disarray
his ancient bedroll and poor comforts
and, ever, the rattling empty cans
painfully collected from byway and bin,
offered as last sad plea,
to hurrying uncaring world.
And do you think long years ago
a young mother once gazed with
naïve joy at her newborn son
and dreamed proud dreams for him,
then, lost in helplessness,
disappeared within
the busy uncaring world?
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Upon Finding A Package Of Smuckers Mixed Fruit Jelly
Katie Eells, Capital Manor
hg
Left in a bashed, brown paper bag,
Battered and bruised,
Too unimportant to be kept safe—
How would you like that?
And a name like Smuckers?
Mixed fruit jelly,
“Grade A Fancy”?
I wonder….
Well, some things are like that—
Left in a bag
Till I need it
To write a poem.
Till I lift it
To light,
Eyeball all angles.
I wonder,
Maybe,
If I hugged it,
Rubbed its little white belly,
Whispered “I love you”,
Would it smile?
Color me yummy,
Grade A Fancy?
I wonder….
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Wakulla River
Robin Gault, Holladay Park Plaza
hg
When does grief end?
The water, transparent as air, wells up in the deep spring.
We walked along that river on our honeymoon,
through fallen leaves, maple and oak,
river birch, sweetgum, hickory,
faded gold beneath our feet in the January sunlight.
Watching clear water flowing over sand,
we thought we could see all the way down.
Closer to the Gulf, the river changes.
Early one summer morning
our boat drifted between the banks
where the trees were thicker, the underbrush
choked with wax myrtle and thorned bamboo vine.
Rain pooling in the hollows rotted last year’s leaves,
until water steeped and brewed dark as tea
seeped from the banks, eddied into the current.
Until the river was all shadow in the shadows of the trees.
The river slows and widens, entering the bay.
Only scattered cabbage palms and pines
grow along the marsh edges, saltbush and palmetto,
cordgrass rooted deep in the salty mud.
On the surface, sun-edged ripples glittered and flashed
as the autumn wind and the river carried your ashes
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toward the sea, toward the sun,
into that dazzling confusion of light
too bright for my eyes.
When does grief end?
Where does the river end?
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Walking to School
Helen I Reasoner, Homewoods on the Willamette
hg
Excitement along with apprehension filled our farmhouse near Molalla, Oregon, as my
older brother, Sam; my twin brother, Harry; and I prepared for school. Sam anticipated
entering this new school as a third-grader, while Harry and I, at six years old, looked
forward to starting first grade. We climbed into Daddy’s green Plymouth coupe in early
September of 1945, and he drove us one mile to Teasel Creek School. After Daddy dropped
us off at the one-room country school, he instructed us to walk home when school let out,
and we did.
Thereafter, we daily walked to and from school. The three of us trudged the mile down
the hill each morning and up the hill each night in good weather as well as in rain and
snow. Mamma bundled us up in the morning if the weather looked stormy. Many sunny
afternoons we carried heavy coats home, slung over our shoulders.
We seldom saw cars as we chased and played up and down the gravel road. During the
rainy winters, deep puddles developed that remained even when the rain ceased. The boys
thought the wet and muddy spots were great fun as they splashed each other. Passing cars
sprayed muddy water on us when we neglected to scurry far enough away from the puddles.
Fences lined both sides of the road, enclosing flocks of turkeys with their large white eggs
that dotted the fields. Farmers raised thousands of turkeys in the Molalla area during the
1940s and ‘50s. We gobbled at the turkeys, and they gobbled back at us. We considered
turkeys dumb animals.
In September, the evergreen blackberries hung ripe on the vines. We stopped at the
blackberry patches and looked for bunches that were not too dusty and ate blackberries to
our heart’s content.
Wild cucumbers climbed the fences along the road. The inedible cucumbers made perfect
ammunition for the play battles we fought. The boys and I gathered piles of wild cucumbers,
equally divided them and selected a fencepost or a tree as a target. Then we competed to
see who could hit the target the most times.
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Each spring, we checked out the bramble and brush patches that dotted the roadside. If
a blackbird flew out when one of us threw a stone into the patch, we knew a nest was
somewhere in that patch. More often than not, we found a grassy feather-lined nest with
either the creamy-white eggs or babies in the nest. We looked but never touched the nest,
the eggs or the babies.
Each afternoon our dog, Tippy, raced to the bottom of the field behind our house to meet
us. He barked joyously as he greeted us but then bounded back up the hill to the house and
waited for us by the mailbox with wagging tail. His well-worn path along the fence line
marked where he raced each time he met us or when he chased the occasional car.
One afternoon in the spring of 1946, while I was still in first grade, a car slowed and
stopped near us. The driver was a uniformed stranger. The loud turkeys gobbled at the car
idling in the road.
The driver asked us if we wanted a ride home. I watched as my two brothers scrambled into
the back seat of the car. Glad to avoid the long walk home, they willingly accepted a ride
from the soldier and the beautiful lady with him. The driver looked like the many pictures
I’d seen of soldiers in the newspaper, but I was afraid to get in the car with him and the
lady, despite their coaxing.
They drove off with my brothers, Sam and Harry. Teary eyed and feeling abandoned, I
watched the car creep up the road. I began to run up the hill toward home, but soon slowed
to a hurried walk as I continued the long trek home. I dragged my coat behind me as I
realized I was all alone. Even Tippy failed to greet me at the bottom of the field, and he
was not waiting at the mailbox. When I started down our lane, I spotted a car parked near
our farmhouse. And there was Tippy nosing around the tires of the car.
I ran down the lane. Scared and breathless, I eased the kitchen door open, unsure whether I
would be in trouble or whether my brothers would be. I peeked in and saw the soldier with
his arm around the beautiful lady. They sat close together on the couch as they talked and
laughed with Mamma and Daddy. Mamma saw me and told me to come in and say hello to
my brother, Floyd, and his wife, Barbara.
This strange soldier man was my newly married, oldest brother. He had just returned from
the war. Floyd had left for war shortly after Pearl Harbor when I was only two years old.
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Four years later, I remembered nothing about him. Our family met Barbara for the first
time that day and warmly welcomed her into the family. My parents were excited and
happy to see their oldest son and re-introduce him to my brothers and me.
My parents invited Floyd and Barbara to dinner. Mamma cooked a good country dinner
and Floyd complimented her on the food, and our family laughed as he told about the
terrible food he had eaten while in the Marines. What a happy family reunion we had, but
it took several more visits before I felt comfortable around him.
My brothers and I continued to walk to and from school until the middle of my fourth-grade
year. At that time, Teasel Creek School, along with many other small schools around the
area, consolidated with Molalla Grade School. Then we rode a bus to school. Our faithful
old black and white border collie, Tippy, waited for us each afternoon at the bus stop and
circled around and around us as we walked the lane to the house.
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What Have You Learned
Mary Ann Hakin, Ya-Po-Ah Terrace
hg
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED
WHILE LIVING AT YA-PO-AH TERRACE
SENIOR APARTMENTS?
You ask me
What I have learned
While living here peacefully
Among my own kind.
What can I say?
Well…I’ll tell you succinctly.
No matter how cleverly
I’ve denied the reality
And told myself differently…
I have to accept
That I have grown
ELDERLY!
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Where Will He Go?
Joyce Easton, Willamette View
hg
“Fifteen two, fifteen flour, fifteen six and a pair is eight,” I watch my father’s gnarled fourfingered hand as he moves the pegs on our worn cribbage board. I am nine years old and I
love this quiet Saturday afternoon, playing cribbage with Dad. In our big family, it is rare
to have him all to myself. We are sitting at the dining-room table. Outside the window, I
note the coming of winter. Trees are bare and leaves, curled and brown, dot the yard like
unruly polk-a-dots. The grass in Jaskies’ pasture across the country road has wilted with
the first frost.
As I deal another hand, I am aware of my Uncle’s deepened breathing. Uncle Larson has
lived with us since he became bedridden. My mother nurses and cares for him. He’s family
and yet a foreign presence in our home; he speaks only Swedish. When I hear dad visit with
him, I puzzle over thoughts of their childhoods in Sweden, long before our family began.
Now Uncle cannot speak at all. His breath is labored and shallow. It seems like an extended
croak rumbling through his throat and exploding into his mouth.
My Dad and I are quiet as we continue our cribbage fame. He seems distracted and when
I say, “Thirty-one, I win.” I realize that he is not really listening. Suddenly the house is
silent. Uncle Larson’s breathing has stopped.
In the bedroom, the wrinkled face is still. Dad calmly checks the limp wrist for a pulse
and turns his head from side to side. With amazement, I realize that UNCLE LARSON IS
DEAD! I am frightened and relieved to see that my father’s face is calm, though his eyes
are moist. He gently pats the crossed hands and pulls the sheet high over my uncle’s still
face, murmuring gently, “It is time.”
As he goes to the phone, I am filled with wonder at the newness of this soft tender side
of my father, a side so seldom seen. Then I feel incredibly sober, a sadness stretching far
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beyond my relationship with this gaunt distant uncle. As I cry, curiosity overcomes my
tears and I pause in wonder, “what happens next?”
Then the solemn query to no one—
“Where will he go?”
Olaf Larson died in 1936
Buried at West Cedar Valley
Cemetery, in Elgin, Nebraska
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