Undertow
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

Once he has parked the car under the deck, Bradford checks the gas in the emergency generator. He retrieves his groceries and starts up the side stairs, twice being dropped to his knees by the wind. The second time, he bangs his shin, drops the bag, and cries out. He feels a splinter in the palm of the hand that partially broke his fall. 

At the top of the stairs is a small landing connected to the road by an elevated walkway of splitting planks. Beneath it, the dune grass bends low, pelted by rain filled with sandy grit. He leans against the screen door, holding the groceries against his chest.

By the time he goes inside, he is exhausted, wet, disordered in body and mind.
He will not rehash the house’s flaws. He has the building inspector’s verdict that the structure is unsafe, plus the cancellation of his insurance, and the agent’s warning that the whole thing might just blow away in the next big storm. Condemnation proceedings have begun. He tore the warning notice from the door as he entered.

He turns on the living room lights, crosses to the big window, and opens the curtains. Before him spreads the wrathful Atlantic. This is a big storm, he thinks; so be it.

The rain-mottled glass shivers, and he sees, through the blur, two surfers in black wetsuits struggling through the waves. The breakers are startlingly close. He chuckles at the surfers and realizes he must go back to the car for his computer, luggage, and files. Two trips, he thinks, but first, extract the splinter. Just then, the phone rings, and he knows without looking that it’s his ex.

It shouldn’t be Maud. They spoke only the other day and have long been on a regimen of two calls per year.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Bradford says, watching the surfers.

“Just please tell me you didn’t go to the shore,” she replies.

“I did.”

“What, to ride it out in romantic isolation? To walk on the beach in the eye of the storm? God, you really are a fool.”

Maud expands on her diagnosis for another minute or two, then lets him go. Yes, he thinks, I am drawn to romantic isolation. But I do not mean to ride out the storm.

To achieve the effect Bradford wants, the house must look like a workspace. To this end, he sets up the computer and opens the latest draft of his unfinished manuscript. He makes a final trip to the car to retrieve his suitcase and file box.

The rain has become more aggressive, driving into the parking shelter under the deck and puddling around the footings and pilings that (none too reliably) support the house. He covers the box with a blanket from the trunk and climbs the stairs once more. The papers arrive dry. Bradford is soaked.

He distributes the documents among the table, kitchen counter, and a coffee table in front of the armchair facing the television. He thinks of himself as a theatrical designer, deploying assets to tell a story, the story of a seasoned pro hard at work on an overdue project, a well-meaning worker bee caught by surprise when his world collapses around him.

For company as he works, he turns on the TV and tunes to the weather. He keeps the volume low because the sound can’t compete with the storm anyway, and he’s mostly interested in the visuals: the swirling trees, the rivers running through town centers, the traffic signals dancing in the wind.

And the reporters.

They seem cut from a pattern. A willowy young woman engulfed in a hooded, logoed parka clutches a lamppost to avoid being blown out to sea. If she lets go, she will become a colorful kite. Her other hand holds her hood in place. She presses a microphone against her mouth, but it still picks up such a steady roar of wind that her voice seems to come from the far side of a busy highway.

People have been first advised, then warned, and finally begged to evacuate, and traffic to the mainland has been motionless for hours. Too late to leave now, Bradford thinks. Too late to flee, and too late to call for help.

The camera pans, and he realizes the girl is nearby. He recognizes the gas station and the liquor store. He can read the lottery ads in the store’s front window. The sight inspires him to get a beer from the fridge.

He looks at his unfinished work. The project is six months late, and nobody, not editor nor agent, not department chair nor ex-wife, has even asked after it. He adds a sentence, cuts a paragraph, removes two awkward phrases. He becomes caught up in his revisions. At least the computer will record some work today. Besides, this is why he bought the place, back in the lost Long Ago, before Maud: as a place to hole up and write his heart out.

When his momentum ebbs, as it always does, he watches the TV. They now have video of the surfers, including an impressive wipeout. Then the image moves on to another girl reporter in another corner of the Apocalypse.

He looks out the window, but the surfers are gone. He thinks he feels the entire house sway ever so slightly. The wind is a siren now, and within the wail he detects a sound that may be shingles parting from the roof. Maud never liked it here, he reflects. It was a long drive, the kitchen was inadequate, and she missed her gym.

Then a distinct thump, outdoors on the shore side. Then nothing, as he inclines his head to listen. Then it comes again, followed by a short, high-pitched squeal – a bird? Out in this? – then the loud thud of something heavy hitting the front door.

He wants to ignore it. Maud has told him more than once that ignoring problems is his great strength. Now he resolves to prove her wrong, and he stands and goes to the door.

As soon as he turns the knob, the wind throws the door against him, and he almost topples. He steps back and braces the door partly open. The screen door rattles wildly, and Bradford sees a small pile of debris against its lower third, something covered in a tarpaulin, perhaps blown out of someone else’s yard to roll and bounce until it hit something firm. He’ll push it across the landing and toss it off.

He shoves at the storm door, but the junk is heavy, and he needs several tries to move it enough for him to squeeze through. Then, as he bends to lift it, the bundle moves. He hears the little bird cry again. A gloved hand creeps out from under the edge of the covering.

He crouches alongside the bundle.

“Hey! You okay?”

The lump tries to turn over. Feet emerge, a nose, a pair of eyes. The bird cries again as the gloved hand and its mate try to push down on the decking.

“Here, let me help you,” he says, bending to grasp the girl under the arms. For he knows now that it’s a girl, and he can see the TV station logo on the front of her coat. It has actually happened, he thinks: she has blown away, and rolled like a tumbleweed until she hit his door.

She’s upright, finally, unsteady, head drooping, not helping him at all. He puts an arm around her waist. He pulls the storm door open, wrestles her into the kitchen, and forces the door closed. The girl leans against the wall, then slumps to the floor.

He crouches next to her. She has a small, colorful bruise over her left eye. Her head falls forward.

“Here now, none of that,” Bradford says, thinking she may have a concussion. He lifts her chin, taps her lightly on the cheek.

“I’m okay,” a tiny voice replies.

“Then get up.”

He wrestles her out of the parka and knit cap, takes them to the bath and drops them in the tub. He returns with a heavy towel and begins to rub her hands and cheeks.

“Lars,” she says. Bradford is not sure what he has heard and says nothing.

“I have to go back,” she says, “for Lars and Billy.”

“First things first,” Bradford replies. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“I guess I lost my footing,” she says. “I must have stumbled. I’m with the…” She pats her chest where the station logo was, when she wore the parka. “With the…”

“Yeah, with the TV,” he says. “Out in this weather looking for a dramatic spot to stand while you tell people not to go out in this weather?”

She begins to rise but loses strength and slides back down. Then, with a jolt of energy from somewhere, she looks at him with eyes wide open. He sees dark eyes, deep brown, punctuating a face that is otherwise paper-white. “We have to go back,” she says.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he replies. “Nobody’s moving on or off the island. The causeway is closed and they’re turning people around.”

“I need my phone.” She pats her pockets and adds, “It was in my jacket.”

Bradford goes to the bathroom and brings the phone back. She grabs it desperately, and her puckered fingertips stab at the keys. “Damn,” she says, then turns to him. “Do you have a charger? Mine’s in the Jeep.”

She redials, holds the phone to her ear, waits, ends the call, redials.

“Listen,” Bradford says. “You can’t stay here.”

She snorts. “A minute ago, you told me I couldn’t leave.”

The lights flicker but stay on. “Where’s this Jeep?” he asks. “You can charge it there.”

“That’s just it,” she says. “The Jeep is…” She seems to remember something, puts her hand to her face as her mouth falls open, and she shouts, “Shit!” loudly enough to make Bradford wince.

“Shit! Shit!” she says. “It … it went off the road.” She looks at the closed door, orients herself. “At the curve, up there,” she adds, pointing.

“Your car?” Bradford says. “And these two people, Lars and…”

“Billy.”

“They were in it?”

“Of course they were in it! What do you think, they were walking?”

“Well, you were walking. Where were they going without you?”

“There’s no time for this,” she says, standing, pushing past him to the bathroom door. He returns to the dining room and sees the computer screen dim as the lights flicker again. His own phone is there, with a full battery. He dials 911. Busy. He dials again, with the same result. He turns to find the girl in her parka, dialing her own phone as water drips onto the linoleum.

“You’re wasting your time,” he says. “The cellular network is probably down, or the satellite…”

The lights go out. Seconds pass in silence, then he hears the generator grumble into life. The lights flicker, then stay on, and the refrigerator begins to hum again.

“Then we have to go up there and help them,” she says.

“What do you mean, we?” he says. Even as he speaks, he realizes he’s committed, like it or not. He cannot possibly send her back into this chaos by herself. The child has dropped into his life and taken it over.

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll go alone.” Her tone says she knows damned well she’s won this round.

“You can’t wear that,” he says, gesturing to the parka. “It’s drenched.”

He opens the coat closet and pulls out his own spare jacket: light, not warm enough, but dry, for now. Also, a New York Mets ballcap. He takes the knit hat from her hand and wrings it out over the sink.

“I’ll drive,” he says.

The car barely climbs the incline to the road. Ocean Drive, when they reach it, is covered with an almost-animate slurry of sand and water, driven by the wind that sings around them and blows the car sideways.

They find the Jeep easily. It’s nose-down in a thicket of dune grass, twenty feet or so from the road and a good six feet below the pavement.

Bradford climbs out of the car and crab-walks around its front, holding on wherever he can. He sees the two men by the car, one wedging driftwood under the front wheels while the other, in the driver’s seat, guns the engine and makes the wheels spin ineffectually.

“Give it up!” he shouts, but they don’t hear. “Give it up!” he says again, as loudly as he can. One of the men glances at him, gestures, and the driver lets up on the gas.

“Got a tow rope?” the man calls. “Maybe a winch?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Bradford answers.

“What?”

Bradford feels the passenger door open, and the girl is there, wedged between the door and the frame, hanging on.

“Where the hell did you go?” the man by the car shouts.

“For help, obviously. Come up here.”

But before they can attempt the climb, there’s gear to gather: the camera, spare batteries, a bundle of mysterious stuff held together with bungees. It takes the men ten minutes to climb up to the car, clutching whatever handholds they can and passing the gear back and forth. The girl stands next to Bradford and drums her fingers on the door frame. When they’ve piled into the back seat, they’re silent, and the girl glances back at them, then looks at Bradford and rolls her eyes.

He gets the car turned around and creeps back toward his house. He doesn’t go downhill to park. He can see the slab is under water, so he merely stops on the shoulder. He wants these people gone, now.

“Take the car,” he says to the girl.

“What?”

“Take it, go get help, get back to wherever your home base is,” he says. “Bring the car back when the storm is over.”

She doesn’t argue. From his front door Bradford watches the car pull away, its rear end fishtailing in the wind. He finds he is less attached to the vehicle than he expected.

Inside, he takes off his jacket, sweatshirt and shoes and drops them on the kitchen floor. The generator is running and a few small lights are on. The rain seems to be subsiding and he can see a line of lighter sky at the horizon. The eye, he thinks. Calmer soon, but worse to come after.

He stands still for a long time, debates turning on the television for the latest on the storm. Again, he feels the house shudder. He wonders how his disappearance will be reported. A writer with a bestseller years back. You may remember the movie with…

He damns himself for wavering.

He goes outside in bare feet, with his T-shirt clinging to his torso. The rain is still heavy but now falls straight down, and the wind has let up enough for him to descend the side stairs easily. He walks across the sand through a film of water, eyes fixed on the rolling surf now only a few yards away.

The warmth of the water surprises him, and he is waist-deep in the surf before he begins to shiver. The waves tower above him, and around his legs he feels the water rushing back to join the next assault. Beneath the curl of each arriving wave, he sees a mottle of purple and brown and gray, the roil of a disturbed world.

The undertow embraces him. He lets it pull him, then dives into the face of the wave and struggles to swim through the breakers to the deeper water beyond. Then he thinks, all he has to do is float, and this wave, or the next, or the one after, will drive him down, dash his head against a rock, pin him below even if he struggles, but he won’t struggle, he’s ready. He puts his face down into the water and feels his mouth and nose fill, tastes the salt and dirt. He gags, coughs, pulls his face back into the world of breathing, knows this is when his courage fails.

He kicks at something stuck to his ankle. A bit of seaweed, likely. But no, this weed is acting with intent. He twists his leg, frees himself, then feels it grab him again, firmly, encircling his shin with tough, sinewy tendrils…Fingers, he realizes. He kicks; they hold on. He turns over to flail with his free leg, then feels a grasp there, too. He is pulled against the undertow, back toward the beach, and then he is bouncing on the sand, tumbling, spinning, as hands clutch and tug at him, and he skims along the foamy surface until he lands face-first on solid, unmoving land.

He has sand between his teeth, sand in his nostrils, sand in his eyes and ears, and each new flow from the sea threatens to choke him yet again. He props himself on his elbows and looks around. The water has formed a lagoon between the surf line and the dunes, with islands of beach jutting from the dirty froth. The tide seems to be ebbing, he thinks, but who can tell? The incoming and retreating waves dig, deepen, and close off channels for the fast-moving water.

He sees the girl now, on hands and knees, vomiting into the muck. He is pelted every few seconds by broken shell, sticks of driftwood, pebbles, shards of glass polished smooth by the sea. The air seems full of bullets.

Her stomach subdued, at least for now, the girl sits cross-legged and gasps, the water eddying around her.

“I don’t get it,” he says to her.

She shakes her head. “Neither do I. I came back to return your jacket, just the decent thing to do, you know? And there you are walking into the ocean. You got a death wish or something?”

“You had no right,” he says.

“What, to pull you out?” she replies. “Tough shit.” They glare at each other, until she softens.

“God,” she says, “we must look like we washed up from a shipwreck.”

He tries to compose a response, and is still thinking when the house collapses. He hears it only faintly, and when he looks up, he can’t really tell what is happening. His vision is still blurred, his ears loud with sea water. The house creaks, gasps, crackles. Then, like an invalid easing down into a soft chair, the structure sags, first to the right, then straight toward Bradford, then down, collapsing into a jagged jumble.

“Wow,” the girl says softly, and begins slapping at her pockets, looking for her phone, though the video moment is already past. Then she looks back into the surf as she realizes her phone is somewhere in the churn. He is briefly proud of her, always after the story, always on duty.

Bradford finds himself laughing. At least, he hears a laugh that must be his own. He turns back to the girl and says, “Shipwrecked. That’s exactly what I am.”

Tentatively, he forces himself upright and takes a step toward the house.

“Where are you going?” the girl asks.

“I have work to retrieve.”

“You can’t go in there,” she answers. “It’s too dangerous.”

He looks at the wreck of his house, feels the slackening wind against his face as his toes sink into the sludgy sand. He shakes his head and laughs again.

“Somehow,” he says, “I think I’ll be safe now.”

Top Photo by: barth bailey/Unsplash.com

Rom Com
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

You reach a certain age when you know
the difference between a play bark and a warning bark
even when you don’t have dogs.

At about this same time, you realize why 
you’ve always hated the films about adorable people
and a universe that yearns

to promote them to the nuptial industrial complex
of sudden, final happy endings that have nothing and everything

to do with strip center glass massageries.

If you watch one more young woman puff
her hair out of her eyes with exasperation,
you will become an arsonist with extreme prejudice,

torching the little bakery, the precious bookstore,
the darling cafe, the sweet, white gazebo
and snow-frosted holiday inn

but leaving this stand, untouched: a tiny diner
with grease-lacquered walls where the cook
leans over his partition with tragic eyes

and informs me the waffle iron has a short
and he cannot make it work. By this time, 
alternatives are fine — I say yes to pancakes

and yes to the chance of forgiveness
that I begged you to ask for and you did 
and I said yes, your words in a box of robin’s egg blue.

Bring up the music in the soundtrack, whether incidental
or Gladys Knight — neither one of us will remember
and neither, thank the stars, will sing along

with battered spoons held up like microphones.
We have weirder fish and grits to fry.
Delivered on those thick, dishwasher-hot platters

is a rolling-out red carpet of make-up nonsex, nonsense
with fate giving the laces of our sneakers a reassuring yank
and tying the bow loops in an overhand for safety.

And we will run, a car packed with pink and blue suitcases,
a plaid Thermos and a drowsy leopard,
blowing a pop stand of personal grievance.

The whole diner is applauding now, with me wanting
the whole of this tear-stained and bloody, badly written world
to have what I’m having.

Top Photo by: lee cartledge/Unsplash.com

Edifice Complex
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

These mountains
you are carrying
you were only supposed to climb
     –Najwa Zebian

Your head a beehive
of honeyed thoughts
spun to wax erupting
from the chinks
in your weighted back.

Memories jag the funicular
of your spine, drag across
the cheloid scars, derail
your best intentions, flood

down the mountain of your need.

Silenced in the avalanche,
the boulder flow, the rockslide,
you spill silt, sediment,

sentiment,
burying your children
and your children's children

under the hill of history
and gravity of genetic scree.
You are the mother of all mountains.

Top Photo by: calvin ong/Unsplash.com

Brotherly Love
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

At home now, recently signed off the ship after three months at sea, with nothing better to do, I decided to go see my brother Bud. Bud tended bar part time at Donny Killeen’s on lower Broadway in Southie. Donny Killeen was a bit player in the Irish Mafia. For years, Donny had been in a loose coalition with Whitey Bulger. About six months prior, Whitey and Donny had had a disagreement and were at arms-length from each other, but the disagreement hadn’t turned violent … yet.

Around two PM, I walked to the bar, about a mile and a half from home. Even though I was making good money sailing as a deck officer on a freighter, I didn’t own a car. There was no need since I was only home a week or two every three or four months, so I walked.

It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the low light when I entered the joint. The bar ran down the left side, fifteen stools long. Each stool was a chipped, warped, battle-scarred veteran of many brawls. The usual odor of stale beer and sour bodies greeted me. Two regulars hunched over the bar just inside the doorway. Both turned and looked at me, then turned back to their beers. Bud was at the far end, reading the tout sheet for the dogs at Wonderland. He smiled when he saw me.

“Hey, Kid, didn’t know you were home. How’s it going?”

Walking down, I reached across the bar and shook his hand. “I’m doing fine. Just signed off in New York and I’m hoping to get a call back from MorMac.”

“Want a drink?”

“Nah, too early for me. I’ll have a glass of water, though.”

He gave me the usual raised eyebrow. For Bud, it was never too early for a beer, but I’d started drinking a lot later in life than he had and was determined not to let it rule me.

As Bud set the glass of water in front of me, the door opened, splashing sunshine onto the dusty floor. A guy stood in the doorway, holding it open. All I saw was a dark outline, but when he let go of the door and came in, I heard Bud mutter, “Shit!”

Half-turned toward the guy, I watched as he stood there, saying nothing. After ten seconds, he stepped up to the two guys at the bar and said something I couldn’t hear. The first of them nodded. The second protested, but the first grabbed him by the arm, and the two walked out.

The hair on the back of my neck rose. The guy walked toward me, his face twitching, a tic in his left eye.

“Do I know you?” he asked. A hair over six feet tall, but thin, with an acne-scarred face and a mushroom-like, often-broken nose. He glared at me.

Shrugging, more to ease the tension in my shoulders, I replied, “Don’t know if you know me, but I don’t know you.”

Looking confused at my response, he nodded and walked one stool position past me and stood in front of Bud. I slowly pivoted on the stool as he walked, always facing him.

“Hey, Huck,” the guy said.

Bud didn’t respond.

Both of my brothers knew some shady characters. Al Junior, my oldest brother, twelve years older than me, would fight anyone for any reason, displaying no fear of anything or anyone but our father. At age nineteen, Al had decided he didn’t need to listen to our father anymore and dared him to resolve the issue in the backyard. The issue got resolved when my father knocked him out with one punch. Al’s street name was “Sooky,” and he was on the fringes of Whitey’s crew.

Bud’s street name was “Huck,” after Huckleberry Finn, because when he was younger, he fished a lot off the Castle Island pier. Occasionally, he would take me fishing with him. A year younger than Al, Bud was more rational. I never knew him to start a fight, but he ended up finishing a lot of fights that Al started when others jumped in. Bud was a Korean War veteran, and he was different when he came back, not smiling much anymore. Bud worked as part of Donny Killen’s crew.

I was the last of six kids and the wimp in the family. Fighting wasn’t my thing. Even on the rare occasion when I won, it still hurt a lot. All my siblings called me “Kid.” An outsider looking in, I never worked for anyone’s crew, but blood is blood, and Al and Bud were my brothers.

Slowly, I slid to the front edge of my stool and put both feet on the floor, facing the guy in front of me. Leaning my left elbow on the bar, trying to look natural, I hunched over, reached down and grabbed the leg of my bar stool just under the seat.

Bud stood behind the bar with both hands on the bar in front of him, sending a message: There’s nothing in my hands and I don’t want no trouble.    

“Been looking for Donny Killeen, Huck. Seen him around?”

“Hasn’t been here in a few days.”

“Know when he’ll be coming in?”

“Nope. Donny doesn’t keep a regular schedule. Sometimes he’s gone for weeks.”

The guy leaned closer to the bar, his left hand resting on the front top rail, and his right hand, the one further from me, sliding back into his pocket. He glanced at me, but then ignored me.

“I got a message for Donny. Whitey would like to talk to him.”

Silence.

“Would ya see Donny gets the message, Huck?”

More silence.

“I said, see that Donny gets the message. Right, Huck?”
"I’ll leave a note for him when he comes in.”

A visible tension in the guy’s shoulders and a quickening of his twitching emphasized his next words.

“No, Huck. No notes. Get in touch with Donny and pass the message.” He leaned forward so his head was over the bar, about a foot from Bud’s head.

Bud didn’t flinch. “You know what happens when you pass someone a message around here? They think you’re more than the messenger. I’m the bartender, here, that’s all.” My brother was neglecting to mention that he also ran the books for Donny out of this bar.

The guy took a long breath and said, “Well, if you’re gonna leave a note, be sure and pin it to his chest.” His right hand came out with a six-inch stiletto and flew toward Bud’s face. Bud flung his left hand up. The blade pierced the web of his hand between the thumb and forefinger, but there was still enough force for the point to nick his cheek.

As the knife came around, I stood and swung the bar stool, hitting the guy on the back of the head with the seat, stunning him.

Bud had grabbed the hand holding the knife with his right hand. He was ready for a left hook from the guy, knife in his left hand and his right holding the guy’s knife hand, but the bar stool ended that. Bud pulled the knife out, the guy’s fist still wrapped around it, wincing as he did.

Just as he got the knife, I hit the guy again on the back of the head with the edge of the barstool seat, this time with both hands, and he was out cold.

Bud grabbed a bar towel and wrapped his hand in it.

“Who is this guy?” I asked.

“Whitey’s toilet paper. They use him to clean up a lot of shit when Whitey doesn’t want to get his regular crew involved.”

Bud reached behind the bar and tossed me a ball of heavy twine. “Tie him up before he wakes up.” Then he walked to the front door and locked it.

Rolling the guy onto his face, I pulled one hand behind his back and ran three loops of twine around his wrist and tied it. I was about to start on the other wrist when he stirred, so I leaped up, grabbed the stool and slammed it into the back of his head twice more, mashing his face against the floor, then finished tying his wrists together, followed by his ankles.

I began to shake, reacting to the adrenalin rush. “What now?” I asked.
“Sorry you got mixed up in this, Kid. I didn’t realize how bad things were between Donny and Whitey. I gotta make a call.”

Walking behind the bar, holding his injured hand at shoulder height to ease the throbbing, he dialed and talked for twenty seconds, then hung up. He went into the back room and came out with a first aid kit. “Fix this up for me, will ya?”

The hole in his hand was thin, and, amazingly, he hadn’t torn through the web of the thumb when he pulled the knife out. “You should get stitches,” I said. “I could do it if you had any sutures here.”

“Nope. Make do with what you got.”

I poured iodine all over the hole, used tape directly on the skin on both sides to pull the edges together, and then bandaged it.

He had me drag the guy into the back room. The guy woke up as I was dragging him by the feet over the door threshold. He tested the twine, then stopped resisting. What scared me most was that he didn’t say anything, just started twitching again. I called out to Bud, “He’s awake.”

Bud came in and told me to leave the room. I heard him talking to the guy, but didn’t make out what he said. Just then, a knock on the back door got Bud’s attention. A few seconds later, he and our brother Al walked out of the back room.

Al walked up and gave me a hug. He said, “Some shit you started here, Kid,” and laughed before I could say anything.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I got someone coming to settle this. Sending this clown here was a mistake, and him knifing Bud was even dumber. You’re part of this now, and I can’t change that, so just sit and listen and don’t say a word. Understand?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the front door. Al opened it, shook hands with the man, and then locked it behind him after he stepped in. Al said to the man, “This is my kid brother. He isn’t now and never was a part of the business, just in the wrong place at the right time.”

The man came over, shook my hand, and said, “Call me Pauly.”

We all walked into the back room and the tied-up guy’s eyes went wide.

Pauly said to Al, “Tell me what happened.”

The tied-up guy said, “I came here to—” but Pauly cut him off.

“Shut … the … fuck … up!” he said.

The guy shut up.

Al deferred to Bud, who related everything that happened. When he finished, Pauly turned to me and said, “Anything you want to add?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, trying hard to stop the shaking in my knees. “That’s what happened.”

Pauly stared at Al. “Sooky … you can tell Jimmy yourself when you see him.”

I didn’t realize until afterward he was referring to Whitey. Only his closest pals called him Jimmy.

Pauly then told Bud, “You might wanna get yourself another job. You wouldn’t want another mistake to happen.”

Bud nodded.

“Cut him loose,” Pauly said, addressing me.

Bud handed me the knife he took from the guy, and I cut the twine, ankles first then his wrists.

The guy stood up, shaky, his nose dripping blood, the cut on his scalp behind his left ear oozing onto his collar, turning his green shirt brown.

“Get out,” Pauly said.

“My knife,” he muttered.

“Are you holding it?” Pauly asked.

He shook his head.

“Then it ain’t your knife anymore, is it?”

The guy walked out, unsteady, holding onto bar stools as he passed them.

I put the knife on the bar.

Pauly started toward the door, turned, reached out and grabbed my hand. “Sooky says you aren’t in the business. I won’t see you again, right?”

“No, sir. You won’t see me again.”

Giving my hand a short crush, he walked out.

Al grinned at me, patted a bar stool next to him, and asked Bud for a beer. After taking a big slug of his beer, Al said, “Sorry about you getting involved, Kid. You too, Huck. One of the hazards of hanging with the wrong guys.”

“It’s okay, Al,” I said. “I’ll be gone again in a week or two.”

Looking at Bud, he said, “What about you? Pauly’s right. It’s time to look for a new job. It’s not healthy to be on Donny’s side of this.”

Holding up his injured hand, Bud nodded. “That’s for sure. I’ll close up here and then I’m done.”

Al tossed back the rest of his beer, stood, and gave me a hug. “Take care of yourself, kid.” Then he walked out.

asked Bud if he needed any help to close up, but he said no. Reaching across the bar, I shook his hand, followed Al out the door, and walked home. Welcome back to Southie.

A week later, Bud called and told me he was moving to New Hampshire. He never looked back.

Top Photo by: susie burleson/Unsplash.com

Latkes
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

We made latkes in December. We made latkes because Hanukkah was our kind of holiday. A celebration of survival. Or, as it's sometimes put:  They tried to kill us. They didn't succeed. Let's eat!

We made latkes because we could do it together—my daughter Michele and I. We could also do it separately and discuss techniques and shortcuts and commiserate over the cleanup process. Yukon golds or russets? Grate or shred? Peanut or olive oil?

We made latkes because everyone loves them. You don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate potato pancakes and a holiday that celebrates a legendary miracle with food, friends and candlelight.

We made latkes because the process brought camaraderie to our kitchens. We could hand out spatulas and aprons, point friends to waiting frying pans, pour wine.

We made lots of latkes. Loads of latkes. Heaps of latkes. We layered them on paper towels as we inhaled their promising fragrance. Leftovers (too lowly a word for these delicacies) we wrapped in waxed paper and stashed in the freezer. Warmed in the oven, frozen latkes are insurance:  a perfect supper while snow piles up in February, a late-night snack when you return home from the movies, an impromptu brunch on a dreary March day.

We made latkes for parties at my house and hers, and at friends' homes on request. We made latkes together and separately. Until we couldn't.

Because Michele died.

Nine latke seasons ago.

She made her latkes starting with ten pounds of potatoes, mixing the batter in a stainless-steel bowl the size of a baby's bathtub. "The batter won't work in that huge amount," I told her.

I made mine in five-pound batches. Two hours start to finish: peel potatoes, soak in water and lemon juice so they don't turn brown, shred, soak again, mix batter, form and fry pancakes. Add an hour for cleanup.

I took pains to make each latke about the same size. Michele dismissed this as fussy. Whatever amount of batter landed on her ladle she dispatched into the sizzling oil.

Her latkes always turned out as they were supposed to, brown and crispy on the outside, excellent potato flavor with hints of salt and onion. Mine were pretty good too.

She owned at least a dozen menorahs. I own one—blue and yellow pottery, hand-painted eighteen years ago by my grandson Andrew. Her collection included several elegant silver models, plus a Tinker Toy version her daughter Rachel created in pre-school, and a tarnished bronze menorah from her father's childhood. Shopping in a craft gallery, she would always be drawn to a menorah display and would always consider buying one.

"Do you really need another?" I'd say.

"That's not the point," she'd answer.

At Michele's annual Hanukkah party for family and friends, the aroma of fried potatoes hovered over the dozen or so menorahs displayed in kitchen, living room and family room. Michele invited each child in the group to light candles. All the menorahs would be lit.

I would have balked at the lengthy process of setting out and lighting the menorahs. She thought only of her home filled with candlelight and people she loved.

I still make latkes. Sometimes I imagine Michele watching, telling me to add another egg to the batter or to light a couple of candles to lessen the fried food aroma. But who can I call to complain about the mess in my kitchen, or about how, in the midst of the frying process, I ran out of peanut oil and had to run to the store? To whom can I boast? The latkes turned out so beautiful and tasty! And all about the same size!

* * *

Two years after Michele dies, my granddaughter Rachel tells me she wants to make latkes. At nineteen, Rachel has never been interested in cooking. Maybe this is her way of conjuring her mother's presence in the kitchen. And maybe, I'd like to think, she wants to spend quality time with Grandma.

Because we're working in what was my daughter's kitchen, it's easy to imagine that Michele is watching. Watching as we ransack drawers for paring knives or peelers. Watching as we stand side by side to peel five pounds of potatoes. After a while, it's even easier to imagine Michele laughing. Laughing when we can't assemble her complicated food processor. Laughing when, with the machine almost reconstructed, we realize we cannot shred the potatoes because one crucial piece is missing. Laughing when we borrow a food processor from a neighbor.

The frying process goes smoother. Rachel skillfully scoops up batter and places it in the frying pan. She waits patiently for the pancake to brown completely on one side before flipping it over. I am an impetuous flipper, frequently struggling to reassemble a pancake when it falls apart on my first hasty toss.

We don't talk much. Rachel maneuvers her spatula to coax some stray pancake parts into a round shape.

It would be comforting to imagine Michele watching this simple scene. But I can't go that far.

I remind myself the holiday is about survival.

Top Photo by: max griss/Unsplash.com

Virginia Beach in December
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

The sand– gunnel gray, and the shoreline wide
as a landing strip. Two other people, one collecting shells,
the other manning a metal detector, dot the beach.
Late December, and wind out of the east has us
bundled and scarved. The puppy pulls on her tether,
anxious to herd the seagulls. Paw at the Ghost crabs
scuttering about. This is the beach I love. Morose
and moody, lacking bright sunshine, the scent of coconut oil,
and chattering of neon clothed tourists. The winter
Atlantic: barren and brooding.

Top Photo by: marcin kolodziejczak/Unsplash.com

The Rivers Run Through You
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

when it’s dark enough, listen: 
you can hear the invisible streams 
flowing through the world   and through
you:  night wind brushing over the ridge
of the hill and through the window-screen 
into ear canal  nostril  lung  blood
all the unseen rushing over you, into you:  
nitrogen oxygen viruses micro-motes 
of dust water vapor microwaves    ultraviolet
bee-guiding stripes on the throats of marsh
marigolds    whispers of the dead and the never

to be born  Jupiter’s ghost-blue light
the cold radiance of the larval firefly
devouring envenomed prey in a communal 
late-night buffet with a dozen of its kin:
all of it  the night moving 
in your branches and you a tree of this world,
thin xylem sucking thread-seeps of water 
and energy     you:  energy’s leafcrowned channel 
from sky to earth  streambed for the lightning’s
bursting burning river    This is the literal
truth:  all of it running through you now

in through tongue and eyes and skin
and breath     transforming as you read 
to currents of outgoing air   clear creeks 
of urine flooding out of you again 
into the air breathed up by screech
owl and water oak and your own 
envenomed species-mates  to the septic 
tank and out through the drain field
into the obscure from which it sprang 
and as it rills through you  on its quivering
skin glimmers the bubble of your life 
your life  your just this now life

Top Photo by: pauline bernfeld/Unsplash.com

Heartbeats
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

I’ve held hundreds of hearts in my hands—not metaphorically, but actually. As a registered nurse and member of a cardiac surgery team, that was one of the many roles I performed, and, I thought, a particularly privileged one.

When a fellow OR nurse asked me to be part of the surgical team she selected to care for her husband, I happily took that assignment. I had known Jack from social gatherings over the years. He was a warm, jovial man who adored his wife, Joanne, and their only daughter, Mary, also a nurse. 

For a cardiac surgeon to bypass severely blocked coronary arteries, the heart needs to be slightly turned and positioned for the surgeon to perform the intricate attachment of a donor blood vessel taken from the leg. The ribcage, the protective armor of the living pump, confines the anatomy, leaving limited space for his task. A vein will take on the role of the native artery, now blocked, so the heart muscle will again receive vital oxygen, and its new home must be prepared for this restoration. 

Through the dozen years I spent in cardiac surgery, as my hands stabilized this legendary organ—often said to be the source of compassion, kindness, and good—I’d wonder if the person whose heart I held was any or all of those things. Were they loving and generous, or tightly bound and miserly with their affections? 

Or is the heart just a muscle? 

The age-old, casual teasing between neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons about whether the brain or the heart is more important has led to interesting discussions, though neither organ can exist without the other. Perhaps both sides are on to something: There are people who lead with their head and people who lead with their heart. We may have friends or relatives we describe in those ways. 

When Jack was wheeled into the surgical suite that morning, I chatted with him for a few minutes. I then accompanied the surgeon and his assistant as we scrubbed our hands and arms at the large sink before gowning and gloving for Jack’s fairly routine procedure of three bypass grafts. The surgery commenced. Jack’s heart was connected by various tubes to the heart-lung machine, which was monitored by a perfusionist, and which would take over the function of his heart while the surgeon worked. When the assistant finished removing a section of donor vein from Jack’s leg, I stepped into position beside the surgeon, gently scooping Jack’s temporarily-still heart into my hands.    

It’s one thing to hold a stranger’s heart, but this was different, and I was awed to be holding the heart of someone I knew. We had a connection, and I said a silent prayer as my hands cradled his body’s most vital muscle, now stilled. Jack’s heart would be stimulated to beat again when the procedure was completed. 

For millennia, writers have used the heart as a symbol of human passion, associated with religious and spiritual symbolism as well as the profane and evil. We use it in metaphoric expressions: take heart, a broken heart, wear your heart on your sleeve, follow your heart.  And there are those who are described as not having a heart at all. Dr. Seuss’s Grinch had a heart three sizes too small, until Mary Lou and the Whos showed him what love and kindness were. Then his heart grew a few sizes and warmed, changing him forever.

The simple lub-dub of a baby’s heart is reassuring to a mother, signifying life and safety. To a doctor, it’s a sound carrying a wealth of diagnostic information. To lovers, the increased pace of the dull beats can take their breath away, and reaffirm their love. And to those who mourn, the cessation of the beats they heard intimately for years introduces a depth of loneliness and despair in their own hearts.

Believed to churn and heat the blood, the heart was thought from ancient times to be the seat of emotion. The simple heart we see on greeting cards and emojis is an anatomically inaccurate representation of the real thing, yet remains the universal symbol of love and affection.

Over the years, emerging surgical miracles have transplanted hearts and other organs. I suspect a new home makes no real difference to those organs, but to the grateful recipients, it means life and hope. In a favorite movie of mine, “Return to Me,” a young woman named Grace receives a heart transplant, and later begins a relationship with the donor’s widowed husband, neither he nor she aware of their connection through his deceased wife’s heart. When Grace does realize the connection, she tells him, and he is shocked. Her grandfather consoles him, saying, “I knew it would have to be a very special heart to be at home in Grace’s body.” His poignant words are a comforting gift in exchange for the gift of life received.

Jack’s bypass surgery went well, and I saw him a few weeks later at a party. He and Joanne thanked me for taking care of him and both gushed about how much better Jack felt since his surgery. Joanne had explained the procedure to him beforehand, so Jack asked me what it was like to hold his heart. I took his hand and told him his heart was just as warm and full as I knew it would be.
Are our own hearts open? Not just to the people who surround us, but to the many who will cross our paths throughout our lifetimes? That would be a gift worth giving to others, and it might change the world. It rests in our hands.

Top Photo by: jesse orrico/Unsplash.com

Sunrise
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

I collect sunrises, hoarding them in photographs and memory for cloud-filled mornings that mask their glory. I have loved them since I was a young girl growing up in Baltimore, when my father, always an early riser, would wake up before dawn to make his breakfast and greet the day. The first light brought quiet time before the chaos, promising possibilities and undiscovered opportunities.  
Throughout my adulthood, I continued to anticipate the greeting of my day, the sunrise. Many Thursdays I leave Reston, Virginia in the pre-dawn hours and head east toward the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the Delmarva peninsula, seeking a much-needed respite from daily challenges of city life. If I am lucky, I will be rewarded with the ever-changing spectacle that is the sunrise. I rise in darkness to avoid frustration and wasted minutes of D.C. Beltway commuter gridlock, but my routine is secondary to my anticipation of a glorious dawn. Often spectacular, rarely disappointing, always welcome.

As I distance myself from the Virginia suburbs, past Annapolis, across the Severn River and Chesapeake Bay bridges to the sudden flatness of Kent Island and the Eastern Shore, the sky begins to brighten. On a day in October, early morning ground fog hugs the post-harvest fields of Queen Anne’s County, settling gently on the expanse of decaying cornstalks, fields sporadically interrupted by thick, impenetrable stands of old forest trees. Soft gray-blue skies, low-hanging clouds, layer upon layer, bordered by swaths of pale gold, hint at the coming day. With a final break in the cloud cover, a brilliant golden hole in the sky showers its rays, like guitar strings, onto the fields below, and disappears within seconds, as the clouds once again spread low across the eastern horizon. The sun is up.

I have a consistent window to the daily rising of the sun from my home in Ocean Pines which faces east over the expanse of Assawoman Bay toward the Ocean City skyline and the waters of the Atlantic. Each morning I anticipate the singeing of the horizon as the promise of the sunrise tickles my memory. I am rarely disappointed. The seasons do not matter. January or June, April or October, a sunrise over water is especially breathtaking in its brief brilliance, in those singular moments just before the slow, inexorable surge of the sun above the earth’s border. On cloud-filled days, orange is the primary hue of the sunrise, orange in all its vivid variations -- gold, amber, tangerine, peach, bronze, pumpkin-- orange, a color signifying optimism.

I eagerly anticipate daybreak, regardless of perspective, geography, season. On an early morning flight from Phoenix to Dulles four years ago, I noted the beauty of the sunrise through the window next to my seat. While different from my earth-bound trek to the Eastern Shore, this daybreak was just as compelling. We taxied first to the east, early sunlight showcasing the Phoenix sky in golds and yellows, layered by blazing white, against palest blue sky, whispery cloud lines feathering the horizon to the north of the spined ridges of western mountains. As we accelerated for takeoff, the sun rose higher and bathed in brilliance the parade of cargo planes, sitting wing tip to wing tip, at the ready. We sped past the huge hangar of Arizona National Guard Copperheads, sped past FedEx planes with their blue, orange and white logos nested next to the UPS brown and gold, all surrounded by teams of loaders, bustling to fill the holds.   

The acceleration of takeoff forced my back into the seat as we barreled past the terminals serving Southwest and American Airlines. Rising 1000 feet, 2000 feet, I could see the towering Arizona rock formations poking up through the flat plain, the major roads, straight, one with a slight unexplained bump-out that would be easily identifiable on a map, and then, surprisingly the unexpected ending of housing developments, abruptly replaced by a patchwork of green and brown. As we continued east, early morning sunlight created stark shadows on the slopes of the western peaks, shadows that moved across the mountains, morphing from a cat to a rabbit and then gone.

Once again, the day begins, signifying the covenant nature has made with us, offering one more day to explore possibilities, exceed expectations, accept new challenges. Years ago, while living in Dallas Texas, I learned that day’s end can also be full of brilliance and spectacle, punctuating the inevitable falling away of the day’s energy. And I can argue the merits of both day’s end and day’s beginning. However, I am a sunrise zealot. To me, the breaking of day is a harbinger of possibility, a guarantee of one more chance to discover unfamiliar places, learn new words, make new friends, heal old wounds and solve hard problems.  In my book, there is nothing like a good sunrise to begin the day.

Top Photo by: federico respini/Unsplash.com

Alaskan Iceberg
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2024

Looming iceberg knows my frozen soul,
Invokes a chilly dread I seldom welcome.

My body cannot feel its buried dreams- 

Cold monolithic 
Blocks 
Stacked On
Cold monolithic 
Blocks.

A chunk detaches quickly to the sea.
A Tour Guide gushes proudly,  “That’s called “calving!”

Iceberg splits and sheds a mass of ice.
Crowd expands, contracts against the railing.

My eyes lower to gaze within.
My body knows within how calving feels.

Today I do not look away;
Today I beckon cold, vast density.

If icy mountains mimic us in other worlds,
This monster flatters me, reflects my fortune.

Time chisels away, sadness pulls

Then splits and slips

Like my grief.

A chunk of heavy tundra rendered 

Weightless.

Top Photo by: annie spratt/Unsplash.com

To Make the Coast of Spain
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

(With all due respect to Emily Dickinson’s poem “To Make a Prairie”)

To make the coast of Spain
You need a pocket full of smooth and ancient stones,
The wail of gypsy music from a cafe’s microphone,
A crumbling Moorish castle full of restless, whitened bones,
Ferdinand and Isabella, bas-relief upon their thrones,
And the moon like a confession for the sins which it atones.

But a pocket full of stones will do -
If bones and bas-reliefs are few.

Top Photo by: dan gold/Unsplash.com

Ghazal Addressing Cumulative Grief and Periodical Bugs
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

Anguish, like periodical cicadas, bursts from beneath. Buried nymphs rise, sorrows strain from the heart.
One, then legions, of submerged emerge, littering hideous husks, eerie ghosts of pain from the heart.
 
A heartsick child, parent-scorned with the pain of youth without nurture and prematurely lost innocence,
shoves tears underground, vacates present, reads hungrily, seeks a different future in quatrains from the heart.
 
Loss latches onto loss.  Grief for today’s goodbye aerates soil, breaches the top layer, opens a door.
Old hurts spurt through the new rupture, hooking onto other loss, drawing a lengthening chain from the heart.
 
They name agony necessary, say the feelings must be held, even when they cut like razor wire,
even when they rip endlessly, one after the other, though the parted curtain, through the broken pane, from the heart.
 
Twenty years of shared timeline wrenched into the gaslight, revealing marriage flayed to bones, glistening with rot.
Attempting to stitch it up, needle-pokes provoke more recoil.  She searches for tears; love drains from the heart.
 
Wounded man lashes out, grabs for control, drowning her Self in blood from opened veins.
Wasted years, lives ground, late, into rubble, tiny scraps of love buried in the cold moraines from the heart.
 
They grow underground, drinking from the roots, year after year, inhabiting the soil, waiting to emerge.
They are biding their time. They wait, they molt, all unseen, unheard, until it’s time to crawl again from the heart.
 
Suffused with existential anguish, confined alone, is there meaning in self-mercy? Peace in healing?
She learns to knit and to weep. Adopts a cat. Searches for a way past troublesome chicanes from the heart.
 
Uncountably many, they boil from the ground, become imagoes, sing to the world of brief existence.
Unquenchably Self, the Poet winces at the strained trope, strives to belt out without shame her refrain from the heart.

Top Photo by: sagar vasnani/Unsplash.com

The Homeplace
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

For both men, today is hard.
Old and young, standing
In the yard

Where scores of children, for years           
Played and laughed, quarreled                   
And shed tears.

Clumsy chit-chat ends. At last,
The two shake hands, and
Keys are passed.

One rolls up his sleeves,
And one leaves.

Top Photo by: robin jonathan/Unsplash.com

Cassie’s Tomatoes
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

I had just taken the barrier netting off the raised flower beds when Cassie came over, squatted down on her heels, and stared into space. Cassie was definitely a peculiar child; she rarely spoke, and never played outside with the other children on the block. Cassie’s father owned the house next to mine and used it as a second home on weekends. Cassie's parents were divorced, so Cassie visited every other weekend with her father and stepmother.

When my husband Frank was in medical school, he and his roommate would talk about the FLKs that they had seen in their pediatric rotation. I thought that it was an awful term, but they explained that a “funny-looking kid,” was a child who might be medically healthy, but just looked peculiar. Of course, this was years before people knew about the autism spectrum. All I knew is that Cassie, at ten years old, was different from other children. She had trouble making eye contact and avoided almost all social interactions.

I was still mourning Frank's passing. He had died in the fall, and I was slowly adjusting to being on my own. Working in the garden seemed to be one of the few things that eased my waves of grief. Cassie watched intently while I added the compost to the beds and then used my claw utensil to rake the compost into the soil. I told her to come back the next morning, when I would put the tomato plants in the ground. That afternoon, I picked up a variety of tomatoes and other vegetable plants and a small garden kit for Cassie. I also picked up some stones to use as a marker.

The next day, I spread out my plants, trying to decide which plants I was going to put where.  I'm not sure when Cassie arrived, but I could feel that she had soundlessly sat next to me, watching. “Cassie,” I said, “I want you to put the stones in the middle of the first bed so that the bed is divided in half. The first half is your garden. I have to go into the house for a few minutes, so please pick out three tomato plants and they will be yours to watch over. You may choose any three you want.”I went into the house and brought out the pitcher of lemonade that I had made that morning, plus two glasses. As I poured the lemonade into the glasses, Cassie pointed to the three tomato plants that were to become her garden. She had chosen cherry, yellow, and Big Boy tomatoes.

I gave Cassie her garden kit, and although she did not say anything, I could tell that she was pleased. She put on the flowered gloves from the kit, and I showed her where to dig. We worked for part of the morning, digging holes for our plants. I told her that we would finish later when the weather was a bit cooler. I asked her to come over at 4:00 pm so that we could get the plants in the ground.

I was looking forward to the afternoon, and realized that it had been a long time since I had looked forward to anything. I baked some chocolate chip cookies and replenished the lemonade, but when I went outside at 4:00 pm, Cassie was not there. I felt disappointed and let down. I finished planting my vegetables, but left the holes that Cassie dug.I slept in the next day and did not get outside as early as I planned. I wanted to lightly water the freshly planted vegetables. When I went outside, I discovered that Cassie had already finished planting her tomatoes and had watered them and my plants too. I went into town that afternoon, bought a lovely lilac watering can, and put a note on it that said, “I belong to Cassie.”

I hadn’t been in the mood to plant, really had not been in the mood to do anything at all. But it was fun working with Cassie in the garden that summer. Sometimes she hummed to herself, though she rarely said anything to me. The most she said was, “Thank you, Miss Jean,” when I gave her a book or a basket or some cookies. I could hear her talking to the plants as I passed by with cookies or brownies or cupcakes. I was indeed putting on some of the weight that I had lost after Frank's passing.

All summer long, we weeded and watered, and put stakes in to support the tomatoes. The summer was hot and we had to water every few days. Some days, I would find Cassie sitting in front of her tomato plants, touching the leaves, softly singing to them. Then the harvest came. Almost overnight, all those little yellow flowers blossomed into tomatoes. We had cherry and grape tomatoes, Big Boy tomatoes, orange tomatoes, and yellow tomatoes.One day, while we were picking the tomatoes, I noticed that Cassie had picked a misshapen tomato. She turned it around and around in her fingers and looked at it. It was odd looking, and the color was slightly different from the other tomatoes. She looked at me, questioning. I told her to look at all the tomatoes – some were small and red, some were orange, some were very large, and some were still green. I said, “Just because they are different from each other, doesn't mean that they aren't as good as each other.” I added, “There is nothing wrong in being different.” I hoped that she was old enough to understand that being different did not make her any less worthy than her peers. She smiled, which was a rarity for her, and put the tomato in her basket.

As spring approached, I looked forward to planting with Cassie again, but this was not to be. Her father and stepmother separated and the house was sold. Several years later, my children urged me to sell my home and move into an assisted-living villa that was closer to them.

A few weeks after I moved, while I was settling in, I received a book in the mail. I wasn’t doing much cooking and very little gardening, so I was surprised and a bit annoyed to see that it was a gardening/recipe book, My Garden Grows. My villa was small and I did not need another book cluttering up my place. The cover had an illustration of a garden with tomatoes cascading all over each other. I opened the book and there was an inscription on the flyleaf, “Dedicated to Miss Jean.” And, in ink, underneath the inscription, Cassie had written, “You opened up my heart to making things grow. I think of you every time I dig in the dirt. Happy reading and happy eating.” It was time for me to order tomato plants – tomatoes and Cassie were happily back in my life again.

Top Photo by: andrew kitchen/Unsplash.com

My Navy Dad
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

A ten-year-old boy scans the skies over Los Angeles for planes in the days of World War II.  Closing the curtains for blackouts, passing on rumors of two downed “Jap” planes to his buddies, Donald collects five by seven black and white pictures of war planes sold at the dime store.  From the pictures he and his friends can recognize all the different types of planes that fly out of a nearby base.  Playing at dogfights, dreaming of flying, this boy one day grows up and achieves his dream in that blue, cloudless sky.  He becomes a pilot.  And later, this man returns from the sky, returns to the earth, and becomes my father.

*   *   *   *

When I was growing up, there was a flight suit, helmet and oxygen mask stored in the top drawer of the cabinet in my dad’s workroom.  As kids, we’d sometimes try on the helmet and mask; I remember the funny old plastic smell inside.  In college, my sister even wore my dad’s flight suit once as a Halloween costume.  

A large green footlocker in the basement held other clues to my father’s past.  It contained more of his Navy things, but it was seldom opened.  But in every den or home office of the different houses we lived in growing up, his “Designation as a Naval Aviator” hung proudly on the wall next to his college and graduate school diplomas.  With a dramatic rendering of an aircraft carrier with clouds and planes in the air, this Designation, which he received when he was awarded his wings in March 1953, is the equivalent of a diploma from the Naval Air Training Command.

I have always looked at my father through the eyes of a daughter.  First as a young girl, I stood in stocking feet on the toes of his shoes, looking up at my first dance partner and first love.

When I saw him next through the eyes of a teenager, I saw a very successful business executive.  Unfortunately, travel took him away from his family for up to forty weeks a year, and a distance developed between us.

When I look at my father now through the eyes of a parent, I see a man I respect and admire, a man who loves his children and grandchild and cherishes his time with them.  

But I‘d honestly never thought of him before he was my father, as if his life somehow started with my birth.  I’d heard some Navy stories as I was growing up, or the “Navy days” referred to, but mostly I just thought of this man, whose been in my life for forty-plus years, as my father.

*   *   *   *

At the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, I started shaking as I carefully opened a box, pulling out the logbooks, month by month, for the USS Boxer CVA-21.  This aircraft carrier took my father and his airplane across the Pacific and into the South China Sea in 1954.  I ran my hand over the cover and tears came to my eyes.  In my hands I held my father’s history, my dad’s life as a twenty-three-year-old naval aviator.

I hadn’t expected to react this way when I agreed to do a simple favor for my father and one of his old Navy buddies who was writing an article.  It was about a mission he, my father, and two other men carried out after departing from the Gulf of Tonkin during their cruise.  

They weren’t completely sure about the date of the mission, so I had agreed to check the ship’s log for them.  My dad had ordered up the logbooks by phone, and I picked them up at a desk inside, after working my way through an involved identification and security screening.  My own mission that day was to locate a few pages within the logbooks and photocopy them.  My dad would then plot the course of the ship to see if he could more accurately determine the exact date of their mission.

When I held my father’s history in my hands, I saw him with new eyes.  This was a part of him I’d never known.  I thought and wondered about him, not as my father, but as a man on the cusp of adulthood.  I wanted to know more about the twenty-year-old who began his military service at the beginning of the Korean war, this man who gave his days and those years to the Navy.  Like lifting the lid of a treasure box, I was curious, excited and nervous about what I might find inside those pages.

I wish now I’d smelled the pages, lifted the logbooks to my nose and inhaled deeply.  Would there have been the hint of the sea?  The wind, the sun?  The smell of fuel as planes took off, ships moved, men smoked on the bridge?

*   *   *   *

In 1951, before the Korean War started, my dad enlisted in the Navy at age nineteen, encouraged by a poster in the Navy recruiting office located in the courthouse where his father worked.  On the poster, the words, “Pilots, man your planes!” came from a speaker, with young men depicted running to get into their planes.  My dad and a friend, who both knew that war with Korea was imminent, and therefore the draft was in their future, signed up to become Navy pilots.  Because of high blood pressure, his friend had to switch to another branch of the military where he later would pass the physical and become an Air Force pilot.  For his part, my dad was deferred for almost a year so he could complete more college courses.  

It was only later that I would learn how his mother had doubled over with laughter when my dad said he wanted to be a Navy pilot.  “Oh, Donald,” she’d told him, “you can’t possibly do that!”  He’d been floundering in school, wondering what he should do with his life, but he did manage to get his civilian pilot’s license by scraping money together for flying lessons through his job as a newspaper carrier for the Los Angeles Times.  My dad knew one thing for sure: he wanted to fly.

The story told in our family is that my dad had passed all of the tests but had not passed the physical to get into the Navy the first several times because of high blood pressure.  One day, he and my mother, his fiancée, decided to check just one more time.  While my mother was writing out the invitation list for their wedding, she looked up and saw him bounding down the steps with a big smile on his face.  He’d made it in, but that meant that the wedding would have to be put off for two years since naval aviation cadets were not allowed to be married.      

My mother loved him and wanted him to reach for his dream.  They did eventually marry a few days after my dad completed his flight training and received his “wings.”  By then he was twenty-two years old and my mom was nineteen.

At the time of the Korean War, only one of every thousand men who applied got accepted into flight school, and of those men, only 70 percent actually completed the eighteen-month program.  My dad was one of those men.

By the time he had finished a total of two and one half years of training and preparing for sea duty, his cruise came.  That deployment at sea lasted eight months and came just after the Korean war had ended.  

The year after his cruise he would have his first child, a son.  I would follow in 1959, my sister in 1963.  But for those many days and nights at sea, he was a naval aviator, being catapulted into the stars and the sky and the sun, in his F9F-6 Cougar jet.

*   *   *   *

The pages of the log were fragile but not as yellowed as I would have imagined after fifty years.  They had a brittle quality to them, especially the register of ship’s officers typed on onion skin paper at the front.  I wondered if I should have had white gloves on to protect those papers.  I remember having to get special permission even to remove a staple so they wouldn’t rip as I copied them.    
    In my nervousness and excitement and pride, I talked too much to the guys who run the information desk.  “These are my dad’s logs,” I told one.  He just said, “Oh.”  I told the woman at the photocopy machine across from me, “This is my dad’s history,” as I fought back tears.  She just smiled and continued her copying.
    Each date had two ivory-colored typewritten pages.  The first sheet had columns with differing widths holding information about the wind, barometer, temperature and location by latitude and longitude.  It included air and water temperature readings, clouds and visibility.  There were also columns for general drills and exercises.  And at the top left-hand corner was an “at/passage from” heading with a line.  

The next page contained “remarks” in four-hour increments: 0-4, 4-8, 8-12, 12-16, 16-20, and 20-24.  It reported the ship’s business, “steaming as before” or “crews mustered on stations.”  The log tells the story of checking and rechecking equipment and people; firing the boilers and then letting the fires die; commencing air operations and ceasing air operations; releasing sailors from the brig and sending a few others to it.  

On March 5, 1954, the USS Boxer left the San Diego operating area and headed out to sea.  Later that month, on March 16, at 0808 the log reads, “Received report that jet type aircraft, BuAero #128192 piloted by LTJG C. P. Larson, 543028 of Squadron VF-121, crashed in position 20-22 N, 157-30W, water temperature 75 degrees.  Cause of crash due to mechanical failure.  Condition of pilot unknown.”   

Charlie Larson, the man in this accident, was one of my dad’s bosses.  He suffered a spiral leg fracture during his bail out and was rescued by the USS Taussig, a destroyer that was traveling with the Boxer.  Transferred back to the ship by a wire stretcher, he would be sent to yet another ship and go on to spend nine months in the hospital in Hawaii recovering from his injuries.  He eventually returned to active duty.  

Sadly, just a few weeks later, another friend of my father’s was killed in a catapult accident when his engine caught fire just as he took off.  He ejected, but his chute failed to open; the ship’s crew was not able to recover his body.
    As I copied and read the entries, I got a sense of life on a ship.  Carrying 3,000 men, it was a small city.  Even in peacetime, there were still drills to do and missions to carry out.  One of the missions was to escort photo-reconnaissance planes.  Some of these planes went over Vietnam, taking pictures of the French fighting in Dien Bien Phu.

*   *   *   *  

My dad and the other three men in his division were launched one mid-April morning to check out a sighting of a bogey (possible enemy aircraft) in the area.  Even in peacetime, a bogey was still a potential threat.  Was this a Chinese Mig coming out to challenge the US task force that was just in the Gulf of Tonkin?  Would my dad’s air combat training be called into action here to shoot down a plane?  

Dawn was just breaking as the skies were clearing.  While the ship’s air-search radar was working, the target-altitude feature was down, so the bogey could have been anywhere from sea level to 40,000 feet.  Told to locate the bogey in the sky, the group climbed to 35,000 feet.  As the number four man in the formation, my father looked down and back through the window of his canopy and saw the sun glint off the wings of the bogey.  Calling out “six o’clock low,” my dad led the formation down to the bogey’s lower altitude.

As they descended, an order came from the ship to “engage and destroy.”  The division leader, Lt. Glen Tierney, responded “WILCO” (meaning will comply).  In shock, my dad, his adrenaline racing, raised the cover of his “master arm” switch and flipped it up to the “on” position.  The guns, filled with 800 rounds of 20-millimeter shells, could empty into the bogey within minutes.  As they all got closer, Lt. Tierney saw French markings on the plane and the heads of the passengers through the windows.  He called out, “Hold fire!  Hold fire!” then radioed back to the ship, “Bogey is a passenger plane with French markings.  Breaking off the attack.”

The ship responded, “Roger-six-one, your orders are to engage and destroy within ninety seconds or clear the area and let the umbrella (a term for combined anti-aircraft weaponry) take care of it.”

The division cleared the area.  And the pilots were switched to another frequency for the twenty-minute flight back to the ship.  In shock, wondering what the hell was going on, Dad felt great relief when he turned off his gun switches and left the area.  

Back on board ship, Lt. Tierney was called to the bridge, where he was congratulated for saving the Navy from making a horrible mistake. 

*   *   *   *

I searched but did not find my dad’s name in the ship’s log book.  He told me later that his name and the names of the other pilots and their missions were kept in a separate log by the Air Group, which was not stored with the ship’s log.     

I made a second copy of the entire ship’s log for myself.  I wanted to hang on to those pages.  Read them more closely.  Read about the days of ship life, destinations.  Think about my father’s plane being catapulted off the deck of a ship, remembering that his tears always fall whenever taps is played.   

These pages don’t tell me about my dad’s life in detail, but like fog lifting off the sea, I can make out some of the things that shaped the man I know now.

It took me all day to copy the pages.  I then returned to my desk for a final look through the logs.  Manila Bay, Sea of Japan, Hong Kong Harbor.  All the seas he traveled, all the ports he visited.     

*   *   *   *

Later, when I visited my parents’ home after my trip to the Archives, Dad showed me the yearbook from the cruise.  The last two verses of the poem on the front pages of the yearbook read:
     The air group from Boxer’s deck,
     Has flown o’er South China Seas to check,
     The communist threat to the free world’s neck.

      “Fair Weather Training,” they called the task,
      Of the China patrol we sailed and flew.
      The whole world watched and wanted to ask --
      Just where we were, was then known by few.
                                             – Anonymous

I looked at a picture of my dad, at twenty-two, a young man, standing with his squadron division in front of a plane, helmet resting on his knee.  He was skinny, with ears that stuck out, but there was an unmistakable pride in his smile and his stance.  He was a naval aviator.  

I asked my father about his life on the ship, where he slept and ate.  Did he get out in the air very much?  Or did he see the sun only through the windows of his plane?  What was life like under the deck?  Noisy, smoky?  Was he ever afraid or lonely?   

He’s happy to tell me about those times, pleased that I am interested in his Navy experience.  A few years ago, he created a bar in his basement and filled the area with the mementos from his Navy days.

He loaned me his Naval Aviator certificate, his cruise book, and a copy of his personal flight log.  We’ve spent hours talking about his time on the cruise and in flight training, and I feel my dad’s pride every time.

There are more pictures from those days, too.  I am especially struck by the look on my dad’s face when he’s being awarded his pilot’s wings.  Head down, eyes looking at the Admiral, respectful but almost disbelieving.  

By the final days of his cruise, his flight log records sixty-four carrier landings and fifty catapult shots.  Numbers he knows by heart even today.  

He attends squadron reunions and marches in the July 4th Sudbury Town Parade as a Korean War Veteran.    

*   *   *   *

One Christmas, several years ago, I watched my father with his only grandson, my son.  Dad gave Charlie a model aircraft carrier and told him how he’d flown off one.  Sharing his excitement with Charlie, they kneeled down on the floor and put the ship together.  My dad explained about the catapult and how it pushed his plane into the air.  “Imagine that, Charlie, being a pilot and taking off a ship.”  Softer now.  “Imagine that...”

They both took airplanes and flew them around the room, practiced landing.  My dad smiled at his grandson, and a connection was made, father to daughter’s son.  There was a boy and his ship and a father and his flying memories...and a daughter, too, who understands just a little bit better, about the man she calls dad. 

Top Photo: USN/Wikipedia

Gleam
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

My father polished the whitewalls of his car each week shined them bright as teeth kneeling with a toothbrush and baking soda to scrub them until they gleamed and today when a man parks his car on High Street it rattles and shimmies into place all rust and Bondo yet he circles around glances back and cardiac quick pulls a hanky from his pocket buffs the whitewalls all spit shine and promise until they wink in the blinding grief of the noon sun.

Top Photo by: edward bowden/Unsplash.com

Bremerhaven, Germany, January 1954
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

Bombed buildings surrounded the harbor.

                 Our ship, anchored in North Sea’s gray chill.


My father knelt at the railing,
                                                                    held my brother & me tight.

On the dock below us, men lurched on crutches, one leg.
                 Arms ended at wrists.
                                   Black patches covered eyes.
Mended jackets with one empty sleeve
                                                                                     pinned to the shoulder.

                                   My mother sobbed. Hand covered her mouth.
                 I’d never seen her cry.

The ship’s smokestack blasted,             
                 the sound my brother & I loved to imitate —
                                   blowing across the funnel of an empty bottle.

Top Photo by: alev takil/Unsplash.com

Unheard Echoes
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

In the shadow of the gleaming white cruise ship, the shore excursion director warns me, “Do whatever it takes to return them on time and unharmed.”

“Certamente. Easily.” He blames me for last week’s misstep. Bound by the ship’s 4:30 departure, I find the afternoon tours to Pisa the hardest to manage.

As my group boards the bus, all twenty-five of them, I synchronize their WhisperQuiet, their listening devices. I’m not thrilled with the cruise ship’s procedures, schedules and script. I need the tips from luxury liner passengers to pay for my Renault’s axel repairs. I long to resume my small private tours without rules.

“Buon Giorno, I am Muriel, your guide.” I roll out the ‘mur-iel,’ highlighting my accent. The devices save my voice but trap me whenever my mike is on.  “This afternoon, we will have a short trip through the Tuscan countryside to visit the most famous tower in the world. I have a special surprise performance for you, too.” The reality will be bumpy backroads for an hour. The driver Giuseppe clicks the ignition and the bus shudders as he shifts into drive.

Except one man strides up the aisle.

“Stop the bus. You have to wait for my daughter and son-in-law.” He folds his arms across his chest. Clearly, this delay poses no difficulty for him. For me, on a tight schedule, it creates a disaster.  

He’s so close, my microphone picks up his words and broadcasts to the whole group. I smell the coffee on his breath. I must be careful what I say, while juggling this delay. I tap Giuseppe’s shoulder. He brakes and the bus lurches against the abrupt stop. I grab a seat back to stay standing.

“They weren’t on my list.” Twenty-five people start to fidget in their seats, looking to  me. We have arrived at the pier’s gate.

“Last minute decision on their part. Back up,” the man says to Giuseppe. “I’ll go get them.” The bus’s back-up horn blats. Two more people in my group which is already large for the narrow, risky streets of my city. I follow him to make sure I can hustle them back on board. He carries an I-phone but does not call them.  Being polite while forcing people forward traps me in a frustrating mental jacket.

A young man in tight black jeans strolls down the ship’s gangway. The father hails him—he must be the son-in-law. The gray December sky threatens spittery raindrops.

“Where is she?” The father’s tone reveals how little he likes his son-in-law.

“I thought she was with her mom.” The young man stuffs his hands in his pockets. I suspect he is embarrassed.

“You know how she is.” Turning to me, the father says, “She’s always late.”

I want to snap—I have a busload of people waiting. Hurry up—but I do not. Even though we are falling behind schedule, I must remain the smiling, informative guide. I will have to shorten my spiel, unless this nightmare of a family gets itself together.

His wife, the mother, has now exited the bus—one more deserter to round up.

I try to shoo them with thrusts of my hands. “We must leave soon, or we will miss our performance.”

“There’ll be another performance, won’t there,” the father says in a flat matter of fact tone. “Or something else.”

He is ticking off boxes from some guide book list. He does not understand Italy’s special moments of time and he certainly isn’t seeking unique adventures.

My surprise, our Baptistry performance, happens at the top of the hour and we will not be able to wait for the next one and return to the ship for an on-time departure. This time problem never happened with my private groups of three or four in the comfort of my Renault. “Can you call her, please?” I ask the son-in-law. I glance at the bus, alert for a mutiny of tourists.

He isn’t about to disagree with his wife’s father. Instead he rushes up the gangway and waves at some one. He shouts, “Sarah, over here.”

A twenty-something slender blond woman emerges from the ship. She adjusts her silky scarf. Oblivious that she holds a busload hostage.

The frenzy of his waving hand speaks a loud message—hurry up. She blinks like she doesn’t want to recognize him.

A crewman chases after the daughter down the gangway. “You must swipe your room card, so the ship’s system knows you have left.”

“I don’t know where it is.” The daughter adjusts her pink boot toppers over her knee-high Ugg boots. “Justin, give me the backpack.” He strips it off and she digs through its pockets, one after another, until she finds the key card.

This daughter won’t follow any of the procedures. I’d like to toss her into the harbor’s cold murky water. I can’t nag or they will complain even as their nonsense drags me further off schedule. To make up some lost time, I break one of the rules. “If you leave your room key with the crewman, we can depart. I can’t wait to show you my city,” I lie.

She flips her hair. A kind of eye rolling at me. The crewman, not dependent on their approval, snatches the room keycard.

“You must sync your Whisper before you go.” I blurt, more harshly than I intended.

Another delay while the daughter unwinds the cord, pinches the earbud and wiggles it into her ear. The bus’s diesel fumes coat my mouth. I shepherd the daughter, her husband, her mother, and her father to the bus.

On board, an American couple in the front seats are agitated. The wife murmurs, “Will we make our surprise?” The husband glares as the whole family of stragglers stroll the bus aisle, ignoring the delay they have caused.

I whisper to Giuseppe, “Hurry.”

The bus rattles over steel grates as Giuseppe accelerates toward the pier’s gate. He spins the curves of the port’s looping roads fast, the bus’s metal shell swaying. It feels like it will tip over. He dodges the cargo trucks, trying to make up lost time.

“Let’s do our sound check, please. Answer if you hear me.” I’ve added my own trick to the script. I sing the line of the Beatles tune and they will answer. “Oh bla-di, oh bla-dah.”  

“Oh, how life goes on” answers me, not a robust chorus but a few timid dribbles over the loud engine noise. I stroll the aisle, making eye contact with them all, taking in their Prada boots, their Fendi foulard scarfs, and their Ferragamo boots.

“Marvelous, my champions.” I use ‘my’ to build a community out of a random set of cruise passengers.  I may be alone in a crowd, but if I can get them to chuckle at my jokes, they are playing along.

I launch into my prepared welcome to Tuscany, surveying the group which includes English speakers in their sixties-seventies from the United States, England, or Canada. Can I restore them to good humor? The American couple in front seem to be my bellwether and they look anxious. Her interest in my hints of our surprise anchors me. I will engage them somehow.

“What a beautiful jacket you have, Madam.” She wears a Florentine red lambskin jacket. She probably bought it in the Mercado Centrale and no doubt paid too much for it. My compliment draws a nice smile. Rain on the windows blurs their view of the countryside, which is only leafless ugly winter vineyards, and it will destroy her jacket. “You can purchase a poncho at a stall in Pisa.”

“Oh,” she touches the leather, her mouth quivers. “Thank you for the tip.”

“Everyone, your attention please. Our agenda today is quite excellent. We drive to the cathedral’s baptistry for a special surprise and to view our amazing tower. If we can make up some time on our drive, there will be an opportunity for taking of photos and some small shopping.”

The American woman in her red jacket nods. She appreciates my attempts to restore order. If she and her husband were with me on a private tour, I’d know their names and where they were from. We’d probably become Facebook friends and stay in touch. In a group this size, I’ll not have a chance to make any connections.

During my spiel, the group attends to me, their heads swivel watching me, almost like a pack of dogs who know their treats will be tossed to them soon.

“The Piazza dei Miracoli, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is visited by thousands every year.” That I must caution them embarrasses and distresses me. “But some who are not tourists frequent my city streets. Please put your wallets in your front pockets, gentlemen. Ladies, if you can wear your handbag across your body, we will discourage those others.”

Giuseppe parks in a tour bus lot, nearly empty as the tourism season falters in our damp winter. I’d have parked my car behind my friend’s café, next to the Piazza, but instead we have a ten-minute walk to my city’s medieval wall. I must rush them, all the while conveying a leisurely mood.

“Please walk on the sidewalks for safety.” I trot in the street next to them. Their line spreads back a whole block. I monitor their faces to make sure they understand and are happy. I glance at the alleys. Thieves plague my beautiful city. Pickpockets are drawn to wealthy tourists like flies to ripe fruit. Umbrellas and hoods hide their faces, so keeping eye contact is challenging.

The delaying daughter is with her mother who looks so much like her, only an aged, nipped-and-tucked, heavily highlighted version. The young husband lingers at a café doorway, about to enter.

“Sorry we must stay together,” I motion him back. Who am I most angry at? The husband? The daughter? The father? I’d love to get even with them. In a fantasy I would send them off on the wrong bus.

Since the university cut my teaching load, I have walked this route three times a week for five years with my former company, until the luxury liner took over their pier birth. Those other groups booked directly for a personal guide, so comfortable in the leather seats of my old but luxurious sedan. They were pleasant people to know, who wanted knowledge and adventures. Sometimes they were amateur students of art and history.

I believe bad luck comes in threes, my teaching schedule being gutted, my car accident—I’d wondered what would torment me next.  Last week an old lady lost her wallet to a tiny Roma pickpocket. She discovered its absence on the bus and hollered the whole way back to the ship. That screwed my tips. I was distracted by chatting with an older Australian man who genuinely wanted to know about the architecture of the cathedral. I love a truly interested tourist. He flirted with me in a soft-spoken Aussie twang and I was soaking up the attention when she wandered off and little Roma children swarmed her. I’m on probation for that error.  

Like a border collie, I zip around the perimeter of the group, nudging them forward, nipping with tantalizing bits of information.

“Hurry, please. Our Baptistry, 348 meters in circumference, is the only round one in the whole of Italy. We must be in position for your special surprise.” I guide them forward with a sweep of my hand. Inside, I direct them to the far side of the baptismal font.

“The dome is a wonder. Take out your ear buds. Ready your phones to video,” I say. Across the Baptistry, three young girls with yellow ribbons in their hair and matching ruffled dresses under their black vinyl raincoats are alone—are they tourists or thieves? The latest batch of infant thieves I’ve encountered are probably only eight years old. I like children but I do not understand them. Whether they are a threat or not, I position myself between them and my charges.

The tenor, Horatio, mounts the steps, cups his hands around his mouth. He has trimmed his beard since our last evening together. Once I’d like to listen, instead of standing guard while he performs. The blonde daughter is growling at her husband and he begins to deny whatever she is saying.

I must hush them, or the performance will be destroyed. “May we have a moment of silence, please.”

The blonde sneers, but she shuts up. Horatio winks at me and begins.

The pure sound of his three notes never fails to delight. His tones reverberate off the perfectly rounded ceiling, creating a fulsome harmony in echo. He creates a major chord open, rich, alive. I check the face of the American bellwether—she is enchanted, her head tipped up, her eyes closed.

“Justin, how do I turn on the video on this thing?” The father asks his son-in-law, interrupting the echo.

Damn him and his family. The group whispers and murmurs, discontent, like they are collectively shuffling their feet. Horatio grimaces and he exits. He does not look my way.

“You ru—” I block the furious reply, you ruined everything, rising to my lips. “Really—you really will enjoy the tower.” I revert to auto pilot with my script and lead them outside. “Welcome to the Piazza dei Miracoli, and the tower, which is a symbol of our country to us and all the world.”

“A failed building as the symbol of a failed country figures, doesn’t it?” the daughter mutters.

“Miracoli means miracles.” I ignore her, even though everyone probably overheard her through my WhisperQuiet. “You see, it is the place of miracles because the tower has withstood four earthquakes since the twelfth century. In 1962, American and Canadian engineers counteracted and stopped the leaning.” I slip in the detail to flatter them and their countries. “We are so grateful for their expert help.”

Tourists snap those ridiculous photos. They lean like the tower or they pretend to brace it. My group joins in the posing. Do they look at the symmetry of the curves, the carving on the arches, the patina of marble? I don’t think so. “The architects over the centuries of construction have beautifully blended Romanesque and Gothic styles.”

A cold wet breeze whips through the Piazza, carrying the scent of roasting chestnuts. “You have twenty minutes for photos and to perhaps get a coffee. Try some warm chestnuts.” The slightly burned odor, not as pleasant as summer scents of pistachio or coconut gelato, evokes the Christmas holidays when all the tourists will be gone to Rome. “We will meet at the Baptistry steps at 3:15 on the dot, please.” I pounce on the word, please, praying they will do as they are told. If I had a euro for every time I had to say please, I wouldn’t have to work at all.

I shut off my microphone, relieved to be done with the cruise ship script. Maybe someone in the group will ask genuine questions.

My American woman, a poncho draped over her red leather, says, “Your English is so excellent.”

“I studied in your Chicago at the Art Institute,” Not an interesting question but she is being pleasant. “I’m an art historian by training.” I wait for a follow up personal question but she only nods with a smile.

 I scan the square, but I see no suspect small children. Perhaps the pickpockets have taken this day off due to the rain.

The father wanders away, backing up, staring at his raised I-phone, trying to snap a photo of the entire tower. I let him drift off, keeping an eye on him. He wasn’t listening anyway.

Three small girls, their dark hair tied with yellow ribbons, emerge from an alley. Giggling, they charge him. He is ignoring them. The littlest one pushes a map against his chest. The two circle him.

“Merda.” I don’t see the lift, but I know it has happened. “Stay close together in the square,” I say to the American woman.

I race toward them. The bigger girls dash off. Why should I protect this man’s money? I stumble on the uneven cobblestones. The littlest one drops her map. She’s slower than her co-conspirators. She stops to pick it up. I grab the collar of her coat and snap her to my side.

“Give it to me. Now.” I grip her collar, clenching the slippery wet plastic.

“Not-me. Don’t-have-it.” She squeals and struggles, trying to twist away.

“What are you doing?” The moron father yells. “You can’t grab somebody’s kid. Have you lost your mind?”

“Have you lost your wallet, toi idiot?” I shout. I tug her collar, shaking her. I latch onto her arm, squeezing. I am practically brutalizing a poor child on his behalf.  I don’t want to. I can’t let her go. “Someone call the polizia.”

He claps his hand on his back pocket of his khaki slacks. Of course, he hadn’t listened to my admonition about front pockets.

“Polizia,” I scream at the two other girls. “I will not release your sister until you return it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse my group. Huddled, horrified, clueless as a flock of sheep soaked in a thunderstorm.

“Give it back,” I shriek. This impasse cannot last. What kind of monster am I becoming—bruising children for a rich, stupid man’s money?

The two girls seem to confer. The biggest one approaches, her first steps tentative. The girls bursts into a run at me. Will they try to knock me and her sister down? The middle one tugs on my bag, pulling me off my feet. I shake the little one harder. The one gives up on my bag. The first one hurls the wallet to the ground. The father snatches it. I release the little one who flies to the others.  I stumble and fall. I haul myself and reach for a scrap of dignity before I turn to the group.

I straighten my coat’s lapels. I inhale deeply. I hate that I have abused a little child. My knees is scraped and bleeding. “All right, my champions. Time to walk to the bus.”  I motion them to proceed.

The father paws through his wallet, saying to his wife. “Nothing is gone. My cash is still here.”

“Ridiculous they can’t clean up this city of thieves,” the daughter says.

“You are the thieves,” I want to say but don’t. You overcrowd our town, you steal our peace. You attract the pickpockets with your wealth, your insensitive behavior. With my pleases and tricks and jokes, I am practically picking their pockets as well.

The son-in-law says, “Thanks,” as he passes by me to catch up with the family.

The American woman falls into step next to me. She opens and closes her mouth, like she doesn’t know what to say. “It’s so sad. Little children.”  

She and he are proof, I suppose, that tourists are not all jerks, but they are not worth how badly I feel. I’ll beg the university for some classes, any classes, to teach. I’ll start tutoring in languages again. I’ll plead with Horatio to help me get hired to sing the three notes. Next to the rumbling bus, I shake the tourists’ hands, accepting their meager offerings. I turn my back on the man and his family, saying to Giuseppe. “Drive back without me. Tell the shore excursions director I quit.”

Top Photo by: les anderson/Unsplash.com

Seventh Generation
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

My poems are short.

No one wants a short poem that seems to others to say very little, but to me, they say everything.

I am not a poet, at least not normally, but sometimes there are things I need to say, and they are not fiction. I have heavy thoughts weighing on my mind and on my chest, just like anyone else. Is this poetry or just whining? Maybe a bit of both.

I am not suffering, at least not now. I have suffered, and I have gotten through much. I am a cancer warrior. I hate saying survivor. Someone once told me we didn't have a choice, that there was no way of fighting cancer. I said I didn't agree. If you are not giving up, giving in, then you are fighting.

Sometimes I wonder where I get this strength from. I’ve lived a life and am still learning. If I were to write about it all, it would be a tome to rival even the longest works. Or would someone be interested in that?

I am a seventh-generation American. I am not proudly stepping off the boat from Nigeria or the Congo. According to Ancestry, that is where my people are from. I don't know any of them. They died a century ago. So, does that make me different? Not truly African? They have accused me of trying to be white. Back then, I could not find the words to tell people I am not trying to be anyone or anything but myself.

Should there not be togetherness? Should we not support each other? We could be so powerful if we joined as one and stopped accusing each other of wanting to be something or selling out because we are successful. It makes no sense to say, to be black, I must be poor. I will take success any day. If that makes me want to be white, so be it. But the thoughts are rank stupidity. I am proud of my accomplishments.

Are we not one people? Of the same ancestors, from the same places? One voice?

Does wanting to succeed make me less black? Less proud? Ashamed of where my ancestors came from?

I know this is not our land. We are all immigrants. Only the Natives can truly claim this land. But we can respect this land and be thankful we are here. Where I can write poems and express my feelings. Where I can make myself known without fear of reprisal.

How long is a poem supposed to be? How the hell should I prepare it? What the hell is a haiku?

But I am learning. They taught us nothing about ourselves in school. At least not enough about our past and our ancestry. What they told us was lies and half-truths. So how was I supposed to know how to act? My strict Christian upbringing kept me from doing many things. I was called a snob when I was really just shy and wanted to please. The years passed, and I stopped caring, or at least not as much as I did. Call me what you wish, accuse me of whatever. I don't give a damn.

I am not Maya Angelou or Amanda Gorman. I cannot speak of the greatness of Africa. I am certain it is great. I am certain of it. I am learning so much about myself, but there is so much missing it will take time. But I cannot speak of what I experienced before traveling to America. So many can say I was there, just days, weeks, months ago. They can speak of the beauty and the turmoil. If I did, it would not be honest.

I am a seventh-generation African American.

Why is that a bad thing?

I will be no one else but me.

Top Photo by: trust katsande/Unsplash.com

Anthropology
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

There’s a twister in this
        stretch of memory
barns and swallows blowing
    in and out the beams
insistent sound it is, pounding
in the saddle
        the spur marks.
             •         •
It’s a long stretch back to why
this is horse country
    long times divvied
out for petticoat crimes,
        bow ties loosened, old times
recalled in dubious detail
    nooses tossed lazily
across reaching tree limbs and over dry wells.
             •         •
        It’s a stretch longer still
for the sappers
    from farmstead to trenches
and again to the prisons.
             •         •
If they keep digging
more missing links won’t be anymore
Homo this and that – a fragment
of skull from just
    above an orbit, a bit of jaw
    less pronounced than before
        the head rounder.
             •         •
If there’s a layer or two
    of meaning still uncovered
        it’ll stretch
the one god fits all model.
That there should be just one
of anything is unsupported.
Who can know
    off-planet life
        won’t be benign.
             •         •
Elongate the horizon, locate
peaks and groovy sights
along our way
but anything can only be stretched
        until a day cracks
like a shell
something wriggling inside.

Top Photo by: timothy eberly/Unsplash.com

Skyward
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

(For a friend who died young)

Under the shadows of wings
We once ran,
Hair aloft in the gale, and arms akimbo.
Icicles for wineglasses,
We toasted our winter madness –
Our breath rising like woodsmoke, straight to the sky.

But only the wild geese above us kept flying:
We slowed, you and I,
Sent down roots against what once drew us on.
We passed our wineglasses to others, at parties we hated,
Urban obligations
Scattered through our days like potsherds.
They wrote me
That you spent your last days alone,
Calling out for a toast,
Or a letter.

On still days, alone,
I feel your new wings beating.
Your life, now divided among other lives
Shared like bread,
Each recollection both nourishment and boundary.
I offer up a prayer for you and feel my words take flight,
Rippling through this day
Like wind on waves.
God forgive us the silences we cling to, like winter sun
Bright, yet mute, on fallen timber.
We've chased slipping definitions of ourselves –
Trick-light on shroud-white snow.

I believe you are here sometimes, as the winter sun sifts through a thousand tall pines.
Beneath my feet, their roots grow old.
For whom do they rise toward the sky?
For whom will they fall away?

Top Photo by: jodie walton/Unsplash.com

The Chestnut Man
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

December 24, 2019
I put on my coat and hat and stepped out onto the granite landing. Snow fell in the wash of the streetlights and had begun collecting on the brick sidewalk. A faint smell of wood smoke drifted in the air. I slid my hands into my pockets and headed across the green toward the town center. I’d lived here in old New Castle all my life and looked forward to these evening walks. The proximity to the river, the cobblestone streets, and the timeless colonial architecture made it easy to imagine an 18th-century world here: horses and carriages on the street, men in top hats, tall ships at the battery. Many nights, my imagination took over, and those images followed me around every corner.  

But tonight, I’m thinking of another snowy Christmas Eve. It was 1949; I was 6. We lived at 202 Delaware Street, the third-floor apartment across from the courthouse. At the time there was a bakery on the first floor that often filled our little apartment with the wonderful smell of baked goods. We had gone to the candlelight service at the Presbyterian Church, just down the block. I sat in the sanctuary with Mom and Dad, anxious for the service to be over so I could get back home to the tree and the eventual arrival of Santa Claus. But the tall wooden pews held me captive and the preacher loomed above us and droned on. I was stuck. Funny – it seemed like yesterday.
                                                                       
December 24, 1949         
“Stop squirming,” Mom whispered. Dad scowled at me. I sat on my hands and glanced around at people nearby. You could tell it was Christmas. A lot of the women had red or white flowers and holly leaves pinned on their blouses. Some even had little bells or shiny glass balls hanging there. A few men wore Christmassy ties.

The preacher finished and the organ began playing. Everyone grabbed hymnals and stood to sing. I hoped for “Jingle Bells” or “Here Comes Santa Claus,” but it was only church stuff again and I didn’t know any of the words. At least I could move a little when we were standing, and mom wouldn’t get mad at me.

Finally, as the service was coming to an end, ushers handed out candles with little white cardboard discs for catching dripped wax. They lit the candles for people in the aisle seats and the flame passed down the row from person to person. Mom let me hold her candle. I moved it around watching the flame go sideways until she grabbed my arm and held it still. When all the candles were lit, the lights in the church were dimmed, and everyone sang “Silent Night,” which I knew the words to. The candles made everyone’s face glow as they sang. That was pretty neat to see.                                                                                             

Outside, snow was coming down. Mom and Dad stopped to talk to some friends. The wooden manger and some of the sheep statues in the nativity scene were getting covered. I wondered if it had snowed when Jesus was born. Mom kept telling me not to forget Christmas was a celebration of the birth of Jesus. I knew she was right, but it was such a long time ago, and there wasn’t anything fun about it. Now there was Frosty and Santa Claus, Christmas trees and presents – lots of stuff.

On the walk home, I tried to keep up but kept tripping on sidewalk bricks that were popped up because of tree roots. I wasn’t paying attention. Instead, I kept looking at the colored lights strung across Delaware Street. They were really pretty in the snow.

Under the streetlight across from our building, an old man was selling roasted chestnuts. He had a beard and a raggedy blanket covering his head and shoulders and tied around his waist with a piece of rope. His fingers poked through old wool gloves. “We’ll take a bag,” Dad said. He pulled out some change. Snowflakes hissed on the grill. The glowing coals, the bitter smell: it all seemed a little dangerous. The man scooped nuts off the griddle, filled a paper sack, and handed it to Dad. “Have a fine Christmas,” he said. “Merry Christmas to you,” Dad said. The man winked at me. There was a twinkle in his eye as our gazes connected – and then he nodded. I didn’t know why. I kept looking back at him as we went across the street.

In the apartment, Dad turned on the Crosley and dialed in some Christmas music.  Mom plugged in the tree. There were times I looked at the tree with all its decorations and it seemed to be alive. The tinsel moved whenever someone passed by, the sparkling light changed, there was a fresh smell. I liked to lie on the floor and look up into the branches, into the shiny bulbs, each with its own wide-angle view of the living room. I wished we could have a tree all year long.

Dad sat down in his big chair and opened the paper. Mom tapped me on the shoulder. “About time for you to get ready for bed,” she said.

I got into my PJs and Mom folded my Sunday school clothes. I leaned on the cold windowsill and looked out over Delaware Street at the colored lights strung across to the courthouse. It was snowing harder. One of the lights kept blinking on and off. A bus stopped and several people got off. Cars went by, snowflakes in the headlights.  A woman with an umbrella and a man with a scarf over his hat walked uptown. A couple stopped at the chestnut man. The glow from the grill lit their faces as the man opened the top and scooped up another bag.

Mom leaned on the sill next to me. “It sure looks like Christmas out there, doesn’t it?” she said. A man in a red coat rode by on a bicycle.

“Are you sure Santa Claus can get in?” I said.

“Don’t worry. He’ll get in.”

“But we don’t have a chimney. He comes down the chimney. And we lock the door. He can’t come in the door.”

Mom smiled. “He has his ways.”

“But how?”

“It’s Christmas, honey, magical things happen. It’s been that way from the beginning.”

I thought of the Star of Bethlehem and baby Jesus and the three kings with their gifts, and then Santa with his sleigh and flying reindeer.

“Time for bed,” Mom said. “Go say goodnight to your dad.”

I lay in bed thinking of the snow and Santa flying through the sky. Colors from the lights strung across the road reflected on my ceiling and I thought of lying on the floor, looking up into the tree again and how the room looked so different in the shiny balls. I could hear Mom and Dad talking in the living room and Bing Crosby on the radio. I wondered if I would hear Santa when he landed on our roof.

.   .   .

I jerked awake at the sound of bells. The house was quiet. No light showed under my bedroom door. Bells chimed again and singing sounded out on the street. I got up and went to the window. Snow covered everything and was still coming down. A group of people stood across the street singing carols. They all wore long, heavy coats; the women wore bonnets, the men old-fashioned top hats. Two horses were tied to a railing behind them. A horse pulling a carriage clomped by. I’d never seen horses on the street before. Another larger carriage with a man sitting high on a seat passed going the other direction. And then I realized the colored lights were gone and the streetlights had tiny flames instead of electric bulbs. The chestnut man was still on the corner filling a sack for another man with a small boy about my size. The man tipped his hat and he and the boy walked toward 2nd Street. The chestnut man closed his grill cart and chained it to the lamppost. He walked into the street in front of our apartment and looked up at me. He raised his hand and beckoned for me to come down.

At first, I thought it was a mistake, he must be waving to someone else. But he nodded and beckoned again. I shook my head and moved away from the window. Even if I’d wanted to, I’m not allowed to go anywhere without Mom and Dad. I peeked out again. The man smiled. He raised his arms and the snow around him swirled and flew. Then there was a twinkling, and I felt a rush of noise and wind, and suddenly, I was standing in the snow in front of the man. I was still in my PJs but wearing my boots, wool coat, and cap.

He held out his hand. I shook my head, afraid, not knowing how I got out there. He was a stranger. Another horse and carriage went by. I couldn’t believe how big the horse was. The man made the special smile he had when we bought the chestnuts. He pointed up at our apartment. Mom and Dad stood by the window and waved.

Bells rang again and the carolers began to sing “Silent Night.”

“Come on,” the man said. “There’s something I want to show you.”   

I took his hand, and we were suddenly back at the church standing in front of the manger. I looked around wondering how we had gotten there, when one of the sheep moved. There were a lot more of them than there were before, and they were all real. Several candles lit up the space. Baby Jesus was alive too, moving his arms and making baby sounds. Joseph was off to the side laying down hay for a donkey. Mary kneeled behind the basket where baby Jesus lay.

Other people approached, all of them wearing blankets and robes like the chestnut man. And there were other animals too, a horse and a camel. We were no longer by the church but near a narrow street with stone houses which I’d never seen in New Castle before. Everywhere I looked, things were different.

Mary picked up Jesus and rocked him in her arms. She noticed me standing by the opening and smiled, then motioned for me to come over. I wasn’t sure I should, but the chestnut man took my hand, and we went through the sheep and lambs and up to Mary. The chestnut man sat down on the dirt floor. I looked at baby Jesus and caught his gaze. He looked right at me.

“He sees you,” Mary said.

I couldn’t look away. I felt like the baby and I were connected. It was as if we were the only ones there, as if we were new friends who had met for the first time and were getting to know each other. It was crazy because I didn’t hear anything; I just felt it everywhere in my body. And then he looked back at Mary.

I glanced at the chestnut man. He was staring at me with kind eyes and a peaceful smile. “Remember this,” he said.

I glanced around. The animals were still. Several had lain down. The crowd of people was mostly quiet, but some murmured with their hands folded in prayer. A man with white hair and a white beard approached leading a donkey with bells on its harness that jingled softly. He looked familiar. Someone started playing a flute.

The snow had stopped. The sky was bright with stars. Droplets of moisture on people’s clothes and the fence and walls of the manger glistened from the candle flames. And maybe it was the closeness of the animals or the crowd nearby, but it didn’t seem cold anymore. A feeling of warmth and peace surrounded everything. I’d never felt anything like it. Mary put baby Jesus back in the basket and cupped his face in her hands. It seemed to glow.

.   .   .

“Hey, sleepyhead, wake up. It’s Christmas morning.”

I opened my eyes. Mom smiled down at me. Dad stood in the doorway. At first, I wasn’t sure where I was and then wondered how I got back in the house. I scrambled up and looked out the window. The lights were back again. Snow covered the street, the sidewalks, and the parked cars. There were no more horses or carriages. The city green was white as far as I could see. No one was out. A few tire marks showed on the road.

“Looks like Santa found his way in. You have presents under the tree,” Mom said.

I looked at them. “I saw him last night,” I said.

“You saw Santa?” Mom said.

“Jesus. And Mary and Joseph were there and the chestnut man, and other people. I think Santa was there too. He had a donkey.”

Mom glanced at Dad and then back at me. “Wow. You had quite a night.”

“That was some dream,” Dad said.

The sensation I had looking into baby Jesus’s eyes was still with me. I could feel it in every part of my body. I shook my head. “It wasn’t a dream. You waved to me.”

They looked at each other again. “Don’t remember that,” Mom said.

“I want to go back to church. I need to see the manger again.”

.   .   .

After we opened presents and had breakfast, Mom and I went outside. The wind picked up little clouds of snow and piled them against the buildings and along the curb. A car went by. Across the street, a man pulled a little girl on a sled. I looked for the horses and carriages I’d seen last night. There had been so many of them, but this morning, there were none. The chestnut man’s grill cart was still chained to the lamppost and covered with a layer of snow. I tried to remember if I had seen any cars last night.

At the church, we stood in front of the manger. The whole display was smaller than I’d remembered. There were fewer animals than last night. Some were dusted with snow. Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, and the three wise men were protected by a slanted roof. Mary was kneeling with her hands folded in her lap. I didn’t remember seeing the wise men last night. Maybe they hadn’t gotten there yet. A couple of wooden crates in the display had white cardboard discs and piles of melted wax on them where candles had burned down.  I was so confused. Some of this seemed right, but some wasn’t anything like I remembered. Of course, this was just a pretend display, statues made of plaster. Nothing was real. Last night everything had been real. We had to have been somewhere else.  

Mom shivered. “Imagine how cold it would have been in an open manger like this,” she said.  

I could see the chestnut man’s eyes again and hear him speaking to me. “It was warm in the manger. It was safe and warm like an invisible cloud covered everything.”

Mom looked at me, her mouth slightly open. “Was that your dream, honey?”

The baby Jesus statue’s nose had a chip in it. I thought about his real face, how we had connected, how it had made me feel. And then I remembered how he looked with his face cupped in Mary’s hands. I wanted to tell Mom about it. Tell her so she’d understand, feel what I’d felt last night. I wanted to tell everyone. But I wasn’t sure how I would ever do it. Then…

“Mom... I know what I want to be when I grow up.”
                                                           
December 24, 2019
Hard to believe that was 70 years ago. I’m still overcome every time I think of it.

I crossed East 2nd Street, careful not to trip on the snow-covered cobblestones, and turned down Delaware Street toward the river. As I approached Jessop’s Tavern, the door opened, and Doris and Ed Maxwell came out. “Ah, the Maxwells,” I said. “How was dinner at the tavern?”

“Good as always, John,” Doris said. She wrapped her arm around mine and they both walked with me. “Your evening walk?”

“The best part of my day,” I said.

“We were talking about you earlier.”   

“Uh-oh.”

“We’ve been going to the Christmas Eve service for more than twenty years now,” Ed said. “I swear it gets better every year.”

“You take us right back to that night in Bethlehem,” Doris said. “Everything seems so real. I’m always left with such a comforting feeling.”

I smiled, and for just a moment, I was six years old again, feeling very proud. “It is real, you know.”

We got to their car and Ed opened the door for Doris. “Enjoy the rest of your walk, Reverend,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you both,” I said.

Top Photo by: josh hild/Unsplash.com

Bread Pudding
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

Our friendship was easy and strong, no demands and no issues. He was handsome, wild and non-conforming, truant, trouble. I was popular, a class leader, rule-follower, conformist. High school kids. A couple, but not within the definitions allowed in school. Not romantic, not dating, just always seen together. Safe without demands. The school staff questioned my relationship with him. We knew what the opinions were, and we ignored them. We were young and we could ignore. There were very few boundaries and no definitions to our friendship. Two young people who liked to be together. Sometimes he quickly kissed me.

Graduation was called commencement in the late ’50s. It was a beginning and the speeches from the podium, on that hot, non-air-conditioned June day, proclaimed new life, new opportunities, new freedom. But he was one of the graduates sweating and not listening under his cap and gown. He did not feel a new life or new opportunities, only a new freedom, which he could not fathom. Freedom. The first thing he would do was render that to a drill sergeant. He was going into the Army.

“I’m going into the Army on Friday. What are you doing tomorrow? I have one day. Let’s do something.”

He did not want to spend his last day with the girl who was going to cry and moan about him writing to her and coming back to her. He did not want to spend the day with the easy girl who would spread her legs for him. There would be plenty of that along the way. He wanted to be with me but did not quite know why. Just an easy choice.    

The plan to spend the day together came rather nonchalantly when we were entering into the city swimming pool. The day after graduation was even hotter. The all-night parties left most graduates wanting to laze around the aqua water and be together one more day before commencing.

Could it be that we were holding on to the one thing we learned yesterday – the knowledge that we and our classmates would never be together again after 12 years? Our class was small, fifty-seven in 1957. We were almost a clique. Within that clique, he and I were part of a core of students that had traveled together since first grade. He and I were in that tight inner group, and even more so because we lived on the same road and saw each other outside of school, too. He was going to miss me, and I was going to miss him. He did not realize it, but this one day was to assure him that I would always be on our road, at the same phone number and walking the same streets while he was gone.

“I’ll always be here,” I promised.

He called me when he got out of the Army. He called me when his grandmother died. He called me when he got married. Divorced. Married. Divorced. He called when he was diagnosed with cancer and when he was cancer-free. He called me when he put his life back together. He had some interest in my life and family, but not much.

Fifty-five years after graduating, he called me to tell me he was very sick. His cancer was back. “I’m not going to beat it this time.”

I promised years ago that I would always be here for him but did not expect, after so many years, that he would want me to fulfill that promise. But he just wanted to talk. Easy.

I lived a state away and could not incorporate him into my life now. I was a widow and had begun a literary career. He brought me up on his story and asked for mine. During the next weeks, he called often.

“Bread pudding,” he said, his voice noticeably weaker. “Custard-topped bread pudding like my grandmother used to make.”

I looked up my recipe and resolved to make it for him. But he was so far away, and I delayed. We talked and again I thought, I’ll make that bread pudding. It was so easy to go back to my busy life after hanging up the phone. The bread pudding was nagging me, but I kept putting it off.

I do not know why, on that particular Wednesday, weeks after he asked for it, I made custard-topped bread pudding and packed a cooler. Today I would drive from Delaware over the Chesapeake Bay – 200 miles – and take his wish to the nursing home deep in southern Maryland.

The nursing home and his room were exactly like thousands of others. Generic and almost clean. Antiseptic to blanket a smell. A cheery bulletin board and a pitcher of ice water. One window. One chair.

He was surprised to see me sitting, quietly waiting for him to wake up.

“What are you doing here?” he asked with astonishment and happiness all over his face.

“Bread pudding,” I replied.

He was weak and had little appetite, but he wanted his portion. I helped him to sit up and eat. We each had a creamy, rich, nutmeg-flavored, sugary-sweet bread pudding with custard on top. Just like he remembered.

“Exactly right,” he said.
He did not eat much, but the renewal on his face belied his fate and took me back to the handsome boy of 1957.

“Cancer is burning me up.” He told me he was hot as he handed his bowl back. I got a cool cloth and wiped his head, back, chest, and arms to take the fever down. It was the first time I had ever touched his body.

We talked of old times and how important we have been to each other. He said he loved me, and I knew, in some ways, I loved him, too. “I love you, too,” I told him. We had what was our allotted devotion. A love that fulfills promises – eventually.

We enjoyed each other in this generic nursing home room where announcements on the speaker interrupted his sleep and the pulsing oxygen helped him to relax. He opened his eyes often to make sure I was still there.

“Are you a dream?”

“Hardly...you ate my bread pudding.”

One last smile before his medication ended our day. I kissed him and said goodbye.

He died on Thursday.

The End

CUSTARD BREAD  PUDDING

4 eggs 
3/4 cup sugar
1 ¼  tsp. vanilla 
1 lg. can Pet evaporated milk 
2 cups whole milk 
4-5 slices of bread* buttered on both sides and broken into pieces
Nutmeg

Combine with a whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and both milks.
Beat well for several minutes until the sugar is dissolved.
Pour in a 1-1/2 qt. casserole dish.
Gently mix bread to wet.  It will float on top.
Sprinkle with nutmeg.
Set casserole dish in a pan of hot water in oven.
Bake at 350 degrees until set: 1 hour and 6 minutes.

*Recipe calls for day-old white bread; however, I have used whole wheat; sometimes fresh, sometimes not – it doesn't seem to matter.
Use 6 slices of bread if you do not want custard on top.


Top Photo by: amanda lim/Unsplash.com

The Secret of Bones
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

                So you can get to know me better Victor
we should tell each other a secret.
                First let’s loosen up a bit
with a shot of that smoky whiskey you like.
Dang                that burns going down                but
oh yeah           there it is             the slight haze
that slow rumba behind my eyes.
But I digress.                       I’ll go first.
                I think that scattered skeletons reassemble themselves
and become invisible                     when they do.
And I’m not just talking about humans.
                I was walking in the desert and
saw kangaroo rat bones under
a saguaro cactus.             That was stunning in itself         but
what happened next      even more so.
                So I’m standing there
sweat gurgling down my back
practically puddling in my hiking boots
staring at this thing in fascination
                magnolia white skull and teeth          needley ribs
when     it           starts                   to               move
a few coupled bones at a time
rising up to knee height             hovering.
Waiting for the rest of the bone groups
to join them.
                This doesn’t take long but
with the sun blasting the top of my head
a cast iron frying pan on medium high flame
it seems               m  u  c   h              l o n  g   e    r.
                Anyway               I’m watching the assemblaging
not freaked out because          deep down
I’ve always known this happens
and there it is                 now complete
tiny neck bones and spine         tinier feet bones        paper pelvis
floating slowly to mid thigh     then chest          until
it’s finally eye level.
                Then
w h o o s h           like a movie UFO
                its gone.
Victor             I ask you             what the fuck?   

Top Photo by: christoph von gellhorn/Unsplash.com

Reflections on a York River Oyster
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

I.
Was it Swift who said
he was a bold man
that first ate an oyster?

I think it was a woman.
Who else could predict
the complexity
           of freshwater meeting salt,
the burden
           of filtering the Bay,
the palate and price
           of triggering desire,      
and decide to swallow it all?

II.
Protandric, adjective:
           having male reproductive organs
           while young
           and female reproductive organs
           later in a lifecycle
You know, then,
how to be everything
to yourself.

III.
Shuck is such a word.
You don’t make it easy either,
do you—until you’re pried
and opened?

IV.
Our oystermen ancestors
lived by the tides,
like you and with you,
until you couldn’t
and they couldn’t,
and the Bay and its rivers
grew murkier
with your absence—
for a time.
But you’ve come
back to your beds now,
old and new.

Top Photo by: ben stern/Unsplash.com

Riding With Bees
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2023

The swarm is in a bag in the back of their station wagon. As her father drives, nine-year-old Stacy wonders how many people would willingly ride across town with thousands of bees in their car, windows rolled-up to muffle outside sounds, which helps keep the bees calm.

Stacy thinks about the dangers of riding with bees––if the bag isn’t tied off tight enough, if the queen finds any hole, wanders out, every bee will follow––and attack. There could be collisions. Someone could die.

Stacy looks at her red-faced father staring straight ahead, hands gripping the wheel. She knows not to speak to him. Knows he is tense. She needs a breath of fresh air; hopes he will soon crack his window. She doesn’t dare open hers first.

From her beekeeping father, Stacy learned about bees as he used the tip of his putty knife to point out workers––drones––queen. With hive opened, she’d watched and learned about the cooperative, efficient, hard-working ways of bees, which she greatly admired. She knew if she could have one wish it would be for her father to run his own home like a colony of bees––instead, he was the long-clawed bear that ripped their hive apart. Stacy learned to keep her distance, except when it came to bees.

Always she went along when he collected a swarm. Beforehand, she watched him prepare the new hive. At the swarm as her father puts on white overalls, veil, and gloves, Stacy tells terrified onlookers to keep voices low, stay back in the shade––tells them the bees don’t want to sting, but they will protect their queen! Purposely she doesn’t say that before swarming bees engorge on honey, so most are too doped-up to sting. By making her father look brave and heroic Stacey can earn a few precious days on his good side.

All eyes on the beekeeper, her father brings out the smoker, gathers a handful of dry grass, gets a fire going inside the metal canister––first smoke seeping from nozzle. Pressing the bellows, he sends sweet-smelling smoke floating. Walking slowly towards the swarm, more smoke puffs as guard bees attack this invader. Just beneath the beautiful buzzing mass, Stacy’s father lays out a white sheet, evenly, flat. Ladder against tree he climbs, smokes the swarm, then gave the branch one fast snap. En masse the swarm drops to the sheet, lays two inches deep on a sea of white. Her father then gathers the four corners, shakes the bees toward a single opening, and as if they’ve become liquid he pours them into the waiting bag like water. With a piece of cardboard, he whisks away any bees clinging to his clothing, then scoops up clumps of strays, flicks them into the bag. Then the knot tied tight.

Only when off the highway does her father crack his window, glance at Stacey, allow a smile. Stacey then cracks her window knowing she has earned a few safe days.

Top Photo by: wolfgang hasselmann/Unsplash.com

Stolen
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2022

In the fall of 1967 I was finally home after a difficult tour in Vietnam. But disconnecting hadn’t been easy. My mind often wandered back and gruesome images left me anxious and unsettled.

Uncle Jack had offered me a weekend at the cabin on Bear Lake. “A good place to chill out,” he’d said, “shake off the willies.”  I took him up on it.

Before going to bed that first night I walked down the wooded lane and onto the road. The evening was cool and comfortable; starlight peeked through the trees. It occurred to me that for the first time in months I was out after dark and actually felt safe. I let that sink in as I walked along the pine-scented road, listening to the night sounds. Then I heard a siren; a few seconds later the roar of an engine. Ahead, at the bend, the tree-line lit up. Headlights jumped into view as a car slid through the turn and tilted over. Sparks flew and the mass of steel bounced and rolled toward me at high speed. I couldn’t lift my feet, wasn’t sure which way to go. In the frightening chaos of car-lights twirling and metal bashing, a pin-wheeling body flew into the air. I scrambled out of the way as the car brushed by, slid on its top and plowed into a tree. Dust particles and branches fell through upturned headlight beams, thumped onto the glass-covered road. I gathered myself and caught my breath.

A police car rolled to a stop, siren winding down, red light flashing, headlights illuminating the silhouette of a twitching body. A police radio crackled as the door opened and a young cop got out, flashlight and pistol in hand. I froze at the sight of the gun. He momentarily trained his light on the man lying on the road then ran to the battered car. The flashlight beam moved over the front and back seats and the grass surrounding the crumpled heap. The cop holstered his pistol, hustled back. Breathing heavily, he stood over the guy for a moment then turned and retched into the grass.

More sirens wailed in the distance.

The cop glanced up, eyes widening as he spotted me. He fumbled for the pistol and pointed it at me, his drawn face and the weapon eerily highlighted by the flashing red light. I fell to my knees and raised my hands. His gun shook.

“Don’t shoot,” I yelled. 

“How many others?” he yelled back. The sirens were closer.

“Just me… I was out walking.”

He stared for a few seconds then lowered the pistol and wiped his face. I slumped down on my hip, braced myself on the road and tried to settle my racing heart.

“Hang in there, buddy,” the cop said to the man. “Ambulance is coming.”

Still breathing heavily, he offered me his sweaty hand and helped me up. “It’s a stolen vehicle,” he said. “Don’t leave. I’ll need you as a witness.”

Another trooper arrived; still more sirens on the way. In the haze of flashing red lights, I dusted myself off. The injured driver was on his back, eyes open, murmuring. His khaki shirt and head bloodied; his right arm and legs twisted grotesquely. A familiar sense of heaviness and gloom came over me. It was something I thought I’d left overseas, something I was done with forever.

I sat down on the grass beyond the gravely shoulder and looked up through the trees, surprised for a moment stars were still there.

Later that night, after I went to bed, images started coming. There were new ones now: the pin-wheeling man, the shaking gun, the sound of bashing metal as the car bounced and rolled toward me.

I flinched each time it slid past.  

Fifty years later I still do.

Top Photo by: jakob rosen/Unsplash.com

An Egret and His Property
from the upcoming Bay to Ocean Journal 2022

During my childhood, the marsh across the sound appeared impossible to reach without a motorboat or the skills of a bird. But the land’s slick, emerald blades waved for me to come and explore its exposed shores. I wanted to wade in the channel waters and step over shells like its resident white egret.

The measured distance grew more manageable in my young adult years. With access to a bright red kayak, I answered the long-standing invitation and paddled with strong strokes in the scorching sun from my sandbar to the edge of the knee-high grass growing in the wetlands.

I expected a soft arrival and a glide upon the sand. But thick, mushy mud stopped my boat at the habitat’s edge, and the majestic bird I had hoped to befriend took flight at my landing. His outstretched, pleated wings and dangling stick feet navigated toward the very dock from which I had launched my vessel.

I have often thought I should not have encroached upon the stomping grounds of the three-foot-tall bird without his permission. Innocent invader that I was, he fled from me with suspicion. And in seeing that we couldn’t share the verdant space, which I admired and he roamed, I looked to end my trespass.

Releasing my boat from the sticky swamp sludge, sweat upon my forehead, muscles stiff from my struggle with the oars, I retreated toward home across the green, choppy saltwater.

Sea spray slapped my reddened face. The afternoon wind rushed my ears. Rocking swells threatened me with seasickness.

And sure enough, my elusive friend the egret met my arrival. The aloof, feathered ambassador paced among tidepools on the sand at the foot of my cottage, which stood in the center of a row of ostentatious houses along the waterfront.

I saw from afloat what the exotic loner witnessed daily from his prime property across the way.

The line of dwellings were not nests hidden in the landscape. They were monstrosities overgrown with cement driveways, tidy carpets of thirsty Bermuda grass, and, at my house, a two-story oleander with green, pointy leaves and enticing fuchsia blossoms swaying next to my rickety steps. The flirty, toxic bush beckoned the elegant bird to wander closer.

I made my way up the yard, giving my boat several strenuous tugs.

The sleek egret skipped through the air and landed a few cottages down on the sandbar. He studied the nearby shallow water, and, as if using chopsticks, captured a floppy minnow in his pointy yellow beak. The bird swallowed the catch down his agile, thin neck, followed by a second helping of fish plucked from the tide. The well-fed fowl shook his head in satisfaction and paused as if in thought.

Winning my full attention, the bird uttered a series of throaty clucks that sounded like the slap of a playing card against a child’s bicycle spokes. And before lifting his wings and heading back to his place in the marsh, the creature poked his threatening mouth in my direction and released a raspy call.

Witnessing his frustration, I came to an unspoken understanding with the bird: I will stay on my property so he can continue to live on his.

top Photo by: David Clode/unsplash.com

Problems with Diving
from Bay to Ocean Journal 2021

Sometimes she’s afraid to jump. No, not on the blacktop playground, where she’s mastered Double-Dutch and excelled at Chinese jump rope. That’s solid ground. No, she’s afraid

of crashing on her head when she tries to hit the diving board, spring up in the air and slice through the water, arms and legs aligned in arrow-like perfection.

She freezes the day her father puts his arm across the board, a tan, muscled lever, a foot up in the air for her to clear. Tears well in her eyes, messengers of her failure, then shame rocks her body as her baby brother executes the dive like a dolphin.

Failing, failing in front of everyone at the pool that day. Yet in the woods with friends, she’s fearless. Standing atop a hill, grabbing the coiled metal ring

on the end of a bristly rope, swinging out over the rocky gorge, she moves in time to an inner metronome—then lands on beat, dropping down on the only patch of grass. Years later, she freezes at the thought of stepping onto a stage.  Seeking out the feel of success

from her quarry-jumping days, she finds an extravagant mall that promises an indoor bungee jump. As if buoyed by an invisible parachute, she launches, unafraid.

top Photo by: Jess Zoerb/unsplash.com