Redwood Coast Senior Center • 490 N. Harold Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437 • (707) 964-0443 • rcscenter.org
A q u a r t e rly p u b li c at io n o f, by a n d fo r t h e Re d wo o d C o a st Se n i o r Ce n t e r c o m m u n i t y
RC
SC
EDWOOD
OAST
E N I O R
ENTER
GAZETTE
JANUARY / MARCH 2017
January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
In This Issue
Senior Perspectives:
Beyond Volunteering – A New World
of Work – Charles Bush 2
A Non-Repentant – Barbara Lee 4
It’s All One Garden – Linda Leitner 5
Flashcards – Joe Smith 6
The Sign – Nona Smith 8
Places That Teach Us – Gene Lock 9
Midnight on Highway 1
– Joan Hansen 10
Afternoon of Dog and Balloon
– Henri Bensussen 10
Mickey Chalfin’s Page – 12
Ah, The French – Jay Frankston 13
La Vida Es Demente
– Rose Mary Hughes 13
A Solperstein for Isidor Fries
– Orah Young 15
Show Me – Charlie Furey 16
Rome 1968 – Rose Mary Hughes 17
Mile Marker 42 – Doug Fortier 18
Katherine – Mare Dunham 19
1
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2017
Editor – Rick Banker
Cover Photo – Rick Banker
Rick Banker, President
Claudia Boudreau, Treasurer
Zo Abell, Secretary
Mike Carroll
Charles Bush, Executive Director
2
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
January/March 2017
Senior Perspectives – Charles Bush
Beyond Volunteering – A New World of Work
We hear a lot about the loss of jobs to
technological change. That trend will certainly continue as we search for new ways
to expand how our society creates healthy,
fulfilling life opportunities for its citizens.
Already nearly half of all productive work
happens outside the “work for money”
part of the economy. Old ideas about
“capitalism,” “management,” “socialism,”
and “wage worker” are just not adequate
to the coming complexity.
The personal economics of older adults
are more complex than the traditional
job-based income pattern of the young
and middle-aged. How can we focus our
efforts to increase senior abundance?
New approaches to traditional householding and the ever-expanding cadre of
volunteers are two major forces moving
us toward a “new economy.” This article
will focus on the growth of volunteering.
Annually in the USA, 62 million people
work nearly 8 billion hours, producing
over $185 billion of value to the economy. Today, elders constitute the largest
group of “unpaid workers.” The largest
government subsidy payments go first to
large businesses, second to children, and
third to seniors. However, the elder sector
has paid the most into those subsidy programs, and uses their time more than any
other group to work voluntarily for their
communities.
That makes sense because as we grow
older we work less at our jobs. At the
same time we continue to find working both rewarding,
valuable and meaningful. The fastest
growing age group
in our society is
older adults. That
demographic shift
is about to offer our
communities the best educated, most
skillful and deepest experienced “free
workforce” in all of history.
Now we will have the opportunity to
develop more creative ways to connect
people with work. New work roles and
arrangements will have to be both fulfilling and personally expanding. Volunteers
don’t have to stick around. Over half of
all volunteers change organizations after a
year. The administration of volunteer
employment will require new approaches
to organization and management. The
focus must be as much on the satisfaction
of the volunteer worker as on the positive
results of the work. Democracy in the
workplace will have to expand!
The Senior Center is a great laboratory
for exploring how to integrate volunteers
throughout a service delivery organization. Over 100 volunteers provide 600
hours of work every month. They work
in every area – dining room, meals on
wheels, garden, store operation, elder day
care, building maintenance, and peer
January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
counseling. Their responsibilities range
from specific jobs to management of
whole programs. We also have an all-volunteer board. The possibilities for greater
service and more fulfilling experiences
will develop as we design new ways to
recruit, educate and integrate elders into
the expanding textures of Redwood Coast
Seniors.
The same thing happens on a smaller
scale in dozens of service organizations,
nonprofits, churches and governmental
agencies throughout our north coast
community. As our society’s older citizens
increase in numbers, we may be opening
a great treasure of service rather than
shouldering a burden of care. Now the
exciting challenge of designing a new
approach to “work and reward” has
arrived. As elders it is our opportunity
and our responsibility to lead the way.
Jim is a regular at the water aerobics class. He's a nice man - friendly
& outgoing.
Today is is birthday. And in keeping with tradition, the lifeguards at
the pool opened up the water slide
just for him, just for a few minutes,
so he could enjoy a ride without
having to fight through a throng of
little ones. All of the little old ladies from
class lined up along the edge of the
pool to sing Happy Birthday to Jim
and to cheer him on. He was up the
stairs without hesitation and down
the slide he went amid all the clapping. Then a few more intrepid souls
followed, each one met with cheers
from the impromptu audience. It was like a scene from Cocoon all the old farts frolicking in the
pool. After about 10 minutes, it was
over. The slide was closed, the aerobics class resumed and the swimmers went back to their laps. Oh yeah, did I mention that Jim
turned 94 today?
– Submitted by Heather Litton
Harvest Market makes weekly vegetable, fruit, and bread donations and supplies
much of the fresh produce for the 800 lunches we serve to elders every week, in the
dining room or delivered by Meals On Wheels to shut-in seniors at home.
Harvest Market also collects close to $900 a month for the senior Center through
their bag purchase program.
Without this generosity we literally could not operate the lunch-for-seniors service, because our federal subsidy does
not cover the cost of the program.
Harvest Market is truly an anchor for redwood Coast seniors food services. Many, Many thanks.
3
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
4
January/March 2017
A Non-Repentant — Barbara Lee
dwelling is a nest and God help the
interloper. This guided my suggestions
when I ran my interior design business. Whatever the home décor fashion of
the day, when a client asks for help, it’s wise
to tread lightly with a big ear.
When our young daughter moved back
home after a shot of reality on her own, a
pair of zebra finches, itty-bitty birds in white
and black outfits, sporting bright, salmonred, pointed beaks, moved in with her. Their
preferred nest was a hanging hollow ball of
woven straw with a small opening, inside a
thin bamboo cage, hanging in a corner of our
kitchen. Mike and Meemee were quite the
couple, nuzzled against one another on the
main perch. “Me-me-me-me,” they called.
Al and I didn’t know it, but this was the
begetting season. Mike pecked at the paper
on the bottom of the cage, creating shards he
took through the nest’s tiny opening. They
stomped on the scraps, and Meemee snuggled her little behind until she was happy.
Sometimes she cried, “me-me-me-me.”
Other times, to Mike’s bewilderment, she
threw the stuff out. I added shredded paper
to offer the wife he tried so hard to please.
One morning, there were eight tiny eggs in
the nest. Excited, we became obsessed
observers. Over three days, Mike and
Meemee threw out three of the eggs. They
sat on five, their beaks side-by-side, looking
out the opening – often into one or both of
our faces. Three weeks later, five chicks
cracked out of their shells. The next day, one
chick lay splayed on the bottom of the cage.
I was horrified. Mike, Meemee, and the
four chicks were at peace, acting as if they
didn’t notice one of them had fallen. Odd
Man Out was not dead, so I got a spoon and
scooped him back into the nest.
A
The next day I found
the same chick tossed out. I spooned it back
in. I told my mother about this. She said,
“Zebra finches can only count to four – any
more than that gets tossed. They know
what’s best.”
The next day, Odd Man was out on his ass
again. My mother could not be right. I
repeated the spoon-scoop maneuver.
Mike and Meemee worked their tail feathers to a frazzle to feed five chirping mouths.
Once the chicks started moving about, three
days were spent jumping out of the hole to
teach the babies to leave their bed. If one did
it, another followed. Four exited and flapped
down to the main perch.
Odd Man was not so inclined. The freeflying chicks learned to eat from the seed
bucket and bathe in the water trough, but
their parents still had to feed the latecomer,
who was getting very big. We renamed him
Baby Huey.
When everybody but Huey left the nest,
Meemee became agitated. She flicked her
wings at the opening and climbed over the
top, a frantic sight. We guessed she wanted
the lingering baby out of there. Sure enough,
she and Mike got behind Huey, braced themselves against the back wall, and pushed him
out the hole with their feet. Not a solid
thrust, but a steady beating against his back
until a really big chick came out.
Meemee threw everything out of the nest,
while the rest of the family squeezed
together on the main perch. Lots of “meme-me-me.” Baby Huey, in the middle and
bigger than his father, had survived the fourchick limit.
With the help of a non-repentant interloper.
January/March 2017
5
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
It Is A ll
On e Garden!
Our Redwood Coast Senior Center
Kitchen Garden grows over a ton of
food a year for senior lunch, Meals
On Wheels and Day Room folks. The
Center also receives many pounds of
fruit and veetables each year from
local gardeners and farmers. This
autumn was a good year for apples.
Boxes of backyard apples were
brought to the kitchen. Alice made
apple crisp, pies and apple sauce.
Big, beautiful winter squash; banana,
hubbard, pumpkin and sweet meat,
were unloaded. Sal baked them for
lunch. Maybe even a bit of brown
sugar on top for extra flavor.
Greens, lettuce, beans, beets and cabbage are brought in by school, Noyo
Food Forest, Fortunate Farm, nursery and home gardeners. Some lovely
person gave a grocery box of walnuts. Every wednesday from spring
into fall senior center volunteers
brought after market produce from
the Fort Bragg Farmers’ Market.
All this fresh, local food helps us
seniors stay healthy and helps RCSC
budget. This little article is a big
“Thank You”from all of us to all the
gardeners and farmers who share
with us. Enjoy your lunch!
Linda
Kitchen Garden Coordinator
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Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
January/March 2017
Dear Rick,
Here – just trying to get the jump on Valentine’s Day – are some love poems from a series
I call Flashcards. As if we could learn about love the way we learn a foreign language or our
multiplication tables! Best, Joe Smith
FLASHCARD 195
The ravenous desire that comes
almost too late in life
burns the deepest,
Don’t worry.
We can always paste
the loose stars back in place.
Show me on your body
where each one goes.
the desire that knows
the warmth of the body cannot last,
hot, lost nights moan on forever.
FLASHCARD 222
All those years before our lips met!
When I’m empty as a bell
my soul goes out in search of you.
Even the reddest
of spring’s screaming red roses
is no match
for the maple leaves falling now.
It rolls across the countryside,
humming like a barefoot child.
There’s no way to call it home.
FLASHCARD 4
Tangerines, luminous in winter sun,
ripe, ready to fall,
end up in the child’s hands.
How strange,
these maps we draw of countries,
and our lives.
As if boundaries couldn’t change
at the whim of a river,
or a daffodil
waking from its winter sleep
turn all our days upside-down.
As if I could imagine
tomorrow yesterday,
or the world without you now.
FLASHCARD 55
You seem so startled
when I bang my head
against the stars.
What do you expect,
leading me through a field
mined with daisies?
I juggle them and sing.
How, without that empty place
inside, would the bell ever ring?
FLASHCARD 85
When I am dead,
and you step into that first morning
I won’t see,
remember how my tongue
once came to worship
at your navel,
the flower stalk of life,
the simple shrine which connected you
to another, and that other
to yet another, back through
all the mornings that ever were.
January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
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Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
January/March 2017
THE SIGN – NONA SMITH
he sign was hand printed in
block letters and Scotch taped
to a slightly lopsided card table
set in front of a white clapboard church.
Free Prayers it read. Made me shake my
head. Since when were prayers otherwise?
Two gents, maybe a bit younger than
me, sat behind the sign. Both were clad in
jeans, their legs stretched out in front of
them so you could tell one was tall, the
other short and bowlegged. Both had gray
hair, but one had an elaborate comb-over.
The other had nothing much to comb.
They looked pleasant enough, but I
decided to wave back at them from a safe
distance when they waved me over. Truth
be told, I didn’t hold anything against
church or prayers. I just reckoned God
was nobody’s business but my own. My
Aunt Gert influenced my thinking about
that a long time ago.
Aunt Gert was my mother’s older sister.
“She was born preaching,” my mother
used to say, rolling her eyes, making me
understand that wasn’t necessarily a good
thing. My aunt went unmarried until the
day she died, which gave her a lot of free
time to mind other people’s business.
Especially their business with God. She
spoke like she knew everything about
Him, like He was her best friend. And …
maybe He was.
My earliest recollections about Aunt
Gert and God were the Bible stories she’d
read to me. I’d watch her thin lips and
bushy eyebrows as she told me tales
T
about Adam and Eve and that no-good
snake, about Noah’s two-by-two animal
ark, David and that bully Goliath. My
mother interfered with her telling the
story of Job. “That’s just too sad an
account for a child,” I recall her saying.
“Besides, it glorifies victimization.”
The year I began kindergarten, we
invited Aunt Gert to come to the holiday
assembly. Every class got a turn to do
something: sing a Christmas carol, recite
a poem. My class went first, singing our
slightly-out-of-tune hearts out. “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why …”
When the program concluded, families
gathered for refreshments.
Aunt Gert squeezed my arm and
planted a wet kiss on my cheek. “You
were wonderful,” she gushed. “God is
proud of you.” She winked and pointed
to my chest. “With that voice, I know
God must be in your heart.”
I looked down at my ribcage and felt a
little creepy wondering how God managed to get there without my knowing.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“God is everywhere,” she assured me.
“He knows if you’ve been bad. And He
knows if you’ve been good.”
My mother was doing that eye-rolling
thing again.
But I was beginning to put two and two
together. God knows when I’ve been bad
and God knows when I’ve been good. He
sounded a lot like another guy who knew
me pretty well.
January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
9
Places That Teach Us
“Aunt Gert, can I ask you something
about God?”
My mother gave me a crinkled-brow
warning look, but Aunt Gert was all
smiles.
“Of course. Ask me anything.”
I paused, hesitant to put the question
out there and be wrong. “Well, if God
knows everything about me …”
“Yes?” My aunt radiated expectancy.
There was no turning back now. “So,
God knows if I’ve been good or bad …
and Santa knows if I’ve been good or bad
… Is God Santa Claus?”
Aunt Gert drew back in horror. “Oh,
for goodness sake!”
My mother ruffled my hair and pushed
me toward the refreshment table, a satisfied look on her face.
But that business about God knowing
everything stayed with me for a long
time. Was He there when I went to the
bathroom? I asked my mother. It took
her quite a while to convince me I didn’t
need to worry too much about God being
a voyeur. “He’s got bigger business than
that,” she assured me.
That’s pretty much how my relationship with God began. Introduced to me
by my busy-body aunt, I decided He was
someone I could keep at arm’s length,
like my mother did. So the day I noticed
the prayerful duo in front of the church
for the first time, I decided to keep a safe
distance between us.
My boyhood friend and neighbor, Raymond, lived one farm east, in the Ozark
hills. These little farms that reared us,
they slope along a green ridge that dips
into the Missouri river, 10 miles away.
On the ground, and to the whitetail deer,
the ridge is still an oak-covered country
lane, the deer highway. Small farms are
carved here and there around the oaks.
Pale green squares in a greener checkerboard. Raymond is my childhood friend,
a stop on my infrequent trips back. Still
living, now alone, in the farmhouse he
now grows old in. He and I continue to
learn from our growing up there. Maybe
we are still growing up, as we were as
kids racing to the house for those wonderful threshing crew meals, or to see the
new chicks, to water the horse team.
Both of us racing past 70 now. “I took
the old barbed wire fence down near the
Charlie Goode place,” Raymond reports,
in his staccato “platdeutsch” German
accent. “It was rusted and rotten, and I
don’t got no cows any more. But you
know, it was the damnedest thing. About
six o’clock, I was still cutting brush
there, and here came the deer. Dey
know me. But the tractor noise, it scared
’em, so dey ran off the hill. And up they
jump, right over that fence. Only, it was
gone, that fence, already three weeks.”
He laughed, the leaping deer rerunning
in his mind. Habits, like old friends, stay
around, too. We thought about that.
Gene Lock
10
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
Midnight on Highway 1
Joan Hansen
I am driving on a cliff hugging, twisting,
two-lane road with hair-raising drop offs.
The ride home is a seventeen-mile section of
Pacific Coast Highway, between Fort Bragg
and Westport, California. Tonight is dark;
the moon is hiding behind dense clouds. I
am a nurse at the local hospital, and I work
three to eleven P.M. I like this shift because
the supervisors are gone for the day and not
trying to micromanage nurses that know
their jobs. I am homebound at midnight.
When I first moved here from Orange
County, I feared the drive home. I have no
cell phone and at times, the intense dark
with no moonlight or streetlights, combined
with fog and heavy rain, strains my driving
skills and my courage.
Each night I must get out and open the
locked gate that closes Sea View Drive from
Highway 1. Leaving the car increases my
anxiety, but my husband, a country boy, convinces me the only thing I have to fear is an
occasional skunk.
One night on the way up the gravel road
to the house, an owl suddenly flies into the
front of my slow moving car. I hear a thump
and my mind thinks, “Oh no, I have killed
the poor bird.” I secure the emergency brake
and as I open the car door, the headlights
shine on the large bird lying quietly on the
road. I grab a towel from the car, and wrap it
snugly around the owl, put it gently on the
front seat and drive home.
I place the bird on a table and examine it
carefully. As I gently extend its brown and
white mottled wings, I determine they are
not broken. I run my fingers around the
birds round head, a lovely head without
tufts. Finding no blood or broken bones, I
think everything is intact. The owl is still
breathing; it is just unconscious. My husband brings me a laundry basket. I place the
January/March 2017
bird inside and cover the basket with a piece
of chicken wire, so when the owl regains its
senses, it will not fly all over the house.
We sip hot chocolate and sit with the owl.
It lies there on its back, covered with a light
towel, warm and safe. An hour later, it is
moves and quickly twists to stand. Huge
round brown eyes open and a yellow bill
moves slightly. The head swivels. I look at it
and softly say,” Well hello there. Back to the
world of the living I see.”
I gently carry the owl out to the back
deck, and stand in the cool night air feeling
its warm soft feathers in my fingers. I open
my hands and for a moment, the bird stares
at me. Then flies off into the night.
Afternoon of Dog and Balloon
Prancing Pomeranian
green bow tied to its collar
fluffed tail high-held
a white flag, waving
Take me,
I’m yours
tethered to a leash
prancing among the tea tables
Oh, a dog’s life
groomed for pampering service
object/unapologetic correlative
toss a bone for its trouble
it’s yours forever.
Birthday balloon tied to a chair
tugs toward a cloud
losing breath
but daring one more dance
before gravity takes it down.
Henri Bensussen
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
January/March 2017
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Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
12
January/March 2017
aging haiku
Mickey
Chalfin’s
Page
close call
couldn’t see a thing
sun at 6:30pm
after shoot-em-up movie
slowly pull out onto highway
horn honks, i stop
he stops
he’s shouting something
nearly a big crash
the really big one
blinded by low sun
dirty windshield
did look both ways
saw nothing
happened so fast
could have been the big one
by inches
my tale can be
safely told
all numbers are up
doct want me to try meds
things are not well known
we live for certain
the length is a mystery
luck comes in handy
eating is a trick
avoid this and never that
feel like a quiet monk
throw caution out door
who keeps darn score anyhow
all numbers do rise
going to sleep now
wondering if tomorrow
wakes me up again
alright, breathe deeply
enough negativity
tennis anyone?
desert dust
choices
torn between exotic
and familiar
be challenged
or stay in place
a certain return
allows for a going away
and upon that return
a lingering wish for more of the exotic
being in one place at a time
is guaranteed
who could ask for more?
washing out
the desert
after a month
of travel in israel
saying goodbye
to the last traces
of my time
with friends
in the land of glorious
unfathomable
rocks
January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
13
AH! THE FRENCH! – Jay Frankston
Paris is the cemetery, the Père Lachaise
cemetery. It is quiet and landscaped and you
can see some of the finest sculptures anywhere. It seems that the relatives of many of
the deceased spent tons of money to honor
their dearly departed with a monument often
classical but sometimes creative and original,
and it makes you stop and look the way you
might not do so in an art gallery. The solemnity of the place makes one reflective, the
better to contemplate the finely carved marble of a winged angel or a pensive cherub.
And as you walk on the cobble-stoned
paths, along the chestnut lined alleys, among
the many tombstones there’s Edith Piaf, and
Oscar Wilde, and Frederick Chopin, and all
of French history and literature and music is
there, written in stone in the names you read
Marcel Proust, Alexander Dumas …
And there are cults that have grown up
around a few of these tombstones. The one
of Jim Morrison of The Doors for instance.
There’s graffiti everywhere and plastic flowers and kitsch. And often there are some
young people sitting around burning candles
or incense and smoking dope. Some strange
mysterious force seems to bring these young
people there to worship, in their own way,
what they see as the expression of complete
freedom regardless of the cost.
Ah! But that isn’t the only cult. There’s the
cult of The Magician, I forget his name, but
he lies buried there with the others and his
magic still attracts people to his grave.
And then there is the Don Juan*, the
Casanova, and I don’t remember his name
either, but he lived in the mid-19th century
and died rather young. On his grave, the
monument is not erect. It is a life-size bronze
of the lover, lying on his back, all decked out
in his fine tailored suit, his hair neatly parted
and combed, his pants neatly pressed with
æ. and I couldn’t believe it at first but it defi-
nitely was … an erection. The monument
wasn’t erect but the dearly departed Don
Juan had a large swelling in his bronze pants
that was unmistakably … an erection.
What’s more the monument, having weathered more than a century, had a green oxide
patina, dull and well-worn. But the bulge in
his pants was shiny bronze, gleaming as if it
had been done last year. This Casanova’s
erection was the object of a cult as well,
some mystical belief that it could impart sexuality, perhaps fertility, perhaps enrich one’s
love life. So it would not be unusual to see
some young woman standing there and,
looking around to make sure she was alone,
reaching over and rubbing the shiny bronze
erection up and down several times before
crossing herself rapidly and walking away.
Ah! the French, they know how to live!
*The Don Juan’s name was Victor Noir
1848-1870 – 22 yrs old - Killed
His real name was Yvan Salmon
The Magician was Allan Kardec
1795-1883 (Founder of Spiritism)
La Vida es Demente
Here I am in the
75th year of life,
sitting in the
morning fog.
Alone, no wild and
crazy love.
Only a cat to drive
me loco.
“What is life?”
“What is love?”
He asked me at 22.
Quien sabe?
Rose Mary Hughes
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
14
*
Tr
Trusts
u s ts
*
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January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
15
A Solperstein for Isidor Fries
Orah Young
Stolpersteins are
literally “stumbling blocks,” small memorials created by the sculptor Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of Nazi
oppression, especially the Holocaust.
They are cobblestone-sized concrete
blocks faced in copper and placed in
front of last known residence or place of
work of individual victims – innocent
people who were consigned to prisons,
euthanasia facilities, sterilization clinics
and work, concentration and extermination camps. Most stolpersteins commemorate Jewish murder victims or survivors,
but others have been placed for gypsies,
homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, people of color, Christians opposed to the
Nazis, Communists, Resistance fighters, military deserters, and the physically and mentally disabled. Stolpersteins are now in hundreds of cities
and towns in many countries in
Europe, making this project the
world’s largest memorial.
This stolperstein commemorates
my great great uncle, Isadore Fries.
By the time the Nazis began
deporting Jews in large numbers,
half of the original population of
500,000 Jews in Germany had
fled, leaving behind relatives who,
like my great grandmother, were
considered too old to adjust to a
new life. A large number of these elders
were eventually transported to such prisons as the Theresienstadt Concentration
Camp.
During my travels in Germany I found
stolpersteins in unexpected places and
was often shocked by how old they were.
I am sure few survived the rigors of their
journeys or, if they did, they were certain
to perish in the camps. My uncle, Isadore
Fries, was eighty-eight when he was
deported. He survived for only two
months after his arrival.
Shortly after I learned about his fate I
visited Hamburg to pay him my respects.
I laid a white rose next to his stolperstein
and mourned for an old man I never
knew.
16
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
January/March 2017
Show Me — Charlie Furey
“He came at me,” Mrs. Beckley says. She is
in her eighties, spare and gray, tall and
strong and alert. She had once been a gym
teacher in the toughest high school in the
city. The coroner’s people have just removed
her husband’s body from the neatly furnished living room.
“Came at you?” Detective Morales, a stickler for details, for proper usage of speech,
says. He had been an English Lit student
before he joined the police force. Still has the
serious, worried look of a perpetual student.
Even looks like a candidate for an advanced
degree. Corduroy jacket with elbow patches,
buttoned-down shirt collar, striped school
tie, buffed brown shoes.
“Yes,” Mrs. Beckley says.
“Lunged? Groped? Clutched?”
“Yes. All of those.”
“Did he strike you with anything?” An
instrument? His fists? Did he grab hold of
you with his hands?”
“Yes he did.”
There is not a hair out of place on her
head. There are no scratches or bruises on
her face, arms, or hands. Her blue woolen
dress is spotless and unruffled. The only sign
of any disturbance in the room is a toppled
bowl of flowers beside the easy chair where
Amos Beckley had been watching television.
“Show me what he did.”
“He went like this,” Mrs. Beckley says and
grasps Detective Morales with her thin, tensile fingers and does her best to strangle
him.
The detective chokes, struggles to pull
free. It is like trying to loosen the tentacles
of an octopus. He no sooner wrenches one
steely finger away, than another instantly fastens its grip on his throat.
Luckily, Sergeant Brody is there and he
saves the detective from serious injury. Or
death. It takes both of them, pulling
together, to force Mrs. Beckley backwards
and into a high-backed chair.
She sits there calmly, hands folded in her
lap, as if she is in church quietly meditating.
Sergeant Brody keeps his hands pressed
against her shoulders. The expression in his
face says ‘You have to be ready for anything
in this business.’
“Let her go,” Detective Morales says, gently massaging his throat.
Mrs. Beckley, her eyes as clear as bottled
water, tilts her head toward Sergeant Brody
and says. “I usually have a cup of chamomile
tea and a slice of raisin toast at this time in
the afternoon. And I just opened a jar of my
own damson plum preserves. Would you
gentlemen care to join me?”
“No thank you,” Sergeant Brody replies.
“Thank you just the same,” Detective
Morales says. He finds it difficult to speak
even those few words. ‘Nutty as a fruit cake.
Caught me off guard,’ he is thinking.
‘Attacked me without warning.’ He had
almost jammed his knee into her groin to
disable her.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come
down to the station with us, Mrs. Beckley,”
he says. It is his longest sentence without
having to pause for breath.
“Whatever for?” Mrs. Beckley says.
“To explain to the officers there what happened this afternoon,” he says. A simple
enough reason, considering the condition of
the corpse, on its way to the morgue this
very moment.
“I’ve already told you everything I know,”
Mrs. Beckley, prim and proper, says.
“Yes. But we have to get your statement
down on paper. To make it official. So there
won’t be any confusion later on. Sergeant
Brody will take you in his car. Officers Jones
January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
17
ROME, 1968
and Reidy will assist him.” Detective Morales
nods toward the two bulky policemen guarding the doorway.
As the officers escort her out of her house,
one on one side of her and one on the other,
with Sergeant Brody bringing up the rear,
Mrs. Beckley turns toward the detective and
carefully enunciating each word says, “He
clutched me.”
“Don’t let her show you how that might
have happened,” Detective Morales warns
the officers. “Make sure she keeps her hands
to herself.”
He stands a moment longer looking
around the room. There is not a speck of
dust anywhere. Embroidered silk pillows on
the sofa. A Chinese vase filled with dried
flowers on the mantelpiece. Starched white
curtains frame the windows. He keeps massaging his neck. He can still feel the strength
in her frantic fingers.
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Rome for a month.
Running out of lire;
Living on spaghetti and grapes.
Cafe au lait in the mornings
with bread, cheese & jam
provided by the pensione.
In the fall of the year, the
Presidential race between
Humphrey and Nixon.
Yoko Ono & John Lennon
Nude on the cover of Rolling
Stone.
Mini cars speeding ‘round and
'Round the semi-circular drive on the
Piazza della Repubblica.
My pensione near the Stazione
Termini (the railroad station).
Went to Italy on a one way ticket with a
Two year old and was never going back.
No jobs available – a quick flight home
Icelandic and back to the states.
But as long as I live, the refrain I
Heard while walking on the streets
Of Rome will keep playing:
“Bella bambina, bella ma-ma!”
Rose Mary Hughes
18
Redwood Coast Senior Center
January/March 2017
Mile Marker Forty-Two
MILE
42
I woke in my clothes on a wide cot to a
monster headache, the smells of burnt wood
and forest decay irritating my nose, and I
had to pee. A first look brought confusion.
What place is this? Charred walls circled an
eight-foot space beneath a six foot ceiling
carved from wood. A clear plastic shower
curtain nailed through the loops covered the
jagged and blackened edges of a triangular
doorway. It wasn’t night, although I had no
idea of the time, or how I could be in what
was someone’s living space with a two
burner stove, an ice chest, and lots of books.
But where were my phone and purse?
Once outside it was obvious this was a
burned redwood tree amid a dense grove
with similar burn scars, but without any sort
of path nearby, only mulched needles mixed
with dried branchlets. A mist obscured the
tops of the trees yet bright light bathed
everything around me.
“You’re awake.” A quiet voice caused me
to spin around to see a fuzzy terrier next to a
boy no more than five feet tall with dark
curly hair. He moved past me to lean inside
the room and grab the handle of a shovel
with a roll of toilet paper around it. “You’ll
probably want this,” he said. “You’ve been
asleep since yesterday afternoon.”
I walked off with the shovel to find privacy, then returned to them standing in the
same places. “Where are we?” I said.
“We heard the crash and Tuffy went to
investigate. You followed him here.” Dressed
in mismatched thrift store clothes, his features were delicate and childlike. “My name
is Everett, Ev for short. What’s yours?”
“I’m Vanessa,” I said. “Do you live here?”
“Yes, Tuffy and I do. My sister Kate brings
supplies on Sundays and meets me on the
highway at mile marker forty-two. The knot
on your forehead probably means you have a
concussion. You should lie down again.”
My hand went up automatically to touch
the knot as each beat of my heart radiated
pain from inside my head. I took his advice.
“Thanks for the blanket,” I said waking to
cooking noises and the light of a gas lamp.
“Are you hungry? I’m making chicken stirfry with rice and vegetables,” he said as he
tossed a paperback onto my stomach. “Page
eighty-four is the start of my story, one Kate
wrote using my memories and impressions.”
In this year’s anthology from a branch of
the California Writers Club, the story started
with, “My sister brought me home after my
release. Mile after mile, Kate worried the
accelerator with little pushes that pulled the
car ahead, then backed off, then pulled
ahead too much. We were returning from a
hot day inland to the cool coast where the
usual mob of tourists had left the small town
after Labor Day. She brought me to the tworoom cabin she shared with her husband,
Don, at the edge of a meadow below our
family’s rundown Victorian. I searched her
face and everything around to renew a cache
of memories to replace seven years of torment in the psych facility.” It went on to
January/March 2017
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
19
— Doug Fortier
describe malnourishment and the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of his mother
and how his father had died in his arms during a heart attack. I read to the finish.
“Ev, this is amazing, especially the description of one of the three fires you were
blamed for.” Out loud I read the striking
passage. “The fire swarmed and grew to burn
like a huge sun. The thrilling brilliance rose
fiercely, and I wondered how long it would
be before firemen came to put it out. I didn’t
want it to end. It was too beautiful to kill.”
The ending had hit me hard and I told
him so, then read it to him. “Everyone
thought I’d burned those houses. I’d been in
trouble before, trouble with fire. No one
believed I'd been lured to them, and my
mother had nothing to say in my defense.
She let them take me, and I'm glad she’s
dead. Since I returned, I’ve yearned to burn
the squat of the hooded man. It will be glorious.”
“The fires happened when I was thirteen.
The hooded man was never caught, but I
took my revenge a few months ago.”
I added seven years in the psych ward to
his age at the time of the fires. This man-boy
was twenty years old. “You burned him
out?”
“Yes, but after that he came after me.
That’s why I’m here.”
We ate stir-fry, all three of us. When we
finished he said tomorrow was Sunday and
Kate would give me a ride out and help call
a tow truck for my wrecked car.
“I threw redwood boughs over your car to
hide it, thinking I wouldn’t show you the
way out, and you would keep me company
for a while, but you have a life to return to. I
should have flagged a traveler and put you
on your way. I’m sorry.” His apology made
me like and trust him even more.
“Don’t worry about it, Ev. I think we could
be friends and I’d like to come back for a
visit between semesters if you’re still here.”
He threw a second pillow on the other end
of the cot, then climbed under the blanket,
our stocking feet pointing in opposite directions. My headache wasn’t hurting much
anymore. “Good night, Ev.”
“Good night, Vanessa.”
20
Redwood Coast Senior Center Gazette
January/March 2017
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