Folio 06 by HFU Folio

CONTRIBUTORS

Rosemary Mignogna, English Concentrator, 1970 Thomas F. Lombardi, Jr., Assistant Professor of English, Holy Family College Joseph C. Reino, Associate Professor English, Villanova University Marion Von Rosenstiel, Instructor of English, Holy Family College Kathleen Muldoon Vantine English Concentrator, 1969 Barhara Webel" _

FOLIO CAMDEN: THE ARMPIT OF NEW JERSEY by Rosemary Mignogna ....................... . THE ASTROVANGUARD: COLUMBIA by Thomas F.Lombardi, Jr. . .................. . ASK NOT ... by Joseph C.Reino ......................... . UNTITLED DREAM POEM by Joseph C.Reino ......................... . PATMOS** EVER ANCIENT EVER NEW by Joseph C.Reino ............ ,_ ............. PORTRAIT OF AN INDIAN by Marion Von Rosenstiel ...................... A SHADE OF DIFFERENCE by Mrs.Kathleen Muldoon Vantine .............. SMILE by Barbara Weber ............................ THE TURN OF THE SHOWER by Evelyn Weinert ............................

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Contrary to popular opinion, Philadelphia is not a dull city. It just appears that way because it happens to be located across the river from the fun-filled city of...

CAMDEN:

"THE ARMPIT OF NEW JERSEY"

By Rosemary Mignogna

The preceding statement is not so funny as it may sound. If anything, Camden, New Jersey is not a fun-filled city. There is nothing funny about the condition of the city of Camden. During the year of 1969, man landed twice on the moon. But no men have landed in Camden or in any other city like it to improve the living conditions for their fellow human beings. Camden has become a typical example of the deteriorating middle-size American city. Actually, Camden doesn't have a very long history. The city itself is only about two hundred years old. The permanent settlement of the site of Camden began in 1681 when William Cooper built a house on Pyne Point in order to run a ferry from New Jersey to Philadelphia. The town was drafted in 1773 by his descendant, Jacob Cooper. It was named in honor of Charles Pratt, first Earl of Camden, whose opposition to taxation had made him very popular with the American colonists. During the Revolutionary War, Camden was a troop site for Washington and his men. Originally part of Newton Township, Camden was incorporated in 1828. Its indus trial growth began in 1834 when it became the terminus for the longest railway then operating in the United States: the Camden and Amboy Railroad. Ten years later it was made the county seat. After the Civil War, new industries were attracted to the city. In 1871, it was rein corporated. The opening of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in 1926 inspired the construc tion of parkways and boulevards. The city has a commission form of government, and it owns its water system. Structurally, Camden is not a well-planned city. When the city was designed in 1773, it was decided that the industry was to be situated along the river. This was done so that there would be no transportation problems. And so, the Shipyard, RCA, Campbell Soup, and the junkyards have remained situated next to the river. Since Camden was primarily established as an industrial city, these factories were among the first buildings to be constructed. However, while adequate consideration had been given to the industrial aspect of the city, no special place was reserved for the erection of homes for the hundreds of people who had flocked to the city. Houses �prung up near the plants and factories for the sake

of convenience, and they have remained there ever since. The living quarters follow no definite plan in the city proper. The city itself is located on the banks of the Delaware River, and that is where most of the houses have been built. The main street of the city, Broadway, runs parallel to the river, just about five blocks in from it. Along this thoroughfare most of the shops are located, or, at least, they used to be. Situated within the five blocks between the river and Broadway are city row homes. Some of them have been standing for over fifty years. Some have been knocked down for one reason or another, while others have fallen down of their own accord. However, most of the surviving houses have become the homes of many underprivileged families. On the other side of Broadway, there are more homes. Some are better than others but not much better. Then the city fans out for about five or six more miles. But no one of those six miles is anything to be proud of, either. If, in the nineteenth century, Henry James could find fault with the East Side of New York City and relief only in the safety of his own Washington Square, then just what woul,d be his reaction to the city of Camden which has become, in the twentieth century, one big East Side with no Washington Square to counterbalance it? James was repulsed with everything about the East Side. He said that the people were "there for race and not for reason." 1 He called the aggregations of people sitting on the steps "multiplication without reason." 2 Then he contrasted the social classes and concluded that he preferred his own upper-class to the class that frequented the Bowery and the prize-fights. Neediess to say, James was no social reformer. Since he offered no solutions to the problems exist ing in his own city, he probably would not have had too much to say about Camden, either, had he known about it At one time, Camden did have a Washington Square. It was called Parkside. How ever, while New York City has retained some of its fashionable parts, Camden, a much smaller city, has not. Today, Parkside is just one section of the entire East Side. One might think that because there is no swanky section to divide the city that Camden would be more united. But Camden is not a united city. There are as many divisions as there are ethnic groups. In the city-proper, the ethnic groups have formed ghettoes around the Catholic Churches. The Irish have congregated around Saint Mary's; the Italians have set themselves up around Our Lady of Mount Carmel; the Puerto Ricans have established their domain in Our Lady of Fatima; the Polish are quartered in the vicinity of Saint Joseph's; the Blacks are near Saint Bartholomew's, and the Jews are gathered in the Temple Beth Shalom area. The segregation of cultures is not new. In fact, cultural separatism is as old as the · city itself. Whenever the immigrants would move down from New York City, most of them would flock to Camden because of its proximity to Philadelphia. The different sects would establish themselves in the same area because they all spoke the same language and they thought that this arrangement would make them feel more at home. Hence, the areas known as "Little Italy," "Little Poland," and "Little Ireland" arose. As is the case in every other city in the country, there never was -- and never will be -- any cultural integration in Camden. The Jews have isolated themselves in Parkside, just as the Italians have isolated themselves in the five blocks between Broadway and the river. The Poles have always been in the south of Camden, and, in fact, they are the only people who have not left their original place of settlement. Within the last ten years, all of the other groups, with the exception of the Poles, Blacks, and Puerto Ricans, have moved to the suburbs. Thus, the city has become a complex site of symbolized areas with each

area becoming more run down than the next and each area doing its best to smother itself out from the rest of the world. Nothing great has ever emerged from the city of Camden. No novels have ever been written about it. Not many authors have lived there (except Walt Whitman, and he was not a native of Camden to begin with). Camden is definitely suffering from a lack of cultural experience. It has become just another small city, distinguished from other small cities only by its location. It was Sinclair Lewis who summarized the small town in the preface to his novel

Main Street:

This is America -- a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and of little groves. The town is, in our tale, called "Gopher Prairie, Minnesota." But its Main Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and not very differently would it be told in Up York State or in the Carolina hills [or in New JerÂ sey, for that matter}. 3

In Main Street, Lewis brought out all of the points of ugliness in the city of Gopher Prairie: from the food-stained tablecloths in the hotel dining room to the Greek bank in the center of the town to the run down town hall. He described a city of the early twentieth century, but there is no difference between Main Street and the description of the Camden of 1970. Just like Gopher Prairie, Camden has no cultural consciousness. It will be granted that there are the traditional icons of Cooper's house, Walt Whitman's house, and the famous Walt Whitman hotel, but at no time during any day of the week could one find any lines of tourists flocking to see any of these historic sites. Furthermore, no attempts have been made to foster any interest in any of these places. They are deteriorating along with the rest of the city. No attempts have been made to restore the ground around these places. A recent visit to Whitman's house at 328 Mickle Street proved that it was just part of a row of decaying houses. Even the tiny name plaque on the front door was rusty. Evidently, Camden is still waiting for a Carol Kennicott to motivate it to some positive action. Because of the total lack of organization in the city, Camden is not without its high crime rate. There are probably more crimes committed in Camden, from thievery to the numbers racket, than in ariy other small city in the state. It is really no wonder, considÂ ering the type of law enforcement that is endorsed in the city. How can any city hope to conquer crime when some of its law enforcers are no better than the offenders? No city whose people are forced to struggle for a meager existence can ever hope to produce all iaw abiding citizens. Delinquency in young and old is the encl product in such a comÂ munity. Of crime in cities, in general, Walt Whitman wrote in his Democratic Vistas: The great cities reek with respectable as much as non-respectable robbery and scoundrelism. In fashionable life, flippancy, trepid amours, weak infidelism, small aims or no aims at all, only to kill time. In business, (this a/I-devouring modern word, business), the one sore object is, by any means, pecuniary gain ... 4

Walt Whitman did live in Camden for a number of years. But, like Henry James, he was not a social reformer. He ideally thought of a city as a place where people were joined together to live in peace, prosperity, and tranquility; I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole rest of the world . . . 5

1his line from one of Whitman's poems is inscribed on the outside wall of Camden's City Hall. Obviously, Whitman was an optimist. If it is anything at all, Camden is certainly not a city invincible to the attacks of time and the earth. One trip down Market Street will settle that-score for anyone. But Whitman's optimism could not have been all wrong. For what it's worth, there have been some attempts made to clear the city of decaying houses. In the area near the Bridge, whole blocks of houses have been torn down. In some cases, parking lots have been built on these sites. In other cases, the blocks have been left in their levelled state. As for the houseless victims of this demolition act, the city has undertaken a plan to place all of them into low-cost housing developments. A one million dollar ghetto, the most that has been done to stay complete evacuation and dissolution of the city altogether, has taken shape in the southern area of the city, along Atlantic Avenue, to be quite specific. Camden is certainly not attracting many prospective citizens these days. Is it any wonder? Its reputation as the "armpit of New Jersey" is old and widespread. If anything, most people try to avoid the city as much as possible. It certainly isn't one of the greatest attractions on the East Coast. A visitor once told this anecdote about the city of Camden after a brief visit there: Once there was a man who had been shipwrecked during a storm on the Atlantic Ocean. He managed to latch on to a raft and so he drifted for many days, not knowing where he was going and much too tired to even care. Somehow or other his raft happened to drift around the Cape May Bay and i.t finally found its way on the Delaware for a long time when the raft slowly made its way to the shore. Upon hitting the banks of the river, the man looked up and seeing a crowd of people staring a,t him he inquired as to where he was. "Camden, New Jersey," said the curious onlookers. And with that, the shipwrecked man leaped back onto his raft and began to paddle himself back into the current of the Delaware. 6

This little anecdote is really something to laugh about. Nevertheless, there is a certain truth about it. If something other than the million dollar ghetto is not done soon about the condition of Camden, there is going to be more than one man paddling his way away from that city. ENDNOTES 1. Henry James, The American Scene, p. 200. 2. Ibid., p. 201. 3. Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (the preface). 4. Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas,. 5. Walt Whitman,Leaves of Grass . 6. This story was told to me by one of my friends. It was her uncle who first told it to her.

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THE ASTROVANGUARD: COLUMBIA

Thomas F. Lombardi, Jr.

(In Commemoration of the American Moon-Landing, July 20, 1969 A.::J.) All has been prologue and preface. Now Chapter One of the dramatic story begins at T-minus-zero in a julyless July of 1969 ...with footsteps on the

mÂ

oon ...

0 Columbian Equation -to be recounted in multiplanetary JX of9069! In a summerless summer Man, unlike Brontosaurus and Mammoth, assured his cosmic immortality. When astroeagle clawed lunar soil Man became permanent amidst impermanence. The dynamics of space - time continuum is here. And the age responds accordingly. Nothing can ha! t the foward propulsion. The aeonian past is laborious simulation. Henceforth the trajectory toward minus X-The Frontier is reopened --

Universe Without End!

Astrophysics, computed and pursued, inevitably shall find the unfathomable mathematics: that calculable far-off day, --to hurl out a spaceship-civilization --rocketed at light-year speed, beyond-Â stellar-Andromeda, toward M31 -never to return, in galactic ...loneliness ... and joy!

questing,

for a new world,

-- of philadelphia!

Then the ultimate astrophysical experience: An unborn American astronaut, standing, during X year on X planet Âˇ --face-to-face-with unborn X Man! But now the poet is confronted with supreme linguistic challenge: Old words, metaphors, symbols, concepts, rhythms are asyndetically asynchronous. When earthmen are atmospherically-conditioned moonmen, when astromen make the impossible possible, when reality outdistances imagination then poetry needs aggiornarnento: Poetic expression scientially commensurate to the existing scientific reality: A chardinian triangulate of a poetic-religious-scientific synthesis. Thrust of the new astrolinguistics: TU-TEI-burn-orbit-apogee-perigeeÂ EVA-PD1-PLSS-blast-module-reentry: Astrophotography has accommodated the reality of the conceptual nova. Astropoetics has not. But the countdown to lift-off will begin when astronautical science-fiction has become non-fiction. - As it already has!

ASK NOT ... Toward the room where father lies, let us proceed. Though the floor be splintered, and the walls menacing as a smooth beloved, yet ... our feet are as glass and cannot bleed; and our hands beyond the power of touch. Let us proceed toward the room where father lies. Errors follow us only as footprints.

UNTITLED DREAM POEM I sledded softly ... on long lines ... in a thousand snows and felt a cavernous lone liness fling itself passed me, like ghost· wolves ... to the emptiness of some brooding beyond. A girl - child in my left arm! Warm - white in a white blanket! and a

sharp lingering goodness

-- as I glanced

Up ... as I looked Through •..• as I danced Slow, on the light- flooded floors of the

houses of princes

laughing through tears at the Unrevealed, and the unknown blind Beyond.

PATMOS** EVER ANCIENT EVER NEW 11/22/63

Joseph C. Reino, P.A.D.

-- for Barry Thornton

0 red red Rose O Love ... burning midway on hell's way, in a dovelike darkness; darkly, I see young John-a- Dreams rising out of you ... as I pass you downward and darkly - with no virginal guide ... and even my crystal self lying dimly on the rose-coasts of chaos, half-crying for the whole truth of old gentleness. Your flames have edges, 0 Rose. Your petals a tense untouchable taste till they fall, ground-equal with the earth-song I hear in birds. Stern were those thorns that grazed my sides (chill messengers of Eve of buffet me) as I passed November-down and darkly toward the lyre of the City of Light. ...and always when I turn back, like pale Orpheus in a worn path (veined) that promised life, I see rose-stains, soft-hovering in the air; and John-Prophet, lost in a slice of flames, and always inevitably myself there unreachable, as the Unborn-Unknown.

Note for "Patmos," etc. This poem was composed shortly after the indicated date and came abou( as a consequence of a conversation with a student at Villanova University. The poem was first presented publicly by me on the occasion of the AnnÂ ual Honors Convocation at Holy Family College on November 22, 1965. As guest speaker of the evening, I delivered an address entitled "A Dialogue with i:he Jew'; and read the poem at the end of the address to commemorate the second anniversary of the passing of the President. The Barry Thornton to whom the poem is dedicated is alluded to symbolically in the fifth stanza.

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.PORTRAIT OF AN INDIAN

Marion Von Rosenstiel

Heaven knows where all their curiosity had gone enroute across the Atlantic. After months of planning a visit to see what America was really like, our four European friends didn't seem to care about seeing America at all. Gerlinda wanted only to find frivolous American shoes for her D-width feet. Karl wanted to track down some pop-art he could afford. All Bernt wanted to do was buy blue jeans and the latest, hottest record hits. His mother tagged after him. America was hot, dirty, noisy, and crowded, she said. America made her nervous. From time to time, we'd weakly suggest some sightseeing to show them America was more than just shops. They weren't interested. Nothing else impressed them, even when we headed west across the country in the station wagon to prove that America was more _than this narrow, crowded slice of east coast. Much more. But worst of all, they weren't very impressed with each other, either. They hadn't known each other very well before-hand, but since they all were involved in the same stu dent exchange program dedicated to peace and good will in the world, we had naturally assumed they'd get along all right with each other. They didn't. They bickered over everything. The loudness of the radio, the speed of the driving, the choice of a picnic spot, the price of a motel. Karl said Bernt was a brat. Bernt's mo ther said Karl was a snob. Gerlinda said Bernt's mother was smug. We were trapped in the middle. Our good will tour had turned into a cold war. We loved the drive across the country, even the Omaha stockyards (which they found smelly) and the endless sea of Nebraska wheat shimmering in the summer heat (their idea of hell). We were constantly awed that the pioneers·· people just like us·· had ever managed to find their way across this vast land. We could practically hear the wagons creaking for weeks over these endless miles that we were covering in hours. With Indians lurking behind every hill, too, and only a hundred years ago! Wow! Our Europeans couldn't identify the way we did. A grain elevator leaping from the golden horizon was no Chartres. The Rockies were just like the Alps, only not so high, and no nice villages. Nothing along the way sparked their imagination to our incredible land, absolutely nothing until we _got to Indian country. Then suddenly they perked up.

They knew all about Indians. They had read The Last of the Mahicans in school. They'd seen all those American Westerns on TV and in the movies in Europe. Of course they knew about Indians! The sight of their first real live one made them positively ecstatic. They didn't care that Indian country looked dramatic after a summer of rains. They barely noticed that the earth, usually dusty pink, was blood red, that the sage was a sharp poison green instead of the usual silver gray. All they wanted to do was photograph In足 dians, real Indians. We tried to tell them that the Indians didn't like to be photographed, but they just clutched their cameras greedily and didn't listen. Nor were they interested in photographing the efficient young Indians in blue jeans, T-shirts, and crew cuts, work足 ing in the trading posts along the way. They wanted real Indians, the kind in feathers and loin cloths and war-paint. The road through Navajo country was empty that morning, except for an occasion足 al, distant figure, slow-moving against the blood-red earth. By the time we stopped for a picnic, the small white clouds that had dotted the brilliant morning sky were growing fat and gray-edged. The light was spotty. They'd never get any Indian pictures! Then, suddenly, there was a faint crunch of gravel right below our picnic spot. Ger足 linda's mouth froze, half-opened around a sandwich. A Navajo woman in a long banded velvet skirt was hurrying toward a drowsing honey horse tied to a tree on the embankment below. Her head was bent; her stride was brisk. "Karl;" Gerlinda's whisper was a hiss, "quick! Get your camera!" The Indian woman looked up and saw Gerlinda staring down at her. For an instant, the woman stared back. Then with swift economy of motion, she ran the last steps to the horse, untied it, mounted, jerked it around, and loped easily down a narrow trail, her back toward us. Gerlinda slowly began chewing again. "The light wasn't any good, anyway,"Karl scowled at the black cloud that hid the sun and snapped his camera case shut. "Why should they care if their picture is taken?" Gerlinda sounded annoyed. "You'd maybe feel funny, too, if someone stuck a camera in your face!" Bernt lounged into the conversation. "That's different," Gerlinda snapped. "Indians are only savages. Like gypsies." "Savages?" Karl said. "With all that jewelry? Like old Egyptian, only silver!" "She looked like a gypsy," Bernt's mother said flatly. They were moody as the afternoon progressed. The clouds had gathered into black storm banks along the horizon, suffusing the brilliant landscape with an eerie, saffron light. The visibility was incredible. We must have been at least a half a mile away when we spot-

ted the Indian family loading a high-wheeled wagon. But in that peculiar luminous light, they looked very near, their velvet clothes gleaming like jewels in the barren: landscape. Excitedly, our travelers yelled at me to stop. That was a picture! If they crept along the ditch at the side of the road, the Indians would never notice them. They could sneak up and take the picture before the Indians found out! Enthusiastically they stum bled out of the car and into the deep gully. Crouched down, steathily shoving aside the weeds, cameras alert, they looked like an old-time scalping party! Just as they were almost opposite their quarry, the loaded wagon rolled slowly down a rutted embankment onto the road. Suddenly it stopped, and the driver began flailing his whip wildly toward the ditch. Our tourists, looking ambushed and sheepish, stood up and stared uneasily. Then Karl earnestly pointed to his camera, pointed to the group, waved his arm ir.. a wide arc, and, squaring his shoulders, marched across the road. The · driver sat perfectly still. Just as Karl reached the side of the wagon, the Indian raised his whip and lashed his horses into a gallop. Karl almost tumbled back into the ditch. "They wanted money!" he fumed when he returned to the car.· "A dollar! A dollar is too much!" Gerlinda added. Everybody tries to make a buck off a tourist, we told them reasonably. Why not the Indians? They needed it. And anyway Indians were supposed to think something was taken away from them when their picture was taken. They had to get something back. Maybe a dollar wasn't too much ... "But we are visitors to America! We told him!" For once, Bernt's mother was on Karl'.s side. "For us they could once forget the dollar!" They set their cameras at high speed and tried to get pictures as we rode along, but the Indians were always quicker than they were, and the harder they tried, the more annoyed and fumbling they became. When one Indian woman waved us angrily away, Bernt's mother was sure we had been hexed and fretted for miles. As the storm gathered, more and more Indians appeared at the side of the road. Singly and in pairs, Indians were hitchhiking,signaling us with a slow, dignified semaphore waving of arms. "You wanted to see real _Indians?" We stopped the car suddenly before two Indian women, "Now's your chance. We'll take them along." Bernt's mother was frantic. We'd be scalped! Or at the very least, get lice! "Then we'll scratch," we said cheerfully. One of the women was young, with long braids framing a round, placid face. Her smooth cheeks were pink. The yoke of her bodice was outlined in a semicircle of dimes. The other woman was ancient. Her deeply lined face looked like a polished walnut, animated by lively black eyes and framed by hair pulled back into a knot, held stiff from

her head by a broad silver band. Large rings adorned each boney finger. Heavy bracelets marched up one sleeve from wrist to elbow. The other was hidden beneath the folds of a . radiant-hued. blanket. She looked too frail to support the weight of the necklaces she wore, especj.ally one of intricate, squash blossom design with a turquoise pendant the size of a fist. . We apologized for the cramped quarters in the back of the station wagon, but if they didn't mind, we said we'd be glad to take them along. Where were they going? The two women consulted briefly. Then the older one addressed us in a torrent of incomprehen sible sound. When she ·talked, dark gaps of missing teeth gave her the look of a crone, but the eager eyes swept hopefully over us, searching for understanding. We tried again. "Tuba City?" we asked, pointin& in the direction of the nearest Indian center. There was another flood of impenetrable language. Then the younger one nodded. "Hospital," she said, (pronouncing it "hoppital,") "Tuba City." Language barrier in America had never occurred to us. We couldn't believe that we couldn't, somehow, communicate with these women and kept chattering nervously, try ing to force comprehension with volume and gesture. The two women just nodded and climbed agilely into the back of the station wagon. We rode along in uneasy, embarrassed silence. In the rear-view mirror I could see Bernt's mother's pinched, disapproving face staring straight ahead, and behind her the two lndian women curled awkwardly among the baggage. The storm was approaching rapidly, with strong winds that raised whirlwinds of dust and tumbled globes of dead sage wildly across the road. In the car, as we sped into the blackening storm, the only sound was the . rushing of the wind. Finally, Gerlinda softly broke the silence. "How would they have gotten to Tuba Cityjf we didn't take them?" "Walked, I guess." "But it's so far!" ·' "Twenty-two miles." The wind slammed against the side of the car. "The old one is sick?" Bernt's mother sounded fearful. Gerlinda glanced around at the strong profile in the back. "She doesn't look sick." She was silent for a moment. "But I am glad she did not have to walk." · "Yes." Bernt's mother's voice strained with the effort.

"It is far to walk."

As we turne.d off the highway into Tuba City, the first heavy splats of rain hit the windshi�ld.

"Where? " we called back to the Indian women. They smiled and nodded, as though pleased that we had really found Tuba City. "Hoppital," the younger one said, pointing down the road. "Tuba City Hoppital." The town was curtained in dust, and the few people on the streets were bent against the wind. Slowly, we wound clown the dusty street, past the trading post, and a new-lookÂ ing government building. As we passed each one, we looked over our shoulders inquiringly. Each time, the younger woman shook her head and motioned us on. Finally she pointed to a low white building. "Hoppita!," she nodded. "Hoppital." ''Now," I said to our tourists as we stopped, "you can probably get your pictures. don't think these women would mind if you asked them." They craned around to stare as the women climbed out and walked to the side of the car. The young one looked at me seriously, and said something I couldn't understand, and grasped my hands between both of hers. Then the ancient one repeated the words and pressed my hands strongly between her old boney ones. For a long moment, she just stood there, gazing deep into my eyes. Then slowly, deliberately, with great dignity, they went from one passenger to the next, repeating the words, grasping the hands and looking full into the eyes or each person. They stood back from the station wagon for a moment, serene and serious, their long velvet skirts whipped about their ankles by the wind. Then, with a quick hoist of the colorful blankets over their arms, they turned and walked briskly into the hospital. Nobody had asked to take a picture.

A SHADE OF DIFFERENCE

Mrs. Kathleen Muldoon Vantine

Two small boys standing beside the old brick schoolhouse peered out from under the umbrella they shared. "For Pete's Sake," Joe said, "where do you think she is?" "'You've got me," Timmy groaned. "She said that she'd be here." He hopped once in disgust. "Boy," Joe exclaimed, "she better get here in a hurry, or I'll be all frozen, an' they'll have to take me home an' put me in a big oven to unfreeze me. Boy!" He laughed at the thought. "Me, too." Timmy agreed, and kicked the brick wall behind him. "Here." Joe held out the umbrella. "You take it for a while. My arm's almost ready to fall off." Timmy took it and Joe began to blow his hands and rub them together briskÂ ly. A car turned the corner and moved slowly along the street toward the boys. "That's her," Timmy announced. "See, you can tell by how slow she's going." The car inched over toward the sidewalk in front of the school and cautiously stopped. "Yep, that's her." Timmy wrapped his arms around his head protectively and darted toward the door which the woman in the car had opened. "See ya tomorrow!" "O.K." Joe called and began to run down the street, holding the big, clumsy black umbrella and stepping into every puddle he came to. Timmy climbed into the car and pulled the door shut. His mother released the brake, and the automobile began to move. "Well," she said dryly, "it looks like you got a little wet. You're not cold, are you?" He: shook his head. "Timmy," she said, "who was that waiting with you?" "Joe," he told her. "He was sharing his umbrella with me. Hey, Mom, what's for dinner?" "Spaghetti," she answered and watched while he licked his lips. "Well, I guess this is one meal I won't have to stand over you to make sure that you eat." He nodded eagerlv.

"Are you and this Joe good friends?" "Uh-huh." He nodded vigorously. "You know what,though?" he went on in a confidential manner. "Miss Jackson don't like Joe." "She doesn't?" "Nope,she says he's a troublemaker. I think he's fun." His mother braked slowly to turn a corner. "Hey, Mom," he said, "can I have something to eat soon as we get home?" "Oh, Timmy, honestly! l just told you that we're having spaghetti toni�t. No, you can't. You'11 spoil your dinner. "I will not." She did not answer. His mother stopped the car at the next intersection for a red light. "Timmy," she looked at him,"you do know what a Negro is,don't you?" "Yeah," he said, "they're people with brown skin ...like Joe." He paused,then. "Hey, Mom, couldn't I just have some cookies? I won't ruin my dinner. I promise!" The light changed and the car began to move again. "Can I?" he persisted. "We'll see," she answered. She switched on her turn signal. "Timmy,you know that Negroes are different from us,don't you?" "Yes," he said firmly. He wondered why she hadn't heard him when he told her be fore. "They have brown skin." He rolled the window down,and his right hand was out side in the rain. "Put that window up! You're letting the rain in,Timmy! I said put that window up immediately!" He closed the window. "That's right," she went on, "he's different. His skin is what makes him that way. Timmy,you know, I don't want you to ever think that you shouldn't be nice to him be cause his skin is like that. He can't help it,. He was just born that way." She looked at him to see if he understood.

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Noticing this,he shook his head. you."

She continued. "Now, it was very nice of him to offer to share his umbrella with "He didn't offer," Timmy corrected her. "He didn't?" She looked at him again. "Nope,I asked him." "Oh ...Why?" "Because," Timmy said firmly. "Oh," she answered quietly,and then frowned. "Mom?" "What, Timmy?" "If I promise to eat all my spaghetti, could I have some cookies then? Please?" "I don't know, Timmy, I'm thinking about it. I really wish you hadn't done that." "Done what,Mom?" "Asked Joe to share his umbrella." "Joe said he didn't care."

"Well, that's good. But you still shouldn't have asked him." She glanced at him. He picked up an old baseball hat from the back seat and pulled it down over his eyes. His face was hidden. "You see, Timmy, you don't ask just anybody to do you a favor." No sound came from beneath the hat. "And Joe isn't even like us. He's different. You should have asked someone else." The hat emitted a faint,indistinguishable grunt. "So,Timmy, from now on I don't want you to ask Joe favors like that." ''But, Mom!" He pushed the hat back from his eyes..<V1d looked at her. "Joe likes me to share his umbrella." "Oh, Timmy," she said impatiently, "that's not the point at all. Can't you see?"

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His eyes, back underneath the baseball hat, were hidden. "Yeah," he muttered faintÂ ly, "I guess so. But I think it's dumb." "Well, good. That's just fine, Timmy." She sighed in relief. "And you will rememÂ ber not ever to do it again?" "No," he answered and then there was a strained period of silence. The rain had stopped, but the road was still wet. The car moved cautiously. Timmy sat with his head down, staring under the rim of his hat at his arms, folded firmly over his chest. "Mom," he said hesitantly. She glanced in his direction. "Ummm?" "Now can I have the cookies?"

SMILE

Barbara Weber

Seeing a reflection of Him and mistaking that vision for the Bond Bread man makes me smile. Walking on the sea at twelve in the world makes me smile. Standing there, together, on top of time, laughing at the crack in the firmament makes me smile.

Tl IE TURN OF THE SHOWER

Evelyn Weinert

My most profound thoughts come to me when I am in the shower or when I am in bed. Take for instance the time I had this marvelous idea for a paper on Russian realism. I stood frantically etching what I could remember into a bar of Dial, which, of course, does not lend itself to a three-part outline with afterthoughts :in the margin. I was frus trated. Then there was the time I wanted to be like Lev Landau. This brilliant physicist had trained himself to do mathematical exercises mentally, exercises with intricate steps that involve answers with variables in terms of substituted constants. I was inspired. One night, I had insomnia; that is, I was still awake after three minutes in bed. I decided to improve my mental efficiency by following a binomial expansion to its fifteenth step. I was exhausted. For some time our bathroom was a dark green. When the room was finally painted white, my conflict of frustration-inspiration-exhaustion began to resolve itself: I wrote on the walls. My ideas began to take shape in very neat fashion over the sink, around the outlet, dropping little beneath the towel rack, leveling out to arm's reach near the john. The reverse side of the shower was solid wall space reserved for shower ideas only, be cause it was simpler to reach around th.an to climb out altogether and hobble across the room to the closet door. Now my family caters to individuality. Thus, the effort became contagious.; I be gan to find answers to my questions, solutions to my mathematical problems, and addi tions to my term paper outlines. The bathroom was soon lined with an earnest endeavor in conceptual expansion. However, I was still neglecting my insomnia inspirations. At first, I felt underdeveloped because I was unable to reach up and write on the ceiling. I had to settle for the wall closest to my bed, noting only the better thoughts. This was all very difficult; this stretching to write neatly with a minimum of movement, which, frankly, became the greater challenge. The master bedroom is flanked on either side by two dressing rooms that immedi ately were converted into study rooms the day we moved into this house. These studies are little more than walk-in closets, but I managed to squeeze in a table, a bookcase or two, doubledeckered to preserve space, and a stool. The marvelous, white, sloping ceil ing prevents anyone from standing upright. But it rapidly acquired charming decora tion -- an integral-math problem solution, three lists of potential term paper topics, and a saying of Thore<!tl about how the day is a perpetual morning for those of us who keep our thoughts in pace with the sun. The bathroom, my room, and the study were becoming a dream world for mad En glish majors, to say nothing of the corridor and master bedroom walls that captured a few ideas in transit. My mother began hanging piqtures. She said that although these ideas were all very fine and that she would be the first to encourage each one of us the walls were getting grey in spots. Furthermore, she said I was taking too many showers and that

l should be spending more time on rhy assignments and less time in bed. I said it was unpardonable to frustrate potential or hide it under pictures; we had a responsibility to share our inspirations for the good of my total development, for the good of the family, of the community, indeed, for the good of the world. The pictures came down and the walls were painted. My most profound thoughts still come to me when I am in the shower or when I am in bed. The walls are again, but subtly, growing that delicate vine of ideas. But the first fervor is gone. The corridor and master bedroom walls are neglected and that marvelous sloping ceiling is naked. Sadly, fresh paint has reduced most of my mental efforts to notebook size.

The Folio represents the collaborative efforts of the English and Art Departments of Holy Family College. The magazine is a journal of contemporary artistic expression of both the faculty and student body of Holy Family College. Contributions are also accepted from faculty and students of institutions other than Holy Family. I : .................. A..a .. :_._.,.,...

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