2020
Second Spring Literary Anthology
I WILL SURVIVE
Cover photograph by Alena Shekhovtcova 1
DEDICATION The pandemic has changed our way of life and affected nearly every aspect of it. As we navigate an uncertain future, we can look at this year’s Second Spring Literary theme and know that regardless of what is on the horizon WE WILL SURVIVE. This Anthology is dedicated to the memory of Emma Goode, a true survivor through a life that will be well remembered. According to her daughter Phyllistine Poole, When Mama was asked her age, she said “old enough to eat cornbread without getting choked.”
Emma Ashley Goode August 3, 1921 – January 29, 2021
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2020 Anthology Award Recipients
I Will Survive: My Mother Is My Model By Phyllistine Poole It Doesn’t Matter Much By Janet Joyner Forty Years By Susan Surman Will I Survive? By Helen Webb Covid-19 and A Celebration of Life by Linda Starkey Plain Plane Talk By Janet Joyner The Typo That Changed My Life By Arlene Mandell I Will Survive… By Annette Martin Collins
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Table of Contents Covid-19 and A Celebration of Life By Linda Starkey
6
I Will Survive
12
Plain Plane Talk By Janet Joyner
15
I Will Survive By Nancy Hall
19
Fish Knife By Diana Calaway
20
You Poor, Stupid Woman By Diana Calaway
21
It Doesn’t Matter Much By Janet Joyner
23
The Typo That Changed My Life By Arlene Mandell
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Will I Survive? By Helen Webb
28
After COVID Came By Bill Gramley
31
Forty Years By Susan Surman
32
Timeline of Anxiety By Martha Wilson Rowe
36
I Will Survive: My Mother Is My Model By Phyllistine Poole
40
The Library: A Child’s View By Linda Starkey
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By Samuel Newsome
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Snakes Alive! By Martha Wilson Rowe
47
Only in a Place By Janet Joyner
50
Can We Endure COVID-19 and Survive? By Bill Gramley
51
Autumn Banquet By Annette Martin Collins
55
Portrait of an Artist By Arlene Mandell
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I Will Survive… By Annette Martin Collins
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Covid-19 and A Celebration of Life By Linda Starkey
Hot and humid. It’s typical weather down South in August when taking a breath makes one feel like one is drowning and any excess flesh manufactures rivers of sweat that pastes clothes securely to the body revealing unflattering rolls that might as well be naked. I reluctantly leave my husband and fur-babies. Having been sequestered in our house since March 2020, my car has not moved for three months. I am scared to be around people because I am high risk of dying if I contract this new-found pestilence on mankind called COVID-19. Even one night away from my refuge makes me anxious.
A trip to the beach is something I normally anticipate with excitement and enthusiasm. But this time is different. Because of the pandemic, nothing, and I mean NOTHING could get me driving to the beach by myself on a hot muggy day except this mission of final farewell for a man that put his own life in danger to save mine. I leave the B&B early for the short drive to First Baptist Church in Little River, SC. I don’t worry when I can’t find the church immediately. Afterall, ‘First Baptist Church’ in any southern town is usually the largest church around. But contrary to what it’s name implies, I have to ask directions twice to no avail. Finally, I drive back one mile to the “SC Information Center” located just over the NC/SC border but inside Little River’s city limits. All three ladies serving as South Carolina’s ambassadors of southern hospitality cannot, for the life of them, tell me where the First Baptist Church in Little River, SC is located. I’m late and agitated. In spite of the car’s air conditioner, set at 64 degrees, and the fans on 6
high, my clothes now soaked with sweat. I decide to stop once more to ask directions. As I reach for the store’s front door, an older man holding an open beer in a not-fooling-anyone brown bag, almost runs into me. ‘What the heck?’, I think. I ask him if he knows where the First Baptist Church might be located. Amazingly, he does! I almost hug him—but I’m sweaty, and he smells like beer. I dash to the car, taking off like a drag racer. I just can’t miss Gary’s Celebration of Life!
The church sign is so small, I almost miss it. Well actually, in my haste I do miss it. Swiftly backing up, I make the turn. As expected, the parking lot is full, but no one is standing outside. Sometimes, things work out for the best. There is one chair at the open sanctuary doors and as quickly and as quietly as possible I sit down. The service is sweet. Having worked as an EMS and firefighter in the Calabash area for the last ten years, the front pews are filled with uniforms. The small church is filled to capacity. There is story after story of his good deeds or ‘little boy’ antics. I note recognition registering on the faces of people as they listen and visualize the friend they knew. He is still alive in their hearts and memories. These wonderful stories are testimonials to honor a man that lived his faith each and every day without fail. After local friends had their say, I stand up and raise my hand while walking down the center aisle saying, “I wish to say a word.” I turn, the only familiar face is Vickie’s, Gary’s widow. All eyes and ears trained on me, the stranger, now standing in front facing these people, sharing a common admiration and grief for the life we gather to celebrate. I have no idea what I am going to say. I take a deep breath and begin, “I met Gary Taylor at about 9:00 p.m. 7
October 31, 2006 at mile marker 199 on I-40 East 3 miles from my house.” Suddenly, my face is crumpling, and tears are tumbling down my cheeks landing on my blouse as I say, “You know, I didn’t really cry through the accident or the recovery. I guess I saved it up to share with you.” Then, I relate the story of our meeting. My best friend, Pam Wichmann, and I were decked out in our full Halloween costumes on our way home after a Halloween dinner out with our Red Hat group. Conversation stopped abruptly as we watched the car cross the median, and the loose control. We both said, “Oh, no!” at the same time. Then I turned the steering wheel sharply right as the other car hit us mid roll. In a few seconds, I literally returned to life with a “woosh,” and was amazed I was still alive, and aware of the profound silence. As I became more alert, intense pain filled all of my senses. I heard cars and trucks passing. Then suddenly, I realized Pam had not moved. I fought the air bags to look at her. Her head was tilted forward, and her skin was translucent ivory in the dim light. She was very still. I knew she was dead. With that realization, the pain flooded over me anew and I started screaming for someone to please help. A foggy realization of fire ringed my subconscious. A slipping movement outside the car caught my attention and a voice introduced itself, “I’m Gary Taylor 8
from Watauga County. I will stay with you. You stay with me.” I was immediately swathed in a calmness that belied the situation. I felt no pain. I told him my name, address, and phone number along with my husband’s name and phone number. I told him where my husband was when he would be home and then told him Pam’s name and her husband’s name and where they lived. Then, I said, “Pam’s dead, isn’t she?” He replied, “Yes. She is.”
My car was engulfed in fire and the dashboard was laying on my right leg, and my right foot was wrenched tight under the brake petal. Gary put the fire out with a fire extinguisher from the ambulance he was driving while taking a patient for treatment to Duke Hospital. He called in the emergency giving all the critical information. A chorus of voices and frenzied activity surrounded my car. There were many heroes and “sheroes” in the 19 emergency vehicles that answered the call that night, but Gary stayed with me as he had promised, watching, waiting, overseeing the rescue efforts. As the rescuers prepared to remove me from the car, I 9
heard his voice, “You might need to put a collar on her neck.” Everyone froze for a second, then a collar was swiftly placed around my neck.
A shot of morphine was supposed to help with my pain as they moved me, but when they tried, I screamed, “I can’t! I can’t!” Then Gary’s voice once more, “Yes, you can!” as many strong hands hefted me out of the car onto the gurney. I passed out.”
“Now,” I continue, “there’s more to this incredible story.”
“I discovered much later that Gary, himself had been burned very badly when an oxygen tank exploded landing him in UNC burn center for about 6 months. Think about that! A man who nearly died from burns sees a car on fire and runs toward the car to put out the fire and save whoever is in it. You have never met a more grateful person than I am for this courageous man. I used to tell him that he left feathers in his wake ‘cause he was the angel who saved my life. Well, now I know he has the real, forever, non-molting kind. And as for the “collar” situation? If Gary had not been there to oversee what was happening, I may have been a quadriplegic because my C6 had exploded. As it was, I was 5-points immobile. This means that besides my neck, both arms and legs were also broken. I also had a broken sternum, nose, and virtually all my ribs. Additionally, I had a head injury. 10
Had he not put out the fire, I would have been a crispy critter for sure.
I turn to Vickie and say, “Thank you for sharing this incredible man with us. Without your support and love, he could not have been the man he was born to be.” My mind ruminates about what had just occurred as I drive home. Gary Taylor was far more than his NC country accent and jokester demeanor would make a person think. He was powerhouse of personality, faith, and love—how can he possibly be gone? He was courageous, and kind. Jennie Sealy’s “Peaceful Waters” plays on the radio and as I listen, my vision blurs and sobs escape me.
Composed again I assure myself, “Everything’s going to be alright. But I sure am going to miss Gary’s call on Halloween saying ‘Trick or Treat! Trick or Treat! Give me something good to eat!’”
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I Will Survive
By Samuel Newsome
Jake awoke at the sound of the first ring of the phone. After forty years as a local medical examiner he was accustomed to answering the calls before they disturbed Marge, his long-suffering wife of as many years. This was Sue, the night nurse from the ER calling.
“Doc, I hate to bother you, but we’ve got a fresh one and that hot shot, Dr. Henry, has gone off the grid again.” Dr. Henry was the bright new young medical examiner. The reason they regretted calling Jake was because he was sick, real sick. The name of the illness killing Jake’s kidneys was interstitial nephritis. Jake’s energy levels had plummeted and his piss was the color of chocolate milk. Yep, he was sick. Treatments had come and gone and now Jake’s last hope was a new kidney, a kidney that was not likely to come for a sixty-six year old with diabetes and an AB+ blood type. His name was so far down the donor registry that years were likely to pass before or if a kidney was available. Jake knew he didn’t have years. He likely didn’t have a year.
The scene at the ER was the usual chaos. Sue greeted Jake as the friend of forty years that she was. “Its Antonio Parma. You remember the Parmas, don’t you?”
Jake couldn’t forget the Parmas even if he tried. Antonio was a scrawny sixteen-year-old who had attended every day of his brother’s trial for murder. Antonio’s brother, Marco, was no saint. He had been drawn into the gang culture before his teens and had been accused of committing several felonies but had never been tried. Evidence was lacking. Jake remembered the strange 12
case in which Jake had testified as a medical examiner giving evidence that would likely have exonerated Antonio’s brother. Jake had believed that Marco had been wrongly accused and wrongly arrested after uncovering physical evidence on the victim led to a different suspect. He also remembered the difficulties he had attending daily court sessions in his debilitated and ill state. He tried to hid his ailment, but rumors had circulated throughout the court and the prosecutor had tried to use Jake’s condition to diminish or reverse his testimony. Jake had held to his account of the evidence in spite of his physical problems. Jake knew that Marco would have been acquitted. Unfortunately, Marco was killed in a jailhouse incident before the case went to the jury. Antonio’s limp and pale body was swathed in a clean sheet on the gurney. He was barely changed from the skinny teenager Jake hadn’t seen in a year. The only change was the ghostly pale complexion and the dimple slightly larger than a pinhole in the right temple. The continued hissing and beeping of the ventilator and other machinery still connected to the inanimate body puzzled Jake.
Sue continued her account. “He was found at a friend’s home. The nine-millimeter pistol was in his right hand and fits the wound. You can see the stippling present confirming contact. He still had a pulse when the medics found him and was pronounced a few minutes before I called. Dr. Henry finally came in and did the initial exam. Jake was wondering why Sue hadn’t tried to reach him to cancel his ME duties when she interrupted him. 13
“Dr. Henry was looking through his effects when he found this.” She held out Antonio’s driver’s license.
Jake had recently been looking at certain aspects of these documents more closely. He noticed the organ donor box checked and the blood type was AB+. A moment of elation flooded Jake till he remembered the registry. “Sue, I appreciate the sentiment, but you know the registry rules and that Antonio’s organs will certainly go to someone higher on the list than me.”
“Wait, there’s more!” Sue handed over a faded scrape of paper that was torn and folded times four. It could have easily been a year old. “This was stuck down in the wallet. It says, and I quote, ‘In case of my death, I want Dr. Jake to have my kidneys.’” “Antonio’s personal bequest trumps the registry. Jake, you’ll soon be pissing liquid gold.”
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Plain Plane Talk By Janet Joyner
It was September 1998, and Harriet Jordon had just spent the Labor Day holiday with friends in Deer Isle, off the coast of Maine. Harriet’s friends had rented a large house there for the entire summer and had invited a life-time of friends to come visit according to a schedule of bi-weekly arrivals, carefully chosen to always include at least two good cooks for each “session.” HJ, as she was called, was passable in that category, but she also suspected her friends had a kinder, more compassionate motive in inviting her. It was her first trip alone, her partner of over twenty-five years having found the relationship no longer adequate.
And indeed, the trip had been good for HJ. Two weeks of digging for clams, mucking about in rubber boots and the pluff mud, rowing the boat, and even the bracing brief swims in cool Atlantic waters. Along with the good fresh seafood, excellent wine, great storytelling and laughter—especially around the “coming out” stories, the one experience they all had in common. There had been trips to Bar Harbor, numerous stops for sampling lobster rolls, and terrifying drives along the curvy, narrow coastal roads. And the camaraderie was so genuine that none of them seemed to have minded that part of the deal of which the invitées all seemed unaware, the part that involved painting the exterior of the rental house. Which was how their hostesses could afford the extravagance of an entire summer on Deer Isle. And after two weeks of this kind of “rehabilitation,” HJ was indeed improved, both mentally and physically, 15
when her friends took her to Bangor to board the aircraft that would take her first to Philadelphia where she would change planes for the flight to her home in North Carolina.
HJ boarded the return flight, found her seat and settled in for the duration. For the long hours involved on board and in multiple terminals, she had brought 2 with her the kind of professional, but off-putting, reading she often reserved for this kind of long journey. This time was Michel Foucault’s “L’archéologie du savoir” (The Archeology of Knowledge) which she had often attempted but each time abandoned as simply so much voluminous verbiage of which only academics, especially male ones, seemed capable. Volumes, for example, devoted to the notion that first Kant, then Herder, and now Foucault were attempting to tie knowledge to language. Endless discussions of Descartes’ “cogito,” the “I think” which grounds his notion of existence. HJ took out her pen, underlined, and commented in the margin, as she often did as a way of “conversing” with an author: Really guys: It’s elemental. Do we think in anything BUT language? HJ was about to comment further, when she was interrupted by the arrival of another passenger who had the seat adjacent and to the right of hers, so HJ rose, moved to the aisle to give the woman easier access and both passengers then settled in and buckled up for the flight. HJ resumed her reading, or had attempted to do so, but the young woman now beside her could not, or did not, pick up any social cues that reading a book would seem to indicate. This passenger just babbled on. She had been away for the wedding of a college friend and the event was a sort of reunion with many of those 16
women friends. She, herself, was married she said, had two children (her husband was keeping them). HJ thought to herself: “There is a way women talk to each other when their males are absent, a way that seems to free even perfect strangers to divulge the most personal information.” Perhaps these women feel a kind of universal, universal at least to them, kinship— a kinship of what, oppression? Or perhaps is it precisely a different sort of woman, and is and isn’t one, who can sense this deep level of desperation?
As the flight took off and progressed, the more HJ’s neighboring traveler talked, and the more she talked, the more she seemed troubled by the wedding, by the reunion with her college friends. She was questioning so many things, especially the nature of love itself. Was it only narcissism? It seemed not to have occurred to her that it isn’t love, but loving, that is transformative. Moreover, HJ wondered 3 if the woman’s questions didn’t indicate a deep interrogation of her own self, as though she might be searching, longing for, something so much more than what she actually had ever had, or felt?
Finally, the woman did notice that HJ had in hand a book, and that in between her own talk, in the moments of silence, HJ would read. She did eventually ask what HJ was reading, and wanted to know about Foucault, who he was, and the ideas he wrote about–as if HJ could actually tell her, actually bring herself to now admit that she was reading a two-hundred and seventy-five page treatise on the relationship between language and knowledge—which she herself barely understood— when clearly this woman was disturbed, was so worried about her own mind, and whether, as she said, 17
principally dealing only with children was making her stupid.
At this point, the flight captain announced the descent into Philadelphia and the two women would deplane, never to see each other again. And thirty-two years later HJ would discover in one of her little Cahiers Bleus, the closest thing to a journal she ever kept, her notes about this encounter. And having had language, a way to transcribe it, bring back the memory and therefore the reliving of it, her sadness for that woman’s sadness, someone she had encountered only once on a plane flight from Bangor to Philadelphia made her contemplate the stupendous power of the word… and of a prehistoric bison on a cave wall in France.
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I Will Survive By Nancy Hall
Although I had recently left my job at UNC School of Social Work, I responded to an announcement about a trip to China for faculty. I was accepted to make the trip. Why China? There were several reasons. I had become a consultant for Kolbe Company and wanted to share the information with people in China. The second reason had to do with something that happened when I was about 12 or 13 years old. An Associational missionary had told me she hoped I would be a missionary to China when I grew up. It had haunted me ever since I spoke with her. It was time I tested it out. When my tour group arrived in China, one of the first places we visited was something like an amusement park with a huge lake in the center. We all set out to explore and shop. Before long, it was beginning to get dusk. The tour bus was on the opposite side of the lake. I did not think I could make it before it got dark. How to get back to the hotel?
In all the different voices I found a couple from Canada who got a cab for me. He was able to take me to the hotel where my group was staying. At hotel, they were able to direct me to the restaurant where the group was having dinner. There were no other scary experiences. We did the usual tourist things like walking on the great wall, visiting the temple, and so on. As I reflect on this experience, I wonder why the tour leader did not look for me. Today I might even think of a formal reprimand for the company. I had accomplished my goals. 19
FISH KNIFE
By Diana Calaway
There we were at the luncheon table in the home of Di and Paddy, our dear friends in London. He had arranged a tour of the UK for us, thanks to the acquisition of our North Carolina company by his firm.
We had seen Stonehenge and Canterbury Cathedral where Thomas a Beckett was murdered. We were about to embark on a journey by train to northern Scotland to tour Balmoral Castle and see Loch Lomand among other things. Then to watch a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Shakespeare's own Stratford Upon Avon. Years later I would pull out the papers from this dream trip and learn that the role of Oberon had been played by then young Patrick Stewart. But today we were enjoying a quiet lunch with Di and Paddy.
Babbling idiotically but enthusiastically, I was describing the warnings of my neighbor who had visited England before: “You won't know what to do with the silverware,” she said. “They spread it out from here to here (arms wide apart). And you may even have to deal with a fish knife.” Confidently, I admitted that after three whole days in England, I had not yet encountered a fish knife. “Oh yes you have,” replied my host. “You have just buttered your bread with one.” 20
You Poor, Stupid Woman: Conversations with Auto Service People By Diana Calaway Phone request: I need an appointment for an inspection, oil change, tire rotation—and to get a noise fixed. Reply: What kind of noise?
Me: I don't know. A noise that makes me not able to hear the radio any more. The guy: Is it in the front or the back of the car?
Me: Well.... I'm always in the driver's seat. From there it sounds everywhere. Guy: Is it a whistle? A whine? A bump? A rattle?
Me (scratching my head): More like a roar. It gets louder as I speed up. Guy: Sounds like a wheel bearing.
P. S. It was. Didn't we do a sharp diagnosis? After several hundred dollars worth of repairs, he tells me the problem could have become dangerous if we had let it continue. I am reminded of an earlier experience. As my husband became limited by illness, I began to take over driving for us. We traveled often, and during one trip to the beach we found that the control on the passenger side did not work to raise or lower that window. I had to do 21
it for him from the driver's seat. When in the shop next time, I pointed out this problem to the guy who sits out front and performs triage on incoming vehicles. He simply reached inside my window, toggled a button that had invisible print explaining its purpose, and corrected the problem. Magic!
Feeling helplessly my ignorance of car anatomy, I enjoy remembering once, years ago, when I—a poor, illiterate in mechanic-speak--scored A+ on that test that car service experts like to administer to women.
When I bought the car, there was a leak. After two unsuccessful attempts to fix it, the guy, before taking it again to the body shop, asked me, “Exactly where, Ma'am, does it leak?”
My quick and mechanically specific answer: “Sir, it leaks into the driver's left shoe.” That time they fixed it.
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It Doesn’t Much Matter whether people care or not. What matters is that people alter this world. The planet. Whose sixth mass extinction is an event of our own making. And this one will continue to determine the course of life long after everything humans have written, and painted, and built has been ground into dust, and giant rats have—or have not— inherited the earth. By Janet Joyner
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The Typo That Changed My Life By Arlene Mandell
I NEEDED A JOB — REAL BAD, REAL FAST!
I was living in a tiny room in a boarding house in New Jersey during the divorce process from my off-the-wall, self-destructive husband of 22 years. In Florida, my father had just passed away; my mother was depressed, in dire financial straits, and overwhelmed. I had no sisters, brothers, or family; there was no one to turn to but myself to survive these colliding situations. First step: find a job.
“Proofreader Wanted” appeared in my small town community newspaper. Bingo! I went for an interview the next day. The manager was adamant, he wanted someone with experience. I had none as a proofreader but justified my other qualifications: college-educated, excellent speller, had taught several years in the New York City public school system (not revealing it was kindergarten).
He then held up the previous week’s newspaper in front of my face. An ad for a sale on men’s clothing read: “TWO SHIRTS, TEN DOLLARS,” only the “r” was missing from “shirts.” I stifled a laugh. He said he was losing thousands of dollars in advertising revenue because of typos like that and MUST have someone with skill in the field. He walked me to the door, thanked me and said goodbye.
However, I didn’t leave but instead wandered through the honeycombed building, peeking into printing rooms, 24
chatting with employees, and, unintentionally, bumping into the manager. He asked why I was still there. I told him I was curious about the company, then said goodbye, once again, and went home. An hour later the manager called, offering me the job. It was to begin the following Monday; I’d be proofing advertisements only, no copy. Perfect opportunity for a beginner!
The first week went smoothly. The rhythmic sound of presses rolling, the frenzy to meet deadlines, working with a team; I loved it and was delighted when staff referred to me as “the proofie.” Weeks later, the manager strode into my room and heartily shook my hand. He was ecstatic; there had been no typos and the refunds had stopped cold. I was “in.”
Months passed happily in my new-found profession, when to my dismay a larger newspaper bought us out and let everyone go. I quickly found another job at Macmillan Publishing reading tax and legal forms. Every “i” HAD to be dotted; every “t” HAD to be crossed. There were twelve of us in the proof room seated in vertical rows of four. Each form was read and re-read by everyone in the row, then packaged up and taken to the editors’ room for a final reading by them. If a typo had gotten by, we were excoriated mercilessly.
The exacting nature of this job was tempered by “Mitzi,” a provocatively dressed, middle-aged woman in the last seat of my row. Mitzi switched into aggressive flirt mode whenever the strapping young maintenance man clattered into the room with his tall ladder to repair the multitude of fluorescent lights covering the ceiling. He just couldn’t seem to fix them properly, which called for 25
frequent return trips; the comic relief was a welcome interlude for all of us!
As soon as I saved up enough money, I relocated to Miami to move in with my mom. I told her we would now take care of and look out for each other; a timely decision, as she was aging and in poor health. Once settled, I quickly applied to a large newspaper needing a temporary substitute for their lone proofreader on sick leave. The interviewer was impressed to see “Macmillan” on my resume and hired me on the spot; I was relieved he didn’t ask for details.
This was now the “real deal,” proofreading copy as well as advertisements. I soon discovered and became increasingly alarmed at how much I did NOT know. I summoned all my brainpower to catch the errors, while discreetly jotting down what I didn’t understand. Fortunately, I produced a typo-free weekly edition but worried about my serious lack of grammatical knowledge. Once the regular proofreader returned, they let me go. All during that time, I was attending a weekly talk group to meet new people. One gal taught at the local high school. I asked if she could put me in touch with an English teacher for a tutorial. She did, and I arranged a visit ASAP to the teacher’s home. Arriving with my copious list, I was assured by her gracious welcome that I had come to the right place. We spent hours pouring over every point, after which she showed me the 502page “Gregg Reference Manual” by William Sabin. I could tell this would become my proofreading bible, 26
purchased the book, and went home with confidence tucked under my arm.
Over the next few months, I zealously digested the manual, then sent out resumes; I was ready. Fortuitously, a proofreading job on a travel magazine became available. I jumped at it! Over the next ten years, I also became their research editor, photographer, slide cataloguer and caption-writer. I traveled with publisher and staff throughout the beautiful Bahamas and Caribbean Islands. In addition, my photographs appeared in, and on the covers of, our growing array of colorful magazines.
It was also grueling work with long hours under intense pressure when “in production.” Missing a deadline meant losing a contract with the country whose tourism magazine we were printing. However, the rewards were immeasurable and the culmination of a long string of opportunities that had come my way. And, to think, it all started when a typo changed my life…
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Will I Survive? By Helen Webb
Will I survive my decision in 2019 to move from my home of fifty-five years to the Happy Home Retirement Community? I had been involved in a variety of activities: playing bridge three afternoons a week, church twice a week, attending a writing group monthly, walking with neighbors daily, and lots of other social activities. The decision had not been extremely difficult to make. The house had developed problems as had the yard. (It was a $1000.00 here, a $1000.00 there.) Arthritis had set up in my back which prohibited me from working in the yard. Although I had yard service, no one could keep the yard the way I had. Eight months earlier I had been hospitalized by a fall in the yard. It was time to move on to a different life. Gradually I began to incorporate some of the Happy Home activities into my life. The various people I ate supper with were friendly and interesting. I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with my daughter and her family as my son had recently moved to Virginia. Life was moving along smoothly. Then, COVID-19 hit North Carolina and March 17, 2020 the governor shut down the state. The Happy Home Retirement Community became the Happy Jail. The dining room and café were closed. Meals could be ordered and delivered to residents. All activities were cancelled. No outside visitors were allowed on campus. Visiting inside the apartments or cottages was not allowed but we could leave the campus for essential reasons. Then came the mask wearing and six feet apart rules. The “shutdown” 28
was suppose to be for several weeks, but several weeks got extended and re-extended.
By the sixtieth day I was “at the end of my rope.” Each day for thirty minutes I walked around and around the back parking lot often talking to God. Once I asked him “ How long are we going to have to deal with COVID-19” and at the same time I thanked him for a safe place to live, food to eat and the ability to at least see a few people. I always ended my walks at the front entrance to the Club House. Usually someone would be sitting in one of the four rocking the porch. The chairs of course were six feet apart. I always stopped to chat a few minutes, after first putting on my mask. As the weather turned warmer, more people gathered and sat in the chairs or on the several nearby benches. In the back parking lot there were things to watch: workmen coming and going, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, tomato plants growing and a yellow rose bush beginning to bud. Inside my apartment I had several daily devotion books to read, a diary to record daily happenings, a TV to watch and a computer on which I could play bridge with my long time partner. We played bridge every night for two hours. The trip to the mailroom was the excitement of the day: would there be a note or card or even a bill waiting for me.
Soon afterwards, the governor let up on some of the restrictions and we were allowed to eat in the dining room but fewer people at a time and only four people to a table. I was elated to be able to eat supper with other people. As the weeks and months have gone by, the rules and regulations have lessened. More activities 29
have been gradually added to the social calendar but always the rules of six feet apart, masks and limited number of participants have remained in place. Last week we were allowed to have outside visitors in the apartments but not in the dining room or other inside areas of the campus.
COVID-19 has affected my emotional health. My nerves are shot. Any little problem throws me into a tizzy. Computer and cell phones glitches seem to be insurmountable. When will it ever be over? Problems with the computer and cell phone, and the 2020 election are things I will survive. Even though I’ve seen my children almost weekly, outside in the church parking lot six feet apart, I’ve not been able to touch them nor to see their unmasked faces. Last weekend both children visited me in the apartment….six feet apart and wearing masks. Instead of joy, I felt detachment. It was almost like entertaining a stranger in my home. Texting, e-mails and phone calls just don’t adequately convey deep down feelings and after a while the feelings just seem to vanish into thin air. Emotional detachment from my children is a terrible feeling. I feel like I’m alone in the world. For me, the emotional impact of COVID-19 is the survival question. Tomorrow when I walk around and around the parking lot, I’ll talk to God about my feelings and look for a message in the wonderful world of nature.
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After COVID Came By Bill Gramley
You put a vase of scarlet tulips on my grave, a summer gift,
and I expect you’ll bring a clutch of wildflowers from a rural road,
the September yellow ones so bright whose names I do not know, and they’ll invite the ginkgo leaves to skip across my mound in golden glee!
I’ll watch November’s raucous, rusted leaves
invade the shallow moats around my plot and there enrich the soil. All this will comfort me when cold and shorter days
stiffen the stalks of those winter weeds I love to watch.
Yet violets blue upon the ground and daffodils above Will soon unfurl their flags of hope and joy and life! I know you’ll come around again
and we can speak of all those treks we took
to catch the colors each season brought, then shed, since we believed such glory would never end.
Then COVID came.
31
Forty Years By Susan Surman
The Meeting: At the Larnaca Airport in Cyprus, Greece, I never heard the call to board. Some instinct made me ask the lady sitting next to me if she was waiting for the flight to London. “No,” she said in broken English, but how you can break up a one syllable word has always baffled me. Anyway, I made a dash for it. In a fraught and harried state, I was the last one to board. The plane was only about a quarter full. Who was going to England in July? My seat was in the non-smoking section – 17A. No one in front of me or next to me. Lucky me. A quick assessment of my surrounding fellow passengers: Couples, families, and across the aisle, a young man not dressed like a tourist or holiday maker got my attention. Smoking section – 17F. No one in front of him or next to him. he appeared to be self-contained. I decided he was a journalist or maybe a photographer. What a solid looking chap. How do you get to meet them like that? Suddenly, the plane lurched – it always happens right after you have eaten. Turbulence! The seat belt sign went on. I looked across at the young man. I was scared and needed reassurance. He was calm and must have sensed me looking over at him because he turned his head and our eyes met. “Is it going to be alright?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he said. We chatted. He invited me over to his section where we talked and never noticed the turbulence had subsided. I learned he was Scottish and had been to Cyprus to visit the places where he spent his childhood. His father had been an officer in the British Army. 32
We didn’t exchange names; yet I felt I’d known him when I was seven years old, lost him, and found him again. In the middle of one of my monologues, he said, “You’re delightful company.” I could feel myself blushing as I said, “I know.” The age thing came up. I have no idea why. But I learned he was 27. He was surprised to learn I was 39 as I looked 29. I liked him. When we were about to land, he said simply and directly: “You have two choices when we leave this plane. You can consider this a pleasant airplane conversation or we can see each other again.” He didn’t ask for my phone number; instead, he gave me his. It took me two weeks before I rang him.
The Marriage: Back home we continued the ‘meet cute’, the expression they use in the movies when the two love interests first meet. He would visit me in my flat in London; I would visit him in his house in the country. Two years later we were married at Chelsea Town Hall in London. I was 41 and wore high heels. He was 29 and wore boots. The age difference was never an issue. There is an old Nepalese saying: A woman of 30 at 40 will be a woman of 60 at 80 will be a woman of 75 at 100. I think it loses something in the translation, but I like it.
The Divorce: And then somehow the marriage came to an end. Divorce is not the end of the relationship – it’s only the end of the marriage. It was a piece of paper that had brought us together; it was a piece of paper that separated us – physically only – not emotionally. There had been homes in London, Sydney and Winston-Salem. It had to mean something. World-wide traveling together had to mean something. The person I laughed 33
with, went to for advice, shared mutual friends with, the person who was there when I played the Sydney Opera House, the Ensemble Theatre, when I played Jean MacArthur to Robert Vaughn’s Douglas MacArthur in an Australian movie, the supporter of my acting career, my writing career, my life. It had to mean something. Talking on the phone became our mode of communication with an occasional e-mail. People we knew together would appear on TV in a movie – we would call each other. People we knew together died – we would call each other. His mother died – he called me. My aunt died – I called him. It had to mean something.
The Finale: Fairly recently, early in March, he called to say his shoulder was hurting badly. “Which side?” I asked. “Left,” he said. “I’ve got the same thing on my right shoulder,” I replied. We decided it was all the time spent at the computer. As two writers, we spent most of each day at the computer. Sometime in April I sent something funny to him in the mail and called to see what he thought. He was out of breath and said it hurt to move – he couldn’t go to the mailbox – hadn’t been for a week. Early May he rang to say he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. I started to cry. “You’re not crying,” the Scot said in his upper crust British accent. In my best British accent, this American replied, “Of course not.” He said he wasn’t going to have any treatment – no chemotherapy, no radiation, no medication. “I’ve been everywhere, I’ve written 25 books, there’s nothing more I want to do.” Pieces of my heart were being shredded. He lived about 90 miles away. I wanted to see him. “I’ll be in your area 34
this weekend,” I said. “Still selling those vacuum cleaners?” he asked. “I got fired from that job. I’m selling insurance door to door,” I said.
“I don’t want you to see me like this.” That voice – that marvelous voice – once so deep and melodious like honey dripping over pebbles was breathless. “I want you to remember the way it was,” he managed to say. “The good and the bad,” I said.
“There was only the good,” he said. He died that June.
Grief takes many forms. Mine was a voice box that absolutely failed to work. I literally could not talk for two months. Later, I realized it was because I didn’t want to talk. There just wasn’t anyone interesting to talk to. When I took my daily walk, I carried a little sign in my pocket that I pulled out in case I met anyone I knew: ‘Can’t talk. Inflamed vocal chords.’ With his passing at 67, half my life is gone. Forty years gone. If we had stayed married, I’d be a widow. I’ve always wondered which is worse – or better – divorce or death. One is final; the other presents the possibility of running into them with someone draped on their arm.
All I know is no matter how much you love someone, no one jumps into the grave after them.
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Timeline of Anxiety By Martha Wilson Rowe
The suggestion for these life stories came from a question my friend’s granddaughter asked of her: What events took place in your life that caused as much difficulty as the Coronavirus? Of the events described here, some did not cause as much difficulty as they did anxiety.
1941+: World War II. My childhood was relatively happy and carefree, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor had little, if any, impact on a little girl who had just turned five years old. It was what took place in the following years that caused me to be most frightened, the searchlights at Smith Reynolds Airport. They were extremely powerful, sweeping the night skies as they searched for any German aircraft. I was afraid of them and wanted to hide. 1948: The Polio Epidemic. The swimming pool at Reynolds Park was closed. The movie theatres were closed. I was not allowed to go to the playground or play with other children. Pictures of children in iron lungs shocked and terrified me.
1951: The Korean War. Airplanes flying overhead alarmed me. It was unreasonable to suspect that they were Korean planes coming to drop bombs on us, but it was my fear nevertheless. At the theatre, I had to sit through the newsreels that were shown before the movie started. They always gave me the shivers. 1960: First Airplane Flight. I was seven months pregnant and flying alone from El Paso to 36
Winston-Salem for the birth of our first child, as my husband did not want the baby to be born in an Army hospital. He remained at Fort Bliss with plans to join me after the baby was born. Apparently, air traffic over Atlanta was stacked, and my plane kept circling around instead of landing. I was very nervous, almost on the verge of tears, and did not know what was happening. A kindly passenger took notice of my distress and offered comfort and assurance that we would be landing soon. 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis. The news on the television was frightening. Besides being concerned that we were on the very verge of war, I was also afraid that my husband would be called back into service in the Armed Forces.
1963: Threat of Atomic Bomb. At the height of the Cold War, all over town fall-out shelters were being built and stocked with necessary supplies in case of a nuclear attack. There were official yellow and black signs directing people where to go to one of these public shelters. It was believed that Winston-Salem would be a Soviet target due to the location of a Western Electric plant here. Should this actually come to pass, I worried that my family would become separated, ending up in different shelters, and survival of any of us seemed highly unlikely. 1963: Kennedy Assassination. I was a member of the library staff at Salem College, and when we heard about this, Anna Cooper, the librarian, closed down the library. We walked across the street to the closest dormitory where there was a television set and we 37
could watch the news. It was so unexpected, so devastating. I remember driving home in tears.
1972: The Vietnam War. The blood and guts of the fighting seemed endless. Some of my friends and relatives were being injured or killed in battle after battle. The iconic photograph of the little naked girl screaming and running down the road after a napalm attack haunts me yet.
1983: The Day After. This television film about a nuclear attack was so realistic and disturbing, that my son, who was a student at Furman University, got in his car and immediately drove home. He just wanted to be at home. My brother-in-law and his wife were camping in their RV, and it was so upsetting to them that they turned around and returned home. To all of us, home is our refuge, our safety.
9/11/2001: Terrorist Attack. Watching this live on TV was unreal and unthinkable. Never before had our country been under attack. I was at work, and my coworkers and I gathered around one of our computers to watch, as first one of the Twin Towers and then the other tower collapsed, right before our very eyes. We were horror-stricken, and felt apprehensive, vulnerable, angry. Those graphic scenes will never be erased from my memory.
2020: Coronavirus Pandemic. Who could have imagined there would be a pandemic in my lifetime? It is out of control, and my age has placed me in the at-risk category. My life, as I knew it, abruptly changed. There would be no in-house church services, no going to the movie theatres, no eating out in restaurants, no group 38
meetings. Ending my daily hour-long work-outs every week at the Jerry Long Family YMCA has been detrimental to my physical health. I have gained a few pounds. Easter came, and no Holy Week Readings at church, no walk to God’s Acre for the Sunrise Service. The annual Father’s Day event hosted by one of my sons and his wife at Lake Norman was cancelled. It was deemed too risky for me to attend their usual Fourth of July party at the lake. The family will not gather around my table for the traditional Thanksgiving meal this year. There will be no Christmas Eve Lovefeast and Candlelight Service at church. Christmas with the whole family will have to be adjusted. I feel I have aged during these months of quarantine. Home alone has become my status. Staying safe has become my goal. I miss my children, my grandchildren, my friends. I miss hugs. I have survived in the past. I will survive again.
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I Will Survive: My Mother Is My Model By Phyllistine Poole
“I will survive” are words I have never spoken or thought because I didn’t need to affirm this belief. My survival has always been a given. Survival is in my DNA, passed down to me through my mother, who grew up in a poor farm family of twelve children. One thing about being poor, you learn how to survive.
Taking care of a family gives one a strong will to survive, as in Mama’s case. Mama was widowed at fortyone years old and left to raise four school- age children—of sixteen, fourteen, seven and six– by herself. Several months after my father was killed in an automobile accident, Mama was hospitalized with cancer of the thyroid gland. After surgery, she was in a coma for five days. While in a coma, she said, she saw angels in a circle and understood that they wanted her to get in the middle. After she refused, she said, “Looked like they got together and discussed what they were going to do next. Then they got in a circle again and tried to get me to get in it. I knew if I got in that circle, I wouldn’t be here no more.” She told them “I got to get back to my children,” and woke up from the coma. My mother survived for her children and also because of grace, faith, survival skills, a good sense of humor and hard work. I believe in “You reap what you sow” and that Mama has divine favor, which has given her the strength, wisdom and means to survive. I believe she has favor because of her many acts of kindness, for which she was known, admired and loved in our neighborhood. She obeyed the commandment “Love thy 40
neighbor.” Just a few examples: to give young mother’s a break, she babysat their children for free. Whenever our next-door neighbors traveled out of town to visit an elderly, sick relative, whom she had never met, Mama sent her home cooked food. When a church member was sick, Mama didn’t just call or send a card, she went to the woman’s house and gathered up her dirty clothes to wash and even starched the woman’s doilies and mended some split seams in her clothes. When a passing neighbor lamented that it was his wife’s birthday and he hadn’t gotten her a gift, Mama said “Here take her some of these flowers,” inviting him into her flower garden. She taught us children to be kind by example and precept, and being kind has served us well in life. I, too, have lived a good life (for the most part) and believe a higher power has helped me to survive because of it. I believe that when you are on the Lord’s side, He is on yours. And Mama certainly was on the Lord’s side, and for this she was rewarded. Mama gave and gave and didn’t ask for much, but I noticed that when she expressed a desire for something big or small, she got it. For example, when she heard that the city was buying houses across town for redevelopment plans, she said, “I sure wish they would buy this house so I could get me a new one.” Her house needed repairs which she couldn’t afford. Lo and behold, not long after she expressed this wish, redevelopment came to her neighborhood and her house was one of the few bought on her street. With the money, she bought a better house. Others around her whose houses were bought also purchased better accommodations. 41
Mama’s faith is strong and it has also helped her to survive. She lives by the words in the songs “The Lord will make a way somehow” and “I believe I’ll run on and see what the end’s gonna be.” She also believes in the power of prayer. Before I underwent a tricky and dangerous surgery, Mama called on her church members to join her in prayer for me. The surgery and recovery went so well that I was released from the hospital earlier than planned. When I went to my doctor for a checkup weeks later, he was so amazed that he called in his assistant to see my incision. They both agreed they had never seen a patient heal so fast. Mama passed on her faith to her children through her religious instruction and involving us in church services. That faith has been my strength and assurance in a higher power that helps me have confidence that I will survive. Mama’s practical survival skills leave me in awe. With not much money and no assistance, she housed, clothed and fed her children. I learned from her how to budget money, how to grocery shop to feed a family on a limited budget. My husband would go to the grocery store with me but wouldn’t shop by himself because, he said, I could get twice as much as he could with the same amount of money.
Mama grew a vegetable garden and canned vegetables and fruit to help make ends meet. She was so frugal that she saved buttons, zippers and even sometimes thread from worn out clothing before discarding them. She made most of our clothes and knew where to shop for the best bargains on fabric. Because of Mama’s example, I knew how to make do when my resources were limited. I joke that if a panel of women like my mother 42
were put in charge of the federal budget our country wouldn’t have a deficit but a huge surplus.
Proverbs 17:22 KJV tells us “A merry heart doeth good like medicine.” My mother’s good spirits have helped keep her in good health and us children laughing and all of us going. She enjoyed a good joke and sharing laughter. Frequently she shared sayings, funny stories and amusing anecdotes with us children and others. April Fool’s Day was one of her favorite times and she loved to come up with ways to fool her children. She always had meaningful and often funny replies to questions. When one of her teenaged daughters asked her if she had any money, she let her know, “Yeah, I got money and sense with it.” Other times when she had to set us straight, she did so with good humor. When she asked one of us to do something and doubted we would follow through, she said “You say okay, but you mean Oh nay.” Today she has our children laughing. When a granddaughter asked her how to pick a guy, she broke out into the song “Money Honey.”
Mama was a hard worker and worked as a housekeeper, cafeteria worker, door-to door saleswoman and neighborhood seamstress. We children learned the value of hard work from our mother and that has helped us to survive. Through her example, she also showed us to take care of ourselves. She didn’t drink or smoke, enjoyed a healthy diet of mostly poultry, dried beans, vegetables and fruits, and walked and exercised regularly. Her lifestyle has helped her to live a long life. She is ninety-nine years old. We children are all senior citizens now and have done well in life mainly due to 43
our mother’s example and the survival skills she has passed on to us.
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The Library: A Child’s View By Linda Starkey
When I was a little girl, going downtown to the library was a wonderful treat. I loved the smell of the books, the cool air and hushed voices. The sound of the date return stamp machine at the front desk. The library held a unique kind brand of adventure. I escaped long, hot Winston-Salem summers via word time travel to watch and listen in my imagination, people far away in castles, explorers of exotic lands, and wild west heroes, or southern tall tales about a rabbit who loved to be thrown in a briar patch. I eagerly sought out the latest “Highlights for Children” and remember being highly aggravated if another kid thoughtlessly marked the “hidden pictures.” I thought the newspaper holders, rather like quilt racks with newspapers draped over the slatted rolls, were totally fascinating. Men in the business suits sat at large tables, with their newspaper choice spread out like wings before them.
Opening and closing card catalog drawers immitted an organic wooden sound as patrons looked up availability and location of the needed book for research or pleasure reading. Sometimes, I stood before an open drawer, simply reading the cards. All that knowledge in one place! So much I didn’t know and never would. But the lure of the pursuit of knowledge is still as strong for me as ever was even if the medium and means have changed. 45
The internet, while powerful and holding far more information at the tips of my fingers, can never provide the same aesthetic, comforting feeling as holding a book in my hands. While awe inspiring, it fails to provide the wonder, the smell, the quiet excitement of possibilities I remember experiencing as a young child in the 50s.
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SNAKES ALIVE! By Martha Wilson Rowe
It is early morning in late March, 2020. I walk into the laundry room to get Sandy’s bowl and dogfood for his breakfast, and something catches the corner of my eye. It appears to be one of the white glue pads I had put behind the washing machine to catch and trap mice. I caught one on it just a few weeks ago. I wonder how it got all the way over to Sandy’s crate. I bend down to pick it up when I notice something seems to be stuck on it, and is moving. Egad! A snake. A black snake. A closer look and I see that there is a dead mouse stuck to the glue pad as well. That is probably what the snake was after when he got himself in trouble. How in the world did a snake get into my laundry room? How in the world am I going to get him out of my laundry room? He is curling around the wires of the crate and trying to get himself unstuck. Inspiration. I close the interior door to keep Sandy away and open the outside door and roll the crate out into the yard. Sandy and I can watch through the windows from the safety of inside the house. Sandy is barking nonstop. Even though it seems impossible for anything to manage to free itself from a glue pad, eventually this snake does. As we look on, that snake in the grass slithers away and I breathe a sigh of relief, and Sandy stops barking in my ear.
My husband had a close encounter once. He had gone over to our barn trying to find my grandmother’s black iron cook pot that we remembered storing in one of our moving boxes. There was a stack of several boxes, and 47
rather than lifting each box down to the floor to look inside, he resorted to just sticking his arm in and feeling around to try to identify a big round heavy pot. In one box, he put his right arm in, and he drew his right arm out, followed by a big black lunging snake, and he turned himself around. It was lucky he was nimble and quick, or he surely would have been nursing a snake bite. Another snake escapade. This one was in Yellowstone National Park. We were exploring the trails and the thermal springs and fumaroles. My husband and the older two boys had gone on ahead and around the bend and out of sight. In trying to follow them, my youngest and I stumbled upon a very large rock on which lay a rhumba of rattlesnakes. We were almost paralyzed, afraid to pass. When my husband missed us and turned back to find us, he immediately saw the problem. He had to literally talk us around that rock that was blocking our path and separating us from him. Once past, we felt like celebrating with a snake, rattle, and roll. Snakes are part of the territory, any territory. I identified the snake in my house as a rat snake. It was black with a white belly. It and blacksnakes are very similar and fairly harmless, although a blacksmith will bite if cornered or frightened. They also will emit a foul smell, which I can attest to. Pugh! Their diet consists mainly of small rodents such as rats, mice, voles, chipmunks, and even bird eggs. I have seen a few copperheads and rattlesnakes around here as well, though not often. None is ever welcome inside my house, ever again! 48
I’ll wager every one of you has a snake story or two. It’s like that with dogs too. Everybody has a dog story. Be alert. We tell what we have experienced, but Sakes Alive, let’s hope it doesn’t include bats. I have enough bats in my belfry as it is.
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Only in a Place where the rules of the game remain fixed long enough is there time for butterflies to evolve, to feed on the shit of birds that evolved to follow ants. By Janet Joyner
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Can We Endure COVID-19 and Survive? By Bill Gramley
No one welcomes crises, deprivation, illness, or injuries. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Thanks, I needed that broken bone.” I don’t hear anyone saying, “This COVID19 pandemic is a good and welcome testing of our souls!” It might be a testing, but it’s not a welcome one and few people look at it like that. It is more of a challenge to find out if we human beings in our various nations have the stamina to endure the restrictions as well as the patience to wait for a vaccine in order to stop the spread of this deadly, silent killer.
One of the big problems we have in the United States is the deeply rooted belief in the rugged individual: the maverick, the rebel, the hippie who listens to no one except his or her own inner voice and inclinations. The pioneers who went West in the 18th and 19th centuries suffered over prairies and mountains day after day and could circle their wagons if the Native Americans threatened them with their war chants and arrows. These explorers were tough, and the joint community of tightly tethered wagons could win out some of the time. For Custer and his army, it was a different story. Clearly, we face uncertainty in our efforts to find immunity protection from this virus, especially since we don’t know how long antibodies created from the virus infection last. There is much more to discover, and the battle is ongoing with no end in sight. Other countries, like China, some Asian, and most European nations, have less of a rebellious tradition. They have united under the advice of epidemiologists and political leaders to restrain their socializing and to 51
wear masks. They have had pretty good success at stopping the spread of the virus. Some of these people, like the Italians, do a lot of hugging and it was for them to restrain themselves. But they have done so, and it has helped.
When it comes to the United States, I think of the biblical story of Jonah. He was a very reluctant prophet, but he finally went to Nineveh and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.” When the king of Nineveh heard about this danger, he removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes and then told everyone by decree to fast and put on sackcloth and turn away from evil and violence in the hope that God may repent and turn from his fierce anger so that we perish not. (Jonah 3: 4-9 tells this story.)
The threat was about an attack or locust plague against Nineveh, I suppose, and not an impending COVID-19 virus attack. But the point of the story is the response of the people and their leaders in a time of crisis. We aren’t asked to put on sackcloth, just masks, and we aren’t asked to fast, but we are asked to wash our hands every time we come in from a store or a place where danger lurks unseen on surfaces we touch. And we aren’t asked to circle our wagons and get close together for this battle. Just the opposite! We are to do everything we can to stay apart at a social distance of at least 6 feet. In an article about Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in The New Yorker on July 20, 2020, page 43, the author, 52
Sheelah Kolhatkar, says, “The Administration has fostered chaos, with Trump suggesting that maskwearing is a partisan act and leaving state authorities to impose their own rules on lockdowns. Americans are grappling with existential fears about the future, both economic and health related. The US. now has more known cases of COVID-19 than any other country does, and the worst record among wealthy nations of controlling its spread. Since the Administration pushed governors to reopen their economies in order to get people back to work, infections have spiked in two dozen states, including Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Oklahoma.”
Our President, finally on July 21, recommended we wear masks (our mild version of sackcloth) as did Vice President Pence, chairman of the Administration’s Task Force on the virus, on June 29. Both of these leaders set poor examples for four months by not wearing their masks on visits to various public buildings and gatherings and later at political rallies and failed to show the value of doing so. In addition, they have offered unscientifically verifiable treatments for the disease and have not listened to epidemiologists like Dr. Anthony Fauci throughout most of 2020 as the pandemic grew and deaths mounted.
Until we have a reliable vaccine (from diligent and patient science) and a reliable Administration (with good leadership) and a willingness by those rugged individuals (to stop flaunting their disrespect for sensible and patient restraints), we will continue to suffer from the ongoing spread of this virus. These ingredients have to be put in place before we can get people back to work, students back to school, rest 53
homes open to visitors, stadiums and related venues open to spectators, restaurants open to normal seating, and churches or places of worship open to the fellowship of believers in the God who created us and redeemed us and wants us to do things that show our love for one another.
Sackcloth and ashes and protective masks with limited in-person social mingling have made and will make the difference in our battle, and it would have helped if the King had paved the way, but our particular King doesn’t know what self-discipline and restraint is all about.
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Autumn Banquet of 2020 By Annette Martin Collins
The invitation comes on a fleeting summer breeze You are, again, the flawless hostess We… your humble guests There
Spread before our hungry eyes An ostentatious feast of color My soul
Overwhelmed
As I inhale your freshness Soon
Your icy winds will clear away This banquet
And you will rest I thank you Once again
Earth Mother
Something is different This year
Your harvest includes Many souls 55
Portrait of an Artist By Arlene Mandell
In the late 1960s, I was a young kindergarten teacher in New York City. To unwind in the evenings, I started sketching the leafy plants on the windowsill of my midtown Manhattan apartment. Wanting to draw them better, I called the nearby, renowned Art Students League to sign up for a still-life class.
The following week, I walked into the League, picked up my receipt and went to the room listed. A naked woman named Mimi stood on a platform. I turned abruptly to walk out. "Where are you going?" the instructor asked. "Sorry, I'm in the wrong room." Checking my receipt, he said, no, I was in the correct room. "But where's the still life?" I asked, "I came to draw plants." "Your receipt says LIFE CLASS he explained. That means drawing from the live model." I confessed I didn't know anything about art schools and had made a mistake. Arthur, the instructor, extolled that nothing was more exciting than drawing a live human form. Curious about the class, and about him, I stayed; and, after that three-hour session, I was hooked. I told him I couldn't wait to return. For homework, Arthur told me to trace the photos of football players in the newspaper's sport section to better understand movement and gesture. I did just that, every night, covering my large, oak dining-room table with sports pages and sheets of tracing paper, under the light of my colorful Tiffany lamp. No more plants for me; now just people. This would turn out to be the BEST mistake of my life! 56
I loved Arthur Foster's class. Although he'd been the League's president for years, he had returned to teaching. In class, students' chairs encircled a model who took various poses. Mimi, the League's longtime, popular French model -- a woman in her 70s with a vivacious, elfin manner and pixie-cut red hair -- posed for us often. "No, no, Mimi," Arthur would tell her in his amiable manner, "that's too difficult for them. They're beginners. Give them an easy one." I was intrigued by Mimi and the variety of models; hard poses, easy poses, I wanted to learn them all.
While in session, Arthur moved around the room quietly, seamlessly, sitting and talking with each of us. If someone needed help, he ALWAYS asked permission before drawing on the student's pad; and, even then, he would write a comment or pencil-sketch a correction way off to the side of your pad. "Treat every page like a masterpiece," he said. I learned to respect my work from its very beginning.
One day when I was struggling, Arthur corrected my drawing with a few easy strokes. "I wish I could do what YOU do," I said with admiration. "No, I wish I could do what YOU do," he declared, then spoke the words that became the cornerstone of my life from that moment on. "Thousands of students pass through my classroom," he said, looking me in the eyes. "Only a few are born artists, and you are one." Then he wrote the word "artist" on my pad; I still have that page. He urged me to attend more often, and said I stood a good chance to get a full scholarship. I was thrilled! But life can change in a heartbeat, and mine did. 57
As I was coming home at 11 p.m. after art class one night that week, a teenage male with a butcher knife followed me into my building to rob me. Then he pressed his lips onto mine repeatedly and told me to open the buttons going down the front of my sweater. I told him my (non-existent) husband was expecting me home and would be looking for me. "SHUT UP," he shouted, and pushed the knife blade against my throat. I knew I was going to die!
Being right-handed, I automatically pushed the knife away with my right hand. We struggled. The blade sliced through my palm. I shrieked a blood-curdling scream and scared him away. The lobby door locked shut behind him; I was never so grateful to be alive. Blood pooled on the floor; tendons hung down from my hand like rubber bands. Neighbors poured down the stairs. Somebody called 9-1-1. A friend made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding; she rode with me to the hospital.
In the ambulance, I rambled on about learning to draw with my LEFT hand. She stared at me incredulous: "I'm waiting for you to pass out and you're babbling about art classes." My brain kept repeating "born artist, born artist." I was not letting go. An emergency-room doctor sewed the nerves together, but not the tendons; those would require a specialist.
My parents flew in from Colorado to stay at a nearby hotel. Once out of the hospital, I joined them. In between appointments with hand specialists, and with my hand wrapped in a huge bandage, I returned to Arthur's class, intent on drawing with my left hand. In time, as I got the 58
hang of it, Arthur said the drawings done with my left hand were better because they were looser; however, if I regained the use of my right hand, he said I must choose between them and put all the knowledge into one hand only.
An expert hand surgeon said he could repair the shortened tendons, but I should expect little or no movement. I had hoped for a better outlook, but my parents and I warmed to him right away after having seen a myriad of doctors, and chose him. After surgery, I returned with my parents to Colorado; I had to get out of New York, I was seeing Death everywhere. Determined to overcome the doctor's prognosis, and working through excruciating pain, I forced my hand to do as many normal things as possible. When we returned to see the surgeon a year later, he was astounded to see how much movement I had. A decade later while living in rural New Jersey, I signed up for an adult-education, portrait-painting class with instructor Lillian Dong, born and raised in Canton Province, China, who then emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, and then to Brooklyn, New York. Lillian had taken a full program of courses at the Art Students League with the very teachers I might have had. OMG...here was life, giving me a second chance!! I studied with her for years, taking copious notes I still refer to today. I loved Mrs. Dong; the letters she wrote when I moved away are still treasures to me. Uncannily, she passed away on the same day as my mother; the two most important women in my life at the time. 59
Another topsy-turvy but necessary life-change into an office job, to support my mother and myself in Florida, took away the next ten years of my life. However, paintbrushes and bright-yellow tubes of paint I kept stashed in my office desk drawer kept the artist dream alive. I returned to the art world in 2001 and a dozen years later was accepted into the prominent Carlton Gallery in Western North Carolina, with the words of Arthur Foster still echoing in my head: "born artist," an inspiration, yes, but a reality hard-borne. “Portrait of an Artist” first appeared on the Randell Jones” “6-minute Stories” podcast as “Artist Borne.”
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I Will Survive… By Annette Martin Collins
As I sit in my bedroom, I am remembering life as it once was. Not long ago I was actively engaged in all the activities many of us octogenarians were doing. The Shepherd’s Center in town offered so many classes and groups in which we could belong. I could hop into my car and drive to the center where I would meet my new friends and enjoy the camaraderie of like minds. Church was a Sunday morning must but first came bible study. This was another set of friends. Once a month we gathered for breakfast and a sing-a-long before church in the fellowship hall.
Who knew that our world would change as of January of 2020. That was when a new virus originated in Wuhan, China. Silently this killer struck down people on the other side of our world and the news trickled out slowly. Our President announced it on the evening news and commented it was no big deal. Not to worry.
By March, the virus had reached our shores and settled in the state of Washington, where six people in a nursing home died. Our President said “We have it under control. It will blow over and be gone before long.” Passing the responsibility of our well being on to the Governors of each state rather than taking charge to subdue this deadly threat was a mistake. The Governors were not unified in their reactions and each handled the situation in their own way. Some not taking the threat seriously, as the President kept voicing his opinion that the virus would disappear as quickly as it began. Not to worry. 61
I am a survivor. I survived eighty plus years using the common sense given me by my creator and surely He will get me through what is now called a pandemic. As of March we were told to stay in our houses, do not congregate in groups, wear masks, and stay off the roads as much as possible, churches closed down, stores were closed, businesses were closed, and all the things deemed “not necessary” no longer open. Gyms, beauty parlors, night clubs and bars were considered places where the virus could spread. I paid attention and stayed home.
I am one of the lucky ones. Being home was not isolation for me, as I live with my two daughters. One still working in the emergency room of a local hospital and the other, a former truck driver, home on medical leave from her work. I am not alone. We have three dogs and two cats. They are family too. My room becomes my headquarters where I send out cards to people with messages of encouragement. After all, we are all in this situation together. Everything is changing. The news alerts us people are dying all over the United States, more than any other country. I have COPD so I know to stay away from people. I use my computer a lot to check my email. I was not quick enough to realize I opened something that I should not have. There are crooked people out there just waiting for the opportunity to scam us old people who are not as computer smart as they are. Well, it happened. I was scammed and it hurt. My daughter had to accompany me to the bank on three occasions to get the mess straightened out. I was crushed, and for two weeks refused to talk to anyone. I felt so stupid and old. 62
I decided that since I am not as quick witted as I once was, it was time for me to give over the responsibility of my finances to my girls. Still looking for things to occupy my hours I take to crocheting. I gathered up all the scrap yarn and created a huge ball of crocheted yarn which I said represented the world. The colors were all the people of the world. I used a little bit of it to cover two of my canes I use for walking. They are so pretty, with wooden beads dangling from the top, and I hardly ever go out to show them off!
My bones are getting cranky. My joints hurt. Getting into a car is a challenge. I am thinking about giving up driving as I am that old lady driving 35 mph in a 45 mph zone. Highway driving terrifies me, but only if I am driving. I do not drive in the rain. I stay home and watch CNN. I once loved that station as it was so informative and current. Now every day it is negative, reminding me of the fairy tale “The Sky is Falling!” I feel safe in my room.
It is a treat going on an outing to WalMart with my daughters. Two of our dogs are as old as I (in dog years) and they seem to have decided to keep me in their sight every moment of our days. Benji is a grouchy little cock-a-poo who has taken up residence under my bed. I call him my under-bed gremlin. He growls whenever Sam, a big black lab, enters my (oh, excuse me, OUR) room. I sit in my big brown comfy chair in the corner of the room and daydream on how the future generations will live. Because of the climate changes we will need to have electric cars, some driverless, as smart computers will take over many things. I create a new world in my head. 63
It is predicted things will get worse before they get better. Back in February, I thought about leaving my daughters something to remember me by, just in case. Having written poetry and stories as a hobby for fifty years, I chose a few and had them bound into a book dedicated to my daughters. It was published at the end of March by Amazon. I feel my work here is finished and I will relax and enjoy my room and my chair and my dogs who watch over me as I watch over them. I will survive for as long as God allows. I know my memory will live on within the pages of my book. It is finished.
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