Summer, 1967

The summer after freshman year I took Algebra to 'catch up' with the other kids. Grandpa Ramer tutored me and I passed. I was the only kid in the class who hadn't flunked Algebra during the regular school year. In other words--The oddball. I had also wanted to go to summer school because I liked school. Being around other kids was fun.

Summer 1967

On the way to school one morning I found a $20 bill on the sidewalk near a park. I wanted to start a bank account. Instead, Mom took me shopping and I bought a Mod suit in a calico floral print. The money disappeared. Later, Mom and I had a fight. I wished I had started the savings account instead of spending the money. Although never talked about, in the back of my mind I wanted to go to college.

Like my 'MOD" suite but in a different print

That summer Pat invited me over to her house to swim in her built-in pool. I wore Mom's late 1950s Catalina swimsuit for lack of anything else. It had a built-in bra, boy pants, and was very modest. Soon Mom took me to buy a 'modern' one piece suit. I actually liked the 'vintage' suit but I am sure it made me look dorky. Pat would invite other girls and sometimes invited a boy she liked and his best friend to join us.

Me, summer 1967 at my Uncle Don Ramer's home

One evening Pat and I went on a bike ride and were out until 9:30 pm, making both our moms mad. I was feeling lost that summer; Pat didn't understand but then I didn't understand myself. There was something inside of me that wanted something, but I didn't know what. After I got home and got my lecture, I went into the back yard to watch the bats flying in the dusk until the stars came out.

This was the summer that Katie and Skip Marvin came from Tonawanda and Dad and Skip went to the Boundary Waters, which Dad wrote about here. Katie bought me a floppy brimmed hat to wear with my new trench coat. I stuck my brother's plastic water pistol in my pocket and pulled it out on people. I called it my 'spy guy' outfit.

When Dad and Skip returned from their fishing trip I wrote,

"You gonna go to Hurley? You ain't gonna go to Hurley? Ya gotta go to Hurley! So they went. Would you believe? 17 bars to a half block. And--er, um--prostitutes? Show girls?

"Yes, they're back. Gilford Van Marvin--Skip--and Dad. Katie and Skip leave Monday. I'll miss Katie. I remember her putting on her false eyelashes, the black hat, the shopping trips, the steak dinner. I'll miss Spooks [the Marvin dog]. Spooks jumped in the pool. Dad and Skip are all beard."

I never thought about Spooks name back then, but knowing he was a black and tan German Shepherd Now, I worry that it was a derogatory name.

My friend Lynne Martin and I went to summer dances at the ice rink near school and at the Farmer's Market in downtown Royal Oak. I was asked to dance but was too shy to even try. I'd learned the Cha Cha in elementary school, and my mom's cousins taught me the Twist when I was a kid. But I had no idea how to do these 'modern' dances and was too uptight to try. At the first dance, we saw Mogan David and the Grapes of Wrath, a local Detroit band.

At home, I listened to Mom's classical music record set. I especially liked Liszt's Les Preludes, the Eroica by Beethoven, the Mozart symphonies, and the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. I bought 45s of I've Got Rhythm, Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, Twelve-Thirty, and Spyder Turner's cover of Stand By Me. Stand By Me by Ben E. King remains one of my all-time favorite songs. The older I get the more I appreciate it.

I read Desiree' by Annemarie Selinko about Napoleon's first love and Up the Down Staircase.

Gochenour family outing: Tom, Mom, Dad and Me. 

My family liked to go on picnics to local parks. In the photo above you can see my guitar case in the trunk of the car. My piano lessons had been replaced by guitar lessons. I strummed chords and sang folk songs like Leatherwing Bat, St James Infirmary, and Michael Row the Boat Ashore.

It was the summer of the riots, which broke out a few days before my 15th birthday.

Monday, July 24, 1967, at 6:30 am I wrote,

"Riot. Murder. Fire. Kill. Burn. It's madness. The whole city's center--fires reaching high in smoke-filled skies. Dad's going to work--Highland Park--it, too, is part of it all. I dread what may happen today. The army moved in. 5:30 Dad and his fellow workers left [work], just left, 'cause the bosses didn't say to go home--they were scared. The riot was so near. Tonight's supposed to be worse. There's a curfew here in Royal Oak and the adjacent counties. We've been listening to WACK all day. Some people have a poor opinion. Like the man from the grocery store, mom said he wished he could kill a couple-- At school, no one spoke about it. "Black Power" was written with black chalk on the board and a "White Power" to oppose it."

The next day I wrote,

"And it goes on. Dad went to work. Troops moved in. We--me and Pat B.--watched planes and helicopters [passing overhead] last night, heading toward Detroit. A kid was caught with a gun on Main St. My parents heard a gun shot. It's sounding over the radio--gunshot along with reporter's voices, citizens, and snipers. It's started in Toledo and Pontiac. The Federal troops landed at Selfridge in Mt. Clemens, moved to the Detroit fairgrounds. They were called in at midnight. 21 dead. Hundreds wounded, more are homeless. Thousands under arrest. Radio newscast--Maryland, New York, Toledo--where does it end? 7:30 and it continues. St. John's [Episcopal Church] had a thing going--collecting food and clothing to cart to Detroit. It's amazing how so many people think. I believe we are the only ones with a good head on our shoulders. I expect to see an ark being built. Too many people are ignorant. Tomorrow is Mom's birthday."

I wrote a letter to Nancy Ensminger, never sent:

"500 fires since Sunday. Rioting, looting, gunshots, 21 known dead. Possibly more in burned houses. People, an unnumbered unknown, homeless. Firemen couldn't fight some of the fires, they were being stoned and driven out. Stores looted and or burned. Negroes and whites aren't fighting each other. They're fighting Federal Guards, State Militias. This is the third day. How long can it last? When it's done--how to rebuild our 5th largest city? How to feed and house the homeless? Where to put the people under arrest? They've put them on buses for the lack of jails. "They" want them to be killed. Johnson blames local officials for the riot not being under control. It breaks out in Grand Rapids and Pontiac.

"We have trouble trying to call people. They may have to turn off the water pressure to fight the fires. Mom's been getting the neighbors mad at her! They say, some, "Why don't they just go down and kill them all off?" No pity. Do they know what they've been through, all their life, just because they are BLACK? The frustration they've felt all along. They can't have equality. They can't get good jobs. They are limited where they can go, live, work. The hate. They learn early-- They look at the whites--they can go anywhere, can get better jobs because of their color. It's gotta break out. And now their houses are gone. Their children are hungry, steal for food. And even before--for once they can go in and get anything free. I've been through the slums. Saw them. It looked like one of Mr. Ashely's civil rights films. Even when it ends, there are problems of the homeless, the ruins, getting things back to normal. Rebuilding Detroit."

My mother's indignation at the racial hatred of our neighbors impressed me. She made no compunction about how she felt.

In August Lynne asked me to go camping with her family for a long weekend. We went to White Cloud Island in the Georgian Bay, Canada. A group of Canadian choir boys was on the island. We exchanged address with the counselor, Chris. He later wrote me a letter. He said that going home "it was crowded with seven kids and the three older people plus all the sleeping bags."

Lynne and I met some local boys who invited us to go to another island by boat. We were gone hours, getting to the island, exploring it, and coming back. Lynn's folks were horrified they'd let us go. It was a stupid thing to do; we were lucky the boys were respectful.

Lynne and her father in an abandoned house

Lynne on White Cloud Island

After graduation Lynne and I both went to Adrian College. She left after our first year of college. Many years later when I was living in Montague, MI there was a horrible car accident on the expressway near us, resulting in the death of a woman. Years later I discovered that the woman who had died was Lynne. I was shocked and sad.

My Uncle Dave Ramer and his family came from Annapolis to visit. To end the summer my family vacationed at a neighbor's cottage. The Beaupied cabin was on Douglas Lake near the top of the Lower Peninsula in Michigan, close to the Straits of Mackinac. Two of the Beaupied kids came along, too.

It was a fun summer.

Dad and Pat Beaupied

The Beaupied cabin from the lake

Every morning the Algebra classroom blackboard had new messages written in chalk:

Love thy neighbor--even if it kills him

Algebra sickness pills--25 cents; test answers $5.

FREE TICKET.

It's not good for anything. It's just free.

EXIT Free flying lessons. Inquire on ledge.

DO NOT DISTURB. STUDENTS ASLEEP.

Glix on you

Do unto others before they do it to you.

God is not dead. He's merely unemployed.

EMERGENCY EXIT (sign on window)

Ray. Please come home. I.L.Y.

The Splendid Sampler from Pat Sloan

Pat Sloan's thirty-fourth book is The Splendid Sampler, a collection of 100 blocks from 80 designers. The 6" blocks employ varied techniques, including patchwork, applique', paper piecing, hand and machine embroidery, English Paper Piecing, and mixed techniques. Many are new, original blocks. 

Beginning February 14, 2016, the blocks were featured for free online, two a week, at her website found here.

A year ago I was able to see Pat at a local quilt guild. My post with photos of Pat's quilts can be found at https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/03/pat-sloan-visits-town.html.

Pat Sloan

Quilters from the guild brought in the Splendid Sampler blocks they were working on. Over 23,000 quilters participated in the year long sew-along!

Great Lakes Heritage Quilters members Splendid Sampler blocks

Lucy from my weekly quilt group has made some of the blocks, including this embroidered block.

Martindale's That Patchwork Place gave me a free ebook of The Splendid Sampler in exchange for an unbiased review.

Why, you may ask, should you buy the book when the blocks were free online?

The book includes the patterns but also a lot more.

A well illustrated, comprehensive Quilting Basics offers all the great information you need for every technique, including hints such as how to avoid a 'shadow' under light applique pieces, pressing small pieces, preparing circles for applique, marking for embroidery, and how to make foundation papers easier to remove.


The blocks are arranged by technique: Patchwork, Applique, Foundation-Pieced, and Embroidered.

Each block pattern designer offers an artist's statement about her block.

Each block has a full-color photograph of the designer's completed block, supplies needed, and step-by-step, illustrated assembly instructions including hints for success.

Alternate colorways are often included and suggestions on fussy cutting and color choice.

I appreciated the construction illustrations showing how to sew rows to complete the pieced block.


There is a quilt gallery of completed sampler quilts in different settings and layouts and an alphabetical Block Index by the block's pattern name.

All patterns in the ebook have links to a PDF file for downloading.

80 designer's worth of inspiration, advice, and creativity in one book! Designers include:

• Co-authors Jane Davidson and Pat Sloan
• Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill
• Lynette Anderson
• Laurie Simpson of Minick & Simpson
• Joanne Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts
• Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings
• Victoria Findlay Wolfe
• Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quilt Works 

Every quilter, beginner or advanced, will find something to inspire them in The Splendid Sampler. 

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Publication date is April 4, 2017.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and a Mystery

This month my library book club read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Many of us had read the book as a girl. Smith's novel of a young girl growing up in Brooklyn in the early years of the 20th c. is based on her own experience. I had wanted to reread this book after reading When Books Went to War and learning it was one of the most popular books among WWII soldiers.

THE NOVEL
As a teenager, I felt kinship with Francie because of her love of books, her vivid imagination, and her dream of becoming a writer.

The story takes place between 1914 to 1918. Francie's grandparents were immigrants. Her father Johnny was a charming alcoholic, a singing waiter. Her mother Katie was hard-working and frugal, determined her children would get an education and achieve the American Dream.

When pregnant with Francie, Katie's mother instructed her on the importance of books in the house. She insisted that a copy of Shakespeare and the Protestant Bible be secured, and a page from each read to the child daily, along with fairy tales from the old country and stories of Kris Kringle.

"Mother, I know there are no ghosts or fairies. I would be teaching the child foolish lies."
"Yet you must teach the child that these things are."
"Why? When I, myself, do not believe?"
"Because, the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination.The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe...Then when the world becomes too ugly to live in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination."

Francie spent a summer "stitching" on a "square of goods for a penny. It was the size of a lady's handkerchief and had a design outlined on it: a sitting Newfoundland dog with his tongue lolling out. Another penny bought a small reel of red embroidery cotton and two cents went for a pair of small hoops. Francie's grandmother taught her how to work the running stitches." Smith continues, "You were supposed to stitch a hundred of so of these squares and then sew them together to make a bedspread."

Penny Square Redwork pattern of Newfoundland dog
on my Presidents Quilt

School taught Francie about class prejudice. She realized that the clean, well-dressed children were given preference. "She learned of the class system of a great Democracy."

When the students are asked to identify their ethnic background, Francie insists she is American. The teacher pushes Francie who finally, in exasperation cries out that her parents were born in Brooklyn.

"Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read!" Books opens the world to Francie. "She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood." Francie vows to read a book a day for as long as she lived.

Francie's imagination brought trouble when she spun stories; her teacher had to instruct her on the difference between a lie and a story. Francie was aware that she "did not report things truthfully, but gave them color, excitement and dramatic twists." She saw that trait in her mother and wondered if imagination "colored too rosily the poverty and brutality of their lives and made them able to endure it" instead of trying to change things for the better.

When Francie writes stories for school accurately reflecting her life the teacher admonishes Francie. The teacher explains, "poverty, starvation, and drunkenness are ugly subjects to choose. We all admit these things exists. But one doesn't write about them." Francie asks, "What does one write about?" And she is told to delve into her imagination and find beauty. "But those stories are the truth!" Francie explains about her work.

Because Francie has pretended to live in another part of Brooklyn to attend a better school her teacher has no idea of the reality of Francie's life. The teacher accuses Francie's stories of being sordid, and after looking the word up in the dictionary Francie bristles with anger. Francie tries to write according to her teacher's wishes, but getting an A for pretty stories based on lies was repulsive to her.

Francie's father dies, leaving her pregnant mother, who worked as a janitor, the sole support of the family. The description of Katie, hugely pregnant, on her hands and knees to scrub floors disturbs me. Francie and her brother, both recent grammar school graduates, proudly work to support the family.

Katie decides that Neely will go to high school in the fall and Francie continue working to support them. Francie excels in every job but watches her hope for education die. Eventually, she takes college-level classes without credit, marveling that her grandparents could not read and here she was in college.

I enjoyed rereading this book on so many levels. Although the novel is episodic and disjointed at points, I was compelled to keep reading. Many of the characters are 'stock' types, and yet Francie and her family elicited my emotional involvement. Our book club members remarked on the disturbing racial stereotypes.

It is amazing how much the world has changed in 100 years! Automobiles, eclectic lights, bobbed hair, voting rights for women, all came in during Francie's girlhood. It is also disturbing how little the world has changed in 100 years: Immigrants struggling to adjust to their new life, class prejudice and xenophobia, the challenge of obtaining an education, the struggle between honesty and integrity and acceptance continues.

MY BOOK

My copy of the book is the seventeenth edition and has a note, "this book is complete and unabridged in contents and is manufactured in strict conformity with Government regulations for saving paper, indicating it was produced during World War II.

There is a nameplate for Norma M. Farrell and written in ink the name Norma Schantz, 711 Ditman, Brooklyn 18, NY.

Add caption

So, of course, I had to search for Norma on Ancestry.com.

First I found her on Find A Grace Index. Norma Marie Schanz was born September 4, 1905, and died January 16, 1990, in Clearwater, FL. Norma was married to George Jacob Schanz, born March 21, 1907, and died September 23, 1963. They are buried at the Long Island National Cemetery in East Farmingdale, NY. George was a veteran whose service started May 6, 1943. He served as a Technician Fifth Grade in the Army.

Norma's father was Joseph E. Farrell, born in Chicago in 1872 and died in 1943. Her mother was Mary Leu, born in Ohio in 1879 and died in 1955. Joseph's parents were William, born 1822 in Ireland and died in 1902, and Annabell Roche, born in 1821 and died in 1874. Mary Leu's parents were Gottlieb Leu and Nanette Kander.

The census records show that Norma lived with her parents on a fruit farm near Kalamazoo. She appears on the 1910 and 1920 census as a girl. A 1919 Kalamazoo Rural Directory shows James and Marie living with children Annbelle, John, William, Norma, Ermond, Majoe and Uriel. James was a farmer and truck grower living in Oshtemo, located southwest of Kalamazoo. On the 1930 census, Norma appears working as a stenographer.

On August 2, 1930, Norma married Edward C. Rynbrand of Kalamazoo. Norma was a stenographer and Edward a shop clerk. Norma divorced Edward on May 10, 1935, for reasons of extreme and repeated cruelty. Edward then married Frances Hays.

In 1940 Norma appears (under her maiden name) living at home with her parents, along with a sibling and three nieces and nephews. She was a stenographer.

Norma and George Schanz were married September 18, 1945, in Kalamazoo, MI when Norma was 40 years old.

Georg Schanz's parents were Mary (or Marie) Weigele and Jacob Schanz, married April 20, 1901, in Richmond, NY.  George was born in 1905.

The 1910 census shows the Schanz family living on Broad Street in Richmond, NY where Jacob and Marie ran a bakery. The family appears on the 1915 Richmond, NYS Census with Jacob was a baker. His son George Jacob went by the name Jacob. They also had a daughter, Katy (Katherine).

In 1930 George lived with his mother Marie at 711 Ditman Ave. George worked as a chauffeur for a beverage company. Their property value was $9000.

The question is--how did Norma and George meet? In 1940 Norma was in Kalamazoo, and in 1945 she was married to George. George was from New York City and in the armed services. It's a mystery.

I loved how this book, which Norma received before her marriage to George, ended up in Brooklyn during Norma's early marriage.

Reading The Barrowfields by Philip Lewis

Phillip Lewis's first novel The Barrowfields is so beautifully written, so evocative, that I can arbitrarily open the book to a random scene and be transported.

I received a hardcover copy of the novel through Blogging for Books. I opened the book to a scene where the protagonist, Henry, is celebrating at a going-away party with his law school friends. They have rented a house at the beach. The girl of his dreams has invited herself, Story of the golden hair.

There is a lot of drinking going on and Henry's friend J.P. is pontificating about writing, which "made it all sound so easy and color-by-numbers" that it "drove nails into the palms of my consciousness." What his friend does not know is that Henry's father had been a failed writer, and as his early promise was snuffed out by depression and alcohol abuse, he had ended his life.

Story finally arrives, "her hair wild and windblown, and I was stricken. Hard to say I would have been more impressed if the clouds had parted and the lord god himself, the King, Elvis Arron Presley had appeared in her place. I stood there barely able to speak." She walks over to Henry to greet him, but he is "unable to conjure a single syllable out of the space between" them.

That evening the gang "decided to caravan over the bridge to Charleston for dinner even though not one among us should have been driving." J.P. is still drunkenly bending Henry's ear about writing. On the way back to the beach house, Henry sits next to Story in the back seat of the car, the radio playing "one good song after another. The music was perfect." Story was smiling. And then Lewis writes,

"Back at the beach house, someone proposed in honor of the luminous night and clear sky that we all walk out to look at the stars. The doors on the back of the house facing the ocean were open, and the rush and hum of the mighty rolling waves called in through the doors and pulled us out to the sea.

"There is something extraordinary about standing on the shore at night under such circumstances. It is the closest one can come to feeling immortal--or to recognizing the euphoria of insignificance at the edge of the immortal sea. On a clear night the effect is more pronounced, for the stars burn numberless in the sky and remind us that time is beyond our understanding and that the universe is indeed indifferent to us--yet hardly benign."

I was transported to my own vivid memories of nights under the multitudinous stars, aware of the vastness of the universe, and suffering the fearful knowledge of my own smallness.

Henry identifies the stars, learned at his father's side. And J.P. recites Byron's Darkness, depicting a fatalist view of end of the world under an indifferent, blind universe, which begins, 

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air" 

After which a girl sings from Schoolhouse Rock, "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here"--my favorite Schoolhouse Rock song. Henry defers an opportunity to recite, then in his "weakened state of nostalgic drunkenness" imagines his father there and feels "gut-sick and benumbed. In a moment's time I hear it all, as if ten million words from as many books fell at once onto my ears in a drowning yet intelligible cataract. I hear my father's voice and his incantations. A flood of prose, remembered, unremembered, leftover like hellish debris from a writer's son's childhood. Every word he'd ever said to me. Every poem. Every paragraph he'd written and said aloud. Put that away, I tell myself. Put that away."

And, dear readers, there you have Henry's story: the ghost of a failed father he wants to forget, the girl he wants in his future just beyond reach-- or waiting to be touched--and the universe's indifference arching overhead.

I will revisit this novel many times.

Read Lewis discussing the 'easter eggs' written into his novel at
http://www.signature-reads.com/2017/03/phillip-lewis-on-the-literary-easter-eggs-in-his-novel-the-barrowfields/

Listen to a clip from the marvelous audiobook at
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/539538/the-barrowfields-by-phillip-lewis/9780451495648/

I received a free book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Remarkable Journey of the First Female President of Liberia

Madame President, Helene Cooper's biography of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president of Liberia, was not an easy book to read. The history of Liberia is so horrendous, the violence so overwhelming, the suffering of her people unimaginable that I had to often step away; Cooper does not tidy things up for easy reading.

The story of Liberian female empowerment is remarkable, a courageous story from a country where an estimated 75% of the women have encountered rape and sexual abuse. Ellen herself rose from abused wife to a Harvard education, from mother to leadership in the international banking industry, from working for a dictator to her democratic election as President.

Ellen made mistakes and learned from them. She made contacts and used them. She switched from 'bush' to Western as needed. But always she believed in a better Liberia, a fiscally sound and prosperous future, a land of peace.

Liberia was established by United States leadership as a way of dealing with the 'problem' of free African Americans. The idea was to buy land and establish a country where we could export slaves and free blacks back to Africa. John Quincy Adams was against this plan on the grounds that the free blacks were Americans and had a right to remain in their country of birth. But many slave owning presidents liked the plan, including Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe--for whom the Liberian capital Monrovia was named.

This book covers the series of brutal "presidential" dictators who siphoned public money for personal use, kept leadership in the family, and raised child armies to murder civilians--including their mothers--and rape their way across the country. The country's infrastructure was destroyed. The only way women fed their families was by going into the country to buy produce which they sold on the streets--the 'market women' who later organized, and by getting women out to vote, elected Ellen president.

Ellen's background in banking helped her secure loan relief, restoring solvency and the infrastructure--then Ebola arrived. Madame President called on President Obama to send aid. His quick response helped Liberia contain the outbreak, to the benefit of the country, the continent, and the world.

Reading about African history is a grim reminder of how tenuous maintaining a republic can be. It is also a reminder of how one person can make a difference, even a flawed person.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read about the Liberian born, Pulitzer winning author Helene Cooper at
http://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Helene-Cooper/18871279


Madame President: the Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
by Helene Cooper
Simon & Schuster
Publication Date March 7, 2017
$27 hard cover
ISBN: 9781451697353

You Must Change Your Life: Ninth Grade and a New School, a New Me

Me, age 14

Fall of 1966 saw another change in my life: going to high school meant a third new school since 1963. Homesickness had been replaced by nostalgia for the past. Fourteen years old, and already my heart resonated to lines such as, "I remember, I remember, the house where I was born," by Thomas Hood.

Me, Winter 1966-7

Being an introvert, not one to jump in and go with the crowd, I still missed having a best friend. I was lonely. I also knew that my priggishness was keeping me back. Only liking classical music, classical literature, and disdaining the popular was a real drawback to making friends.

My resistance to rock and roll and 'liking boys' was wearing down. I was ripe for change, and high school was an opportunity for a start-over. But, at what cost? Could I betray what I had always been--in exchange for what? That road was unknown.

A few weeks into the school year my English teacher Mr. Botens told the class, "You are three persons: "The person you were in the past; the person you are at this minute; and the person you will and want to be in the future." That comment changed my life, for I understood that I held my destiny in my own hands. I could be who I wanted to be. The question was--what did I want to be?

I was very aware of leaving childhood. "I'm suddenly seeing things through different eyes," I wrote in my diary. "I found out what life is all about. The suffering, pain, and work that was ahead. But the thread broke and the dream of childhood drifted away." I wanted to write, and knew "it takes imagination to write fiction, and study, brains, and experience to write non-fiction."

Homecoming float for Freshman Class, Oct. 29, 1966

My Freshman year classes at Kimball held a mixed bag for me, academically. I actually did good in General Math, Civics, Glee, and even Gym, but ended up flunking German although I really wanted to learn. I never could memorize. In college, I just squeaked by in Latin.

Team English had three teachers and 90+ kids. I was in the highest Reading Group, but middling spelling and grammar groups. (Many years later when working in editing and copywriting, I kept my trusty grammar guides beside me.) I loved Mr. Botens.

Girls Glee Club 1966-67. I am on the center row, far left. 

I was in Girls Glee Club and was pleased when Mrs. Ballmar called me to join a group of girls she thought were some of the best singers. My training was good: I had been in chorus in elementary school in Tonawanda and played the piano. My folks bought me a guitar and I was taking lessons and teaching myself to sing folk songs with guitar. I loved the idea of 'portable music,' an instrument I could take anywhere.

The Christmas Concert was an amazing experience, with all the choirs joining in the last piece, The Song of Christmas, and the O Holy Night. Learning the alto for O Come, O Come Emmanuel was handy considering how many times I sang it in church over my life! In my four years singing in three choral groups, the Christmas concert remained a highlight of each school year. Performing was exciting. In the Spring Concert, we sang Mr. Wonderful.

1966 Christmas Concert program

I made many friends in Glee. Pat had been in Mrs. Hayden's class and we became best friends that year. If I was fearful and controlled, Pat was a free spirit who pushed the envelope. She certainly pushed me into uncomfortable areas. Even going to see Dr. No and Goldfinger at the Main Movie Theater was a push for me!

Pat took me home with her after school and we practiced flirting with the 19-year-old man who was helping to build an addition on Pat's house. We made pulled hard candy. I stopped by Pat's house on the way to school and we walked together, or her mom gave us a ride in bad weather. Pat let me borrow her parent's copy of Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis. Now, I wonder if her parents knew! One weekend we walked to downtown Royal Oak by way of the railroad tracks, discussing religion.

I had a mad crush on a boy and Pat encouraged and abetted me in all the wrong ways. But, I also had crushes on dozens of other boys as well. It is a great relief to know that as a teen Jane Austen was described one of the silliest and boy crazy girls in England! I can excuse myself for being normal. I had finally broken my vow to never be silly over boys.

Me and Pat, summer 1967

Pat encouraged me to lose weight, giving me an exercise pamphlet. I went on a 1000 calorie diet. Mom had already tried a high protein diet, a calorie control diet, and even 'pep' pills. I can't believe the doctor gave me pep pills! Plus, I walked 2 miles to and from school every day. I did lose 25 pounds before the end of summer 1967.

By the end of the year most of the girls I would be friends with in high school I had already met. Friendship was such a big deal to me after several lonely years. I would walk girls to their classes for a moment's gossip, and be late to my own class!

In my diary I wrote about the overwhelming newness and awareness of just starting life, but also the lack of a purpose in life. I was still seeking the faith in God I had observed at the altar call when I visited a Baptist church in Sixth Grade.

"I think some people don't have a point of life to make it worthwhile. You may be having a grand time, but what is it worth if it doesn't have a point? A goal, a purpose, something to achieve. I don't have a point in life. I'm just living it. Seems a pity to just waste it. I just go on and on, every day. As much as I love life--my life--it doesn't appear to have much of a point." I continued, "The best point to have, I think, is God. It must be. Our point is to worship God, to believe in and love God. To serve him, and not we ourselves. No, not ourselves. We should do God's bidding. That seems like a good point in life. It really does."

I was not "there" yet, and my language reflected what I had heard, not what I had personally experienced.

Christmas came and went. Our consumer, throwaway values upset me when I saw the Christmas trees at the roadside. I wrote,

"I was thinking about all the little Christmas trees at the side of the roads now. How can people just toss them out in the snow? To think--a few days ago, they were decorated and "oohed" and "ahhed" at. Now, no one cares beans about them. They were beautiful, and loved, but once used, they're tossed away. Trash. People kick at them while walking. No one now thinks of how beautiful they were. People use them, then just throw them away."

I also wrote a poem, full of mock pathos:

The Tragedy of the Ever Green Tree

ah, once pretty ever green tree
with strands of tinsel
still hanging among your branches
of brown, falling needles;
the season's over.
ho-ho-hos and presents are gone,
safely tucked away in drawers and rooms
and memories.
your work is done, ever green tree.

once pretty ever green tree,
laying in the once fresh sparkling snow
now dirty and gray
next to tin cans full of
residue and refuse from the holiday--
the garbageman will come for you,
children kick you on their way to school,
and cars splash black melt on you
as you sit by the roadside.

once grand and regal
in the warmth of the livingroom,
decked in lights and donned in ornaments,
now you lie in the cold,
on the street
to be taken away.
grandeur has left.
all fame leaves with the turning
of calendar pages.

I was in my e.e.cummings phase. I later read this poem in speech class but gave an alias for the author. It was not the only poem I was to write about a throwaway society. When I was in my early twenties I wrote,

I am an old Bic pen,
an empty tube of colorless plastic.
Bought cheap.
Used.
Discarded.
The consumer's whore.

Mr. Botens had to get our parents get permission to read The Catcher in the Rye. I had never read anything like it. The last book I had written about reading was Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. In January I wrote, "I picked up some good sayings from Holden. Good ole' Holden," adding it helped me 'express' myself. I also admitted that the 'sex' stuff in the book was pretty embarrassing to discuss in class. I took to introducing myself as Rudolph Schmidt, the alias Holden used when he met a fellow student's mother. I went on to read everything I could by or about Salinger.

Other books I noted reading that year included Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ethan Frome, Death of a Salesman, The Oxbow Incident, Inherit the Wind, In Cold Blood, and The Great Gatsby.

The first 45 record I ever bought was Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfield. I was now spending most of my allowance on a 45 record a week, which I bought at the Kmart store in Troy. Records I bought included Michelle, Ebb Tide, Homeward Bound, Message to Michael, Sloop John B, Monday, Monday, Paint it Black,  Red Rubber Ball, and I Am A Rock. I even bought silly records like Little Red Riding Hood! So much for pledging to never like silly music like Itsy Bitsy Teeny Tiny Polkadot Bikini!

I kept the Top Ten record sales lists in my scrapbook

Easter 1967

But that other side of me was still there. At home, I played classical music on the piano, drew, and filled notebook after notebook with my writing.

In March I wrote, "It's fascinating, even at my age, to see a butterfly land on your finger, spreading it's golden-orange wings in the breeze as if it were keeping time to some unheard song. Sitting peacefully and calmly without at care. Only to fly away in a moment. Up and away it goes, off to another place. Gaily it circles in the wind, to land on a flower or a green leaf." But I also envisioned a dark future, "Perhaps it will land in a spider's web. Carefree, happy and gay--it's caught. It struggles to get away, but alas, it is too late. He turns gray and soon our pretty butterfly is no more."

Dad in our back yard. 1967

May 21, 1967, my family went to see dad's friend who lived in Windsor, Canada. I documented the whole trip minute by minute. I wrote,

"We went by the tunnel. We stopped at a Hi-Ho restaurant for a hamburger. Customs took about 2 seconds. On the way back to Detroit, we saw a whole pile of smoke. Dad thought it was from a factory. But as we got close, we decided there was too much smoke to be from smoke stacks. It was a fire, a tremendously big one. The flames went up so high in the air, and the gray smoke swirled upward in the wind to form big billows of gray clouds. Beautiful--yet deadly and sinister. A two-story building was on fire, and [there were] houses all around. People emerged from everywhere and nowhere, all watching and talking. We heard on CKLW it was the third time for that building to be on fire this year."

Then, Dad got lost.

"We had to travel until we found Woodward. We went through the heart of Detroit and the slums. The slums I've seen in movies all year in Civics, they were right there in front of my eyes. The crowds of people in front of porches, talking, leaning on cars, sitting on steps. The mutilated buildings boarded up. Why doesn't someone do something? I wish I could. I don't blame them for hating us. I think we're half-sick. Why can't everyone feel the way I do? Why so much prejudice? I think there should be more propaganda to get sympathy for the Negroes, and booklets telling how you can help them fight for their rights. And if anyone says we're traitors--no--we aren't. It's the patriotic, right, Christian thing to do. To put them down should be a sin or something. I don't know, I swear, I don't know or understand anything. Nothin."

I ended by writing, "Born Free is playing on CKLW. We're all born free, and yet some can't be free. We are born with rights and then somebody comes and takes it all away because your skin's the wrong color. Hate--violence--the one to blame is the one who won't give citizens their rights."

My teacher Mr. Warner taught us that there is only one race--the human race.

Most of my diary is filled with an obsession with friends, boys, and the agony of typical teenage angst over friends and boys. I hardly recognize the girl I had become during those teenage years. At fourteen I had an idea that people change continually, evolving, and named each change an 'era'. I suppose I still believe that for looking back I can see myself becoming different people as experience and wisdom shaped me.

March 21, 1967, Detroit Free Press story with Kimball boys.

April 11, 1967, Detroit Free Press. Hemline wars.

Homer the Ghost and other Juvenalia

After we moved from Tonawanda I was lonely and created an imaginary friend, Homer the Ghost. Now, I was cognizant that Homer was a fiction of my imagination, in many ways a continuance of the make-believe play Nancy Ensminger and I enjoyed. I was still spinning tales. I was story telling.

I drew pictures of Homer and the ghostly gang and wrote stories.

Homer!
First you must know who Homer is. He is a ghost friend of mine. He's about 1,500 years old. Homer has three cousins, Greta, Herman, and Gertrude. His best friend is Irving.

Homer is nice but sometimes troublesome. Like the time he rode my bike without asking me. It was 4:40 pm when he rode it. How would you like to see a bike going by itself! Well, I'll tell you what Mr. White did.

Mr. White was very superstitious and read lots of science fiction books. He was reading Invaders from Pluto in his living room. He read out loud to himself; "Suddenly, the creature disappeared! He turned invisible, said Capt. Monroe." Mr. White looked up and out the window saw a bike going by itself! Of course, it was just Homer.

"Help! Police! Help!" yelled Mr. White. He ran into the next room and dialed the phone. "Police give me the operator! I mean, operator, give me the police!"

"Soon the police where on. "Yes," said Mr Blocker, the Captain.

"There's an invisible bike, er, man, I mean a creature from Pluto riding a bike!" said Mr. White.

"What?" said Capt. Blocker.

"An invisible creature from Pluto on a bike!"

"What? A creature on an invisible bike?"

"No! A thing from Pluto!"

"I can't understand you, calm down! Talk slower!"

"Details! This is of national concern! We've been invaded! I just sighted an alien creature in the street!"

Capt. Blocker made a face of exasperation at the phone, and to humor the man, replied, "I'll send a car over to investigate..."

This story ends there. I also wrote many more stories including A Martian Fairy Tale, "The Three Gooks," Adventures on Atom, To Mars! Sail On!, The Creature from Beyond, The Very Last Goodbye, and Eve of Destruction.

I have a letter written by classmate Mary W. that reads,

Dear Homer,
Hi! Do you remember me? I am Rudolph the Reindeer. I came down to see you on Xmas evening. You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you. Did you like what you got for your Xmas presents? Don't forget to write me back, OK? Give my letters to Mary W. I am 2 years old in Reindeer life, and 14 years old in human life. Are you human? Or what are you? Love, Rudolph. PS this isn't the way I really write [all caps print] by I want you to read it.

I found my Larry Peterson mystery story. It begins,

"I was walking in a wood, near a riding stable. It was a beautiful day, and would be perfect for horseback riding, but I didn't have any money. I was 16 and didn't have a job and I spent my allowance on a mystery book.

"Just that morning my mother had told me, "Larry Peterson, if you spend one more dollar on a mystery book, I'll swear you'll have 2,000."

I had quickly added, "I spent my allowance on a $3 mystery book today. Now I have 345 and a half."

"A half?"

"Me and JR put our allowances together to buy a mystery book so we each own it until I pay him for the other half."

I heard a noise behind me and turned to see a leopard frog sitting on a slab of limestone. As I watched it I saw something behind it--a garter snake? Yes, it was. He came closer and closer. He was just about to strike it when I heard the loud noise of a horse.

I turned around. There stood a sorrel horse with a white mane, tail, and socks. It was saddled, but no one was in sight. I remembered the frog and turned to see the snake with a big lump in him. "Frog legs, huh?"

The horse nuzzled me. "Where did you come from, boy? The stable? The horse pawed the ground and neighed.

"Well, seeing your rider left you, I'll return you. Come on."

I took the rein and led him in the direction of the stables. As we approached I saw a group of people talking with the owner.

"That's her horse!" said the woman.

"Where's Diana? What did you do with her? Where is she?" the man cried.

"These people say their daughter came here and took this horse to go riding, then she just disappeared."

And so started my mystery.

One of my first poems was named The Poem, perhaps written for school.

I stand here packing up and down
and walking all around
thinking, "What, oh what, should I put down?"

I'm no good at poems,
no ideas have I,
so I pace up and down
with an occasional sigh.

What should I write?
What should I say?
Should I write about a horse
or a girl named Kay?

Or what about a sunset,
a bird or a plane?
How about a teacher
who won a basketball game?

So after about three hours or so
at 10 o'clock and time for bed
it came to me --
just what I read.

Another early poem was written in 1967.

Black is Black.
White is White.
They will always be that way.
For nothing can change them,
They are what they are to stay.

Love is love.
Hate is hate.
It will always be that way.
With one for good, and one for bad,
They are what they are to stay.

I am I.
You are you.
It will always be that way.
I love you; you love me not.
It will always be this way
And I regret that I must say
We are what we are to stay.

I had told Nancy Ensminger when we were nine that I wanted to be an author when I grew up. I had earlier wanted to be an art or music teacher, and for a few days a nun, but in the wisdom of age had decided that authors were the most powerful influences in the world. For they could make one cry or laugh, change their ideas, and reveal new visions.