Everything I Need To Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone

It has forever been thus: so long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms--all of them--may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, and article of faith, an act of courage. Rod Serling, January 15, 1968 speech

When I read a review of Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone: A Fifth Dimension Guide to Life in the local paper I couldn't believe I had missed this book. Here was a book that spoke to what I had long believed: that Rod Serling had taught me my basic values.

I was seven years old in 1959 when Twilight Zone first aired. It became my 'must see' tv show. Over the years I enjoyed the reruns but it was while my son and I watched hours of marathon reruns that I realized that perhaps more than any book or Sunday school class it was Rod Serling who had instructed me in how to live.

Rod Serling

As a kid, I liked the ironic endings, the comeuppances, and just desserts. I thrilled to the eerie and chilled to the scary. The episode that most scared me was The Invaders, told without dialog, about a witchlike old woman whose primitive cabin is invaded by tiny spacemen. They were more frightening because of their diminutive size, for they could creep up unseen. Then came the reveal--the spaceship was from the United States, the menacing spacemen were human and the woman was the alien.

The Invaders

After reading the preview available online I ordered Mark Dawidziak's book and began reading it upon arrival.

Born in a Reform Jewish family in Binghamton, NY, Serling had an ideal childhood but encountered prejudice as he grew up. In 1943 he enlisted and served in the Pacific front as a paratrooper, the roots of his horror of war and hope for humanity. He entered Antioch College, founded by Horace Mann who wrote, "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." After graduation, Serling lived in Cincinnati where he wrote for the radio station, then for television. As he matured, his writing incorporated social commentary, convicted it was "the writer's role to menace the public's conscience."

The Twilight Zone stories are teaching parables. As Anne Serling writes in her forward, her father "truly and deeply cared about all of us." If we have ears to hear, Dawidziak shows us, there are fifty lessons to be gleaned from these stories.

Some of my favorite examples from the book, whose lessons need to be heard again, include:

Divided We Fall, highlighting Serling's script The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. It warns us about mob mentality, fear of people who are 'different', and shows how evil arises from suspicion and division. Many chapters end with a guest lesson; for this chapterMarc Scott Zicree writes, "we can live in a universe of love and compassion, or chaos and destruction. The choice is ours, made every day, every moment, by the actions we conscious or unconsciously take...and you can file that under L for Life Lessons."

Share With Others, gleaned from I Shot An Arrow into the Air, written by Serling. A spaceship crashes into a desert, leaving the astronauts with limited supplies. One man decides he will not share, he will survive at any cost. As the last man alive he learns they had landed on Earth, with civilization just over the hill. Adversity brings out the monster and the best of humanity. Dawidziak connects this lesson to the Flint water crisis and the challenge of providing clean water to everyone in need across the world.

Imagine a Better World, arising from Richard Matheson's script A World Of His Own, a comedic story of a man who can manipulate reality through a dictation machine. Dawidziak notes that the power of imagination is basic to the series, and this episode is a nod to storytellers and dreamers who unlock doors to possibilities.

Fill Your Life With Something Other Than Hate is a reoccurring theme in Twilight Zone, including one of my personal favorites, Two, written by Montgomery Pittman. In a post-war, empty world, one lone female and one lone man survive; they are from opposing armies, distrustful and full of hate. The episode is without dialog, for the two do not share a common language. They have a choice: to carry on the war or to assume their common humanity and lay down arms. He also lists Two under Everybody Needs Somebody Sometime.

Payback is a...Or, What Goes Around Comes Around, is another theme shared by many episodes. This was a favorite saying of a neighbor many years ago, meant as consolation while rejected by a petty community. Serling hated fascism; in his script Deaths-head Revisited, a Nazi visiting Dachau enjoys memories of his time there--until he is put on trial by the ghosts of the dead.

Serling ends the show saying, "All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzs, all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers."

My heart ached reading this, for I fear we are forgetting.

Don't Be A Bully also is a message found in over a half dozen episodes, wish fulfillment stories where bullies get their just desserts. The Guest Lesson is from Scott Skelton who wrote, "As I got older...the series' strong ethical undercurrents surfaced in my consciousness: its indignant stance on social injustice, its rage at the too often petty nature of our species--prejudice, mob rule, the ever-present threat of fascism, the shadow of superstition and ignorance that has, throughout history, halted the progress of our species. From these bite-sized morality plays I drew an unshakable belief in the basic dignity of man--that despite our individual mistakes, our foibles, our follies, and our general bad behavior, we all have a right to respect, to a collective esteem based on the actions and sacrifices of a few of our more noble representatives."

The Civilization That Does Not Value the Printed Word and the Individual is Not Civilized. The Obsolete Man by Serling has a librarian as the hero, a man who clings to his outlawed, obsolete, books, standing up to totalitarian authorities by announcing, "I am nothing more than a reminder to you that you cannot destroy truth by burning pages." Serling's closing narrative states, "Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete."

These don't even include some of my favorite episodes, including Time Enough at Last (Nobody Said Life Was Fair/Be Careful What You Wish For); those with Jack Klugman, including A Passage for Trumpet, the lesson being Follow Your Passion); Kick the Can (You're Only Truly Old When You Decide You're Old); and Nothing in the Dark (Death, Where is Thy Sting). Nothing in the Dark has Robert Redford as a gentle and kind Mr. Death, an image that stuck with me.

I could go on, but instead, I will advise you to just read the book.

Thank you, Mr. Serling. And Thank you, Mr. Dawidziak, for confirming that I learned my values in The Twilight Zone.

Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons by Gerald Durrell: Saving Paradise

Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons: A Journey to the Flora and Fauna of a Unique Island is the entertaining story of Gerald Durrell's experience on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean where he collected rare specimens for his animal sanctuary. The Dodo had already vanished from the island and by the 1970s many more species were going the way of the Dodo.

Durrell's tales are entertaining and funny. His description of the Jak fruit as "an obscene green fruit, covered with knobs and looking rather like the corpse of a Martian baby" sent me into hysterics. My husband and I had just seen one at Kroger two days before I read this description. The Jak was meant to lure the Golden Bats and had a pungent smell "vaguely reminiscent of a putrefying body." And the produce man told us it tasted like "Juicy Fruit" gum. Glad we were not tempted.

After several delays, which involved Durrell's team eating the bat fruit before it spoiled and buying more, the team finally landed on Rodriguez island. That evening the mosquitoes attacked. "I'm rather glad we came really, I would hate to think of all these mosquitoes going hungry," remarked one of the party. "Yes it's a form of conservation, really," Durrell replied.

The party contended with other invasions as well, by giant land snails that invaded their tent and ate their food and baby Shearwaters that invaded their beds.

The descriptions of Mauritius's flora, fauna, and coral reefs are vivid and gorgeous. My favorite chapter was The Enchanted World on the coral reefs. The writing is evocative and lovely as Durrell describes experiencing the overwhelming life and color of the reef. You understand his enchantment.

As I read this chapter I experienced a tightness in the pit of my stomach, fearful that these teeming reefs are dying like reefs all over the world. I checked it out. The reef is suffering from higher temperature water due to El Nino events and is also impacted by a billion tourists a year and the agricultural runoff from the island.

Mother Earth is losing her children from human impact and climate change. Durrell strove to save species from extinction. I am glad to have read his memoir and learned about his work.

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

Read about Durrell's Zoo on Jersey
https://www.durrell.org/wildlife/visit/

Mauritian Wildlife Foundation to see the flora and fauna discussed in the book
http://www.mauritian-wildlife.org/application/index.php?tpid=30&tcid=101

News report on the coral reef
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrJUUveateg

Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons
Gerald Durrell
Open Road Media
ebook
ISBN: 9781504042833

Nick and Jake: A Literary-Historical Smash Up

Nick and Jake: An Epistolary Novel by Jonathan Richards and Tad Richards mixes literary figures with historical persons.

In 1953 Nick Carraway, one-hit wonder novelist and Assistant Undersecretary of State for European Affairs, becomes friends with Jake Barnes, expatriate veteran and newsman with a conscience.

America is embroiled in a Cold War and a nuclear arms race, with Vietnam emerging as the central playing field. The CIA is interfering with foreign governments. On the homefront, McCarthy's witch hunt for Reds is peaking and the CIA is spying on Americans.

CIA maverick Robert Cohn's nephew Robert is Senator McCarthy's top aide and is on a book burning tour of American government libraries in Europe.

True Blue Nick is losing his rose-tinted view of the homeland and is finally starting that second novel. Jake's war wound may be reversible thanks to cutting-edge surgery developed when Dr. Hamburger turned George into Christine Jorgensen.

I had great fun identifying the references. Nick (from The Great Gatsby) and Jake (from The Sun Also Rises) are products of the 1920s, watching a younger generation dismantle the world they fought to preserve. Readers meet a host of other characters ranging from schoolyard bully Bill (William) Buckley, CIA director Allen Dulles, neo-conservative pioneer Irving Kristol, collaborator Maurice Chevalier, TV director Jimmie Dodd (host of Mickey Mouse Club), and Ronnie Gilchrist, a young singer mistaken for The Weavers' Ronnie Gilbert.

The novel is a fun jaunt, but also a provocative reminder of America's past sins. It connects the dots between choices made in 1953 that created problems that impact us to this day--like the destabilization of the Middle East. And it is a timely reminder and warning not to repeat the past.

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

Nick and Jake: An Epistolary Novel
Jonathan Richards and Tad Richards
Open Road Media
ebook
$24.99
ISBN: 9781611458282

My Large-Block Quilt Top

I found Large-Block Quilts by Victoria Eapen on sale locally this past week and bought it.

Large Block Quilts

 I loved the pieced pinwheel quilt, Spin Patch, below.

I decided to use fabric I had in my stash to try out the pattern.

The construction is interesting. A giant 24 1/2" x 25" block made of pieced squares is layered with the solid fabric, sewn on the diagonal, and cut in half to create two parts of the pinwheel block. The borders are not the same width, giving it an interesting off center, modern look.

The instructions were great to follow.

 It is awfully wrinkled laying on the floor.

Now I know how the pattern works I want to make it again, this time with a gray background as in the original.

Sharing the top to my weekly quilt group--you can see how BIG it is

The pattern makes a quilt 65 1/2" x 65 1/2". Perhaps I will enlarge the borders to bed size when I make it again.

Spoils by Brian Van Reet

Spoils  takes readers into the Iraq war, stripping away the facade of accepted views of the enemy and the justification of war to reveal the complicated reality.

Debut author Brian Van Reet knows his subject. He left university to enlist in the U. S. Army after the September 11 attacks, serving as a tank crewman in Iraq and earning a Bronze Star for valor. After his discharge, Van Reet returned to his studies and to writing.

From the viewpoint of  the American characters, we learn of the hardships and boredom of war, the crazy randomness of violence, and the gap between the reason and the reality of war.

The Iraqi characters shed light on the history of the conflict and the changing nature of jihad under extremists and after America invaded Iraq.

"I always had an idea of what the Americans would be like. But they are different than I thought. They're just people."

"There comes a time for each of us when we realize the truth about the enemy. Which is that he is not an idea, or some faceless demon. He is a man. And every man is much like ourselves."

Cassandra Wigheard is a nineteen-year-old American soldier serving as a tank gunner. She is aware of the gap between the political hype about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reality that the army's purpose is to kill and destroy. She joined the army to be different, to "escape a hard life for one she hoped would be harder." She is appalled by the rape of another female soldier, and at her fellow soldier's callousness.

Abu Al-Hool is a dedicated mujaheddin who sees radicalized jihadists taking over. He left his privileged life to join something bigger, to shape the world. Now, with the murder of women and children and the rise of Osama, he questions his place in the jihad. Dr. Walid, a leader whose motto was "Jihad and the rifle alone," is taking over power.

Sargent Sleed joined the army to find a 'higher purpose,' but instead makes bad decisions, causing the deaths of Iraqi civilians, which he covers up.

Cassandra is captured by the group led by Dr. Walid and Abu Al-Hool, leading Al-Hool to make a fatal choice.

There is no sensationalizing of war, no graphic details of violence. My reaction was more intellectual than visceral. But that makes me happy--I can't read graphic violence.

The publisher writes,"Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat."

That about sums it up for me.

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

Spoils
Brian Van Reet
Little, Brown & Co.
Publication April 18, 2017
$26 hard cover
ISBN: 9780316316163

Easter Greetings

 Wishing all my readers a Happy Easter!

We lived with a house trained rabbit for six years in the 1970s. Nasturtium had real personality, but she never hid any eggs for us. She did chew up the furniture and electric cords.

Early in my quiltmaking days I designed Easter Sunrise--best seen from far, far away.

The weather has been so warm in Michigan--80 degrees yesterday--that we put the screens back into the windows.

The tree we planted when we moved in is flowering, along with daffodils and hyacinth.

Our son will be here for dinner. He shared a photo on Facebook of Godzilla and Peeps bunnies on a cake. SO-- I made him one! He just drove in!

I hope no dinosaurs attack your day.

Junior Jitters and Heartbreak

Eleventh Grade, the Junior Jitters year.

Life after high school was unimaginable. I worried about finding a job, paying income taxes, getting married, having children, and washing and ironing and paying the bills. I wanted something more. I wanted to dream.

Me in 1968

I knew my grades wouldn't get me into college. "I don’t know anything except avoiding homework, loving people, chasing boys, and wants and hopes and dreams and music and writing and reading and beauty and needing friendship," I wrote.

When Nancy Ensminger and I were nine years old we had discussed what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be a writer because I believed writers had the power to change people's lives. At sixteen I hoped to "learn to write" and publish. I wondered if I could "take up writing in college." It seems "impossible & improbable & obscure & obscene, but in dreams I see it as reality." My second hope was to "be a friend to mankind" and "a help to people."

I wrote in my journal,

"Could N. Gochenour be transformed into a poet or short story writer?  This mass of misspelled words and incorrect grammar be shuffled around to form a tangible and solid author-type person?
Do I dare to satisfy my childhood dream?  Do I dare to step out?  Do I dare try my hand at being somebody?  Can I succeed?"

I was very internally focused in my scribbling.

"Have you ever stood quietly and felt your heart beating inside of you? Be very still and don’t move or breathe. If you listen, you’ll feel it there. So faintly..."

"Thin lined paper beckons me to write. It makes me want to mess up its unblemished surface. It makes me want to write nicely with round, even letters and long words. I find it hard to pass up thin-lined paper. I have this need to create and write. I love writing—writing anything, even if only the alphabet or a perfection of one work, with curly-cues in all the right places. And I want to write of how [the boys I liked] never come, but always just look at you with those heavy eyes, and it’s always [the unsuitable boys] who find you. And how you are flattered into it though you know such differences exist and they aren’t the ones, but the [boy you like] goes off with other girls."

1968. My 'at home' uniform: sweatshirt, jeans, and moccasins.

On October 1 I wrote, "What am I doing? Taking history, economics, chemistry, I'm in PAC, editor of "Our Paper" [a project of the senior high Sunday School class at St John's Episcopal Church]. I write poetry. I also participate in that All-American game--Boys."

Herald article on the Political Action Club

On October 2 Mr. Warner came into Mr. Perry's economics class and called out, "Debbie!" and I said, "No-Nancy." I wrote, "He informed me to take International Relations. With that, Perry, Burroughs & Arndt I'd be prepared for college. Before he left he gave my book a karate kick off the desk & exclaimed to Mr. P, "You've got some ugly girls, too, huh?" Mr. Perry shook his head as Mr. W left, and a girl asked, "Who WAS that man!"

Mr Warner in my International Relations classroom, 1969

At least one teacher was talking to me about college.

On October 3 I wrote that everyone was carrying transistor radios to hear the World Series with the Detroit Tigers vs. the Cardinals. On Oct 11 I wrote that the Tigers had won.

I went to the first football game wearing my navy coat, a skirt, and my hair pulled back under a black lambswool pill box hat I found at a garage sale. My hat was crazy and a hit. My teachers remarked on it, with my chemistry teacher Mr. Heald teasing and asking if it was bear fur.

I went campaigning door-to-door with the Political Action Club. I recall we were for Romney for governor.

I bought and read news magazines, then cut the ads out to adorn my bedroom walls and to use in collages to illustrate books I made of my poetry. I had several poems in The Herald--pretty awful, derivative stuff! Including this poem:

page from my poetry book

We are all one in our fight.
our strength is one strength in our strife;
our weaknesses merge into one weakness;
our ideas build like blocks
to form one universal conception.

But when strength is pitted against strength
in one being;
when ideas are kept apart;
building blocks are missing
and the conception falls
as we will fall
if we are not all one in our flight.

a collage I made for my poem Spring Fever

Herald Staff 1968-69. I am in the second row on the far left

wearing one of Mom's 1950s wool skirts which I shortened.

One of my first articles for the Herald

 I got my class ring in October. I wore it proudly.

Me with red hair

My hair had become dark golden brown and Mom suggested I lighten it as I was born blond. Instead, I became a redhead! It took three generations to accomplish it, with my mom and grandmother helping. My Grandmother and Mother also encouraged me to try contact lens and helped me earn the $200 to buy them. They were green, to enhance my hazel eyes.

On October 20 my family went to Tonawanda. I wrote,

"We went to visit the Kuhns last night; called Nancy Ensminger. Saw the Randall’s today. V. N.! [Very nice] Mike R. is tall--And very cute. Quiet. I got in my 2 cents of mouth flapping. Amused him, too. Very Outgoing: in other words, NOISY, when I could be. Nice time, had coffee & pet their dog, who’s getting bald, and their gray cat, who has a fluorescent orange ball. Razing between Uncle Ken & I. Says I’m a hippie ‘cause I got de long hair."

Mike R. and I had played make believe about space aliens as kids. He grew up to become an actor and television weather reporter.

Nancy Ensminger and me, age 16, October 1968

"Oct. 21 Wore my contacts 5 ½ hrs. today. Yesterday I saw Nancy E. We talked, had our pics taken in a booth (25 cents) at Niesner’s, ate spaghetti, talked, said 'hi' to Bruce [Nancy's brother], and talked. Today we went to the store & I gypped Mom outta $1.99 for a shirt, $1.00 for pantyhose, and $1.00 for 4 scarves. We went to see a certain Louise Cole & mom got her wig fixed & we had pheasant & rabbit (and woodcock) sumpthin' or other that wasn’t half bad at all. I hardly—didn’t even—recognize my “old friend” --ha, ha-- Allan (Al.)  Dark hair and cute. He smiled when I got my mouth moving (same as with Mike) and got, in the end, so we could talk & joke & without bein’ scared of scaring one another or something & all. Showed me his pigeons & rabbits & chickens." [Louise Cole had been our hairdresser when we lived in Tonawanda. Her son was Allan.]

Nancy Ensminger, 1968

Nancy 1968

"Oct 24 We went to the Waterson’s [Doris Waterson was Mom's best friend from high school].  Eric [her youngest son] is lovable. Tom [her older son] there—shot a pheasant. Eric wanted to know what I was giving him this time!  I said, “A kiss!” No! But wait—this time you’re supposed to give ME a present! (Mr. Waterson said to say I wanted “Bunnie”) No—I couldn’t have him! I could have the black-nosed bunny—No. A Tiger?  No—send me your picture. (Eric had his school picture taken that day.)

"Yesterday Debbie [Becker] thought I had a beautiful voice when I played my guitar. Went to Guenther’s. I hardly recognized Stevie—er, Steve! Yipes! I didn’t let him be shy. I teased him. He needed a specific screw for his gun. Linda, Elaine, me, Deb & Steve all piled into the car & took off to about 50 billion stores looking for it. That’s about the extent of it. Tomorrow we’ll return, and then Monday—back to the rat race."

I was still doing art

My art reflecting the social times and psychedelic style

my poster, a typical 60s motif

My junior year classes included Chemistry with Mr. Heald, Herald Staff with Mr. Rosen, Economics with Mr. Perry, International Relations with Mr. Warner, Speech, American Lit, and US History.

I read the 1958 poem Univac to Univac by Louis B. Salomon in Speech class. Hear it here. It is about computers wondering if humans might take over the world. I also read my poem about the Christmas tree under the pen name Stephanie Valentine.

My Chemistry class was in the early afternoon. Mr. Heald would kick the metal trash can to get our attention when we drifted off. Sometimes my hand would keep writing as I nodded off and I woke up with my page all scribbled over. (In college I avoided early afternoon classes because I was still falling asleep at 2 pm!) I did not do well, but learned something because I wrote,

if only out of all this confusion

things could fall into an order--

any kind of order--

so i could observe the situation

and make decisions

but, no, it is as unstable

as an ozone atom.

I wrote that my Economics teacher "Mr. Perry spent the hour pointing out all the reasons why we should commit suicide or something because of the world (U.S.) situation." And I also wrote that I was tired of memorizing tariffs and laws and 'every darn thing.' I passed the class because I grasped the theory, but was inept at the application. My conversation starter became, "And what do you think of the national debt?" 50 years later it is still a relevant question!

I was in Girl's Choir for the second year. I had been in choir with many of these girls for two years now and had many friends. I have the best memories of these girls. We learned the Hallelujah Chorus that year and I would sing it walking through the hallways at school. (I still sing when walking, in the car, feeding the doggies, often making up songs. Still weird after all these years!) I also made new friends, Alta and Carol, who were a year older. 

We participated in the All-City Secondary Vocal Festival on Friday, April 25, 1969, at the Kimball High School Gymnasium. The Combined High School Girls’ Choirs performed:

     Gloria (from “Twelfth Mass”) —Mozart

     Go Not Far From Me, O God—Zingarelli

     Say It With Music—Berlin

     The Wizard of Oz Selections—Arlen

Girl's Choir 1968-69. I am in the third row, fifth from the right end.

Once night Dad drove Alta and me home from a football game. The radio was on and Alta and I sang along to Hey, Jude.

Alta introduced me to a boy who liked me. He took me to his church youth group, which was fun, but the church was very conservative. I remember seeing piles of books about the threat of Communism. The church was against dancing, smoking, drinking, etc. He stood me up one night when we were to go Christmas caroling so to cheer me up Alta took me to a party she was going to. Later one of the boys at the party told Alta he'd like to date me. She didn't think we were each other's type.

My friends Dorothy and Kathy bought me a Christmas present from Jacobson's, a tiger stripe fur hat from Jacobson's! I was very moved. The hat was weird enough to be just my style!

In January I was getting to know the boy from the Christmas party. He was a year older and not typically 'my type.' He was complicated with a difficult home life. And he wasn't interested any more in poetry or books than the other boys who wanted to date me. He got along with my folks and was at my house frequently. I really liked him. I fell into the trap many young girls fall into, thinking that we can solve a boy's problems. He warned that he knew he would "blow our relationship."

We went to the French Club Dance, meeting up with my friends and their beaus. Mom took my photo. It became a family legend! Mr. Warner, my International Relations teacher, made fun of it saying, “St. Nancy of Gochenspeil—This is your airline stewardess.” He kept it to share with his other classes.

Me before the 1969 French Club Dance.
That eagle is still in the family. It is not attached to my head.

Before the prom my relationship with my boyfriend had mutually ended. It broke my heart, yet I was determined to remain a friend because I knew my mom was a good support to him. Later I realized our break up was wise and right. But at the time I wrote a lot of bad poetry over it and it took many months to move beyond the pain.

May 9, 1968, a week before the anniversary of Joe Boten's death, I was feeling very low. I wrote that Mom gave me a Librium and drove me to school. It shocks me now to know Mom was on Librium and even more shocked that had given it to me. Because her psoriasis was believed to be made worse by stress, perhaps her doctor believed the Librium was good for her. There was a lot of bad medication going on back then, and Mom was desperate enough to try anything. Her neck, hands, and major joints were deformed by psoriatic arthritis. Winter found her crippled and bedridden. Neighbors came over during the day to help her out of bed.

Every week, I would put olive oil or a tar ointment in her hair at night. She wrapped her head and let the ointment loosen the psoriasis plaque overnight. A stint in the hospital involved a treatment where tar ointment was applied on her entire body, then she wrapped up in Saran wrap and let it soak overnight. Another treatment involved UV light therapy, but it was stopped when she developed pre-cancerous lesions. She was on and off Cortisone, which made her swell up and thinned her skin.

Mom relied on me to help her in the kitchen. I mashed potatoes and opened jars or cans because her hands were so crippled. I went shopping with her to help carry the bags. I did the Pepsi runs to keep her supplied so she didn't have to get up. Mom thought I would make a good physical therapist since I already was a home care health aide in training.

Also on May 9 I obtained an application for my family to host a foreign exchange student the next school year. A family friend was involved with Youth for Understanding and we had hosted an exchange student for a weekend.

Dad wrote in his memoirs, "We got to know one of Joyce's parent's neighbors in Berkeley, whose name was Anita. She was involved with a student exchange program called Youth for Understanding. She asked us to take a temporary exchange student. Joyce, Nancy, Tom and I talked it over and we decided we would like to get involved with the program."

I wonder if Mom thought it would get my mind off 'boy trouble' to have a sister.

Here I am with the exchange student we hosted for a week.

I already had a prom dress and, boyfriend or not, Mom was determined I would still go to the prom. I personally didn't care.

A neighbor boy had returned from Vietnam and his mom and my mom arranged for him to take me to the prom. Again, we joined up with my friends and their beaus for dinner. My date was nice, but we had nothing in common. He was very old fashioned and didn't believe in women going to college. I had to see my old beau with his new girl. I got to wear the dress but I did not truly enjoy myself.

Ready for the prom, 1968

I was determined not to fall into the depression I had suffered the previous year. My mantra became Resurgam-- I shall rise again. I believe I heard the term from Jane Eyre for it is on the tombstone of Jane's Lowood friend Helen.

I collected sayings to support me.

Jeremiah 8:4
“You shall say to them, thus says the Lord;
When men fall, do they not rise again?
If one turns away, does he not return?”

"No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62

This may have been the summer when I met a church challenge to attend every Sunday all summer long. I won a copper metal bookmark.

I was awfully tired of growing up. I wrote a short poem,

When do the lessons end?
Is there so much to learn
to comprehend
that the lessons must go on forever,
no holiday, no end?

Summer came. I took Student Drivers Ed in summer school. Learning that alcohol kills brain cells I vowed to not drink. I figured I needed all the brain cells I had! And I did not drink until I was in my late twenties and my husband and I ordered a glass of wine at dinner.

In July I turned seventeen. I wrote that I had been naive and now I was 'corrupted' and looked with old eyes. ("The delicate core of my mind/is made of hopes and dreams/corrupted and destroyed/by harsh reality," I wrote in one poem).

I was truly concerned with the future, thinking more seriously about college, but I had no clue about how to get into college. My folks assumed I'd get married and that my brother would go to college. I was never pushed to improve my grades or rewarded for doing well. Although my orphaned grandfather Ramer had put himself through Susquehanna College and seminary and Columbia teacher's college in the 1920s, and supported my interests, he never said anything about my going to college either. And I still had never talked about it with my folks.

I had changed a lot during the year. I knew I was going to survive seventeen, and not only would I grow up--I finally wanted to.

On July 20, 1969, America landed men on the moon. Alta asked me to write a poem about it.

On the Virgin Soil, Touched

black, endless
rhinestone-set velvet
split
by a small silver needle
traveling by stitches
through space.

finite, three lives
existing
to carry out an excursion
in the name of mankind.

in-the-image-of-God
one foot
touched
the sterile
virgin
soil,
that now knows man.

millions afar--
eyes turned upward--
mouths
no words to form
speech taken away
by wonder
by fear
by sense of man's potential power
standing
in awe
of one foot
and the moon
the friction, touch
coming between.

Around fifteen years ago I made my quilt When Dreams Came True to celebrate the Apollo 11 mission. I used copyright free NASA photographs, fusible applique, commercial fabrics, and machine thread work and machine quilting.

When Dreams Came True by Nancy A. Bekofske

detail from When Dreams Came True by Nancy A. Bekofske

detail from When Dreams Came True by Nancy A. Bekofske

detail of When Dreams Came True by Nancy A. Bekofske

detail from When Dreams Came True by Nancy A. Bekofske