SeasonalStories

Sharing My Memories of John E. Garland

Alma Garland

Dear Ruth,

I have been struggling during Johnnie’s final illness to find the memory of my first meeting or seeing Johnnie. No images or story surfaces as being the first. Maybe I was intimated by meeting Walter’s entire family at one time; or I had been told so much about the family I knew them and the meeting was secondary; or maybe I was “just so in love.” I will share my fondest memories of John.

The Friday evenings I spent at Herkimer Street with John, you, Denise and Nina are among my fondest memories, and John is central to all. I have felt welcomed and a part of the “Garland Family” long before I became a Garland.

John was a great man. My first memories of him are of a hustling, bustling man. Always on the move. Bringing clothes into 500 Herkimer Street or leaving to deliver the dry cleaning.

His VW bus full of clothes and the dogs at the window, Sherry in the house are all part of the picture of the life John lived to the fullest.

John was a business man and took no “stuff” from anyone. He said when he went into business for himself, “Al, I have so many safety nets in place in case something doesn’t work out, they are killing me, I need to reconsider.” He was proud of his business, “The Garland Valet,” proud of the quality of the end product of his labor and of his employees. His motto: “The difficult we do right away. The impossible will take a little longer.”

My memories of him in the kitchen at 511 Herkimer cooking delicious meals leave the image of a happy, smiling person, full of lie, love and giving, with a cigarette always in hand, a glass of something nearby to sip on.

John always seemed relaxed but always in control. The weeks of camping at Fish Creek Pond left a tone of cherished memories. With John, Walter, Ritchie and Wally setting the pace, keeping the activities going, especially the camp fires at night with all sitting around, telling stories and the kids roasting marshmallows.

Our weekend out at Montauk Point with John leading the caravan of cars, leaving just enough space for Walter to make the pass John had made. What a laugh the two brothers had at our destination. John: “I thought you could make it.” Walt: “I did, but just barely.” During the same weekend their debate over who owned the Army blanket was hilarious. “It is mine.” “No, it is mine. I brought it home from the service. And on and on it went.

How surprised I was when I learned John decorated the Easter eggs at Easter time. I thought only “women the mothers” did Easter eggs.

John’s concern for the appearance and well being of his children was always apparent. “Al, I came home and hem in coats that were too small. I had to do something. I bought material and Sadie made the coats.

John’s taste for beauty, quality and fit has left a lasting impression on me. I will always remember him no matter the day of the week, or time of day or night with his creased pressed shirts, collars standing just so, sleeves creased and not a spot anywhere. And yet, he was the picture of comfortableness.

John was comfortable with who he was – a kind, generous man who loved hife, his life, and the people in his life.

John took pleasure and pride in his family and his home. He was able to give credit where credit was due. “Alma, I am not going anywhere without Sadie.” Said, when he was in the process of buying a new home at 930 Linden BV. I had asked if Sadie was going home.

He loved the city he loved the country, and he made each more beautiful and pleasing t the eye by the care, love and attention he gave to his surroundings. He said, “I don’t care what goes on ‘out there,’ this is my ‘home’ in here.” He made “in here” a home for all who entered.

John cared for his family and gave them the best he had – both material and the tools to make their lives productive.

His generosity and love sent Sadie to England. What a surprise it was for her.

Walter sent his family to you and John for a vacation without sufficient funds, knowing they would be taken care of. Walt: I’ll pay you back.” Thanks John and Ruth.

One more memory: “Denise, I feel like eating ice cream tonight. Bring me some.” Denise brought a normal size dish. John, “I said, I feel like eating ice cream.” Denise understood and brought a dish quadrupled in size. “That’s more like it.”

I have many pictures of John and they tell of a man who loved family, food, drink and he pleasures of life. He laughed as he told me the story of you and him deciding to play tennis. “We had our rackets and our “cute outfits on” but “didn’t have a clue as to how to hit the ball. We gave up.”

My family always boasted about “Uncle Johnnie’s place – summer home in the Catskills.” He explored the surrounding areas. He expanded his knowledge of the world by traveling. I know of – Alaska, Hawaii, Aruba, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean ports of call.

He was a planner. His love and skills at camping have made for wonderful memories for his family. “How else, Al could I take five children for a two week vacation with $400.00.”

Yes, he is missed but his legacy will live on in the lives and accomplishments of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and the beautiful faithful wife, you, Ruth, who has stood beside him all the way.

We all miss his laughter, his sense of humor, his ability to cut to the chase with his intelligence. His true Garland trait to have an answer for everything. His smile, his moustache, his hair with its permanent inherited waves, his facial moles, are the outward dressings of the man inside – “A Good Man” “Me Tarzan – You Jane.”

Written with love, Alma E. Garland November 27, 2002

EULOGY FOR GEORGE STOCKMAN

Charles Stockman

Staff Sergeant George Hubert Stockman died March 6, 1945, during an attack on a German machine gun nest near the town of Obersehr, Germany, in an action for which he received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. George was born on June 16, 1924, in Oak Park, Illinois, the second son of Harry and Bertie (nie Schey) Stockman. He was survived by his parents and by me, his older brother, Charles. At the time of his birth, George's parents lived in an apartment in Chicago.

When George was a year old, his family moved to a new, Dutch-colonial-style house in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. His paternal grandmother came to live with the family at that time. She was quite ill and rarely left her bedroom.

In this new home, George and I shared a bedroom and a double bed. As we grew, we were both friends and rivals, but the friendship usually won out over the sibling rivalry, and necessarily, my story is intertwined with his. Because I was older and larger, I could always beat George in sports, a fact that constantly angered him but never kept him from trying. Nevertheless, as children, we were close, and, together, played games like tag, hide-and-seek and red rover with the neighborhood children, boys and girls together.

We had no car. Our parents felt they could not afford one. The business section of Park Ridge was located about a half-mile north, straight up Prospect Avenue, the street on which we lived. To shop for groceries, our mother pulled a red coaster wagon, with George in it and me walking alongside, to the grocery, an A&P. When George got a little older, he had to walk also, and, later, George and I pulled the wagon.

Back then, of course, there was no television. Radio was new. Commercial radios were expensive and not particularly good. George's father was a radio hobbyist who built his own from instructions in the magazine Popular Mechanics and other publications. He built both standard broadcast band and short wave radios. I can remember George and I sitting on the floor in the living room and listening to his short wave radio receiving Admiral Byrd's broadcasts from Antarctica.

In those days, at least, in Park Ridge, there was no public kindergarten. George started first-grade at the Theodore Roosevelt school, which was less than two blocks from our home. We walked to and from school together. He was a conscientious student and got good grades.

Both he and I were taught to shoot at an early age – shooting at targets in the basement. He was a good marksman. We also played cowboys and Indians, war, and cops and robbers with the neighborhood boys. In those days, almost all the boys had toy guns, which were handy in these latter games. Some were cap pistols bought originally for the Fourth of July. We also, with the neighborhood boys, played softball and touch football in the street that ran past our house, and George was always one of the better players. Sometimes, one or two of the neighborhood girls joined us in these sports.

Our mother required us to dry the dinner dishes after she washed them, George and I took turns. She was strict about this and thought all sports a waste of time. Thus, it did not matter whether we were in the middle of a soft-ball or touch football game with other children, whichever one of us was supposed to do the chore that evening had to immediately drop what he was doing and go to the kitchen. George was more conscientious about this than I was and thus got into less trouble, but we were both in frequent conflict with our mother.

George and I learned to play table tennis with neighborhood boys whose fathers had such tables in their basements. We got quite good at the game, so good in fact, that we sometimes beat adult players in doubles. However, George could never beat me in singles, and that sometimes made him so mad that he stomped on the ball at the end of the match.

The stock market crash and the onslaught of the Depression were severe blows for our family. At first our father's employer paid his weekly salary only every two weeks, then less often and only irregularly. Our father moved to another company where he was paid weekly--but at only one-third the salary he had earned before the onslaught of the Depression. Paying the mortgage left very little for other things. We were poor. However, we never went hungry, because we raised vegetables in a garden in the back yard, and we boys were required to help with the garden work. Our mother canned the harvest and stored it in the basement, and she had started doing that before the collapse of the economy. We did, though, sometimes have to wear hand-me-down clothes donated by people in our church.

Since we had little money, George and I looked for ways to get some. We would dig topsoil off vacant lots, load it into the red wagon, and sell it to gardeners in the neighborhood for a dime a load. Our father made ant poison for us and we sold it door to door—Stockman Brothers Ant Killer—at 25 cents for a small bottle. It worked very well, since it was sodium arsenite, sugar, and water.

I should point out that our father never had a hard time finding a job. He had a skill that was rare, a tablet maker and liquid formulator for pharmaceutical companies. He knew how to set up and operate the machines that made pills. However, wages for that work, and for most all jobs had fallen severely in the depression.

Although we were the only ones in the neighborhood without an automobile, our parents weren't so broke they couldn't, once in a while, buy us a few little luxuries, We got some fireworks for celebrating the Fourth, but never as many as did our neighborhood friends. And we had a baseball bat, ball gloves, and ice skates. We used the latter on frozen ponds, and sometimes, with other boys from the neighborhood, played hockey, or our version of it, since none of us had ever seen a real game—only a few photographs in the sports section of the newspaper.

In 1932, our family bought an automobile, a 1928 Buick sedan, for which our parents payed $125. Automatic transmissions did not exist back then. Our car had a three-speed manual transmission

with a foot-operated clutch. George and I quickly learned to drive it and could shift and operate the clutch better than our mother. Now, our mother could take George and me to more distant places, such as the beach at Evanston or the forest preserve along the Des Plaines River. George and I went fishing in the river, but neither of us ever caught a fish.

The Park Ridge school system had a band in the junior high school. Our mother insisted that we be in that band, since her brothers had played in one in Indianapolis at our ages. George took up the clarinet two years after I learned to play the cornet. We were led to these two instruments because they were the ones her two brothers had played. George and I were not in the band simultaneously, because junior high school was only two years and we were two grades apart in school.

In 1938, when George was 14, our family moved to Indianapolis, where our father had taken a new job. Our mother had, for years, been begging to move there, because her parents, her sister, and one of her two brothers lived in that city. However, once we had made the move, she complained that we should not have done so. While we missed our friends from Park Ridge, the move was relatively easy on George, because he was just ready to enter high school while I was half-way through.

To go to school, we walked together about a quarter mile to a streetcar line, and rode on that both to and from the campus. And it was a campus, just like at a college, with several buildings. We attended what was, at that time, the second largest high school in the nation, Indianapolis's Arsenal Technical, with more than 7000 students.

We made new friends and adjusted to the move. The boy next door, between us in age, played tennis, and he wanted us to play with him. After much begging and pleading by both of us, our mother bought us tennis racquets. With the boy next door, we rode our bicycles to a park that had brown clay tennis courts and began to hit the ball. We weren't very good, and our next-door neighbor wasn't either. But, soon, a boy on the high school tennis team showed us how to hold the racquet correctly and how to swing correctly. Soon George and I were beating the boy next door and some of the other players.

There was pressure to become a good player, because when the courts were full, the winner system was in effect. You could challenge the winner of the match on any court. Such matches were a single set. When that match was over, you played the winner. Someone would probably challenge the winner of your match, and whichever of you won got to continue to play. The loser had to sit out and challenge on another court.

As with table tennis, George could not beat me. This made him very angry, and at the end of a a match, after the final point, he would throw his racket. Sometimes he threw it over the fence, sometimes he threw it into the ground, and on one of those times, he threw it into the ground so hard he broke it. That made him madder still. Nevertheless, he always calmed down quickly enough to play well as my doubles partner in another match.

George graduated from high school in 1942. His parents had no money to send him to college, but he had been a good student in high school and therefore got accepted in the Mallory Company's co-op plan. The Mallory Company was a large manufacturer of batteries and electrical equipment. In its co-op plan, a student worked six months, and then, went to college for six months at company expense. The cycle of six months work and six months of school was repeated until a student graduated. However, the United States had become involved in World War II, and, before he had completed the first six months of work, George was drafted into the Army.

After basic training, George got six months of college at Oklahoma A&M through the Army's ASTP program. Then, he was sent to infantry training with the 94th division. There, he quickly rose to the rank of sergeant. About a month after D-Day, the 94th joined the fighting in Europe and fought its way into Germany, where, unfortunately, George's story ends.

I have missed him all these years.

The Sleeping Beauty

Rosemary Barkes

I spun around to see who had just said, "Doesn't she look good; she's a sleeping beauty." It was Dorothy, a long-time friend of my mom's. I felt proud of those comments, yet annoyed. Phases such as 'doesn't she look peaceful' or 'didn't they do a good job' always grate on my nerves, like fingernails scraping on a blackboard. How on earth could anyone look good lying in a casket?

Dorothy was referring to my mom, the woman I had watched die for three weeks. It had been strange caring for the woman who had cared for me from birth to age 17, when I left home. My care for her was a mere two years.

No spell had been cast upon this 'sleeping beauty' by a snummbed malevolent fairly in the classic 'Sleeping Beauty'. Nor did it take place in a wiry woods. And, there would no prince with a magical kiss to awaken this beauty.

The spell that was cast in my mom's case was dementia, an irreversible deterioration of brain cells; the scene, an extended care facility. And, her prince preceded her in death by two years.

That prince, married to her for 70 years, continued to care for her after her diagnosis of dementia when she was 83; he, 87. Until he died suddenly, at age 91, following bouts with renal failure and pneumonia.

Even on his deathbed, this Prince Charming told the attending nurse the story of how and when he first set eyes on this beauty. "There she was at the end of a long driveway," he said, eyes twinkling, "Standing with two girlfriends, laughing. I knew right then and there she was the one for me." She was 16.

My brother Ron wrote in his memoirs that, at age ten, he thought Mom was the prettiest mom in the neighborhood at the time. Even prettier than Mrs. Mosher, who was a knockout. Mom was thirty.

At the assisted living facility where she spent her last two years, the residents and staff referred to her as the 'pretty lady'. She had small features, warm brown eyes, soft curly white hair, high cheek bones and a heart-shaped face. She was quick to smile and quicker to laugh. She was 88.

It was at this facility near my home that I grew close to this sleeping beauty. Prior to that, we had been worlds apart. Her world was contained to home: raising children, cooking, cleaning, sewing, and crocheting. Mine was focused on education, travel and clubs. When I married and had children, I, too, cooked, cleaned and sewed. I could then relate to her world, yet it was difficult for her to relate to mine.

As I began to care for her, following Dad's death, our worlds gradually became one, like a merging of two corporations. I ate with her and, eventually, fed her; I took her for rides in the car, I helped her create a cornucopia at Thanksgiving, a candy cane ornament at Christmas. I trimmed her toenails, enjoyed coffee and donuts while her feet soaked. It became as pleasure to serve.

I stared down at the small body of this sleeping beauty, tucked safely into the ivory satin-lined casket. Gone were the sinking cheekbones, the unruly hair, the open mouth gasping for air. In their place were round cheeks, curls and a smile from her lips.

She would have been proud of the silk black and white striped blouse with a white satin collar. Classy. She would be pleased that the coral lipstick matched her fingernails.

The ministers booming voice 'please be seated' startled me from my thoughts. Reaching into the casket, I took her hands in mine. I could hear Dad reminiscing about that 16 year old beauty he first spied from the window of his delivery truck, my brother proclaiming his mom to be the 'prettiest' on the block, and the folks at the assisted living facility calling her 'pretty lady'.

All of a sudden, Dorothy's earlier comments about my mom no longer irked me. In fact, they pleased me. She was right. Mom did look good, like a 'sleeping beauty'.

Treasured Teacher

Saundra Akers

I started first grade in Urbana, Ohio, no kindergarten for me. In fact, before school I’d almost never been around other children at all. My blind mother didn’t want to be bothered with other children and I was not allowed to go to anyone else’s house. I had a brother who was twenty one months younger than I, but he wasn’t that interesting and he seldom played with me.

The teacher’s name was Mrs. McAdams and I thought she was strict at first, although never as strict as my mother. I remember her as being a little homely, with a slender upright body and a firm attitude about teaching.

Although I was determined to be good and to fit into the school, having been strictly raised, the school represented a complete culture shock for me. It had running water, which I’d never seen; there were other kids, and all kinds of new things to think about. I loved the running water and thought it was amazing. In the bathroom I found that I could put my hand flat under the faucet and the water would spray out in a flat circular pattern. Awesome!

Almost as amazing was the behavior of the other girls who would scream and run if they got a little bit of water on them! Since water doesn’t hurt you, I couldn’t imagine why they did this. I did it some more trying to figure out where they were coming from.

Mrs. McAdams didn’t think the water was awesome. She thought it was for hand-washing only. She suggested that I should not spray the water. Now it’s a measure of my fascination with the water that after being told this by an authority figure, I still experimented to see what else the water could do. Mrs. McAdams had to tell me three or four times not to do this, before I could control the compulsion.

I believe she was happy with me academically though. I can think of only one occasion when I did the wrong thing but I don’t believe that Mrs. McAdams realized the misunderstanding. She told us to draw a picture of spring. What I understood was that I was to draw a picture of a spring. I thought and thought and couldn’t think of anything with a spring. I remembered that I’d seen some old bedsprings lying in a field but I didn’t want to draw that. Finally I drew a picture of a jack in the box. I’d never seen one except in a book, so that wasn’t easy.

Mrs. McAdams seemed perplexed when she looked at my picture. She asked me what it was but didn’t comment on my answer. However, I’d seen my mistake as soon as I saw the pictures the others had drawn of sunshine, flowers and grass. I had not even thought about spring the season.

When school started I had two dresses, both thin and summery. My mother told me not to wear the same dress two days in a row or people would think I only had one dress, so I alternated them. Around November, seeing me shivering in the thin clothes, Mrs. McAdams asked my parents if she could make a couple of woolen jumpers for me. They said

“Yes,”

and she made two jumpers out of wool with blouses to go under them. In the spring she asked again if she could make a couple of summer dresses for me and when told yes, she made two bright floured dresses for the spring.

Just before school was out for the year she came to my house one evening. I was up in a tree in the front yard and she commented that she didn’t know I was a squirrel. She went to talk to my parents. I wasn’t concerned about this because I thought she liked me and I liked her, and I hadn’t done anything wrong that I could think of. Still I climbed out of the tree and went inside to join them.

“I’d like to give Saundra free piano lessons during the summer. She learns fast and I think she’ll do well at that,” Mrs. McAdams said.

“We won’t be here,” my mother told her. “As soon as school is out we’re moving to southern Ohio.”

I was upset and sorry when my teacher left. She had tried to be nice and my parent’s hadn’t appreciated it, was my view. I had been offered a gift and without asking me my parents had said no. It wasn’t fair!

“I want to take piano lessons,” I said.

“You know we’re going to move down to Adams County,” my mother told me. “Grandpa is sick and when he dies he wants to be buried beside my Mother. He wants to be close to the cemetery. We’re just waiting for school to be out.”

Fate had intervened. I was not to have piano lessons and so perversely I always wanted to learn to play the piano; I felt I’d been cheated.

We moved to Hackelshin road in Adams County in June and my Grandfather died July 3rd that year. I never saw Mrs. McAdams after we moved but she was very influential in making me always see teachers as my friend and as someone I could trust. With one exception in second grade I always got along well with teachers, did well in school, and I give Mrs. McAdams a whopping amount of credit for that. She paved the way for my academic life.

LUNCH WITH DAVID ROCKEFELLER

Charles Stockman

One of my pleasant memories comes from back around 1960. It is about having lunch with David Rockefeller. Normally, if someone like me says he had lunch with David Rockefeller, one might ask, “You and how many hundred others?” However, my lunch with him was not at a big banquet. It was an intimate affair, just four of us at a small table in a windowless and rather stark private dining room. The other two were Amory Houton, CEO of Corning Glass, (and son of its founder) and my boss, Dr. Frank Schoenfeld, Vice President for Research and Development of B. F. Goodrich.

You might ask, “How did this come about?” It is really very simple. About two years earlier, I had been promoted from a section leader in chemical engineering (head of the chemical processes, process economics, nuclear engineering, and rocket propellants section) to manager of operations for the entire research center, an establishment with four buildings and over 400 employees. That meant that I ran everything except the actual conduct of research. I was responsible for personnel, purchasing, security, budgets and accounting, government contracts, patents and legal, the library, shops, and maintenance. I had 105 people under me. David Rockefeller and Amory Houton were members of the board of directors of B. F. Goodrich, and they had come to the research center because they were interested in learning what we were doing in research. I was the guy who had all that information in his head. I knew what projects were being researched, who was working on them, and how much we were spending on each. I, with my boss, the research and development vice president, and the four research directors, had set the budgets. I constantly monitored them.

The overall general management of the research center was handled in meetings held every Monday morning in the office of the research and development vice president. The attendees at the meeting were the four research directors, my boss, and me. Here, we settled conflicts between the research directors regarding project budgets and personnel and managed the general direction of our research. Consequently, it was only natural that when two members of the Board of Directors wanted to know about what we were doing at the research center, the vice president for R&D wanted me in the meeting.

This meeting was held in a private dining room off of our research center cafeteria and served by cafeteria staff. It was a windowless room, rather bare, with just a couple of pictures on the wall for decoration. Over a lunch of fillet mignon, vegetables, and beverages, we were soon on a first name basis as we discussed our progress in developing new polymers and rubber chemicals for the Chemical Company, work for the rocket motor plant in California, and possible improvements for tires. Both David and Amo, as Mr. Houton was called, were friendly and easy to talk with. I remember David as being somewhat heavyset and wearing a dark suit. Amo was thinner and also wearing a dark suit. It was a friendly meeting, and it lasted well into the afternoon.

After the discussion in the private dining room, we took a tour of the research center beginning with its chemical and polymer labs plus those for analytical and testing services. Then we visited the chemical engineering laboratory with its large reactors and equipment. We also visited the the outer buildings. These included the high-vent building, which, with a complete air change every thirty seconds, was designed to handle toxic gases and chemicals that gave off noxious vapors. Then, across from it, the high-pressure laboratory, where thick-walled steel vessels were used to carry out reactions in cells with strong concrete walls. Next stop was the rocket laboratory where solid propellant rocket motors were designed, made, and tested.

Neither Mr. Rockefeller nor Mr. Houton had previously seen anything like our facilities, and they were impressed.

By now it was late afternoon and time for the research center's driver to take our visitors to the airport for their flights home. We said our friendly goodbyes and they departed.

I never saw Mr. Rockefeller again, but Mr. Houton telephoned me a few times to discuss how to deal with the officers of a Massachusetts company with which I had had some dealings and knew the senior management.

From this meeting, I learned that, at least in business, the rich and famous are pretty much like the rest of us and that I could feel comfortable talking with them.

Frozen in Time

Saundra Akers

Martha was frozen deep into her childhood a time of abuse and trauma. Although she was now forty years old, she seemed destined to react time and again as she had then, to endure the pain and humiliation she had felt, to seek out those who would use her then throw her aside.

Why must I do these things, she thought miserably, but there were no answers.

Her friend Tom tried to help her. He’d always been a rock of support, even during the early days of their childhood, when she’d run to their hideout to cry on his shoulder, although she refused to tell him what was actually wrong.

“Get help,” he’d advised over and over, but she hadn’t. She didn’t want to talk about it. A therapist would make her talk about it.

Now there was a new man on the horizon. Ed was a user, both of people and illegal substances but she thought maybe she could love him enough to change him. They’d only been together a week and already she’d been to two crack houses with him. She liked that he took her with him rather than leaving her behind.

“That meant something, didn’t it? He wanted to be with her.”

Martha wouldn’t use drugs herself. She would never do anything on purpose that might make her lose control, but now she was wondering just how much control she really had over her life.

She’d been married twice and both were losers who beat her, used her up and then left her for other women. They had given her no respect, but then Martha didn’t believe herself worthy of respect. She couldn’t even respect herself so how could anyone else? No wonder they’d left her. She wasn’t worth the trouble.

Her father had been like that, probably all men were; although she could pray that Ed would be different. Maybe this is the one, she said to herself. He’ll love me and value me for myself, rather than a paycheck I can bring in or sex I can offer. He’ll love me.

“Right,” a voice in her head said, “He’ll love crack more than you, more than anything. You know how addicts are. He wants you because you have a job and thus you have money. Let the money dry up and where will you be?”

Martha closed her eyes and ignored the voice. It would go away if she refused to listen. It always did.

Later she sat with Ed in her living room listening to some music he’d brought over. He was high and in a happy frame of mind, trying to get her to dance with him, singing without a clue as to the tune playing.

“No, I’ll just sit here and listen to it,” she said as he tried to pull her up.

“Come on, don’t be a party pooper,” he said in an irritated voice.

“I’m not, I’m just tired,” Martha said, pulling away from him.

Without warning the happy Ed left to be replaced with a furious man who slapped her so hard her eyes watered.

“I said I want to dance,” Ed said as he jerked her to her feet.

For the next hour, Ed forced her to dance with him, dragging her when she lagged behind. The drug had given him false energy and he seemed to feel that he could go on forever like the energizer bunny. Martha, on the other hand was so tired she could hardly stand. She hoped he’d take a break soon.

Another hour and Ed was still energized but he’d reluctantly let Martha go so she could get a soda for herself and a beer for him. Tears sat in her eyes as Martha got the drinks and brought them to the living room where Ed snatched his beer from her hand and using a broom continued to dance around the room.

“How about some TV,” Martha said. “I think a movie is about to start on HBO.”

“Only if it’s a blood and guts movie,” Ed said, whirling in a circle.

“It’s a war movie.”

Martha put it on and Ed pranced around the room for a few minutes and then finally he sat down to watch the screen. Later he was crashing and now Martha couldn’t get him awake to send him home. She knew he’d be like this for hours or even days.

She tried to sleep that night but something had reached a crisis stage in Martha. She knew she couldn’t go on this way. She didn’t need a crack addict, who had already become abusive, in her life; she had to find a way to change her own patterns.

“I’m as addicted to my way of living as Ed is to drugs,” she admitted.

The next morning Ed was still sleeping. He woke up for a minute but wouldn’t get up so she left him sleeping as she went on to work. During her break she searched the phone book and found a counselor. She called and got an appointment.

This probably won’t work but at least I’ll give it a try, she thought. Tom could be right.

The next day, after Ed had gone, she called him and told him that she didn’t want to see him again. Ed blustered and yelled on the phone, but she was adamant. When he asked her why, she mentioned the blow he’d given her because she didn’t want to dance with him.

“I don’t stay with anyone who hits me,” she said.

Later she marveled at how good that one sentence made her feel. She hadn’t confronted Ed face to face, but she had stood up for herself.

“If I have a low opinion of myself, everyone else will think I’m right because I know myself better than anyone else does; they’ll have a low opinion of me too. From now on I’m going to act as if I’m worth something and see what happens.”

Later that week she saw the counselor, who was a woman about her own age with an understanding air about her. It wasn’t half as bad as Martha thought it would be. The counselor let her work on things at her own pace and in around three months, Martha found herself discussing things she’d never thought she’d share with anyone. Somehow they didn’t seem quite as bad anymore and the counselor helped her to see what had happened from a different angle.

Tom was in the background cheering her on all the way. She found that after breaking the ice with the counselor, she could explain some of what she’d been through to Tom. She was surprised to know that Tom had guessed her secrets years ago, and just been waiting for her to finally share with him.

“Tom seems to be a great friend and a wonderful man,” the counselor said one day after Martha told her about a recent conversation. “Have you ever considered a relationship with him? He’s single isn’t he?”

“Tom,” Martha questioned. “I’ve never thought about Tom as a boyfriend.”

“He’s already a friend,” the counselor pointed out. That’s half the battle. A lover should be a friend first, and it sounds like Tom has always been in your corner.”

“He has,” Martha agreed thoughtfully.

That night she invited Tom to dinner at her house. She lit candles, used her best dishes and served wine with the meal.

“What’s up,” Tom asked her, perplexed.

“Sh-h-h,” Martha said, “Don’t spoil our first date with questions.”

EVERYBODY COMES TO RICK'S

Naomi Johnson

'Turn that down. I said, turn that down!'

I can hardly hear my grandson's wife yelling at me for the racket her brats are making. I respond to her by using the one hand I can still move. No, I don't flash her the finger. I did that once and she took the television remote control away from me for a whole day. Sadistic witch. No, I just turn down the volume on the tv. Now all either of us can hear is the incredible din made by two undisciplined pre-teen monsters fighting over some video game. Does she go to quieten them down? You better believe she doesn't. As far as she's concerned the only sound to ever disturb the tranquility of her day is my little tv. And I don't have a hearing problem. I only turn up the volume when the demon seeds are making too much noise for me to watch my movies..

How did this happen to me? No, I know how it happened, I just don't know the why. One minute I was a spry 89-year-old woman living on my own, still involved in gardening, birdwatching and=2 0bowling. And the occasional evening of dinner, wine and a silver fox named Harold who was after me for my late husband's pension check. The next minute I was a stroke victim, with no ability to speak, unable to move except for my right hand. A couple of minutes after that I was a prisoner in my grandson's house and his wife, Patsy, was my jailer.

That's not very grateful of me and in fact, my grandson, David, really cares about me. But he's not here that much, he works 10 to 12 hours a day. Patsy, who can't work up the energy to raise her own children properly, is hardly happy to be burdened with me. Not that the burden is so great. My husband left me a good-sized nest egg. Oh, shoot, why be modest? He left me a couple of dozen of those nest eggs. So David makes sure that I get good professional care, much better than I would get in an institution. Patsy doesn't even have to look at me if she doesn't want to, but she's made it abundantly clear that she considers me a waste of money, and she wishes I would croak so she could spend my legacy on tanning salons, fake nails and slot machines.

Being trapped in my body, in this hospital-style bed, in this one small room, while my mind works as well as any body's – and in the case of Patsy the Prison Warden, better – it's just madden ing. My only escape is Turner Classic Movies. I love the old movies, the black and whites: Fred and Ginger, Hepburn and Tracy, Bogey and Bacall, Gable and Lombard. The great Hollywood stars are all dead, but I watch them and it's as if they are frozen in time. Like me, only I'm not dead. I just wish I were.

I keep the movies on almost constantly. What else is there to do? I want to be entertained so instead of lying here like road kill and being fed through a straw, I pretend to dance the Continental with Fred Astaire, I smoke with Bogey, I flirt with Cary Grant. I send myself away to a never-never land of murder and suspense, mystery and mayhem, elegance and wit, charm and daring, romance and heartbreak. When I watch the old movies I'm as sexy as Ava Gardner yet I'm as thin as Audrey Hepburn – actually, now that my only food is that Ensure stuff, I'm probably two sizes smaller than Audrey.

The noise from the next room finally abates and I return my tv to normal volume. Casablanca will be on later tonight but right now I'm riding with the Duke and Mitchum and a young James Caan to a place called El Dorado. Oh, I love this movie, especially when James Caan recites bits of the poem. It's by Edgar Allen Poe, and tonight the words seem specially meant for me.

'And as his strength / Failed him at length / He met a pilgrim shadow. / “Shadow,” said he,

“Where can it be, / This land of El Dorado?”'

I drowse, and dream of finding my own El Dorado.

When I awaken it's to raised voices. It's not the tv set although I can see that Casablanca has started without me. It's not the kids either, they've gone very quiet. No, it's David and Patsy and they are quarreling. About me. Go figure.

'That old crone is driving me insane! You don't know what I go through, day after day--.'

'Honey, please, she'll hear you.'

'Everybody comes to Rick's.' That was Captain Renault in Casablanca. Oh, yes, I would love to go to Rick's. If I could just slide out of this shell of a body and into the television, I would head straight for Rick's Cafe Americain.

'You have got to get her out of this house! Either she goes or I do, it's that simple!'

'Patsy, please, darling. The doctor said she doesn't have very long…'

I sure hope I don't. I've been wishing I would die every day for the last eight months. If Patsy thinks she's going nuts she should try switching places with me. My chest hurts a little now. It does that when I get upset. But the pain is stronger and I'm having trouble breathing. I tune out their voices, tune out the pain. I focus on Casablanca, its light and shadows. Ilsa is telling Rick that unless he helps her, Victor Laslow will die in Casablanca. And although I've seen this film maybe fifty times in my life, Rick says something just then that only now seems like a message to me. And I swear, he's looking right at me when he says it: 'What of it? I'm going to die in Casablanca. It's a good spot for it.'

Oh, it is. It is. Casablanca is where I want to die, too. And I can feel my pain subside, fade as though it had never been, and now the Moroccan sun warms my face and arms. I breathe in the spice of incense and patchouli. I look around. No hospital bed. No Patsy. And I'm walking. I'm walking in Casablanca,.and the merchants in the marketplace stretch out their hands and offer me their goods=2 0at discount rates. 'Special discount for friends of Rick.' Yes, I'm a friend of Rick's now. And I see Rick walking back to his 'gin joint.' I want to go with him but something tugs at me, ever so slightly. I have to glance over my shoulder and I'm surprised by what I see.

In a shadowy corner of the marketplace is a rectangle, like a small window. No, more like a tv. And through that tv/window I see my bed, that hated hospital bed. And I see me, lying frozen on the snow white sheets. But it's not me, not anymore because I'm here in Casablanca. The joy, the freedom rush up into my throat. At last I'm out of that useless body. I've escaped and I'm here with friends, Rick and Ilsa and Sam. I can't help it, I have to hum a few bars of 'As Time Goes By.' I turn back but now Rick has gone. I run to the cafe, and I enter just as the police arrest Victor Laslow. And again Rick says something that I once thought was just a dramatic line in a movie, but now I know he's talking to me, he was talking to me all along, welcoming me. He smiles and says. 'It seems that destiny has taken a hand.'

Yes, it's destiny that brings me to Casablanca at last. But what do you expect? Sooner or later, everybody comes to Rick's.

FROZEN IN TIME

Charles Stockman

I awoke and immediately felt a chill. Why had my bedroom become so cold? I felt the weight of several blankets and thought and thought as I became more awake. I didn't remember putting so many blankets on my bed last night. I opened my eyes and the chill I had felt upon awakening was nothing compared to the coldness I felt when I saw my surroundings. I was in a chamber which had walls and a ceiling of ice. Dim light bulbs hung from a long wire running up against the ceiling. The chamber was about 15 feet wide and 40 feet long. I could see a door at one end, the only thing in sight that was not ice. And in that ice were several frozen carcasses of animals. A dog, a deer, a couple of hogs, and several smaller animals such as squirrels and rabbits. Among them, I realized with horror, I could see three human bodies, middle-aged and nude – frozen in time..

It was surreal, unbelievable. Was I having a bad dream, a nightmare? But it seemed so real. I felt wide-awake, and except for the shock caused by my surroundings, in full command of all my senses. And yet it was unbelievable.

I felt around my body and realized I was no longer in my pajamas but was fully dressed in a long sleeved shirt, jeans, and a heavy sweater. Warm boots were on my feet. Yet, unless my mind and memory had gone haywire, I had gone to bed in my suburban home in a warm bedroom and was wearing pajamas.

I sat up, and immediately, I heard a voice, obviously coming from a loud speaker, say, “Good morning, Dr. Robertson. Glad to see you are awake. We wanted you to wake up in our cold chamber so that you would realize that we are well-funded and serious about our research. We know about your own work and know that you are the American military's best expert on cold weather survival and on rehabilitation of frozen body parts. We need your expertise to help us reach our goals.”

“And what are those goals?” I asked.

“He ignored my question and said “Later. Please put on the coat under the bed and meet me at the door at the end of the chamber.”

I complied with the instructions, and at the end of the room, the door slowly swung open. When I walked through it, I saw a tall, slender, dark-complected man in heavy clothing. He was accompanied by two armed guards, both carrying submachine guns. “Why the armed guards? You have nothing to fear from me, and certainly, not from the other occupants of that room.”

“He ignored me and said, “We know that you have been working on restoring to function frozen feet and hands, and we want to extend that work to the whole body. We believe you can help us do that. Indeed, we think you are the best man in the whole world to help us do that.”

“Then why did you kidnap me in such a dramatic manner? Why not contact me at my office? And how did you do it? I don't recall a thing about it.”

“When you were having dinner in the restaurant last night, we slipped a delayed action sleeping potion into one of your dishes. After you'd gone to sleep, we picked you up and brought you here. We plan to establish a world-wide business in frozen body parts, parts that can be shipped while frozen and implanted or attached to patients who need them. And I think that some of our work would not fit with your ideas of morality and medical ethics. Our research raw materials come from the dregs of humanity, the alcoholics and homeless bums who clutter the streets of the cities of the world. Of course, once we establish an actual business, we will have to use people who, near death, are willing to bequeath their bodies to us or whom we pay to do such a thing. And we will still need to surreptitiously harvest from the dregs. You can imagine the money we could make with such a business, the prices people would pay to have a lost arm or leg replaced—or malfunctioning internal organs. At present, only a few things can be replaced with organs just removed from donors who are still living or have just died. Thus, few potential customers can get them. We'll have a ready supply.”

I was appalled. He would kill the poor to supply organs to those who could pay for them—and he wanted my help. How could I escape? “Where are we?” I asked.

“In an old warehouse near the docks. It's ideal--large and inconspicuous in its surroundings. I'll show you around.” His cell phone rang. He answered, then said. “I have to leave you for a few minutes. Jim, you show him around,” he said to one of the guards.

I knew the area well. My father had worked in the district, and I had earned college money doing odd jobs and running errands in the vicinity. If I could escape the building, I was sure I could evade my captors. Jim began leading me around while his associate walked beside me. He showed me some of the equipment, particularly that for fast freezing, and at last we came near a door that appeared to lead to the outside and to be unlocked, from the inside, at least. I decided to make my move. I stopped near the door to ask him a question. That brought both my guards near me. Apparently, nobody had told them that I was a tai chi master, a skilled practitioner of the most deadly of the martial arts. I went into action, and in seconds, both my guards were unconscious. I ran to the door, and found my guess was right. It could be opened from the inside. Out I went on the run. I could hear an alarm sounding behind me, but I was around the corner and, as I raced, quickly recognized a business where I would be known. I rushed inside, closed and bolted the door, and asked the startled receptionist to phone 911. Then, I told her I had to see Jack Watson immediately and rushed past her toward his office.

Jack was an old friend. We had played high school football together and learned tai chi together. I quickly explained my predicament to him, and he pulled a Beretta 9 mm pistol from his desk, saying, “If they follow you here, they will have to be carried out.”

Only one of my captors followed me, apparently planning to meet with the others later after killing me. However, he won't make it. Before he could aim his submachine gun, Jack, an expert marksman, had put three bullets into this villain's chest. The others were packing to escape and almost made it. However, the police response was quick, and the car they had loaded with money and weapons was stopped by the officers of the law. After a spectacular trial featuring photos of the frozen bodies, they, and two others I had never seen, were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. I was thankful for that sentence, because, I believe that if any one of them ever gets out, my life will be in serious jeopardy.