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Journal 1
Page 1 • 2

December, 2006
The Push

It was a couple of days before Christmas. I'd already made about four crowd-jostling stops and I needed to make one more, the final push to get all my shopping done. I noticed this discount department store nearby.

“Why not stop in here,” I thought, “it's on my way home.” I hesitated because I avoided this place whenever possible. Fate led me through those smudgy front doors, however, one last time and I would have an encounter there that would stay with me for a long time.

This store always has a half-empty parking lot. Even when the traveling carnival sets up its ferris wheel in the spring, there's still plenty of parking.

It has cheaper prices, but their socks start unraveling before they're out of the bag; their alarm clocks go off only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Looking for a salesperson? Always on break. The place has a smell like bad carpet. The shelves so high you can't see from one end of the store to the other. In fact, they caused my only bout with claustrophobia. Normally, I'm not bothered by closed-in spaces. Put me through a MRI machine and I'll fall asleep inside the tunnel. But once, in this store, I completely lost my bearings, not knowing where I was or how to get out. Scary.

I brushed this thought aside, however, because I was tired and weary of driving on. Sure enough, after I'd reluctantly entered and picked up some items, I discovered that, as usual, only one check-out line was open and the cashier so slow she must have been pulled off the street and put on her “trainee” tag only that morning. I could swear that she inspected each item for cracks or dust before she'd scan it.

Finally, there was only one lady ahead of me. She was in her mid-seventies or so. And, of course, there was a problem with her coupon, and the manager had to be called. He must have been on break too, because he was in no hurry to make an appearance. I was about to bolt the place, but there was a line behind me and I was hemmed in on either side by fingernail clippers, gum, candy, and other trinkets enticing me into one last purchase.

As the white-haired lady was fumbling with her checkbook, I tried to reach the conveyor line to start putting down my purchases, but I couldn't because she hadn't pulled her empty cart forward. In total frustration, I gave the cart a push and it rolled forward, nudging her in the side. She looked back at me, aghast. “That's not very polite,” she blurted out in a soft, but firm voice.

I couldn't believe I had done this. I remembered that scene in Seinfeld when George runs out of the burning kitchen and tramples the lady in a walker so he can get to the door first. By gosh, I was as bad as George!

My head hanging lower than a dog's at the vet's door, I returned to the parking lot, only to see the white-haired lady trying to lift a big package from her cart into the trunk of her car.

As I approached, I could see her tighten up.

“Ma'am, I'm really sorry for what happened inside. I guess the pressure of the season got to me. I shouldn't have done that.” She relaxed a little.

“Can I help you with that package?” And I quickly hefted it into the back of her car.

A slight smile brightened her face. “Don't worry about it,” she said, “I've felt the same way myself at times.”

I wanted to hug her, but thought I better not push my luck. I took her hand in both of mine. “Merry Christmas,” I whispered.

“Same to you, Sonny.”

I waved as she drove off; and, as I departed, I happened to look back, and there, in the middle of the lot, alone, was her shopping cart.

July, 2006
The Sacred Pot

Recently I wanted to dip some debris from our pond out back, and I found just the right pot to do the job. It was from my stash in the garage where I keep all our "retired" pots and pans. I can always find a use for old pots and pans, whether for holding nails or as a water-catch for house plants, for example. But as I bent to dip, I looked carefully at the pot again, and thought, "No. I can't do this, not with this pot." And the memories flooded back.

Mom gave the pot to Mary Jo and me when we got married in 1970. We had used it through three house moves, but it had become so dented on the bottom that it wouldn't sit evenly on the stove anymore. So I sent it to the garage.

This was a special pot that brought joy into our home in Huron, Ohio, on Lake Erie, when we were kids, especially on Saturday nights, when we all needed a treat.

I'd be upstairs in the room where we four brothers slept, and the smell would waft up, and all was right with the world.

Mom was popping corn!

We kids had shucked the popcorn and cracked hickory nuts as winter chores. Mom would make several batches in the pot, then pour it into a bigger pan which Dad always kept on his lap, as we watched Jackie Gleason. He refilled our bowls out of that pan. We could even have a bottle of pop when we had corn! This scene with us seated around Dad's easy-chair, our bowls extended up to him, is right out of a Norman Rockwell album.

Later, we five kids all did a stint in the Army, and popcorn at the Army Service Clubs around the world was always a taste of home. Our sister Cathy was an Army nurse in Vietnam and found that popping corn for the injured soldiers on her ward was an instant picker-upper. She contacted our town newspaper, became known as "the popcorn girl," and had over 200 pounds of bulk popcorn donated to her hospital in Vietnam for the troops.

Recently Mary Jo and I stayed at a hotel in Michigan. I wasn't too pleased with the arrangements we'd been able to make at this place; but when I got inside and smelled the corn popping in an old-fashioned popper with the sign "help yourself" attached, I knew everything would be all right and it was.

Finding the old pot has prompted me to start popping corn the old-fashioned way, on the stove top. The sound of the corn falling into the bottom of my new teflon pan sounds like beads falling on a hard-wood floor. Oil sizzles and steam escapes as I feverishly shake the pan back and forth over the burner grates (you'd think a train were passing by, on wobbly tracks). Then, those first kernels bursting upwards into the lid. Is it a hailstorm? I don't melt butter and pour over the corn as Mom did; I just spray it with my non-fat "butter" bottle, add salt, and mmmm' good! So much better than those microwave bags.

I still have Mom's old pot in the garage, but it's in a place of honor now. As I was writing this journal entry, I held it in my hands again, and happened to turn it over; and there on the bottom, around the company logo, were the words "Happy Home."

February, 2006
My Time in Prison

I've been in prison twice.

Prisons have always intrigued me. Maybe because I spent so much time in large institutions during my formative years, ages 13 to 26. I was in the seminary for nine years and then the Army for four more years after that. I'm used to sleeping in big dorms with lots of guys around, no privacy, big dining halls, and marching back and forth between buildings.

So I jumped at the chance to visit a local women's reformatory. I was asked to come in and talk to some of the ladies, to tell a story and then show them how to tell their own stories some day. The Activities Director felt it would be good for the inmates, after they were released, to tell others about their experiences, as a kind of therapy.

The reformatory is located in a rural countryside, but rolls of razor wire atop steep fences greeted me as I pulled up. I had to empty my pockets, take nothing inside with me, and pass through outer and inner security gates. Actually, I'd been there once before, when, after traveling an hour, I arrived to find the place in a lock-down, and my visit canceled. That was before I carried a cell-phone in my car.

I felt sorry for these women. I could see the longing in their eyes to return to their families, especially to their children. On the way out, I saw display cases filled with hand-sewn items for sale, made in the prison craft shop.

When I went to a men's correctional institution, not too far from Columbus, I put on a full program. I stewed over what stories to tell. I liked the idea of doing O.Henry, since he once served time in the Ohio Penitentiary, right here in Columbus, for embezzlement. I thought the inmates would be hooked by that.

I drove into a desolate parking lot, next to a stark monster of a building, probably built during the Depression, set way off from the main road. After emptying my pockets, I was escorted into a huge, well-buffed administrative hall, with a towering ceiling. One inmate was painting murals on the walls.

From there, in the bitter cold, we walked onto the "yard." Right out of The Shawshank Redemption. Inmates in their blue jackets were huddled around, smoking, their shouts echoing around this slab of concrete, big as a football field.

We crossed to the recreation building where the men, in their after-dinner time, were lifting weights, and the gym was alive with several basketball games. A flyer about me had been posted on the bulletin board, and a P.A. announcement was made that I was about to begin.

I learned that those who filed in the room set aside for me were attending the prison high-school. They had been sent by their English teacher. The Principal of the school, a caring man, was in charge and knew all the inmates by name. He turned the microphone over to them as a kind of warm-up act. Admonished to "keep `em clean," they took turns telling jokes. Some of the guys took this opportunity to really show off. Good for them.

I used this time to mill around and get a feel for my audience. The inmates brought clip boards, paper and pencil. They had been instructed by their teacher to take notes on my stories and answer some questions, but they were worried. So, putting on my teacher cap, I patiently explained what plot, character, setting, and theme meant.

The men were very attentive. I think my hyper-sensitivity about content was probably a bit unfounded. I had stayed away from any mention of romance, guns, or criticism of the prison. I did tell the O.Henry story "A Retrieved Reformation" about a safe-cracker who tries to change his life and eventually ends up a hero. I found it ironic, sometime later, when I saw a documentary on Johnny Cash's visit to Folsom Prison. He started out immediately making fun of the prison drinking water, to hoots and hollers, and got away with it!

After I was finished and we were walking back across the yard, one of the inmates approached me and wanted to know if I would listen to one of his poems. "Of course," I said. I was very touched. We talked a little bit about poetry; I wished him luck, and we shook hands.

The men lingered on the yard, as if to delay the inevitable. Shouts rang out and echoed again. One last smoke. I'm sure they felt good just to be outside. The guards finally had to get them moving and back to their dorms.

The inmates took a left and I took a right, through security, to the parking lot.

Freedom is such a precious thing.

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