A Publication of The Osher LLI at Tufts University

Spotlight

Spring / Summer 2018

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In the six and a half years since I became director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Tufts, not a day’s gone by when I haven’t been hum-

bled by the intelligence, enthusiasm, and talents of our members. Despite having incredibly busy lives—a lot more busy than mine is!—they manage to create and lead fascinating study groups for us, find captivating speakers for our Lunch & Learn lectures, oversee our finances, welcome our new mem-bers, participate in our EDventure groups, and serve on the committees that keep our program running.

Frankly, I don’t understand how they could possibly have enough time left over to engage in “outside activities” as well, but, somehow, they do. Don’t believe me? Just flip through this issue of Spotlight and you’ll discover remarkably high-quality writing of all sorts—poems, short stories, personal essays, a play … even a book review—all written by our own members. More surprising for a little “literary magazine,” this issue also includes an astonishing variety of artworks. Not just photographs, paintings, and draw-ings of the sort we’ve included in the past, but also images of our members’ three-dimensional works, such as quilts, pottery, sculpture, and assemblages. If this keeps up, maybe I should include a pair of 3D glasses in future issues!

Many thanks to the OLLI members who were generous enough to con-tribute their works to this issue. Special thanks to everyone involved in the production of this edition, especially Kathy Scanlon, our hardworking pro-gram assistant, who helped with the design and file preparation, and OLLI member Kathleen Mayzel, chair of our Editorial committee, who provided much-needed proofreading assistance.

Here’s hoping that you enjoy this issue for what it is: a reflection of our members’ extraordinary talents. If you have talents of your own, don’t keep them to yourself! Share them with your fellow members by submitting something for our next edition. For more info, or to submit examples ofyour work, please email us at OsherLLI@tufts.edu. In the meantime, enjoy that pages that follow … and thank you for your participation in our program.

—David A. Fechtor, Director Osher LLI at Tufts University

Notes from the Office

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Images Gloria Jewel Leitner ........................................................................Front Cover

Irene Hannigan ............................................................................................... iv

Mary Nicholson .............................................................................................. 3

Gloria Jewel Leitner ........................................................................................ 6

Janet Hollander ............................................................................................ 10

Joan Carcia .................................................................................................... 14

Helen Pride ................................................................................................... 17

Pat Taglilatelo ............................................................................................... 19

Carol Kiley ..................................................................................................... 20

Pat Taglilatelo ............................................................................................... 21

Irene Hannigan ............................................................................................. 22

Joan Carcia .................................................................................................... 27

Peter Carcia ................................................................................................... 29

Robert Brandon ............................................................................................ 31

Santo Aurelio ................................................................................................ 35

Diana Bailey ............................................................................................ 38, 45

Kendra Dowd ................................................................................................ 47

Dana MacDonald .......................................................................................... 49

Kathleen Mayzel ...................................................................................... 50-51

Peter Carcia ......................................................................................Back Cover

Poetry Beth Kress 2 Clothesline

Judith Dortz 3 In Venice

Irene Hannigan 4 Like Clockwork the Roses Arrive

Jan Perley 5 Ode to Puss— A Bad Ass-ed Cat

Gloria Jewel Leitner 6 Spring

Charles Hollander 8 Endless Forms— AnEvolutionAnthem

SpotlightSpring/Summer 2018

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Beth Kress 9 What’sLeft

Robyn Fizz 10 The Word

Beth Kress 11 Turning

Gloria Jewel Leitner 12 The School

Sandra Bittenbender 13 Gremlins

Chris Farrow-Noble 14 Rest Now

Dorothy Allen May 16 AfterYou

Bob Green 18 ProprioceptiveWriting

Elise Morin Tamplin 19 Nocturne for Dan

Bob Green 20 Three Ducks

Jim McArdle 21 Ulysses

Fiction & Essays Sam Kafrissen 24 Connie

Irene Hannigan 30 Crumb Cakes

Sam Kafrissen 32 JimmyBarrett

Richard Trakimas 37 Senior Portraits

Martin Comack 39 Book Review: The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s

Carol Agate 42 FortyYearsofDenial

Bob Green 46 An Epiphany

Sandra Bittenbender 48 Family Drives

Margaret Gooch 52 The Entrance Interview

POETRY

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Clothesline

A basket full of damp laundry. I reach down and lift, snap wrinkles out of a shirt with a flick of my wrists.I stretch the fabric out,pinch-pin them up in order of length from tiniest sock to longest pants to make it interesting, extend my time in the sun.This soothing rhythm: reach snap stretch pin.

Small pink shirt dotted with blueberry smudgessilky-smooth soccer jersey with windjammer logored corduroy overalls with one buckle missingrose print sheets, white diapersa striped bath towel, yellow dish cloths torn green work shirt, my favorite jeans -the stuff of our daily-ness.

All to be dismantled after lunch like a Buddhist’s sand mandalawhen I unpin, shake out,fold the fragrance of the air into each stiff piece.

Empty basket under one armI step back to survey my creation.The heavy clothes sway back and forth,the lighter ones billowing on the breeze like Tibetan flags,tugging at the clothesline.

—Beth Kress

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In Venice

I should have hugged you moreI should have kissed youI should haveIn Venice

—Judith Dortz

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Like Clockwork the Roses Arrive

each year one more than the lastto mark an April Fool’s day eventfirst celebrated with a single-stemsheepishly delivered to my backdoor.How sweet, said my mother.What a boyfriend! exclaimed my sister.What’s the meaning of this? asked my father.At college the roses still came,but now phone calls casually timedto coincide with the anticipated delivery.Will this go on forever? my mother asked.Must be costing a fortune! my sister said.What’s the meaning of all this? my father insisted.And now there are fifty.I lose myself in this year’s gathering ofbuds, blooms, stems, and thorns,I clip, place, arrange and seeblurred snapshots and vignettesthat each one brings into focus.So grateful am I for what I knowwill not always be.

—Irene Hannigan

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Ode to Puss—A Bad Ass-ed Cat

Nothing special in the world of pedigreeJust a gray guy with splashes of white

He was the lively oneChosen from a liter of sixPlayfully attacking his mother and sibs

Here was the making of a good mouserHe would rid my house of verminWho had invaded

And so he didA warrior, a slayer of miceAnd once, a foot long rat

Let’s give him a silver crossA purple heartJust for cats

Aside from braveryWhat really made him special is that heCaptured my heart

At the endHe was an old fuddy duddy lap catAs attached to me as I to him

He got salmon, shrimp and chickenCooked just for him Loved and pampered like the king he was

—Jan Perley

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Spring

1.Flute-pink grace:

A slow-motion morning balletas petals tastethe dewy air

Pearly clouds,azure sky,

purple-hilled horizon

These greens of grasses,greens of fields,

greens of misty leaves

Rivers unraveling constantly.with blue-swish splash

and swiftness

Sweeps of sparrows flying,painting feathery curves

in space

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Warm, sweet air,pollen, sun,

the winds of April breathing,

And butterflies liftwith black and golden wings.

2.Spring is a season of us

as well as earth.

To survive the ice(waiting for the sun),

To believe the new has wings,

To endure, and then to nurture:

The silent teachingof the greens.

3.After a bone-hard winter,the short-lived fragility—

Blossoms petaling pinkfrom barren branches

of leafless brown

Daring usto taste

the chanceof Living.

—Gloria Jewel Leitner

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Endless Forms—An Evolution Anthem

There are many species living,All descended from one source,And they’re all closely related,Teeming on God’s fruitful shore.

Chorus:For all life, it comes from GodAnd develops on its own,And the creatures undergo selectionBecoming species newly grown.

Life’s a miracle, life’s a mystery,Let us praise it while we can,For we all grow from one substance,Oyster, starfish, wasp and man. (Chorus)

I love the world we live inAnd all creatures that we see,And I love their evolution,Endless forms that come to be. (Chorus)

There are hollows, there are byways,Where life changes very fast;Selection pressures bring innovationAnd cause new creatures at the last. (Chorus)

This earth is our inheritance,We must preserve it safe and sound,And protect the wondrous speciesWho’ve evolved the world around. (Chorus)

—Charles Hollander

(Can also be sung to Les Rice’s tune “Banks of Marble”—© 1950 by Stormking Music, Inc.)

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What’s Left

From her diminished stash she offers a couple of tree ornaments from the 50’s, a small painted figurine with one hand missing, her glam ballroom dance shoes,

a binderful of carefully typed family letters, my dad’s scratchy blanket from his army cot,her boa and headband from Hello Dolly skits, countless prayers, her blessing.

She gives us all she has.A virtuoso giver. It’s what she does.She gifted four people with bones, blood, breath, and being.

Here’s the other half of my sandwich, she says. You look chilly; want my sweater? I can help you carry those heavy bags!She can’t help herself.

All you do for me! and here I have nothing to give you, she laments today, arms open wide, palms up. She’s Georgia O’Keefe without paints, Mozart minus piano, a stage-less Bernhardt.

She pulls out a glossy brochure she got in last week’s mail from a charity group.Here hon she says, holding it out,I’ve been saving this for you.

—Beth Kress

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The Word

It spoke to me in a hint;Dark marks in a hardwood floorThe history of some goings-on – how long ago? –ingrained.Now here before me as I lean into a stretchon a yoga mat, indoors, The marks lure me, matter over mind, half spelling a word, half seen and half heard: whisper

—Robyn Fizz

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Turning

You stand barefooton the kitchen tablenot much taller than the yardstick you wield like a wand.I crouch beside you holdingstraight pins between pressed lips, hemming the dress I made for your first day of school.It is watch- plaid cotton with a little white collarthat makes your face glow.

You can’t wait to start school and to turn six.We take turns listing cool things we’ll do. Already you delight in planning celebrations.

I say turn a little toward the door and then turn back towards me now, hon.You can’t resist adding a little bounce each time you turn,so much exuberance to the square inch,so buoyed up with eagernessthat you carry me with you,barefoot on the threshold of your life.

—Beth Kress

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The School

The lessons culled from life are silent.We absorb a certain serenity of motion,A knowledge—Or rather, an intuitive senseOf how to coincide, absolutely,With the perfect path for ourselves.

The path is not one that can bePointed out by another,Or delineated in books,Or dreamed ahead of its time.

It is a path that unwinds as we walk,That shows as we approach,That leads without signsDeciphered by the mind.

To learn to harmonize with that pathIs to learn to be one with all that it crosses;To experience obstacles as aids,Enriching every twisting turn & step.

A student of the stillnessCan sing or shout or cry,Discourse at length,Or whisper to the stars.

But at all times, and in all ways,The rippled flow resides inside:The conquest is provenIn the clearness of your eyes.

—Gloria Jewel Leitner

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Gremlins (We Are Not Alone)

GravityI closed the kitchen cupboard door,

Leaving my nice clean kitchen.Suddenly there was a roar,

The top shelf was letting go.

As I watched out flew the dishes,Big casseroles and a teapot.Fine china on a tray belowAll smashed to little pieces.

I found a pin that held the shelf,Who knows why it fell out!

Unhappy yes, but what a breakMy kitchen’s clean—declutterrd!

DisappearancesSomething vanishes every dayGone in a flash of dimness

Appointment book, keys, my phoneOne shoe, a sock, or both.

But they come back, all on their ownWho knows where they have been.

—Sandra Bittenbender

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Rest Now

Rest now, with all the faith and trust you possess,Rest now.Let go of the unfinished work or approaching hourFeel the daybreak ahead.

Fill your thoughts with that day when all mist will vanish. Light will be yours to hold.Let your heart feel this timelessness.

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Walk now through valleys of welcoming greenand meadows of glistening gold, Let your feet settle into this pace without fear.

Rest now and listen to my whisper.

Trees limber and stretch their boughs Not to reach the sky first or to gain lightBut to gather in friends on their travelsA resting place in the soft shade.

The sea, blue and clear, caresses the shore resonating with the sand and the tide.The gentleness of this friend is like an evening breezecool, crisp, innocent, speaking serenity.

Endless songs fill each wisp of airMelodies of friendship, joy, courage.All measures for understanding; all rhythms for love.

And a deep silence soundedas rest finally came.At daybreak the light of peace replaced the light of life.Slowly, almost hesitantly at first,this river of love spread from skin to bone to heartuntil its warmthfound the innermost depth of your soul.

In that moment of moments, Peace began.

—Chris Farrow (now Chris Farrow-Noble)

(“Written July 1961 for my mother, at the time of her mother’s death.”)

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After You

In a famous Mozart operatwo rival prima donnas nod at a door for the other to proceed.In a huff, they both go and get stuck.

In committee meetings or walking with friendsor at family gatheringsor even talking on the phone

we all have much to share.Who goes first?Whose ideas are best?When does one counter?

It takes practice to really listenand make supporting remarksotherwise the person talkingwill not really be heard.

When I was young I did believeit was surely all about me.Hanging on to such a viewcan make the world quite small.

Listening is a kind of giving,crumbling walls of isolation,deepening mutual understandingstrengthening fragile bonds.

Those opera characters should not bemodels for human behavior,but they’re useful for a laughand a moment of self reflection.

—Dorothy Allen May

(read at First Parish poetry service 12/31/17)

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Proprioceptive Writing

Proprioceptive writingIs a style requiringA meditative pauseSomewhat attuned toThe music of the spheresUntil some word appearsOut of the silenceOf the room punctuatedBy a background tuneThat casts a spellAnd binds us to our task.How to define the word,Unwrap its layers,Draw it closer to our heart,Throw it out to unseen worlds.Will it take us to our truthOr circle to our start?Music is the spell we’re under,Right brain, left brain,Do they mesh or stay asunder?Which, the rational or hearfelt,Do we strive for?So much power in one wordWill we know that we’ve been heard?When the writing time has ended,What is it we’ve comprehended?

—Bob Green

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Nocturne for Dan

deepful forestblue-greenly sleepingmoon milk seepingthrough airy stillness

Whippoorwill

black earth breathing warmlytenderknowing

so-distant skywatchingcosmic backdrop for

something missing

and the whippoorwillnocturnal mysticsoftly, tearlesslyweeping

—Elise Morin Tamplin

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Three Ducks

Three ducks glideUpon a lake,Leave algae jetstreamsIn their wake.Ponder a momentWhat it meansIn terms of poemsAnd of scenes.No special trinity was meantTo prompt my schemes.Their progress andThe poesy in their genesEvokes for me paint on canvassNot drawn to school us.

—Bob Green

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Ulysses

In sailing, as in love, it matters muchWhether we choose to pause, or turn, or go;In each, success has more to do with touchThan with what we’ve heard, or what we think we know.I’ve smelled the sea, I’ve felt the summer’s heat,The tiller tightly held against the tide,The tug of wind trapped by the sail’s taut sheet,Legs bent and braced to take the waves in stride.But you have shown me how just being still Is movement too, your hand against my arm So light, your lips against my ear. I willDrop anchor here, a hostage to your charms.Today, let’s let the tide just pass us by;Tomorrow we can run, or sail, or fly.

—Jim McArdle

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FICTION&

ESSAYS

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Connie

by Sam Kafrissen

That spring was a long time ago. Almost forty years now. It was before the young president was shot and before the Vietnam war took my brother and my patri-

otism away. In some respects it was the last twilight of my innocent youth. By the next fall I would be off to high school and my thoughts would soon turn to college and leaving our little town for the larger world. Once I left for good I would return only occasionally to visit with my parents and old friends. In time those visits would become less and less frequent. When my parents retired to a warmer clime I seldom went back at all. But I still often think of that time and of a girl named Connie.

We were still a family then. My father had a small store where my mother also worked when she wasn’t chauffeuring us to little league games, music lessons and scout meetings. After school my brother and I would help out in the store for a little spending money. My father thought it would teach us the value of hard work and thriftiness. Later my older brother Dan would become too busy with his friends and cars to pay much attention to me. By his senior year at high school our house was littered with brochures from the different branches of the armed forces.

Earlier Dan had thought about going to one of the service academies, but his lack of academic success put that opportunity out of reach. So for him it would be the regular army after graduation. When he left for boot camp that fall I had our bedroom all to myself for the first time. It felt both liberating and lonely. It would remain my room until I left for college three years later. After that my mother would turn it into a rather impersonal guest room where I could stay when home for the holidays. Dan would return once a year when on leave, but he was now the property of Uncle Sam and Uncle would never completely give him back. But in the warm, wonderful spring of my fifteenth year none of that had meaning for me yet.

It seemed like I’d known Connie for some time. We’d been in a couple of class-es together so she wasn’t really a stranger, though when you’re fifteen all girls are strangers. Our romance just sort of happened. One day we were casual acquaintanc-es trading stupid jokes about teachers and the next we were boyfriend and girlfriend. In time we were a couple, or as we said back then, we were “going steady.” I scarcely remember how it began. Probably one friend of mine told a friend of Connie’s that I liked her and a reciprocal message worked its way back through the junior high grapevine. That was how all important messages got conveyed when we were young. I don’t know how or why I fell in love with her. Maybe it was because I was fifteen and I wanted to be in love and she looked especially good that spring.

We’d meet every day after school and I would walk her home. I can’t recall any-thing we ever talked about though I remember well how I felt on those lazy after-noons as if they were yesterday. Connie wasn’t much of a student so it was always my books that I was carrying on our strolls. I didn’t know that our relationship wouldn’t

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last because to us the future was just some vague idea lurking over the horizon. We didn’t have a physical relationship to speak of. Hormones and sexual yearning hadn’t quite become part of our make-up yet. We’d hold hands and sometimes I would put my arm across her shoulder and she would let me leave it there. We’d hug awkwardly and kiss tentatively, but without much passion. We were just happy being together and knowing that it was spring and we were young.

Connie didn’t have a father. It was only she, her mother and her brother. I never asked what happened to him and she never told me. Still, it was weird for someone not to have a father. Everybody had one, though they might not be much to speak of. Some of my friends’ fathers drank too much, took out the strap too often and even cuffed their mothers around once in a while, but at least they were there. My best friend’s father was just a hairy presence sitting at the kitchen table in his un-dershirt with a bottle of Schlitz in front of him. One kid’s father even ran off for a weekend with another woman, then slunk back home the following Monday hung-over and repentant.

Although Connie didn’t have a father I was secretly relieved especially since her mother liked me so much. There was no man there to pass judgment on who his daughter was spending so much time with. We were Jewish, though non-practicing, and that made me different from her family. I didn’t go to confession on Saturday as Connie did or Mass on Sunday. Still, her mother treated me like family and fed me as if she were expecting a famine. I took pride in the fact that she always introduced me to her neighbors as “Connie’s boyfriend.”

On Friday nights all of the kids would go to the Knights of Columbus dances. Of course, Connie and I would never go together. She and her girlfriends would arrive in a car driven by one of the mothers, while the boys always walked to the hall. We would say a casual hello to one another outside and nothing else would pass between us until we were inside and the lights were turned down low. In those moments the tiny hall would become our Shangri-la. We’d dance the fast dances and the line dances – the stroll was big that year, but it was the slow dances I remember best. Whenever I hear songs Like “Tears on My Pillow,” “In the Still of the Night,” or “You’re a Thousand Miles Away,” I’m transported back to those nights in the K of C hall. Throughout the evening the nuns would circulate around the floor, parting couples who were dancing too close, cautioning them to “leave room for the Holy Ghost.” When the song “Goodnight My Love” came on we knew it was last call before the dance was over and the harsh bright lights were turned on.

Afterwards we would separate again. Someone’s mother would pick up the girls and the boys would leave on foot. Then we’d all end up at Martucci’s, a local Ital-ian restaurant. Connie would sit in one booth with her girlfriends and I in another with the guys. We’d eat French fries with vinegar on them and drink cokes from tall glasses with lots of ice. The boys would call attention to themselves by acting stupid and making funny noises. Meanwhile the girls would giggle and talk about us behind

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their hands. Connie and I would steal smiles at one another and then try to hide them for fear of being teased by our friends.

On Saturdays we’d often go bowling. Although the group was always large Con-nie and I made sure we bowled on the same alley. When the weather was warm she’d wear shorts, dark wool socks and sneakers. I loved the way her smooth adolescent legs looked at those times. When it was my turn to roll I would throw the ball as hard as I could to show Connie what a man I was. When others were up I’d always keep score and Connie would sit next to me, sometimes resting her hand gently on my shoulder. I was so pleased at moments like that just to be her guy.

As spring wore on and the days grew longer our walks became more mean-dering and less purposeful. Sometimes we’d wander by the baseball field to watch the school team play. Other times we’d end up by the pond where we could hear the frogs making their mating noises. If no one else was around I might steal an occasional kiss. When it was still light after dinner we’d meet up again and walk into town to get an ice cream cone. We would then wander around until dark holding hands and trying not to think about summer vacation. I’d be going off to camp that summer to be a junior counselor while Connie would be left hanging around town taking care of her brother and picking up odd jobs babysitting. I’d been a camper at a YMCA camp for years and had always looked forward to going each summer. But this year it was the farthest thing from my mind. I just couldn’t imagine being away from Connie for two months.

In late June our ninth grade class would be holding its end-of-the-year dance, the biggest event of our junior high careers. I had visions of Connie and me all dressed up in the middle of the dance floor snuggling close to each other and mov-ing slowly to the same wonderful tunes we danced to at the K of C. hall. My English and Science teachers would be looking on as chaperones while we displayed our special love for all to see. My mother would drive us. We’d stop at Connie’s house to pick her up. The mothers would exchange pleasantries while Connie put the final touches on her hair. Then they would take pictures of us with their Brownie Hawk-eye cameras, and our relationship would be preserved forever.

In the end things did not work out as I envisioned them. Sometimes life just throws you an unexpected curveball. A week before the dance Connie had one of her friends tell me that Connie wanted to break up with me and go to the dance with someone else. I was confused and devastated. Apparently, she’d recently spent some time with another guy she decided she liked better than me. He was a couple of years older and, as it turned out, had no desire to go to some junior high dance with her. As for me, I could feel the best spring of my life suddenly slipping away. For the first time I found myself feeling pain because of a girl. I didn’t understand how the person I loved so much could like someone else more—someone who obviously didn’t care about her like I did. Her friends told me that Connie had already bought a dress, a dress that would now hang in her closet unused.

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Three days before the dance I screwed up my courage and called Connie’s mother. I wanted her to make Connie go to the dance with me. What I really want-ed was for her to make Connie love me again. In those days we still thought our mothers could work their magic powers to make things right. Her mother was as disappointed as I was. She said she’d tried to change Connie’s mind but had failed. The next day I cornered Connie in the cafeteria hoping to convince her to go to the dance with me. I put great store in the fact that she’d already bought a dress and that we shouldn’t miss the big dance just because we weren’t going steady anymore. She called me that night to say she would go even though nothing had changed between us—we were still broken up. Yet, I held out hope that once she heard the old songs her feelings would change.

The night I once believed would be the best night of my young life turned out to be pretty humiliating. Connie insisted that her mother drive and that no pictures be taken of us together. She allowed her mother to take pictures of her in her new dress though even then she refused to smile for the camera. At the dance Connie was cold and distant. She spent a good part of the evening dancing with other boys and generally ignoring me. I walked around our gaily-decorated cafeteria feeling sick and empty. I had trouble breathing and it wasn’t because of the unfamiliar tie around my neck or the stale smell of cafeteria food that still hung in the air. I felt that everyone was looking at me and that they could see how much I hurt inside. A few people asked if Connie and I were back together. I answered vaguely with words like “I

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don’t know,” and “Maybe.” But deep inside I knew we were finished.After the dance we all went out to eat, yet by then I was no longer a part of

Connie’s world. She spent most of her time gossiping with her friends and making trips back and forth with them to the ladies room. For all practical purposes I’d become a non-person to her.

Within a week school was out and I was off to camp for the summer. I had a fling with a female counselor two years older than I who introduced me to the early stages of sex. From then on every relationship I’d have would have a sexual compo-nent to it. In some cases it might be the only component though an important one nevertheless.

In the fall my brother left for the army and I went on to high school. I’d occa-sionally see Connie in the corridor or the lunchroom. At first we just nodded to each other. Later we were able to exchange small talk. She and I no longer traveled in the same circles so there was little left that we had in common except for that spring, which was rapidly receding into history. Connie was one of the those girls who was channeled into the general track and would most likely go to work or marry right after high school. In our brief conversations neither of us ever mentioned our junior high romance.

I soon discovered I had a love of learning and that academics engaged me in a way they never had before. I was smart, ambitious and popular. I played several sports, was on the student council, and made the honor roll. In time I came to love high school and all its trappings. During senior year I purposely applied to colleges far from home as I could already feel my mind moving beyond our little town and its provincial ways.

I would go to college half way across the country, carry a picket sign, travel the world and hardly ever look back. Women would come and go. Some relationships were serious while others seemed less so after they were over. Eventually I would meet the woman who would become my wife; we would have some crazy times to-gether and then settle down to raise a family.

One time in college while reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, my favorite book when I was twenty, I came across a passage that talks about how the world hurts everyone and how we become stronger in those places where we’ve been hurt. It made me think of Connie and how she was the first person to truly break my heart. I knew that I would never hurt again as I did that spring when love and all that went with it was so very new to me.

Over the years I heard she married a nice guy from our graduating class. They had two kids and later divorced a couple of decades later. I’ve seen Connie at re-unions and one time I actually told her how much she’d hurt me back then. I tried to say it in a way that indicated it all seemed very silly now when in fact it wasn’t.She had taught me something so very important about emotions and I believe I became a better person for it. I learned that a life without deep feelings, even painful ones,

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is a life not worth living. We are both middle-aged now with children far older than we were back then. Still there is a part of me that will never forget those lazy spring evenings when we would sit together, watch the last rays of the sun disappear and try ever so hard not to think about the future.

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CRUMB CAKES

by Irene Hannigan

“You know, if I were an older woman who wanted to put butter on this muffin I wouldn’t be able to,” announced the old-enough woman at the counter at a local donut shop. She deliberately turned around to face the other regulars at the counter who were engaged in their scratch tickets or talking with friends while enjoying their mid-morning coffees and donuts.

“Look at it,” she continued. “It just falls apart.”At that moment, Jerry, the owner emerged from the back room sensing that all

was not right in his homey little establishment and innocently inquired if there was something amiss.

“Well just look at this muffin,” the woman explained. “Now I don’t usually put butter on my muffins which is a good thing. BUT, if I did, buttering this muffin would be impossible.” With that she demonstrated the futility of the situation. The muffin, which was cradled in her palm, was in fact in pieces.

“But it’s a crumb cake,” Jerry calmly but authoritatively stated, “and crumb cakes are just like that. Perhaps you don’t really like crumb cakes.”

“Oh, no I like them very much,” she insisted.Jerry turned, hiding a smile, “Well maybe it’s a good thing you can’t put butter

on them, then. It makes them a rather healthy kind of muffin, don’t you think?”And with that a counter full of satisfied customers nodded their heads in agree-

ment anxious to get back to their mid-morning routines. The woman however was determined to retake center stage as she had now finished the crumb cake-muffin.

“By the way, “ she inquired of Jerry. “When are you going to get the bus 80 schedules? You know, you have all the others over there.” She waved her ringed in-dex finger in the direction of the rack of bus schedules kept just beyond the counter of donuts.

Jerry took a deep breath and explained. “They send us some of all the schedules but you’re right— that one seems to be out. You see, lots of people probably take more than one and so we run out.” Jerry had hit the nail right on the head as the woman admitted to having taken two herself on occasion.

“Well, there you have it. That’s why we run out.”“Oh, but I never throw them out. I take two just in case I lose one.”“And have you ever lost one?”“Well no; but, how do I know when I will?”With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Well, dear, maybe you should just bring one

back tomorrow and we’ll hold it for you.”What a perfect answer for, to be sure, the woman would be back tomorrow

right on schedule. Even though she couldn’t butter the crumb cakes, they were still tasty. More importantly, though, a stop at Jerry’s shop was always worth the trip be-fore catching bus 80 to wherever she was heading.

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32

Jimmy Barrett

by Sam Kafrissen

It was almost midnight when Lou Poznanszky called to tell me that Jimmy Barrett was dead. He had put a bullet through his head on Thanksgiving Day, less than a

week after his wife Tammy had left him. I hadn’t seen Jimmy since my father’s fu-neral three years ago, but even then I sensed that his life was rapidly going downhill. He told us that his marriage was on shaky ground and that he was having a lot of trouble at work. In truth Lou and I were surprised Tammy had stayed with Jimmy as long as she did.

Jimmy Barrett had been part of our crew in high school. There were about eight of us who had hung out and partied together back in the day. Of the bunch Jimmy was the only one who didn’t go on to college after graduation. He enlisted in the Marines and while we were busy studying things like Hegel, Michelangelo and the Civil War behind ivy-covered walls Barrett was doing a pretty gruesome tour in Vietnam. Jimmy had always been a tough guy, but after his hitch in the Corps he was tough and mean as well.

Jimmy and I and some of the other guys would hook up now and then when I was home from school. The group would go out for beers and often those nights would end badly. We’d go to a bar, Jimmy would drink too much and get into a fight and then all hell would break loose. The cops would arrive and they would call Jimmy’s father, who happened to be the local fire chief. Words would be exchanged, deals made and Jimmy and I and whoever else was with us would be sent home with a slap on the wrist.

Lou was the first one to cut Jimmy out of his life, which was kind of sad given their history together. I bowed out soon thereafter, never being much use in bar brawls to begin with. What really scared us all, however, was the sheer pleasure Barrett got from beating the shit out of some guy he didn’t even know. Jimmy’s old man tried to convince him to come onto the force, but Jimmy wanted to make his own way and not spend the rest of his life being referred to by the other firemen as “Tommy Barrett’s kid.” A few years after I graduated from college and moved away I heard that Jimmy was out in Las Vegas working at one of the casinos. It was never clear exactly what he was doing in Sin City and like a lot of things in Jimmy’s life it too ended on a sour note. He came home chastened and somewhat lost.

It was upon his return that he became reacquainted with Tammy Morton, a good-looking girl he’d dated for a while in high school. Apparently she was instru-mental in helping him get his life together. They married, had two sons and Jimmy apparently settled down, at least for a while. Still, he continued to move from job to job.

In high school Poznansky and Barrett had been swimmers, while most of the other guys and I were on the wrestling team. Lou was a dogged but slow swimmer

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whereas Barrett was the real deal. When Barrett first met Poznansky he had trouble with Lou’s last name so from then on he always just called him “Poz.” By the time Lou graduated everyone in the high school had taken to calling him Poz as well. Jim-my Barrett had been swimming competitively since he was six years old, following in the footsteps of his older brother Ronny, who still held the high school record for the 50-yard freestyle. Although Jimmy wasn’t a very ambitious student, he did have one important goal in high school, and that was to break his brother’s record before graduating. In those days the team’s coach was a nasty, loudmouth prick named Jack Gordon. He was the best coach around, though almost to a man everyone who swam for Gordon ended up hating him. Gordon also had no compunction about bending or breaking the rules in order to insure that his team always won.

Over his first three years of swimming for Gordon, Lou repeatedly clashed with the coach. If nothing else Poz had integrity, something Gordon seriously lacked. Lou hated the way the coach berated and humiliated swimmers who were game but not good enough to make the varsity. During our junior year a kid named Leo Nord-strom transferred into our school from California. Actually Nordstrom was a navy brat so he had lived all over the world in his sixteen short years. From the very begin-ning he came off as an ass kisser and a know-it-all. But he was also a great swimmer even if he was a douche bag of a human being. He and Gordon were kindred spirits and got along famously.

It was only later we learned that Coach Gordon was hoping to ride Nord-strom’s successes into a big time college coaching job. You couldn’t blame him; he’d already accomplished everything there was to at the high school level. Not surpris-ingly, Poznansky and Barrett took an immediate disliking of Nordstrom. By the end of his junior year Nordstrom had already broken eight pool records – all of which were posted on a big board that hung on the wall at the pool directly across from the viewing stands. There were only a few records left including Ronny Barrett’s 50-yard freestyle mark.

When the team gathered for its senior season Coach Gordon announced that Nordstrom and Jimmy Barrett would be the captains for that year. The tradition had always been that the team had three co-captains. Now Gordon was departing from that standard without explanation. Poz was the only other senior on the squad and although he wasn’t an all-star he had taken enough of Gordon’s crap over the years that by rights he should’ve been the third captain.

After the first day of practice Lou made an appointment to speak with the coach to discuss the matter. Gordon agreed to a sit down though their discussion turned out to be anything but. According to Lou, Coach Gordon spent nearly an hour lecturing him on why Jews, of which Poz was one, were genetically inferior in athletics. Many high school athletes tend to see their coaches as occasionally behav-ing like Nazis, but Gordon apparently was the real thing. Lou left the meeting boiling with anger. But he couldn’t do much about Coach Gordon’s anti-Semitic beliefs.

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There were few Jews in our town and those weren’t the days when a parent could call up the school board to protest such behavior and get an immediate hearing. Besides, the administration always supported Gordon’s actions because his team’s successes brought glory to our school.

The next day Poz turned in his equipment and left the sport he had devoted the last seven years of his life to. The only teammate to stick up for him was Jimmy Barrett. Meanwhile Leo Nordstrom rallied the other swimmers, all of whom were underclassmen, to the coach’s side. As the season wore on Nordstrom continued his assault on more of the pool records. Meanwhile Barrett began to inch ever closer to breaking his brother’s mark. However, on occasion, for no apparent reason except perhaps as punishment for Jimmy’s support for Lou, Gordon would put him in lon-ger distance events where his stamina would often break down before the race was over. Finally at the second to last home meet Jimmy broke his brother’s longstanding record by solid three tenths of a second.

His proudest moment was at the last meet when his name went up on the big board next to the 50-yard freestyle mark. To show our support, Lou and I and some of the other guys made sure we were in attendance for that meet. It wasn’t easy con-vincing Poz to return to the pool after his confrontation with Coach Gordon earlier in the season. Since he’d left the team Lou had worked himself into lather over Gordon’s anti-Semitism. I spent most of the meet trying to discourage him from punching out the coach afterwards.

For their last dual meet the team was facing a weak opponent so Gordon de-cided to juggle the lineup “just for fun.” By this point Leo Nordstrom held all of the individual records on the board except for the one in diving and Jimmy’s in the 50-yard freestyle. In this meet Jimmy swam the backstroke and the individual medley, two events he openly detested. Unbeknownst to Barrett, Gordon put Nordstrom in the 50-yard freestyle, an event he never swam in before. Not surprisingly, Leo Nord-strom smashed Jimmy Barrett’s week old record by a full second, thus giving him a clean sweep of all the events on the board.

I remembered how Jimmy had once told me the main reason he was looking forward to graduating was so he would never have to look at Coach Gordon’s face or hear his voice again. Well, after that meet Barrett went bat shit. He lost it in a way he would many times later in Viet Nam and afterwards. He hauled out a stepladder, tore the big board off the wall and smashed it into a hundred pieces which he then threw into the pool. Fortunately Coach Gordon had already locked himself in his office otherwise Jimmy Barrett might have done the same to his coach.

The repercussions were as you’d expect. Jimmy Barrett was thrown off the team, thus missing the state meet. He was suspended from school for ten days and would be denied the varsity letter he so richly deserved. There was even talk that Gordon and his wife were considering a restraining order against Barrett. In the end Jimmy’s father, the fire chief, intervened and tempers eventually subsided. The

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principal asked Barrett to apologize to Coach Gordon but Jimmy flat out refused. His only response was that Gordon could “go fuck himself.” Lou and I were never prouder to be Jimmy Barrett’s friend than we were that day.

In June we all graduated as scheduled. Lou went on to to Yale, I went to Trinity, Nordstrom got appointed to the Naval Academy and Barrett went into the Marine Corps. Jack Gordon never got that college position he so avidly sought. Three years later he was fired as the high school coach after slapping one of his swimmers. By the time I left college I’d lost track of Coach Gordon and most everyone else I’d gone to high school with except for Lou Poznansky, who remains one of my oldest and dearest friends. We’d occasionally see various other members of our crew at re-unions or funerals. Otherwise we’d all gone our separate ways. Although we’re now

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in our late fifties, so far Jimmy Barrett is the only one of the gang who has died. For his part Lou never forgot Gordon’s lecture on the inferiority of Jews in sports and of the years has shared his anger about it on numerous occasions. If anything his feelings have strengthened since he’s become more involved with his temple and Judaism in general.

Jimmy Barrett’s memorial service was to be held at an Episcopal church in our old hometown. Apparently before they were married Tammy persuaded him to leave the Catholic faith, which Jimmy never had much use for anyway, to join her family’s church. Lou and I drove down to the service reminiscing about high school the whole time. I was surprised at how upset Lou was about Jimmy’s suicide. To me Barrett had been heading in that direction ever since he came home from Vietnam. But Lou felt guilty about abandoning Jimmy after Barrett had given him his nick-name and stood up for him in his dispute with Coach Gordon. I tried to explain to Lou that his feelings were genuine, but since it had all happened so long ago it no longer mattered. In the end, I told him any support he might have offered Jimmy probably wouldn’t have influenced his actions in light of his more recent troubles. When our trek down memory lane turned to the subject of swimming, Lou went off on Coach Gordon again. He even said that if Gordon was at the funeral he was going to “whack him upside his head.”

We were a little late for the service so we slid into a rear pew at the church. I recognized some of the guys from our crew sitting up closer to the front. Tammy was there of course, looking much older and more drawn than the high school beauty she’d been. Jimmy’s older brother, Ronny, the 50 free record holder, spoke briefly. He was now overweight and bald – a far cry from the strapping athlete we remembered from our youth. One of Jimmy’s sons also spoke about his dad. Lou and I looked at one another but didn’t need to say what was on our minds; the boy was a spitting image of young Jimmy.

At the end of the memorial they wheeled Jimmy’s coffin up the aisle and out of the church while the choir sang “We Shall Gather at the River.” Lou and I filed out in our turn and loitered outside on the sidewalk waiting for some of the other guys to exit. As the bunch of us was standing around exchanging old insults a stooped elderly man gingerly descended the church steps. It was only as he drew closer that I realized he was Jack Gordon. It dawned on me that the former coach must be in his seventies by now. I nudged Poznansky and pointed to the old gent.

“Hey, Poz,” I whispered. “There’s Coach Gordon. You could still hit him upside the head if you want but you might kill him if you do.” Lou looked crestfallen. As Gordon shuffled past us so did nearly forty years of Poznansky’s resentment. The other guys and I decided to bypass the cemetery ritual and go out for beers and lunch instead. We spent the next three hours drinking too much, telling all the old lies again and talking about crazy Jimmy Barrett. As I recall, Coach Gordon’s name never came up.

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Senior Portraits

by Richard Trakimas

Walking toward my first writers’ class on the Tufts campus I could not help but flash back to my own college days so many decades ago. As I passed the

school bulletin board in the cafeteria a posted notice caught my eye. In bright blue letters it read - “Senior Portraits”—and then listed the sign up steps to get on the photographer’s schedule. I thought to myself, “Isn’t that nice, they take portraits of the senior citizens attending the Osher LLI program!” I took a few steps and then it hit me. This notice wasn’t about senior citizens—it was about actual senior year college students about to enter the REAL WORLD for the first time!

I struggled to understand how I could have made such a mistake. Was I being self-centered by thinking that, of course, the notice was about me, the senior citizen, or was it a case of a momentary flash back and that I was one with the students sitting in the student lounge studying their art history and marketing principles and Facebook?

It is hard to believe that so much of the world has changed in those decades since I graduated from college. It is as though I was a visitor from another planet, like the hovering fetus in the original 2001: A Space Odyssey movie looking down at the world, observing rapid fire images from my life and the events going on around them. All the while remaining physically unchanged—ageless while the world aged.

Writing for the class dredges up memories from early childhood, a few more memories from high school, even a snippet or two from college. Why is it that the most distant memories are the most vivid? It is as if my brain is clouding from the outside in – the most recent memories are the toughest to hold on to. What was the joke I heard on TV last night that I wanted to share with friends today? What was it again that my wife asked me to pick up at the market today as she ran out the door to her job?

The ink of my life is fading and it will disappear entirely unless I do something about it. Everyone’s stories are important, some are even interesting. Like the time I was kidnapped in Korea while on a business trip. So I will write my stories to refresh my ink. Perhaps I will find enough segments to incorporate them into something larger. Perhaps someday a college will ask to have my senior citizen portrait taken.

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39

What’s Black & White & Red All Over?

A Book Review by Martin Comack

The title of this study [see below left] encompasses all of its varied content, social, political and technological—the chiaroscuro of the film noir genre, the

Hollywood Red Scare and subsequent black list, the enhanced cinematography of the late nineteen-fifties. All these bases are covered, and interrelated.

By the 1930s, motion pictures had developed into perhaps the defining element of American culture. By then Hollywood’s major studios like Warner Brothers and MGM had firmly established themselves in a quite profitable vertical system for the production and distribution of their films, each of them owning chains of theatres in America’s urban centers in which to screen their creations. Although between them they directly controlled a minority of the nation’s cinemas, they were neverthe-less able to rake in more than two thirds of U.S. box-office receipts. To ensure reg-

ular attendance in their theatres they distributed their major films together with low budget productions, offering ticket buyers the double feature. These less expensive movies were classified as “B” pictures, and were often turned out by the so-called “poverty row” studios who had to make do with far

less resources than the majors. But relatively free of the constraints of major pro-ductions, and making a virtue of necessity, they were able to introduce innovative cinematic techniques and often explore plots that portrayed the starker and more seamier aspects of American life.

In this they had the great advantage of being able to draw on the talent and skill of a significant influx of directors, technicians and cinematographers from the German film industry. These refugees from Hitler and Goebbels arrived heavily influenced by the German Expressionist movement in the graphic arts and well schooled in its application to the screen, to the use of light, shadow and background to express mood and emotion.

The experience of the Depression, and most particularly the trauma of World War Two, endured both personally and collectively by so many millions, fed a dark undercurrent in the popular consciousness below the post-war American Dream of stability and prosperity. From roughly the early ‘forties until the late 1950s, the film noir, the “black film,” flourished as a major genre in the national cinema. The term itself was originated by a French film critic to describe the graphic portrayal of the lower passions displayed in so many American movies—criminality, lawlessness, violence and corruption. Typically such films featured stock characters, the amoral

The Red and the Black:American Film Noir in the 1950s By Robert Miklitsch University of Illinois Press: December 2016; 312 pages

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private detective, the femme fatale, the brutal mobster, the innocent or near-inno-cent protagonist (usually male), all caught up in a tangled web of relationships driven by greed, lust and obsession. The forces of law and order, the police and the legal establishment in appearance and behavior were often portrayed as almost indistin-guishable from the criminals they pursued.

These scenarios were shot in black and white footage in high Expressionist mode. Under the curtain of night the urban jungle is presented as an indistinct labyrinth of shadows with neon lights reflecting over dark, wet pavements, narrow alleyways, deserted streets, dead ends—all leading to the claustrophobic interiors of shabby apartments, dim hallways, abandoned warehouses, low dives all lit to ob-scure and distort rather than reveal. Dialogue is short and abrupt, pressured speech uttered by desperate men and women. Films like Double Indemnity (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950) are considered classics of this genre.

But by the mid-forties, the heyday of film noir, politics intruded upon motion picture production. For a second time Hollywood found itself under Congressional scrutiny.

Prior to Work War II, and particularly after the outbreak of war in 1939, iso-lationists and America Firsters in Congress had denounced anti-fascist themes in popular films as pro-war propaganda, and had no hesitation in attributing this to the predominance of Jews among owners of the major studies.

Now with the onset of the Cold War, Communist subversion was the target, with the House Un-American Activities Committee eager to expose Red infiltration of the film industry. The relatively few screen writers and actors who had actually joined the Party for brief periods, and those who had supported Popular Front organizations during the war when the Soviet Union was our courageous ally - all were regarded as part of a vast web of subversion and treason. Those who refused to confess and inform upon the radical past of friends and colleagues faced blacklist-ing, the loss of employment, and in some cases prison terms. The repercussions of Hollywood’s Red Scare have only recently been laid to rest.

Hollywood was quick to conform to the new political atmosphere. Indeed, themes of deceit, betrayal and conspiracy were already staples of the film noir sce-nario. The replacement of mobsters and private detectives by Communist spies and infiltrators was easily effected. But now the forces of law and order, in the guise of federal agents, were sharply delineated from the subversives they pursued. No more ambiguity, the line was clear between good guys and bad guys. Films like I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951) brought such McCarthyite propaganda to the big screen.

Yet into the nineteen fifties, as the Eisenhower Years progressed, the American public’s fears of domestic Communists melded into a generalized anxiety over the Balance of Terror in the Atomic Age. The plot of the critically celebrated film Kiss Me Deadly (1955) abandons the theme of Red subversion and revolves around the violent struggle for possession of an anthropomorphic nuclear device by shadowy

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and ill-defined forces—all in an atmosphere of pervasive paranoia. Hollywood re-flected this popular foreboding in a new cycle of films depicting atomic monsters spawned by nuclear testing, and invasions of creatures from outer space. Fears of alien contamination and subversion found its apogee in the science fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), variously interpreted by contemporary critics as an undisguised jeremiad against Communism, fascism and/or the pressures of creeping conformity in American society.

At the same time the film industry was undergoing a major renovation in tech-nique and production. Profit margins were down after the Supreme Court divested the major studios of their ownership of movie theatres, while the new medium of television cut sharply into ticket sales. In response Hollywood moved to exploit all of the new advances in cinematography, in film making that allowed for widescreen viewing, stereophonic sound, and richer and more varied technicolor hues—all to draw the public back into the seats (at higher ticket prices).

It is at this point that many critics and film archivists consider the decline of the traditional film noir to have begun. Miklitsch however, sees rather a reworking of the old schemata into what he classifies as neonoir. He is able to place a film like Niagara (1953) in this category despite the fact that it reverses the techniques of the classic genre. Although the scenario follows the customary plotline featuring men and women consumed with passion, illicit desire, and revenge, most of the scenes take place outdoors, in sunshine, in brilliant color, with a natural spectacle as back-ground. And the author argues that the color palette can convey atmosphere, mood and feeling just as dramatically as traditional Expressionism, and that it allows for greater depth and dimension in female characterizations.

Miklitsch nevertheless accepts that the demise of the traditional film noir fol-lowed the generalized prosperity of the 1950s and the rise and expansion of the American middle class. The double feature, the B picture, began to lose its attraction and its economic justification. And although he does not take specific note, it was at this period that a homogenized, mainstream American culture would slowly begin to take hold and shed whatever of its blue collar sensibilities, and the stark contrasts depicted in the world of the “black film” dissolved into more harmonious color schemes for most white Americans.

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Forty Years of Denial

by Carol Agate

A month in the hospital at the age of six was memorable, even though I wasn’t the least bit sick. In those days scarlet fever was highly contagious and the law

required me to be isolated. My poor sisters were quarantined at home, which was the law if anyone in the family had scarlet fever. They were ages 15 and 17, just the age to be mortified by the big yellow quarantine sign on the door.

After I was released I was not aware that my hearing had been affected. I missed all the warning signs. When I had the choice of where to sit in school I always chose the front row, and it surprised me that most people preferred to sit further back. When I reached my teens and became myopic I thought my preference for the front was because of my poor vision. Many years later I realized it was because of my poor hearing. Glasses gave me 20/20 vision.

A few incidents stand out. Kids laughed at me because I thought the words to McNamara’s Band were “A credit to Rhode Island,” instead of “A credit to Old Ire-land.” When I went to the movies I was frequently unable to understand the movie. I loved foreign films. Only years later, when English language movies started to be available with captions, did I realize other people were able to understand everything that was spoken on screen.

I remember sitting on the beach chatting with a group of people that included my mother. She was unhappy that I wore glasses. As she often did, she said, “Let’s see how you look without glasses.” I got annoyed and told her I couldn’t tell what people were saying if I didn’t wear my glasses. Her retort made such an impression on me I remember it to this day: “Now you’re telling me you’re deaf as well as blind.”

Thus began a period of subliminal awareness but actual denial. There was the time in a noisy restaurant with a date. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, so when he smiled, I smiled. Then his voice came through loud and clear: “I see my family’s problems amuse you.” I didn’t realize that even though the restaurant was noisy, people with normal hearing were able to converse.

After I was married my husband’s watch drove me nuts because it beeped every hour. At night I put it in the closet in a dresser drawer buried in his socks. I could still hear the beep. That reinforced the denial. I rejected any suspicion I might have a hearing loss because he couldn’t hear the watch and I could.

The fact I had no trouble hearing people further reinforced my denial. I sim-ply couldn’t understand a lot of they were saying. I thought that must be because I wasn’t paying enough attention. I often couldn’t follow the stories in movies, and attributed it to being inattentive or unable to understand subtleties.

In my mid-forties I saw an ad for hearing aids explaining that a person with hearing loss could hear people speak but not be able to understand them. That was the first time I realized hearing loss didn’t mean I couldn’t hear.

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The next time I took my father to an audiologist I finally had my ears tested. The mystery of the beeping watch was solved. I had what’s called a “cookie-bite” audiogram. I had perfect hearing at the high and low ends of the scale, but in the middle range—where voices are heard—I had a moderate loss. Hearing aids were not a solution because the high-pitched sounds would be amplified to the intolerable point. The loss appeared to be due to childhood scarring, my first awareness that my scarlet fever hadn’t been as harmless as I had always assumed.

Over the years I saw audiologists fairly often because by this time both my par-ents were wearing hearing aids and I was their chauffeur. Technology finally solved my problem. The new aids had separate channels for different frequencies. Voices could be amplified without increasing the high-pitched sounds.

Hearing aids sufficed until my moderate loss got closer to severe. It was as though the hearing loss I could expect with aging— given both of my parents’ age-related loss—had a head start.

I learned that the usefulness of hearing aids is limited. They are indispensable for conversations in a quiet room when I am no more than a few feet from the speaker. But the more the distance is increased the less useful hearing aids become. Amplification is of little use because the sounds are so distorted that the words are often indecipherable. At a gathering where many people are talking, it is impossible to converse.

Audiologists don’t tell people about the limitations of those expensive devices that promise to allow people to hear better. And they surely don’t tell them about assistive listening devices (ALDs). Imagine an audiologist saying: “Now that you’ve paid me $6,000 for those wonderful things that will help you hear, let me tell you how limited they are. You really should buy some ALDs.”

I was lucky to live in a city that had one of the country’s few retail stores that carried assistive listening devices. About 20 years ago I went there for an amplified telephone and discovered gadgets that picked up where hearing aids left off. I be-came such a good customer that they started lending me new products to try out and give them a report.

Recently manufacturers are selling microphones that bring speakers’ voices right into the hearing aids. Some even have multiple mics, so you can sit in a noisy restaurant and hear the people at your table who have mics clipped to their clothing near their mouth or hanging around their neck. Most theaters now have captioning devices that allow you to read what the actors are saying. Public auditoriums are supposed to have listening devices that bring the speaker’s words to your ears, but the staff is too often unaware of where they are and may fail to keep them charged.

I’ve come to accept that hearing aids don’t do for people with hearing loss what eyeglasses do for people with vision loss: make everything normal. Others don’t realize that. Many times when I tell someone I didn’t understand what was said I’m asked whether I’m wearing my hearing aids. Hearing aids increase volume; they don’t

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provide clarity.I look forward to the day when others who are hard of hearing come out of

the closet. There’s almost as much of a stigma to hearing loss as there is to mental disabilities. Most people with hearing loss just don’t think of themselves as disabled. Some crawl into their shells because they can no longer socialize, but they don’t use devices that will improve their ability to participate in conversations. One reason is that, unlike blindness or most mobility impairments, hearing loss is invisible, so people don’t realize how many of us there are who have to struggle to hear. Little by little I discovered there’s a world out there of people with moderate to severe loss, not the profound loss that often results in people using American Sign Language as their primary means of communication.

Hearing aid manufacturers advertise how invisible their aids are, never mention-ing that those miracles of miniaturization are not as effective as behind-the-ear aids. Maybe it’s the association of hearing loss with age that makes people buy invisible aids and conceal any trouble they have understanding. Our culture’s stigmatization of aging rubs off on the disabilities associated with getting older.

Because of its invisibility we don’t realize how prevalent hearing loss is among people of all ages. So if you, dear reader, are losing your hearing, speak up and join me in the struggle to understand and participate. Make the hearing aids work for you. Don’t put them in the drawer.

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46

An Epiphany

by Bob Green

It was probably sometime in November, perhaps just before Thanksgiving Day, when I was called out from my 12th grade classroom because my father was wait-

ing in the school office, needing to speak to me. He had come to let me know that my mother’s cousin, Uncle Buddy, had been asked by a fellow Mason and downtown store owner to find a boy to help out in his leather goods store during the Christmas season. My father told me that the job was mine, if I was interested. Uncle Buddy’s recommendation was good enough for anyone who belonged to the same fraternal organization as he. All I needed to do was to go after school and introduce myself.

Now that doesn’t sound like too difficult a task. But for someone suffer-ing depression quietly and not even knowing what that was, it was no small deal. Oh, I had had other jobs during the summers of my high school years, cleaning leaves out of hedges and mowing lawns. These also came my way be-cause of my father’s friendships. And there was a difference. I worked at them alone. I would come away from them, hot and sweaty, but with a feeling of ex-hilaration and a few dollars in my pocket. In a store I would have a boss look-ing on, judging me, and both customers and fellow employees to please.

But, as a matter of fact, I had a sense that this job was important, a real step toward growing up. I would get a fixed hourly pay and a check, with deductions for taxes and Social Security. A way toward becoming a man, which of course was what my father believed and approved of. And so, even though the frightened boy inside me was there when I introduced myself to the store owner, a man whose name I no longer remember, I was hired on the spot. He was cordial and, I could tell, patient, as he explained what he needed me to do and how much he would pay me and when I should come to work.

The work was routine and I actually did settle down into it with proba-bly a few occasions of anxiety or self-doubt. Because it was a family owned store, I also got to meet and work with his wife and two daughters on Satur-days. They were equally as affable as the storeowner. In some ways it was like be-ing a part of a family that didn’t bicker over small things (something that I lived with in my own home), that actually worked together for the common good. And I did learn somethings about Samsonite luggage and Buxton billfolds.

But this isn’t the experience I really meant to write about, although per-haps the story would not have been captured in my memory, if it had not been for the particular atmosphere that working in that store created.

For my supper break I would walk a short distance down Market Street to a little restaurant where you could get a complete meal for a little more than a dollar. One evening as I sat alone eating my supper, I noticed an elderly man sit at a table nearby and order his meal. When the food arrived, he folded his hands and bowed his head. I knew he was praying, saying grace or something like that. He didn’t cross

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himself, and so I knew he wasn’t a Catholic. Thinking about it now, I imagine he could have been a Salvation Army bell ringer. In writing this, I have a nagging feel-ing that he next took a piece of his bread and had it with some water. But I can’t swear by that, and this action may be just a figment of my current imagination.

What I am fairly certain of is that back then in that restaurant, I had a sense that something sacred was occurring. And, although this may be a for-mulation of my adult mind, I believe that intuitively then I understood that although this man was alone, as was I, he had a connection with God.

The cramped and bustling restaurant had not in any way interfered with his faith. Unconventional a setting for a religious practice as this restaurant was, he was not deterred from living out his convictions. I felt quietly im-pressed, enough so that I have not forgotten that brief but powerful memo-ry. That occasion may have been the beginning of my understanding that what is spiritual does not necessarily reside only in a church, but sometimes can be found in the most ordinary places and in the most ordinary events of our lives.

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Family Drives

by Sandra Bittenbender

It started when I was a child, riding in the car with my parents, my brother and our golden red cocker spaniel, all going somewhere chosen by my father. He drove

slowly; I learned how slowly only after I had my drivers’ license. It is not clear how we ended up going wherever we went, or if there was even a destination for some of these trips.

My friends recall “Sunday drives” with their families, so I know the custom was not unique. Even then I may have understood that these excursions enabled my father to be the ruler of his family, living with my maternal grandparents as we did.

He was an engineer, which no doubt influenced our itinerary. He held a patent on a railroad track that a train wheel could grip to avoid derailment; during World War II he designed aircraft parts, and later worked on trigger mechanisms for nuclear weapons. But work on such devices was behind closed doors, not something you could bring your wife and kids to see. We looked at places like the Wachusett and Quabbin Reservoirs, dams on the Charles and Neponset rivers, piers, jetties and fire towers. We saw operations along the Cape Cod Canal, trees growing in rows, corn and pumpkins in fields, mountains exactly where glaciers had put them.

We watched roadbuilding in an era when dirt handling equipment was frequent-ly active on weekends. We supervised the relocation of Route 128 in Massachusetts, including construction of a bridge and underpass to nowhere due to a scandal about the diagrams. We watched as the course of the Charles River was rearranged to allow for better traffic flow through Newton and Wellesley. I wish now that I had com-posed the phrase: “Like watching paint dry.”

I do not remember going anyplace that charged admission. My mother made stuffed eggs for picnics, and alternated tuna fish with bologna sandwiches. She and my father drank coffee from a thermos and my brother and I must have had milk or water, never soda.

Back in the car I looked out the window, always sitting behind my mother as I watched other cars passing on the left faster than we were going beside them. Some-times my father or mother would comment on my silence, as if checking that I was still there. Otherwise, my mother said little, or stuck to quiet neutral subjects like, “Oh, look at that.” She only spoke up if we saw a horse van or something like an open slatted truck full of pigs.

Sometimes a car went by us in the right-hand lane and my father would get mad, righteous about the behavior of other drivers. I never said much, merely passed the miles, looking out the window. My parents probably didn’t know that I was making suppositions about those passing families, enviously assuming they were having fun.

Now and then we would pass a car with a makeshift load on the roof. My mother would remark on its peculiarities, my father hold forth on its aerodynamics.

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Eventually someone invented plastic roof containers shaped like McDonald’s take-out. And long after the day of Eisenhower’s rarely clogged freeways, we would all hear about the Boston Globe report on Mitt Romney’s family dog riding along in an enclosure on top of the car. And for all my future days I will envision a red-haired Irish Setter in every odd roof carrier on the highway.

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The Entrance Interview

by Margaret Gooch

Cast of Characters U-I: Male, middle-agedViz: Male, twentiesTerry: Male, twentiesDel: Male, indeterminate/any age

At Rise: A large whitish but transparent bubble like an inflated but unlaunched balloon occu-pies stage center. Inside at its base are two small white ovals that appear like downward-peering eyes. They hold two unseen male characters, U-I and Viz, who speak from within.

U-I: The signifiers aren’t strong enough.

VIZ: But they’re incoming. We have to give them a chance.

U-I: Oh, best not to. Remember your instruction.

VIZ: That they’d sound like a cry for help. But so piercing, insistent – how could I realize? And isn’t a least chance worth our risk? Oh, if we just go on, I know I’ll keep hearing them. I won’t have the heart for any-thing else.

U-I: As you say, then. I’m calling up our research on this creaturehood right now. Select the strongest representative signifier you can hear.

VIZ: Got it!

U-I: Then secure your armor as directed and we’ll descend. I’ve arranged for disguises and an appropriate illusory setting.

VIZ: So I see. And we’re already communicating as our host creatures do.

U-I: Yes, through sensing their appeal and its effect. But don’t say I’m not warning you! We can still pull back....

VIZ: No, we must try. I’m ready.

(The stage darkens to allow collapse of the bubbles and release of U-I and Viz. With relighting, the two have been joined by a third character, Terry, who gazes around in bewilderment. Terry, a recent college graduate, and Viz, in the guise of a native African, are in their mid twenties; U-I, tattooed, appears a somewhat older guy. All are dressed casually for summer, Terry in jeans and a T-shirt, U-I, in Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt bedecked with gaudy chains and beads, and Viz in more tribal style. All wear sandals. U-I and Viz have knapsacks and sport baseball caps, worn backwards.)

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TERRY: What is this?

U-I: The place-to-be you’ve chosen.

(Terry gazes around, bewildered)

TERRY: What place? What’s going on?

U-I: Don’t remember what you were doing only two seconds ago?

TERRY: Yeah. Taking some stupid computer quiz.

U-I: To find out where you’d most like to live in the world. And – that place – you’ve got it.

TERRY: Hey, there’s hardly anything here!

U-I: Just a few huts and some crops in plain sight. But your companion will show you much more.

VIZ: Terry, my friend. So pleased you should want to come home with me! Visit my native land. Meet my family. I know they’ll like you, be so glad you want to learn about our life here, maybe write up what you learn in a book.

TERRY: (to U-I) What’s this guy talking about?

U-I: Allow me to introduce Viz, a recent college grad like you. Also a trav-eler, as you are. You met him in Paris on your trip across Europe and told him you’d like to visit his homeland. To his great delight, as you see.

TERRY: I’ve been in Paris? I don’t remember....

U-I: How could you? But he thinks you were there when he met you, the way everyone interested in your whereabouts thinks you won a comput-er contest to travel the globe for a year. No one will worry about you.

(Terry stares at them both for a moment.)

TERRY: This must be some crazy dream! Or else I’ve just lost my mind ... (pause) ... I finished that quiz and remember hitting “Enter....” Guess I sud-denly fell asleep. (Gazing all around, hands reaching out.) Could I be awake now? This seems so real—yet bizarre.

U-I: You can’t seem to realize: your wish has come true.

TERRY: What wish? To travel after graduation instead of needing a job right away?

U-I: To be where you’d most like to live in the world.

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TERRY: (laughing) Oh, come off it! I don’t even know where this place is!

U-I: It’s what your answers showed. A preference for simple living with something of value to do, needs you can meet. No leisurely lifestyle, excitement, or glamour, but opportunities for worthy endeavor.

TERRY: On that quiz...could I have ended up somewhere else?

U-I: Yes, if you’d profiled differently. An Inuit village, appropriate for hardy types. A jungle outpost, ideal for explorer-adventurers. Australian ranching country, a Swiss ski resort, a South Sea Island, and oh, yes, Paris. But I’m assuming you know your own preference.

TERRY: Then there’s been some stupid mistake. How long do I have to stay here?

U-I: What? Not even the least curiosity?

VIZ: Terry, my friend. I’m excited to think what I can show you. We’ll travel soon to the capitol, talk with my friends there. You’ll see we’re still struggling to create true democracy, like in your country. But my friends report making headway on what we’d all like to see and mention such promising signs. In the meantime I want you to see how people live in my village. You’ll find them friendly and welcoming, I feel sure. And there’s so much they’d love to tell you about their lives here, what they delight in, their dreams and aspirations, what they love of their country, and what they long and work for.

U-I: Just think: You’ve been given a chance to experience a whole new cul-ture, enabling you to widen your understanding of the world, yourself too, while working to improve this country’s governance in line with your own nation’s good fortune. What higher aim could you wish?

TERRY: Oh, heavy, man. I’m just now out of college. Not sure what my main aims will be.

U-I: Then why not take this glorious chance?

TERRY: I’ll bet I could do as well on my own later, if that’s what I really want.

U-I: Decide then. This opportunity has come to you. Proceed for a year at least, or forget it.

TERRY: Well, I am intrigued to know more.

U-I: But I’ve heard enough. You’re right; it’s obvious; we’ve made a mistake.

VIZ: (protestingly) Oh, wait now!

TERRY: At least tell me who you are and how you’re bringing this about.

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U-I: Think of me as U-I. If you stay, you’ll come to know more. If not, you’ll remember nothing, so no point in chattering.

TERRY: What has to be, has to be. I like where I was and what would surely come next. Setting off on my own after all my years at school. Even if student debt and a need to get employed means I can’t travel right away. Still, I’d have to be wacko to believe you’re offering me something real, or want it if you are, especially considering it’s crazy!

U-I: I assume your answer proceeds from conviction.

TERRY: Wherever I most want to live, I’ll find it on my own. And get there, live there as well.

U-I:. So be it.

VIZ: Wait! Wait!

U-I: (to Viz) Look. This won’t change a thing.

VIZ: But I have to try. Terry, you need the whole truth!

TERRY: What truth?

VIZ: To know what we’re really after.

(Viz removes his cap and tucks it in his knapsack. Small antennae pop up from his head.)

We’re what you’d call aliens, and our hope is to establish the outpost of an alternative reality available to you, one you’d be glad to see beck-oning in your future, one you’d actually like to have, one your people might even achieve on their own over time but only with severe dis-tress, to say the least, on the way.

TERRY: What alternative reality?

VIZ: In our own world we’ve attained the ability to care as much for others as ourselves – for all others, everyone – and since our lives are blessed that way, we’re trustfully at peace when we choose, or are still occasion-ally forced, to relinquish them. We calmly dissolve back into the ele-ments, fade away, you might call it, trusting that in what follows we’ll be equally blest. And we’d love that for you! Give us permission and we’ll proceed with your people. You’ll see our influence permeate through your world and greatly shorten the time required for that future to arrive!

U-I: Viz, you can’t make that claim. He failed our entrance interview. What-ever he says now won’t matter.

TERRY: Whoa here! Weirder and weirder. What the hell is this? You want me to

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help form an outpost ...

VIZ: No, but say yes and you’ll have your due role!

U-I: Viz, that’s not so. It’s decided.

TERRY: ... to have aliens take over our world? Even in a dream, I could never say yes to that!

VIZ: No! Wait! You don’t understand. That’s not how it would be.

U-I: Farewell, Terry.

(U-I hurls a cloth from one of the white ovals over Terry, as if to make him vanish,and Terry exits. Viz doubles over, arms clutched across his waist, moaning.U-I lays a hand on his shoulder.)

VIZ: Aaaugh!!

U-I: Take hold there.

VIZ: Did you have to do that?

U-I: Viz, the case had already been decided. And you only reinforced his refusal. There’s too much reason for distrust in his world.

VIZ: Oh, it must have been possible! Such a promising candidate with his preference for a simple life over others and a way of pursuing it worthi-ly. A plain-living, high-thinking type.

U-I: Some indication of that. But as you saw from his interview, without the least willingness to open his own perspective to a larger, more imagina-tive one, and without enough interest in people of another culture to relinquish his own still vaguely formed purposes.

VIZ: Then I chose the wrong candidate. Oh, let’s try again. There were other promising signals. Many! All kinds!

U-I: Of the same general strength. Don’t forget, we’re not looking not for a rare exception, only for those able to represent, in a promising way, the general level of the populace.

VIZ: We can’t just give up here!

U-I: Viz, we have to. I’m sorry I was right about this landing. Beside their lackluster signifiers, I could tell from our culture study they weren’t all that ready.

VIZ: And yet, you agreed. You let us in for this. Me, anyway.

U-I: No other way to learn. You were told, and knew from the start, the entire situation. But would need direct experience ... (pause) ... Remem-

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ber: our need is to find that representative able to pass our entrance interview, thus signifying the readiness of a creaturehood to move in an open-hearted direction toward a goal not yet entirely of their world.

(Viz, downcast, holds silent.)

U-I: And also remember: we occasionally do meet with success, if only on worlds whose beings are almost there anyway. Still, it’s exhilarating to shorten their time with a nudge along the way. And glorious to have them join the company of worlds like ours.

VIZ: Then you go on with that. I’ll stay here. There must be some way to help. When I feel stronger.

(Crumpling, he sinks down)

U-I: Oh, you’re wounded!

U-I kneels to run his hands over him)

Did you allow any chink in your armor? No, no detectable one. It hap-pened anyway, it seems.

(Viz groans, crumples further, lies curled)

U-I: You’re in a bad way. I’ll have to notify Mission Support. Summon a delegate...

(He makes a sweeping arc with one hand. Del enters, wearing a swirly, cloud-like garment, with a tight-fitting, skin-colored cap hiding his hair, through which two antennae appear.)

U-I: Good. Here already. Hail home base! And you in particular, Del. We have your emanation. My trainee’s in trouble.

DEL: Hail missioners! Yes, as I see. It’s just what we fear. And most with our most promising trainees.

U-I: I felt he was promising. But now?

DEL: You don’t remember your first mission?

U-I: Not something I like to remember. I’m surprised I made it on farther! I used all the protection I could after that.

DEL: With our capacity so developed for what these earthlings call empa-thy, we can’t wholly guard ourselves from the peril of these missions. Which is why our home crew salutes all you who actually undertake them.

U-I: It’s one thing to accept our limitations in theory. But when actually meeting with those we must fail, just barely! To share such vulnerabil-

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ity, how close to unbearable! And that’s when I think: Oh, if only we hadn’t gained the power to travel through space! At least we can thank our stars we can’t travel through time – except as space travel requires it.

VIZ: (weakly) Del, is that you? Are you emanating here from home station? Is there no way to answer the signals from this planet, Earth?

DEL: Sadly, the interview we’ve monitored shows these earthlings unready to respond to our only guidance worth offering them.

U-I: (to Del) I think we need to resolve our problem here quickly. I’m start-ing to become too affected myself, through sympathy with Viz and thought of all those worlds that don’t make it, judging from those I’ve seen now in ruins. And of others, like this one, in such a tenuous posi-tion.

DEL: Agreed. And leave before susceptibility to local vibrations allows the wrangling endemic to residents here to gain further hold.

(Del kneels beside Viz, pulls him to a sitting posture)

DEL: Take heart, Viz. You’re thinking of Terry, think of U-I. He subjected himself to this risk for your sake, hard as the lesson was you needed to learn. And he needs you to finish this mission, as we do at home.

U-I: Yes, hard to have to accept that the creatures of nearly all worlds must go through their own long evolution on their own.

DEL: (to Viz) You shouldn’t let that stop you from what can be done. True, you can’t do all you’d like, all that seems needed. But work worth ac-complishing lies elsewhere. We need word of success, and need you to bring it.

VIZ: Oh, I don’t want to let anyone down! (to U-I) And now you’re looking shaky yourself. You subjected yourself to this hazard for my sake?

DEL: He knew it from before, the agony too, but risked it again for you.

U-I: (to Viz) Only what you would do in my place.

VIZ: Oh, you care just like I do!

(Together U-I and Del help Viz to a wobbly standing position.)

(voice trembling) What will happen to Terry now?

DEL: Take heart, Viz. He should do middling well, as things go in his world. And it’s entirely possible that, despite his initial reaction, your words will resonate with him over time. Suggest an ideal to aim for, beyond

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our power to give.

U-I: Guide him to influence others as well, reinforce their best instincts. After all, our culture study has shown these earthlings have resources to aid them. However little they draw on them.

DEL: And who’s to say this world won’t make it?

U-I: Get past that threshold point to the future they long for....

VIZ: (repeating dully) Get past that threshold...

DEL: (to U-I) Viz will feel better once you start heading on.

(He hands them their space-oval suits.)

(to U-I) But how about you? Are you feeling all right to continue? After this setback, you’re entitled to some respite at home.

U-I: (to Del) I’ll continue. That will be best for Viz. But I’m wondering: It’s strange we can feel more concerned with an intelligent species’ survival than they apparently feel for themselves. And I doubt I’ll lose the ques-tion of “why.” Why so many worlds must struggle toward the blessed-ness we enjoy. So many. And without much in our power to help.

DEL: That question always remains.

U-I: Perhaps left to be answered, for all, at the end of time.

VIZ: (half-heartedly) So on to the next planet that’s seeking to make contact with higher intelligent life....

DEL: (claps him on the back) Yes, onward! At home we believe in your mission! Want to do what we can.

U-I: (summoning heart) Yes, onward with what we can do. Worth the best we can give!

VIZ: (faintly) And maybe someday, Terry, we’ll know how to do more.

U-I: But for now, planet Earth, we must leave it with you.

(U-I and Viz resume their oval coverings and begin picking up the larger oval as Del exits and the lights dim.)

The End

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