Unbroken, II

Unbroken.

While no movie was produced about Bob Hite’s life, he, and others like him, including my father, remained unbroken. Mr. Hite’s death is noted in the Ark Dem-Gaz this morning with a photo and a nice write-up.

A part of the team dubbed “Doolittle’s Raiders” in WWII, he was in the group of men who flew bombers over Japan/Tokyo. Resulting in miracles for troop morale in the South Pacific, Bob Hite and his fellows brought the war closer to an end.

His son, Wallace (we called him Wally) spoke of the 38 months his dad was held captive, isolated, in a 5x5x9 foot cell.  Had the war not ended and the prisoners liberated, Bob Hite and many other American airmen and soldiers would have been executed. Mr. Hite survived, unbroken.

We Camden kids knew Bob Hite as the dad of one of our classmates. He managed the Hotel Camden during our growing up/early teen years. He was Wally’s dad. He and his wife Portia hosted dance parties for Wally’s classmates at their top-floor hotel suite. Wally’s personality always boosted morale wherever he was. Maybe like father, like son.

Wally gave a speech in 7^th or 8^th grade when he was running for political office – Student Council.  I’ll never forget his opening line, delivered like the orator Mark Antony speaking on the occasion of Julius Caesar’s death, “Friends, Romans, and Countrymen…” Wally said with the same grandeur, “A students, B students, C students, D students, and Friends!”  He got my vote!

The men who raised us, Our Fathers’ Generation, are forever cemented in our memories, their standards for us, lofty; we remain eternally grateful.

How One Thing Always Leads to Another

     OK, so the hinges to the cabinet door on the built-in pantry broke off.  Two of the four snapped. I'd noticed a bit of a sag the other night and had discussed what could be the issue with guru of all things mechanical and otherwise. We did not see anything strange, nor did we hear any rumblings from the pantry door.
     Never did we hear cries of dismay, "Madame, can not continue to load tons of cans and boxes, bottles and bags into our shelving, You must not realize the door itself weighs 60 pounds. The load, after years and years, is too heavy for us hinges." Not a word. I guess the "sag" was the warning.
     The other night I heard "Snap." Not an excited snap, but the kind of crisp snap metal makes.  "What on earth!"  I opened the pantry door with caution and saw two metal hinges broken, screws popped out, lifeless on the pantry floor. With great determination and super strength, the remaining two hinges held the entire door's weight,
     Hubby and I sought replacement hinges, knowing we could swap some out if worse came to worse, as all the hinges in the house are the ones mounted inside the cabinet doors, like the two that snapped. After a phone call to the manufacturer, Marvin tells me that they will arrive "within a few weeks."  None of the modern hinges at Lowe's, don't ya know, match this design. They look somewhat the same, but are not the same and are made of much lighter-weight metal. Drat.  So much for a simple fix.
   

     Whatever the steps to repair, here's the bottom line:  Unload the shelves on the pantry door. Take the pantry door down.
      That task does not take too long. I sort and organize like items as I go and look at expiration dates. Yikes. Get the garbage bag - some of this stuff was around when Nixon was president.  Like Praline Liquor that I kept because the bottle was so pretty.
      Now that the shelves are empty, they appear a tad smudged.The shelves need wiping down with Clorox wipes and Spick n' Span.
     

The other cabinet door/shelves probably are close to collapse, so I'd better unload them. I'm not quite as worried with these shelves because of the boxes of baking soda and the number of sugar-free, fat-free Jello boxes.
      I've gone this far, might as well unpack the entire pantry, arrange it more efficiently, and use some sliding baskets.
     And I do. I scrub down the shelves and throw away plenty of "save this little bit"...like dried out raisins and mini-marshmallows.
     
   I learned these things about myself:  I affirm the medicinal qualities of chocolate. One can never have too much chocolate hanging around. You never know when you might need a chocolate pie or batch of brownies, a plate of fudge, or a handful of morsels. You might be called upon to make chocolate rolls.
     I also have a tendency to buy extra, whether I need it or not, for the same reason:  you just never know.
   

And, plenty of  Pam  is always good to have around.

How To Become a Bookworm (Regan McMahon-ArkDem-Gaz)

No one encouraged me to be a bookworm; I just am one.

            I don’t recall bedtime stories or quiet time as a toddler. Competitive, inquisitive, with a sense of humor and a thirst for knowing more, I gravitated to books.

1.      Read aloud:  Thank you, Mrs. Willis, 4^th grade teacher at Fred Whiteside School. With her winning manner, she made books come alive. Mrs. Wilson, 5^th grade teacher. After lunch, she’d read to us. I believe it was she who read the magical story of The Secret Garden.  She also shared a book with the hilarious “Big Chief Sit-On-The-Fire-And-Put-It-Out.” Mrs. Akins, 6^th grade teacher – same school – also read to us and I looked forward to “after lunch” or “after recess” as a time for magic.

2.     Competition and other obsessive behaviors:  Thank you, Mrs. Yawn, I think.  A teacher had us cut short slips of construction paper and fold them into book shape.  We then wrote the title of the book on the paper and taped it beside our name in a “who can read the most books” contest.  Zoom!  I was out for the win.

3.     Bring your Library Book to Class Day:  Thank you, again, Mrs. Yawn.  While there may have been those fidgety students who never brought their books to class, I always had my library book, and I got to read, uninterrupted, for the Whole Hour.

4.     Latch on to a series:  I read every blue-fabric covered biography about famous women in the Camden Public Library.  They were on a shelf in the children’s area and I feasted on the lives of Jane Adams, Clara Barton, Amelia Earhart, and Dolly Madison. I still love biography.

5.     Genre of Choice:  History buff – “You Were There…at Pearl Harbor…on the Mayflower…during the San Francisco Earthquake…”  Historical fiction taught history and let me be a part of it through the first-hand account of children my age, about eleven or twelve years old. Now, I read Unbroken, cringing as I turn each page on my Kindle.

6.     Favorite Author:  When I turned into a teenage vampire, I devoured stories of the heart. I read everything by Janet Daily…I even wanted to change my name to “Margie” or “Marge” because of one of her female characters.  I cried when one of her main characters’ love-interest was killed in the Korean War.

7.     Humor: Frying an egg on the sidewalk was part of an escapade of the children in a book I read one summer.  Living across the street from the Camden Public Library gave me open access to a vast collection of books that kept me laughing.

8.     Classics: My first encounter with Scarlett and Rhett was when Mother gave me her copy (which was also her mother’s copy) of Gone With the Wind.  Sixth Grade. I’ve never recovered.

9.     Book Club: My first was The Gulf Shores Literary Society.  We were a group of like-minded young adults who carried shelves of trashy novels to the beach and swapped them to scandalize each other.  New friends believed I belonged to a legitimate literary group…they learned better. Later my book clubs read fantastic books such as The Red Tent and Loving Frank.

My taste in books and authors has not changed all that much. I love to read Dave Barry’s hilarious stories.  Historical fiction (also known as “lust in the dust”) once carried me through vacant periods of time.  Non-fiction is still a favorite, learning more than I ever wanted to know about presidents, first ladies, cotton fields, hurricanes, war, and The Great Flood of 1927.  I can spot a “formula” book and have been quite disappointed in John Grisham, Danielle Steel, and Fern Michaels for falling prey to such assembly-line writing.  I have enjoyed Nevada Barr’s books because they are set in our National Parks. Anna Pidgeon, park ranger, always wins the day, but there’s a map in each book and I learn about the park itself while following her adventures.

A bookworm – nobody had to convince me.  I was born to read…and to write.

Look, Look! Oh, Look and See!

Not a plane and not Superman.
Better.
It first caught my eye off to the right, just ahead, through the windshield as we drove from Rector to Kennett for our morning exercise routine.
It was the wing span, first. Huge. Expansive. Not a hawk.
My mouth formed an "ahhh..."  Is that "him?"
"Oh, Look!" I managed to stutter.
It might as well have been Jane talking to Dick.

"It's the eagle!"
The white head and tale were striking. That, and the golden beak. He soared overhead, just above the truck. It was real, flying just above me so that I could see its regal flight.

Marvin pulled to the shoulder and did a Dukes of Hazzard maneuver and we headed back toward the plowed field next to the levee.

The eagle was sitting on a row top, looking for a treat. He rose in flight and glided over the levee, swooped down, then pitched upward and perched on a singular bony, bare tree.

He is the one we saw circling on the other side of the highway about a month ago, but he was quite a distance away. We drove down the levee, but he was gradually moving further away. Even then, it was the wing span that drew us to believe it might be "the eagle."

Marvin had seen this same spectacle about six months ago. The eagle had been sitting on the yellow line and had flown up and over the truck. Marvin was enthralled with the white head, gold beak, and white of the tail.  He talked about it every time we drove toward the St. Francis River, and I was growing weary of  the tale, and tired of not being lucky in sighting "the eagle" that many have seen. "Oh, yeah.  Sometimes he's in that old tree by the highway."  Riiiiight.

I'd been looking for our eagle ever since Marvin sighted him.
Today,   I   saw   him.

It was an incredible experience - witnessing a "real, live American Bald Eagle," flying free, in the wilds of farmland between Rector and Kennett.  By the way, he was on the ARKANSAS side of the river.

A Daffodil Blessing

How do I confess that my watch is "missing?"
I'm not willing to give up and come clean, even after my shower.
Surely I have not lost it.  The catch is loose, yes, but I would have heard it fall, felt it leave my wrist.
"Perhaps I took the watch off and put it next to the bed."
Not the case.
 It was not anywhere in that hotel room.

We'd been at Daffodil Central-Camden all afternoon Friday.
We walked down Washington Street, went into Frame of Mind, strolled down Adams, back up Jefferson.
We'd been to supper at the White House Cafe and then to Wal-Mart and the Farm Store, Atwoods.
A full night on the town in Camden.
We called the restaurant.
We checked and left a message with the hotel front desk.


Marvin searched the truck and looked all around it.
No luck.
I did not cry.
But I was just sick.
Sick at heart.
It had been a lovely gift and I love the giver.

The next morning, Marvin found a note inside the door latch to the truck.
"Did you lose something?" And a phone number.
My heart soared.
We dialed the phone, we met the couple, and they returned the watch they found on the sidewalk, near our truck.
It had been on the sidewalk.
All night.
They were visiting Camden for the Daffodil Festival from Starkville, MS.

I was overcome.
I cried.  I hugged everybody.  I cried some more.
Then I told this story to everyone I saw.
God was with this couple who found the watch and with me, in allowing them to return it to me.
"We just did the right thing," they said.
I offered compensation; they refused.
Of course, we would have done the same.

I celebrate their find and my good fortune.
I wish blessings on this couple in all they do.
They blessed me beyond words.
I know God was in it all.

Snowbound

"Snowbound" - John Greenleaf Whittier

When snow blankets the countryside and drifts cover familiar pathways, I recall the "idyll" by Whittier. While I did not read the entire rhyming story to my students, I did read the first few stanzas, lines they could imagine as true in their own experiences.

They did roll their eyes at my enthusiasm for the beauty of Whittier's word pictures, but I was not deterred.  

Beauty is all around us, and even old, dead poets' words can warm our hearts.

   ...And, when the second morning shone,

    We looked upon a world unknown,

     On nothing we could call our own.

    Around the glistening wonder bent

   The blue walls of the firmament,

    No cloud above, no earth below,—

     A universe of sky and snow!

 

The old familiar sights of ours

Took marvelous shapes; strange domes and towers  

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,

Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,

A fenceless drift what once was road;

The bridle-post an old man sat

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;

The well-curb had a Chinese roof;

And even the long sweep, high aloof,

In its slant splendor, seemed to tell

Of Pisa’s leaning miracle...

March snowfall, Rector, Arkansas

March 4, 2015

Mayhem Remembered: David Carradine, Barbara Hershey, and Martin Scorsese in Camden

This article was published in July, 2013