Eternal Life

by Elizabeth Aharonian Moon

She stood in front of her opened closet. She had to choose wisely, she knew that. Certainly not black. Certainly not anything aqua or orange, her favorite colors. That didn't leave much to pick from. She needed to look as if she was grieving or mourning, so the red-poppy print wouldn't do at all. Nor would her suit; it would look as if she was there on business.

This was all his doing anyway. Even before he started his slow decline, he had told her emphatically, not once, but ten times or more, he wanted no funeral, no wake, no obituary, no fan-fare. People, he said, wouldn't know he was dead and so he'd have some form of eternal life. “Just gather up the family at the end,” he said, “and they can all say their goodbyes, or whatevers. They'll certainly all be on good behavior and that will be that.”

No matter how she insisted on some sort of death ritual—a small service in the chapel near the beach, a wake right in their living room, a brief article in the town's weekly newspaper, one or two sentences in the Sunday church bulletin—he insisted even more strongly, “No! No, I don't want any of that—all a waste of everyone's time, a waste of money.”

How vividly she remembered those conversations which sometimes grew into arguments as she pondered her newest dilemma: what to wear to this non-event. It was only after the vehement insistence by all their adult children ( each from former marriages) that she agreed to arrange a gathering at a nearby restaurant—actually a bar and grill. The place had no parking, but it did have a very nondescript function room behind the bar, small enough to accommodate all of them and a handful of guests. The youngest of the adult children printed invitations on her computer, looking more like the flyers she had once hung around the neighborhood when her cat got lost, announcing the date and time, the place, and the reason for the event ( the word -Memorial- was in small letters)

Deciding what to wear was difficult, but thinking about the non-event was nerve-racking (where were those adult children with their grand ideas now?) Flowers? Hors d'oeuvres? Servers? Beer and wine? Open bar? Sandwiches? Speeches? He'd not want speeches or eulogies or any of it. She worried for days. At last, obsessed with funeral rites and rituals, she recalled a course she had taken years ago at the community college: Etruscan and Roman Funereal Art. Stone sarcophagi were elaborately carved with vines, grapes and reveling gods surrounding a likeness of the deceased; into the coffin were heaped many of the deceased's possessions including rings, hair ornaments, mummified pets, spoons, all reminders of the deceased's life as he began his trip to the next one. If an urn held the cremated remains of the deceased, its lid was carved as a human head in his likeness. Hmmm, she said aloud. That's an idea.

On the morning of the non-event, she set up a card table in the function room. On it, she placed a Mason jar containing some of his ashes topped by his most recent passport picture, and other objects which represented his life: a deck of cards, his slide-rule, a bowl of mint hard candies, his plaid vest, his well-used Joy of Cooking, and more. Much more. It was a little flea market though nothing was for sale. Guests,with a drink in hand, could lean over the table, touch his chess board, read his favorite Yeats poem, see his driver's license, re-membering him, whispering him alive for the briefest moment. He could not have objected to that.

But he might have objected to her outfit, a slim-fitting, knee-length dress patterned with white daisies on curvey green stems. It clung to her; it announced Spring.

Rules for Drinking Wine

By Charlotte Savage

    

  Sunday afternoon I dined at a restaurant with two friends.  Our designated driver suggested we share a bottle of wine.  As the waitress poured the wine my friend remembered that she was driving her new car and would drink sparingly, this left two of us to consume most of her share.

      When I returned home that evening I remembered that the cook at the senior center where I play cards on Mondays was on vacation and I thought to boil eggs for my lunch.  I placed eggs in a small pan with a lid.  I intended to stay in the kitchen until the water boiled and then I would turn the burner down to a simmer.  However, I had left my cell phone in the den and when it rang I ran to answer it.  By the time I hung up the phone I forgot all about the eggs and became interested in watching 60 minutes on the TV while stretched out on the couch.  I must have immediately fallen asleep.

       An hour later I woke up to a horrible acrid smell in the house.  I ran into the hall and all I could see was a wall of black smoke in the dining and living room.  Entering the kitchen I saw that the eggs had exploded all over the kitchen.  Strangely enough the lid to the pan was still in place!  Now how did that happen?

       I shut off the stove, flung open both my back and front doors and all of the windows in the house while turning on ceiling fans.  The smoke hadn’t reached the smoke detector down the end of the hall by my bedroom and computer room.   Knowing it would take time to clear the house of smoke I went into the computer room, shut the door and worked on my computer.   Unless you have done something this stupid before--you have no idea how badly burned eggs can smell.   By comparison the aroma that permeated my yard for five days after a skunk died under my porch would be my preference.

      By two in the morning I thought I could shut the doors and some of the windows. The pot I cooked the eggs in had cooled down and I placed it on my back porch to be reckoned with the following day. The house was so cold that I couldn’t get warm.  I turned on my heated mattress pad and climbed into bed fully dressed pulling the covers up over my head because airing the house had done little to rid the smell of Sulphur that still permeated everything.

     Today I have written a memo to myself that I plan to attach to the front of my refrigerator.   You might think it would say something like don’t drink wine on an empty stomach but you would be wrong.  Mine reads, “Never drink wine on the same day you plan to boil eggs.” 

©2015 Charlotte Savage all rights reserved.

Excerpt from "An Unusual Memoir"

Gemini 8

by Ken Roy

I’m going to set the table for this story with a short history lesson.  It was the late 1950’s, Eisenhower was President and the USSR and US were deep in a decade long “Cold War”.  Following WWII both countries had extracted significant German rocket technology and engineers. These were the seeds of their own rocketry development.  It was 1958 when the Soviets launched a small earth satellite, “Sputnik”, and it was soon thereafter that the “Space Race” was underway.  JFK was elected president and within a year he had us headed for the Moon.  With this goal in mind the US undertook a sequence of three projects intended to develop the basic technology necessary for spaceflight.  The initial program was Mercury a single seat spacecraft whose goal was mainly to demonstrate that man could safely fly to and return from Earth orbit.  The Gemini program followed and it was a two seater spacecraft test bed for developing extra-vehicular activities, orbital rendezvous, and powered orbital maneuvers; the fundamental procedures required for the final phase; the Apollo three seater program and flights to the moon. 

Gemini 8 was a major milestone mission in America’s quest for lunar exploration.  It was nearly a disaster. First, imagine you’re in this spacecraft orbiting the Earth at well over 185 miles altitude and 17,000 mph.  You see the Earth slowly rotating beneath you and you give no thought to the fact of your velocity being more than ten times faster than a bullet.  (5 mi/sec; Beverly to Boston in 2 seconds)  Your objective is to catch up to a target vehicle in orbit going just as fast.  The cockpit of your craft is about as roomy as the front seat of a small car and is packed with all manner of gauges, switches, circuit breakers and flight controls.  There is one small window for external viewing.  When it’s time to eat you take out a bag filled with some roast beef paste, or something equally appetizing, and squeeze it into your mouth.  With the help of ground control and onboard radar tracking you manage to rendezvous with the target vehicle.  The objective, in technical terms, is to match both orbital planes and phase using minimal energy.  This involves tedious and precise maneuvering (The complexity of a rendezvous is perhaps illustrated by the fact that this was the subject a PhD thesis at M.I.T by Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon).  Any collision in space could be a life-ending event.  You are now going to link your spacecraft to the target vehicle, fire up the target’s rocket engine and maneuver into a new orbit.  All goes well until your linked together and then this hybrid spacecraft goes wildly out of control and you have only a few seconds to regain control or the mission and your life will come to a violent spinning end.  Sound like fun?  All well beyond the average persons imagination. 

In the Gemini 8, where this scenario played out, two highly experienced test pilot astronauts were selected for the mission.  The mission objective was the first orbital rendezvous and docking with the Agena Target Vehicle (ATV); then powered flight into a higher orbit using the ATV rocket engine.  All phases of these procedures were intensely trained for in simulators at the Houston, Texas, Manned Spaceflight facility.  The following is a brief recap of the flight as reported in the book by Shepard and Slayton* 

After rendezvous the Gemini astronauts circled the twenty-six foot ATV to confirm its stability, then with consummate care nudged Gemini’s nose into the docking adapter mounted on the ATV.  Clamps, electric motors and connectors clicked home and the two craft were one, a first in space.  In moments the astronauts were thrust from a smooth flight into a struggle to survive.  The Gemini/ATV had literally become a twisting, turning bomb waiting for the first chance to turn into a searing fireball.  Faster than the two astronauts could believe, roll and yaw became the orbital equivalent of severe uncontrolled turbulence in flight.  They quickly managed to reduce the spin to the point where it was safe to disengage the vehicles.  As was later determined, the spin rate rose to 550 degrees/second; close to the point where they would lose consciousness.  They miraculously persisted, brought the Gemini under control and made a hasty and premature reentry to Earth.  Two dead astronauts in orbit, with no means for retrieval, would have been a historic disaster for America in the space race.  The cause was later determined to be a stuck thruster on the Gemini vehicle. 

Fortunately the future Gemini/ATV flights were successful.  Rendezvous and powered orbital flight were proven and we were on our way to the Moon.  By the way, the Command Pilot and a true hero, who saved Gemini 8, was Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon. 

It was 1961 and I was 3 years out of MIT when I got the urge for sunshine and a job in the space exploration business.  This took me to a position at the Lockheed Missile and Space Company in Sunnyvale, California.  My job was focused on various programs using the Agena space booster and eventually the Gemini/ATV.  The ATV attitude control system issues were my primary concern.  How much control gas to carry for the mission along with some serious stability control concerns when the Gemini and ATV were docked and then powered up in orbit?  Mainly, would fuel slosh in the ATV cause control instability.  With the help of excellent analysis support at Stanford University it seemed that the problem was slight but still marginal. The Agena had performed flawlessly thanks to the efforts of a great many dedicated and skilled people. 

* Moon Shot – The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton.  Turner Publishing 1994. 

Cardboard Box

Part 1

Preface

Like many active learning organizations, we of Winter Street Writers prefer to take a summer vacation from our regular group meetings. Reflection and rest refreshes us and readies us for the beginning of September meetings right after Labor Day.  At our last meeting before summer break 2015, we took home the following on a compact piece of paper, easy enough to fit in one hand while sitting at the beach, sunbathing from our porches, or traveling by train, bus, boat, or plane somewhere far, far away for summer vacation:

___________________________________________________________________________

Our prompt for the Summer is "Cardboard Box!"

Was it in a closet, buried in the ground, or did it show up on the doorstep?

What's in it? Who is it from or for? What will you do with it?

All stories should be 300 words or less. Please bring back to the first meeting in September.

Have a great summer!

___________________________________________________________________________

Now, to help us ring in the New Year 2016-- so fresh and ready and blossoming with inspiration for great reading and writing--please enjoy some of the fruits of our labor from last summer vacation!



Gail Balentine

There they are again – two this time.

She paced back and forth and wondered, not for the first time, what was in all those boxes. It was by now a familiar routine – the brown truck would pull up in front of the house, the man in shorts would hop out carrying the boxes, he’d move quickly up the walk to deposit them on the front porch. At 6 o’clock, David would return home, scoop them up, come into the house, smile at her, and take the boxes to his room. On trash day they would appear, flattened and ready for the recycle pile.

Well, this time, it’s going to be different. I want to know what’s in those boxes!

She moved silently down the hall. When the bedroom door flew open, she ducked into the dining room; he walked past quickly without seeing her. Dressed for the gym and running late, he called out a vague goodbye as he closed the door. She headed for his room with no conscience pangs at all.

A gentle nudge on the door was all it took to get into the room. She spied them, on the bed, open. There was no hesitation. The excitement started to build. She told herself to go slow but soon she had her nose right down into the big one. Empty!

White wrapping paper and that bumpy stuff? She looked around but spotted nothing new. Disappointment started to mount but then a new thought came to her. She jumped into the box with abandon and dug her claws into the plastic bubbles. As she heard the satisfying popping sounds, she could almost hear Mama Cat advise: Never let a comfortable napping spot go to waste.

Her purring echoed softly in the empty room.

Beth Alexander Walsh

     Susan inspected the piles of her mother's belongings. One to bring to the nursing home, another for donation, and a dismal pile for herself. As she rummaged through closets and boxes, she was amazed at how unattached she felt to the items that surrounded her childhood. “Formal” was the word she would use to describe both the house and her relationship with her mother.

     The few items her mother had saved surprised her; a jewelry box with a dancing ballerina inside, her Nancy Drew books, and an envelope that contained her report cards and school pictures. Susan added a pair of porcelain kittens that she was not allowed to play with, a Christmas apron she thought made her mother look cheerful, and a dozen ornaments. Her most prized possessions were the pictures of her father. She picked up the photo from her 12^th birthday of her blowing out the candles, while her dad held the cake. Two months later he would suffer a massive heart attack while mowing the lawn and be gone from her life. She outlined his image with her fingers and could almost hear him calling.

     “Soose! Get down here and watch the Sox game with me!”

     She smiled and placed the pictures back into its shoebox. Among the other boxes to be sorted, she spied a large silver and black striped hat box. Grabbing it by the rope handle she sat on the couch and opened it, expecting to find some moth eaten relic. Inside were seven black and white composition books. She pulled them out and flipped though the pages, finding her mother's elegant handwriting in each one. She opened the cover to the top notebook and read the first two lines:

October 17, 2000

Dear Susan,

Lauraine Lombara

 A nondescript, cardboard box sat in the middle of the room for about a week. I was supposed to be filling it with correspondence which I had saved over many years in a huge plastic tote. This was my daughters’ mandate. My son had no interest in the matter. I really didn’t either, but I realized I needed more room and less stuff in my life.

Early one morning, filled with determination to get started, I brewed my coffee, changed into “working clothes” and sat to eat my customary breakfast: a bowl of hot, thick oatmeal, sprinkled with chopped walnuts, a drizzle of pure maple syrup and a splash of soy creamer. As I contemplated the goodness of this homely bowl for its nutritive value and delicious flavor, I thought about the work ahead of me. The bowl of oatmeal evoked memories of times gone by-breakfasts with my families by birth and by marriage. Similarly, these correspondences would do likewise as I read them. Did I need to do this all at once? Of course not! I could take a few at a time, read and reminisce as I leisurely went along, savoring the words and memories, just as I had savored the oatmeal.

The cardboard box sat as a reminder of an old saw. If I filled the empty box and sent it to recycling, the memories will be gone, especially those I wanted to store in my memory bank. Better I should have my plastic tote half full and not half empty. I was very careful of my discards.

Mary Higgins

A card board box measuring 14 x13 x 4 inches sits beneath my bed. It holds a piece of sports equipment that gives me one of the most indulgent pleasures of my adult life. Inside are my Reidell figure skates, beautiful boots, each weighing a pound and a half.

These skates are my ticket to freedom. When I lace these onto my feet, I sail across the ice, spin on one foot flying into the air to land on a backward edge or I balance on an inside edge with the other leg lifted high to perform a graceful spiral.

After years of physical therapy, I  strengthen my back and hips further with numerous crossovers, scullies and edging exercises. Twice a week I arrive at the rink to practice.

Balancing on a thin 1/4” edge of a blade comes easy to me. Perhaps years of balancing in pink satin pointe shoes prepared my body or maybe sailing in a boat on the Charles River sensitized the fluid in my ears to the subtlest shift in weight.

Yes, those skates came out of a box pulled from the shelf by the store employee but once I endure the discomfort of breaking them in, having them stretched in a heated machine to accommodate my foot’s architecture, they become an instrument through which to express music and emotion.  As I progress I adapt to new blades honed to the exact degree that the skating coach prescribes, learning never to have my figure skates sharpened by the people who do hockey skates. Sharpening figure skates is an art all its own.

My skates bring me through a time in my life when uncertainty and sadness lurk like jagged icicles but my edges smooth the icy path towards a new world of grace and pure bliss.

 Liz Ciampa

            A cardboard box sat on the hardwood floor way in the back of the walk-in closet. Packing tape sealed the box shut, but inside the box, tens of notebooks of various sizes and types sat, waiting. Some of the notebooks were the three-ring, spiral bound kind. Others were composition-book format, so that it was more difficult to tear out pages of writing.  The oldest writing lived in compact diaries, the kind in which a young girl of eight, nine, or ten years might record her thoughts and activities of the day. Those diaries had the neat, even penmanship of a Catholic schoolgirl in grades three, four, and five. Already she had many stories to share with her diary, that silent listener, to which she referred later in her teen years simply as “my journal.”

            Growing up in a big old house and the oldest in a large family fueled the girl’s drive to write things down.  Hours or days after writing, when she was calmer, she would re-examine and relive her recordings.  Years later, she selected one college major as psychology and the other as politics. She thought that both of these disciplines might help her figure out better the intensely personal workings of the individuals within her family and the way they paired off and grouped together, often against each other. 

The girl felt like a distant observer and an active participant in someone else’s game, pushed and pulled, the peacemaker, never resting. She wrote down more true stories.  Many years later, she was sure that her childhood had taught her important life lessons early.  At the same time that she experienced those layers of connection and disparity, she felt that her heart walked around outside her body every day. This exposure and vulnerability led to early work at genuineness and authenticity, and she began to tell true stories via poems and musical lyrics. Playing the piano provided inspiration and the language of music helped the stories along. In the end, she believed she could tell a good story in and through the lines of a poem using intense detail to word choice and imagery. Then, finally, several little books of poems emerged. Those little books, their size and weight, reminded her of the compact diaries from childhood.