Sounds of Hope

When my kids were little they used to read the Chose Your Own Adventure books, also know as Gamebook .  After reading a few pages, they'd have to make a choice.  The choice involved picking which page to go to next.  Once that choice was made, the story was altered. I've often thought life was like that.  Every so often you have to chose something.  Once you make the choice, it changes your life forever.  In life, unlike the book, you can't go back and alter your choice. I can think of so many pivotal moments of choice, as well as, minor ones.  The minor ones sometimes turned out to be pivotal.  With all the talk of Brooklyn Norwegians and my childhood, it has made me wonder about a lot of the choices. This morning my husband and I were talking about why I didn't go with my father to Norway when I was in the 9th grade.  I've regretted that decision a million times.  It was primarily their decision, I was only 14.  However, I did...

I don’t know why I stayed. I supposed it was because I had nowhere to go. There were no domestic violence shelters in 1974. I still believed in miracles. I wanted one. I prayed desperately for one. Ultimately, I would understand that a miracle of deliverance did come. It just didn’t come like I expected it to. We had never gone back to Columbia First Assembly after Alvin returned from the Army. We had become quite worldly. My mother was going to Christian Chapel so we went there too. Lacking the strong leadership of Brother Parker and perhaps never really having a relationship with God, just rules, Alvin never connected there. I stayed at Christian Chapel during our first divorce. Now it was viewed as my church and First Assembly still seemed out of the question. We ended up at the new Highland Park Assembly on West Worley near Nowell’s Grocery Store. They met in the garage of the Pastor’s home, Brother Cooper. All I clearly remember about Brother Cooper is that he always wore a bow-...

Being a veteran and older, Alvin was now credit worthy. Alvin was ready to get a business loan and be an entrepreneur. He started with a used tractor, mower, rake and baler. Soon he moved up to a brand new blue Ford tractor. It didn’t have a cab but the summer heat of Missouri was not a problem for him. I drove the red and white Rambler station wagon. He had a blue Chevy pick-up. With the boys in the car, I would travel the gravel roads to find the field where he was mowing. I would have a jug of tea, some sandwiches or left over fried chicken. Often I would get lost, as directions were always vague. Attempting to turn around, I'd end up in a ditch. Somehow I always got out. Then he found the baler. It was meant for the flat fields of Kansas, not the hills of Central Missouri. It was a novelty. We drove to St. Louis together. He returned driving this monster through St. Louis rush hour traffic with me dutifully following behind. We picked up a few employees. I think all of them...

We moved. I don’t remember why we moved or even what we did with the camper we lived in. We may have planned to make payments on it and didn’t. We may have gotten behind in our lot rent and abandoned it. I really don’t know. I am sure some of you can’t imagine ever doing such a thing. I couldn’t either. I wasn’t in charge. Since then, I have learned that sometimes you just do what you gotta do to survive. Packing our meager belongings into our 1951 Chevy tank, we moved to another trailer. Bigger than the last, but very old. It was in town. Alvin didn’t like living in town. He was a country boy. Before the song: Thank God I’m a country boy , he was true to its meaning. I, born and raised in Brooklyn NY, we couldn’t be more mismatched. I tried to be country. I tried to learn his ways. After all, I chose the wedding song Wither Thou Goest as one of our songs. I meant it. I was determined to be a wonderful wife. Again, no matter what I did, it was never enough. I tried to can vegetable...

My mother-in-law Estella thought I should go to work. She said she had always worked. She had no sympathy for our lack of food in the house. It didn’t matter to her that we went without. She felt I should work. I tried. I had several jobs during those first few months I was married. My mother had only one job during my years growing up. It lasted one month. To me, married women didn’t work. Married women were to be like the role models Donna Reed, June Cleaver or even the young wife, Samantha Stephens. I wasn’t lazy. I told someone recently that I still hear the tape of my mother-in-law. She is still telling me I am lazy. So powerful was her influence. At times I still believe her. Getting a job at 16 was not easy. I had no clerical skills. I didn’t know how to type or take steno. I knew neither Gregg nor Pitt stenography. Most of the summer jobs were given to people who knew people, children of a friend. I eventually landed a job at a drug store on Broadway, the main business street...

I like to watch Grey’s Anatomy. I get frustrated with it because it doesn’t have enough new episodes. This weeks episode was new to me. Grey’s Anatomy is a sophisticated prime time soap opera. One of the lead characters, Dr. McSteamy aka Mark Sloan has an 18-year-old pregnant daughter named Sloan suddenly come into his life. For good drama, in spite of this being a first pregnancy, she has an emergency delivery of her son in his apartment. One of the main themes for the rest of the show is that she is still a child. At 18, she is still a child herself and too young to care for her infant son. It wouldn’t be fair to her child to keep him. Ultimately, the son is handed over to strangers who are more ready for this responsibility. It was sad. I disagree. She should have kept her child. That episode made me wonder. I wonder if anyone thought that about me when they bought wedding presents for me in 1968. Times were different one might argue. Nevertheless, I was a child. I h...

It took less than a minute to walk from Barbara's house to mine. I wonder what went through my mind as I did. Being 8 years old, I am sure it can only be described as confusion. Too young to understand shame still I knew something was wrong. I had kissed him on the mouth when I knew better. Yet, I always wanted to be a good wife and mother - girls of the 50's dreamed of those things. Was this what I needed to know to secure my future? My block in Brooklyn was my small town . We had a bad neighborhood, right there on the block. How fitting that I remember being in front of the "tenements" when I told my mother that I had done something bad. I had kissed Mr. Thompsen on the mouth. Feeling better that I had told, my mother I am sure feared there was more to this tale. I don't remember it, but in a rare conversation a few years ago with my mother about Mr. Thompsen, she said she was giving me a bath the next day. It sounds bizarre now but in those days, Saturday n...