To the Dear Friends of My Youth

Bookmark

Sorting through some attic shelves
(in search of something else)
I came upon a book
I’d left half-read some summer past.
A memoir of a life it was
that evidently held
less interest than my own
once the clock began again.

In truth it seemed not long ago,
and though I do not know
whether I passed time
or time passed me,
dust is a kind reminder
that some things settle on their own.

And as I brushed away the proof,
my finger caught the corner of a bookmark,
a photograph I must have used
to hold my place those many years ago.

How strange to find it there—
a snapshot I’d forgotten
of a memory all but lost
until…
I took the bookmark in my hand
and, happily, it took me back
and made me laugh again.
© Copyright 2007, TK, Patterns of Ink

Sanctuary

[Written before dawn on High Lake near Traverse City, Michigan]

There are in northern Michigan more lakes than can be counted on a map.

Cupped hands that hold the overflow of secret springs or creeks and rivers 

stretching across the mitt like life-lines ‘cross an open palm. 

Once surrounded only by towering pine and mighty oak 

and intermittent lines of white-washed birch—

a vertical throng of reverence to the holy sky.

Once unseen but for eyes afoot in moccasins awake at break of day. . .

to worship in the still reflection of the dawn amid the praise 

of a distant woodpecker tapping time to the tune of thrush and robin 

and the coo of mourning doves whose song is sullied 

by the gibes of an incessant jay.  Each to his own . . .

as the red sphere peeks above the trees 

where just the night before a loon 

was sighing lonely salutations to the moon. 

(C)2013 Tom Kapanka

A Brief History of Birchbark Canoes in Michigan

I have a hobby that, until now, I've not written about here at POI: I enjoy making miniature birchbark canoes. The designs I use pay tribute the Ojibwa/Ottawa Indians of the Great Lakes Region. 

Each hand-crafted model takes about four hours to make using hand-cut, steamed, and sewn materials from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As was true of the large canoes that once whispered across Michigan's lakes and streams, each canoe is different in color and detail. For decades, these small models have made unique gifts for Michigan historians, folk-art collectors, and sportsman. (In my case, I wanted one as a souvenir on a camping trip, but couldn’t afford it. So my dad made my first in 1964.) 

Each canoe is signed and dated (never know, in 100 years they may be collectible on “Antiques Road Show”😉) Each canoe rests in a small stand made from bits of a deer hide from my father’s 1965 hunt in the U.P.. 

Watch some of the process on my YouTube channel: 

Woodlands Indian tribes in our region were different from those depicted in American “Western” movies in that they relied more on fishing, hunting, and the fur trade with early settlers than did their western counterparts. Because of this interdependence with Michigan’s great outdoors, particularly with rivers and lakes, the Ojibwa/Ottawa tribes became master craftsman of birch, and for centuries birchbark canoes and birchbark teepees lined their villages.

White birchbark is strong and somewhat flexible when fresh. It sheds water and resists rot. It can be harvested from felled trees in lengths 10’ or more. When removed in full thickness it is similar to rawhide or shoe-leather. A model canoe requires only a sheet the size of 8.5x11 notebook paper, but a real canoe began with the "skin" of  two large birch trees with seams sealed with pine tar.

Expert craftsmen continue to make full-sized birchbark canoes in the Great Lakes region. The skills and techniques now used actually exceed what was possible for Native Americans in pre-colonial America.  An example of such an artisan’s work from beginning to end may be seen at this link.    

Miniature birchbark canoes, however, can be made from smaller thinner patches peeled from the outer layers of bark. Removing such samples does no harm to the living tree which routinely “sheds”the outer layers of bark over the course of many years. Birchbark used for miniature canoes can also be harvested from  fallen birch trees commonly seen near water sources in Michigan woodlands.

Birchbark is also a source of medicinal oils once used by indigenous tribes and still included in “essential oils” today. The oil in the bark makes it resistant to moisture, insects, and rot. It is interesting to note that the birch wood itself is much more vulnerable to decay. This is why hikers often observe that the bark of a fallen birch retains its shape long after the wood inside has turned to pulp. 

My fascination with miniature birchbark canoes began in 1964 at Black Lake State Forest near Cheboyban, Michigan. '

I was eight years old that summer, and my family was tent camping (as we did each summer for twenty years).  I had seen an 8”  birchbark canoe at souvenir store in town, but it was priced way beyond my souvenir budget. When I put it back on the shelf, Dad said, “I’ll bet we can make some of those from that birch log we saw by the dead porcupine yesterday.” (We had seen a dead porcupine on a hike the day before, but I had not noticed the birch log. I was far more fascinated with the length of the porcupines quills.) 

When we got back to the campground we retraced our steps down a path into the woods. The dead porcupine was gone, but sure enough there was a birch log I’d paid no attention to the day before. Using his small hatchet and knife, Dad pulled off two patches of bark about the size of a handkerchief. The bark was still moist and came off with little effort. I later learned that birchbark can also be harvested from living trees without harm—so long as you make only vertical cuts and remove only the “outer bark,” leaving the “inner bark” (called cambium) in tact.   

I still have that first birchbark canoe from 1964. You can see it in the video link at the end of paragraph one. To this day, I remember sitting at a picnic table beside our tent with my dad and siblings. . . doing the best we could to make souvenirs with a few crude tools. What we lacked in craftsmanship we made up for in time well spent. That little canoe symbolizes a father spending one of his hard-earned vacation days with his kids in Michigan’s great outdoors, putting natural resources to enduring use, strengthening family bonds, and creating a connection between present and past. It is in that respect, that my first birchbark canoe and all those to follow pay tribute the Ojibwa/Ottawa Indians of the Great Lakes Region. 

The Hope of Fallen Earth

 

In the Valley of the Shadow 

beneath the linen fold

a quiet hand stopped holding back

what was not ours to hold.

Gone the glow of fading days

and waves left whispering to the shore.

Ahead the hope of fallen earth

heaping time on time no more.

Sweet the taste of sorrow's tears

Soft the eyes from crying 

when all that's left of all the years...

that life that follows dying.

(c) Tom Kapanka 2-4-2022

Late Wednesday night, my wife Julie was reading quietly aloud "... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me..." the fourth verse of the 23rd Psalm. Her voice was calm and comforting as she read on to close with "...Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." 

We were in the ER of Mercy hospital... that was our valley of the shadow of death. 

Three hours before we had been sitting at the small dining room table in the "apartment" we had created for her mother in our home's favorite room. It has a fireplace, a kitchenette, a private bathroom, living room and spacious bedroom, and Mom has enjoyed living there with us since last summer. It was a typical evening other than the fact that we were all tired and started saying our "G'nights" around 8:30.  Prayer time began with a review of those we pray for every night and a few others who had come to mind while sitting there. "How's Ruth? Mom asked, referring to a dear friend of ours who had gone through her own "valley of the shadow" just a few months ago. And so the prayer time included Ruth. This was all as routine as Mom's other bedtime rituals. In fact, she was brushing her teeth when I said my "G'night, Mom" through the bathroom door. "G'night, Tom," she replied, and I went upstairs. 

Two or three minutes later, Julie heard a load scream unlike any sound we've ever heard in our home before. "Tom, did you leave the TV on in the family room?" She asked. "No. I'm sure I turned it off." We ran down the stairs to find Mom on the carpeted floor at the foot of the bed. 

"What happened, Momma," Julie cried. "I don't know," Mom moaned, as her hand motioned to her face. She was trying to explain the unbearable pain n her head. "Please call an ambulance." 

I made the 911 call and stayed in conversation while EMT was in route. About eight minutes later four EMT's were surrounding mom, but she was no longer able to answer their questions as she had ours just moments before. When she tried to speak only a moan came out. Her blood pressure was unthinkably high (245 over something), and her eyes prompted one of the men to whisper to another: "brain bleed?" (Later this was confirmed, but the term the doctor used was hemorrhagic stroke.) 

Fast forward, and we were sitting beside Mom in the ER where Julie was reading the 23rd Psalm from her phone. Mom was non-responsive but her breathing was steady. The reading was for us as much as for her, but we have always been firm believers that non-responsive people at that point in time are listening to what we say as if hearing someone talking when we feel trapped in a dream before waking. 

When Julie was done reading, I played the following video clip softly into Mom's ear. Her eyes were barely open, still and unfocused on anything, but I believe her ears were alert. You see.... this video clip is one Mom often played at night since the last day in August when her husband of seventy years had passed away. It was from their 50th Anniversary gathering in Waverly, Kansas.

By this time, our daughter Emily had arrived and was holding her grandmother's hand beneath the bed linen. Each of us would do the same in the hours to come. Our other two daughters would be their shortly. (The fact that Security allowed five guests in the small ER room when Covid restrictions allow only one, confirmed that all of the staff on the floor knew what the doctor had told us in the moments after we'd arrived: "All we can do is make her comfortable.") 

As I played this song to Mom, her posture changed. She relaxed, her breathing became calm and quiet. I had absolutely no doubt she heard it and perhaps took hope in being on the brink of a reunion she so often spoke of. That very night at the end of prayer time, she looked at the picture of her husband on the nightstand and said, "I miss your Daddy so much. He was the love of my life. I want to be with him." Julie replied as she always did, "I know, Momma. We miss him, too, but we're so thankful for the wonderful memories we have until God calls us home." The exchange was common, and we'd speak of happy things to come... of births and birthdays and Dad's memorial gathering in June (a big reunion of sorts). Mom would smile and nod, but using her phone, there in her bed, she would watch this video that we had digitized from VHS last August. We could hear it through the door.

Wednesday night, she heard Dad singing the song again, two or three times as I played the clip over and over. 

Kim and Natalie arrived and we spent the next two hours telling stories and talking as if Mom could hear every word. The girls left after 1:00AM, and the ER staff moved the three of us to a more private room, where we thought we'd be until they moved us upstairs after 9:00AM's scheduled meeting with hospice, but at 5:23AM, Mom's calm breathing slowed... then stopped... and she joined the love of her life and The One who gives life everlasting.

 

Author's Note:
The line in the poem: "Gone the the glow of fading days / and waves left whispering to the shore..." came from the evening captured in this video of Mom viewing a Grand Haven Sunset last September.
In the line "Ahead the hope of fallen earth..." fallen had originally ended in "ing" in reference to the last act of graveside procedures, but I changed it to fallen as in the state of this world without the hope of what's ahead "...heaped like time on time no more..." contrasts the resettling of earth's sediment (the grave) upon the life no longer restricted by time.

In the two days since that night in the ER, we have been counting blessings that mingle with grief. Here is one of the last videos we made with Mom. It was her first time with her new Granddaughter who had been born exactly one month before in the same hospital where we were that night.

Just Before The End

I’ve changed some since before all this--

before sense gave way to the global scare

of something in the air...

Before our smiles were veiled

and strangers snarled if we exhaled 

within two outstretched arms.....

before our eyes could cast aspersions 

from behind the magic masks

as if peeking through drawn curtains

at shadows in the yard.

And now that it has passed 

(or in this pause between two storms),

I’ve learned to value strangers on the street

and treasure recollections of those I meet

in the same place where they were before.

It started weeks ago, when my wife and I,

in hopes of seeing something just the same,

ventured to a diner where we sometimes went

and though it had a different name, 

we went again.

(It had never gone to pitching tents outdoors.

Instead, it closed for a year or more

before the new owner mustered up the nerve 

to open for business again.)

Across the room was a waitress 

who through the years 

had topped my coffee off in passing. 

I did not know her name nor she ours

but we were "regulars" enough to catch her eye,

and her distant glance and smile seemed to say,

"You're back. I remember you. So glad to see

you're still in the cast of this play we’re in again."

We later spoke, of course, 

but the gist of what we said was that.

Such glances seem to happen everywhere I go.

I'll see someone I don't really know

and smile at them as if I do,

and they do the same to me on cue. 

A mother and child out for a walk...

The man at the hardware store...

The cashier at the grocer, smiling behind glass

like a teller at the bank.

Strange that simply seeing faces makes me smile--

unexpectedly--because they are not loved ones

or friends from long ago.

They are the “extras” in the movie of my life

as I am an extra in theirs.

(No matter who we are, at some stage, in some setting,

in someone else's script...

we're all of us merely extras--bit parts... passers by

without whose presence the story is not real.)

Till now, we extras went unnoticed and uncredited,

but now, after all this, unwittingly and unrehearsed

we're in supporting roles with perfect strangers.

The throw-away lines and greetings 

once lost in the ambient noise

now somehow suddenly matter…

the words matter… the people matter… 

the going on matters…

as our unmasked faces show again 

a glimpse of whose image they bear.

So here’s to the vaguely familiar faces

we see again each day. 

Here's to the extras and nameless pedestrians

simply going on their way 

as the last scene slowly widens

and the streets and buildings blur

to the long and gradual bend

of the horizon

that slowly fades... just before 

The End.

It has now been 18 months since our state first closed its schools. Most everyone I know admits to going through phases during the pandemic that began to spread around the world in 2019. The first phase was disbelief: "How could this be?" Even as we watch with pity as Italy sang through the night, it didn't seem like it would happen here in the U.S. But it did. 

The second phase was survival mode and we all walked a tight rope between faith and fear, characterized by extreme caution on a dystopian movie set of empty streets and shuttered storefronts. For months, we worked from home and rarely went outside as delivered groceries sat for 24 hours on our porches. Then, as if handling nitroglycerine, our gloved hands sanitized the paper bags and individual containers (Paper bags, we were told, were safer than plastic.)

The third stage was confusion.  We had been told that common masks were ineffective and not needed. Then they were mandated indoors and out. By the seventh month, some schools were determined to open (as we did), while many states began a long year of "distance learning" for millions of students. Unemployment soared. A sense of isolation and lost hope began affecting people's mental health, and the suicide rate began to escalate even as the number of actual deaths from the virus began to decline. Businesses remained closed, many went under and never reopened. Some restaurants began serving limited menus in make-shift clear tents or shanties. 

In many major Democratically-controlled cities, massive protests and riots were allowed to go on virtually unimpeded by law enforcement (officers of which were, in fact, the subject of the protests). Historic statues and monuments were torn down and defaced. The nation was torn along political lines, and the fact that so called "red states" were handling the pandemic quite differently than "blue states." This political divide led to distrust as the pandemic was used as the reason to allow untested "mail-in" voting for the 2020 presidential election. The aftermath of that controversial process continues to play out in America to this day. And in places like Australia, even more dystopian Marxism has taken control.

By June, 2021, 14 months after the closures, and several months after the non-FDA-approved vaccines were made available to all who chose to get it, most of America was reopen again. By this time, there was a deep sense of doubt in anything that the "experts" had to say about our health status. By then the source of the virus (Wuhan, China) was no longer in doubt even by those who had denied the most obvious facts for more than a year. The only thing that unified "both sides" seemed to be that masks were no longer needed (and once again proclaimed ineffective in blocking the virus). 

Seeing a masked face has now become the exception rather than the rule. One can go days without seeing a mask. Faces and smiles are all around. It is wonderful, and it was when this window of "normalcy" first opened that we ate at a Grand Haven diner (formerly called "Delite"). It had been completely renovated into a 1950's motif. It was attractive but entirely different with many new young staff and though it was late June in a tourist town, there were many empty tables. It was then we saw the one person we recognized from the years before. Those thoughts prompted these lines.

I'm a big fan of old movies, and I like the ones that end without answering all of the questions, but the director's choice to end the story with a wider and wider shot until the viewer is seeing a more omniscient perspective reminds us that all is in God's hands... from beginning to end.

Note: Just one of the studies done on how masks make communication difficult.

"No Splash": A Screensaver Sonnet

 

Traipsing down a path that each day seems

the same, he came upon a sight he'd never seen:

the swimming hole of all his boyhood dreams.

Could it be real? This place he’d never been

but forever yearned to be?  He rubbed his eyes

and filled his lungs with the misty air

that vanished in the warm sunrise.

A stone's throw away, a waterfall washed care

and stress from a cliff to a rippling pool,

and though he was not dressed

to swim, he dove headlong toward the cool

fount like an arrow, but his finger pressed

the button by mistake… and POOF! it was gone.

No splash as he stared at his email inbox with a yawn.

© April 22, 2021

A Case for Love

(This story is reposted from the October, 05 and February, 2007 and now here in 2021.) The name of the street was Lovejoy, That was really the name, and the house stood proudly at the top of the street’s long hill. No two houses on the street were alike, and shade trees lined  both sides —the way streets used to look. It was a classic two-story built in 1922 with great lines and two strong columns on the porch.  We loved it the moment we saw the realtor sign in the yard, and we made arrangements to see the next day. The inside seemed to whisper at each nook and archway that this was a home where memories had been made and where they lingered still. There was a corner nook beside the fireplace that seemed built especially for a Christmas tree, and though it was only June, that feature alone put a sparkle in our eyes that rang true to the street’s name. Our two Christmases there confirmed that this was,  indeed the most enchanting home we would ever own. The front room fireplace crackled and cast a glow on the tree in the corner. Sitting there in my winged-back chair, I lacked only a pipe to hold smokeless in my mouth. I do not smoke a pipe, and never have, but it was the kind of house that prompted fathers to smoke pipes back in the day.  I had envisioned seeing my girls grow up in those charming rooms—birthday parties in the family room, prom pictures on the entry stair—and all the points of passing time such pictures hold in memory. But a different kind of change came, and two years after moving in, we were moving away.  With the interior touches we’d done, we listed at 30% above what we had paid and marketed it ourselves by making a brochure and hosting our own "Open House.” The traffic of lookers was non-stop and very encouraging. Some we knew were there just to check out a house they had no intention of buying. We knew such people existed because Julie and I often did it ourselves. Still it was fun to know that our efforts might pay off. After two hours, as a hint for people to leave, we began putting away our signs and brochures, offering cookies from half-empty plates, and thanking people for stopping by.  Eventually all the guests filed out the front and side door of the house—that is, all but one gray haired lady who remained on our porch smiling at the others as they left. She was a sweet lady, and behaved as if she were part of our family invited over to add to the ambiance of baked cookies and lit candles, but the fact is... we  did not know her.  I had first noticed her about an hour before, taking a self-guided tour through every inch of all four levels from basement to walk-up attic. Two buyers were coming back that evening, presumably to make an offer. Was she going to beat them to the punch? She was dressed like she could afford our asking price, but what would she do with such a big house? She must have read my puzzled eyes.  "I wanted to wait until the others were gone," she whispered politely. "My name is Charlotte Bascomb, and I lived in this house for twenty-five years. Our two boys grew up here and went off to college from this doorway." "Oh, come in," we begged, "and do tell us more about it."  My wife and I love learning the stories behind things we own, whether it's a hundred-year-old chair or a house, and up until that moment we had only imagined how the years must have passed in this storied home through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, WWII, the fifties, and so on. As it turned out she had lived there from the late Fifties through the early Seventies, but to our surprise, she said their story had ended badly. We were surprised at how stoically she told of her last years in the house, and how her husband, who was a lawyer, had become an abusive alcoholic which led to a divorce and, in the end, to his untimely death. She told the account as if it had happened to a neighbor and not herself. We soon learned why the details seemed so distant.   "After that, I stayed in the house for a few years. The boys had taken jobs out of state. and I didn't like being here alone, so I bought a smaller place. I was alone when the moving van pulled away with everything I owned. I walked through the house one last time from basement to attic—to see if I'd forgotten anything but mostly to remember... things... you know..." (We nodded without a word).  "I ended up in the attic and was just about to leave when I thought I saw something way back in the corner. I walked across those rickety floorboards toward a shadow that looked like a little suitcase. You know how bad the lighting is up there." [She was right, but I had added two fixtures.] "By the way, you have the attic so cute. I saw the pictures of your three girls in the hallway, and when I went up in the attic, I thought 'Well, this looks just like Little Women up here.' The way you have that dress-up room and all those antiques and things. I bet the girls love it."   "Oh, they do," we smiled, "and you're right, we often call them our 'little women' when they spend the day up there, but you were saying something about a little suitcase...."   "Oh, yes. That. Except it wasn't a suitcase at all. It almost frightened me the more I stared at it. I was afraid to reach for it in the dark, but soon as I touched the worn leather handle, I remembered what it was, and I brought it out to the window to see it in the light. The case was a dusty mess, but the clasps flipped up, and inside it was just as bright as I remembered it... beautiful red velvet. It was my son's saxophone. He played in the marching band at the high school. I hadn't seen it for years—who would've put it so far back? And then I remembered something that bothered me. This wasn't really my son's saxophone—it was the one he used alright—but I remembered that it actually belonged to an old family friend. You see, my husband played in a jazz band in college, and he and his buddies kept rehearsing for years afterwards even though they rarely actually performed anywhere. Things were good then…. Well, anyway, years later, my oldest wanted to play in the band and Howard—he was the friend—said we could borrow his sax. So all through school, John—that's my son—used it, but I had no idea we'd left it there in the attic all those years. It's a miracle I even saw it that day...in that dark corner. It was the only thing I carried out of this house the last time I was here."   "Wow. That's quite a story," I said. Her eyes glistened as she looked around the interier of the house once again.  "And you almost left it here." Julie said half wondering what else to say.  Mrs. Bascomb was clearly not ready to leave. We stood awkwardly in the entry way. I gestured toward the living room and asked if she would like to stay longer. "No. I really need to be going. I just wanted to meet you and tell you how wonderful it was to see that this was a happy, beautiful home again. I really can’t stay…” There was a long pause, and then she smiled like she had a secret to tell. "This will only take a minute," she said. "There's more to the story." "Are you sure you don't want to come in and sit?" Julie asked. "No. I shouldn't, but I do think you should know... After things settled a bit—a year or so—I called Howard. He'd moved out east a long time ago, but I finally tracked him down. He laughed when I told him I found his saxophone, but he told me to just give it to Goodwill. I told him I couldn't do that—it wouldn't be right—and it wouldn’t, you know, not after all that."  (We nodded in wholehearted agreement.)  "Howard and I talked for the longest time. His wife had passed away a few years prior. That was too bad. It's hard to live alone." She meant the words and knew them to be true, but there was also a twinkle in her eye as if she had very few people to tell this story to, and she was savoring every tid-bit. "Poor Howard... All alone. He was semi-retired but was getting ready to fly to Europe on business the next day. So we had to get off the phone, but he did ask for my number. Which... I thought was nice, you know... old friends and all—but since he didn't want the sax, I wasn't sure I'd ever hear from him. Well, about two weeks later who do you think called?"   Our eyebrows rose with unconvincing suspense, "Howard?"   "Yes. It was Howard. We visited a bit and then he said, 'You know, Char—he never called me Charlotte—I've been thinking about that saxophone, and you're right. I think I need to come and get it. Will you be home this weekend if I fly in?' Well, I was speechless. Of course, I'd be home. Where else would I be? But I didn't know what to say. I offered to send it UPS, but he said, 'No, I think I need to come and get it myself.' And that's just what he did. We had a wonderful time that whole weekend—he was always such a gentleman—but then he went and forgot the sax so he had to come back the next week. Well you probably guessed it... He kept coming whenever he could, and never took home that saxaphone. We got married later that year, and I spent the happiest 12 years of my life with Howard. It was wonderful right up until the end... cancer."  The word abruptly punctuated her thoughts but had no effect on her smile, and her eyes still held the joy they found in those unexpected happy years. "It's been four years—just me again, but at my age I can't complain. I had a second chance at love and it was wonderful—just like our street sign says 'Lovejoy.'"  There was another pause, but this one needed no words. It was my eyes that were glistening by then as they are now even as I type these years after hearing her tell this red-velvet story that makes such a compelling case for love.  "Thank you for listening to an old woman's story and for making me feel welcome in my home—your home, I mean. I really do need to be going. I want to call my boys and tell them where I've been."   "The pleasure was all ours," we said, stepping to the porch and helping her down to the front path. Half way to her car she turned and took one last look at the house then cast a glance up at the attic window.   "I still have that saxophone in my closet at the apartment— be sure to check the attic corners when you leave." Her hand held back a laugh, but her shoulders shook a little as she smiled and turned toward her car. © Copyright 2005, TK, Patterns of Ink  (I was moved by this lady's story when "Mrs. Bascolm" [not her real name] told it to us in June of 2000. Hearing it made it even harder to accept the fact that we were moving. But we were also very happy the next day when the house sold to a Doctor with a young family. He and his wife couldn't wait to move in. Whenever we or our children travel back to that town in Iowa, we drive by "the little blue house" on Berkshire [which has since been painted yellow]. We lived there for 13 years. We also drive by this wonderful home on Lovejoy, where we lived for only two years before moving to Michigan. We love it here, but the house is newer and the seven years have passed too fast it seems for stories. [It has been my experience that the stories closest to home take the longest to crystallize into something you can hold up to the light and say, "Wasn't that beautiful."]) My daughter took this picture of us with her when she went to visit our former home town. She then carefully lined up the snapshot with the actual porch. I will never forget the night we moved away. It had taken all day to load the moving van and our two cars, and it was dark by the time we were ready to roll. Ready that is but for one missing item. It was not a saxaphone. It was Emily (the daughter who took this picture). I found her up in the room just beyond the windows at the top of the porch roof. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. She didn't have to say a word. It was one of the hardest moments of our shared life. She was completely supportive of the move, and like all us, she has no regrets (nor do her husband and three children who would not exist were it not for the move), but it was a hard home to leave behind. If you're in the mood for another story about a second chance at love,go to my April 06 Archive. Scroll down to April 1 "Visiting Home." It's the first of four sequential, "verse" posts about my Mom's wedding cake (and what happened fifty years later).

The Wedding Book

(Reposted and slightly revised (to change the first two stanza from present to past tense) for the 70th Anniversary of my parents' wedding date: 2-10-2021)

I had gone back to our homestead 

 in the dead of winter and deep snow 

to keep my mother company for a few days 

in the now-quiet house our family built 

those many years ago. 

 It is a quiet comfort to step inside the one place 

on earth that in your mind is "home"-- 

not the house where you now live 

and share life with those who know the present you-- 

oh, that is home indeed, make no mistake, 

but I'm speaking of a corner in your mind... 

that place you left when it was time 

 that gladly takes you back again. 

If such a place exists for you, 

I highly recommend you go there while you can, 

and if inside there is a face to greet you at the door... 

then you will know the meaning of these lines. 

 I stood there with a gentle knock

 after a day at work and a four-hour drive. 

The front porch light was on, 

but the windows were dim,

and Mom was asleep on the davenport 

(as mother always called a "couch"), 

 but she woke at my knock, 

and stumbled to the door as if

her legs had not awakened with her.

We visited into the night until I nodded off 

and suggested we continue 

reminiscing in the morning. 

(Reminiscing is what becomes of conversations

stretched through time.)   

Rising early and alone with a pad and pen, 

I was drawn to the davenport and the pillow

still pressed in from Mother's head the night before. 

Sitting there, I noticed that 

the living room still knew the meaning of its name 

(but now a quiet sort of living to be sure). 

Gone were the days of horsy-back rides, 

our daughters’ song and dance upon the hearth, 

and wrapping paper strewn on Christmas morn. 

That sort of living in the room had faded like a snapshot 

left too many years upon a windowsill. 

It had been twelve winters (and twelve springs) 

since that bustle in the house 

that draws the tie that binds and finds 

 a way synchronize the laughter and the sighs 

till joy returns to vacant eyes 

enough to start the long goodbyes as one by one 

life calls apart what death has brought together. 

I smiled at how the many things find ways to gather 

undisturbed in corners where the carpet was not worn— 

and in countless numbers scrawled on torn scraps 

and backs of envelopes in the nook 

where the phone sat atop the yellow pages 

 left waiting on the corner chair. 

Across the room, was a row of photo albums 

in the shadow of the attic stair 

beside boxes waiting to be carried up 

next time the need to climb them came. 

And there it was I saw the wedding book 

was left waiting on the bottom step. 

Reaching through the banister I took the book in hand. 

Its pebbled ivory cover took me back the fifteen years 

when last it lay upon lap, 

the time my girls sat spellbound at my side. 

I'd borrowed it to make a video photomontage.

They'd never seen the book before-- 

a splendid volume of full-page black-and-whites 

with details crystallized in time: 

You can almost feel the softening varnish 

on the blackened backs of pews; 

and smell the winter on the woolen coats; 

and hear the hatted women in the crowd whispering, 

“Don’t look at the camera,” 

while children gaze bewildered in the lens.

It’s as if the photographer knew
these weren’t just wedding pictures—
especially in the group tableaus—
it’s as if he knew…
this was the cast party
of the unfolding play
that was our life before we lived.

Each shot is in the old historic church that shares its name
with the fort that once stood there
and the old lighthouse still standing
and the avenue that in its day
tied Port Huron to Detroit
and all points in between…
and thus became the byway of our lives.

The Wedding Guests

I rose to put some coffee on,
and when the pot had sputtered its last sigh,
Mom was up to share a cup
and ask me what I had there in my lap.
And so began a conversation
that saw us through to lunch and gave a glimpse
of how life’s yarn is spun and knit…
and how a Providential twist
can turn into the tie that binds.

I opened to the reception picture,
the most intriguing of them all.
There’s a clock on the wall
that says it’s nearly nine, and in that moment
the basement of the church is filled
with shared contentment.

Mom pointed at the page.
“Doesn’t my dad look handsome there?
Look at Mumma, and your Dad’s mom,
and that’s Aunt Edith beside her.”

“Isn’t she the one who kicked
her underwear off the bridge?” I smiled.

“No. That was Aunt Dean,” she laughed,
turning back a page to point her out
and obliged to tell the story once again.
“Jupiter! She was walking home
across the 10th Street Bridge
in downtown Port Huron—
not Military Street, the other one—
and right in the middle of the bridge,
her elastic snapped and down they dropped
like a parachute 'round her ankles.
Do you remember?” Mom laughed.
(I wasn’t there, of course,
but nodded so as not to break her thought.)

“On the spot she had to choose—
her dignity or her drawers?—
she could not have them both.
The coming traffic forced her call,
and with a flick of her less than dainty foot
she nonchalantly kicked her panties
through the railing on the bridge—
pshhhhew—and let them billow down
to the boats below. Black River’s
busy that time of year, you know.
And then she walked right on home
like nothing happened.”

“Enjoying the cool summer breeze,” I added,
since she’d left out that line.

“Yep. That’s what she said
whenever we made fun.
But you have to remember,
that was during World War II—
there was a shortage of rubber,
and they were chinsin’ on elastic.
My land! we couldn’t even buy stockings—
we had to draw hose seams
on the back of our legs with eyebrow pencil.
Between the air-raid drills and Hitler
and our loose underwear,
we ladies lived in constant fear."

I’d heard the story and its tie-in to the war
a hundred times before
(as I had the many that followed),
but it was wonderful
to hear Mom’s laugh
and the lilt in her voice again.

The Wedding Cake

Mom turned the page
to the picture of the cake
and told me something
that I’d never heard,
nor was there cause
to hear it until now.
“Did you know Bob made
the wedding cake we served?”
“Your Bob?” I asked,
wanting to hear more.

“My Bob,” she smiled.

“His family owned a bakery
near the corner of 10th and Lapeer—
just five blocks from the bridge.”
“The underwear bridge?” I asked.
“Just a walk from there, and around the corner
from our house on Lapeer Avenue.”

“Time out, Mom. I’m confused.
You just said OUR house on Lapeer?"

“Well, we didn’t live there yet, of course,” she said.
"We didn’t move there ‘til you were born—
Let's see... Kathy in ’52; Paul in ’53;
Dave in ’54;and you in ’56—
So this was five years before.
Those were fun days weren’t they, Tom?
You in droopy diapers riding Duke,
and Dave and Paul wearing pots on their heads
in the sandbox, and Kathy playing dress-up...”

She drifted off to someplace in her mind,

a place I knew mostly from old photos

and the stories Mom and Dad so often shared.

“They were magic years, Mom, but… the cake.
You were telling me about the cake.”

“Oh, yea… Well, Bob and I
were in class together since 7th grade.
He’d come over to talk sometimes
when Barb and Jean and I
were sitting on the back-porch swing.
(She turned back to the reception page.)
That’s Barb there serving cake—
but that wasn’t the cake I’d ordered.
You see what happened was…
an acquaintance of ours had offered
to make a wedding cake,
and she brought it to my house—
you know, Grandma’s house
on Forest Street—the day before.
But the cake was not what I'd described at all,
and soon as she left, I just bawled.
I had no time and no money left to fix it
and then I remembered Bob.
He worked at his folk's bakery on 10th.
So I caught the bus, and...”

“Wait a minute, Mom.” I interrupted. “Why a bus?"

“I didn't have a license; I didn't have a car—
it was your dad who taught me how to drive,
but that was later on;
and Daddy, my dad, was workin' I guess;
and Dad Collinge was probably at the Grotto;
and Mumma never drove—ever...
but we always managed to get around—
just like she still hops a bus to the beauty shop
and she's just pert-near 100. Isn't that something?
I used to take the bus every day
from Riverview to Stone Street.
This is when I worked at Star Oil."

"I remember that you worked there—
it was by Pine Grove, but I guess
I never heard about the bus."

"Here's something else
I'll bet I never told you about Star Oil:
I worked in accounts receivable? Imagine that.
Me who flunked bookkeeping—
all I remembered about bookkeeping
was it being the only word
with three double letters in a row,
but they hired me just the same.”

My jaw dropped,“Now that I did not know..."

“What? About the double letters?”

“No that you worked in accounts receivable.”

“Ironic isn’t it, but that’s what I did…
right up ‘til a few months before Kate was born.
That was the only “job” job I ever had.
Then you kids became my job
and your dad, of course…
but he was working that day ‘til five,
climbing poles for Bell,
saving his days-off for the honeymoon…
so I knew he couldn’t take me.

I never even asked...”

“Take you where?” I wondered aloud.

“To the bakery to see about a cake.”

“Oh, yea. You got me thinkin' about that picture
of Dad smiling at the top of a telephone pole.
Most of your stories I know by heart,
but this cake one I’ve never heard,
and we keep veering off...
So it’s what time? Noon?
The day before the wedding...
and you still need a cake...
you get to the bakery… and then what?”

“I was afraid it was closed.
The door was stuck, but then
I pushed it, and the bell that hung inside
rang so loud it scared me.
No one was at the counter—
which was fine because I knew
I was about to cry again…
so I just stood there staring
at baked goods behind the glass.
I loved the smell of that bakery.
I used to walk you kids
there for doughnuts. Remember?”

“Mom, the cake. I’m like five years
from existing at this point in the story.
If you don’t get this cake,
I may never be born.”

Mom laughed, “You know how I like to tell things—
they're not tangled they're connected.

"So… I’m standing there and Bob comes
from the back to the green counter out front.
We’d lost touch since high school—
I’d heard he was married now—
but he was always such a friend.
‘Hello, Bev!’ He says, ‘What can I do for you?’
He said that. So I asked: ‘Do ya mean it, Bob?
Can you really do something for me?'
I think he could tell something was wrong.
‘I’ll sure try. What do you need?’
And then I just bawled.”

“Mom, you just walked into Bob’s bakery…
after not seeing him for what--three years?

And ya started crying? What did he do?
Had he seen you like that before?”

“Oh, probably. Everybody knew I cried easily,
but he just smiled and said:
‘Bev, for you I can do this.’
‘How can you do this by tomorrow?’
(I was so embarrassed to ask.)
‘For you, I’ll bake it this afternoon,
let it cool overnight, frost it in the morning,
and deliver it to the church myself.’
He scribbled the order on a pad,
open and closed the register drawer,
and said, “No charge.” And I cried again.

The cake was there the next day.
It was beautiful with little roses
on each of the sheet cake squares.

That was the last time I saw Bob
until our 50th Class Reunion
seven years ago. You know the rest."
I did know the rest,
but this story brought a smile
that had been missing
from a chapter of our lives.
Some things take time to understand.

Mom went to the kitchen for a bite,
and I turned to the last picture
at the back of the book.
Mom and Dad are sitting cheek-to-cheek
in the back of a borrowed sedan,
smiles beaming with all the love and happiness
they gave to us for forty-some years to come.

Dad died unexpectedly in ’95,
and Mom lived alone for a while.
Then the Class of ’48 called to see
if she was coming to their reunion.
She was ready.
By stepping briefly into her past
she was able to re-enter the present
and look ahead. Long story short…
Bob was also there and alone that night,
and their friendship was rekindled.
It slowly grew in the forgiving soil
that comes with age until it called for
a gathering of friends and family
about a mile from the other church
(the one in Mom's wedding book).
In a little chapel there
we shared another wedding cake
that as far as I know…Bob didn’t bake
the afternoon before.

Mom was right: Her stories aren't tangled at all...
they're unbelievably connected.

© Copyright 2008

The following video was made during my parents 40th Anniversary Year (which happened to also be my Grandmother's 80th Birthday. 

At the 2:02 mark of the video, you'll see that "they still had it" after a long sabbatical from the dance floor. We only recently discovered this footage on an unmarked Hi8 video tape that had been unwatched nearly 30 years then digitized just in time for the reposting of this story.