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The Willow
by Lori Odell
Columbus, OH 43213
Its long tresses gently caress
The moss below and sweep up the broken shell
Of an old robin’s egg.
The willow curves its spineless boughs
To the springtime dance while knotted roots
Twist through age-old remembrances
Of a time long ago.
Bits of bark, loosened by the wind,
Float to the ground uncovering a nostalgic
‘Jimmy & Mary’ that had been carefully
Carved years ago.
This willow is not just a tree – its history having
A special place in the hearts of many generations.
An historical object is how we should view it.
And now this history is crumbling
Because it couldn’t help being in the way
Of man’s progress and another freeway.
Greeting the New Year with Friends
by Norma G. Narde
Corning, NY 14830
Father Time and Baby New Year are welcome guests in our circle of acquaintances. Early New Year’s is spent with good conversation and music in our living room with the children. Later my husband and I go to another couple’s home where more fine friends gather.
We sample our hostess’ famous date-nut bread. One fellow always brings a large pot of delicious, hot pigs-in-the-blanket which he prepares himself. With a beverage of choice, all sit visiting while keeping an eye on TV’s football game. Most of the women are wives of twenty years or so, and by now are as avid sports fans as their mates. When the game is over, we all move on to another home where more friends appear.
Here we discuss who is yet missing, doing what, and how soon will they arrive. There is a continual knocking on the door and cold wisps of air fighting with the warmth of a glowing fireplace as the latecomers arrive, and many hearty hello’s. Without fail, some who make the scene have travelled quite a distance to be present. As midnight approaches we watch the clock while listening to Guy Lombardo music and viewing New Years’ Eve activities over the country. Husbands & wives gravitate toward each other & exactly at the stroke of twelve, there is a great surge of love. Each wishes the other a Happy New Year!, then exchanges fond greetings with everyone else. A short time later all scatter to their respective abodes.
Next afternoon Open House is held at my home. Once more dear friends gather for a buffet. There is an exceptional sense of goodwill ever spiced with humor as past year’s activities are remembered and the future questioned. We have learned that whatever is to be, will be, and are strengthened by knowing that whatever must be faced, good friends will be standing ready to come, if needed. Father Time put to rest, Baby New Year made welcome, we bring these special times to an end, knowing that tho we’ll repeat them with another year’s passing they’ll ever be new, just as bonds of affection between good friends never age.
Desert Facts
by Wesley Taylor
Ocotillo, CA 92259
I would like to turn to the desert for some facts little known even by many who live here and will confine my statements to this, the Uha Desert, for it is the only desert I have ever lived in, and I’m told that it has many things no other place on earth has.
White lizards live here and eat plants instead of insects; their favorite food is the creosote bush, but will eat gardens, too. They are very pretty, will follow you, come to your door and look in at you; some people make pets of them.
The sidewinder rattler is a snake that does not crawl straight ahead, but loops sideways; it looks as if it is rolling. They never grow very big, thirty inches is considered extra long, yet they can swallow a gopher ten times their size. They travel very fast across the sand and their bite is deadly.
A 2000-foot mountain three miles north of our house, Coyote Mountains, is mostly sea fossils; petrified shells & fish skeletons are found there. One bed of petrified oyster shells 5 miles wide by 20 miles long has millions of tons of shells.
Some years one kind of animal or plant will dominate. 1980 was (like the Chinese’) the year of the rabbit & palo verde tree. I sent Willametta a picture showing both rabbit and tree. The tree is less than a year old; the fellow with the big ears is my friend, Barney. 1981 was the year of the gopher and oleander.
The most colorful desert flowers bloom at night, and for every bloom there is a moth that comes from its cocoon near the bloom, spreads its wings, crawls into and out of the bloom and flies away.
The prevailing wind here is from southwest to northeast; most plants lean in that direction, but one form of cactus (cholla, called “chawya’) leans the other way, against the wind.
These are just a few of the things that a layman can notice here. Geologically there have been volumes written about this place, and there is a museum dedicated to this little desert alone. (‘More Facts’ to come)
Tragedy in the Wee Small Hours
by Harry S. Tordoff
Cranston, RI 02920
I was twelve years of age at the time, but this is as clear in my mind today as it was then. Dad, Mom and I had been to the old Emery Theatre in Providence to see the stage play, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and arrived home about 11:00 p.m. Mom and I went into the house while Dad had made his customary inspection of the barn before turning in. All was well, so it was not long before the Tordoff household was in Dreamland.
About 3:00 a.m. Mom was awakened by a reflection of a fire in the mantelpiece mirror in the sitting room and aroused Dad who made a dash out of doors clad only in a nightshirt, but the fire had gained so much headway that any chance of saving the horses from the barn was out of the question. Six horses were actually cooked in their stalls that night. Dewey and Teddy, a grand pair of half-wild draft horses were two, with three others and a recently acquired sleek black driving horse – all suffered the untold agony of death by fire.
Being of an age to be kept out of adult business in those days, I was told to stay in the house, a good 200 feet or more from the barn and thus at a safe distance, where I leaned on the window sill of the sitting room & watched the flames consume not only the barn, but both living and non-living things within. Needless to say, the wonderfully done play we had seen earlier that evening was forgotten in the tragedy of the moment, but The Trail of the Lonesome Pine and the burning of all Dad and Mom had worked so hard to establish, has often been in my mind, tho it took place sixty-four years ago.
To keep a pay coming into the house, Dad took work in the Providence School System as Custodian. In his spare time he cleaned up the debris, and split the farm into two parcels and sold it. From then on we were city folks and Dad worked in that school system until retirement, but the heart for farming had been taken out of him. You see this was the second barn he’d lost in the same way, with a total of twelve horses lost by the tragedy of fire.
The Showcase
Being a Presentation of the Talents of members of the United Amateur Press; this issue financed by Norma G. Narde, Julie Odell, Willametta Keffer. In this Issue: Norma G. Narde, Lori Odell, Wesley Taylor and Harry S. Tordoff