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Life’s Winding Path
by Maybelle Irene Burke
Paw Paw, MI 49079
“Joe, we are doing so good here, why move to some place you know nothing about?” Lucille patted her bouffant hair-do and glanced at her husband. He had been talking of moving from Chicago to a small town across Lake Michigan.
“Well,” drawled her husband, “My brother tells me of opportunities in that little town.”
Lucille knew it was of no use to argue the matter, especially as she had just given birth to a baby girl. She could not show independence in the year of 1888. There was no place for a woman in her days.
Joe then went to his bank and withdrew his savings. He had become acquainted with a burly man who owned a sailboat. He had told this man that he wanted to buy property in South Haven and the man offered to take him there for less than other boat lines asked.
Early one July morning Joe was on the dock in Chicago. He had told Lucille to wait until he had a house for her to move into. That was the last anyone ever saw of Joe Curran. He was presumed drowned, as that was what the boat owner had said.
Lucille waited days with no reply, then she procured passage for herself and baby to South Haven.
Staying at her brother-in-law’s home was not what she cared for either. She and his wife didn’t get along too well. Lucille was not the kind to pitch in to help, and with thirteen children to care for, this kind of behavior was not welcome.
Although Elizabeth tried to dissuade Lucille from putting her baby in an orphanage, she did it, and took off for California.
Lucille’s brother-in-law, however, kept an eye on his brother’s child. When he knew a young couple in Schoolcraft, Mich., had adopted the baby girl, he was satisfied that she would receive a good Christian home. He never let his family interfere in her life. She grew up and married a well-to-do man whose name was respected in the community.
The man that Joe had joined to set sail for South Haven was later hanged when found guilty of robbing his passengers and throwing their bodies overboard.
Joe was my great-uncle; his great-grandchildren live near me. However, we have never met. I often wonder if those descendants know that the blood running in their veins is not all Holland Dutch, but German and Irish. Or maybe it wouldn’t matter much to them.
Life’s waters roll on over
A secret deep below;
It’s best to not uncover
Some things we must not know.
To Jerri
by Julie Odell
Columbus, OH 43213
At five we swore eternal friendship
Sharing all our secret hopes, dreams and fears.
We are each half of a whole –
Were we one in another time?
At fifty-eight we still need each other,
Miles and oceans are between us,
Yet you came, you calmed me when death seemed near.
I close my eyes and I can feel your touch, your voice,
Our invisible link chains us together,
We each know what the other needs.
More Desert Facts
by Wesley Taylor
Ocotillo, CA 92259
This area is similar to Palm Springs, nature-wise, but there are multimillionaires there and only ordinary people here. Locals raise a ruckus if anyone suggests development; much of the land is controlled by Bureau of Land Management.
We have quakes here, but buildings are seldom damaged because the ground is like Jello due to the sand and water; it moves but does not jar. A vast supply of fresh water underlies the area; millions of gallons a day are exported; Mexicali, Mexico gets its drinking water from here, and a big wallboard factory six miles east draws 2 million gallons daily. Natives here have been screaming about the water supply for years, but so far there seems enough for every one.
Creatures here are interesting enough that one could write an essay on each. Birds are: roadrunners, ravens, cactus wrens, and a small black eagle, plus others from across the border that I haven’t classified. Animals besides lizards, rabbits and gophers are: tiny chipmunks, horned toads (flat-tailed lizards), and desert badgers, as well as kangaroo rats and mice.
There are too many types of plants, but the creosote, palo verde tree, smoketree, ocotillo, oleander, and desert gourd are especially interesting. The gourd has a potato-like nodule three feet underground at the root ends. The gourd itself is round and about the size of a softball and has hundreds of seeds as hard as iron. When ripened the wind blows them great distances but how they penetrate so far underground is a mystery. The seed of the smoke tree will only sprout after being scrubbed along with wind or water.
The people here seem to be a special breed; if they weren’t they wouldn’t live here. They give many reasons for being here: health, low rent or cheaper real estate. Winters are mild, sun shine 355 days a year; rain less than 2 inches per year. A surprising number of us like the desert and are considered crazy by passers-through. Humidity is low as 5%.
Only fifteen miles west and up 4000 feet, summers are cool, but some of us still stay down here.
In Showcase Number 63, for October, we presented “Pike Memories” which left me wanting (and getting),
More Pike Memories
by Martha Nicklas
Long Beach, CA 90810
The PIKE was built, a block at a time, beginning in 1902 with the Long Beach bath house and Pleasure Pier. The Pier was home for the big Roller Coaster ride, plus many other rides, fun houses and sideshows including the snake show – and well I remember the day the 20-foot boa constrictor escaping from the trailer from where it had been loaded. It was missing for several days and everyone had a case of nerves until it was found resting peacefully in the sand away down the beach.
The Pike had grown and spread many blocks east and west by 1925 when I arrived.
The Loof family from New York – it was reported that they owned a large portion of the Atlantic City Board Walk – bought up all land available along the beach, brought in all sorts of rides, hot dog stands, games of chance and other things found at carnivals.
It grew and grew until in 1931 when we began to hear of something called a Depression, but we on the Pike did not know what it was all about. Some of us didn’t even know who was President, or where Wall St. was. We just laughed and sang, made money and spent it, but just before July 4, 1933, something happened. Our usual big day, the beginning of our busy season, was dead, stopped! We were completely dumbfounded.
One by one the little shops and booths folded and disappeared. The type of people we had known did not come to the Pike any more. It wasn’t a safe place for children or beach lovers.
Bootleggers, drug peddlers, bums of every color and age took over; and now it is gone! Now tall condominiums are being built along the beach where the Pike used to be. I have received eight letters from far away locations, regarding Pike and Fortune Tellers, since Showcase was published. One writer even remembers me, and another had been a friend of mine!
The Showcase
Being a presentation of the Talents of Members of the United Amateur Press; this issue financed by Maybelle I. Burke, Betty Millar, and Willametta Keffer, Roanoke, VA 24014
Featuring: Maybelle I. Burke, Julie Odell, Wesley Taylor and Martha Wicklaw