Stories for the Fall 2020 Feedback Sessions
Group B
To avoid emailing stories back and forth, please upload on this page the story you wish to discuss this month.
Post your stories a minimum of one week in advance of the feedback session. Those seven days give you and your buddies time to read and provide helpful feedback on each others’ stories.
Instructions:
- Share your story in the comments section on this page. You can either copy and paste the text of your story in the comment box or click the paperclip icon to attach a PDF of your work. Note: it must be a PDF; Word documents are not accepted on the comment app.
- Print a copy of the Story Review Form (below) for each story your buddies share here.
- Read each story a couple of times.
- Complete the Story Review Form after your readings to organize your thoughts, suggestions, and questions.
- During the live Feedback meeting, you will share with your buddy what you wrote on the form, as well as anything new upon hearing their story read aloud.
- Email a copy of your completed Story Review Form to each buddy so they can keep a record of comments and suggestions related to their story.
If there are specific questions you’d like answered, or if you want your buddies to concentrate more heavily on a certain story device, e.g., dialogue, opening, title, etc., please include those requests in the comments when you attach your story. Ask for what you need to help you make your story the best it can be.
The Feedback Guidelines are available below to provide the framework of how Life Writers approaches giving and receiving feedback on written work, both via posts on the website and during feedback sessions.
Feedback Sessions
10/27 @ 6pm EDT
11/17 @ 6pm EDT
12/29 @ 6pm EDT
7 Comments
beckymcg19
Cohen
Summer of 2011 found my youngest son, Jeremy, in Noblesville, Indiana, with his dog, Cohen. Jeremy worked close enough to his apartment to let Cohen out during lunch, and each evening Jeremy took a mile run with Cohen to get Jeremy and Cohen’s energy out. A local pet store sold Cohen to Jeremy as a pure-bred black Labrador retriever, but when the puppy’s paws grew beyond a standard Lab, Jeremy took Cohen to the vet. It turned out Cohen was part-mastiff and part-Lab. He needed those large paws because Cohen ultimately stood four feet tall, 125 pounds of pure muscle.
Two years later, Jeremy found a new and better job in New York City and enjoyed all aspects of the move, except that he could not take Cohen. The maximum dog weight accepted in a New York City rental was sixty-five pounds. Jeremy searched for someone to take Cohen, but his size proved to be a significant problem. I agreed to keep Cohen while Jeremy continued to look for a home. I already owned a ten-pound Papillion, Eve, who ruled our house. When Cohen showed up, he licked Eve and bowed to her authority.
The house settled into a groove of me walking Cohen in the morning and evening, while Eve went outside whenever it suited her. We learned Cohen loved to chase tennis balls and swim in our pool. Combining the tennis ball and the pool became nirvana for him, but I still needed to walk him. Cohen and I worked on his constant pull on the leash because he found it hard to match his pace to mine. I also tried to teach him to sit, stay, shake paws, and lie down. After weeks of training, he managed to learn to ‘sit’. Cohen never responded to another command. He is a lovable dog, but not the smartest puppy from his litter.
To maintain control of Cohen, my hand was placed through the loop at the end of his leash. I wrapped the leash around my hand a second time. This grip gave me a secure hold. One afternoon I took Cohen for a walk through our neighborhood as usual. Halfway through, he saw a squirrel and took off after it. My hand remained wrapped up in the leash, and I could not keep up with him. I tripped and landed face down on the sidewalk. Cohen continued to run. He pulled me down the sidewalk, passed two houses while I yelled, “Sit, sit, sit.”. The squirrel ran up a tree, and Cohen finally stopped, staring up the tree, looking for the squirrel. Neighbors who witnessed the scene came over to help me up. While some were concerned, most of them were laughing.
“Hey, Miss Becky. That was just like a cartoon.”
“Yep, from a Scooby-Doo episode.”
“Wow, that dog dragged you a long way.”
“Sorry for laughing, but that was awesome,” said my next-door, seven-year-old neighbor.
I tried to remain calm, but the pain soared as various body parts sent my brain messages. Road rash ran down the inside of my left arm. Skin showed through my shirt and pants. My left knee appeared to have doubled in size. And the toes of my tennis shoes were holey.
With the help of a neighbor, I wobbled into an upright position. Cohen looked at me and lowered his head; Cohen knew he had done something wrong and moved to my side. Then he finally sat down. I used him as a cane and limped home. I spent a week on the couch, with ice on my knee and Neosporin on my arm. My punishment for not handling a leash correctly. I grounded Cohen. No walks for him for two weeks.
The road rash faded, and my knee returned to its normal size. The memory of the pain disappeared, and I began to walk Cohen again. We started back at ground zero, working on his constant pull on the leash. I knew if he took off on me, I would not be able to stop him. My grip on the leash was only a handhold of the loop at the end of the strap. This ensured it would slip off easily. I began looking for a dog walker. A few weeks later, I found the perfect woman, Racheal. I hired her to start the next Monday.
Saturday night around 11:00 p.m., Cohen begged at the front door. I put his leash on and told him we would only go out to the front yard and back inside. We walked to the end of our driveway. Cohen spotted another squirrel and took off, his every muscle pumping. I flew into the air and worked to slip the leash off my hand, but my brain did not register a critical fact. The minute I let go of the leash, flying would end, and crashing would begin.
My first sense was darkness. The second, a sticky, wet tongue slid across my face. Pain exploded in my head while dog breath seeped into my nose. My blurry vision meant I’d lost my glasses. I lay crumpled, right arm bent under my chest. A deep breath became impossible; my ribs screamed pain as loudly as my head. Next to join in-my left knee and the inability to move my leg. I wanted to yell for help, but all the lights were out. My neighbors had already gone to bed. I rolled onto my left side; my hand searched for my glasses. Fingers touched a mangled wireframe minus one lens. I wore them, but they did not help.
With great effort, I sat up. My stomach pushes hard to expel its contents – Oh no, I broke something, but what? My arm, my ribs, my knee, or my head? My stomach said all four.
“Cohen, come here and sit,” I said with hope. He crawled over and lay next to me.
“Thank you, Cohen, Now hold still. I’m going to lie on your back. Then you will stand up and carry me inside.” I draped myself along his backbone. My arms circled his neck, and my legs hung off his back end as if he had three tails.
“Stand.” Cohen stood and carried my weight as if it were nothing.
“Walk, slowly to the house.” Cohen walked. I held onto his neck. My left leg left to drag. My right leg tried to help by pushing us forward.
I felt like I’d run a marathon. We made it to the door with me throwing up only once along the way. I reached for the knob, aggravating my ribs, which sent spikes of pain across my chest. Crossing the threshold should have been the end. But back in the master bedroom, my husband lay in bed. Bruce had recently had surgery on his ankle, leaving him without the inability to walk at all. Cohen and I continued through the family room until we made it to the counter where my purse and phone sat. The handles for my bag hung over the countertop. I reached up and pulled the purse to the floor. Cohen lowered me to the floor while I called my daughter, Amanda. I stared at Cohen, wondering where he had been hiding all the sudden smartness?
Amanda drove me to the hospital and managed to usher me inside. The emergency room (ER) was packed full of hurting people. They all seemed to be yelling, making my head throb with each heartbeat. The Emergency Room (ER) doctor said, “You are banged up, but I don’t think it is all that bad.” I kept saying, “I hurt too much, in too many places for me just to be banged up.”
After a series of x-rays and an Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of my brain, the ER doctor ate his words. “Becky, you have a concussion, but no bleeding in the brain.”
“Yay for me.”
“You have a broken rib, a broken elbow, and we will have to put your knee cap back in place.”
I learned nothing could be done for my rib. I was unable to take a deep breath for six weeks. A nurse put my arm in a sling and handed me a referral to an orthopedic doctor. Another doctor showed up to put my knee cap back in place, more pain to endure. With a pop and a groan, it was in place. The nurse added, “Go home and put ice on it. Walk carefully. Give it a few weeks to heal.”
As Amanda and I gathered all the instructions for home care and referrals to other doctors, a new doctor stopped by and said, “By the way, when we did the MRI of your brain, we found a small tumor in your left frontal lobe.”
“What kind of tumor?”
“We’re not sure. You need more testing, and here is a referral to a neurologist.”
By 3:00 a.m., my energy level had dipped so low, a walkout to the car seemed impossible. We couldn’t find a nurse to usher me out, but Amanda found an empty wheelchair. She put me in the wheelchair, got me into the car, and drove me home. She even managed to settle me in bed. What a sight we made. Bruce in bed with a cast on his ankle, me with a sling and ice on my knee. Bruce set the alarm to wake me in a couple of hours, worries from the concussion.
Cohen slinked to the side of the bed and licked my face. His eyes drooped as he bowed his head. I could not stay mad at him. “It’s okay big guy. I’m not mad at you anymore.” Cohen raised his eyes to meet mine. “I promise never to walk you again. I will throw balls in the back yard and swim in the pool, but walking is out of the question.”
Cohen agreed, grinned and, lay down by my bed. He kept watch over me as I drifted to sleep.
Racheal came the next day to walk Cohen, while Amanda came over to take care of Bruce and me. My ribs healed slowly while I wore a sling on my arm to let the elbow heal. Unfortunately, my elbow did not heal correctly, and later, I had to have surgery to fix it. The knee recovered the fastest, but now and then, it tends to slip out of place. A Dr. taught me how to pop it back in place. The Dr. also told me that it would get stuck one day and not go back into place without surgery.
After seeing a neurologist and another MRI, the tumor became a small benign tumor that I could have had since birth. Nothing to do but watch it to make sure it does not start to grow.
Racheal walked Cohen Monday – Friday for the next three years. During that time, Cohen never pulled her down the street or sent her flying. I was happy to pay her because she was much cheaper than another dog caused medical bill.
Etya Krichmar
Chapter Twenty
Mama the Sole Provider
To serve his time, they sent Papa to Bilyaevka, a city located some distance away from Kotovsk. At least once a month, Mama went to see her beloved. She worried about him always. Leaving fourteen-year-old Charna in charge of her younger children, Bella ventured out bravely into the world of criminals. Upon return, Mama looked happier, but she never talked to us about what happened during those visits. She would tell us Papa was well and that he sent us his love.
In Papa’s absence, Mama became the sole provider for our family. She worked tirelessly to support us and did it under the harsh conditions because the evil Mr. Shihman, the person who put her husband in prison, once again, became the newly appointed Director of the Atelier. He put Mama through hell, literally.
Some days, Mama came to her workplace to find her sewing machine sitting on the porch outside the building. Bella pleaded with Mr. Shikhman to go inside, but he would not let her in. The man was a monster. He laughed at Mama’s misery and enjoyed watching her cry. Mr. Shihman called Bella derogatory names. He cursed her out. I had witnessed his uncontrollable fits of rage many times.
Habitually, I stopped at Mama’s place of work on the way home. I had the afternoon shift. My classes ended almost when she got off from work. I waited for Mama until she finished, and then the two of us walked home together.
While waiting for Mama to finish her work, I socialized with women who worked there. I loved talking to them. One of them, Aunt Anya, who treated me as extra special, was my favorite. She could not have children of her own. To fulfill her needs as a mother, she treated me with kindness, generosity, and love. Aunt Anya always gave me hugs and kisses. I think of her with love and affection. She was a good friend to my parents and a staunch supporter of Papa.
Mama never gave up. She worked hard to persevere and to protect her children, even though she had a lot on her plate. Besides dealing with her terrible boss, Mama fought the authorities. She wanted to get approval for government-subsidized housing. The apartment they promised my father when he accepted the job that moved his family from Moldova to Ukraine.
It took after my father went to prison when the authorities granted the housing request. Mama saw the apartment and became disappointed. It was too small for our family because the government cheated us out in the living area. Typical apartment, called Khrushchyovka, had a total area of 30 m2 (323 sq ft) (one-room), 44 m2 (474 sq ft) (two-room) and 60 m2 (646 sq ft) (three-room). Later designs further reduced these already low numbers.
The government assigned our family of five a two-room apartment. By law, they should have given us at the least three-rooms. There were two girls and one boy in our family, and in cases like that, the siblings had to have separate bedrooms. When Mama questioned the housing authority, they gave her some lame excuse. They referred to her husband not being with her. Because of this unfortunate fact, they could not count him as a family member. Our family ended up with a two-room apartment. Unwillingly, Mama accepted the keys because compared to a one-room in a semi-basement where the five of us lived, having a two-room subsidized by the government apartment was a vast improvement and an enormous relief for Bella.
It was wintertime when we moved into our new living quarters. Turning the boiling water knob, we found out that the running water was cold. When I touched the radiator to warm up, it also felt freezing. The apartment looked unfinished. There was no bathtub inside the bathroom. They delivered the tub a few months later, after we moved in. Still, we could not use it. On the one hand, there was no boiling water in the pipes, and on the other, they did not hook it up upon delivery. It sat in the hallway a few months longer before somebody came to install it.
The Soviets built everything backward. They constructed the buildings, for example, before they installed the sidewalks or the roads. The authorities issued the certificates of occupancy before the contractors completed the jobs inside, and so on.
One advantage of having a tub in the hallway was that it became my sleeping place. I slept in that tub for a few months before they brought it inside the bathroom to hook it to the plumbing.
Unfortunately, we continued to be without a tub because we had to wait for the water heater’s delivery and installation. We discovered that the water heater required wood to make the water hot. The responsibility of finding wood fell on Mama’s shoulders. It meant that she would have to spend more time in a queue during the cold winter months. It seemed like everything they build in the USSR was with an intention of making people’s lives even more miserable.
Because the radiators in our apartment did not produce any heat, it was freezing. I remember going to sleep wearing layers of clothing. Once in bed, Mama covered me with three or more blankets, but they did not help because I could hear my teeth making a clicking sound. I did not get warm fast enough, and it took me hours to fall asleep.
I remember how we heated water on the brick stove to do the dishes. We used two bowls to wash them in. One of us dunked the dirty pots and plates into the hot bowl and then rinsed them out in the cold water. By the time we completed the task, the greasy rings of coagulated fat formed around each bowl’s perimeter. Our hands, too, were coated with grease. I hated doing dishes.
Shortly after we moved into our new apartment, it got flooded. I cannot erase the memory of the flood, no matter how much I try. It happened on a Friday. Mama was planning on visiting Papa the following morning. That day, she came home from work later than usual. She stopped at the neighborhood convenience store to pick up the dry, toasted in the oven sliced bread, to take it over to my father. When Mama opened the front door, a few inches of water from the busted, leaking pipes greeted her. The situation was dire, but each tragedy has a silver lining, and lucky for us, we did not have to deal with the neighbors’ complaints about ruining their living quarters because we lived on the ground floor.
Seeing the distraction, Mama, who carried the two pillowcases full of dry bread, one in each one of her hands, froze in the middle of the room. She did not know what to do first. The look on her face was full of despair. Getting a hold of herself, Mama put the pillowcases on top of the table and bolted for the Management Office to alert them about the accident.
She came back shortly after that, grabbed some old rags, and collected the spilled water into an old bucket. Vigorously for hours, she worked at it. We helped, but I am not sure if it did her any good. At least we tried.
It was not the only time the pipes burst. They did that every winter. The stupid design of the heating system caused it. Instead of delivering the steam from the first floor up to the third floor, the USSR’s geniuses released it in the opposite direction. By the time the heat reached the ground floor radiators, the steam ended to exist. The water inside the radiators froze, and the pipes burst.
Where I was born, the officials only cared about the quantity and not the quality, or the customer’s satisfaction. The productivity reports and the numbers appearing on the bottom obsessed the Communist Party. Every year it set up an alternative plan and tried to increase production. They did this out of desperation, prestige and envy. From its inception, the USSR competed with the rest of the world, especially the United States. The Soviets wanted to prove that the collectivism was the only way to govern a civilized society. They rejected capitalism. The party members believed that the Soviet citizens lived a healthier, happier, and better lives.
To get the people excited about a cause, the party leaders used different tactics. On some occasions they used the national pride and patriotism to rile them up. On others, to achieve a specific agenda, the government exploited various slogans to drum up its messages. When that happened, the broadcasters of the government owned media, repeated the message on the public radio and tv almost non-stop. Besides the verbal propaganda, they placed the enormous posters on the forefronts of the buildings. For example, in order to increase the mass-production manufacturing and farming, the communists came up with a famous “Pyatiletka za tree goda” slogan. In English it translates to “five years with three years.” The aim of Pyatiletka was to accomplish in three years what the government planned to achieve in the five-year plan usually.
People who fell for this nonsense dedicated their lives to prove that it was doable. They worked long shifts to increase the overall production. Focused on the bottom line, they did not care about the quality of the items they produced. The government clarified that Pyatiletka was all about quantity.
The USSR was ruled by a totalitarian government. The Freedom of Speech did not exist, and most of its citizens did not have the audacity to question the actions of the elected party officials. No one dared to point out the absurdity of the “grandiose” ideas presented by them.
People of the Soviet Union had no choice but to play along with the party line. USSR wasn’t a fun place for anyone who did not play by those rules. Those who disobeyed and exercised their rights suffered brutal retributions and went to prisons. The Gulags and Lubyanka decided the fate of the political dissidents.
The authoritarian regime raised the Soviet citizens to live in fear. The strict rules applied to everybody and every day. They trained us to be quiet and behave a certain way in public. I grew up fearing those in authority. I know; I learned it from my mother. Before I went to school, Mama was a stay-at-home mom. She took me with her everywhere. I was very intuitive for a child and could sense a change in Mama the second it occurred.
Frequently, I witnessed how she got quiet each time we entered an official government building. Mama seemed to shrink in size. Her green eyes suddenly filled with fear of anticipation of what to come. Her manner changed as she extremely politely approached a bureaucrat. The tone of her voice changed to being nauseatingly sweet when she opened her mouth to talk.
Her behavior drove me crazy because I knew Mama was not a beggar. However, anytime we went inside these dark, mausoleum looking places, she acted like one. I felt her humiliation despite being little. It took me a long time to figure out why Bella behaved this way. Years later, after I left my parents’ home and was on my own, I finally realized how the Soviet government treated Jews as second-class citizens.
Most Russians didn’t have a right to freedom of expression, let alone Jews. People could not speak their minds, especially in front of authority. Like I’ve mentioned before, most tried to blend in and not bring any attention to themselves anywhere they went. Everyone followed this unwritten behavioral rule, specifically when a person entered the official government building. It is this strange behavior I saw in Mama every time she dealt with pencil pushers.
USSR was not a fun place to live. Once children were aware of their surroundings, they quickly learned how to walk, talk, and act inconspicuously. From an early age, my parents raised me to be respectful to others. They also told me to be quiet anytime she took me to a public place. Papa and Mama reminded me to be nice whenever I made noises. My behavior went hand in hand with my reflection on my parents. I had to be a perfect robot outside the house. Living like that was hard. I could not be a child growing up in the Soviet Union. I was not too fond of it.
Vern
After the Milking and Chores are Done: Life Stories of a Minnesota Farm Kid
Prologue
It’s April of 1957. Mom is ready to start the praying of our evening rosary. We are all back from the fields and up from the barns. As we wait for Dad and some of my younger brothers and sister, I found the Farm Journal magazine and just started reading an interesting article. I prefer to read in the limited time I have, but I will soon fall into the rosary’s rhythm and the comfort of praying with the family. Just as going to bed often seems to intrude on my plans, dismissing this feeling that praying the rosary is an intrusion is too for the best.
I pick up my kitchen chair and move it to face Mom. We all use chairs to make kneeling on the floor a little easier. It’s about 8:30 – 9, three of my youngest siblings are already in bed. But Larry, twelve and just 14 months younger than I; Marietta, nine years of age; and Alan, seven; have also formed a part of the circle facing Mom and Dad. Mom will lead, Dad and my brothers and sister will respond to the Apostles’ Creed, the six Our Father’s, fifty-three Hail Mary’s, and six Glory Be’s.
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth . . . he ascended into Heaven . . . to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the . . . the Communion of Saints . . . and life everlasting, Amen.”
I’m now kneeling on the linoleum kitchen floor of the very home I was born in just a little over thirteen years ago. I enjoy this time of prayer with the family. It breaks me away from the anxieties of the life of a farm kid. It inspires me to think of higher things. And it allows me to express my gratitude to God, who created all of what I enjoy. To thank God for the excellent weather of the last few weeks as we prepare to seed about fifty acres of oats as a cover crop for some new alfalfa. And right after, to plant the two-hundred acres of corn that we hope to complete by May tenth.
Although the good weather means I need to continue to miss additional weeks of my last term as an eight-grader in our one-room country school. I enjoy learning, but with the nice weather, I find it challenging to sit in the classroom until three o’clock when the Farmall H and Super C tractors are just sitting in the machine shed. By the time we walk the mile or so home and get our clothes changed, it will be almost four, not much time to get much done until it’s time to do the chores and milking, in addition to eating supper before bed.
My teacher has suggested that I skip school on alternate days with my brother Larry helping Dad work the fields. But it makes more sense to me, as the older brother, to continue to be the one to keep a second of the medium-sized tractors going all day. Also, Larry has a classmate, and skipping school would put him behind. I have no classmates, so I’m not in that situation.
Although I have a thirst for knowledge, enjoy learning, and value education, I also feel obligated to assist the family in whatever way I can. I especially think that I need to help make this farm a success for the sake of my mother and my six younger brothers and sisters.
With this time on my knees, I can ask God for help on the many things we can’t control on the farm. Like the weather that impacts our planting and harvesting, our summer droughts, and the occasional over-abundance of rain, especially devastating on our heavy clay loam soil.
I also ask God to help keep our Holstein calves healthy. They are a big part of my anxiety for the last few months. They counted on us humans, and I failed them. We had a special bond, almost a parental bond, as most of them only had a few hours with their natural mothers. Except for the time I was out in the fields during their regular feeding times, they depended on me. At that point, Mom or a younger brother or sister would also act as their surrogate mother.
Besides, if I became aware of a decline in health, I was responsible for administering them with a penicillin shot or some medication to prevent scours. I fear that this is where I may have failed them. They were pure muscle at birth, and within two or three months, they died, and I had to pull their bodies out to the field behind our “grove.”
Fortunately, it is now spring, and we can again open the barn doors and loosen the grips of pneumonia and the scours that have killed these calves. Unfortunately, the dead calves are now just beginning to rot away with the warm weather right next to the field I am working.
There is peace in meditating on the different mysteries of Jesus as a family. I also connect the different mysteries of the rosary, which vary with the day of the week, with the year’s seasons. At this time of year, spring, I most closely align with the Joyful Mysteries of Jesus’ birth and life as a youth. Our farm is coming alive. The snow is melting, the trees are budding out, and the sun is providing some warmth.
I see summer as the Glorious mysteries of the rosary. With the corn growing rapidly, the fresh alfalfa hay is filling the barns, and finally, my brothers and sisters will have some time to play a little baseball on the lawn across from our long driveway to County Road 10.
But unfortunately, it all ends with fall and winter, both best represented by the sorrowful mysteries. As Christ suffers, we, too, suffer from the stress of getting everything done in the fall before the ground freezes. Winter brings a little relief in the amount of work to be done, but preparing the feed and getting them to the cattle, hogs, and chickens is made so much more difficult with the snow and cold. Removing the manure also becomes a more difficult task. Water pipes freeze. Tractors and our vehicles don’t always start. And the high humidity in the barns contributes to the pneumonia and scours problems with our calves. And the cold seeps into the body. Except for the Christmas season, it’s many months of sorrow.
However, I am aware that this life isn’t about me – but about the family and about serving God. I accepted my Dad’s idea that I would work on the farm until I was twenty-one. He calls it an apprenticeship, something from the days some generations ago when the Schmitz family was still in Germany. The same Schmitz’s that left Germany as young men to evade the emperor’s oppressive military obligations.
I agree that Dad has much to teach me regarding self-sufficiency, carpentry, welding, and maybe even some veterinarian skills. But, sometimes, I wonder if these same years spent in college would better serve my needs. But on the other hand, the farm’s success for Mom and my siblings is uppermost in my mind.
And as I pray the rosary, my mind often wanders. But still prayerful, for the thoughts are of gratitude for my parents and for what I have. Grateful that the Creator has placed me here rather than in a country like China, where the children are starving and have little hope. A life that doesn’t include the opportunities I have.
We have a large and warm farm kitchen. Most of everything in my life that doesn’t happen in the fields or the barns occurs here. We also have a living and dining room, but it’s only heated and used during the Christmas season and Baptism celebrations.
Behind Mom is an entire wall of kitchen cabinets Dad built while World War II was raging quite far from our central Minnesota farm. They are of oak stained plywood, with a shellacked or varnished top – functional but not fancy.
Looking to my left, the south side of the house, there’s an alcove for the tilt-out flour bin Dad built for Mom. He made it big, probably praying for a large family. It holds at least a hundred pounds of the primary ingredient for the freshly baked bread Mom serves each day. Above the bin is a stand mixer. A dirty mixer means fresh cookies or a cake is coming our way. Next to it is a gas stove fueled with two one-hundred-pound propane tanks outside the wall.
To the right of the stove are ten to twelve feet of counter-top and wall cabinets. A large double-sink takes up some of the counter-top and serves many purposes besides washing the dishes. Every week, they are used to butcher some of our chickens that become the main course for a noon or evening meal. And most every other morning, Mom will use the right sink to rapidly cool two or three gallons of the milk she has pasteurized.
Above the sink is a window shaded from the rays of the setting summer sun by the large elm and basswood trees thirty to fifty feet west of the house. From this window, Mom can view most of her large garden and apple orchard.
And the wall of cabinets and counter-top goes on for another six to seven feet, just enough room for letting the cookies, cakes, and bread cool. It also is a place to hold dozens of canning jars – empty or filled with cooling jelly, jams, apples, and vegetables. And sometimes, even some beef if our freezer can’t hold all of the last cow we butchered.
And to the right of that counter is another large west-facing window that provides plenty of natural light for Dad’s desk, a place for his daily reading of the St. Cloud Times and the keeping of the farm records.
And to the right of his desk, a radio tuned to WCCO, a major news station out of Minneapolis, or KASM, a local old-time music (polkas & waltz’s) station. At noon, Monday through Saturday, KASM also provides us with fifteen minutes of farm items that are “wanted or for-sale.” Entertainment for our noon meal, our largest meal of the day. As one not making purchasing decisions, I enjoy the “ads” because they give me a small window into other farm families’ lives. KASM also presents a recording of the rosary at 6 PM each day on our barn radio. The rosary recitation doesn’t stop our chores or the milking, but out of respect, we do limit our conversations.
As I continue to move my head to the right slowly, I see our phone on the wall – it’s no longer a party-line. Under it is mom’s Singer sewing machine. She makes most of the dresses for my sisters and herself. Next to it is a white refrigerator with a small freezer in the upper portion of it. If we are lucky, it has a gallon of ice cream in it and a possible treat before we head to bed. Without moving my head any further, I know that the front door that opens into a good size porch is to the right of the frig. Behind me, a closet with wall hooks for our work jackets and winter coats. We also have baskets on shelves with an assortment of gloves, mittens, knit, ear-lap, and baseball caps. We also have winter boots of many sizes on the floor.
Also, behind me is the hallway to my parent’s bedroom. It’s also Ione’s bedroom, born just eight months ago. She was born on Aug fifteenth, on the holy day of the Assumption. A day when we celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary’s death and her body and soul lifted to the heavens. Being it is a Holy Day, we limit our work to what’s necessary, meaning we will always have time to celebrate Ione’s birthdays.
And directly behind me is our TV. Not much time for TV, especially this time of year. And directly above me is the “boy’s” bedroom. David, my youngest brother, is already sleeping there. He turns five on the Fourth of July. Not a Holy Day or a day that we would generally stop work for, but we surely won’t forget his birthday. And upstairs, in one of the two “girl’s” bedrooms, is Karen. She will be two later this month. Unfortunately, no memorial birthdate for her. But the family does have two Christmas Day birthdays, my Dad and I, separated by twenty-seven years.
With each of the Hail Mary’s said, I am reminded that I am a sinner. And with it, the peace of the rosary is also interspersed with feelings of guilt. But I also know that Jesus’ love for us will overcome our failings. And I pray that the Schmitz family will join the “Communion of Saints.”
“Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.”
Vern
Karen: A Story of Inner Strength
By Vern Schmitz 11 11 2020
Karen was eleven years younger than I, sharing the middle-child status with her younger sister Ione, the sixth and seventh of twelve children. As is probably more common for a middle child, she didn’t seem too burdened with life’s responsibilities.
Our dairy farm provided an abundance of tasks for everyone in the family. As one of the family girls, there was always work to do in the house and around the barns. The boys usually did the fieldwork, and there were four of us older than her to do that part of the farm work.
Saying she wasn’t burdened with the responsibilities, I don’t mean to say she was “ducking” her duties. She was just a calm, happy kid, unknowingly enjoying the family’s middle-child position, providing her more freedom and less pressure to grow up. But this was before she took on the responsibility of calmly enduring the death sentence she had been given.
It was about 1964-65; Karen would have been 9 or 10. She had been sick for a while. And as I remember it, us older ones had just come in after our evening chores to eat supper. Mom was crying as she was preparing the meal, so Dad told us that Karen had cancer. And with what we knew of cancer and the way it was presented, we knew that her death was just a matter of time.
It was childhood leukemia, more specifically, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). She would spend time at home and lots of time at the University of Minnesota Hospital, ninety miles from our farm. Although there were no open family discussions of Karen’s leukemia, we knew that her treatment was but a six-month-at-a-time reprieve.
It was all experimental treatments with no guarantee of success. Every six months or so, a new or different chemotherapy agent would be given her, each administered to stop the uncontrolled multiplication of abnormal, immature blood cells. If it didn’t halt the disease, and the patient was strong enough to tolerate more, another chemotherapy would be attempted.
From my point of view, the process was brutal. With the necessity of maintaining our milking and feeding schedules and attendance at school, we as a family seldom visited her when she was in the Minneapolis hospital.
Her most frequent visitor was Dad. He was the most available parent for Mom had the duties of running the household and tending to the young ones, including the baby born on July 3, 1965, our youngest brother, Marc. And we, her siblings, were busy doing the farm chores in Dad’s absence.
Between her six-month therapies, Karen would come home. Now without much hair, next time with a painfully swollen face and body, we – maybe I should speak for myself – I never spoke with her about her feelings or struggles. Her cancer was the white elephant in the room that we didn’t talk about.
Was she hopeful? Did she worry about falling behind her fourth and fifth-grade classmates? Did she continue to have faith that the doctors would eventually find a cure? How did she maintain her faith in God through all these trials? Were there fears or concerns that we could have helped her address?
But despite our apparent lack of support, I don’t remember her ever crying or being despondent. Much like Mom, Karen had a tremendous inner strength and accepted the burden given her.
It was now early 1966, nearly two years into this experiment that had lengthened her life expectancy by quite a few months. My fiancé, Diane, and I were visiting her in her hospital room. My predominant memory of our visit was that of a nurse attempting to do a blood draw. She was trying to find a vein – repeatedly poking her in seemingly every part of the body that was not covered by her gown. But Karen just continued our conversation as if this was a routine occurrence for a childhood leukemia patient.
My memory of her strength during this ordeal still provides me a picture of courage. And the agitation that it also brought me that day was reinforced by a recent article I read. A doctor of her era states: “We didn’t have a lot of things that we take for granted now. For example, nowadays, you assume that if you’re going to have some blood drawn, doctors will have sharp needles, and you have somebody who is an expert in drawing blood.”
Were the questions she had as a rapidly maturing young woman ever addressed? How did the medical team handle the tension between maintaining hope while being honest with her? Or were they like many present oncologists, who seldom mention death to their patients but continue to go for one more therapy? Or did Karen continue to keep hope alive, thinking that she would continue to get another 6-month reprieve?
I never talked to her about this noble experiment, but she answered my question in a chance conversation she had with my future father-in-law, Gene O’Neill. In his very open and personable way, he invited her to our upcoming wedding on Oct 29, 1966. And in her own courageous and feisty spirit, said, “Sure, if you will attend my funeral.”
She died on June 19, 1967, at the age of twelve. And Gene O’Neill, along with hundreds of family members and friends, attended her wake and funeral a few days later.
Karen didn’t live to see a “cure.” But maybe the U of M research team gleaned something useful from the many therapy regiments that she endured. Because in 1968, but a year after Karen died, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis made a break-through of sorts. This hospital, founded by the comedian Danny Thomas in 1962, with the particular goal of curing childhood leukemia, finally did so. A hospital named after the apostle, St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, which many thought was an appropriate name since the whole idea of curing cancer was a hopeless cause. But through the skills and leadership of Dr. Don Pinkel, a successful therapy for fighting childhood leukemia was found.
Dr. Pinkel’s approach differed from that of the University of Minnesota. Karen received highly toxic substances serially – that is, one at a time, usually showing some initial success but eventually always failing. Dr. Pinkel of St. Jude, instead, gave his patients what he called the “full armamentarium.” He combined all the drugs known to induce remission and administered them to the patient more or less concurrently, at maximum tolerable dosages, over a sustained period. And by 1970, he could announce that childhood leukemia “can no longer be considered an incurable disease,” for the hospital saw a 50 percent cure rate.
Dr. Pinkel recognized that he was experimenting on children, which troubled him, but he said he saw no other avenue. He stated: “We were tired of being undertakers.”
As a part of my evening prayer, I pray for all of my siblings. But in the last few years, instead of praying for Karen, I ask her to pray for me. As a Catholic, we believe in the communion of saints and support each other, whether we are living or dead. And with the purity of her life, she demonstrated the courage to live with a positive attitude despite all the earthly suffering she endured. I see her as a saint. So, I pray that she assists me with my continuing earthly journey by giving me the strength to handle the more challenging parts of my trip.
Norma Beasley
Thanks Vern for a wonderful compassionate story and very thought provoking. I am sorry for your loss but I suspect Karen taught you a lot about life and living. Remember each time you change your thinking, you should begin a new paragraph. Also, this gives your page a chance to breathe and reveals white space in the process. It also lessens text density which can overwhelm the reader. Thank you again for a beautiful story.
Etya Krichmar
Home is Love
People use different words to define a home. Some refer to it as a dwelling, residence, a house, an origin, a family unit, or something else. When I think of a home, the word love enters my mind.
I received my love in a Jewish family of five, living in a single rented room in half a basement, our home, growing up in the USSR, a country of not enough. Our parents, unsuccessfully, for twenty years, waited in line to receive a permanent residence in one of the governmentally owned housing developments.
During this period, on and on, we moved from one miserable room into another. I choose the word room because my parents never rented over one. They only could afford a place in a semi-basement. In my memory, each of these poorly ventilated rooms looked gloomy. Inside, a small glass slit, the only bearer of light, served as a window. This tiny slot, placed a few inches above the ground, was facing the street, making my view of the outside world comprising a continuous shuffle of feet.
Our home’s front door usually opened into a small, square landing with a few quick steps descending into a hallway that served our family as a storage and food preparation room.
We cooked our meals on a portable kerosene stove and, by the age of seven, I knew how to operate it. Our “kitchen/hallway” smelled musty because of the scent of the previous night’s dinner lingering in the air.
From the hallway, we entered the primary room. It kept all the family possessions. They were my sister’s bed, a sailor’s trunk, and a massive, boxy piece of upholstered furniture with springs. We arranged those items against two walls of our living quarters. A table with chairs, a small cabinet, a record player, a wardrobe, and a Singer sewing machine occupied the other two. I have fond memories of the table and the sewing machine. This table became an integral part of our lives as it traveled from one room into another, serving us in various capacities. During the day, my siblings and I did our homework there, and at night, we ate dinner while reciting our daily escapades to our parents.
After the three of us went to bed, the table became a workstation for our parents’ sewing. They also used the sewing machine to do that. The Singer was the breadwinner, the tool my parents used to provide for their children and survive the USSR’s harsh realities.
Our room did not have running water, and, at night, we used a chamber pot. Each morning, Mama emptied it at the outhouse. To get clean, we went to public baths and stood in long queues, an essential part of Soviet life, for hours to get into the building.
When the weather was terrible, the children played inside. The limited space never stopped us from having fun. I easily recollect the day when Itsik and I tried to catch our sister in the tiny hallway. Suddenly, Charna tripped and fell. Almost immediately, she stood up, found her balance, touched her leg, and continued to run. We spent the entire day laughing and being happy, but our happiness only lasted until nighttime.
Changing into my pajamas, I heard Charna’s scream. She could not undress because one of her leggings, soaked in dry blood, got attached to her skin. Hearing her anguish, our parents rushed to assess the situation.
Papa saw what happened and carried his daughter over to the table. Mama left the room to boil water. She returned shortly with a hot kettle and an empty enamel bowl. Placing them on the table, she disappeared once again to fetch cold water. Upon return, Mama mixed the two liquids in the enamel bowl and handed it over to Papa.
Holding Charna in his lap with one hand, he dropped a large piece of gauze inside the bowl to soak. He pulled the wet fabric out and placed it on top of the legging, repeating the process repeatedly. When it became unstuck, Papa gently removed Charna’s garment without causing her any additional discomfort. After that, he used peroxide, applied the antibiotic, and bandaged the injured leg.
When things calmed down, Mama and Papa went to investigate. They looked around the area and, right away, noticed the culprit. There in the corner with its sharp blade protruding into the room stood an ax which Papa used that morning to chop wood. Neither of us saw it when we chased each other. In her excitement, Charna did not even feel her leg touching the sharp edge when she tripped.
Decades had passed. But each time I see my sister’s scar, it reminds me of the past when the three of us were young, happy, careless, and carefree.
The childhood remembrances of my wonderful family are etched in my memory forever. Mama and Papa taught us how to be brave, take care of one another, and love each other. Their unconditional love had always surrounded us.
There are many recollections I have of the events taking place inside our room. One is of my beloved, now departed brother Itsik. During the school breaks, going to the library together was a treat. We both loved books. My older brother acted as my chaperon and made me feel special during those trips. On the way back, we stopped at a neighborhood store to get some freshly baked grey bread.
The name’s origin came from its grayish color. To make the bread, they combined wheat and rye flour. Due to the presence of rye, this bread packed a burst of unique flavor. People loved the taste, and, at the cost of seventeen kopecks, it was affordable to most and available for purchase all the time. Even now, I could easily recollect its tangy, sour-sweet aroma and the crunchiness of thick crust. Grey bread was my favorite.
During Khrushchev’s Era, when the wheat harvest underwent a steady decrease that caused a shortage, the favorite bread of the Soviet citizens became unavailable in the USSR. In the sixties, people stood in long lines to get a loaf of bread made of peas. I was nine, and, in my small hands, the pea bread felt heavy, soggy, and gross. It also tasted disgusting. I refused to eat it.
But before the shortage, on the way home from the library, Itsik and I took turns carrying grey bread. Having the loaf in our hands, on days we were hungry, was tempting. Its powerful aroma tickled our nostrils and made our mouths water. Our fingers could not wait to tear it apart, and our teeth wanted to take a bite of the warm goodness. By the time we reached home, only half of the bread had remained.
The loaf stayed whole on those days when we controlled ourselves. But, as soon as we unlocked the door, Itsik sliced two thick chunks of the mouthwatering goodness, sprinkled them with sugar, and knowing how much I loved it, handed me the heel.
Holding a piece of bread in one hand and a book in the other, carefully we climbed our parents’ bed. Laying on our stomachs, we read our books and devoured the homemade delicacy. The fresh sugar-coated bread made our hungry bellies content. We felt satisfied, and, at that moment, everything seemed to be all right with the world. Inside our room, Itsik and I were secure and free.
I treasure the times spent with my family in our space-limited dwelling. We played many games, some imaginary, some real, while listening to music and laughing at silly jokes. Our family did not have many things, but we had an abundance of the love we shared.
Reflecting upon my past, I cannot help but notice how little, as children, we needed to make ourselves gratified and happy. All we required was a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and the company of a book to take us on a beautiful adventure, far away from the sad reality of Soviet life.
Being Jewish, I survived the USSR, a country that discriminated against and persecuted those who wanted to become much more without having a chance. Because I am a firm believer in things happening for a reason, I do not regret the trials and tribulations I encountered as a little girl. I left that life a long time ago, but even now, I am convinced more than ever that fate had predestined that miserable existence for me. I had to live it to become who I am today—a strong, better person, and a more understanding human being.
“Love conquers all,” they say. Those words are valid because living in a single rented room in half a basement without the love of my family, I would not have survived the country of my birth. My definition of a home is love, today and always.
Vern
It’s Just Over the Hill by Vern Schmitz Dec 7 2020
“Just go through this gate, through our pasture, and into Fischer’s pasture, and you walk a little ways and then go to your right. It’s just over the hill.” Dad is giving me directions. We were down by the barn, just to the right of the milk house, and he is telling me how to get to our one-room country school. Of course, if we were in a car, we could get there on the township road, but that would make the trip at least twice as long as walking directly through the neighbor’s pasture.
It’s now a Monday morning in early September of 1949, and I’m to start school today. I was three months shy of five with no pre-school or kindergarten experience nor older siblings to show me the way, and I’m apprehensive about finding the school. Like my mother, I’m an anxious person. And my Dad’s directions of a few days before were doing little to reduce this fear of the unknown.
Dad also said, “Victor will be waiting for you.” Victor Fischer was a fifth-grader at the school. He lived on the farm below the hill, but I had never talked to him. I had only seen him at Sunday Mass at St. Agnes, our Catholic Church in Roscoe that all the neighbors attended.
My memories of the day are quite limited, except for the anxiety about finding my way. I can imagine that I had gotten up early and went to the barn. But Mom could have asked me to stay with my younger brother and sister while she went to the barn to help Dad. Mom always took responsibility for feeding the young calves their milk, but she was also training me for that chore. Either way, at about 7:45, I would have washed up in our bathroom located between the kitchen and the stairs to the large boys-bedroom where Larry and I slept. I ran up the stairs to put on a pair of “school” jeans, an open-collared long-sleeved plaid shirt, and new school shoes.
Ready to go, I ran down the steps to our big farm kitchen. Dad was up from the barn and seated at the head of the table, nearest to the front door. Mom would sit to Dad’s right on the long side of the table across from me – Mom didn’t sit much, however. Marietta, my six-month-old sister, was between the two of them in her wooden highchair. My brother, Larry, three-and-a-half, was to the left of Dad on the long side of the table, and I had the rest of the long side, at least for another couple of years.
We never left home without a hearty breakfast, and they were all waiting for me. As we finished our meal prayer, I had our usual breakfast of Post Toasties Corn Flakes with milk and a fried egg. Besides, we would either have fried blood or liver sausage, always served on Mom’s freshly baked bread smothered with sweet Karo syrup. Almost everything on the table other than the Post Toasties and the Karo syrup came from our farm and provided us with the energy needed for hard manual work – and school work too.
As we finished breakfast, my anxiety grew. School started at 9:00, and I didn’t know how long it would take to walk there. Mom hands me my very own lunch pail and says, “I made you a bologna sandwich. And I put a pickle in some waxed paper for you – and a couple of oatmeal and raisin cookies.” She had also put my own small thermos bottle filled with cold milk into the lunch pail cover. “Now, Vernon, be careful with the thermos bottle. Don’t drop it because the glass inside can break pretty easy.” Mom also gave me a small pencil box with a few pencils, an eraser, a small pack of crayons, and my first protractor, compass, and ruler.
Mom was nudging me to the door with my lunch pail and the pencil box. And with a smile and a promise: “You will like school,” I left with my pencil box and lunch pail. But Mom stops me on the porch and gives me a jacket because September mornings in Minnesota can be chilly. And off I went for my first day of school. I ran down to the barn and through the gate, making sure I closed it tight so our cows wouldn’t get loose. And as I ran through our cow-yard, I side-stepped the fresh cow manure not to get my “school” shoes dirty. So far, it was all very familiar, but it didn’t feel right going into the neighbor’s pasture, but that’s what Dad said. I went straight ahead just like he said but now which of the hills was the way to school? Which of the big hills was I to find Victor waiting for me?
Dad’s directions were still reverberating in my head, “Just crawl through the fence and go a little way and turn a little to the right.” But when do I turn to the right? He had pointed in the direction of a hill neither of us could see from where we were standing. And he said: “It’s just over the hill.”
I saw a hill to the right that I thought Dad had pointed towards, but there was a big long gully on my right. It looked a little like magazine pictures of the Grand Canyon. We had nothing like this in our pasture. Should I be on the right side of this long, deep ravine or go on the left side of it? Even from here, I couldn’t see the Fischer farm buildings, not even their silo.
I had to make a decision. I chose to go around the left side of this deep gouge with little hesitation. But the worry didn’t leave me. What if I was lost and got to school late, or Victor didn’t wait for me, or I made him late for school? I kept going – then started up the hill. Hopefully, this was the right hill? As I reached the top, I saw the farm, and there was Victor.
He said, “Glad you made it.” I don’t remember what I said, but I bet he noticed the relief I felt in finding him. The concerns of the morning left as we walked the last quarter-mile or so out their driveway, turning right onto this Munson Township road. And a few minutes more, our school with its one large oak tree and a windbreak of poplar trees appeared beyond the cornfield.
Mom was right. I did enjoy school even though I was the only one in my class. I know that anxiety can incapacitate people, but fortunately, I believe that most of my anxiety is merely a worry that something is just not going right, rather than fear-based. For example, a few years later, when I was about seven to nine years of age, feeding the little Holstein calves became my job. And one winter, when quite a number of them died of pneumonia and scours, I took it as my failure and would have months of deep anxiety or angst. I had the water at the right temperature, and I was mixing their milk replacement properly, and I never missed their twice-a-day feeding. Why would God let my calves die?
And I think that sometimes my apprehensive nature causes me to procrastinate, especially true when it comes to writing papers or homilies. I worry about whether I have chosen the correct arguments or approach and get stuck in the research phase. I need firm deadlines to get me to finish. But this is relatively normal. In general, I think my early experiences of anxiety were a lack of confidence when given considerable responsibility as a young person. Either on the farm tractors or feeding the calves, cattle, and hogs as expected without fail. An experience that prepared me not to let fear stop me from taking the risks that come with growth.
Forty years later, as a UPS manager, I would be saddened when I had people who failed to grasp career advancement opportunities because it required moving to another city. I wonder if it could have been because they never experienced the satisfying sense of achievement gained from having the faith to pursue a goal that is “just over the hill?”