My English homework assignment for this particular week was a book report. Unlike most of my classmates, I read novels constantly so reading a book and writing about it was no big deal to me. As a freshman in high school, I knew the fundamentals of writing a report. It had to have a beginning, middle and end. How simple is that? But as I sat at home in the kitchen, I struggled with an opening. How could I express in the first sentence my feelings about this romantic novel I had just finished reading? How could I get the reader to understand my interpretation of it?

After pondering several tactics, my “aha” moment came to me. I would start the report with a prepositional phrase … “In this entrancingly romantic novel, the author portrays . . .”. Although the rest of my little essay is lost to the vagaries of time, I will never forget that opening and I’ll tell you why.

Miss Czuba strode into the classroom, a stack of papers in her hands.

“Girls”, she said, as she peered sternly over her glasses, “I have read each and every report you have submitted and I must tell you there is only one that stands out.”

“I have been unable to grade this particular report because I cannot believe someone in this class could have written it,” her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Now, just listen to this, ‘In this entrancingly romantic novel’, en-tranc-ing-ly ro-man-tic”, she said, as she dragged out each syllable of each word in an agonizingly slow way.

Suddenly my brain became alert and my body became rigid with attention. Was I to be recognized for my effort in trying to write a report with some originality?

Some of the girls giggled and eyed each other warily.

“The au-thorrr porrr-trrrays”, she continued. “Now, where would someone get the idea to write a line like that, I wonder.”

“Perhaps this wasn’t really written by a student. Perhaps it was written by someone else or, even worse, copied.”

“Could this have been copied from another source, girls?”

“No”, I silently replied keeping perfectly still in my alertness, “I wrote it myself, all by myself. I thought of it myself, all by myself.”

“I hope not, because if it’s one thing we don’t tolerate in this school, it’s cheating and lying!”, she intoned.

Slowly she looked around the room confronting each of us with her cold, hard stare. Slowly she turned and placed the papers on her desk. Slowly she opened a textbook and began the lesson for the day. Slowly I sank back into a stupor, struggling to recover from the stultifying atmosphere of that classroom.

My parents answered my phone call, but they clearly didn’t want to talk. The conversation has halted and stilted until Dad, with relief in his voice, said, “I’m sure glad you called.”

“OK Dad, what did you do.”

“He bought the wrong color toilet paper,” Mom screamed. “After twenty five years of using pink toilet paper he bought yellow!”

“It works,” was the meek reply.

I laughed hysterically. Mom calmed down a bit, though still angry, “I guess what bothers me is not so much the toilet paper, but where was his mind?”

“Well Mom, maybe he was channeling and a voice from the past spoke and told him to buy yellow toilet paper.”

“That can’t be” she snapped, “or he’d have come home with a Montgomery Ward catalog!”

Pink was not a favored color. Mom and Dad chose not to expend the money to replace the pink toilet, bathtub and sink when they purchased the house. Instead, Mom used orange and pink towels to soften the pink fixtures, and used pink toilet paper as an accent. Dad lived with it.

A few years after the toilet paper episode I visited them. Something was amiss in the bathroom. “Mom, why is there an orange toilet seat on that pink toilet?”

A sly grin crawled across her face. “Well, the toilet seat was broken and your father wouldn’t fix it. So one morning I went to the hardware store, saw the orange toilet seat and bought it. I knew full well he wouldn’t tolerate it, but I thought it would spur him into action. It did. When your father came home I told him a new seat was sitting in the bathroom for him to put on. He went in, looked at it, saw it was orange and ran out of here to return it.” The grin turned into a chuckle. “He found that the only toilet seat the hardware store had to fit this toilet was the orange one. I didn’t know that when I bought it. So now he is stuck with it.”

They lived together in that house thirty eight years and were married over fifty years. After their deaths my sisters and I sold the house. The pink toilet had a white seat and beside it was a roll of white paper. I’m sure Mom was looking down horrified. Dad was probably up there grinning.

Happy 92nd birthday, Harv.
Who’s this?
It’s me, Dave.
Dave Blodgett?
Well, I’ll be darned. You made my day. Good old Dave.
Where do you live?
California.
Didn’t you live on Nevada Street in Northfield?
No, that was my grandfather.
Oh, yeah. Who was that Marxist Carleton professor?
Karl Niebyl.
Wasn't he canned?
President Cowling fired him. The student body was up in arms. Sent a delegation to Cowling to protest, but he outsmarted them. Said the firing had nothing to do with Niebyl’s teaching, but was a matter of moral turpitude and people would be hurt by disclosures. Cut the ground out from under the protest. One of the people who probably would have been hurt was my older sister Jeanne. She worshiped him.
What happened to him?
He set up an advanced school for U. S. Navy personnel at Pearl Harbor. He mesmerized the admirals just like he totally dominated the faculty at Carleton.
I wasn’t into politics at Carleton. Just football and ice hockey.
You were my hero. I watched every game you played. You were a halfback and ran a naked reverse always good for five yards. We used to call you “Guts.”
You know I was a personal friend of Paul Wellstone.
Yes, Harv. His campaign manager was Jeff Blodgett.
What a guy!
We sure miss him.
He’d lead the fight against Bush and Cheney and this crazy, illegal invasion of Iraq.
Was he piloting that plane that crashed and killed him, his wife and daughter?
No. It was a leased plane, and the pilots screwed up. A horrible tragedy!
Your wife Norma and my friend Bill Schwied’s sister, Phyllis Solomon, went to Washington to protest the senseless execution of the Rosenbergs. Remember?
Yeah. Why were they executed? My memory isn’t much good anymore at 92.”
You’re doing great! I just called to make sure you were backing Obama. I knew you would be.
I’m going to my 70th class reunion at Carleton in June, I guess. Didn’t you live at the corner house?
No, that was my grandfather.
Who lived across the street?
I don’t remember. Did you read my tribute to Paul Wellstone?
I don’t think so.
I’ll give you my blog address and you can have Linda log in. I’ll e-mail it.
Give me your phone number again.
No, Harv, let me call you. I’ve got Peanuts.
You made my day. Gee, it’s good talking with you.
It gives me a big boost. Two old guys with great memories.Happy 92nd birthday, Harv.
Love you.
Love you too.

by Marlene Hickey


Summer days are fun but nights are better.

Our job as kids calls for us to hit the road
after an oatmeal breakfast to swim, bicycle,and skate
under a saffron sun until our mothers summon us home
in voices only the brave could ignore:
“Now! Come home now or else!”

Kick the Can and Red Rover are favorite daytime games,
but Hide ‘n go Seek rules the darkened streets
on hot flypaper-sticky nights. After bolting down
a reviving supper, neighborhood kids assemble
for round two under yellow-orange street lights,
like a platoon of troops gathering for war game practice.
Real war is raging in a faraway place called Europe
but we don’t bother our fun-addled little heads about that.
War is worry for adults along with rising prices
and the rationing of coffee and sugar.

Sometimes in the steamy blackness we chase glimmering
fireflies with empty Mason jars, lids at the ready, all the while
sneaking peeks at the almost grown-up girl sitting with her beau
on a front porch, the swing on which they flirt swaying
to and fro; low murmurs followed by bursts of laughter
drift out onto the humid evening air and phonograph records
crank out Sinatra tunes in the lighted room behind them.
The boys find the scene disgusting, groaning and hooting
as they do at Saturday movies when their favorite cowboy hero
gets sweet on the rancher’s daughter, but we girls find
it all terribly romantic and long for the day
when we will glide with a boy on a squeaky porch swing.

Late into the lengthening hours when the last
Ollie Ollie Ox in Free has sounded and we have run
until we drop from sheer sweaty exhaustion
onto warm sidewalks and cool lawns, we separate
as if by mutual decree, racing toward lit up windows
that spell home. I scramble up three wooden steps
to the porch where my long-haired, cross-eyed cat
waits for me, safe from scuttling feet and screaming kids.
Creaking open the screen door, I stroll confidently
into sanctuary while my bedmate jumps down
from her sentry post on the swing,
stretches her ancient feline limbs,
and fluffs in through the doorway behind me

WHAT DID YOU SAY? By Diane Marcus

On a very rare occasion my hyperactive but innocent looking three year old son was sitting on the carpeted floor of our living room building a unique structure on the round Moroccan coffee table playing with his Lego’s. His little legs were crossed at the ankles one donning a sock the other barefoot. His thick wavy shoulder length brown hair that had streaks of auburn in it was surrounding his face as he stared down at the last piece of the building blocks held between his little stubby fingers trying to figure out where he wanted to place it on his architecturally correct creation. His big eyes were squinted, his brow was furrowed. His naturally red lips were tightly closed folded one beneath the other his teeth biting his lower lip. He barely breathed as his shoulders were perfectly still. Nothing moved.
I stood in the doorway separating the living room from the dining room, not saying a word or moving for fear of interfering with his deep thoughts and concentration so rare for this little boy. Too late to grab him Shawn our oversized Irish setter came barreling across the living room chasing Wally the gray tabby and with his long feathered red tail knocked down James’ construction.
James just sat there for a moment starring at the blocks that had fallen onto the table and the carpet. He stood up looking at me as I started to move towards him with hugs and kisses on what surely must be a wet teary eyed face. Instead he looked down at the mess and under his breath but loud enough for me to hear he said “oh f..k and took off running after Shawn and Wally into the back yard.
I was surprised but not angry as I remembered a long time before when I was about ten or eleven. We lived in an apartment building across from the school so I would come home for lunch and often invited a friend. One day I was so angry at a Robert who sat behind me and was always poking me in the back and pulling on my hair. On this particular day since I was already in trouble with my teacher for squirming too much I turned around and shouted a sentence not taught in English classes.
At lunch I brought home a note for my mother from the principal Mr. Braunawer. If anybody was innocent looking it was me and I learned to use my eyes to confuse people who would hear me but not believe that it come from this angelic very blonde, curly haired girl with those pretty eyes and sweet smile. After reading the note my mother obviously appalled but not wanting to make a scene or embarrass me in front of a friend said “Tell me Helene where you children learn this language.” “But Mrs. Gullish, those words are writing all over the inside doors of the bathroom.”