Letter Dated 13 January 1877, Gohra, Prussia

Liebe Berta,

Do you remember the polkas we played together? And the mazurkas? You on piano, me on violin?

Well, I cannot play them since you left! When I do, it sounds like weasels fighting. My attempts send Papa outdoors and make Karl shriek!

Mama says it could be years before we come to Parisville. Until then, she says, I must find my own beautiful voice as a solo violinist. We all hope that day comes soon.

Dein Bruder, 
August 

Letter Dated 23 September 1876, Parisville, Michigan

Lieber August,

My journey was long. Hundreds of Prussians leave Bremen each day sailing for America. Like Papa, they find little work for low pay. And like Mama, they say that Bismarck is wrong — things are not improving in Prussia. So we all seek better lives in America. After six weeks of travel I am glad, if not a little nervous, to finally be here in Michigan.

August, I am sorry to have left. But I am sixteen now. Papa found a nice boy for me here in Parisville. He was waiting for me. His name is William Susalla and he is also from Prussia. He is hard working and watches over me in this country where so much is new and strange. As soon as you join me here, you will meet him yourselves.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you, Mama and Papa, Johann, Anna and little Karl.

Deine Schwester, 
Berta


Letter Dated 4 August 1876, Gohra, Prussia

Liebe Berta,

Everything is changed since you left.

The house is so quiet. Mama is impatient. Papa is sad. And Johann is gone — called up for the army. Anna has stopped singing. And little Karl — what a baby! — he whines like the wind without you.

Mama says you are smart to leave now. And Papa says you will prosper. “Opportunity abounds in America,” he says.

Still, no one will say why you left when you did. What is a mail-order bride anyway? Because I am only eight, no one tells me a thing.

I wish you had never gone.

Dein Bruder,
August 

Gallery Espresso, Savannah, GA

Before we moved to Savannah, Gallery Espresso was already our favorite café. It's situated on one of the city's many scenic squares, and is always bustling with activity. The coffee's great and the food is good, but it's the local characters and rustic atmosphere that keep drawing us back. (Pun intended.) Cheers!

Back Up

ONE RAINY AFTERNOON, after we’d eaten our fill of cookies on the back stairs, Katie-Ann and I crept farther up. Gramma didn’t like us there. I guess it was ‘cuz she couldn’t see what we were up to. But it was a rainy day in Detroit, so what else were two cousins to do?

On the left side, at the top of the stairs, was an immense, deep ledge. We passed it every night on our way up to bed, and again every morning on our way back down. It was stacked to the ceiling with boxes, folded Afghans, pillows, lamp shades, a dressmaker’s dummy, an army helmet, hat boxes, a brass-and-marble pedestal ashtray with a greyhound-shaped handle, tattered paintings, a battered steamer trunk, a lumpy green duffel; and that was just what we could see from the stairs. Katie-Ann and I wondered what else was stashed there, and why we’d never thought to have a look before. But we hadn’t. Until now.

The first boxes we opened were filled with useless oddities: rubber nipples from baby bottles, tops from Mason jars, clothes pins. We laid these boxes aside. The next box contained a blue metal airplane with military decals on its fold-up wings. I yanked it from the box and flew it around the landing, vrooming away as I banked and dipped. Katie-Ann found a beat-up doll that she tossed aside and lunged for my plane.

“Lemme have it!” she said, grabbing hold.

I gave her a push as I snatched the plane back, not noticing that I had shoved her toward the stairs.

But the crash got my attention!

I whipped around and found Katie-Ann sprawled out on the ledge where boxes and blankets used to be. Piles of paraphernalia disappeared down the steps.

The kitchen door squeaked opened and Gramma called up, “You kids upstairs? Was macht Ihr? Are you all right?”

Our eyes fixed on one another as we heard her feet treading up the stairs.

“What is all this? What’re you kids doing? Are you all right?”

The look on Gramma’s face as she rounded the corner said everything we needed to know.

“Sorry, Gramma,” I said.

“Sorry,” echoed Katie-Ann. “We’ll clean it up.”

“What were ya doin’? You’re not supposed t’ be up here,” she said as she gathered up a couple of displaced pillows.

“I see ya found Uncle Max’s airplane," she said to me. "He loved playin’ with that when he was your age.”

I had a hard time imagining crotchety Uncle Max ever playing with anything, and wondered whether, at my age, he already had wiry hairs poking out of his nose and ears.

“Papa’s letters!” sighed Gramma. She bent over to collect the yellowed envelopes strewn about the stairs. A photo slipped from one and fluttered toward the kitchen.

Katie-Ann raced to get it.

“Who're these people?” she asked, handing the photo to Gramma.

“That’s my Pa and his sister Berta. I'm named after her,” she said, smiling at the happy pair who smiled back at her. “He was your great-grandpa and she was your great-grand-aunt. And these are letters they wrote to each other when they were just a little older than you two.”

There were lots of letters. How many could two kids write?

Gramma sat on the top step and began ordering them. She became very quiet, like she was thinking about something else. She smiled.

 “Why would they write letters to each other?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Katie-Ann. “They lived in the same house, didn’t they?”

“Ach, Ihr Liebe! You don’t know about Papa and Tante Berta, do you?” she asked, pulling a letter from its envelope. She unfolded the delicate old paper and began reading it to us...

Tybee Light House



This morning we headed to the beach. It's only eight miles from home, but this summer we've only been there one other time. We live adjacent to Tybee Island and the beach is on its eastern shore. Tybee's north beach is relatively undeveloped, commercially, so it tends to be quieter than the south beach with its restaurants and bars. We prefer the north beach where we can get some reading or sketching done.

This watercolor features the Tybee Lighthouse, but it also features a turtle nest which is cordoned off with yellow warning tape. The sea turtles are laying eggs this time of year and volunteers populate the beach at night to spy on the turtles as they clamber ashore to lay their eggs; when the eggs are safely buried and the female returns to the sea, the volunteers stake out the nest and cordon it off to prevent unwary beach-goers from damaging the eggs. The Georgia Sea Turtle Center has some interesting information about our nocturnal visitors.

I-16 to Atlanta

Today I reluctantly drove up to Atlanta. I needed to pick up artwork from a recent exhibition there. Normally I enjoy heading out of town, but this time I needed to get up and back in the same day. And it's a four-and-a-half-hour drive. One-way. Thus my reluctance.

As I neared Atlanta, giant overhead traffic signs proclaimed:

"It is now illegal to text while driving in the state of Georgia."

"Jeez," I grumbled to myself. "What'll they outlaw next? Sketching while driving?"

Lazaretto Creek Bridge, Savannah, Georgia


The Lazaretto Creek Bridge is one that I drive over quite regularly. It's situated between Tybee and Wilmington Islands, at the confluence of the Savannah River and the Atlantic. It's a busy little spot where shrimpers dock and where tourists rent kayaks and water skis.

The place was named Lazaretto Creek because this is where a lazarette, or quarantine station, was located. A nearby historical marker notes: "After the repeal of the anti-slavery provision in the Charter of the Colony of Georgia on 1749, an act permitting the importation of slaves ordered the erection of a Lazaretto (Quarantine Station) on Tybee Island. Not until 1767 were 104 acres purchased from Josiah Tattnall for this purpose. Completed the following year, the buildings were situated on the westernmost tip of Tybee, at the mouth of what soon became known as Lazaretto Creek. In its hospital voyagers who arrived ill were treated and those who died were buried in unmarked graves. After continuous use through the Revolution, the Grand Jury reported it in ruinous condition in 1785 and a new station was later erected on Cockspur Island."

I headed out early this morning to do this watercolor sketch, before the heat became too unbearable. The breeze kept things comfortable and it was actually a gorgeous morning to be out sketching.

Hands Off!

AS A BOY, there were things that I simply could not resist: stealing cookies from the jar on Gramma’s back stairs, sneaking a swim in the Horn’s pool, or secretly reading the diary Annie kept hidden beneath her mattress.

I read her private journal, cover to cover, in a single sitting. Pizza parties. Dances. Boys. Making out. It was actually pretty boring stuff. Disappointing really. But it was exciting to read because I knew I shouldn’t be doing it! Once I finished making mischief, I slid the diary back under the mattress, making certain the bedspread and pillows were properly in place.

The next morning before church, Annie looked at me strangely and asked, “Have you been in my room?”

“No,” I said, a bit too quickly. “Why? It was probably Jay-bird.”

“Somebody’s been gettin’ into my things,” she said, studying my reaction. I squirmed a bit. “Ya don’t know anything about it, do ya?”

“No,” I repeated. “Leave me alone. We gotta go t’ church.”

Did she know? She stared at me with that look!

“Ya know what happens to little brothers who snoop around their sisters’ room, don’tcha?” she asked.

I couldn’t answer. I just looked at her, wondering whether she had found me out. But she said nothing more. She just cocked her head slightly and stared at me through those squinty eyes she had when she suspected me of something.

If Annie knew I had read her diary, she would make me pay!

A few days passed and Annie said nothing more about it. So I decided I was in the clear. Unable to resist, I slunk back to her room to catch up on Annie’s latest antics.

But when I reached under Annie’s mattress, the diary wasn’t there. What’s more, Cynthia was sitting on Annie’s pillow, no longer hanging in the closet where she was supposed to be. That creepy puppet stared at me like it could actually see! Its eyes were glued on me like it was keeping watch! I raced out of the room.

In bed that night I wondered what Annie was going to do to me. I knew she knew. And I knew she would do something to get back at me. I tossed from one side to the other, imagining the worst. In the twilight between wake and sleep, a thought hit me: maybe Annie had described her revenge in her diary! I could have a quick read to find out what she had in store for me!

The next thing I knew I was sneaking into Annie’s room. I heard her in the den watching TV with the rest of the family. I wondering whether she had put the diary back under her mattress. Cynthia sat stiffly on Annie’s pillow. I slid my arm under the mattress, careful to keep my face away from Cynthia who was suddenly way too close to me. But the diary wasn’t there. And I couldn’t pull my arm out from under the mattress! I was stuck! It had me!

And to my horror, Cynthia was growing larger and larger. Her unusually huge wooden foot flopped off the bed while her wiry hair scratched the ceiling. Her lacy wedding dress brushed my face making me pull away in revulsion. She lumbered up off of the bed, her long arms swinging apelike from her marionette body. Cynthia opened her mouth and her sharp, pearly teeth flashed. A voice hissed loudly from Cynthia’s mouth:

Fiddle-faddle-flit-and-flutter,
I smell the lie of her little brother,
If I catch him near her bed
I’ll pluck his eyes and stomp his head!

It took every ounce of strength I had to pull my arm free from the mattresses. I ran from the room, my heart drumming in my chest.


The house shook as Cynthia’s couch-sized feet thundered after me. I was too afraid to look back, but I could hear her skirts brushing along the walls, growing ever closer. I knew she was gaining on me.

“Fee-fi-fo-fum,” she bellowed. “FEE-FI-FO-FUM!”

Her immense hand closed tightly around my body and hoisted me into the air. She held me so fast that I was helpless. I was entirely immobile in the marionette’s death grip. All I could do was close my eyes. I felt her cold, dry fingernail stroking my forehead, inscribing it with her signature of doom.

Her hot breath crawled into my ear and down my neck as she whispered:

Feeble-fible-fabble-fubble
I smell one’s been making trouble,
Naughty boys I like the most,
Nicely broiled AND SERVED ON TOAST!

I opened my eyes just in time to see her unlatch the door of her blazing oven, ready to shove me in.

My screams woke me up. Moonlight streamed through my window. The TV blared in the den. Strangely, I still couldn’t move. To my confusion, I found myself rigidly wrapped in my bed sheet, and tied ‘round and ‘round with Annie’s old jump rope.

Annie!

I scooted to the edge of the bed, jumped out, and wiggled and wriggled my way out of the cocoon Annie had fashioned for me. I flipped on the light and squinted back its sudden brightness.

When I looked in the mirror, there was heavy black writing on my forehead, scrawled in the garbled language of giants. It read:

!FFO SDNAH

Pont Julien, Provence, France

When I'd first arrived in Lacoste, France, I had brought with me only small art supplies — quills, inks, brushes, pencils, erasers; I was traveling light so figured I'd buy large, fragile papers in France. (I don't need a lot of arm-twisting to have to buy art supplies in other countries!)

However, I wanted to go out sketching before I had had a chance to buy any paper. So I rummaged around and found a piece of cardboard to which I glued torn pieces of newspaper. I prepped the surface and headed down the road to Pont Julien.


It was early September and the river had all but dried up. On one side of the bridge was a large pool, the sole sign that water had once flowed through this rocky riverbed. I was struck by the juxtaposition of lights and darks, positives and negatives. I worked with a quill and ink, and this was the result.

Savannah Harbor from the Bohemian Rooftop

Embarrassed that I have done so few sketches here in Savannah, I lassoed Silke this afternoon, grabbed my sketchbook, and headed to town to do some sketching.


Savannah's harbor, as is the case with all US ports since 9-11, is very protected. It's difficult to get close to it, much less get interesting points-of-view from which to draw. The fact that our harbor is situated on the Savannah River, fourteen miles inland from the coast, poses problematic logistics in that there are no good ways to approach the harbor, save being on a boat. (I think about ports like San Francisco, Seattle or Baltimore where the natural bays provide innumerable vistas; Savannah has nothing like this because of the geography.)


All this is to say that the best place to view the harbor is from the rooftop bar of the Bohemian Hotel. Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking. The fact that I could enjoy a pint (or two) while sketching was a real boon, especially since we're having another sweltering summer. But it wasn't the reason I headed to the roof. Really. The reason we headed there was the food. (Just kidding. Sort of. But not really.) Truthfully, the Bohemian is a great venue with fantastic vistas. We could sit high up, under umbrellas, where there was a reasonable breeze — important considerations when you're outdoors sketching in 95% humidity with 95° temps.

We ordered a couple of beers and started sketching, as we planned. When the waitress came by to see whether we wanted anything to eat, Silke and I both agreed that we weren't hungry, but that we'd have a look at the menu.


As I sketched, Silke read down the list of the tapas: goat cheese guacamole, a butcher's plate, sirloin bruschetta, Caprese salad, hand-cut fries with garlic aoli and Parmesean, a crabcake sandwich, shrimp ceviche, mango-tomato gazpacho, curried calamari. Blah, blah, blah. I was focused on my drawing.


"What do you want?" asked Silke.

"I dunno. I'm not really hungry. Do you want anything?"

"The fries and garlic aoli sound pretty good," she suggested. (This didn't surprise me. There's something about having a German wife that goes hand-in-hand with potatoes. Or good bread. Or beer.)

"Okay," I conceded, distractedly, "the fries sound good."

When the waitress returned, Silke placed the order. But as the waitress turned and started back toward the kitchen, Silke called out, "Could we get the Caprese salad, too?"

I burst out laughing! We weren't even hungry but couldn't resist!

So we hung out on the rooftop, sketching, eating, and enjoying a Yuengling or two. (Since the Bohemian changes the menu regularly, we'd never tried these items before, and they were both great! [Afterward, Silke and I both admitted that these were the best fries we'd ever eaten in our lives. It's not to say that the Caprese salad was negligible; in fact, it was great — the tomatoes had been skinned and lightly marinated in lemon juice and garlic.] Despite my best efforts, I did manage to keep my sketch free of olive oil or aoli.)

Typical of Savannah this time of year, thunderstorms began building around us in the late afternoon. We watched the clouds swell and roll and rumble. Before long we were surrounded by huge thunderheads and the sky turned blue-black. First one drop. Then another. And another. Then the sky opened up and let us have it! We stayed out on the rooftop under the umbrella as long as we could, but ultimately had to race indoors to keep our sketchbooks from getting soaked. All in all, a wonderfully successful outing!

Cheers!

Savannah's Harbor

Considering Savannah has one of our country's busiest ports, you would think that I would have some sketches of the harbor after having lived here for four years. But I don't have many.

What I do have is a neighbor who is a tugboat pilot who offered to take me out with him this past spring. I was excited for this opportunity! Unfortunately, I was advised to take a camera and shoot photos, but not to sketch because having a non-crew member on-deck while maneuvering the freighters was too risky. So what I have to post here, at least initially, are photos. (A watercolor I did based on my photos follows.)

One of the things that impresses me to no end about the freighters is their sizes! They're immense! Floating cities! When our tugboat pulled up beside a freighter to nudge it into port, it grew dark beneath the freighter's hull!













When I got back to my studio after the outing, I did a watercolor painting in which I attempted to capture the scale relationships between the freighters and the tugs. This is a small piece — about 8 x 6" — so it doesn't feel entirely successful when it comes to achieving my formal goals. On the other hand, I did work this piece in a subtractive watercolor process (unusual for me), having first sized my paper, then applied a mid-tone wash of a mixture of burnt sienna, Payne's grey and ultramarine, before lifting out and adding details.

Mexico City

Depending on how I travel to Oaxaca, I may or may not have time to spend in Mexico City. There's a wonderful rooftop restaurant on the Zócolo I like to visit. It affords wonderful views over the city with its colonial Catherdral.


When I am there, I make it a point to visit Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. I spend hours there, looking and sketching. The pre-Columbian art is fascinating in that the more you study it, the more you see — talk about multi-layered imagery! After hours of looking and enjoying, I invariably ended up at the museum's café, a gorgeous outdoor patio.


Outside the museum are the Voladores, the flying acrobats, whom I tried to sketch in a way that their graceful swaying movement would come through.


I rarely spend time in Mexico's Federal District — not because I don't enjoy it, but because I'm normally too eager (i.e., too much in a hurry) to get to Oaxaca.

Here I Go Again


But I'd rather be sketching.

I'd rather be sketching than starting another blog. But visual travelogues are such cool things that I couldn't help myself when I came across the blog "Urban Sketchers."

When I discovered the expressive, descriptive, individualized images of the multitude of its contributors, I couldn't resist. I had to aspire to that same degree of creative interpretation myself.

So here I go again...

I'm starting small. Quite literally. I did this tiny watercolor (2 x 3") on the Zócolo in Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca is one of my favorite places — a colonial Spanish city situated high in Mexico's southern mountains. The city is colorful and varied, as are its inhabitants. The Oaxaceños are some of the sweetest people in the entire world. This sketch depicts a man shining another man's shoes beneath the immense, overarching trees on the Zócolo. I did the painting in a sample paper pad I picked up at a hand-made paper workshop, Taller Arte Papel Oaxaca in Vista Hermosa, just outside of San Augustín Etla (which is just outside of Oaxaca). I was fortunate to be invited to Oaxaca a couple of times a year to teach watercolor and children's book illustration workshops; but those days are over and I miss this lovely place and its people more than I can say.

I hope you get the chance to sketch there someday. What's more, I hope to see you there!

Springtime on the Pulaski II

…The raft tottered and spun as we lurched away from the dam. The Pulaski whipped us downstream at a horrifying speed. My bent arms were rigidly fused to my chest, my fists frozen around the raft’s single line. Jay-Bird and Jude rode the raft like the bronco it had become, whooping and hollering above the roar of the whitewater, slicing the paddles through the waves. I had a hard time sharing their enthusiasm.

From its shore the Pulaski was a turbulent, swollen serpent. From the center of the stream, it was an endless series of exploding peaks and deep valleys, coffee-colored moguls that rendered the paddles useless. It tossed us, up and down, port and starboard. Our rubber craft ricocheted from rocks and was sucked into eddies. Trees and cliff-tops sped past us. Instantly a boulder confronted us. Just as quickly the torrent slung us down a series of rapids. I was suddenly submerged. Bubbles danced away from me in a muddy expanse of yellow-brown. I burst into the sunlight, gasping, my hands still tightly gripping the line, my spotted glasses sitting lopsided on my face.

But I was alone in the raft!

“Jay!” I screamed, looking about wildly. “Jay-Bird! Jude!”

Cresting a wave, I barely caught sight of Jay’s white-blond head upstream before I was swept around an outcropping of rock. Off I sailed, spinning this way and that. Another wave tossed me up and I was able to glimpse Jude waving crazily from a boulder far behind me.

Overhead the bridge soared past.

My hands trembled as they clamped the line. I fought back tears. How could I get to shore? How could I get out of the river? How could I get home?

My mind raced as I flew downstream, but I could come up with no reasonable way out of my predicament. Without paddles, the only thing I could do to save myself was jump overboard and swim for shore.

The bridge disappeared behind me — I had never been this far downriver. Ahead of me towered the old brick hydro plant we passed on the way to town. Dad had explained to me how the force of the river drove turbines — giant corkscrews — to make electricity. But I had never seen the old power plant from this perspective before. Its vast intakes rose out of the river and I has headed straight toward them. I needed to jump! Now!


But I couldn’t move.

In an instant a turbine maw sucked me in. I shut my eyes and felt my raft lurch off to the left. The roar of the river suddenly ceased. I opened my eyes and was surprised to find that I was calmly floating inside a colossal brick-and-plaster fortress whose top opened to a dazzling blue sky. To my left was a grassy knoll and to my right were the turbine openings through which the Pulaski rumbled past.

I took a breath and jumped out of the raft. Still clinging to the line, I swam to the bank and slogged ashore. My knees were shaking and I collapsed into the lush spring grass. I rolled onto my back and a sound burst out of me. A sob! A laugh! A chuckle! I laughed until tears rolled down my cheek, until my sides ached!

I deflated the raft, rolled it up, and tucked it under my arm. I pulled away the corner of a corrugated sheet covering a giant doorway and squeezed through. I raced home, eager to meet up with Jude and Jay-Bird and to see whether they managed to hang onto the paddles for our next rafting adventure.

Springtime on the Pulaski

FENNVILLE REEKED OF MUD when the Pulaski swelled and swirled during the spring thaw. Slabs of ice clogged the river above the dam, while below it the river became a roiling torrent. Roads along the river flooded to the point of being impassible. The farmland above the dam became veritable inlets, causing our school bus (or any other vehicle) to seek alternate routes.

This annual transformation marked the transition from the long, dark winter to a bright, blossoming spring. It was a time of promise and potential, a certain indicator that vacation was just around the corner. We knew that when the Pulaski’s water returned to her normal level, Ma would let us set out with cane poles and bait, and that we’d return with the biggest, most beautiful pickerel in all Ohio.

But until the water receded, the river was off limits. It was a dangerous place during spring floods. Anyone foolish enough to test her angry banks ended up drowning, their bodies rushed downstream to the bay, to be dragged out by the authorities days later, their limbs torn and bruised by rocks, their eyes picked out by fish.

So we watched the swirling water from the safety of the cliffs.

“Looket the water,” exclaimed Jude, pointing to the far side of the river where the ruins of a mill normally stood. “Ya can’t even see the old foundation.”

“It looks like chocolate milk being stirred around by a crazy lady,” I said.

“The Pooh-laski,” Jude chortled, “looks like chocolate, smells like poop!” (That was only part of the reason we called him Rude Dude Jude.)

“I’ve never seen the river this wild before,” I added.

“Wouldn’t it be cool to raft down it?” asked Jude.

What? Jay-Bird and I gaped at one another.

“Ya’re crazy,” Jay-Bird replied. “Go rafting on the river? When it’s like this?”

“Ya’re yella-bellies!” Jude taunted. “I’m gonna do it! I have nine dollars and I’m gonna buy me a raft. Just fifteen dollars down at Krevsky’s!”

“Where ya gonna get the rest of the money? Ya still need six dollars,” Jay pointed out.

“You guys can chip in,” Jude declared. “We can be co-owners. We can all go down the river together.”

Jay-Bird and I looked at each other quizzically. We looked at Jude. His eyes sparkled.

The die was cast!


WE COLLECTED FIFTEEN DOLLARS for the raft, plus another five for oars, plus enough extra cash for tax. Our legs were pistons as we peddled to Krevsky’s. We made our purchases from a plump cashier with a furrowed brow.

“You boys aren’t thinking ‘bout takin’ that out on the river, are ya?” she asked.

We shook our heads vehemently before plucking up our goods and high-tailing it out of the store.

It was a tricky ride home with the awkward paddles and the slick raft. But we made it back in record time.

We took turns blowing life into the large, yellow doughnut.

“Cool,” Jay muttered, wide-eyed.

“Let’s go!” Jude yelled, snatching the raft and racing toward the river. Jay-Bird and I each grabbed a paddle and took off after Jude.


THE GULLY LEADING DOWN to the river was slimy. A careless footstep landed me with a crash at the bottom of the ravine. Jude and Jay followed suit. We huddled together at the foot of the dam.

A cold, muddy mist rolled off the thundering wall of water, the roar of which swallowed up all other sounds.

Jude waved us to the water’s edge where he launched the raft. He motioned for me to hold onto its line. I grabbed the nylon cord, which strained under the force of the river. I was surprised to discover that my arms were shaking. Jude leapt in and was barely situated when Jay-Bird followed. The raft lurched. Jude’s mouth was moving but I heard no words over the blast of the dam.

“Get in!” he mouthed.

“Get in!” mimicked Jay.

My knees were suddenly shaking. I sucked in a deep breath, hoping to still the fluttering in my stomach, and jumped in.

Away we went.

Gramma's Stairs

WHENEVER WE VISITED GRAMMA AND GRAMPA, there were always a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins visiting as well. The place was a hive of activity, both inside and outside.

The kitchen was a hub of flurry.

My uncles and Grampa monopolized the kitchen table with their card games. Smoke hung in the kitchen the way it hung in the dreary Detroit sky. Shot glasses and ashtrays littered the table.

My aunts and Gramma busied themselves cooking, baking and doing dishes. Skillets sputtered on the stove. Oven doors screeched. Fridge doors thumped. Pots and cookie sheets clattered in the sink. The back door banged shut regularly enough that Gramma gave up yelling, “Keep that door locked!” The banter between the men and the women was nonstop, ranging from barely audible whispers to ear-spitting guffaws. What a cacophony!

Gramma’s back stairs was always a major draw to my cousins and me. We were not allowed to be on them. If we were caught nearing them, we were shooed away. They were situated in the rear corner of the kitchen between the stove and the back door.

The attraction wasn’t the stairs themselves, but what Gramma stored on the third step up: a large jar of her cookies. The trick for us became making it through the bustle of the kitchen unnoticed, then sneaking through the door that separated the stairs from the kitchen. When there was a lot happening, this was a fairly easy task. But when it was only Gramma and Grampa in the kitchen and things were quiet, this short trek was nearly impossible. They always caught us heading toward the cookies.

“Danny,” called Gramma as I neared the stairs, “Was machst Du? Why don’t you go play in the front room. You don’t need to be in the kitchen.” Grampa held back a chuckle.

Deflated but undaunted, I left the kitchen. I headed for the front room but kept going. I ran out the front door, around the house, and tested the back kitchen door. Surprisingly, it was unlocked! I raced back around to the front room to fetch Katie-Ann, my soon-to-be partner-in-crime.

“The back door’s unlocked?” she asked, as astonished as I was that Gramma would have left it unlocked.

We raced round the house and up the back steps, quietly opened the back door and slid inside. We stealthily moved toward the stairs, keeping out of sight.

“Ma,” called Grampa over his newspaper, “did you hear that? Sounded like the back door.”

“Can’t be, Pa,” she answered. “It’s locked. But I’ll check it. Can’t be too safe.”

Our eyes nearly bugged out of our heads. As fast as we could we slipped undetected into the stairwell. Katie-Ann and I congratulated ourselves with cookie after cookie.

In the kitchen, Gramma and Grampa smiled at one another as they mentally contrived new cookie barriers for future visits.

A Hole of My Own

WHEN MA DIED, I went underground. I needed to be by myself. I needed to sort things out. So I dug a hole and crawled inside.

I couldn’t stand all the somber people and their empty words.

“Oh, Danny. I’m so sorry.”

“How are you doin’?”

“You help your dad now.”

I didn’t even know these well-intended swarms. Before the funeral they infested the house — ladies cooking and cleaning, men gathering in the den smoking and drinking. Lots of whispers and sidelong glances. I was suddenly a stranger in my own home, moving through a bad dream I couldn’t wake from.

The day of the funeral Lu came home from New Jersey. Aunts and uncles and cousins came. Grandma and Grandpa came, too. I was glad to finally see familiar faces with sincere smiles, to find some warm arms to lose myself in. But they all left as soon as we buried Ma.

The days following the funeral were silent. No one talked. Not a word. Since Dad broke the news, Jay-bird became my shadow. He wouldn’t leave my side. He was as lost as I was.

But I didn’t care. I needed to be by myself.

Not even Jay-bird was paying attention when I grabbed the shovel and raced to the river. There was a spot high on the cliffs where I liked to sit and sketch. I could see the dam to my left and the bridge to my right. Below, the rapids foamed white in the fast-moving, muddy-brown water. This was where I started to dig.

I dug and I dug. I dug until my back hurt and my arms ached. Then I dug some more. When I ran into roots too big to slice through, I snuck home and got the saw to cut them out.


Down, down I dug.

My hole became a tunnel. My tunnel, a hide-away. My hide-away, a sanctuary — dark, damp and earthy smelling. I spent the night there with Reuben, and no one noticed — not Dad, not Annie, not Paddy or Bull. Not even Jay-bird. After we buried Ma, nothing was ever the same again.