Finding our Star--Pt 1

Finding Our Star -Part 1 of 5
A True Love Story by Preston Ingalls

Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?    Richard Bach


CHAPTER ONE


“What is this Papa?”

I hesitated sorting through the boxes in our closet to turn my attention to Emi, my 14-year old granddaughter. She was holding two tattered scrapbooks, one dark brown and the other sage green. 

I chuckled, “Emi, those are scrapbooks from my childhood. I guess I have had those forever.  I had forgotten about them.”

“Can we look at them, Papa? Come on…please.” She headed toward a stool with her latest treasures in hand, waiting for my response.

My tightened brow of concern eased as I surrendered to an obligation to be the granddad--not the dad.  The departure from the tasks of sorting the closet gave way to adventure. “Umm. Well, I guess so.  Come on, Emalee. Let’s see what we have here.”

Looking over at her, I realized she was thoroughly inquisitive and interested in the contents.  Her eyes shone with glee.  Without faltering, she started flipping through the worn and browning pages.  Emi appeared excited about the prospects of discovering something new about her grandfather.  To be honest, I was mildly curious about what I had stored in those books from long ago.

Perched on the two stools my wife used to get to the upper shelves, we meticulously set about with our exploratory tasks. Placing one book aside, we mutually decided to focus on the older of the two, the sage green one with matte black pages and tattered corners.

Glancing over at my granddaughter, I gently pulled the book from her hand and explained, “Emi. I started this one while I was in the third grade. Come on--let’s look at some of the awards from my elementary school.” 

Delicately, I opened the aged cover to curiously explore the long-forgotten contents. A slight musty smell arose and a smile came to my lips.  The book began to surrender its contents like a sunflower its petals in early summer. Boyhood had returned.  The time machine was the black pages, propelling me backwards through time.

I was “academically-challenged,” a dud with studies.  I make no apologies for it.  Call it laziness or rebellion, I was a poster child for capital punishment from school authorities and more rigorously, from my heavy-handed father.  The choices were bleak—a paddle or belt, as if the third, neither, would have been considered.

But oh, could I artistically breathe life into inanimate items.  A testament to this was the first page of the scrapbook.  There lay the evidence, a silky blue First Place ribbon for the Granville Elementary School 1960 Third Grade Arts and Crafts Contest.  My foot high snowman, crafted of newspaper and powdered soap, walked away with the top prize that year.  It was a noble achievement for a ten year old.  The gentle tracing of the ribbon with my fingers helped send me back to that night, almost a half century ago, causing me to smile. 

Like a scene from a movie, I was overtaken by flashbacks to a time long since forgotten.  The recollection came to form, combined with the puzzlement as to why my father, normally detached from assisting his kids with school projects, would take interest in helping me craft a project for a contest. We had no real relationship yet he sometimes astonished me with events like this.

I could recall molding and shaping the balls of newspaper, using soap powder to form the shape of a snowman; later fashioning a miniature hat out of black construction paper.  My father had given me a broken pipe to use for the snowman’s mouth and my mother black buttons to form his eyes.  Even though the pipe was out of scale for the diminutive snowman, its rustic authenticity brought life to my foot high creation.  I chuckled recalling the day after seeing my snowman poised gingerly on the table in the hallway of that school, long since torn down and replaced with apartments for the elderly.  The blue ribbon was all there was left of that fleeting memory of that achievement.

A hushed chuckle bubbled up from within as I viewed my third grade Safety Crossing Guard award.  The tattered corners of the certificate brought back memories of the bright white canvas waist belt with the additional belt that diagonally crossed my chest.  Pinned to the diagonal belt was a police-like badge—adding an official appearance to the attire. My beat was the intersection of Academy Street and Granville Drive. Halting cars and ensuring the kids made it across was my role, before and after school.  No kids hit on my watch and I never made the front page of the newspaper for dereliction of duty, I laughed to myself. 

Smiling at the remembrance, I kept turning the pages; each continued to surrender lost treasures like a piñata releasing its goodies. 

Emi suddenly shrieked, pointing at a page I had just flipped, “O-ooo! W-h-a-t is that Papa?”

There in the middle of the page was a blob of fur secured with browning scotch tape. It had been tenderly cut from my dog’s dying body, a victim of a careless dart in front of a car in 1963. I am sure the emotions were strong at that moment in 1963, to trim a lock of that collie’s fur as a lasting reminder. Little would I have imagined back then that I would be examining it almost fifty years in the future.  Oddly enough, I never had a favorite pet after his death.  It seemed that no animal could take his place.  I thought to myself how odd that was to shirk off relationships with animals because of the death of one when I was thirteen years old.  Was that normal?  Was there something deeper to that alienation to animals?  Had I subconsciously protected myself from possible pain caused by the loss of an animal?  This was getting too deep.

“That was from my dog, Pythagoras, a collie, killed when he ran in front of a car when I was thirteen years old,” I replied.   

“W-h-a-t!?!?  What was his name?” 

I laughingly responded, “My father named it after the Greek who developed the Pythagorean Theorem. It has to do with trigonometry. It was supposed to be funny when he did it. He had just read about trigonometry and, well…the collie puppy got a strange handle.” I shrugged and she frowned as to see if I was pulling her leg.

“Ok, Emi.  Never mind—long story.  That was the name of my dog.  I-I-I didn’t choose it.  I didn’t even know how to spell it for the longest time” 

“Papa.  Why are you taking so long to turn the pages?”  Of course she had no knowledge or recollection because these were my experiences, not hers.  She wanted to see the goodies and I wanted to relish and relive those moments again, long ago dissolved in the sands of time with fragments of  memories stored somewhere in the recesses of my mind.

“Emi, someday you will have a scrapbook like this and when you view it, it will cause you to go back in time to those moments.  It’s...it’s hard to explain. Take my word.”

The exploration of the memorabilia was paused as my attention turned momentarily to the book itself.  I began to recall doggedly hauling this particular scrapbook and its cherished contents around the world during my tour with the US Army from 1967 to 1972.  The aged book displayed its wounds proudly like an aged bullfighter. 

From Germany to the jungles of South Vietnam, the scrapbook was the only possession I entered into the service with and would leave with five years later. A vinyl record by Frank Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy, titled “These Boots Were Made for Walking” had started the same journey but was hastily discarded in one of my moves from one barracks to another in Germany in 1968.  The scrapbook had endured thousands of miles of travel.  Many times I was tempted, but then hesitated, to toss it. It followed me like a loyal dog to its master.  Crumpled corners arose from being repeatedly shoved inside the green canvas duffle bag, issued at the US Army Reception Station at Fort Bragg in September ‘67.

Turning again to the contents, I came across a photo of the ten-year old Cynthia Summit.

"Papa, who's this? She's pretty," Emi cooed, pointing her finger to the forty-year old picture nestled in the upper left corner of that aged scrapbook.

As a child, you are not aware as to how small events can unfold that will alter your life forever.  I am not sure we, as adults, have any better foresight to identify those events.  Nevertheless, as a young child in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, my life was about to be influenced by a special person.

I looked at the picture and was immersed with a drape of warmth and a smile stretched the lines on my face. Emi saw the smile and responded with one of her own.

“Emi, I met your Grammy when she was almost three.”




CHAPTER TWO


The 1950’s

Before videos, before computers, before cell phones, there was a simpler and less stressful time. The 1950’s offered great hope and opportunity for families, relieved with the end of the war and eager to discover the prosperity already budding in the post-war years. The 1950’s represented an enormous change as the 40’s had ushered in the remnants of the Great Depression while half of that decade was consumed by World War II with its trials and losses.  Everything was not perfect. During the 50’s, the world would experience the dark cloud of the Cold War and the Red Menace of Communism.

With little fanfare, Bill and Ann Summit moved into the duplex next to our family at Lakeside Apartments in Winston-Salem.  Facing no electricity or furniture when they arrived, and not wishing to impose themselves on their new neighbors, they slept in the car with their small children overnight.  When we realized they had slept in their car, my father offered to run an extension cord next door to at least provide a light for them until their power was turned on. I was almost six years old and Cynthia, their oldest daughter, was almost three. 

Bill was a long-distance truck driver working for McLean Trucking.  His wife, Ann, like my mother, Zelma, was a housewife dutifully raising a household full of kids.  Since raising a large brood of kids was fashionable and expected in the 1950’s, we were close to being an average American family.  My father, Leamon or “Lee,” was a communications equipment technician working for a regional airline, Piedmont Airlines (later acquired by US Air which became US Airways).

The year was 1956.  Post-war prosperity and innocence prevailed in this country. It was a wonderful time, at least in retrospect.  The 1950’s, in general, were given to simpler times providing exciting opportunities to the surging birth of children, later to be dubbed Baby Boomers,  surrounded by hula hoops, yo-yos, ice cream trucks, pop beads, saddle shoes, and drive-in movies.  In 1956, Elvis hit the charts for the first time with Heartbreak Hotel and the actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

Our parents quickly became friends and we all would wander back and forth between each other’s houses.  Within months, both mothers would deliver another child to each of our growing families.  While at Lakeside, my family included three younger sisters while Cynthia’s would include two younger brothers and a sister.  Both families would add additional kids later.

At dinner, we would suddenly hear a pounding at the back door.  My father jumps up from the table and swings the backdoor open. There stands Bill Summit, in his truck driving uniform, complete with tie, a requirement back in the 50’s for McLean’s drivers. 

Bill’s uniform was standard attire for many professions in the 50’s.  My father’s own white uniform, at Piedmont Airlines, was no small burden to prepare.  Since I had not yet started school, as preschool and kindergarten were unavailable, I would watch my mother using cornstarch on the white pants and shirts.  She then inserted a stretch frame inside the pants to hang out on the line.  The bright white slacks and shirts would stiffly flap in the breeze like a schooner’s sails.  The warm Carolina mid-day sun would dry the garments which were secured firmly to the clothesline with wooden clothespins. In retrospect, I guess the metal frame helped to form the crisp crease which would were ironed to perfection by my mother.

“Hey Lee!  Y’all want to come over for cards later?”

My father quickly glanced over to my mother who was already smiling. The decision had been made a second after the request but he politely deferred to my mother.

“Zelma?” What do you think?”

My mother nodded her head and replied, “Sure Bill. Sure. How about 6:30 tonight?”

My mother knew no babysitter was required as she would just gather up her brood of small children like a mother hen with chicks and walk a few steps to the backdoor of the Summit’s duplex.  No dressing up.  No combing hair—just come as you are.  Another fun evening could be had for the price of enduring a few putrid cigars, the smell of longneck Budweiser beer in open glasses and frequent hollering at the kids.  Quite often the wailing of a child whose head was accidentally kneed during a bout of roughhousing, would punctuate the duplex. 

Our fathers would expediently shed their work uniforms and change into their new card playing uniforms, bright floral Hawaiian shirts. The image of those brightly colored floral patterns across the kitchen table from each other will follow me to the end of my time.

One day I saw Cynthia quietly sitting on a swing in the large common area and playground of our apartment complex.  As a three-year old and very short-legged, she was struggling to get the swing to move.  She was rocking back and forth but had not managed to get the swing to move much more than a few inches.  Seeing her dilemma, I thought to myself that she had no clue how to swing herself and needed help. 

“Can I help?  Here…let me show you how to do that.” 

Cynthia was very shy but felt comfortable with me as her neighbor.

“Ok. Please”

I energetically jumped into the swing next to hers and showed her how to push in and out to propel the swing.  With a little helpful push and instructions, in no time she was swinging a wide arch. I guess it is fair to say our friendship started with that first push.  My first efforts at training and coaching were successful.

Cynthia and I frequently played together with the other neighborhood kids and each other’s siblings. She would tag along with my sister, Yvonne, or me when several of us would venture off for some new adventure and exploration.  Four or five of us would search the ditches along the road for soda pop bottles to claim the two-cent deposit payment at the store.  It was backbreaking work for a bag full of penny candy but that penny candy felt wonderful in your mouth on a hot summer day.  Peanut Butter Logs, Neeco Wafers, Mary Janes and licorice were the rewards for a good bottle collection. The smell of peanut butter and caramel permeated the muggy summer day but it was a joy that only a child could enjoy as well.

Weekends with our families were full of either card games, watching Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan or the Honeymooners on Dad’s brand new Sylvania console TV with its crisp black and white image (one of the first in the neighborhood). 

My mother loved to watch Queen for a Day and wrestling. Wrestling was strange in that my mother was a very peaceful and quiet person.  I assumed that the wrestling was a means to let loose as I recall the escalating sound of her voice as she rooted for her favorite and would occasionally move her hands and arms in mock wrestling, as if to assist her hero. This was toned down when it was apparent her children were watching her animations instead of the TV. She would blush and regain her composure on the sofa.

Saturday mornings we had to view the stationary Indian head test pattern until the chanels were active and then we could partake of Captain Midnight or Roy Rogers until our parents ran us out of the house.  Saturday mornings had all the great shows but mid morning was time for our exodus and pursuits of adventure in the neighborhood.

Some weekends, my father and Bill flew balsa wood gliders and motorized model planes in the backyard and whooped and hollered like teenage kids when the plane would soar for a long distance. We often wonder why grown-ups would act like kids when playing with their toys.

A quiet summer evening would be occasionally be punctuated with shouts of glee.  Like a dutiful sentry, a kid with the sharpest of hearing would detect the far away nursery rhyme sound of the ice cream truck.  It was a summer routine for the ice cream truck to troll the streets for sweet-starved kids—and there were plenty in our neighborhood.  It beckoned us to start pleading to our parents. We had found, through experience, the persistent begging often netted wonderful results. It only took persistence and a refusal to accept no for an answer.

“Please, Momma!  Please, Daddy!  P-l-l-e-e-a-a-s-s-e!?!”

Watching the ice cream truck disappear across the hill, you just didn’t care when the cold ooze of vanilla ice cream started to run down the chin and onto your tee shirt.  The sweet smell of vanilla mixed with the blend of summer evening aromas to create a sensory delight.  This was great stuff.  It was moments like this that made being a kid grand. It would be years later before we knew what air conditioning was, so a cold cone of ice cream on a hot July night was a fantastic indulgence for a six-year-old. It was a splendid treat for any age person, but if you were six, the specialness was beyond explanation.

Most of our interactions within the families occurred through the backdoors of our duplex. The front door was merely to leave to head to the Buick or would yield up a galvanized steel basket with milk bottles every so often.  It was only on a rare glimpse that I would see the milkman make the exchange of empties for full bottles as it was during the early morning hours before we would get up for the day’s activities. 

A year later, on a brisk winter Saturday morning trip to the corner grocer, Cynthia and I were to seal our relationship symbolically with a small token. I had some change that my uncle had given me and offered to walk Cynthia to the store. 

We both stood in front of the bubblegum machine.  There were twin machines beckoning those with pockets of coins.  The first required a penny for a couple balls of gum.  The second required a nickel toll for the pleasures of its gifts.  I looked at her and then back to my choices and with the insertion of a nickel, the forceful twist of the handle, and then a quick prayer to the prize-god for something worthy, before I lifted the flap to expose my reward.  I retracted a plastic bubble and twisted it open to expose a beautiful shiny ring.  How could you possess such a beautiful ring with such a large gem stone for only a nickel?  I knew I wouldn’t wear it but it looked ideal for a girl.

Without hesitation, I turned to Cynthia handing out the prize. “Want this?” 

Bashfully, she looked up at me and nodded her head.  I gave her the ring.  Little would I know that it would become the first of many and the beginning of an affinity for token exchanges.

Cynthia wore that ring until the silver paint wore off, exposing the plastic while the gemstone vanished in the sandbox in the apartment commons.

The ring would be followed up with a diminutive frying pan with two miniature eggs.  It is odd how much significance these events would have to a seven and four year old.  It can only be measured by the fact we both can still fondly remember those two items clearly.  It is amazing how small, seemingly token, events can be relished with great favor for so many years. Yet, we forget the faces of childhood friends and teachers who have long since passed away.

Lakeside Apartments were built in the late‘40’s and were a series of duplexes surrounding a common area.  Neighbors were friendly and parties and card games were common.  Everyone had kids and usually many.  I recall one couple that had one boy and I asked my mother why they only had one child.  She had no answer.

Our family moved to another part of town in ’57 after my father had taken a different job and we realized the two bedroom duplex was too small.  This was followed up by Cynthia’s family moving to a different part of Winston-Salem a few months later.  Each of our families would continue to grow like mushrooms.

Sputnik-mania hit that year and left most Americans awestruck and threatened with the Soviet’s launch of an orbiting satellite.  It was a wake-up call for our space program. Over longneck beers, the adults would discuss their concern that the Soviets were overtaking us in the field of technology, slightly incomprehensible for a seven year old.

Despite living in different parts of the city, our families would still get together quite frequently.  I recall my mother saying “card games and yard games,” as she would gather us all up and shepherd us to the large black Buick for the drive across town to the Summits.

“Red Rover...Red Rover…send Cynthia right over,” my sister would yell as we played in the front yard of their house.  Cynthia would make a dash to attempt to break the linked arms of the kids.  Her short stature would often be a liability in games of strength but her spirit was tall. 

Since we both came from large famillies of children similar in age, it made for marvelous times for play. We would pause our games of hulu-hooping or tag and watch the mosquito spraying trucks that came out often during the summer nights leaving the pungent and caustic smell of DDT trailing in the hot stagnant air.  Several of us would comically grab our throats and go through exaggerated movements of choking, yelling and falling to the ground, laughing and coughing. It would take at least a half hour before that pungent odor disappeared.  Of course, we were oblivious to the impact of DDT until years later. 

There was a growing realization between Cynthia and me that we enjoyed playing together.  We both relished the times we would gather at each others’ house to play. We got along so well, that we often found ourselves playing games separately from the other kids.  My fondness began to give way to an infatuation. I would prefer to play with her more so that my sisters or her siblings.  We were a matched pair even if we looked like the comic charaters of the time, Mutt and Jeff, from the height difference.

Fortunately, all the kids played well together allowing the parents to focus attention on their cards and discussion about politics and world events. If we were over late on a weekend night, our parents would lay us across the bed like cigars in a box.  Occasionally, the one on the end would get bumped off into the floor and the wailing would begin until they were adequately comforted. 

To this day, the reminiscence of our parents laughter and card game shouts along with the kitchen filled with the white billows of cigarette and cigar smoke is still vivid and stamped like a branding iron in our memories.  Smoking was the social norm then and it was years before we all realized the health implications.  Everyone smoked and the TV was full of cigarttee ads with  "I'd walk a mile for a Camel" and "Be Happy--Go Lucky with Lucky Strikes." 

Our parents were all in their twenties and so full of life and anticipation of life.  Their hopes and dreams was their motivation and their kids were their investments to society. The country was experiencing explosive post-war growth and the future was promising and seemed like a gift. 

Both my father and Bill used Brylcreem to smooth their hair and provide glisten to the waves.  Unfortunately, the parents have all passed away except for Ann.  I envision a smoke-filled card game somewhere in Heaven where Bill and Lee in their floral Hawaiian shirts and shiny hair, along with my mother, Zelma, are seeking a fourth, patiently waiting for Anna Lee Summit to claim her spot at the table someday.  The room is full of cheap cigar smoke and the scent of Old Spice aftershave. Boisterous laughter fills that room.

Cynthia and I would often gaze into the heavens and describe the shapes of ther clouds. 

"Look, Cynthia.  There is an elephant," I would exclaim, pointing to the cloudy sky.

"I see it! I see it!  There's its trunk and I can see its tail too."

We loved the skies--both daylit and night-time. Those skies connected us for years.

Life was simple…life was grand.  After all, it was the 1950’s. What would you expect?

Continue this true saga with Part 2 where infactuation yields to love and our first major forced separation.  Then onto the Army and the distance widened.  In Part 3, I get shot in a firefight in Vietnam and eventually head home to marry her...but it didn't turn out the way I had planned.  In Part 4 I ask her parents for her hand in marriage...the answer was NO!  What happened next would take years while Part 5 explains the results