Personal Essay | ‘Leap of Faith’

I was a middle-aged scaredy-cat. While others braved roller coasters, I stayed behind and held their purses and cameras. So no one was more surprised than I was the day I signed up for a tandem skydive.

My husband, Joe, was approaching his 65th birthday, when he suggested a drive to Skydive Miami in Homestead, Florida. As a young man, he had made hundreds of jumps with the round, military parachutes, but the newer wing style fascinated him. Seeing those athletic young people swooshing in to a perfect, stand-up landing reignited memories of his youth. I could tell he wanted to try it, and for once, I decided, I wouldn’t be watching from below. Time for some faith in myself. I was going up!

When Joe pulled out his credit card and asked for an application, I stepped up to the counter.

“Make it two, please.”

His incredulous look morphed into a wide grin.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! I want to experience this with you.”

We filled out the paperwork, signed the liability releases, and swore we were of sound mind and body, a questionable statement at best.

Linda Barbosa (left) and her husband Joe (right) just before they boarded the plane for their tandem jumps. <br /> Photo taken by Skydive Miami.
Linda Barbosa (left) and her husband Joe (right) just before they boarded the plane for their tandem jumps.
Photo taken by Skydive Miami.

After a pre-flight training session, we zipped ourselves into one-size-fits-most electric blue jump suits. Trainers handed out altimeters, helmets and goggles, and strapped heavy black harnesses onto our arms and legs. Soon we would be connected to the two strangers we had elected to trust with our lives.

My instructor, Pete, a tall, good-humored Brit, provided comic relief at just the right moment. Strolling into the waiting area, he read aloud from a beginner’s skydiving manual, scratching his head in mock confusion. Later he would admit to logging over 10,000 jumps.

When our flight was called, we proceeded to the small Caravan airplane where we sat in pairs on the floor, instructors directly behind their students. Harnesses were clipped together as the plane roared down the runway. Through the clear, roll-up door, I caught a final glimpse of the trees as the reality hit me: there was only one way out of this airplane. My mouth was dry as cotton, my palms sweaty and shaking. What was I doing here? Why did I sign up for this?

A glance at Joe’s eager face did little to assuage my fear. This guy was afraid of nothing. He’d done this hundreds of times without an experienced jumper strapped to his back. If anything, the crazy nut probably wished he could go solo!

At 13,500 feet the jumpmaster gave a thumbs up, and to my horror, the clear door slid open like a roll-top desk. Didn’t they realize how dangerous it was to fly with an open door? Someone could fall out!

Joe and his instructor were first in line. On their knees, they shuffled like chain-gang prisoners toward the deadly aperture. I watched in disbelief as they nodded three times in unison and tumbled out. There are some things in life you can prepare for, but watching your husband fall out of an airplane isn’t one of them. My heart was in my throat.

Still trembling, I was pulled to a kneeling position and pushed toward the gaping hole. To steady myself, I clung tightly to a metal bar overhead. Pete tried to pull my hands away but I refused to let go of the one solid object between me and certain death.

As impatient jumpers began to pile up behind us, I resigned myself to the inevitable and released my death grip on the bar. Following our pre-flight instructions, I crossed my arms, Dracula-style, over my chest and arched my back. Pete rolled us out of the plane.

Linda (bottom) gives the camera a thumbs up as she and her instructor Pete (top) free fall from the plane. <br /> Photo taken by Skydive Miami.
Linda (bottom) gives the camera a thumbs up as she and her instructor Pete (top) free fall from the plane.
Photo taken by Skydive Miami.

The sense of falling lasted only seconds until we achieved the welcome stability of terminal velocity. Pete tapped my shoulder, the signal to spread my arms like wings. At 120 mph, the wind resistance made it seem as if we were flying.

The noise was deafening, and G-forces assaulted my face, turning an attempted smile into a freakish grimace. I remembered the instruction to face the videographer, who was flying directly in front of me, no doubt documenting this for my next of kin. “Hi, Mom!” I mouthed, although in space, as they say, no one can hear you scream.

After sixty seconds, Pete pulled the ripcord and the free fall came to an abrupt end. Our bodies jack-knifed from horizontal to vertical, legs flying out in front like two rag dolls, as the harness held tight and the chute flared open.

It was peaceful now. Quiet. We floated through the air like two giant butterflies. Pete pointed out landmarks on the horizon, and I admired the beautiful patchwork of the surrounding farmland. As we soared gently toward the earth, my only regret was that we couldn’t stay up longer.

Skidding safely into the drop zone, we unhooked our gear, and I ran into Joe’s arms. A camera captured our celebratory embrace. The look of admiration on my husband’s face said it all. This was huge. His former middle-aged scaredy-cat had jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

Late Bloomer: Michigan man joins police force after 35-year delay

Photo of Detective Sean Reavie of Phoenix
Blues brother: Well past the normal recruitment age, Sean Reavie became a rookie cop in Phoenix. Now a detective, he investigates crimes against children.
Photo courtesy C.J. Tyler / Phoenix Police

Sean Reavie stared in disbelief at the unexpected email in his inbox. Could he really turn his life around this late in the game? Was this the miracle he’d been wishing for or just another false hope?

He was approaching 40, alone, in debt, financially and emotionally bankrupt. His dream of being a police officer had loomed in front of him, unreachable, for so long. At times, he’d been close, but he’d never quite made it. Was it possible that this time would be different?

It would take a whole lot of faith and a whole lot of hard work to find out.

Sean grew up in tiny St. Ignace, Michigan, with a banker father and a homemaker mother. It was there Sean had an experience that would alter his life. It was a seemingly small thing: His dad’s friend, Paul Sved, a Michigan State Trooper, drove Sean’s father home from work in his police car. Sean was an impressionable 5-year-old, and he was smitten. “The car, the lights, the uniform–it was so exciting to meet this larger-than-life hero in the flesh. Here was a man who was ready to put himself between a total stranger and harm’s way. That very day, I made a pledge to Paul that I would follow in his footsteps.”

Many young boys dream of becoming policemen or firemen or pilots. Then, well, most of them grow up and develop other interests. Sean was different. He held onto his vision for years. Until, that is, a well-intentioned high school English teacher squashed it. The teacher argued that he had natural writing talent and owed it to himself to put it to good use. “Don’t waste your talent being a police officer,” she told Sean.

Swayed by her logic, he put the dream aside. But still, “She broke my heart,” he says. He would ultimately earn a journalism degree from Central Michigan University. Soon after, he would take a job as a reporter and marry. But his heart really wasn’t in the job or the marriage. “Nothing in my life was satisfying me back then,” Sean recalls. “So I just kept looking, hoping eventually something would click.”

He quit that job and took another, but nothing felt right. That’s when he realized he’d never really given up his childhood wish. He still wanted to be a cop.

This time it was his wife who talked him out of it. “She thought it was too dangerous,” Sean explains. “I was trying to make the marriage work, so I agreed not to pursue it. But I was so unhappy. Every time a police car passed, I knew that’s where I belonged. It eventually took its toll on our marriage.”

After the couple split in 1999, Sean was ready to start fresh. There was nothing to stop him now, so he took the test for the Michigan State Police and passed with flying colors. But then, incredibly, just as he was supposed to start his training, a hiring freeze went into effect. “It was so crushing,” Sean reveals. “To be so close and have it disappear.”

A girlfriend convinced him a fortune could be made in the mortgage business. “I thought that would fill this void in my life,” recalls Sean. “But, of course, money can never do that.”

Breaking Good: Ex-Con reforms, becomes key advocate for bone marrow donation in memory of his son

Guglielmo with his son, Giovanni. Photo by Michael Blanchard.
Guglielmo with his son, Giovanni. Photo by Michael Blanchard.

Michael Guglielmo grew up in a middle-class family in Northport, New York. He had a loving mother and a hard-working father. But he was a deeply troubled young man. He was diagnosed with dyslexia, had severe anger management issues, and became known as a bully and troublemaker in school. After one brutal fight, he was expelled.

He was a 16-year-old boy, 5-foot-8, and barely 100 pounds, with the attitude of a gangster. “I thought I was Tony Montana,” he says, referring to Al Pacino’s character in Scarface. “I formed my morals watching movies about thugs and gangsters.”

By 19 Michael was a wanted man for stabbing a street thug. He ran to New Hampshire to start a new life but quickly resorted to his old ways. “I couldn’t run away from myself,” Michael says.

Then came news he thought would turn his life around–his girlfriend was pregnant. But right after the birth, she devastated him by giving up their daughter. “She just left the kid in the hospital and told them to give it to somebody,” Michael recalls. “She said I would never see the baby again. That pushed me over the edge.”

On a cold December day in 1985, a depressed Michael got drunk and high on cocaine and took out his anger on a local drug enforcer. Armed with a MAC-10 submachine gun, a pistol, and a cache of ammunition, he broke down the door and sprayed the apartment with bullets. The enforcer escaped, and police armed with shotguns, automatic rifles, and tear gas surrounded the house. When SWAT Commander Dale Robinson tried to start a dialogue, Michael answered with bullets.

Five hours later, Robinson gave the green light for snipers to take the shooter out. But shortly after, Michael ran out of ammunition and surrendered. He was convicted of multiple counts of attempted murder and faced up to 45 years in prison. In his first week in prison, he attacked a guard and was placed in maximum security. Locked in a concrete cell 23 hours a day, Michael had time to do some thinking. “The one thing that kept me alive was the desire to be a father,” he recalls. “I told myself I would figure out a way to get my child back.”

He needed a plan. After a few months behind bars, he saw his opportunity. “I saw a lot of injustice with guards and how they treated prisoners,” Michael explains. “I started reading lawbooks to see how to combat this, and it made me an idealist. And there is nothing more dangerous than an idealist.”

Michael began filing lawsuits for inmates. From his first–an injunction to stop the prison from forcing prisoners to use toxic spray paint in an unventilated area–to lawsuits against individual guards for injuries to prisoners, his actions made him a hero with the inmates and a thorn in the side of the establishment. For this, he believes he was punished: “They sent me to the most dangerous prison in Connecticut–Somers.”

At Somers Northern Correctional Institute, he continued as an inmates’ advocate. “For the first time in my life I knew I was doing something right,” says Michael, “and it made me evermore courageous.”

Michael’s notoriety spread beyond prison walls when the media picked up stories of his legal exploits. With greater success, he began to better himself in other ways: “Reading all those law books led me to reading the classics–books that talked about rights of man. I was learning about humanity and what it meant to be human for the first time.”

The Best Scones in Ireland from Hayfield Manor

During a recent trip to Ireland, I traveled from north to south, from shore to shore, in the search of the perfect scone. And at Hayfield Manor, an ivy-clad estate within walking distance of the city center of Cork, I found it–the best scone I’d ever tasted. Freshly baked and oh-so-lightly browned, the scones are quite simply delicious. And the folks at Hayfield Manor know it, emphatically declaring that they have “perfected the art of scone making!” I completely agree.

They were generous in sharing the best-kept secret to scone making with me. And I now pass it along to you.

Hayfield Manor Scones

Tea and the best scones in Ireland at the Hayfield Manor. <br /> Photo courtesy <a href="hayfieldmanor.ie">Hayfield Manor</a>.
Tea and the best scones in Ireland at the Hayfield Manor.
Photo courtesy Hayfield Manor.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 356°F
  2. Place all dry ingredients and butter in a mixer with a flat attachment and blend until it resembles breadcrumbs.
  3. Add egg.
  4. Add buttermilk.
  5. Mix in raisins.
  6. Roll out dough and use a scone/cookie cutter with 4cm diameter
  7. To make the glaze for the scones, beat one egg and add a splash of milk. Brush the top of the scones with the egg wash.
  8. Place on a tray and put into preheated oven for 17 minutes.
  9. Enjoy with plenty of fresh cream and jam of your choice. If you’re feeling especially decadent, butter the scone first!

Beyond the Canvas: ‘The Hurried Cleanup’ by Thornton Utz

"The Hurried Cleanup," by Thornton Utz from the October 24, 1953 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“The Hurried Cleanup,” by Thornton Utz from the October 24, 1953 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
Click here to license “The Hurried Cleanup” by Thornton Utz.
Click here to purchase artwork from Thornton Utz at Art.com.

This three-paneled illustration from the October 24, 1953 cover of The Saturday Evening Post tells a humorous story about the reality of life in the home of an American nuclear family. In the 1950s era of perfectionist “Honey, I’m home!” television shows such as Leave it to Beaver and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, this cover gently tweaks American sensibilities by presenting the messier side of family life.

It’s an amusing story, in which a family must react to the arrival of an unexpected guest by engaging in a frenzied cleanup. But behind the charm of the subject matter lies a great deal of skill and engineering. If, on the surface, we are looking at three simple scenes that progressively tell a story, the artist, Thornton Utz, skillfully uses compositional framing of the work to guide viewers’ eyes across the piece in a precise way.

Let’s start with his use of contrast. There’s the bright yellow living room at the center of the first frame. To the right of the living room, the front stoop is depicted in the fading light of dusk. On the left, the kitchen is pitch black with little light entering the window. The dark frames on either side of the living room serve to encapsulate the important family space as a kind of cocoon. Our eyes look at the overly lit middle column placed in a warm setting of early evening.

Because he’s in motion, the young man walking to the door gets our immediate attention. By the illustration’s second frame, the action shifts to the middle column as the family rushes to make their home presentable. In the third frame, calm has returned. But the sharp contrast of the now-lit kitchen draws the eye to the bottom left frame. In effect, the artist has moved the story forward from the top right frame across the middle, down to the bottom left of the picture.

Notice, too, how the horizontal white lines clip each frame of the illustration like a filmstrip. They keep the spatial settings separate, clarifying the progression of the story as if we were looking at an actual motion picture. But unlike a movie, the illustration is divided into three horizontal frames and three vertical columns. Each ninth of the illustration affords the viewer an opportunity to look in on individual aspects of a scene as it unfolds.

In the final panel, the rest of the family, having moved to the kitchen, has reverted to a state of relaxation in the now available third room. Just as the artist employed visual contrast to tell the story, he is describing a psychological contrast between our messy interior lives and the neat façade we present to the outside world. The viewer relates to the mess, the frenzy, and the successful maintenance of proper etiquette. This family has quickly and effectively made their reality live up to the ideals of the era—but it was a close call.

Photo of illustrator Thornton Utz. Photo by Joseph Janney Steinmetz. Source: <a href="http://floridamemory.com/items/show/254550">State Archives of Florida, <em> Florida Memory</em></a>To learn more about Thornton Utz and to see other inside illustrations and covers from this artist, click here!.

3 Questions for Ken Burns

Ken Burns first gained national attention and acclaim with his 1981 PBS special on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge — a show that earned him an Oscar nomination. Since then, Burns has turned his eye to numerous aspects of American history from the Civil War to baseball and prohibition. His latest project, The Address, focuses on a school that helps learning-disabled kids by challenging them to memorize and deliver the Gettysburg Address.

Jeanne Wolf: What got you interested in history?

Ken Burns: My mother died of cancer when I was 11. That is a crucible that still affects me. I think about her every day. I wouldn’t be doing what I do if had I not had to go through the pain of anticipating of her death and, then, all the years of trying to not deal with it. So, what do I do for a living? I wake the dead. I make films that make Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson come alive. Who else do you think I’m trying to wake up?

JW: Why do your films always seem to go beyond the bare facts?

KB: We live in a rational world in which one plus one equals two. But if we examine our hearts or our art, we find that we really want one plus one to equal three. The combination of two things — a man and a woman in love, brush strokes on a canvas, the emotion of a song — we want it to add up to something more. I’m always reaching for those moments in life and in film.

JW: There’s a lot of cynicism about world leaders and politicians past and present. Do they deserve it?

KB: We think that our heroes should be perfect, but if you go back to the Greeks you discover that heroes aren’t perfect. They have very obvious strengths and maybe not so obvious weaknesses, and it’s the negotiation between those two that defines heroism — whether it’s Abraham Lincoln or the Roosevelts or, for a more current example, Chris Christie. But studying the past arms you with a kind of optimism, because when people say, “It’s so bad right now with this economic meltdown that it’s like the Depression,” I can answer, “No, it’s not. During the Great Depression, in some cities, the animals in the zoo were shot and the meat distributed to the poor. Is that happening now?”

The world is chaotic and we’re trying to figure out some order. The painter puts a frame around it; the playwright puts a proscenium arch above it; a documentarian puts it on a screen. We invent stories, we tell them to each other. We achieve a kind of immortality with the stories that we tell and that’s the way we abolish the wolf at the door that’s gonna come knocking eventually.

Tough Enough to Leave

Illustration by Karen Donley-Hayes
Illustration by Karen Donley-Hayes

“If you want a pet, buy one.” said Neil. “Why rent for a few months?”

The nine week old yellow lab was hers for a year. Leah’s job was to housebreak Ace, teach her basic commands. If Ace wasn’t skittish, if she was willing to learn, one day she would be a service dog.

Some people volunteered because it was a good thing. Others volunteered because they needed to. For Leah, Ace filled an emptiness inside her. It felt like she’d been starving and suddenly the hunger was no longer there. Within days an invisible cord connected Leah to the dog. The puppy’s breath smelled like oatmeal. Leah’s fingers raked the thick fur.

“You’re sending the dog messages all the time.” The trainers told her. “Look how she watches your feet. How she responds to your voice.”

At first the commands weren’t automatic. Each night Leah practiced hand signals in the bathroom mirror, her wrists bobbing and weaving like a crazed puppeteer. But soon she and Ace had their own special language. The dog was easy to read. A playful bow, an upright tail, a paw that clamored like a child.

“The puppy needs to feel safe.” the trainers said. “You have to earn her trust.”

*****

It had been three years since Leah found out about Neil’s affair. He had been working fourteen hour days six days a week, or so he told her. That’s what it took to get ahead, he would say. But his hello kiss every night reeked of liquor. Somehow he found time to work out at the gym. His new muscles bulged underneath his clothes.

“I need new shirts,” he said one night. “The old ones are bursting at the seams.” That’s when she figured it out. Leah had gone into his hamper and scooped up a week’s worth of laundry. The scent of gardenias made her gag. She ran to the medicine chest, held the inhaler to her nose and took long deep breaths. Leah was allergic to perfume and cologne. Neither of them used any.

At first she hadn’t said anything. Leah came from a family that rarely talked. They just swatted their problems like a game of badminton. Swish, tap tap, swish. It was just the three of them. Her mom waitressed at Friendly’s, and her dad managed the local Dollar Store. They’d had their full of chitchat at work and looked forward all day to peace and quiet at home. Swish, tap tap, swish. Her dad hit the green naugahyde barcalounger every night at 5:30, chainsmoked. Didn’t move for hours. Dinner would be on a folding tray, his eyes glued to the TV.

Her mother cleaned like a northeaster, all whirling arms and legs spinning in mad circles. Ran the vacuum until the rugs were beaten flat. Waxed the wood furniture until the finish wore off. Hours every night of mopping, wiping, mopping again. Leah would park herself at the kitchen table, do her homework, and listen to the buzz of electric appliances. Then after a glass of milk and a peck on the cheek she’d be sent to bed. Swish, tap tap, swish.

She had been working at the bookstore when she met Neil. Leah had a plan then: take one course at a time at the community college and maybe in ten years she’d have a degree. But the more people she waited on, the worse she felt about herself. Sure she knew how to dress, how to play the part. She wore tortoiseshell glasses and black turtlenecks. Tasteful cubic zirconium studs in her ears. But when she met someone like Neil, someone whose casual banter screamed prep schools and Ivy League, she felt like a fraud.

She fooled him. Leah was a good listener and Neil took care of his end of the conversation as well as hers. He spoke about his dreams and his ambitions and swept Leah like a tidal surge. She needed to love, and Neil needed to be worshiped.

*****

For weeks she carried a shopping tote of his perfumed shirts wherever she went. “Here comes the bag lady,” her friends teased her. She made them stick their noses in. Do you think the perfume was expensive, she‘d ask? She could never, she told them, compete with Chanel No. 5.

Finally she confronted Neil. “It was nothing,” he blurted. In his panic he offered a list of promises Leah knew he’d never keep. Spend more time at home, even help with chores. Leah didn’t ask for much. Perhaps that was part of the problem.

“Let’s go to Europe,” he offered. “Take the big trip we could never afford.” Every day he brought home brochures and left them splayed on the dining room table. Leah lined them up like tarot cards, trying to read their future.

But when the vacation ended, before their photos were even Facebooked, their relationship returned to the old groove. Cold dinners and empty conversations. When he was home, Neil used his iPhone and his iPad and his laptop to create a wall of pixels between them. He typed fast so she couldn’t guess the passwords.

“It’s time we invested in a house,” he told her one Sunday. Their apartment was in a neighborhood people called transitional. For years it was supposed to be the next best place. But there were still bars on the window fronts. A falafel cart set up shop on their sidewalk every summer.

“But this is home,” said Leah. Panic stuck in her throat. The delicate threads of their relationship seemed torn and frayed. She pictured it unraveling like a skein of yarn rolling on the floor.

Neil drew red circles on the real estate section of the newspaper. “But this is where my friends live!” Leah wanted to shout.

“You see,” Neil continued, his head still down, penning bull’s-eyes on the classifieds, “prices are cheaper in the suburbs.”

For weeks he searched the new listings, schmoozing to realtors on the phone like they were lifelong pals. He’d hang up and repeat the sales pitch word-for-word, his voice bouncing with fake pep. “You can finally get the dog you always talked about,” said Neil. “Get a whole menagerie if you want.”

*****

They found a midsized Colonial shaded by dogwood and maple trees. Several of Neil’s partners lived on the same street. Leah bought two rocking chairs for the front porch and planted azaleas. She was surprised by how happy she was. Gardening became her passion. Every packet she emptied into the soil seemed to pop up with a new surprise. Basil, oregano, thyme. Three varieties of tomatoes shimmied up trellises. Leah spent hours with her spade, enjoying the sweat and the dirt and sheer exhaustion of it.

“You’re a regular Martha Stewart,” Neil teased.

But his commute now was even longer. On the worse days he stayed downtown. Their problems were like cold hard seeds Leah tried to bury. She was so lonely she talked to herself, chatting with photographs on the mantle, mumbling in the laundry room. It was her friends in the city who told her about the organization.

“I’m training a puppy,” she said to Neil. “It’s just for a year.”

She and the dog settled into a routine. In the mornings Leah gently snapped Ace’s red vest in place and slipped the metal collar over her neck. Then they visited churches, shopping centers, even restaurants. Your job, the trainers told her, is to expose Ace to loud noises, children, sudden movements. To make her hardened and resilient. To make her tough enough to leave.

Beyond the Canvas: “The Critical Young Man” by Coby Whitmore

Illustration by Coby Whitmore from <em>The Saturday Evening Post</em>. The illustration accompanied the short story, "The Critical Young Man."
Click here to license “The Critical Young Man” by Coby Whitmore.
Click here to purchase artwork from Coby Whitmore at Art.com.

To understand Whitmore’s illustration from “The Critical Young Man,” you must first understand the theme of story. The tale revolves around a judgmental literary critic, Harvard Smith, who lambasts an author’s book for using an image of a scandalous dress on the cover.

The author, Edna Cloud, believes the critic must be a tiring old man, so under the guise of an alias, she flirts with the critic to understand him. She is shocked to find an intelligent man her own age, and she later reveals her identity by wearing the infamous dress on her first date with Smith.

Whitmore’s illustration cuts to the moral of the story by focusing on this moment: Edna Cloud shows Harvard Smith that he was wrong to judge her book–and Edna herself–by the cover.

Whitmore’s work is filled with visual symbolism that shows the viewers how the two characters are feeling internally. Edna Cloud and Harvard Smith stand back to back in the center of the frame, and each side of the apartment mirrors the respective characters’ emotions. Edna stands in front of a mirror that reflects her bare back and uncovered shoulders to the viewer, which tells the viewer that she’s open-minded. Harvard Smith, on the other hand, is a professional critic; he’s rigid, closed off. He believes in boundaries and strict moral values. Whitmore uses the character’s dress and mannerisms to convey to the reader that these people are total opposites.

If you look at Harvard Smith’s face, you’ll notice that it’s contorted; his eyes scan the back of the dress, Edna, and the book. The illustration captures the moment where we aren’t quite sure if he’s figured out that the woman he’s come to know is the same woman who wrote the book he judged so heavily.

Whitmore’s illustration takes the viewer to the climax of the story: Edna Cloud’s plan has taught Harvard Smith a timeless lesson: appearances can be deceiving.

The Middleman

Sketch of a dog between two back-to-back rocking chairs. Illustration by Karen Donley-Hayes
Illustration by Karen Donley-Hayes

 

Ralph looked at Agatha, sitting ramrod straight in her rocking chair on one side of the fireplace. Didn’t she know people were supposed to relax in rocking chairs?

Across from her Frank slouched comfortably in his rocker. Now there was a man who knew what a rocker was for.

Agatha mumbled something, leaned forward to look more closely at the afghan she was knitting, and said, “Ralph, it’s time His Honor there took his heart pills.”

Ralph looked at Frank, tilted his head, and made a small noise in the back of his throat.

Frank sighed, lumped himself slowly out of his chair and shuffled to the kitchen cupboard where he doled out pills from three sets of vials. He ran a glass of water, washed the pills down. “Thanks, Ralph,” he said and sat in his chair again.

Ralph snorted, thinking, what would they do without me? They haven’t talked to each other in five years. Ralph was getting on himself, and in good health…but what if he got sick? Who would help them? Would they just stop talking altogether?

Agatha was old and Frank was even older. Still, they kept up the house pretty well. There was plenty of room for the three of them, and a cheerful fireplace on a winter afternoon like this.

Ralph had been very young when he moved in with the Wilsons. It hadn’t been easy, at first; he’d been used to a lot of commotion in the home he’d been born into. But Ralph was nothing if not philosophical about life. Whatever came, came; he just lived with it. And if food and lodging were part of the package, well, so much the better.

Looked like this was going to be an afternoon even quieter than most. Ralph shut his eyes and took a little nap.

“Ralph!” Frank’s voice woke him. “The mail’s here!”

“Let it wait,” Ralph thought, squeezing his eyes shut. “What’s the hurry?”

“Ralph!” The old man’s voice sharp. “Do your job. You don’t have that much around here to do.”

Ralph yawned, stretched, and headed for the small pile of envelopes that lay inside the front door. He brought them to Frank.

“Thanks, Ralph,” said Frank. He shuffled through the pile, flinging two into the fire. “Damn junk,” he said. “Well, what’s this? A letter for Agatha.”

Ralph took it and laid it in Agatha’s lap, not interrupting her stitch counting. He knew better; he’d been chastised before.

“Ask her what that’s all about,” said Frank, setting his chair rocking. “She don’t get much mail.”

Agatha kept knitting, ignoring the old man. “None of his business, Ralph,” she said. “Never you mind.”

Frank harrumphed and rocked faster. “Long time since I got a letter, Ralph,” he said. “Long time for her, too.”

Ralph closed his eyes again. They’d tell him when they wanted to; he’d deal with it then.

“Well, what do you think of this, Ralph!” Agatha’s voice woke Ralph from a very satisfying dream. She waved the letter toward him. “A family reunion! My side, of course, that’s why I got the letter. Wonder should we go?”

Ralph looked at Frank, who was trying to look uninterested. “Where would her family have a reunion?” he asked the ceiling. “Can’t be but a handful of them left in this world anyway.”

Agatha leaned back in her chair, her knitting forgotten in her lap, and nodded her head. “Mary Apple’s lake house. That’s the very place, Ralph. Couldn’t be better! We’d best call right away, tell her we’ll come. That is, I’ll come. If His Honor there wants to, he can come along.”

His Honor cleared his throat. “If she’s going, I better, too. Otherwise they’ll think I’m dead and she didn’t tell ’em. Mary Apple, huh? She was always a looker.”

Agatha picked up her knitting. “No fool like an old fool, Ralph,” she said.

Mary’s lake place was beautiful. Ralph appreciated the long, smooth lawn that ran down to the clear water, the schussing pine trees that rimmed the yard, and all the running, laughing children that belonged to Agatha’s family. It was fun to romp around with kids again. Living with Frank and Agatha was comfortable but not very stimulating.

Only trouble was, Agatha kept calling him back to the old folks sitting around on the porch. Like she and Frank weren’t whole people unless he was nearby. They talked to everybody else without any trouble; why did he have to be their go-between?

Agatha smiled at Ralph as he came up on the porch. “Ralph,” she said, “remember the time we went down to the Dells? And Frank fell out of the boat when we were going on shore. Got wet right up to his waist, he did. Ha, ha, that was so funny! Frank should tell these folks about it, shouldn’t he?”

Frank said, “Go on back and play with the kids, Ralph, we don’t need you here for this kind of abuse.”

Ralph left gladly. The kids were more fun and at his age he needed all the exercise he could get.

Life settled back into the old dull routine when they got home from the reunion, except for the barbs that flew back and forth through Ralph. The reunion seemed to have loosed a dam of venom over old hurts and slights that had been unspoken for too long.

“And did you see what a simpering silly that old man was around the young girls at that reunion, Ralph? Made a darned spectacle of himself he did, embarrassed me all git out.”

“She said the damnest things to her scruffy relatives, Ralph, you should be glad she didn’t make you sit on that porch and listen.”

“His Honor there drank way too much beer, yes he did, Ralph, and then you couldn’t stop him from telling stories on me! I never—”

“She forgets a lot of what she said, too. But that’s all right, Ralph, people can forgive a senile old woman—”

“Did you hear that, Ralph? Calling me senile. Well just you wait and see if I ever invite him to go along to my family’s reunion again.”

Ralph sincerely hoped she wouldn’t. As time went on, he found himself trying his best to keep clear of the arguments that caromed like the ball in a racquetball game, bounding off Ralph, back to Ralph, to the other opponent, on and on…it gave him a headache. And it made him sad.

He had become a living dartboard impaled day after day with the poison of their accusations thrown against each other.

I’ve been their go-between too long, Ralph thought, and I’m tired to death of the whole thing. He made a plan.

He began to refuse food. No matter how good it looked, how delicious it smelled, he refused to eat.

“This will never do, Ralph,” Agatha pleaded with him as he turned away from yet another plate of home-cooked roast and mashed potatoes. Damn, it was hard to give up that gravy, but it had to be done.

Days passed. Before long, he actually did lose his appetite. Agatha began to cook him special meals, but he just wasn’t hungry. He lost weight, he lost strength.

“Ralph, let’s take a walk, get you out of this house,” Frank said. “You’ll feel better, get your appetite back. If that old woman would cook your favorite stuff, you’d be okay again, wouldn’t you?”

Agatha snorted. “You know I am cooking your favorites, don’t you, Ralph? Don’t you? Don’t listen to him. I’m doing my best!”

“Her best stinks,” said Frank, standing by the open door. “Come on, Ralph, let’s walk.”

Ralph refused. Truth to tell, he was getting too weak to walk far. This plan wasn’t working the way he’d anticipated. He lay back on his pillow and shut his eyes. How many days had it been, now. Was it worth going on?

His eyes flew open as Agatha stamped her foot, looked straight at Frank and said directly to him, “You old goat! Can’t you see what’s the matter here?”

Ralph’s head came up. Was it true? Was she actually talking to the old man straight out? What would he do?

Ralph watched as Frank took a step backwards and stared at Agatha. “You talking to me?”

“You see any other old goats in here?” she demanded.

Frank closed the door and swallowed. “What do you mean?”

Ralph almost jumped up but he was too weak to do it. He watched. Frank had actually spoken directly to Agatha!

“I mean we’ve broken Ralph’s heart, all our bickering, that’s what I mean. I don’t care how bull headed you’ve been for the past how many years, I am tired of playing your game.”

“My game? It’s not my game. You started it. You started it when you made such a fool of me.”

“When? Tell me when! When did I ever make a fool of you?”

“You know.”

“I don’t. When!”

Frank lowered his head and said sheepishly, “I don’t remember.”

Ralph held his breath for a long moment before Agatha said, “Well, I don’t either.” She straightened her back. “Can’t you see? We have to work together to get Ralph well, or we’ll never forgive ourselves.”

“Woof!” said Ralph, meaning, give me back that plate of meat and potatoes. Things are looking up.

The Murder of Kitty Genovese: 50 years later, questions remain

Of the thousands of killings that took place in New York in the 1960s, none drew more attention that the murder of Kitty Genovese.

On March 13, 1964, the 28-year-old woman was attacked on her way home to a respectable, middle-class neighborhood in Queens. While walking up to her apartment building, Winston Moseley, a total stranger to her, stabbed her in the back.

Photo of the late Kitty Genovese.
Kitty Genovese, 28, was murdered during a series of three attacks just outside her apartment building in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of New York City. None of her neighbors, many of whom did hear her cries for help, came to her aid.

Genovese screamed, “Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me, please help me!” Lights went on in a window above and a man leaned from his window to shout, “Hey, get out of there. What are you doing?” and Moseley fled.

Genovese staggered to her nearby apartment building. Once inside, she collapsed in the hallway, just 50 feet from her door. She was still calling out for help when Mosley returned to resume his attack.

What set this murder apart from the thousands of other homicides was the chilling loneliness of her death. None of Genovese’s neighbors came to her aid. No one even phoned the police until a half hour from her first cry for help. As the Post later reported, “In what has become a celebrated example of good reporting, The New York Times discovered and disclosed that 38 otherwise respectable and law-abiding citizens either saw or heard a part of the Kitty Genovese murder in progress, yet only one bothered to call police for help, and that wasn’t until the killer had fled” (“Who Didn’t Kill Barbara Kralik,” January 16, 1965).

The story prompted a wave of self-examination across the country. Americans wondered how their countrymen could stand by and watch a woman being brutally murdered, screaming for help that over three dozen people refused to give.

Such callous indifference seemed unbelievable, but it was consistent with the rising violence Americans were seeing. In the past year, they had read of the murders of both President Kennedy and his assassin, as well as the beatings and killings of civil rights activists. Genovese’s brutal murder and abandonment seemed consistent with this dangerous new age.

 “Where fellowman would not help, a sign now pleads for help. Moseley stalked his victim in predawn darkness here, then cut with a knife until she cried no more.” © SEPS 2014

“Where fellowman would not help, a sign
now pleads for help. Moseley stalked his
victim in predawn darkness here, then
cut with a knife until she cried no more.” © SEPS 2014

Her murder prompted editorials across the country and around the world. Journalists denounced the increasing depersonalization of America.

Psychologists came up with explanatory theories, like the “Bystander Effect” (the theory that the greater the number of people witnessing an emergency, the less likely any one person is to act) and the “Kitty Genovese Syndrome”(the tendency of people in big cities to avoid social commitment.) The oft-repeated remark of one witness–“I didn’t want to get involved”–became emblematic of the times.

In 2004, a lawyer and resident of Genovese’s old neighborhood began to question the Times’ version of the murder. Joseph De May, Jr. thought the story was exaggerated. After studying the investigators’ reports and the crime scene, he concluded that 38 people simply could not have watched “a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks,” as the Times claimed.

We might feel more comfortable questioning the story today since the incident seems so out of character in America. In the half century following Genovese’s murder, we haven’t seen a trend of bystanders coldly watching somebody being attacked. On the contrary, Americans appear ready to help in emergencies ranging from traffic accidents to the Twin Towers on 9/11. Moreover, the annual murder rate in New York City has dropped significantly in 50 years, from 646 to 333. So, perhaps, the murder was not an example of New Yorkers’ growing indifference and fear as the 1964 Times article made it appear.

Genovese’s murder was exceptional in many regards, particularly its connection with another murder in Queens.

In July of the previous year, the parents of 15-year-old Barbara Kralik had found her, alone in her bedroom, stabbed repeatedly and close to death. Before dying at the hospital, Barbara gave a vague description of her attacker, which seemed to resemble Alvin Mitchell, a troubled teenager who had had known and often visited the girl.

Police interrogated Mitchell for 50 hours, until he confessed to killing Kralik. He then repeated the confession on camera.

Booking photo of Winston Moseley, taken April 1, 1964, in the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.
Booking photo of Winston Mosley, taken April 1, 1964. Moseley was convicted of the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

“Alvin recanted the confession the next day,” the Post reported, “but the damage to his defense was already done. He insisted to his parents, his lawyers, and an examining psychiatrist that he was slapped, hit over the head with a phone book, threatened and frightened into making the admissions, but the protests were considerably weakened by the fact that he repeated the confession in front of a television camera….His defense would be that the confession was coerced. It was all the defense he had—until Winton Moseley confessed that he had killed Barbara Kralik.”

Moseley had been arrested when he was caught in the act of stealing a television. While detectives questioned him about the burglary, they noticed his resemblance to the neighbors’ description of Genovese’s attacker. One of the detectives abruptly asked him “Why did you kill Catherine Genovese?” Moseley replied, “I don’t know. I just had an urge to kill someone.”

He began to tell the detectives about the murder. After this confession, he admitted to a second killing. One of the detectives then said, “I suppose you’re going to tell us you killed Barbara Kralik too.”

“Yes, I killed her,” Winston Moseley said. “I stabbed her…six times…with a steak knife.”

Despite Moseley’s confession, and his obvious guilt in the Genovese stabbing, detectives didn’t believe his story. It had too many errors and inconsistencies. But Mitchell’s confession was also flawed. Both confessions seemed to carry weight, but neither fit exactly.

In the end, investigators in the Kralik case kept Mitchell as their prime suspect. And so, a week after Moseley went on trial for killing Genovese, Mitchell was tried for murdering Kralik.

In the Moseley trial, according to the Post, “There was never much doubt as to the…outcome. The jury found him guilty and then recommended the death penalty…a half-dozen women spectators suddenly began to applaud. Judge Shapiro angrily pounded for order and then, peering over his half glasses, delivered his own invective. “I don’t believe in capital punishment,” he told the jury solemnly, “but I feel this may be improper when I see this monster. I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the switch on him myself.” Moseley was sentenced to 20 years to life. (In November 2013, he was denied parole for the 16th time.)

Alvin Mitchell’s trial ended with a deadlocked jury. He was retried and found guilty, not of murder but of manslaughter.

A psychologist studying the cases noted that the Genovese and Kralik cases were highly unusual. They didn’t follow the expected pattern of homicide prosecutions. All the key players in the case, he said–the investigators, judge, court spectators, and defendants–“just didn’t act the way they are supposed to behave.”

50 years later, questions still remain regarding the accuracy of the New York Times story. Several investigations of the murder have concluded that it was a slow-to-respond police department that failed Ms. Genovese that night. Other reports say that many neighbors did in fact contact police after hearing the first attack, and later even tried to comfort Kitty as she lay dying.

While the actions–or lack thereof–of Genovese’s neighbors may still be in question, the narrative of an apathetic America took root. Neighborhood watch programs formed, an emergency telephone line (9-1-1) was established, and Good Samaritan laws were passed all at least in part as a result of the legend of Kitty’s unthinkable murder.

November/December 2013 Limerick Laughs Contest Winner and Runners-Up


Choir Boys Will Be Boys by Frances Tipton Hunter


How angelic these little boys look
As they sing from their pretty red book.
But two like to fight
To punch and to bite,
And one has a killer right hook.
— Curt Bench of Salt Lake City, Utah
Congratulations to Curt Bench! For his limerick describing Frances Tipton Hunter’s illustration (right), Curt wins $25—and our gratitude for a job well done. If you’d like to enter the Limerick Laughs Contest for our upcoming issue, submit your limerick via our online entry form.

Of course, Curt’s limerick wasn’t the only one we liked! Here are some of our favorite limericks from our runners-up, in no particular order:

In-choir-ing minds want to know:
Does it matter who struck the first blow?
After punching and kicking,
They both took a licking,
But still sang like angels—bravo!
— Barbara Blanks of Garland, Texas

At nine Sunday morn was a scuffle.
Lil’ Timmy and Joe had a tussle.
By nine-thirty a.m.,
They were choirboys again
And would later decide who had muscle.
— Cindy Cowan of Santa Rosa, California

Their songs on the wings of a dove
Rise up to the heavens above
We all quickly learnt
That angels they weren’t
When one gave another a shove.
— Randy Imwalle of Hilliard, Ohio

Today I can sing as a flute,
And those who do hear have a hoot,
My tooth’s on the ground,
The hole makes a sound,
Now I can both sing and can toot.

Today I do wear a black tie,
I’m glad that it matches my eye,
For colors I know,
Do make a good show,
And that I most surely do try.
— M. Sakran of Porter, Texas

These spirited boys of the choir
Have voices the angels admire,
Which were put on display
During recess today:
“You did too!” “I did not!” “You’re a liar!”
— Jeff Foster of San Francisco, California

They tell us to sing for the crowd,
But Tommy is singing too loud.
I have nothing to bring,
So my gift for the King
Is to sing pa-rum-pa-pum-POW!
—Stephen Bascom of Beverly, Washington

There once was a choir of boys
Whose singing was nothing but noise
Their voices were loud
Yet, their parents were proud
And couldn’t contain all their joys.
— Eileen Owens of Smyrna, Tennessee

In fairness, the minister might
Be blamed for this pititful sight.
He said, “Treat each other
Like sister and brother.”
And you know how siblings will fight.
— Peggy Rodebaugh of Arlington, Texas

There once were two boys from St. Pat
Who had a bit more than a spat
Said one to the other,
“I’ll tell my big brother.”
But Father put a stop to all that.
— Mary Louise Flanneary of Las Vegas, Nevada