Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

January 27, 2008

Today’s Announcement

 Happy Birthday wishes go out to Ina Townsend Young:  mimisuzy127@yahoo.com

Don’t forget to order your copy of Angels Watching Over Me, the story of an ordinary woman facing less than ordinary challenges.  Angels Watching Over Me is a story of family love, sacrifices, poverty and an undying faith that makes heroes out of all of us. Here is the link in case you have forgotten it: http://www.lulu.com/content/964306

Important notice: Storytime Tapestry is a free e-zine, however donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.   You can make your donations to paypal at: winterose@videotron.ca, or if you would prefer to use the mail system contact the publisher at the same email address: winterose@videotron.ca

Today’s Stories

  ~**~**~

A War Image Never Forgotten

Peggy Ann Doak

Today I am sitting here with so damn many things on my mind. I am listening to “FREE SPEECH RADIO” . We have a community radio station and this program plays daily. I am listening to the impeachment rally in Boston along with the end of the war. Some of the speakers are students who have not seen first hand nor been frightened by what is happening. But one mother stood up, who was also a soldier in Iraq. Her son is there now. Her speech was powerful (recorded by ‘radio active’ our of WERU in Orland Maine. Streaming on line.) because she could not speak for several moments. She talked about being so alone there.

Where am I going with this? I don’t know. However I want to share an image with you. In 1968 my husband to be, boy friend then, joined the army on the buddy system. The Buddy System allowed friends to join together with the promise that when they were sent to Viet Nam they would be in the same platoon. My boy friend who I married after his stint in Nam, is Bobby. His best friend, was my best friend Paula’s brother Alan. Some of you have seen the articles about me and Paula and our rascally outings on horseback. That happened actually when the boys were in boot camp.

I was devastated when Bobby boarded that plane in Bangor, Maine in September of 1969. Alan was not with him, but was being deployed the same day. They were separated in Nam and never saw one another until they came home. Bobby came home as a different person, in that he was a man, however he never talked about Nam except some of his silly stunts, like falling down and breaking his chin open during a midnight alert, because he was drunk. He had wanted a purple heart for it. Alan however, came home in body only. If we talked to him, he would simply stare. One time while riding in his van with him, he saw a dog in the road and speeded up. Fortunately the dog ran off the road, but I never rode anywhere with him again.

Bobby and I were married in 1971 on New Year’s Day. He had come back to the states in the fall of 1970. My mother gave me my Dad’s hunting camp that had been built when he took sick with cancer. It was a one room came, no running water, phone, or electricity. Everything ran on either gas or wood. One night that winter, we heard Alan’s van go by the camp, and then stop down by the railroad tracks, perhaps a quarter of a mile or less from the camp. It was pitch dark, and there was snow on the ground. The following is an image I hope you can see in your mind, remembering that these too men, went off to war together, were promised the same platoon, but were lied to. These men grew up together as boys. I will never forget the image I have carried in my head since that night.

We both sat up in bed. I think I said, “That’s Alan’s Van.” Bobby didn’t say anything but listened for a moment. We heard the van door slam. Up until this point Alan had been showing more and more aggression toward women on the streets, punching one woman he didn’t know. He had also nearly killed his mother. I was scared and said so. Our dog, Wolfe, a Shepherd mix did not like Alan when he was at the camp one day when we first moved in. She was a friendly dog. But she growled continuously while he visited and wouldn’t let him out of her sight. That night she began to growl and her hair stood up on end.

Without a word, Bobby got his jeans and boots on. Grabbed a coat and loaded his deer rifle. Just thinking about that now, I never gave thought to the fact that we had the rifle at the camp, but I was glad for it that night. Alan had been a good friend of mine too. Of course, since Paula was his sister.

He stepped outside, leaving the door open. I could see him even though we had no lights on. He said, “Alan, you have to leave. I have a gun.” and he jacked the bullet in so that Alan could hear it. Ten or fifteen minutes went by. Then we heard the Van start up and leave. The camp was so far out in the woods, and at that time the road was dirt. A person could hear for miles which was fortunate. We listened until the sound of the van was beyond hearing which meant a few miles.

That was the result of the buddy system and Viet Nam. Bobby never did learn, or if he did, didn’t say, what he thought happened to Alan. And Alan’s ability to remember, coordinate his thoughts and then to speak coherently was lost in Viet Nam.

I think about Bobby, especially lately. I guess that comes with age. He was my first love. And actually when I finally got honest with myself, he was my only true love. Alcoholism drove us apart. We both had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, though it hadn’t been named yet. Mine came from living with an ex sergeant from WWII. My step father. Sadistic beyond words. Bobby’s came from the war. There was no way that we could have made it. Whenever there is a war, everyone suffers. The Iraq war is similar, and seemingly worse for the soldiers than Viet Nam. PTSD is rampant. No twenty year wait for it to blossom. Some have it before they get back to the states.

No, I will never forget that night. The winter in February, 1971. And neither should anyone else. Because it is happening all over again, and the machine behind the war is more lethal than ever. It takes three generations to get the direct ambush of the war out of a family. Unfortunately the third generation is back in it again. All due to a bunch of money mongers. How do they sleep? Did they ever wake up in the middle of the night frightened of their best friend, fearing what he might do to his wife. Fearful enough to threaten his best friend with death because his best friend was out there in the woods watching the cabin. I am sure he could see Bobby just as I could. Snow and a bit of moon with clear stars create great night vision in Maine.

It saddens me to write this. However it is important that I write this. And that I write what goes on with me today within myself, that was created by WWII inside of my stepfather. And I walked out of my marriage after five years, leaving my husband and two children because I didn’t believe in happy endings. At least not for me. And I feared that I would leave my legacy with my two girls. How sad is that?

Peggy Ann Doak

pdoak333@peoplepc.com

~**~**~

MOTHER'S NIGHT

Dr. Harmander Singh

            She was strolling in the lawn. It was 9 o'clock and the winter was on its peak. She was shivering with the coldness of the night but her motherhood was burning for the sight of her son who was late from his work.

"Mum! Why are you strolling? It's too cold and you should be in the bed,” her younger son was worried about his mother.

"I'm all right, my son,” she replied smilingly.

"I know you're always all right because you can bear all pains for us. I know you are waiting for Sunny. He is grown up now. He can handle his life. Why are you worried?

"I'm worried because he is too late. He should be here on half past seven and its five past nine. You know that when your father died, he was looking at the face of Sunny. I always remember it. I know he is grown up now. I have not borne any pain for you. I feel proud that I have blessing of love for my children and you all love me. What else do I need?” she said with tears of overwhelming joy.

"Mum! We love you but can not bear that you bother so much about us,” he said.

"One day, when I'll leave you never to return back, even then in my grave, I'll wait for you to come and show your face at least, once in a year,” she said and tears were coming from four eyes. They knew that the night was not forever.

Daily Moral Insight for a Peaceful Night

Is not it a glory of Mother Nature that she reflects through motherhood?

Is not a thoughtful touch to feel that by adding all our worries we still get them lesser than mother’s?

Is not it the universal feeling that a mother finds herself in her child?

Is not it a great blessing that a mother's unconditional love is higher than the third eye of wisdom?

Is not it a rare touch of warmth that the motherhood is a lap of human life?

Dr. Harmander Singh

bhagouauty@gmail.com

~**~**~

 Poetry Corner

~**~**~

Farewell to the Depleted

Cheryl Williams

Ripe and full,

they give

sustenance

and pleasure

to babes

and men

who seek

to grope

and suckle,

as if that is

all there is

to the one

who suffers long

and has a heart

strong and sure

hidden beneath

the soft fleshy mounds,

who gives

and sacrifices

for the sake of those

she loves.

And in the end,

when the flesh

is depleted, they

sag toward the earth,

no longer revered,

but forgotten

as they sink

toward the dust

from where they came.

Cheryl Williams

Politicalgirl04@aol. com  

~**~**~

Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Maria Keller, Marilyn Sink, Victor Buhagiar, Clarice Hinson, Conrad Cardinal,