Richard Wolkomir & Joyce Rogers Wolkomir

 

 

My draft summons came just after Joyce and I graduated.

 

We'd taken low-pay starter jobs in Manhattan, and that summons felt like a wallop.

 

For one thing, without my meager contribution, how could Joyce pay our two-room apartment's rent?

 

Also—and this came as a shock—outsiders now directed our life.

   

So I rode up to Albany for the physical, feeling unnerved, weakened.

 

That's my excuse.

 

My seatmate on that government bus was Willie Flute, who'd emigrated to our Hudson River factory town from Appalachia—tiny, frail, mildly retarded.

 

Otherwise, young men from the adjacent town's Black neighborhood filled the bus seats.

 

As we exited the bus, a soldier, probably a corporal, not much older than us, yelled orders.

 

"Line up!"

 

"Clothes off—underwear, socks, everything!"

 

So we stood in a long naked line as the corporal thrust bottles into our hands.

 

"Pee in that!"

 

Probably half the men, given the circumstances, had trouble peeing in the bottle. 

 

"Hurry up!"

 

Now the corporal focused on tiny Willie Flute, dazed and uncomprehending.

 

"Damn you, I said pee in that bottle!"

 

"Did you hear me, Jerk?"

 

Willie shrank under this barrage, and I felt terrible for him. Yet, I didn't speak.

 

Somebody else did.  

 

One of the men from the neighboring town glared balefully at the corporal, then spoke in a steady voice.

 

"Why don't you leave him alone?"

 

I could see the corporal taken aback.

 

"I'm doing my job," he protested.

 

"Why don't you leave him alone?"

 

So the corporal left Willie alone.

 

Riding back on the bus, after the physical, I thought: I should have spoken up, but I didn't.  

 

Some wars involve machine guns and grenades. Every day, though, micro-wars flare, incidents like the bullying of Willie Flute. In those tiny hostilities, even when you see the injustice, you may shrink back.

 

Some, though, with principles, and character, and courage, do speak up.

 

They defend the Willie Flutes.

 

They are heroes.

 

--Richard

A dog just taught me the sound of one hand clapping.

 

I had errands to finish before lunchtime. So I barreled along the highway, until—abruptly—I braked to a crawl.

 

A small SUV blocked me.

 

In this stretch of highway, speed limit 50 mph, the car ahead poked along at 30 mph.

 

Frustrating!

 

Rushing is what I do. I'm given to impatient finger tapping. My head's full of worries.

 

After a few annoyed minutes, staring at the slow car ahead, I noticed a dog in the back seat, calmly regarding me through the rear window. An old dog, muzzle gray, but with amiable brown eyes.

 

Those benign eyes seemed to say: "Friend, why hurry?"

 

Actually, I didn't know—why do I hurry?

 

I finished my chores. I drove home.

 

All the way I remembered that old dog's kind gaze, and I relaxed.

 

--Richard

 

 

 

When my mother was a small child, her father—beset by a bitter mother-in-law—left the marriage, becoming a reviled pariah in the family.

 

My mother's brother, the family favorite, walked down the street to get ice-cream and never came back, hit by a car and killed.

 

Because my mother looked too much like her despised father, and because she was not her beloved dead brother, she experienced unrelenting emotional abuse.

 

They—her mother and grandmother—routinely made  her stand on the corner, waiting for her father to come by, to beg him for money.

 

Her grandmother and mother ordered her to say in school that her father was dead. 

 

Scarlet fever left her deaf. In school, even the teacher mocked her deafness.

 

So it was for her, day after day.

 

Valentine's Day approached, and it was customary for the class's students to exchange cards, friend to friend. My mother had no friends. So she knew that, as always on Valentine's Day, she would receive nothing.

 

That day came, and a large envelope arrived on my mother's desk, inscribed "For Ruth."

 

My mother looked around the class to guess who sent it, but she saw not a single friendly face.

 

She opened the envelope and pulled out a huge card, bedecked with frills and ribbons. All eyes in the classroom stared at her and the card, thunderstruck that anyone would send Ruth such a thing.

 

It was signed: "Uncle Ed and Aunt Hattie."

 

They knew, you see, what Ruth endured. Somehow, they knew about the classroom Valentine's Day custom.

 

They cared.

 

All the rest of her life my mother remained close to her mother's brother, Ed, and his wife, Hattie. When my mother married, someone arranged a wonderful wedding for her. Certainly not her mother. It was not really a mystery who did that for my mother.

 

My mother's Uncle Ed and Aunt Hattie live in my memory. They were incontrovertible proof that, no matter what else happens in this world, there are moments of true decency.

 

 

There are truly decent people.

 

--Joyce

 

 

We heard about a cool incident on an airliner, posted on Facebook by Wendy Battino.
 
You can check out Ms. Battino's first-person account here—  https://www.facebook.com/wendy.battino/posts/pfbid02XBBD8AkYBDrAsPtb7ETN6QgrWSsL82yxC37uToAuQrBt1V7gMoZBVW6eJfoKKd9yl.

We found this story so amusing and touching, we wanted to pass it along, for those who missed the original account. So here's an abbreviated version—

 

After a sojourn in California, Ms. Battino says, she boarded an Alaska Airlines flight back home, with her two Siberian huskies, Artie and Moon, kenneled in the airliner's cargo hold. As she walked back to her seat, from the hold below, she heard a tremendous howling.

 

It meant: "Where are you, Wendy Battino?" Knowing the howling would continue unless she howled back, Ms. Battino knelt in the aisle and prepared to howl.

 

First, though, a flight attendant asked her to hold off, while the attendant used the PA system to alert the other passengers.

 

After that, Ms. Battino howled.

 

Down in the hold, Artie and Moon went silent.

 

Everyone on the plane laughed.

 

Then the flight attendant made a further announcement: "Would anyone else like to join in one more howl to let these dogs in the hold know that we care?"

 

Just about every passenger on that plane howled. 

 

After that, says Ms. Battino, it was an upbeat flight home.

 

--Joyce and Richard

 

 

 

A good friend e-mailed us—

 

"Murdock went peacefully on his bed at home yesterday."

 

We know that heaviness.

 

You dread summoning the vet, with her vials and needles. You hold that furry body—once so warm—as it goes limp.

  

You wanted to stop the suffering, but now there's guilt—"I killed my dog!" You're lonely. Your companion is gone. You feel hollow inside. Silently, you mourn.

 

A dog is a consciousness, like us, only with a better nose. How did these creatures—progeny of wolves—become so entwined in our hearts and homes?

   

Maybe it's simple: your dog worships you. It's not coy about it. It'll happily lick your fingers. Dogs like fun: let's chase that ball! Tell your dog your fears or worries. Those ears will listen.

 

What better friend than that?

 

Yet, we've seen dogs wandering streets from Cairo to Newark, homeless, hungry.

 

Maybe dogs evolved to test us. Maybe how we treat them measures our humanity.

 

Our friend's West Highland Terrier died of leukemia, after a glorious life—Murdock knew the bliss of being a player on the A-team, beloved.

    

Lucky dog.

Lucky friend of dog.

 

--Joyce and Richard

 

But here's Eric Morse with the last word about his best friend, Murdock—

 

"He had an amazing life of running, covering over 25,000 miles with me, more than the circumference of the Earth. We teamed together in over 200 races in 9 different states.

 

"He continued to run every day with me up until the final weeks. I'm convinced his fitness and continued running extended his life.

 

"I'd like to thank each and every one of you for the thoughtful remarks and reactions to Murdock's passing. They all brought tears to my eyes, knowing so many people cared.

 

"Farewell our friends. It was the best times."

 

--Eric

 

 

 

My husband recently asked if I remembered which Dakota my Uncle Wayne came from, North or South?

 

It was the North, a ranch.

 

His father died when Wayne was a toddler, and his mother carried on until she cut her finger. Out on the plains, far from hospitals and doctors, before the discovery of antibiotics, a cut finger could be fatal, and it was—she died of blood poisoning.

 

So five-year-old Wayne, my eventual uncle by marriage, got dropped on his grandmother's ranch, expected to earn his keep. 

 

One day his grandmother demanded he harness the work horses to a wagon, a four-horse-hitch, to do heavy hauling around the ranch. Those huge Belgians got away from the child, leading to temporary havoc.

 

Wayne's grandmother apparently decided: this kid's more trouble than he's worth. So she shipped him east, to his other grandmother.

 

I picture that little boy, at a prairie train station. He's wearing his Stetson, with a note pinned to his shirt, saying where he's supposed go, a thousand miles away. He's got a bag with what clothes he has, and he's carrying his .22 rifle.

 

He's alone.

 

My aunt, who one day married Wayne, told me: "One of those grandmas was just as mean as the other."

 

Wayne served as a marine, in World War II, on Iwo Jima. I suppose that wartime stint must have stuck in his mind as his greatest adventure, but I think he had an even more telling adventure—I sometimes think of a small boy, alone, on the plank platform of a prairie train station, with his Stetson and his rifle.

 

Pinned to his shirt: his ultimate destination.

 

—Joyce 

 

 

 

When I was in sixth grade, a kid my age confronted my father, at the town's bowling alley.

 

"I'm going to get your son," he said.

 

My father warned me, watch out for Flick.

 

Several weeks passed and one evening my father spoke to me before supper.

 

"Did Flick give you trouble?" he asked

.

"Yeah," I said.

 

"What happened?" my father asked, looking grim.

 

"I knocked him down and that was the end of it," I said.

 

I'd never seen my father looking so pleased, and relieved, and so proud of me.

 

I hadn't thought much of it. Even as a sixth grader I somehow knew this was Flick's sad attempt to get my father's attention. He came from the shacks down by the river, and I suppose he envied me having the father I did, a man well-liked by everyone in our small town.

 

I'm not sure what I learned from that non-episode, but I do still remember it after all these years. Maybe it's to have some compassion, because a person may be nasty out of unhappiness. Maybe it's that some are doomed from birth, by mean parents, or squalor, or bad luck.

 

Not many years later Flick died miserably, apparently drowned in not much more than a puddle, in the parking lot of a run-down resort, up in the Catskill Mountains.

 

--Richard

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Just published, When the Wasp Stings—it's the latest Cooper North mystery novel.

 

Cooper's a rarity among fictional women investigators. For one thing, she isn't young. She's 69 years old. She's formidable. She's tall, almost gaunt, with a falcon's penetrating gaze. She sees you, and she sees into you. On the hunt, she's relentless.

 

Cooper's summoned from retirement, back into the prosecutor's office. Her police colleagues need her, because only she can handle the bizarre events suddenly besetting this patch of the Green Mountains, from an alligator scaring shoppers on Main Street to Ninja-costumed psychopaths, rampaging with commando knives. It begins with a maple-syrup entrepreneur's murder, via wasp stings.  

 

Somehow—Cooper isn't sure exactly how—it all fits. Even the Ninjas fit, targeting people Cooper cares about, including a little boy. 

 

Cooper has fans of all ages, but for older readers she's a special delight—here's a strong woman who's been around. She knows some things.

 

I don't know where Cooper came from. She just sprang out of my mind, fully grown and seasoned. I admire her. I wish I could be more like her. I may be her biggest fan.

 

--Richard

 

 

You get to thinking about your life, when you're on your back in a hospital bed, leg in agony, waiting for the surgeon to do her thing.

 

I thought, who am I?

 

Here's what I learned as an idiot child, along with a townful of other idiot children.

 

We'd climb the side of the abandoned pocketbook factory, brick by brick, to stand on the roof, looking down four stories at the Hudson River. I already dreaded the climb back down. Braver souls among us felt life's pull—the thrill of being—and they leapt.

 

I stayed back. 

 

So, I knew already, I'm no hero. I'm not that guy.

 

Later, I was the writer guy.

 

I'd put bits of the world into words, for magazine readers to consume. Maybe a physics Nobelist's discoveries, or what the pilots of a terrain-following B-52 bomber experience, roaring inches over mountaintops.

 

Etc.

 

Okay, I thought, whoever I used to be, I'm not that guy now. 

 

I got to listening to my hospital roommate, a newspaper columnist and the host of a public-tv show. He'd go into the New England outdoors, with camera crews, via kayak or canoe or dogsled, if need be. Willem Lange is celebrated hereabouts. He had an infected foot, but told the medical staff he needed to be out by next week---he had shoots scheduled. Also, there was an upcoming trip to Portugal. Willem spent lots of time on his phone, talking to his girlfriend in another state. He called his cane "John McCain."

 

Willem is pushing ninety.

 

He's had six falls this year, he told me. Most recently, in the wee hours. He lay on the floor unable to get up. He had a phone handy, and his daughter and son-in-law live nearby, but he lay on the floor two hours, until they awoke, to call and ask his son-in-law to help him get up, on the younger man's way to work.

 

That's what struck me.

 

I thought about Joyce, back home, worried about me, but carrying on with her own work, which included editing my latest novel, and arranging to visit me every day, and handling most everything in our life together, all our finances and social contacts and just about all else.

 

I thought: have I been appreciating this?

 

So now I know who I aim to be—I'm the guy who looks out for Joyce.

 

I want to be the guy who'll lie two hours on the floor, so people who matter get their sleep.

 

--Richard  

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the national and international news becomes too scary and mean, we look out our window.

 

We see a little park, with a pond and pathways, and a meadow, and a mountain range beyond. Down in the park we see people, but not just people.

 

Yesterday, we saw one of our favorites, Ella Bella Socks, on one of her walks. She is a medium-sized dog of indeterminate ancestry, black, with white feet and stockings, a pretty sight.

 

Also, farther down the path, we saw our friend Ryan, on his ride-on lawnmower. He is a member of the maintenance team here, and another of our favorites…but not just ours.  

 

Socks saw Ryan, and instantly leaped forward—her human companion dropped Socks' leash, and Socks ran, as fast as a dog can run, full tilt toward Ryan and his tractor.

 

He turned off the machine, waited a second, and then Socks—with a tremendous leap—landed atop the lawnmower and in his lap, clearly ecstatic.

 

Later, we asked Ryan about his relationship with Socks.

 

"She loves me," he said. "Whenever she sees me, her owners just drop her leash and here she comes, fast as she can go."

 

Troubling news, yesterday, on the tv and internet and newspapers. It's always troubling. Out our window, however, the headlines were uplifting—

 

"Dog Loves Man!" "Man Loves Dog!"

 

Go ahead, Socks. Do it again. Make our day!

 

--Joyce and Richard