Authors' Coalition SlideShow 2008

Surviving

When Pat Avery and I first met the nine men featured our new book, Sunchon Tunnel Massacre Survivors, we knew right away that they were special human beings. Oh sure, knowing their history made them interesting subjects. Being POWs in Korea almost 60 years ago is bad enough -- but these guys had survived the unthinkable -- a massacre. They'd watched their buddies fall to the ground, screaming for their mommas. They were shot, bayoneted, bludgeoned -- and left for dead with the bodies of their friends.I wondered how the experience had effected them. I wondered how they dealt with their memories.

I knew I'd respect them long before I met them. I already felt sorry for their ordeal. What I didn't expect was to care about them so much.

By the time that Pat and I finished Sunchon Tunnel Massacre Survivors, we knew more about sorrow, anger, hatred, hunger, and torture than we wanted. The aftermath was equally hard to bear. We heard about the times they'd screwed up -- the drinking, the fighting, the women, the difficulty they had in holding down jobs. Their wives told us about their tempers, their troubled sleep, their jumpiness.

Writing their stories was disturbing too. I spent many a night sobbing over the manuscript for the boys these men had been. However, there can be no up if there is no down. Hearing about the ugliness was the price that Pat and I paid to know these incredible people. We learned about grit and determination and spirit and hope. We saw that even after falling again and again -- these guys continued to get up and try. We learned how those qualities kept Ed and Bob and Jim and Walt and Valdor and Bill and Allen and Sherman and George alive in Korea -- and how the same courage kept them reaching for happiness since their return.

This is a picture of me and Sherman Jones. He was the most seriously injured of the survivors during the massacre. He was shot in the face, side, and leg. One foot was partially amputated. Sherman endured many surgeries on his face to give him some quality of life. He's very bright, but obviously there was some degree of brain damage and he gets over excited in exciting situations. He has no emotional brakes. When he's happy, he's happy..when he's mad, he's MAD..when he loves you, he loves completely. We call him the hugger and plan events with 15 minutes of welcoming hugs beforehand and 15 minutes of goodbye hugs at the end. We worry about him, love him and are grateful that he's still with us. He's a blessing...

They all are.

Brain Infection

My little sister is...well, there's really no other word for it...a character. Perhaps it's because my mother meant to name her that fine old Irish appellation, "Maeve," but Mama's synapses misfired that day and she accidentally called her middle daughter "Maeva."

A precocious child, Maeva established herself with authority by rolling off a bed at the ripe old age of six weeks. That early mishap was a precurser of things to come. She has a long string of ...well, shall we say, misadventures ... to her credit. There's the time that she got thrown off of her bicycle up onto the Y shaped prongs on top of a chain length fence -- resulting in an ugly gash to her chin. There was also the time that she was helping our dad unload a sewing machine from a truck. It fell out of the crate and hit her in the head. At the hospital, the attending physician asked her how she got hurt and she said, "I got hit in the head with a sewing machine." The man tied a knot in the suture and took a deep breath before saying, "Just jumped right up there and hit you, did it?"

Then there was the time that the light fixture fell off the ceiling and hit her in the head and the time that she pulled the fire alarm outside my dorm room at the University of Arkansas. The thing of it is -- it's always some strange quirk of fate, nothing that one could predict or avoid -- like the time she accidentally exposed herself to Missouri -- but I digress.

Maeva has a way with language -- like the time when we went to the drive-in movie and we were jostling for position in the back seat. She whined, "Da-ad, Joycie is sitting on both sides and spread out all over the middle." I think it's just that she gets caught up in the spirit of the moment, suddenly realizes that she's in over her head, and then tries to talk her way out. Chatting with Maeva is akin to conversing with Mr. Spock. It's fun but you have the feeling that you are dealing with someone from another planet.

Despite her penchant for disaster and her unfotunate command of the English language, Maeva grew up beautiful and shiny. There's really no one else like her in the world -- and I'm blessed to have her for a sister. Oh, I learned to stay out of her way -- just in case a stray lightning bolt should miss her and hit me or she should suddenly feel the need to explain why horseradish isn't made out of horses.

The thing that's hard for me to grasp at this point in my life is that Maeva is now a grandmother. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but there you have it. Her son Billy married a pretty young woman named Amanda and they had three children -- Kent, Gracie and Amos. Ever so often, Maeva sends me stories about her relationship with this adorable trio. Between their innocent chatter and Maeva's singular view of the world -- well, you can imagine. When I get her emails, I first go the bathroom. Then I go to the kitchen and pour myself a large glass of mint green tea. Then I check to make sure there are plenty of tissues in the Kleenex box before I finally sit down to read their latest adventures. I suggest that you do the same before you finish this blog.

This is the email that Maeva (known as Mimi to her grandchildren) sent me last week:

"I watched the kids last Friday after work and I took them home around 7:15 so that they could get in bed at 8:00. On the way, Kent and Grace were having this bizarre conversation.

Kent: Mimi, my dad won't let Gracie have a boyfriend until she is 20.
Gracie: I know. I really want to kiss a boy.
Kent: Yuck. I guess you will just have to be pregnant.
Gracie: I guess I will just have to be pregant. Kent, what does pregnant mean?
Kent: It means you don't have a boyfriend.
Mimi: Wait just a minute, that isn't what pregnant means.
Kent: What does it mean?
Mimi: It means that there is a baby growing in your tummy.
Kent: Gracie, you better not do that, Dad won't like it.
Gracie: Okay.
Kent: Mimi, I need to talk to you about something. I saw a guy on TV who lost his job and his girlfriend loved somebody else so he shot a bunch of people and killed himself. Why did he do that?
Mimi: (Mind was desperately searching for an answer) Oh, that guy had a brain infection.
Kent: Oh!
Gracie: OHHHHH!
Kent: Mimi, how do you get a brain infection?
Mimi: (Oh crap!) Well, it happens when you are really sad and ...
Kent: I have been really sad when my dog ran away and I cried and cried until I threw up....
Mimi: Oh, you didn't have a brain infection!
Kent: How do you know when someone has a brain infection?
Mimi: (why did I ever say brain infection) Well, they scream, cry, bang their heads against the wall and they don't recognize any of their family.
Kent: You mean like my dad wouldn't know who I was if he had a brain infection?
Mimi: Yes, but your dad does not have a brain infection.
Gracie: Mimi, does someone with a brain infection kidnap kids?
Mimi: Yep. (I am in so much trouble.)
Kent: I bet that if you had Jesus in your heart then you wouldn't get a brain infection.
Mimi: That is right.
Kent: I have Jesus in my heart. I love him more than my mom and dad.
Gracie: I love him more.
Mimi: That's right, if you have Jesus in your heart you never have to worry about whether you have a brain infection or not.
Kent: That is right.
Gracie: I think that those people with brain infections say, Grrrrrrr, I hate the world.
Amos: Grrrrr I hate the world.
Mimi: (Oh crap!)

Next day:
Amanda calls. She says that she took to the kids to Old Navy and on the way she went through the rules. No running, No screaming. No hiding from Momma. Kent interrupted her. Mom, you don't ever have to worry about me hiding from you again in a store. I am afraid of those people with the brain infections. Gracie pipes in, "me too." Amos, "I scared of the brain infection man". Amanda asks me if I have anything I want to explain.

Man, those kids will rat you out every time."


I told you to go the bathroom first, didn't I?

Gracie

I have a great niece that I've never met named Gracie. Her grandmother, my sister Maeva, often sends me pictures and stories about Gracie and her brothers. The photos make me smile and Gracie's many adventures make me laugh.

Gracie can’t read or write so she draws pictures. Last week, Gracie visited her grandmother at the office. As Maeva described it, "Gracie asked me if I know how to make cookies. I said kinda. She asked if I wanted her to write down the recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Attached is what she gave me. The large circle is dough, the 4 small circles are eggs and the 3 others are chocolate kisses."

Gracie's birthday was last week. She looked forward to the big day and kept everyone amused with her comments. Right before the big event, she stepped on a toy and went splat on the floor hitting her forehead on the doorjamb as she fell. The first thing she said was that it was going to ruin her 5 year old pictures.

Then, the night before when her mommy put her to bed, Gracie hollered, "Wait! You need to get a picture of me because this is the last time you will see me 4." Her amused mother thought that made sense and photographed the little darling holding up 4 fingers.

The next morning, Gracie woke shouting for her mom to hurry and take her picture because she was now 5. Then, she ran down the hall calling for her mother to bring a pencil so she could be measured and see how much she had grown overnight. Luckily, it had been 6 months and she had grown 3 ½ inches. She seemed very proud of this achievement and told her mother that now she could reach her toothbrush without the stool because she grew 3 ½ inches during night.

That's not all of Gracie's birthday saga, though. At her party that evening, Maeva said something to her rambunctious granddaughter about growing 3 1/2 inches overnight -- and Gracie started laughing. Seems that when her dad got home, he measured her again because it seemed like such a lot of growth in 6 months. Turns out, the mark was only 2 inches over her head. She started giggling and told her dad that she tricked her momma by standing on her tiptoes while being measured.

Don't ya jes love 5 year old humor?

A Quarter's Worth of Fun

My son Nate recently married a beautiful young woman named Nora. Aside from being warm and loving, she makes me laugh – a lot.

Here’s an example of why.

I was just checking into the Holiday Inn Express in Elizabeth, NC when Nora text messaged me on my phone. “Did you find my coat?”

Me: “What coat?”

Nora: “My coat that Nate left in NC.”

Me: “Where did he leave it?”

Nora: “Dunno. Airport?”

I sat down on the bed and had a good laugh before I picked up my phone to text back.

Me: “Tell you what. I'll look for coat in NC if you find my quarter that I dropped in LA in 1965.”

Nora: “What's it look like?”

Me: “Round. Silver. Has pic of GW. circa 1964.”

Nora: “I'm going to Hollywood tonight. I'll look.”

Me: “Cool. I'll look for coat. What’s it look like?”

Nora: “Black.”

Me: “Sounds nice. When I find coat I might like it and want to keep it.”

Nora: “I might want a gumball.”

“What are you doing?” Johnny mumbled in his sleep.

“Texting with Nora.”

“Do it quieter.”

“Right.” I laid my phone down on the nightstand, turned out the lights and rolled over.

The next morning, I checked my messages before brushing my teeth. There was a picture message from Nora. I slipped into my clothes while I waited for it to load.

“Is this it?” She texted.

I squinted at a reddish photo of a star on the star walk. Something shiny and round lay in the center of it. It was unclear if it was a quarter or a beer bottle lid. I scrolled down.

“Guess not,” she added. “I’ll keep looking.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Johnny asked as he pulled on his socks.

I showed him the exchange of messages.

“I guess we need to look for coats while we are here,” he said.

Hours later, I sent Nora a picture of a boat in someone's drive way. “Is this it?”

Nora: “COAT not boat.”

Still later, I send her picture of a goat. Johnny and I snickered together before going to dinner with friends.

Weeks later, I received a text message from Nora with a picture of a quarter of undetermined vintage. “FOUND IT!”

Me. “Cool. I can’t wait to see it again. It’s been lost a long time.”

Recently, Nora sent me a package. Inside was a bright shiny new quarter circa 1964, silver with picture of GW.

I knew Nora was at work, but I couldn’t wait. I texted her. “Got my favorite quarter in mail.”

Nora: “Good. Was about to bust from secretkeeping.”

Me: “Where did you get it?”

Nora: “Bought from magnet man.”

Me: “Magnet man?”

Nora: “Man walking around town with magnets stuck to his head.”

Me: “Ah.” The next time I’m in Los Angeles I’ll request a personal meeting with magnet man. There’s bound to be a shriek there, if you know what I mean.

Nora: “He said to hold it by edges.”

Me: “Magnet man?”

Nora. “Yeah, he special ordered it.”

I bought a silver bezel to hold my shiny 1964 silver quarter that I dropped in LA in 1965 -- that showed up at my door in 2007 courtesy of my darling daughter-in-law Nora. I wear it on a silver chain around my neck. What a great keepsake.

I'm still looking for Nora’s coat that Nate left in North Carolina. My friend Larry Wikoff is keeping an eye out in case it shows up in Raleigh. My other friend Lloyd King offered to look for it in Lafayette, Louisiana too. I’ve got Pennsylvania covered, but if anyone happens to see a stray black coat please contact me. It gets cold in Los Angeles, you know.

Treasured Truths

I am a baby boomer. To those of you raised in saner times, you must wonder why we boomers chose to rebel when we reached young adulthood. After all, how DOES one explain Woodstock or be-ins or the great bra barbeques of the late sixties?
It all goes back to important truths our parents taught us as children. Some of them were amusing, most were confusing and all have the stamp of mid-America in the 1950s and 60s. Unfortunately for my parents and for me, I was one of those kids who never quite “got” the point of their exhortations and now, looking back, they make me smile.

For example, a precept learned at my father’s knee concerned the evils of communism. As I understood it at age five, communism was a disease that you could catch if you talked with someone who had it. It was akin to small pox, polio and measles. As a child used to vaccinations and sugar cube doses, I expected a shot would be forthcoming.

I was willing to accept without question the idea that ‘America is the best country in the world’ until I realized that the people who said that had never been to any other countries. Since I was a simple minded kid, I couldn’t understand the use of the word ‘best’ without a basis for comparison. My relatives scowled and suggested that I take their word for it.

They gave me the same answer when I questioned the oft-discussed notion that people from other countries smell. Okay, I could accept that. Throughout my grade school years, I imagined that Germans smelled like German chocolate, Swedes smelled like Swedish meatballs and Italians smelled like spaghetti. Does that mean Martians smell like Mars bars?

At age seven, religion was very confusing to me. As best as I could make out, God was an insecure and jealous old man with a very long beard who was afraid that I might like someone else better. I found his pushy attitude annoying and resolved to stay clear of all old men thereby stunning my Sunday school teacher and embarrassing my mother.

Like many men of his generation, my father had strong feelings about gender. No daughter of his was going to work or wear black patent shoes or go swimming in two piece bathing suits. It was unladylike to take shop or physics, but home economics and typing was okay. A wife should be physically weaker than her husband or risk being considered a dyke, whatever that was. If a female is raped, it’s her own damned fault -- and of course, a girl should never be too smart.
By fourteen, I was overwhelmed with dozens of inexplicable prohibitions aimed at keeping me pure and dull so that some man would want to marry me -- whether that was what I wanted didn’t seem to matter.

My mother had a list of issues too. First off, all little girls wanted to be Miss America. My apathy on that question was an unforgivable lapse of girlish protocol. Dancing lessons were appropriate but baseball and band were too ‘boyish’. Other womanly precepts were: never, ever leave the house without drawing on your eyebrows, don’t let anyone see you with curlers in your hair and make sure that your nipples don’t show through your blouse. (Nipples showing through blouses were one of the reasons that rape was the girl’s fault since men cannot control themselves when they see them.) This led me to believe that breasts were powerful weapons in the war between the sexes -- one of the few ideas gleaned from those days that has proven to be useful.

Drugs had their own mystique. Marijuana drove you mad but you had a God-given right to smoke cigarettes anywhere you wanted. “Diet” pills got you up and “Nerve” pills took you down. “Hard” drugs led you straight to hell. One had to be especially wary of dope fiends as they were akin to communists and talking to them meant you might “catch” a taste for heroin.

Booze was bad but beer was manly. Women could sip white wine while holding their noses and pretending not to like it. Martinis were for city folk. Highballs, like sex, were for medicinal purposes only. Drinking in general was another reason why rape was the woman’s fault.

Old maids went to college to find a husband. They took things like English and Library Sciences. Engineering, medical school and architecture were out of the question. Women couldn’t wear slacks on campus unless they were also wearing a raincoat. Presumably, this was because men couldn’t control themselves if they saw our thighs either. This led me to eye men with a modicum of suspicion lest they run amok at any moment.

The corporate world was no less confusing. Some companies hired only unmarried women. When you acquired a husband, you lost your job. Other employers let you work until your first pregnancy, but you had to leave before you started ‘showing’. No matter what position a woman applied for, she was compelled to take a typing test. Only prissy men could type unless they were in the military and prissy men weren’t allowed in the military.

Other unquestioned truths were: only white protestant men could be president, General Motors would never knowingly make a bad vehicle, and it doesn’t matter how smart or well-educated you are, the person who yells the loudest wins the argument.

By the time I grew up, I knew many of these precepts were bunk. After all, I listened to a fair amount of rock n roll in my youth and the devil didn’t come visiting. I stopped wearing raincoats over my jeans many moons ago and no one has lost control and ravaged me. However, as I moved into chubby middle-age, I realized my dad was right about one thing. Two piece swimsuits ARE a bad idea.

Every time I hear Meatloaf sing this song, I can't help but think of those crazy, corny, funny days of my youth. Hope you enjoy.

Serenity

I’m an easy going person.

Really. Ask anyone.

Ask my husband. Well, maybe that’s not such a good idea. He’d probably tell you about the time I went out on the deck to see fireworks – and he came out behind me and closed the screen door. Only, I didn’t realize he’d closed the screen door – and I turned around and walked right through it – and I fell on my face and bumped my nose – and I knocked over a chair setting just inside the dinette and it toppled over on top of me. After I stopped seeing stars, I couldn’t stop laughing – but I was mad as hell. The thing of it was – I wasn’t mad at him, but I wanted to be. And he made it worse by being all lovey-dovey one minute – and laughing at me the next. While he was picking me up off the floor, I tried to come up with a reasonable reason why it was all his fault – but there was really no way to make that fly, but then I remembered the time he rolled up the car window on my fingers and maintained that it was my fault – and just thinking about that really ticked me off – and the only excuse he had when I accused him of finger mashing was that it took place thirty years ago. Sheesh. Men really are from Mars.

So don’t ask him.

Maybe ask my kids. I didn’t mess them up too badly. At least, I don’t think so. At least, they are kind enough to pretend to be half-way normal when they are around me – and they probably don’t remember the ax story anyway.

Now that I think about it, that was my husband Johnny’s fault too. Our daughter Carmel was four and our son Nate was a baby. Johnny had to go to Germany for business. Right off the bat, that didn’t sit well with me. Not because he was going – but because I couldn’t go too. I never did like being left behind. Anyway, so I admit to being a little cranky that morning. Mostly cause we all had to get up early to take him to the airport. You could say good-bye at the gate back then – so the three of us stood at the window waving as Johnny’s plane took off – for two weeks – with the keys to our house in Johnny’s pocket.

Of course, I didn’t realize this problem until I got home – and it was raining – and the garage was full of other stuff. I left the kids in the car in the driveway while I tried to jimmy open the front door – but as anyone who knows me will tell you, I can’t open anything.

Carmel wound down the Volvo window. “I got to pee pee, Mommy.”

“Hold on, sweetheart. We’ll be inside in a minute.”

“Why don’t you just open the door?”

The little darling was so logical. “Cause Daddy took the key with him to Germany.”

“That silly.” She rolled the window back up.

By this time, I was wet to the bone. I looked around the yard for a rock to smash a window – but decided against it when I realized that I had less money in our checking account than the price of a broken window.

That left the garage. I could open the garage door with the garage door opener – and as luck would have it, the door between the garage and the basement was unlocked. The only remaining problem was that the door at the top of the basement stairs – the one into the kitchen and the rest of the house was locked.

I went back to the car. In the first trip, I carried in my purse and the diaper bag and the baby carrier. In the second trip, I brought in the kids. Holding Carmel’s hand, I stood in the basement at the foot of the stairs with Nate on my hip.

Nate took his thumb out of his mouth and giggled.

“Mommy, I got to pee pee!” Carmel tugged on my shirt.

Hmmm. I looked around the basement. There weren’t any tools or implements of destruction in my line of sight. I thought about Johnny sitting on the plane headed for Germany. He was probably sipping champagne served by voluptuous young flight attendants. He was probably just opening that new novel and relaxing back into the cushions.

“Mommy?”

There didn’t seem to be anything to do but live in the basement for two weeks. The good news was that’s where the washer and dryer resided. The bad news was that there was no bathroom down there – and it was dark and scary at night. Nope, my only option was to knock down the door between basement and kitchen.

I sat Nate down on the floor. He looked up at me. His face crinkled and his lower lip quivered.

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I’ll get us in.”

“Stay here, I told Carmel.”

There were twenty-three steps. Not much space between the bottom of the stairs and the wall. Pretty hard to get up much speed, but I gave it a try anyway.

I backed up to make room for a running start – but it’s pretty hard to get up much steam when you are running up stairs. I hit the door with my shoulder like I’d seen movie and television “he-men” do numerous times.

I bounced off the door and staggered backwards down several steps.

“OWWWWWW!” I yelled but what I really meant was ‘@#$%#$%^#$%#$%’

“MOMMY!” Carmel screamed.

“I’m fine. It’s okay.” I sat down on the top step and counted the pretty birdies circling around my head.

Once the pain in my shoulder subsided, I got mad. Really mad. I stood up and rattled the door knob. Knowing that that was a stupid thing to do made me even madder. I stomped down the stairs and out into the garage.

That’s when I saw it. It was long and mean and it gleamed in the dusty light filtering in through the open garage door. I picked it the ax and it felt good in my hands.

“MOMMY!” Carmel’s eyes got bigger when I came into the basement lugging the monstrous weapon.

I glared at her. She wasn’t buying the “It’s okay” line anymore anyway. She grabbed my right leg and held on tight. Nate held up his arms and sobbed.

I gritted my teeth and tried to cover my rage with my best Mommy-face. It didn’t fool either kid – Nate wailed and Carmel’s little fingers dug into my thigh. “Okay,” I growled. “We’ll do it together.”

I put the baby into his carrier and slipped him onto my back. He responded by grabbing onto my ponytail with both sticky hands. I grabbed the ax and stormed up the steps. Carmel was right behind me. The area was restricted – and I did have two little ones, both of them screaming – but I took that door DOWN. In fact, the first swing felt so good that I threw in five or six more blows for good measure.

After it was all over, a warm serenity came over me. Carmel scurried to the bathroom. I changed Nate and washed his face. I made us French Toast. As we sat down to lunch, with the splintered door lying on the kitchen floor, I smiled at my children.

Carmel smiled back as I cut her French Toast. “You sure are a crazy mommy, Mommy.”

I beamed at her. Her Mama wasn’t raising no dumb kids.