| still at home volume 1 part 2 - 1958 october-november | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
October 23rd ..... A new adventure begins! Each new hill, each bend in the road is a facination. Whats over the next hill? What will the next bend bring? Where does the road lead? What places and adventures lie in wait for us? Maybe it is that I have a "wander-lust", perhaps Gypsy blood I can never hear a train wistle without a melencoly chord of slow sad music starting in my soul. A longing to go, wander, search ........ October 25th ..... [This is where the story of the long family trip into the US begins.] An "Eventure"!! .... That is a word, (I am the author of) that means one of my own brand of adventures. I walked across the "yard" of a filling station when up drove a souped up jalopy with a regular "whoosh". And oh, the dolls!! One: dark hair, not to tall, about 16 I'd say, sort of a roundish face, but cute! The other: dark too, not bad looking, but not outstanding. In short - a real pair!! Anyway, .... I was walking back to the truck again when (!) tho not too loud, not too sure came a wistle. Not professional, but still a wolf wistle!!!! Tho I had to look a bit indignant, I wasn't! Not at all! In fact, I was tickled pink! Me, wistle bait?!!! Boy, dear Journal, you can tell how I felt. I watched them for a while, I'm sure they were watching too .. O-O-O-O-O ... When we started out again, who should I see but them ahead of us, just turning into a burger-bar! Then afterwards I saw them unload a huge cargo of BOYS at the curb. Then, after wards, they pulled up in the next lane. I leaned forward, and we grinned at each other ...... !!! Then it happened again but after a while we lost them ... Nother Eventure ended ...... I have a sort of special quest, this trip - As many Ad- ooops (!), Eventures as possible - I want to be as outgoing as possible - and find Someone ......... Speaking of a Someone ... - I have a sort of Home-town beau!!! Not really. I don't really love - Just like pretty much!!! Ray is sort of sweet, in fact pretty, very sweet. Shy but nice, I think he likes me, maybe not as much as I like him, but just the same ...... As I left La Glace for "PARTS UNKNOWN", I blew a casual kiss out of the window and wispered "Farewell, Sweetness" //////!! So-o-o- ........... October 26 ....... Radway [Alberta] We're at Uncle Bills now, Dear Journal and its not as bad a could be expected. That doesn't sound to awfully enthusiastic does it? Well, I guess its not really, after that Eventure ..... Well! You know what I mean anyway, oh-wisest of books. Unk' Bills sermon this afternoon was - well how can I say it? I couldn't understand half, or a third, or even a fifth of what he said. Is it my cranium thats at fault, or is it the sermon. Now, tell me that, Mr Journal! I've found out that Esther who is somewhat, Quite, pretty, has a boyfriend!!!!!! (Terry is in grade one, and so is Esther!) And oh! He seems so ardent. Hed walk through a furnace for her!! Well, ... maybe, that is. Anyway, (Oh yes, dear journal, I'm quite aware that I use that word far too much) They were fun to watch. Terry, his round little face positively beaming with what?, came over to Esther - "You're my girlfriend " he chanted and put his arms around her. Esther, not being in a romantic mood I suppose, shoved him away and said "If you don't be good I'll spank you." So Terry, with an air of "I-would-die-gladly-for-love", bent over the edge of a chair. A brave (?) little ouch shook the room every time her little foot, made his little backend vibrate. Later she told me, "Ive got three boyfriendths!" 3!! When shes only 6 shes got 3, and me 7 years older have none?! Shame on you, Elli! ..... Oct 27th .... Edmonton N.B. - Which means, of course "No Boys". It really is a sad time when I have to write that under my date, dear book. And I didn't see "Mr.X" no.2 again. That fact makes me want to bawl - really bawl - hard! I wonder how many "Mr.Xes" there are going to be in my life .... It is a tragic thing that they never become any more than a "Mr.X" to me .... But wait, the night is yet young! Who knows how many "MrXes-or-otherwise" will apear to-night? I hope there are half a dozen but even one would be perfectly Ok by me. that's how desperate I am!!!!! Oct 28th ...... Today we went to the hospital. That statement, in its self, tells a long story. The hospital to me is a world in itself. A wonderful world. I don't know why it is, but I'm allways much sorrier to go home, then to go to the hospital. That doesn't sound very sane does it? Most people weep buckets because they have to go, but me! I weep bucket because I can't! But I can!! I found out yesterday, and now my heart just sings, and sings "Im going to the hospital, Im going to the hospital!:. It was yesterday, when we went to Dr. Rostrups office, I found out. I was perched on the examination table when he gave me the news that he "thought he should do another operation, and when could I come to the hospital?" Oh, dear book, you can just imagine how I felt! In a way it was an answer to prayer. That sounds queer doesn't it? To pray, that I would be able to stay in the hospital! But I really did pray, I always do when I want something very badly. And my prayers were answered. Usually they are, in time, but sometimes they aren't. When they aren't it kind of hard not to be a bit "mad" at God. However, I know that if a prayer is not answered, God has a reason for it, and I can trust Him to make everything come out right in the end. There! That did sound sort of "preachy" but its just how I feel, journal, and this is where I put down what I feel and think, so ....... When I heard the news, I looked at my face in the mirror. It was smiling, hard. There mom said something about my limp, maybe, and I saw my smile get rigid and my eyes looked queer. I clamped my jaws to geather, my smile was still there, but it didn't look very happy - it was terribly unnatural, and well -, sort of tragic. And my eyes were getting absolutely flooded with salt water. Then the whole thing - smile especially colapsed. The Dr. was looking at me too. Oh Journal, you have no idea how uncanny it is to watch your face when it acts like that! And then I bawled. Why am I so touchy? And why do I always, and always cry? I'm a big baby When I was small, I used to think that tears where the liquid that appeared when your eyes dissolved a little. I can tell you, dear journal, that there wouldn't be the tiniest speck of my eyes left if that was the case, because they would have been completely dissolved away, long ago. It seems as if my eyes are "always dripping" (oh yes, I know that doesn't sound romantic at all, but it's the truth. My eyes do "drip.") "Don't you want me to do it?" asked Dr Rostrup. "Yes" my strangled voice said. "Then why are you crying?" Simple question, but to tell the truth, I didn't know why. "Oh shes a teenager, you know" said Mom, as if that explained everything. "Teenagers are pretty wonderful people. Ive got a couple myself," answered the doctor. Now, journal dear, wasn't that an awfully sweet thing for him to say? I think I love, yes love, the hospital so much because there I fit in. No where else. Other places I am always on the outside of things, looking in. But there I really fit. And there I don't have to feel like a freak because everybody else is the same (or worse) than me. And maybe Ill find somebody there. I wouldn't care if he had a deformity because I have one too, and then I wouldn't have to feel inferior. Oh, journal, you couldn't possibly know what it feels like to be a freek, Not knowing whether people are nice to me because they feel sorry for me or because they really like me. Hardly the latter. I know I shouldn't be bitter, but I am. Oh its so awful to know that I can never be Somebody, or have any real friends or ever belong. I think, of all things a person, specially a teen, has to know he belongs and know he is loved. And I can't. Ever. Three Hills [Bible Institute - southern Alberta] .... Octob - No! November, the 1st. Tonight something happened to me .... Something more wonderful than an Eventure .... God, himself came nearer to me - and that is a lot greater than if a mere boy "came nearer." Really it is!!! But here at three hills, things have been just wonderful. The sermons really shake your "foundations" and make you think - Makes you clear up those things between you and God ....And oh, they need to be cleaned up. The whole atmosphere was "moving" tonight, dear book, and when we rose to sing "How Great Thou Art" I sang with a full heart, as if I really meant it, and I think I did mean it too. Oh he is a Great God! .... At the end of his sermon, Mr Ericson gave the invitation ... At first no one came, they sang that hymn again, and people began to pour down the isles. Judy and I were sitting in the balconey. A woman and her son came in. He was good looking, blond. She wasn't pretty, or even very nice looking, but you could see that she adored him. They laughed and bantered a lot and seemed to enjoy each others company, really. Then when the invitation was given, she turned to him, and pled with him. Oh, her mother-love showed in her eyes ... He wouldn't listen, and they sang the song again ... She talked to him again and again ... And in between she prayed - hard. I could see that he wanted to, but he couldn't quite get to the place where he would go forward. I saw the human drama, and I prayed for him too, like I've never prayed for someone I didn't even know before. So we prayed, that mother and I, a union, both of us with the same concern at heart, even though she loved him , and I'd never seen him before. We prayed ....... And then when it was almost to late ..., She turned to him again, her eyes begging, and HE WENT!! ........ I feel like shouting those capitals to the world. Oh, he went, he went!! I feel glorious, exilerated .... Just wonderful!!! To think that I helped to pray him into heaven, the thought!!! And he was a boy, ..... boys have a specially soft place in my heart, perhaps my Mother instinct ..... and it makes me so happy to see a boy find Christ. When his mother saw him go I saw her lips move - and I new she was thanking the Great, and Glorious God. And so we, after praying him through together Thanked Him togeather too!! When she saw him go down that aisle below, she couldn't stand it ... she just cried and cried. If Judy hadn't been in between us I would have put my arms around her shoulder and said "I was praying for him too," softly - Thats just how I felt!! Oh I know, if anyone read this they couldn't understand it You have to feel it first. When I saw him go, I was so glad I could have shouted "Amen!!" as loud as anything. Dear book, this may sound like religious, sentimental, Nonsense. But it isn't. Its real!! I know that now, I can feel the Greatness of God all around me. Oh to love Him, as He Deserves to be loved. God help me. When we first got here, the first thing I noticed was the Boys. Oh there are so many, and so terribly good looking!! And then, later, I noticed something Else that made me glader I came here, than just the boys could make me. It was the True Presence of God. You can feel him working on and around you. Yesterday I did something I've been putting off for a long time. Mr. Al Martin, a young, good looking man, with a terrific message was the speaker. Before the sermon started, there was a sort of testimony meeting. One boys testimony stayed with me because it was so original. "I want to thank the Lord for overhauling me," he said "and I'm counting on this conference for a real tune-up". Short'n'Sweet. And, to add another "S", Sincere. Then Mr. Martin got up. He spoke on [C?ing] your sins, and The Law of Blessing. Some of the things he said hit me just like a lightning streak - Knocked me over flat! He talked abut unforgiven, unconfessed sins, and oh he "hit me hard" I thought of something that has been bothering me all summer. Popular songs. I don't know why their wrong, I'm not even convinced that they are, but if God wants me to give them up, I'll have too. Ive been putting it off for ever so long but yesterday I made it square with Him. Mr Whilms said something about them being wrong, and Mom does too. So they must be, even if I don't see it. Anyway God's been "speaking" to me about it in a definate sort of a way. The Bible says something about anybody who does something even if he thinks its wrong, Sins. And so I have sinned, and I'll have to make it right with God. At the end he asked those who had an unconfessed sin in their life to come and make it right. Teenager started for the front, crying. And when they got there, they dropped down on their knees and really prayed. And then I thought about those Popular Songs ....... It was a struggle with my pride, but God won and something burning inside me, made me go up to the front too, and drop down on my knees, and Make Things right with God. Its going to be hard, because I like, love those songs so much. But with Gods help I CAN DO IT. The Bible says: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" And: "My grace is sufficient for thee, My strength is made perfect in weakness." I can trust Him to take over, Even if my best friends think Ive gone completely batty. They don't know!!! But I hope they find out some time. [written sideways in the margin at some later time: ON THAT DAY, ALL GONE, CAN'T GET IT DON'T MAKE SENSE] November 11th ....... Steibach [Steinbach, Manitoba] Oh Journal, I'll just have to write this down now, or else I'll forget a wonderful "nite-out". First of all, we watched the rememberance parade and other programs on T.V. Then, after dinner, we headed for Winnipeg - Pop, Mom, and I, Mr. and Mrs. Warkintine, Edith and ? (don't know) Edith was really rigged up. fur coat, heavy wool skirt, sheerest nylons, black patient heelless and toeless shoes, black patient purse, earings, pink polish, lipstick, etc etc. And man, I was scared to even chew gum in front of her because she looked so regal and Dignified!! Imagine my surprize when she asked her father for a bag of peppermints and told a rather, well - Stupid Story - And then, in Winnipeg, we went first to the Colledge [Mennonite Brethren Bible College]. Ant Lue was supposed to be in the library, but we found her practicing piano. Then she took us around. Kind of shabby .... We saw the classrooms, dinning room, couple of suites, library .... And Aunt Lues room. Big, comfortable. We helped to demolish a pile of candy. Daddy slept. Mom talked. And I read "The Diary of a Young girl - Anne Frank" and meanwhile chewed on halloween candy and apples. That book, is good. It does express the feelings of growing up: love ...., necking ......, square parents ..... And the best is, that a real person wrote this book from real experience. Benny Brown is dead. Oh what a shock it was when I heard it! Benny, red hair .... a bit shy .... 15 years old .... Benny dround - just a few weeks ago in a B.C. lake when he fell out of a motorboat (Arnold's) Death always seems like sort of a mirage. It has to be there, but still I can't grasp it ... It seems so unbelievable ... always .... So impossible that a soul, even a cat's, could go - just like that - ! If death was a color, I think it would be like a hazy cloud-misty wisps of blue, and behind it all, a black velvet curtain that hides immortality and all the mistical Beings, beond. And Benny has gone behind the curtain. I do not feel anything like grief about it - I didn't know him well enough ..... to me he was just a person, I didn't even like him to well, ... I just feel a kind of awed wonder at Something which is so great and still such a mystery. But what if it had been Ernie? .... I loved him once, - in a very young and more casual way of course, and I know he felt the same about me because he told me, and when we sat togeather making pie in my "mud-factory" and recited the list of our boy-friends and girl-friends, I was always included in his list, and he in mine. ..... Funny, happy, days !!!!! Then, Aunty, M & P, and I had tea togeather. Then we heard Warkentines knock. Mom stayed to visit, Daddy and I went along right smack into another Eventure. Mr W. took me bowling. Dad took himself. It was dark - the neon above the door beconed. And inside was a new expieriance. There were a couple of dolls inside, pin-boys, I found out. They stared a little, and I stared back - really cute. Then the man gave me a pair of shoes, cute kind of, to put on. I took off my coat and went to the powder room. The alleys were long polished wood, with "ditches" along the sides. A sort of run way was in the middle, for the balls to come back on. down at the other end were the pins and behind them was a small drop. The boys down there, set the pins up, and roll the balls back. There are benches to sit on, and little sort of books to keep score on. The guys went down there and started out. Edith was playing with a young couple. The girl was 18 and really adorable. The sweetest little nose, big eyes, nice mouth, smiliest face, long hair, and really in love with her 6-mo husband. He was tall, dark, handsome, and loved to tease .... The first time I got 0, then 0, 0, 13, 10, 0, 0, 0 Daddy won with 141 points. Mr. W. was next, and I of course, lost. I'm a rotton bowler. But then it was my first time. After the game was over, we returned our shoes, and when the guys came out, I posed just a wee bit. Always do in such cercomstances. Then dinner at the ajoining joint. We sat down, and then a bunch of guys came in. The cutest, a blond-brush-cutted hep-cat caught me looking at him and raised his eyebrows almost up to his hair line. I ordered 7-up, Peach Pie, Breaded veal cutlets with potatoes and beans .....And altho the potatoes were awful, and the pie tasted like glue, I enjoyed it Very Much. I pulled Mr. M's chair out beside me and after a while he put his arm on the back of the chair. When his wife reminded him that he wasn't sitting with his wife, he hugged me. I looked at him. He looked at me. then we laughed and so did every body else. Nice Man. I've had lots of Eventures - minor incidents like - on Sunday afternoon Helen and I were tooted at and waved at about 5 times by a car load of brush-cutted, black-jacketed, hep cats. AND: in Coaldale, when a bunch of guys went past and a hep cat saw me in the window he said "wow". Did he mean me? Lovers walking togeather, holding hands, Gangs walkin' 'round (sweet-kats in beat-up old Merc's) a few guys said "hi" to me at 3 Hills .... and of such are my days made. Saturday afternoon ... Kansas, Nebraska or Dacotas prob'ly Witchita I don't have blue Mondays, its my Saturdays that are indigo. Saturday is date day - guys and gals at drive-inns, guys and gals driving around town in beat up old junk heaps - guys calling for girls to take them to some hop or to the Sugar Bowl: always in couples. Everybody - everybody but me. I go out with my family - when I go out! Which isn't often /// Or I walk alone, and myself and my dreams ...... Sunday ................. Hillsborough Doll day - for me. not that their my dolls, just someone ... somebody ... who belongs to somebody else - somebody I'll never know - like to know - .... That's all. I watch them from my windows Toot my horn at the cutest ones .... in the oldest cars ... dream a bit ..... And just watch. Right now theres two cars parked right in front of me - one with two guys. The other two girls ... nice hug? They're having a little chat and I - the observer, always on the outside - am observing .. Boy they must have a lot to gab about. I saw something else too - not so nice. A car was standing in the middle of the road. 2 guys were inside and one, the cutest was standing outside with a girl - her face was sharp edged, hungry looking and her hair was blown around her face in straight stiff "lox". She was all angles. No nice girl. There was a bottle mixed up in all this too, somewhere. She dropped her purse bent down and fumbled for it - Then the guy got into the picture - he looked brutal - "I said get in." He said and shoved her into the back - she didn't want to go ... Those poor kids. They're what give teenagers the bad name. But sometimes I do wonder if there are any nice guys in the world? Oh I know there must be some, but are there any that could like me - love me? .... A guy and a girl just went by on a motorcycle just zipped by, their faces to the wind, their hair blown back ...... Another of my dreams ....... - Tonite I went for a walk - dark shadows under those beautiful trees -
crunch of maple leaves - smell of fall - car lights - voice - music - a
royal sky - weird blue lightning that flashed sorcery - shirt sleeves in
car window - and ... - a wistle, wolf wistle, at me!! - - - - November 17th ..... Monday ...... - Hillsboro, Kansas Another diary, but really just another chapter in a life. I'm 13 and 1/2 years old. I feel older in someways, but still in other ways I feel as if I'd like to stay young. Childhood was so uncomplicated, or was it? There were problems then, smaller, and to me they seem funny now, but they were terribly intense then - and I cried myself to sleep over them. I still cry. About things I'll think are awfully odd later, but now they are real. Past and Presant and Future - such difficult facts to comprehend. Presant seems the easiest to realize because we're living in it but there are times when even Presant is obscure. Past is harder, because they are things and times that were, have been, and are not still. We forget past, but some things - the most horrible, the most beautiful, Memmory lets us keep - to muse, laugh, cry, over. Just a few shreds of the "has been" and "once was" If we could remember what it felt like to be a child we would be kinder, more patient. If our parents could remember how they felt when they were teenagers they would understand better why we do the crazy things we do. Future the most hidden, most mysterious of them all. It is something like death - as remote and unknown, but it is different too. Future is brighter, more hopeful, and somehow, not so sinister feeling. There is always Hope in Future; in death too, but thats a different sort of Hope, I think ...... 13 and a half has problems. Big problems, to us. ... boys make up alot of these problems - unpopularity, falling in Love, the not-so-nice guys, the nice guys (if they don't like us, or if they do like us more often the former with me!) Other problems too: God, right and wrong, taking our stand, .... School, homework, popularity, Math, Art, .... Parents, dates (lack of), blues .... Shyness, dumbness, brothers and sisters, awkwardness ...... jealousy - ... Lots and lots ..! I suppose this book is going to be mostly about boy-business. It seems that's my main interest nowadays. If they smile at me, wistle, honk their horns, or even look at me, I feel as if a world shaking event has taken place and I must write it down quick in my "dear journal." When I take a look at myself I have to shake my head and say, "Man is she a far gone goon!" Really tho, I think I have a "boy-complex". I wonder if its completely sane? .... At the publishing house in Hillsboro I saw a guy - about 19 I'd say, who was so lean and so tall that he made me feel about 3 feet tall. Sleeves rolled up, blond brush cut dusty, he was working on the folding machine. I smiled at him when I saw him looking at me, and then after a while, I went over and talked to him. How bold can I get?! Am I really defeating my awful shyness? Oh I do hope so! When we left, I smiled at him again and he smiled back. November 21st ..... Salt River, Ariz I'm enjoying "cat company" again, for the first time after Choco ... A stray pussy - all alone and almost starved in the forest to any one else but to me - THIS IS CHOCO! A little more grown up - shes a "teenage" cat now, instead of the kitten she was, but there is still the sprit, the very same - Same black velvet with jewel-eyes ... same poinant chin ... same long, lean, body ... shadow black too, with the exactly duplicating white spot under her chin ... eyes not exactly the same - the innocence is gone and in the clear, green, huge eyes is an unmistaking wicked light! I knew I'd see her again! Dear, Choco ... This one, we're adopting - and I've named it "Sorcer" - short for "Sorcery". Why is it that I like cats so much? (spelled either "c" or "k"!) Maybe because they don't bore me by being stupidly good - they're more kindred - (catch me being stupidly good!) This goes for kats too. Are they ever "stupidly good"? Hardly! All this magnificent scenery that I'm seeing down here should really be recorded but - oh, its to grand to describe! Huge castle cliffs in red and orange - rock watch towers in pink and tan - red-brown slopes splashed with green and yellow - everything is color! A riot of it. The sky is like our skies - just as beautiful only somehow more pastel. The houses are prettily spanish, the streets are narrowly Spanish, The people are darkly Spanish, and the dolls are Dollishly Spanish! It's a Spanish world! And really the dolls are dolls. I have another name for hep cats and I think it sounds sort of as if it belongs - Shirt sleeves! A kats always got his elbow outside of the can hes in. And his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows - hence, shirtsleeves. And I do like shirtsleeves! .... Globe, Arizona Speaking of shirtsleeves, have I been seein' 'em!! And all so tall, dark, handsome, and Spanish! It seems like there are awfully dollish shirtsleeves in every place I go - only sometimes more so. Man, its enough to get dizzy on! Had a little Eventure. Was exploring a steep street in the Mexican section of town - little houses and lots of kids playin' around. A bunch of little dark guys (Mexican and Negro) were playing football (of sorts) The oldest one, fat, curly haired and about 12 - was sort of bossing things around and when I walked by, a whole bunch of little guys stood on the corner and watched, boy does it give you a queer feeling! The fat one drawled, in a tone anything but quiet "No class, no class." Only the way he pronounced it was "noh clais, noh clais,"! Don't I know it without bein' told? And by the way, just what is "class"? I think I'll look it up ...
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