Quick announcement: Great news! Very soon, the first thin volume of my bedtime stories will be available for purchase on amazon in ebook and paperback. At that time, the current crop of stories will no longer be available on the website.
However, Amazon willing, we will leave one story up on the website as a sample for volume 1. Here’s my question: Which of the bedtime story should I leave online permanently free?
When I was a child, I remember my grandfather telling me the story of Sarah Greene. She was a young girl who lived on the outskirts of town on the wrong side of the tracks. “Man we had trouble with her.” Grandfather would say. She grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and there was rumor that she had Native blood in her. As far as I know it was just that. A rumor, and not even a good one. As if Native Americans were anymore or less “savage” than white people. Grandpa used to say, “People are people and part of people being people is people making up rumors about people to make it easier for people to treat people like they aren’t just people who are people.” Hence, the scurrilous rumor of her “savage blood.” Grandpa had the good sense to be chagrined of how ignorant people can be, but to his credit, he didn’t try to make history sound more enlightened by hiding that fact.
Read more
Jack was born a respectable 8 lbs 3 oz in the hospital at Saint Cloud. Marcus never knew whether the pregnancy itself was difficult, because Eva didn’t seem to complain about it. Reports from the midwife about her conduct in the during the birth were similar. Eva pushed and grunted like any other, but there was no screaming or crying from her, as if her determination to do the work ahead of her surpassed any little thing like the blinding pain of childbirth.
Marcus wouldn’t have thought less of his wife if she had reacted any way. From the little he’d seen growing up on the farm he was unsure he’d have volunteered for the job of birthing a baby.
When he was finally allowed to enter the room, he saw his wife, looked exhausted and happy and more beautiful than he remembered as she held their child. Eva beckoned Marcus over to her side. Read more
I’ve been fortunate enough to spend the last week with my friend Kezia Wineburg. She’s a unique character. A buddhist poolshark, a former Jeet Kune Do practitioner who used to be a bartender at First Avenue in Minneapolis. An acupuncturist turned neuroscientist. A unique individual to be sure.
We’ve been writing together at my family home north of Stillwater, Minnesota. In that time, (and partly due to her good example) I put down over 10,000 words in my rough draft. For that reason, and because I think it’s a good idea, I’m going to give her a shout out right here.
Not satisfied with the resume I listed above, Kezia is embarking on a new adventure. She’s becoming the publisher of an online magazine called Situate. The idea is novel. It’s an a quarterly rag where each issue will feature a given city (the first one is New Orleans!).
Read more
Owning a home came with its own challenges, which the new Mr. and Dr. Austmann took to with gusto. Plumbing problems, squeaky floors- that often needed waxing and polishing as well and peeling plaster all seemed to be no problem for Marcus or Eva. They loved turning their house into a home. Marcus said it gave him something to do during the layoffs in the winter. Mr. Jacobson had no need for crews to paint during the winter, so the men were let go. Some found other employment, but Marcus spent his time working on the house and writing his stories, mostly for Eva. Read more
Marcus and Eva returned to the lodge the next day, where they were greeted by Dorothy. She gave them some of her homemade root beer and asked them how they had fared on their adventures. They related the story of the water and the burn and she insisted that she be allowed to examine Eva.
It turned out that Dorothy was a licensed nurse and often treated people who ran across her path, whether guests or not. “I’m not just some ’root beer lady’ she said,” when she told she was a nurse. “Even go back to the city every year to keep my license up to date and make sure my skills are sharp.” She said and she smiled at Eva.<!--more-->
After examining the leg, she recommended seeing a doctor right away. She even offered to radio ahead so that someone would be ready for them in town. They thanked her and made their way to the cabins to gather their things and said their goodbyes.
Once underway and heading back home, it started to snow. Lightly at first, but then more strongly, so it was a serious storm by the time they reached their car that evening.
“It occurs to me,” said Eva as they waited for the car’s heater to start warming the car as they drove, “That anyone whose favorite things include snowflakes that stay on their eyelashes is probably expecting they’ll be near a warm fire soon, or they’re clinically insane.”
Marcus smiled and listened to Eva talk for awhile, before putting his arm up on the back of the seat so Eva could slide over next to him. Carefully, they made their way back into Ely, MN (the nearest town with a hospital) and got in to see the doctors.
After waiting what seemed to be an interminable amount of time, they were seen by the doctor. He unwrapped the bandages, washed the blister and asked for details about what happened. He told them the burns looked to be second-degree, that they should keep them wrapped with clean bandages and keep the skin clean with soap and water, and to see their regular doctor at the first sign of infection. Then he had the nurse re-dress the wounds and charged them and sent them on their way.
The snow lessened as they made their way back south toward Saint Cloud. They had bought a home and fixed it up, and would be entering for the first time as newlyweds when they returned. About halfway back, Eva looked up at Marcus and said, “You know, that Dorothy had a great place. I’d love to get one for the two of us.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where we could just be and live off the land.” Inside some small corner of Marcus’s mind, the little boy who told his mother he’d go live in the woods punched the air. He squeezed her a little tighter then and knew for the second time in two days, that he would never let her go as long as he lived.
Weeks passed blissfully, as Marcus and Eva took day trips to see local pictographs, or swam in the lakes nearby. The end of the season was approaching and Marcus could feel the chill in the air. The only bit of trouble, being a small burn Eva received on one of their day trips while moving some boiling water she was using to make cocoa. Some spilled over on to her right leg. Immediately, she yelped tore off her wool slacks and ran to the lake.
Marcus was away looking for firewood, but the sound of her yelp and a splash brought him back to camp. At first he couldn’t find her. She was no where to be seen! He ran to the lake and out onto a small promontory, then climbed a rock down. He looked left and right, unable to find her. Then he shouted, “Eva! Eva!” before looking again. Read more
Marcus studied during the school year and worked for Mr. Jacobson during the summers and by the time he graduated, he was offered a position managing the crews for the company. He agreed, thankful for the opportunity to work somewhere that would offer him a measure of stability and for six months he began to save.
One day in late August, he invited Eva to join him on a walk near the river near the campus to a place they had spent many starlit evenings before going to dinner. They walked down by the river until they found ‘their’ spot. A small overlook that hid them from view, but from which they could see the swimmers in the summer and the ice skaters in the winter.
Turning the last bend in the path revealed a warm woolen blanket, on which there was a bottle of wine, a small picnic basket and two burning candles. Read more
The war ended and with it, Marcus’s engagement in the military. He took his money from the GI bill and enrolled in classes at what would later become St. Cloud State University. He took a room in a boarding house not far off of campus and worked in the summers painting railroad bridges on a moving crew. They pay was not bad, but it went much further for Marcus than many of the other men, because he neither drank, nor gambled. His mother, a staunch teetotaler instilled temperance in him from an early age, though time would soften his stance.
Knee-deep in the surety of youth, he believed water was the best thing to ingest where possible and due to his love of tea, he managed to avoid the problems that others might run in to, had they insisted from each lake and river, wherever possible.
Unlike his mother, he didn’t see drink as evil, merely unnecessary. He understood the need for the men to relax after a hard day’s work and why seeing the obliteration of drunkenness was attractive- especially the guys who’d also been “over there.” No, he did not begrudge the veterans their liquor. On one occasion, it was either the anniversary of VE day, or the Normandy invasion, he raised a glass to absent friends and lead the men in a drinking song most of the Veterans seemed to know. It was this character of being both strict with himself and knowing how to win friends that won him the loyalty of the men in his crew, just as it had won him the loyalty of the men in his squad. Read more
Upon entering the dance, Marcus was struck. Both by how fancy they’d made everything and how plain the buildings were back in Saint Cloud. He remembered some of the dance halls he’d seen in some of the smaller towns they’d occupied and how much grander they seemed, with no ornamentation added on. Like a girl who was still pretty with no makeup and after a swim. He smiled to himself and decided that wasn’t a bad criteria for determining if a girl was pretty.
Read more
