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Daily Post – Fight or Flight Black Cloud Theory Part II

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Here’s the rest of my heart thumping weekend.

By my third cup of java, the August sun began to peek through the blinds.  The plan for the morning was outlined in my mind.  I would surprise my husband by mowing the lawn, then take Laura to her swim lessons at the Boys and Girls Club.  I waited until eight-thirty a.m. to drag the mower out from the shed.  It took a few attempts of priming the bulb and pulling the cord, but I was finally able to start the push mower.  I was quite proud of myself.

I had trimmed a mere twenty feet of grass before I found the discreet copper water line that was buried below the tall blades of grass.  In seconds, I thought I had been transported to Yellowstone National Park as I watched a magnificent geyser erupt in front of me.  I stood dumfounded, unable to move.  From shock to frantic, I tried to remember where the shutoff valve might be.  My husband had shown me the one in the house, but that would not help me outside.  I visualized the man poking his rod down into a hole each month as he read the meter and it dawned on me that it was below ground.  I looked around and spotted the deep, spider-filled opening which was barely visible through the overgrown weeds.

I dropped down to my knees, reached in and tried to find the handle.  There was nothing but webs.  The only way to reach the meter was to lay flat on the ground.  I sprawled out, face first, and reached my arm into the hole as far as I could, trying not to think about the crawling creatures that would soon attach themselves to my skin.  There was no handle.  I jumped to my feet and dashed inside to call for help.

“Bill, I need your help now!”  I shouted into the phone.

“Who is this?” Bill Kramer, the trailer court manager, replied.

I could have said it was the crazy, dumb blond from down the street, but instead I identified myself and gave a brief explanation of my crisis.  Bill agreed to come to my rescue.  When he arrived, he took one look at me and burst into laughter.  There I stood, saturated from head to toe with grass clippings clinging to most of my body.  He proceeded to take his wrench and stop Old Faithful as if it was another daily routine.  I thanked him, knowing I would never again be able to have a conversation with him that did not involve my humiliating call.

There was just enough time for a shower and change of clothes before taking Laura to her swim lessons.  An hour of watching her thrash about in the water with her friends would help me relax, I told myself optimistically.  I found a place on the stadium-type bench and tucked my daughter’s shoes and towel and my purse in the space underneath.

I offered a hand to the young mother who came up behind me as she struggled to unload a large diaper bag, purse, towel and an infant in a pumpkin seat.  We chatted a little about her newborn.  She related that she was stressed about the weather report and thunderheads she had seen building on the horizon.  I assured her we were safe inside the sturdy concrete building.

After a short while, she could no longer ignore her concerns and decided to get her daughter from the pool and leave.  I kept an eye on her sleeping baby as she dried off her daughter and gathered all her bags.  Once she had everything balanced over her shoulder or under an arm, she picked up the pumpkin seat and left.

About thirty minutes into the lesson, I reached down to get a piece of gum from my purse.  My hand grasped anxiously from side to side, but couldn’t feel anything that remotely resembled a purse.  I stood up and looked underneath the bench.  Laura’s shoes and a towel were the only things on the floor.  My purse, oh my God!  My purse is gone.

Panic sank in as I remembered my husband was out of town and no one else had keys to my car or house.  I dashed to the check-in desk seeking help.  My voice was quivering as I tried to get someone’s attention, but the staff was too distracted by the impending storm that blackened the skies overhead.

Just as I thought I would burst into tears, the young woman who had sat next to me came rushing through the door with my purse in hand.

“I’m so sorry!  I grabbed your purse when I left.  I didn’t realize until I got home that I had it.  I left the kids with my husband and hurried back as fast as I could.”

Overwhelmed with gratitude, I thanked her and headed back to the bench to once again get my blood pressure under control.  The moment my derriere hit the bench, a large clap of thunder shook the building and all the lights went out.  Fifty blood-curling renditions of “MOM!” were shouted from the pool.  A staff person tried to announce the emergency instructions, but could barely be heard above the shrill screams.  The only back up lights available were BIC cigarette lighters held by a few shaking hands.

One by one, the children were removed from the water and returned to their anxious parents.  With Laura by my side and my car keys securely in hand, we sat briefly waiting for the storm to pass.  The thought of going to the trailer and riding out the storm was ruled out.  I never felt safe there in bad weather even when my husband was there to calm my fears.  Instead, I thought it would be a good time to visit Mom in Florissant.

The skies cleared as Laura and I made the drive to Mom’s house.  Mom put on a fresh pot of coffee while Laura and my youngest sister watched television.  Mom and I retreated to the breezeway as I narrated a brief version of my nightmare weekend.  It was great to finally relax in a secure environment.  Of course, it was just a façade.

I took another sip of coffee and my eyes caught a glimpse of something outside. I studied the blacktop driveway.  It was parallel to the side street and could hold about four cars comfortably if you pulled in close, perpendicular to the fence.  Hadn’t the car been almost touching the fence?  An alarm was going off in my head.   My white Ford Pinto was inching slowly backwards toward the street.  I bolted from my chair, sending the coffee flying everywhere, and dashed down the dozen steps to the bottom landing.  I flung open the screen door and headed for the car.  I was berating myself all the way.  How could I have forgotten to put it in park?  Imagine my surprise when I whipped open the driver’s door and found my little girl scrunched down on the floor board of the passenger side!

Once again my heart felt like I had been in a marathon race.  Thank goodness the side street had little traffic and was relatively flat.   I was able to apply the break and stop the car before it made it into the street.  Laura knew she was in trouble, but I knew if I opened my mouth, she would get all the frustrations of the day.  Instead, I buckled her in the car seat and pushed the car back into its spot.  Mom was standing at the steps by then, so I asked her to keep an eye on Laura while I retrieved my purse and keys from upstairs.  I was going home to lock myself away for the rest of the day.

The ride home was uneventful, thank goodness.  As I unlocked the door to the trailer, I heard the phone ringing.  “How’s it going?” my husband asked on the other end.

“Just fine,” I lied.

 

Fight or Flight – The Black Cloud Theory (Part 1)

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Today’s DP Post challenge reminded me of a story that I wrote sometime ago.  It is an excerp from my book, Peaks and Valleys.  I’ve divided it into two parts and hope you enjoy my Fight or Flight experience enough to read the second one tomorrow.

I have a theory that there are celestial forces that cause a black cloud to align over my head like a hovering spacecraft on a regular basis.   I have no concrete proof of this theory, but it repeats itself frequently enough that I am pretty sure I am right.

I encountered this unfortunate occurrence the first time my husband had to travel without us to Louisiana for a few weeks for his job.  Suddenly, I was like a single parent of our four-year-old daughter and sole caretaker of our mobile home.  Always the optimist, I believed this would be a great opportunity to show I could manage both tasks successfully.  The first few days weren’t bad.  I dropped Laura off at daycare, went to work, came home and fixed dinner.  Laura whimpered at bedtime when her daddy was not there to tuck in his baby girl.  The weekend came and I was oblivious to the unexplainable nebula of darkness that formed in the skies above.

Laura’s blue eyes widened with excitement as she watched me push the nearly immovable coffee table across the room.  An innocent look of wonder crossed Laura’s face as I unfolded the full size sofa-sleeper.  I had planned our little living room camp-out the night before as I tried comforting Laura to sleep.  I hoped she would someday cherish the memory as much as I cherished having a sleep over at my grandparent’s home when I was small.  Her long blond braids bounced as she grabbed her tattered flannel blanket and her hand-me-down stuffed dog, Henry, and jumped onto the newly made bed.

I read her a story and soon she was fast asleep.  Despite the metal frame from the stow-away bed poking my back and hips, I too drifted off to sleep about midnight.

“BAM! BAM! BAM!”   I was jolted awake by what sounded like shotgun blasts which vibrated the wall near my head.  It was pitch black when I jumped out of bed and slammed both shins into the anvil of a table.  I probably would have paused to tend to my injuries, but my heart was pounding out of my chest with anticipation of the next round of ammo coming through the wall.  I stumbled across the room and worked my trembling fingers between the slats on the tightly closed blinds, trying hopelessly to see from where the ghastly noise had come.

Silence filled the room.  All I could see was the familiar trailer next door and a starlit sky above it.  Anxiously, I moved from room to room checking every window in great expectation of some horrific monster with a gun.  At each window I saw nothing, but peaceful moonlit yards.  My breathing began to slow and my heart no longer pounded louder than the clock on the wall.

         I did not imagine that noise, I told myself.   I glanced at my daughter sleeping soundly and began to question my sanity even more.  If the noise had been as loud as I remember, how could she still be asleep?

A few minutes passed when I heard a light rap on a distant door and a voice say, “Hey Mike, get up.  The police are on the way.”   It was Jerry, the neighbor, from two trailers up the road trying to stir my next door neighbor.  He seemed relatively calm as he walked back and forth waiting for Mike to come out.

I could not go back to bed until I knew what had happened.  I quickly got dressed and decided to go outside to get an explanation.  I listened as Jerry explained to Mike that he had been home from work for just a short while when he heard the engine of his new car start up.  He grabbed his loaded 20-gauge shotgun and chased the would-be thieves down to my trailer where he pulled the trigger and let off a few rounds.  Now I understood why the shots I heard were so close to my house.  The boys had jumped out of his car and it rolled until it was stopped by Mike’s car.

The only casualties from the shotgun blast were a few cars across the street which looked like they had been sandblasted.  Within a few minutes, the police arrived with a canine unit and having a great fear of dogs, I excused myself to check on Laura.  She was still sleeping soundly and oblivious to the excitement of the night.  I put on a pot of coffee and settled down with a paperback until dawn.

to be continued…….

A Special Day for Special People

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To father a child is not the same as to serve the role of a Dad.   My respect for the love, caring and extraordinary effort that it takes to perform the duties of a Dad grows each day.

My own father rose early every morning and labored hard to bring home enough pay to keep food on the table for a large family.  When not at his place of employment, he struggled to keep our car functioning, often with what seemed like bubble gum and bandaids.  In the silence of his mind, he worried about unpaid bills, the rearing of his many offsprings and the health of his aging parents and in-laws.

There was no time to dwell upon unfulfilled dreams.  A few dollars left at the end of a paycheck meant he could buy a bag of apples or watermelon from a produce stand.  Life was not easy for my dad.  He did the best he could.  He taught his children to respect others, to be polite and gracious, to be thankful for every gift and not complain.  For this, I will always be grateful.  I miss my Dad.

My husband also is a Dad, a very good Dad.  He was not priviledged to have a Dad when he was a child.  Yet, somehow, he learned the importance of the role.  For forty years, he has been present and active in his daughter’s life.  I measure the success of his efforts by the person Laura has become.  He taught her to believe in herself and have the confidence to succeed in whatever she chooses to pursue.  They spend many hours a week staying connected and sharing the joys and frustrations of life.

So I take this opportunity to remember my father fondly for the years of caring and guiding me into adulthood.  I thank my husband for the commitment he’s made to being a wonderful Dad.

I extend a round of applause to my brothers, Rob, Larry and Craig, and nephews, Robby, Jeff, David and Kyle.  It makes me proud every day as I watch you shine in this significant and challenging role with your own children.  We are blessed that you have taken your role to heart and make such a difference in our world.  Hope I didn’t forget someone, but remember, I’m over sixty now and there is that senior moment thing 🙂

Do you have a memory or special story to share about your Dad?  I’d love to hear about him.