The Landing

For the past 22 years, there has always been a room in our house where junk goes to live.

This is an after photo, obviously

It started with our first apartment. The second bedroom holding wedding presents that were far more generous than our poverty-wage accommodations.

When we moved into Dun Elsie, the house was so big, it appeared empty. There were rooms we hardly ever used. But as our family grew and we grew together we expanded to fit the house. Our stuff accumulated and it needed a place to go when it was not being used.

Think of it as a purgatory for items that aren't quite ready for the garage sale, thrift store, basement or dump. 

Many of the rooms in the house have taken their turn - particularly in the early remodeling days when we would move everything out of one room to refinish it. After all that remodeling work, not all the clutter would return, some inevitably would get left behind in one of the out-of-sight rooms.

Over the years, we have come to live in the more of the house, so there are fewer out-of-sight rooms.

Lately, the room in question has been the landing - a square room between the three bedrooms upstairs. The heirloom settee got put up there at Christmas to make room for the Christmas tree and never came back down. We decided we liked having our chairs next to each other by the fire, Amy and I, so we can rock and read books on rainy days. 

Grace's old dresser got put out on the landing there when it was no longer needed. It had been filled with dress-up clothes and princess crowns. She has out-grown these things, it seems. 

Hidden in a corner was our old bed. Bought before the girls came along from guy in Oregon who used to run around England buying up antiques at estate sales, shipping family heirlooms to the states for young childless couples to furnish their homes with. We'd replaced it with a new bed long ago, but its carved legs and hand carved trim was too nice to put down in the basement. 

Yet it was the books that needed the most work. There were three bookshelves overflowing with books. Books sent to me by publishers for review when I was editing Tidepool.org. Books brought home from church. Handyman and how-to books that I culled from thrift stores. I used these old books to teach myself home repair and remodeling. These books marked both our ambitions and our achievements, our dreams and mythology. Gardening books, remodeling books; books purchased at the local library book sale and books lent and given by friends and family. So many books that still want for reading. 

Then there are the other books, well worn and piled in stacks on the corner shelves. These books, kids books, learn to read books. Books, alas, the girls have grown out of. 

Lindsay will be a teenager next week. How is that possible? Here is the Bernstein Bears "Spooky Old Tree" the book we had to read to keep her on the toilet long enough to toilet train her. Here is Danny the Dinosaur -- a book that I read so many times to Grace that I have it memorized. It was the childhood book of my friend Kevin, with his name still in the front. 

WE found my clip books with articles and columns from my years in the newspaper business, as well as a business card from when Amy worked writing for the Cascade Cattleman down in Klamath Falls. 

There were scrapbooks stowed away on a corner shelf. Most are only partly filled with pictures. 

We found old photos of the run-down house we encountered 22 years ago, cold rooms with apartment furniture and broken windows. There were pictures of where I lived and worked in Carlingford, Ireland, and a picture of Amy and I - still just college sweethearts the day before graduation. 

Lindsay has three baby books started, Grace had only a page or two filled out in hers -- not much time for scrapbooking when you have a three year old to chase. I was full time in nursing school when Grace came along, I was gone more often than home back then and Amy had to manage both girls on her own. 

We are sentimental about the books that will never again be read. We sort a pile of Christmas books and save them, for those we turn to year after year. We set aside the ancient books - the children's books passed down from Amy's dad and aunt. Children's books from the 1940s that our children now have grown to love. Tuffy the Tugboat, Uncle Wiggily and my favorite, the surreal masterpiece Mister Dog. There are the books from Amy's childhood - Amy's Long Night and the Little House on the Prairie books. She loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books so much that she read them aloud to me when we were first married. 

So too, do we set aside those special children's books of our generation that we can't bear to let go. In each of these, between the pages, lies a memory of a moment in Lindsay and Grace's life - a memory we hope they will pass along to their children.  

WE are making a pile for the library book sale, and I have a few nursing textbooks to give away. I've found a friend who wants the old bed that we just don't any place to put. 

Our house was empty once, now it is filled and cozy. The settee, which has been handed down from Amy's grandma, is now cleaned and has a prime position on the landing next to a full -- but neatly organized -- bookshelf.

It is the perfect place to sit, and read a book. 

Remembering Just One of Many on Memorial Day

I spent a rainy afternoon before Memorial Day weekend shifting through a packet of newspapers.

The papers are brown and old, and smell like attics and forgotten steamer trunks. They are smooth and soft to the touch and don't like to bend anymore.

These oily scraps of paper are now 70 years old -- 25 years older than myself. These collected clippings were assembled by hands I have never seen, and tell a story about a man I never met.

All of the articles concern themselves with the movement of a particular outfit in the U.S. Army -- the 508th parachute infantry. In 1944, the 508th was attached to the 82nd Airborne as part of something called the First Allied Airborne Army. The 508th served in Normandy during the D-Day invasion, but none of the clippings mention anything about those important days.

Instead, the story begins in September 1944 when the 508th was dropped into Holland, near Arnhem. A place one officer called ''our little patch of hell.''

IN BROAD DAYLIGHT the 508th went in, Sept. 17, 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden. They were attempting to relieve the badly pinned down British paratroopers who were trying to hold out near a bridge at Nijmegen.

The bridge is a mile and half long, made of concrete. It was seized intact by British armor and the American paratroopers. If you've ever seen the movie or read the book "A Bridge Too Far" you know of the bridge I'm talking about.

Capturing the bridge before the Germans could destroy it allowed the allies to break through the Seigfried line. It was the last bridge left across the Northern Branch of the Rhine. The New York Sun on Sept. 21, 1944 ran a double-deck headline -- letters two inches tall -- shouting "Allied Troops Take Bridge Over Rhine."

"The isolated airborne troops were holding fast against heavy attacks by reinforced German assault troops," it read that Sunday. By Monday the Trenton Evening Times reported that the Airborne troops were "an island" isolated from supply and reinforcement and in a "critical plight."

COMPANY B HAD PUSHED into a small group of houses near the German border town of Wyler one day after landing to take sixteen 20 mm German guns. Company B took Wyler on Sept. 19. Once secured, the town was roadblocked. The company withstood several large-scale attacks during the day and by nightfall, Company B was running low on ammunition. The paratroopers were faced with a coordinated attack from three sides. After inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy, Company B withdrew from Wyler and set up a defense around a roadblock southwest of town.

It was here that a young man from Trenton, New Jersey volunteered for one of those brave acts that turns some men -- who pass without notice on the streets in times of peace -- into what some would call heroes.

UNDER THE STARK heading “Posthumous Award,” another clipping tells of why Pvt. E. F. Matthews was awarded a Certificate of Merit for heroic conduct in action.

"On Sept. 21, 1944," his commanding officer Major General James Gavin told his parents "... during an enemy attack on our positions near Wyler, Germany, Private Matthews, upon his own initiative, made a reconnaissance of a draw through which it was believed enemy troops were infiltrating. He returned with valuable information, which enabled us to prepare an enemy flanking maneuver and break the thrust. When the enemy had withdrawn, again Pvt. Matthews moved to the draw on reconnaissance. While investigating ... he was killed."

YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER heard of Pvt. E. F. Matthews. Few readers my age probably ever heard of Arnhem, or Nijmegen -- and certainly not of the little town of Wyler.

I had never knew of my connection to these places, until a Sunday ten years ago when I first dug out and read these old clippings.

I think his parents learned the next day that their only son had died. There is a scrawled note in pencil at the top of the Sept. 22 Trenton Evening Times that says “1 1/2 miles from Wyler, Germany.”

I can see a mother on the telephone writing down that location on whatever paper was at hand -- before she knew the significance of the information. I can see her voice going quiet and soft. I can see her setting the phone down gently.

Matthews was an only child. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, couldn’t have children of their own so they adopted this little boy. He was active in Boy Scouts--Troop 44. There was an observance of silence that week among all the local troops for his passing. Blessed Sacrament Parish draped colors for 30 days.

Growing up in Trenton, he ran track at Trenton High School and later at Riverside Military College. He was there only a year before he up and joined the army in July 1943. He was a member of Company B, 508th infantry, 82nd Airborne Division.

He was 21 years old.

Private E. F. Matthews isn’t in any of the history books, although he is listed in the roll of honor in the History of the 508th Parachute Infantry. His tiny act of courage probably did not turn the tide of the war. The little town of Wyler isn’t even on any map that I can find.

His bravery and sacrifice will not otherwise be remembered 70 years later. 

Yet, each memorial day I dig out these clippings, look at the old maps and faded headlines. I tell his story and keep is name alive, even though he is just one of many who have served and died for our freedom. 

So why do I remember to honor a man I've never met?

My father’s uncle Frank helped my dad when he was young and growing up in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The youngest kid in a big Irish family, my dad owes a lot of his successes in life to Frank Matthews.

When I was born -- 25 years after their son had died halfway around the world -- my dad asked them a favor. He asked if he could give his youngest son the name of their only son.

I am Edward Matthews Hunt.

I will not forget.

-30-

Addendum: A few days after this column was published in the Christian Science Monitor, I was contacted by someone who served with Eddie Matthews in the 508th. He gives a long letter with details of the movements of the unit. The writer, (whose name I have lost) said that he first med Ed while stationed near Nottingham, England at Wollaton Park. 

"I have often thought of Ed, he was the type of person that never complained but always saw the bright side and was more than willing to share whatever he had. He was the solider that made the army a better place, I know if you could have met him, you would agree..."

Originally written for the Chinook Observer newspaper in 1994. It has since been republished in The Tidepool and the Christian Science Monitor. 

After the Flood

Note- This was originally written for the Chinook Observer after the 1996 flood. The most recent flooding rivaled that event and reminded me of this. This and other essays are in my book Content.

        Standing in the water in my basement, I couldn’t help but realize how blessed my life has been.
         Four inches of water downstairs was nothing compared to what other folks were going through. Houses sliding down banks, roads stranding people far from their homes and families; water wiping out all that some people had with no warning and no insurance. As I stacked waterlogged boxes on folding chairs up out of the water, I couldn’t help but smile at how lucky we were.
         It shouldn’t take suffering of others to remind me.

By Friday, the sun shone like August in a cloudless sky and I looked at the world with new eyes.
We cleaned out the basement, trashing most of the dozen or so boxes I had pack ratted away from various stages of my life. There was a scrapbook from high school with blank pages; several pounds of assorted papers we saved for some future use that will never come. There were tapes of lonely songs and angry nights that have sat unplayed for years as well as souvenirs of wanderings I made alone. Why did I save these wounds and scars of my life before Amy?
It didn’t take long to pile the truck down and haul the whole load to the dump.
It is some small neurosis I possess, this inability to throw anything away without a major event to press me into action. I can’t even bring myself to throw away the scraps of paper, receipts and cough drop wrappers I squirrel away in my back pocket. They collect upon the flat surfaces around the house -- every place but the garbage where they belong.
In that way, for me this flooding was a blessed event. A cleansing moment like the biblical flood that washed away the apathetic and unholy. It was an imperative to clean out the accumulated garbage of 20 some-odd years. Some of the garbage anyway. At least it will be a start.
Perhaps even more so, it was an opportunity to look at the blue sky last week and see the contrast between dark winter and perfect clear blue of tomorrow. I love living in the land of so much rain. It makes me appreciate the sun so much more than I would otherwise. When I lived East of the mountains -- where no clouds appeared between April and October -- I had no appreciation of the sun.
When times are good, you don’t appreciate the good times.
Yet, give me a natural disaster and I suddenly remember how to count my blessings. Last week was too kind on that account. Too many reminders were waiting to slap me in the head.
I could turn in the middle of my world and see how my life is now. In the bright light of a false spring, there was Amy planting sweetpeas in the garden. The dogs played in the mud, and the water slowly receded back to the banks of the river, leaving patterned shoals of silt behind. Great logs were left in the fields for us to cut up into firewood. Gifts brought by the high waters. I could look at these things and see all that is too easily forgotten when days are not so bright.
Our minds are muscles of habit. We are beings of assumptions, generalizations and programmed reactions only occasionally awakened from our automation trances to view the world as it really is. We seek order so we fail to appreciate it-- call it boredom, demand more.
I grew up thinking that contentment was a state of stagnation. Those who grow content in their lives fail to improve their world. To some extent that is true. Too often however, I think we use this as an excuse to create disasters for ourselves in hopes that we may escape the soft arms of contentment and the guilt we feel in their embrace.
We need to embrace the good things in our lives while striving to change that which still can be improved.
I awoke early on Monday, my 27th birthday. My back and legs sore from hauling truckloads of manure fro a the new life growing beneath the surface of our garden.
Sore as well from hauling the dead things away. Empty boxes and water logged memories are heavier than one can imagine. The work in the clean fresh air had felt wonderful, the soreness serves as a reminder of the good work accomplished. I pulled on my jeans and struggled to button the top button. Getting fat I guess -- a reminder of work still needing to be done.
On Tuesday, Amy and I celebrated Valentine’s Day with candies, root beers and cards, as well as the quiet realization that we don’t need to set a date on the calendar to say that we love each other.
How blessed we are, we who have our health, our loving family and a roof over our heads. How sad it is that we need to be reminded by the suffering of others.
How joyous and thankful we should let our hearts be when those reminders to come.