Saturday, November 14, 2015

Saturday Stories Number One 11-14-15


This will be a periodic posting about my life and/or the lives of people I have known.
After spending the WWII years with their paternal grandparents in Los Angeles, the girls’ mother remarried and they returned to Portland, Oregon, with a new stepfather and a working mother. The younger girl was about seven and her sister about ten.  When they left for California they were too young to have made friends in the neighborhood, so they were at loose ends for things to do.  At that time kids roamed their worlds without fear, but it wasn’t any fun alone.  The house behind theirs on the cross street had new owners, the Lyons, who hailed from Kansas and who loved to garden, both produce and wonderful flowers.  The ten year old was of an age that a seven year old was beneath her attention so she was lonesome for company.

She had been looking at the Lyons garden and enjoying their flowers but had not met anyone.  One day, at desperate loose ends for something to do, she quietly went up on the porch and peered over the windowsill to see a man working inside.  She ducked down and then popped up again.  This time the man saw her and opened the door.  “Hello, who are you?” he asked.  “I am Diane Spencer,” she replied, “and I live next door.  Do you have any little girls I can play with?”   “ We do have a girl, but she is eleven years old.” Elmer replied.   “My sister is almost eleven, maybe they could play together.”   “Charlotte has gone shopping with her mother, but you could bring your sister over this afternoon.”   “Okay,” said Diane as she ran down the steps and headed home to find her sister, Marie. 

Ever after Elmer told about looking up at the window and seeing a head with pigtails tied up in loops on either side of her head and bright brown eyes.  Then she was gone and then she was there again; like a Jumping Jennie.   Marie and Charlotte became best friends and did everything together, including trying to get away from Diane.   Sometimes Elmer and Lucille, Charlotte and Marie and tag-a-long Diane would go to the beach and stay in a little tourist cabin where Elmer taught them all how to play poker using burnt matchsticks for money.   The girls would be gone most of the day – sliding down the dunes, wading in the surf and building things with driftwood decorated with shells and sea weed.  When the older girls were in high school Charlotte was diagnosed with leukemia.  There was no treatment for the disease and Charlotte died within a few months.  Marie never completely recovered from the loss and never had a best friend again in all her long life.  Diane remained a solitary figure with many friends but never a tight bond like Marie and Charlotte.                      

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