On a flight from PHL to PWM, a bright March afternoon illuminates the view of the Jersey Shore through my private portal. I can pick out Lakehurst Naval Air Station, the large hangers once used for blimps and the site of Hindenburg’s fateful landing; Toms River, where I first felt at home as a music teacher; Bay Head and Point Pleasant to the Highlands and Sandy Hook. Images through an airplane window serve as a photo album of past experiences and memories threading through my life. New Jersey, the state I swore I would never live in, has been my home for nearly fifty years. I fly over Long Island with a quick glimpse to a shimmer of reflected light that is Manhattan, across the Sound to New England, my roots and wing toward coastal Maine, where tomorrow and the next day I’ll continue to serve teachers and students in their quest to make teaching and learning more meaningful, more connected to what matters in the world.
This was just one of numerous flights crisscrossing the country and beyond I’ve completed since retiring as the principal of a public high school in central New Jersey and becoming a consultant in the arts and education. To get from one client to the next required, for the most part, flying: PHL to SFO or BIS or LAX or PWO, etc.
I took the opportunity during those flights to capture, in written vignettes, the memories and events, places and people who had touched my life, for better or worse, during the span of two-years, 1970-1972, when I was a conscientious object during the Vietnam War. Each vignette was written in the time it took to fly from point A to point B. Once COVID-19 came along, my preferred writing spot, the drop-down tray table onboard a plane, had ceased to be an option to me. But the pandemic’s imposed isolation that we all went through, provided the time needed to craft the dozens of vignettes into chapters and subsequently, a completed memoir.
So now I have a book, which could have only happened with the support of good friends and colleagues, my beta readers bunch, who read through early iterations of the work, participated in critique sessions, and continually offered helpful and specific feedback along the way. Thanks to each and every one of you: Herb Chamberlain, Mary Wagner LaFever, Dick LaFever, Kristyn Kamps, Joan Duff-Bohrer, Holly Anna Jones, Ryan Sprott, and Lois Josephs. And one of the smartest things I did was to work with an editor this past year, Cullen Thomas. I’ve learned so much from him and have benefitted from his support and mentoring in ways I could never have imagined.
My next challenge is to publish, whether independently or with the help of a literary agent. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Meanwhile I’ll share a brief excerpt from the book. This takes place in the middle of a road trip to Alaska on my way to begin my two years of alternative service as a conscientious objector. As I’m crossing the Saskatchewan prairie my car is blown off the road and into a drainage trench by an unexpected gale.
Ditched
The next morning, I rose early again and dragged my duffle back into the Volkswagen. I forgot to physically check out of the Holiday Inn even though they had taken an imprint of my credit card, well, my dad’s card really, the night before. I guess I had done that in Moorhead and Chicago, because when I called home later that day once I got to Edmonton, my father, not using his “gee, son, it’s good to hear your voice” tone, let me know he was annoyed having to accept collect calls from hotels to approve the charges for my one-night stays.
Once on the road I found another radio station with excellent programming. This one touched on all my favorite musical styles and genres. I heard a piece by the late Romantic German composer, Richard Strauss, followed by a folk song, followed by an orchestral piece conducted by Benjamin Britten, a real favorite of mine, followed by the Rolling Stones. I was zipping along the highway in a great mood, the music, at least for the moment, taking my mind off feeling lonely and thinking about the next two years of my life serving as a conscientious objector.
Somewhere between Regina and Edmonton on a desolate stretch of prairie highway the wind screamed. I drove headlong into a fierce flash storm, a snow squall really, that took the horizon and shadows with it, leaving only white. Losing control, I crossed lanes into oncoming traffic, my car blown into a ditch on the other side of the road. And then it was over. Clambering out of the car, I could see that I was not the only one who had been caught by surprise—a half dozen cars, guttered and spun in opposite directions lay all around me.
Getting back into the car, I attempted to drive out of the ditch and up onto the highway, but the car was wedged tightly against the incline sides of the drainage gully, unable to move forward or backward. Leaving the car, locking the door, I stood by the side of the road looking for something hopeful. I noticed what could be a small town, buildings at a crossroads to the west, in the direction I was headed. Crossing back to the other side of the road, I began hitchhiking toward the structures. Recalling my mother’s warning before I left home not to pick up hitchhikers or ever hitchhike for fear of being eaten by cannibals. She was referring to a recent report of a young man in Colorado or some other western state, having been devoured by a stranger he picked up on the side of the road. I stuck out my thumb.
An old rust-blemished blue pickup truck with a man and his son slowed as they approached the scene, not to offer me the kindness of a ride, but rather to take stock of the debris scattered along the highway. I had been ignored in my time of need and I wasn’t having it. As the truck passed, I leaped onto the rubber tread of the running board, gripping the door handle for balance and entry. Wrenching it open, I slid onto the seat shoving the boy against his father’s side, both startled with the unexpected intrusion.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. You’ve got to help me. I just got blown off the road, my car is now on the other side stuck in that ditch.” I pointed to the drainage trench running alongside the road. “I’m not from here.” I think they realized that fact. I was frantic and panicking. “Please, I’ve got to get to the nearest gas station and find someone with a tow truck.”
Rather than being bounced to the curb, the man cautiously obliged, his sense of responsibility and compassion winning out while the boy stared straight ahead and said nothing.
“I’ll help. There’s a garage a bit further up the road, But you got to know how you scared the both of us.”
I sat back against the sagging bench seat, feeling every spring beneath the ripped and ratty vinyl, my left side pressed hard against the boy in the cramped cab. I exhaled a breath that felt like I had been holding since being thrown off the road. The boy seemed to relax as I began to breathe normally. I looked over at the two of them finally realizing what I had done.
“I’m sorry. That’s not like me to do what I just did to you.”
He took me to the next intersection, a crossroads with two tall grain silos and a working garage. He dropped me off at the side of the road and by the time I turned to thank him, he had already taken off, kicking up slush and small stones in his wake.
