35. Refugees

By mid afternoon Sunday we were ready to make the journey home… what did that word really mean? Boards fashioned into a roof and four walls or a pile of ash. Another phone call from Crystal letting us know what we could expect upon our return. This part makes my heart swell a little.

That Sunday morning, after our volunteer fire department spent the previous night fighting the blaze, the news spread rapidly thru the churches sanctuary’s. There are numerous churches of all denominations. From the pulpit to the collection plate they came together and made things happen.

All offerings that Sunday were put into mom’s bank account. A person or group of persons anonymously rented a house and paid six months of the rent in advance. The community completely furnished the house with donations and filled the garage with boxes of cloths and linens. All this in a mere 12 hours since the fire. This kindness has stuck with me my entire life. A genuine community of compassion and caring.

As we drove home the gravity of what had happened began setting in. I stared out the window as the miles blurred by. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon. How beautiful I thought and then caught myself. How could I be noticing a sunset with all that we had facing us. But then it occurred to me, what better time to appreciate something constant in the universe, like a sunset, the end of a day that heralds the promise of a new day. This is the first time I can remember having the awareness of this perspective. It would become my sword and my shield.

We arrived in town just after dark. We drove by what was left of our home. A plie of ash. In my mind I had imagined we would be able to salvage something but their was absolutely nothing left of that big, old cold house. My younger brothers and sister were crying as the magnitude of the event began to sink in. Mom was crying. I was just numb. We drove onto the new house which was only about 4 blocks away. Although much smaller than the old house, it was practically brand new and one of the nicest we had or ever would live in.

And now what? What was next… The best Christmas we had ever had…gift wise that is. There was insurance money so everyone got what they wanted for the first time in our lives. Our parents began to look at local homes we might buy as the 1200 square foot house we lived in, although comfortable, was pretty cramped. The prepaid rent would end in June. At the end of my freshman year I found a job working for a farmer for the summer. Life was beginning to settle down again. We have roots here, family, community and history. The five years in the Town were the longest we had ever lived anywhere.

“On the Road Again”

I was born in Maryland. Then our mom moved us to Georgia for awhile. She left us in a hotel room and didn’t come back so Harley took us to Kansas and our grandparents.

When Harley remarried they picked David and I up and we moved out to California. When mom became pregnant with Eddie we moved back to Kansas to live with Harley’s parents while he stayed in California and “played”.

When he got done playing, he picked us up and we moved to the middle of nowhere west Kansas to a ranch where roads are fenced in. My sister Laura is born while living there. I started school here, in a two room school house a couple of miles away. Two teachers, one for grades first thru fourth and another for grades fifth thru eighth. Maybe 6 students, local kids. When you became a freshman you had a drivers license and drove to the high school in town. Its a brick building that still stands today next to the all steel merry go round, monkey bars and swings. The best playground equipment ever!

Half way thru my first grade year we move to Wyoming, to the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. By the end of my first grade year we are back in west Kansas, on another ranch a mile from the first, back in the brick school house.

Half way thru second grade we move again and are living in Garden City Kansas. My sister Rhonda is born in January of 71′, my sister Deb is born in December of 71′. By the spring of 73′ we are packed up and headed to ‘the Town’ where we will live for a very long and “happier” 5 years.

Mid June 1978 Harley pulls up in front of the house with a U-Haul. He gathers us kids together and tells us we have 30 minutes to say goodbye to our friends as we are moving to Colorado and never coming back. We are nomads again after a 5 year layover in the town. David and I do not get to do this as we are packing the U-Haul and pickup with what ever they will hold. By mid afternoon we are gone… leaving lives we had come to cherish and headed for uncertainty again. Years later I would reconnect with a couple of friends who only remembered that our family just disappeared one day.

Addendum

Several decades later we would find out more details of the house fire. It had been determined by the fire inspector that the old furnace just blew up. What they didn’t know was that Harley had come to mom a few months earlier and told her he wanted to move again. Mom said no. He could go but she wanted to stay and try and make a life here. He made all kinds of threats including taking two of her children and making them disappear or burning the house down. Although terrified, as she knew he was capable of these despicable acts, she stood her ground.

Harley paid a man $50 to creep into our home, blow out the pilot light and leave a candle burning. Although mom suspected something like this she had no proof and he never confided in her what he had done. It only came to light when decades later he paid the same man to burn his truck for the insurance money and the guy got caught and spilled the beans as a plea deal.

Life with Harley was never dull.