by Marlene Hickey

Why I did it, I have no idea, since we had a gooseberry bush in our backyard. I was with a friend and her mother at a small downtown market, miles from my home, and I noticed adults sampling berries in the produce section, the better to judge their purchase worthiness perhaps. At a display of pale green, smooth-skinned gooseberries, I popped one into my mouth on impulse. The tartness was still tickling my tongue when I began to regret it.

It happened that I was in my most religious stage at the time, trying hard to be a good girl, and taking my Sunday school lessons to heart. It wasn't that the enormity of every small sin was thundered from the pulpit of our small Lutheran Church. Our old, soft-spoken pastor didn't get into society's ills or behavioral problems at all. He stuck strictly with the Bible as written, and his sermons never ventured far from the likes of Samson, Saul, or Samuel, week after week. At least, that was what I heard for three weeks a month. The fourth Sunday was conducted in hoch Deutsch, or high German. For us kids, most of us not too clear on even low German, this service was given over to daydreaming or note passing to other long-suffering seatmates.

No, the misery I underwent was self-made, because my conscience was a sterner god than God. I tried to follow the Ten Commandments slavishly, but most of them were not in the job description of a nine-year-old. I already honored my mother and father, and I never cussed or lied. I had no choice but to keep the Sabbath day holy since our town completely shut down on Sunday, and we didn't have a car to go anywhere. And chances were slim that an occasion might arise where I would covet my neighbor's ox or his manservant. That didn't leave too many crimes for me to atone for, so I zeroed in on the only one I could apply to my life: Thou shalt not steal! That purloined gooseberry became the chief stumbling block in my quest for holiness.

I often laid awake at night after saying my prayers, resolving that tomorrow I would take a gooseberry from our back yard, ride my bike to the downtown grocery store, and replace it. Maybe I would take two, the second as an interest payment toward my account. But somehow in the bright morning sunshine, the municipal swimming pool beckoned, and the night's resolve forgotten. The guilt for so great a sin was thus relegated to the darkness.

As I matured and mellowed, I asked myself, Does God really care about
a stolen gooseberry? And so I finally put the episode behind me, along with other childhood oddities now outgrown and discarded.

Later it became a usable tale to tell to friends when we confessed the small sins of our tender years. The ongoing angst that the gooseberry caper had caused me never failed to bring a hearty laugh from others.

I laugh, too, when I remember the funny little girl that was me, with her misguided sense of right and wrong. But sometimes I miss her idealism.

The two-hour-and-eighteen-minute theatrical performance by fifty of Mary Jane Roberts’ Emeritus Institute students telling the stories of their firsthand experiences from December 7, 1941 to the end of World War II provides an authentic and dramatic recitation captured on videotape by the Santa Monica Public Television station filming before a live audience and subsequently broadcast weekly in the millennium year 2,000 and annually on Pearl Harbor Day.
Mary Jane teamed with her husband Jerry Evans to produce, edit and direct this inspiring tribute to all who played a role in defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan including those who fought on the battlefields and beaches, the Nazi death camp survivors, the innocent Japanese-Americans uprooted and thrown into concentration camps, the women who helped produce the weapons of war and those whose loved ones gave their lives.
Now, this fragile videocassette tape has been transformed into a DVD disc that will preserve this landmark historical production forever.
Effecting the conversion to DVD was Bob Ring, President of the Historical Society of Laguna Woods, who watched and listened in awe to the heart wrenching stories of WW II heroes and heroines. He knew this document must be preserved and he worked tirelessly to perform the four and one-half hour task.
Thank you Mary Jane Roberts and Jerry Evans for creating this intimate and gripping album of war songs. And thank you, Bob Ring, for helping them preserve their priceless work.
Dave Blodgett

THE BAND
Gene Koltvet

It sounded terrible. They were seated in a semi circle and the director was shouting encouragement. He tapped his baton on the music stand as a signal to stop playing.

Soon everyone was ready to start again. They began, hesitatingly, as if they weren’t sure of themselves. A coronet player seemed to be blowing only air, no sound. The tuba player was still trying to get his mouthpiece warmed up so his lip would vibrate. The bassoon player had cracked her reed, which caused it to sound more like the AFLAC duck than a bassoon. Occasionally, a sound would emanate from the clarinet section that sounded like a squealing pig and the cymbal player clinked her cymbals together timidly for fear of doing it in the wrong place.

The director counted loudly, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR – ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR and waved his arms in time. A shock of hair hung in his face and sweat beads began to form on his forehead. He could be heard saying, “Come in clarinets,” then, “OK flutes,” all the while flailing his arms to the beat. He looked like he was herding a bunch of cats.

The sound would improve; it was only October and they were just sixth graders.

THE TEA PLANTATION
Georgialee Granger

Fred’ business associate, Mr. Ghokale in Calcutta, has arranged for us to stay at his relative’s tea plantation near Palachi. It is located in the mountains about 3000 feet above sea level. The scenes along the road had our cameras clicking: women and girls in their long full skirts, short overblouses and colorful head cloths; the ox carts with covered hoods of palm matting shaped like our covered wagons of long ago; peasant men with heavy loaded baskets on either end of a pole supported on their shoulders; even an elephant whose rider sat regally holding an umbrella over his head. All along the road are irrigation ditches, terraced hillsides, a field of cotton, rubber estates, high mountains in the distance above green rice fields. Now we see more donkeys because they climb the hills better than bullocks. Here and there calcining furnaces make powder for whitewashing masonry houses.
When we arrived in Palachi we were surprised to learn that the tea plantation was still another hour’s drive away over a tortuous road with many switchback turns. Knowing that the
Ghokales had expected us about at noon, and it was now almost six in the evening, we stopped to telephone them. Mr. Ghokale told Fred to contact a local business man who would provide us with a guide so that we wouldn’t get lost taking a wrong turn in the dark. Even during the day dodging bullock carts, goats, cows, sheep, bicycles, trucks and other cars, we couldn’t make more than twenty-five miles an hour.
When we finally arrived at the Ghokale’s plantation our host informed us that we would be going to a farewell dinner given for planters moving to another territory. We bathed, quickly changed, and soon were rocketing over the switchback roads at double the pace our driver dared. Half way to our destination we passed a group of people crouched on their haunches in a hillside village square watching a shadow puppet show. They took little notice of our speeding car.
From shortly after eight until one in the morning we had cocktails and snacks. Then we were served a full course meal with soup, fish, lamb curry and chicken. The fish cakes were filled with bone splinters that caught in our throats. It was the worst meal we had during the whole trip.
Once the meal was over Ghokale took his place at the wheel and began screeching down the hill, passing the still mesmerized peasants watching the shadow puppet show. We slid past steep precipices, barely missing the turns, and arrived (by the grace of God) at the plantation.
We were surprised to find our host up, and none the worse for wear, at 8:30 ready to take us to inspect the tea fields and the processing plant where the leaves are ground, sorted and packaged for export. Women with heavy burlap sacks suspended from a padded headpiece, and reaching over their backs to their thighs were busy plucking the tender shoots. Before plucking they laid a stick across the top of the tea bush. Any shoots protruding above the stick they pluck
This gives the plantation a very orderly square trimmed appearance unlike the nearby coffee plantation whose scraggly bushes and irregular rows make it look like a patched work quilt. Ghokale showed us the type of shade trees that are planted to keep the light at the appropriate level for the tea shrubs. Above the 3000 foot tea plantation hills thickly forested mountains are a haven for wild elephants who make their way to the summits as the hot weather approaches, eating the vegetation as they go. Behind them come the wild bison who eat what the elephants leave behind.

Driving around the plantation we came across the workers’ village provided by the planters. “Each community like this will have a barber, a washerman, small food and provision shops, possibly a small hospital, paramedical employees and midwives,” Ghokale told us. “To keep themselves amused in their free time they put on amateur dramas. One is going on when right now.. It will last from eight until three. They are also fond of amateur musical programs.”
“How do the plantation owners’ wives amuse themselves,” I asked.
“Oh they play bridge, mahjong, and occasionally tennis or golf. The sixty families belonging to the planters’ club entertain each other and cocktail parties like you attended last night.”
Arriving at the processing plant Ghokale explained how the leaves were treated. “Once the leaves are dried they are placed on a screen. The dust that falls through the screen is put into packets as tea bags. The rest are put into tins to make a full bodied brew. Most of these are shipped to England.”

Now I know why the tea bags make such a tasteless drink.

May 17, 2007

Dear Emily,

A really long time ago, your great grandparents, whose names were Merium and Jack, met at a friends wedding where they fell in love and decided to get married. Their wedding day was June 1st, 1931, seventy six years ago.

Two years later Mae and Jack had a daughter who they named Carol. She was born April 15th, 1933. She would have been your great aunt. Three years later on May 22nd, 1936 I was born.

I don’t remember much about Carol, except for playing on the beach and ice-skating on the large puddles that froze over in the school yard across the street from the 4th floor apartment that we lived in on Brighton 13th St. in Brooklyn, New York. Grandma Mae would look out the window and watch us play to make sure we were okay and not too wet and not too cold. Sometimes when it snowed, we would take card board boxes or sleds and roll down the little hill on the corner of our street.

When Carol was 8 years old, Grandpa Jack and Grandma Mae gave her a very special gold locket with a painted rose on the front.

One year later, when my sister was nine she was accidentally injured and died just before my 6th birthday.

My mother told me that Carol wanted to give the locket to me as a birthday present. I cried a lot because I wanted my sister and wouldn’t wear it for a very long time. But on my 16th birthday, I put a gold chain through the loop and wore it around my neck. It felt warm and even though it was ten years later, I think I felt my sister’s presence besides me.

Today my sweet Emily, on your 16th birthday I want to pass this locket on to you, and someday you can pass it on to your daughter or grand daughter. Wear it or keep it as an heirloom, but whatever you do I hope you cherish it.

I love you more than you can ever realize.

Happy Birthday with wishes for a wonderful life.

Nani