The Bell Ringer

The Bell Ringer
by Jack Limper ©

Author’s Note:

The crucial events in this story take place in Wichita, Kansas around 1950. Place and street names are generally accurate with some small amount of poetic license.

To set the mood, the big songs that year were:

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, by Gene Autry
White Christmas, by Bing Crosby
Music! Music! Music! by Teresa Brewer
The Third Man Theme, by Guy Lombardo
Mona Lisa, by Nat King Cole
All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, by Spike Jones
Harbor Lights, by Sammy Kaye & His Orchestra

THE CORRAL THEATER 1949

I woke up that cold winter afternoon in front of the Corral. Struggling with some small core of pride, I always said my name to myself as soon as I awoke after a drinking bout. Some days it was easy. Other days it could be a struggle, like today. It took a while – too long – but I finally came up with a name, Crane, forming the sounds slowly with my lips: “Crane Hanson.”

John, the guy that managed the theater was a friend of mine from our days on the cross-country and track teams at North High School. He was about the only friend I had left and he let me sleep in the theater during the winter, after it opened at 2:00 pm.

Now that I was awake, eyes bleary and bloodshot, I struggled with what had awakened me. Maybe the noise of the bottle of rye lying broken on the sidewalk, the small amount left striving for the gutter and an eventual home in the Gulf of Mexico. No, that wouldn’t have done it. This happened all too frequently and it never woke me before.

The bells ringing in my ears? Naw, that was constant anymore and this was more of a hoarse clang, clang, once in a while alternated with a bright ding-a-ling. Squinting, I looked up at a vision. There was a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, with a sweet angelic face, pale, curly blond hair imprisoned in an old fashioned bonnet. She looked slim in the dark blue uniform and heavy dark blue overcoat as she once again shook that large bell with its distinctive clang, clang.

She was standing behind a large kettle, next to a sign saying “Give Christmas to the Needy”, ringing one, then the other bell, smiling at passersby with cheery holiday greetings as they went about their Christmas shopping. I noticed the cold was making her cheeks a bright pink over her too pale face, her lips losing color in the cold.

I started trying to stand up, leaning against the wall, feeling inside my coat pocket for my backup pint of rye, when I saw John opening the theater.

The girl saw me struggling and asked, “Mister! Are you all right?”

I turned back to look at her, shaking my head at her youthful innocence, my memories bringing a sudden wash of tears to my eyes. With a quick shake of my head, I turned back and entered the movie house. Watching a cowboy movie (that was all they showed, hence the name Corral) as I finished my last pint, I fell into a deep but restless sleep.

The images always came first:

The girl, maybe six, lying in the dirt by the barbed wire gate, body emaciated past gauntness, eyes wide open ... staring at some unknown horror, staring at – nothing anymore.

Inside the gate a long row of bodies stacked insanely neat, like cords of logs eight to ten feet high, abandoned in place as they awaited burial.

A huge ditch at least 40 feet long, ten to twelve feet deep, filled with cadavers covered with lime to hasten decomposition. A bulldozer parked nearby ready to cover the pit of inhumanity.

I was sick before the jeep stopped, the pictures of a terrible horror burning their way into my psyche, a part of me turning black, in denial that humans could do this to each other.

The Lieutenant I was with later was said to be the first American officer to enter a concentration camp. We were an advance unit of the “Super Six” the Sixth Armored Division. We entered the camp at Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, on April 11, 1945. The Lieutenant laughed as we passed through the town of Ohrdruf:

“Hanson, do you know that Bach went to school here and received his early musical training?”

He kept chuckling as we drove on to the camp, the location pointed out by an escapee. He stopped smiling when we saw the child.

Because I was married with two kids, I was far down the draft list – but on it! I entered the army about ten months ago and after intense but very short training was sent to Europe. I had been a cop for three years in Wichita, mostly walking a beat in the downtown area.

The next few weeks were a blur, partially because of events. Ike came to visit the camp at Ohrdruf with Omar Bradley and George Patton. Patton threw up at once and we didn’t see much of him. We were trying to take care of the prisoners but there were so many so deathly ill and we weren’t prepared for this. Sure there had been some rumors but the reality was shattering. No one could possibly have imagined this horrible reality.

We heard later that the commandant at Ohrdruf had orders to starve everyone to try to hide the evidence. We did all we could but … we just lost so many. It was a time of darkness for all of us.

We moved on to Buchenwald. It was incomprehensible. Again, there was the stack of bodies. They all seemed to be males; all naked, all face up. The bottom row stacked one way and the next crosswise. This continued to the top, alternating each layer. The stack was close to six feet high, maybe eighty feet long, heading up a slight rise in the ground. There were a number of such stacks. I was originally part of a detail to try to do a rough count but I just couldn’t do it. I was sick and couldn’t eat for two days.

What I remember most were the eyes. Dead eyes. Living eyes looking dead. Eyes appearing huge because of the emaciation of their bodies. It was strange to watch the other soldiers deal with this impossible-to-grasp reality. Some would turn hard; you could see their faces, their expressions, even their personalities change.

Many would slip into denial. It was like going to Joyland as a kid; as soon as we got to the amusement park, our real lives were left behind. Others, too many of us, couldn’t deal with it at all. Some requested transfers to other units. Some drank. I was one of the drinkers.

I had always liked a drink now and then; name a cop or soldier that didn’t. But now I had to have a drink to eat breakfast. I had to drink to go to sleep. I had to drink to stay asleep. I was haunted. I lost weight; I walked around in a daze. We were cut some slack; it was tough for everyone. Finally it came to a head. I was found in a drunken stupor while on guard duty.

This couldn’t be shoved under the rug; I was headed for a dishonorable. The battalion commander stepped in and stood up for me. Two months earlier we had just set up a new battalion HQ. The Lieutenant and I came in for maps and coffee. I saw movement in the bushes. A man stood up holding what looked like a shotgun and pointed it at the colonel. I grabbed my carbine and shot from the hip. It was only about twenty feet and I hit him in the neck.

We walked over and looked at this kid, maybe fourteen at best. At that time it was hard on me, later it just became an unpleasant memory – one among many. I was put in for an award but was gone before it came through. The colonel got me out with a honorable medical discharge; that way I could go back to the police force. I was back in Wichita within a week.

I started again at the force, this time in a patrol car out in the College Hill area. I did better for a year or so. For a few months I stopped drinking completely. I was going out to the VA Hospital on East Kellogg and talking to a guy, a psychologist I guess. Back then they didn’t understand Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and this guy didn’t help much. My partner and I talked about our experiences; it was impossible to talk to our wives about some of the things we had experienced. Sometimes the sharing of our stories helped, other times it depressed the hell out of us.

One night while we were working the night shift we got a call to go to a house near 13th Street and the canal. A man working the graveyard shift at Beech went home early with an upset stomach. His wife was in their bed with another man. He grabbed his gun, killed both of them, shot his three kids and blew his own head off. We got there at the same time the ambulance did. After making sure everything was clear, we went in, helping the ambulance check the kids first.

A little girl, hair in pigtails, cute and the same age as my daughter was still alive. They took her out of there to Wesley Hospital, not too far away. Later we found out she made it but would be permanently paralyzed. The carnage was shocking to both my partner and I. We were veteran police officers and had both been overseas. He had gone through the chain of islands towards Japan as a marine.

We stopped off for a few drinks after the shift. It was really hard to go home to a loving family and pretend nothing bad had happened. What do you say, “Gosh, honey, you should have seen the baby’s brains dripping down the wall onto the dirty carpet.” So I went home and looked at the wall for a couple of hours, drinking a few beers and watching the “Baby Brain” slideshow on my wall in living color!

Judy tried to work with me. She would talk and I would listen. She asked me to open up and I’d tell her about the new patrol cars we were getting; tell her about how great the suspension was supposed to be.

The drinking continued; got even worse. My partner put up with it for a while but I was gone from the force about eighteen months after getting back from Germany.

It was even worse at home with me having nothing to do. I drank at home. When Judy got pissed I drank at a bar. Judy gave me ultimatum after ultimatum. One morning I got home from an all-night drinking bout and she and the kids were gone. Judy left a note – they were going to her parents in Garden City. She said she couldn’t deal with it any more and had filed for divorce.

I sold the house and sent most of the money to Judy for the kids. I signed the divorce when it came. I sold my car and moved into a tiny trailer on South Broadway, between the road and the railroad tracks alongside the river. I kept that for about a year and then slept wherever. Sometimes I slept in an abandoned house and in good weather along the river, especially in the summer. Somehow I lost a year. Later after I sobered up I tried to reconstruct my life. That year was just gone forever. At most I would get a flash of something ... digging through the empties behind a bar; I didn’t know then how I’d survived and I never figured it out.

One thing that helped was that I was a quiet drunk; I never caused any problems. I would drink until the images would fade then sleep until they came back. I was now drinking the cheapest rye I could find. I would do anything for a pint: shovel snow, mow grass, fix a car that wouldn’t start, clean out manure in the barns.

I had worked out a small network of bartenders that put up with me. I’d sleep behind the bar; maybe do some cleaning up and then I might get a pint when he opened up the next morning. I lived for my next drink. I must have eaten at times but couldn’t remember very much.

About the only friend I had left was John at the movie house. They didn’t do much business in the afternoons so he would let me sleep it off for a couple of hours. Sometimes he would give me a box of popcorn … sometimes a soda I could dump my rye into to make it go farther. He kept trying to get me to talk to some one, to get help. But I knew nothing could help me. In that part of my soul where optimism used to reign with a fierce vigor ... only dead ashes remained.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me. It was John; the theater was starting to fill up for Gene Autry’s latest, “The Blazing Sun”. As we walked up the aisle he slipped a fiver in my hand. Gripping his hand in embarrassment, I went to the restroom and outside.

The girl was gone, replaced by an older man in what I recognized as a Salvation Army Officers uniform. I started to stumble by but he touched my elbow.

“Excuse me, sir. Annie, the girl that was here earlier, asked me to watch for you. I’m ready to close here; really I was waiting for you. We are having dinner for anyone hungry at our church around the corner on Topeka. Come with me.”

He looked kindly, standing there patiently waiting for the fog in my head to clear enough to understand what he wanted. Feeling apathetic and suddenly hungry, I let him lead me along. Walking over he gave me his name, clearly not expecting anything from me in return.

“I’m Major William Fortson but everyone calls me Bill.”

The church - the sign in front said, “Salvation Army Citadel Corps” - had a hall in the back, next to a small parking lot off the alley. It was warm, almost stuffy inside. There were a half dozen tables and maybe ten or twelve guys sitting around eating. Bill sat down with me and waved his hand at the girl I’d seen earlier.

She walked over to the table and Bill introduced her, “This is Annie, Annie Blaine.”

She put her hand out, the chill gone now and her hand warm and dry. I was suddenly aware of the ripe smell coming off my body, off my clothes.

I mumbled, “I’m Crane,” as I let go of her hand and sat down, embarrassed.

Bill sent her over to get a plate for me: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and a cup of surprisingly good, very strong coffee.

She set the plate down with a big smile. “I have to leave now. My mom has been feeling poorly. I’ll be in front of the Corral for the rest of this week. Say hi if you are around, Crane.”

I cleaned the plate and Bill walked over and refilled it for me and got more coffee. I was to remember this later as the best meal of my life!

I kept waiting for Bill to “sell” me something, I wasn’t sure what. I’d learned that you don’t get something for nothing and was waiting for the catch. Bill just chatted, pointing out a couple of the guys and telling their stories, the ones that were okay with that. He talked some of what they were doing for Christmas: collecting toys for children, trying to find homes for the ones that need it, feeding people. As he talked his eyes glowed and I kept waiting.

Finally it came out. “You know, Crane, we have a real mess with the toys. We have the basement half filled and they need to be sorted out. We could sure use some help!”

That was it, the big pitch? He didn’t actually even ask me for help, just that they could use some! Feeling uneasy, I stood up and thanked him for the food. He asked if I needed a place to stay but I begged off and left.

I went to a bar on Douglas, across from the train station. The bartender was also the owner and I used to stop by for a drink once in awhile when I was a beat cop. We weren’t exactly friends but we got along okay. He was always nice to me. I didn’t want to abuse this so I only came here once a month or so.

I wasn’t feeling too good and my hands were shaking some. Gene gave me a shot of decent bourbon and I nursed it for an hour in the back at a small table. There was a mirror on the wall and I looked at myself for the first time in months. It wasn’t pretty. Besides my eyes being bloodshot they were jaundiced. My face was pinched; I was starting to look like one of my images: I had names for them: “little girl in the dirt,” “the pit,” “the woodpile;” too many pictures, too many names.

Gene came back and I asked him what I could do. He started to shake his head; he wasn’t dumb. But I stood up and asked what needed to be done. He could see the small thread of pride I was holding on to – knowing that if this thread broke then I would too.

“If you could take all the empties out in the alley, also the trash, and restock from the basement, that would help me a lot.”

I jumped into the work, sweating all too easily but getting the job done. Afterward I went in to talk to Gene as he was locking up.

Looking up at me from the cash register he said, “You can sleep on the cot in the back as usual. You can go ahead and pour yourself another shot and I’ll give you a pint in the morning.”

I poured the shot, taking a sip once in a while, enjoying the richness after the usual rotgut I drank. I watched him as he finished the count, trying to build up a little courage. “Gene,” I tentatively started, “do you have any old clothes here?”

With a startled look on his face he said, “Yeah, let me look. I usually keep a set of overalls and a flannel shirt around for when I come in on Sundays once in a while to fix things up. I might even have some underwear.”

Thinking for a minute, he continued, “You know about the restroom off my office. You can use the shower there if you want. I’m pretty sure I have an old straight razor lying around that I haven’t used for years. You’ll have to strop it a bit for sure though!”

He got the stuff for me and locked up as he left. I took the rest of my shot to the table in the back room and sit down. I looked at my hands, watching them shake as I thought about the straight razor, feeling a little nauseous imagining what I could do to my face. I finished the last of my shot, holding the glass up to let the last drop drip down into my mouth, not knowing when I could find that rich flavor again. I knew I could go pour another shot and Gene would never know but he trusted me and that meant a lot.

I took the razor into the bathroom, stropping it, looking at the mirror trying to gather courage. I bit my tongue as a distraction, the pain an influx of adrenalin. Lathering up my face I shaved for the first time since ... for a long time. I hacked the beard off, stropped the razor some more soaped up again and cleaned off the stubble, ignoring a few minor cuts. I was shocked at what I saw. Was I insane?

I took my shower; water as hot as I could stand. I wasn’t sure but I had the feeling of things on my body drowning and washing down the drain. When the water turned cold I dressed in Gene’s clothes, actually a pretty good fit. I threw the old clothes away. Like myself, I didn’t think they could be redeemed. I’d make it up to Gene somehow for his clothes. I turned out the light and lay on the cot.

I guess my mind went into neutral as it coasted from thought to thought, no pattern, no continuity. I tried to picture my kid’s faces and was sad that I couldn’t. The image of Annie, looking like a Madonna with her bonnet on, her face pale with the cold but cheeks flushed bright. Annie’s image juxtaposed with the image of the “little girl in the dirt,” then Annie’s image fading.

I thought of the Salvation Army guy, Bill, deciding he was a kind man, nothing more, nothing less. I knew I needed help; maybe it was already too late. I remembered Bill saying he needed help with the Christmas toys. Wondered what it would be like to help someone else. To see the face of a child, having nothing, expecting nothing, receiving a dream. Could I pay the price I knew instinctively that I would have to pay, could I do that to see a smile on a girl’s face when she got the unexpected doll? To see the lighting up of a small boy’s eyes as he received a toy.

Did I have it in me?

I fell into a troubled sleep. Waking up, I thought of the bottles on the other side of the door, an ache growing in me. The need growing stronger, my body shaking, feeling cold.

A sudden flash from somewhere deep brought a picture of Judy with Cindy and Jimmy, their features sharp and clear. That was the day we went out to Lake Afton, the year before I was drafted. The picture, a favorite of mine with Judy and the kids in new swimsuits. I had lost the picture somewhere in Germany, probably after Ohrdruf.

I was suddenly desperate to see my kids again. I wanted to see Judy but I knew it was over with her, even if I could pull out of the sickness in my soul. I had heard she had found a new man, a nice one. I wanted her to have a chance at happiness.

Crying I lay there, lost, alone, a shell of the man I was before Ohrdruf!

FORMATION

My early years were spent north of Wichita south of Valley Center and close to the Little Arkansas and Meridian, the area known as Pleasant Valley. Of course the Big Ditch hadn’t been built then so it was much easier to get around than it is now.

My dad was a carpenter, a good one. He added a couple of rooms to a farmhouse and as part of the payment the farmer deeded to dad about an acre of brushy land caught in a fold of the winding, twisty river. My dad threw up a house with the help of a couple of relatives. It seemed big at the time but looking back it had to have been less than a thousand square feet.

There was one small bedroom downstairs, maybe eight by ten feet. In the front was a living room running across the front of the house. Going to the back of the house was a small dining room the same size as the bedroom. Across the back was a kitchen the same size as the living room. Going up from the dining room was a steep stairway leading to the second floor.

The pump was outside for a few years and then moved indoors under the stairwell. Luxury! It was never fun in the mid-winter months to build a fire under the pipe going into the house! The water tasted like the sweet water of Canaan the Sunday School guy was going on about all the time. Years later I visited the people living in the house at the time. I couldn’t drink the water! It was terribly brackish. It was then I began to understand that perception was reality.

The upstairs room was the area over the kitchen, the same size and shape. That’s where we kids slept, six of us in four bunk beds. This caused no end of problems over the years.

My mom and dad separated when I was about five. They had always had a strange relationship: always either in strong love or strong hate, divided by the strong stubborn streak common to both of them. Finally, after a long shouting, shoe-throwing episode that I saw through the front screen door, the hate won out and the marriage was over. This was a couple years before the depression started and mom was left with six kids to raise by herself.

One incident that happened was typical of dad. We were living in the house before it was completely finished and the stairs weren’t built yet. There was a ladder with wooden rungs. I must have been about four. I was always climbing trees and such and was going down the ladder headfirst. I slipped and cut my chin pretty bad and was knocked out. I still have the scar.

When mom came home from work one of the kids told her that I was in the hospital. Mom was frantic. Well it turns out that my dad‘s car was low on gas so he had the neighbor take me to the emergency room. He was over at the neighbor’s house having a beer with the neighbor’s wife. That’s just how he was.

One story that mom still tells me (even today with an evil smile on her face) was the night dad came home from honky tonkin’. He had this thing about smoking: he had to have something sweet first. So he told mom to make him a pie. She tried to tell him the flour was bad but he just started yelling. So she made the pie.

Afterward he sat around smoking, in a better mood, telling mom, “That was the best damn pie you ever made!”

We didn’t find out until years later that the reason mom wouldn’t let us eat any of that pie is ‘cause the flour was full of weevils!

After they separated dad picked me up more than the other kids. I was quiet, shy, well behaved and too cute. He would take me on dates with him. All the dates were basically one thing or another. Sometimes we would go for a drive, maybe stop for lunch or maybe go down by the river and lay around fishing for carp or catfish. We never kept them; threw them all back in the river. Dad was a natural ladies man. He was handsome, with black curly hair and had a nice easy way with women. Any time I was with him, there was always a woman, laughing and smiling.

The other thing was to go to a bar. Back then no one said anything about kids being in the taverns. Dad would set me up on the bar with a soda. Some woman would come over and fawn over me, smother me with her big tits (later I figured out that I was small, not that the girls’ breasts were particularly large!) and then dance with dad. It was at this time that I developed a lifetime love for what used to be country music and now is somewhat euphemistically called classic country music.

I knew at some level I was being used but I didn’t care. It was fun and I learned a lot about people and their natures that helped me later as a cop. When I came home smelling like a French whore from all the intermingled perfumes mom would get pissed at me. I never understood that.

I suppose dad sent some money once in a while but I never saw it happen. We struggled through. It seems like the only meat we ever ate was chicken or rabbit. Before dad left he raised rabbits. Later during the depression, as soon as the first hard frost, the men in the area, mostly farmers, would grab their shotguns and pile into the back of a big truck, one of those kinda fenced in with wooden stakes.

They would park beside one of their large fields, planted with winter wheat at that time of year and line up a ways apart and march across the fields, banging away as the Jacks popped up. These guys were good; this wasn’t hunting for sport! The kids would come along pick up the rabbits, one or two at a time depending on the size of the kid and the size of the Jack. We would grab them by their long ears and carry ‘em or drag them back to the truck and put in them in small galvanized horse troughs.

We tried to carry the dead rabbits if we could but you could see a lot of streaks of blood across the brown soil, or sometime the powdering of snow. We would get home covered in blood and mud. Some days there was more blood some days more mud but there were always plenty of both.

As soon as we got home mom would put the washtub in the middle of the kitchen floor. One at a time, oldest to youngest, we would cycle through the water in the tub, heated one kettle at a time on the kitchen stove. Being in the middle I didn’t fare too bad but times were that Paul, the youngest looked worse getting out than when he went in! Except for rabbit hunting, baths were given on Saturday nights, whether we needed one or not.

Of course we had to make do with an outhouse. Once a year the boys pitched in and dug a hole about eight feet deep. Then we would get some help and drag the outhouse to its new spot. One of my jobs was to fix the shingles whenever necessary and every three or four years to rip the old ones off and re-shingle.

Summers were always chaotic. Every summer the river would flood at least once. We would all pack up and go into town to grandma’s place near Linwood Park. We would stay until the water went down then go home and shovel out the mud. The water level was usually about four or five feet up the living room wall and the mud as maybe six to eight inches deep. The smell was terrible, a smell of corruption. Some summers it would flood two or three times. It wasn’t much fun for mom!

One time comes to my mind that was hilarious in retrospect. My dad had given me a single shot 22. It was very short, maybe three feet long. It broke open like a shotgun and took one shell at a time. It was chambered for long rifle but dad told me it was so old (the bluing had worn completely off) he would only shoot 22 shorts. I mostly used it to plink at carps in the hot Augusts as the water dropped to maybe six inches in the river. The fishes’ backs would stick a couple inches above the water. It wasn’t really sport but I had fun.

The biggest problem after the floods was rats. It was always a hassle getting rid of them. One night dad was gone somewhere and we were all asleep upstairs when we heard that pop that a 22 makes. Then in intervals of maybe ten or fifteen seconds another one. We ran downstairs and mom was standing on a chair, almost hysterically cracking open my rifle and jamming in another shell. There were three dead rats on the floor!

About a year after the separation, dad had moved to Texas and started calling mom and sweet-talking her. Finally he wired some money for gas and we packed up the car and the five of us kids (one of the twin girls died) and drove down to Houston. At least he told her it was in Houston.

Where we wound up was in the middle of a swamp in what would many years later become Lake Houston, northeast of the city. The directions were pretty clear. Go down this asphalt highway (I don’t remember the route number) until you pass this bar called “Cabin in the Pines” (I would spend a lot of time there). Then all of us kids started looking for a small grocery store that was to play a big part in our lives later. After the grocery we were to make the next left, about a mile father on.

About a half-mile down a dirt road we were to watch for a homemade bridge over the ditch on our right. When mom saw the bridge she was afraid to drive over it but didn’t see any choice. It was really home made: just some logs with two-by-eights nailed to them.

After crossing the logs we drove down the path; not a road, only an open area between the trees. The path twisted around a lot, finding the high spots between the bogs. We came to a clearing and saw a dry area of about ten acres with a house up close to the swamp. Mom parked, leaving us in the car and took a look at the house. She walked in and came out not ten seconds later. She sat down on the stoop and started bawling. Even at six years old I knew the difference between crying and bawling.

We piled out of the car and ran up to mom, hugging her and all of us bawling. She told me many years later that if she had had the money for gas she would have turned back for Kansas right then.

We got up and started exploring, as kids will. Even if mom was crying it was an adventure for us. We went in the house. It wasn’t a house. It wasn’t even a cabin. It was a shack. It was two small rooms with a tiny bedroom up front. Neither dad nor grandpa was there. The bedroom was for grandpa. It had a single bed with a coffee can under it. No closet, no dresser. A bed and a coffee can, nothing more!

In the other room there was a small table with a couple of chairs, a ratty sofa and an even rattier chair. That’s it! The list of what there wasn’t is much longer that what there was.

There was no: kitchen, dining room, bathroom, dressers, cabinets, beds (other than grandpa’s) and not any furniture except the table, sofa and chair. We pulled everything out of the car and mom tried to organize it into different stacks in the corners.

When dad got home there was a lot of shouting for a long time, then the sweet talking started again as dad promised a couple of beds. He took mom out to the Cabin in the Pines that night but it didn’t do much good. It never really got any better.

At my age you lived for the moment, the future was just a word, like “In the future you’ll get married, then you’ll see!” There was an old barn that I spent hours playing in, mostly alone. That’s what I was, a loner.

I wasn’t bothered by not having an outhouse – you walked out the door and took a piss! Some morning my brothers, one older and one younger, would come out at the same time so we would line up and have a pissing contest. I always won and for some obscure reason this made me inordinately proud. Spending twenty minutes priming the pump was no biggie, I wasn’t going anywhere.

I loved running around the swamp, climbing around in the deadfalls, investigating every new feature. I learned about dead animals and maggots. I watched the flies and figured out that’s where the maggots came from. Who says that little boys don’t know about sex? My favorite sport was building fires over the mounds of fire ants. I’d pour a little kerosene on the mound and light it. Never did any good; an hour later it was like the disaster had never happened.

It seemed like there was a new adventure every day. One that always stuck in my mind was the rabid dog. He had been around the neighborhood for a few days, mostly out by the road. We had to walk all the way down to the paved road to meet the school bus. One day the bus let me out, for some reason none of the other kids were with me. I knew the dog was around so I didn’t want to go that way.

I knew I could cut across the swamp. I had an instinctive sense of direction and I just knew that I could find my way, as I would take the twisty misdirection’s to stay on mostly dry ground. I knew the snakes were there, they didn’t normally bother me, I knew the bad ones: the cottonmouths and the diamondbacks.

But that day my six-year-old imagination was working overtime and I just sat there. A couple hours later my mom showed up with a big stick to chase the dog away and we walked home. The next day my dad and older brother took the shotgun and took care of the dog.

One week or so the snakes were really bad. Dad would sometimes get a ride to the little bridge over the creek and having nothing else to do I’d usually be there waiting for him. One evening as we walked back I was holding his hand and he held his sheet-rock hatchet in his other and leaned over and chopped off the heads of the snakes, mostly rattlers. The last one was right as we entered the clearing. A little later our dog was playing with the snake, as puppies will, with the not quite dead diamond-back and it bit him in the neck. He was dead in minutes.

Later we were sitting around the front yard, just at sunset. My little brother Paul, two at the time, was sleeping on the front step. My mom was walking across the yard and froze, pointing at her baby. Dad walked over to the edge of the swamp and grabbed a stick, maybe six foot. He casually walked over, stuck the end of the small branch under the snake and flipped him off! Then he walked over and stomped it with his boot. He sat down and made another cigarette, like nothin’ had happened.

Then there were the strange days. My grandpa used the coffee can under his bed to spit his ‘bacca juice in. At nights it was his piss can. Well you can imagine it got horrendously smelly. One day my mom threw it away, disgusted. But she forgot to put a new one there. Mom and dad were gone somewhere and grandpa came home and went to his room. He never read or anything, we had no radio, Jeez we didn’t even have electricity! We never could figure out what he did in that room other than spit, piss and sleep.

Well, he went into his room and came out screaming at us kids. We scattered like chickens do when it’s time to peck out their dinner! He would chase one, then another throwing bricks at us and swearing in German. The old coot was crazier that a bedbug! I don’t remember him ever talking to any of the kids.

My favorite memory was when my uncle had me learn a song to sing to his new bride on her birthday. He was one of the reasons dad moved down there. They were always close. He was a sheetrock guy.

Anyway he had me learn a song and then on Dottie’s birthday my dad took me to the Cabin in the Pines. He got me a Seven-up, sat me on the counter and my uncle asked everyone to quiet down and gather ‘round. I was embarrassed at first but then I got into it. I sang, “Black Jack David” by T. Tex Tyler. Well, all the girls did the “smother me in their tits” thing again, starting with dad’s current girl friend.

My uncle gave me a worn out shiny smooth fifty-cent piece (that I kept for years in my pocket, always remembering how much fun I’d had that night). The bartender gave me some peanuts and the girls kept coming up kissing me and running their hands through my pale blond, almost white hair. I got home and I thought mom was going to throw me into the swamp when she saw the lipstick on my face. I think dad had the girls do it just to piss her off.

One day when dad was off at some carpentry job, my mom piled us into the car with whatever clean clothes we had and she took off for Kansas. While it had been an adventure for us, it was a living hell for mom. What she had done was to work out a deal with the old man that owned the grocery. See, the problem was that whenever she needed to get some food dad gave her whatever amount of money he thought she needed. When she got home he would take the change back from her ... that was his beer money.

Well, every time she went to the store the grocer would throw a few coins of the change into a cigar box for her. When there was enough money for gas for the trip, we took off. Later in talking to her she said she never even left a note! One souvenir she had from Texas was a set of false teeth at age thirty-one.

We settled back home with no problem. All she had done was empty the icebox and leave the door open so it wouldn’t mildew. There were no locks on the doors. She got back on at Beech with no problem but the salary wasn’t much. It was a hell of a life for her but she never complained. The only time I saw her cry after Texas was when I was twelve and she started to slap me for sassin’ off.

I grabbed her hand and said, “Mom, you can’t do that anymore!”

She sat down and really started bawling. That was the first time I realized that I didn’t understand women.

THE CORRAL THEATER 1949

I woke up the next morning, more sober than for ... I couldn’t remember. But I felt like hell. My hands were shaking and my head felt funny. Gene came in and opened up and gave me a pint, not the best stuff but better that I usually drank. I had this image of me standing there, ripping off the top and guzzling the bottle down, feeling the hot relief, burning at first, then peace.

Instead I put the bottle in a pocket of the overall’s, nodded a thanks to Gene and mumbled something about the clothes. I went outside into a brilliantly sunny day. It was cold in the shade but more than a hint of warmth in the sun. There was not a breath of air.

I’d thought that with the big meal I’d eaten the previous night I wouldn’t be hungry. I walked east on Douglas, almost to the Chevy dealer. There was a breakfast place that had simple but good hearty food. For two bucks from the five that John gave me I had ham steak and eggs, biscuits and all the coffee I could drink. With a smile the waitress gave me a tall glass of cold milk. She remembered me from before when I was a beat cop and would stop off after the night shift. This was the first time she had seen me clean in a long time.

On the way back uptown I stopped off to talk to Gene for a few minutes. He was cleaning the mirror behind the bar but stopped and grabbed two cups and filled them from the coffee pot always there at the end of the bar.

“Crane, I’ve got to say, you clean up pretty good! You should get yourself looked at, it’s lookin’ like the jaundice is getting worse!”

I looked down and then looked him in the eye. I wanted to really thank him. I started to talk but he beat me to it.

“I might be outta place here and if I am tell me. I can be a blunt old fool. I like you, Crane, always have. I remember what you were like before you went off to the war and it’s sad, the way you are. People talk about war and fighting like it is a manly, gallant thing to do. I don’t think that way, never have! War is sometimes necessary; a man’s gotta take care of his own. But war kills people; it ruins lives.

“I’d like to help you if you’ll let me. I know you’re still a man. You look like hell but you got some pride left! I felt good leaving you here alone last night. I didn’t have to worry none ‘bout someone breaking into the bar, like it’s been happenin’ up on North Broadway. I knew you weren’t gonna take no booze I didn’t give ya. I trust you man!

“I’d like you to know you can stay here any night. You can have a glass at night and a pint in the morning. I’ll give you a couple bucks for breakfast. You can use the shower like you did last night. I like the way you left everything clean! I just ask that you maybe clean up the bar a little, sweep up, things like that. Okay, Crane?”

I couldn’t answer, with tears in my eyes I nodded and walked out.

It was a little warmer. I crossed to the train station and sat on a bench in the sun. I was lookin’ at myself and it wasn’t good. I thought of my kids. With a sad heart I sat there, dozing a little in the sun. Later I looked up at the clock on the tower and saw it was maybe time I could go over to see John at the movie theater. I could sweep the floor or something for him. It sounded good – to do something for someone.

I got to the corner down from the Corral and could see the girl, (Annie was it?), standing there in the sun, ringing her bells. The Saturday shoppers would walk by and for a cheery, “Merry Christmas” would drop a few coins, maybe a folded up bill into the kettle. I walked a little closer as I saw four or five others, three men and two women dressed like she was, in the dark wool uniform.

They started singing and I realized they were going from kettle to kettle, maybe to draw more attention to the kettles or maybe just to sing Christmas carols. They sang several of the old standards and then started in with “Joy to the World.” On one of the stanzas, Annie did a solo. The crowd hushed and you could hear her clear contralto voice rising above the traffic on Douglas.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.

Before I hadn’t really been listening to the words but this time they jumped out at me. I don’t know, I guess it was Annie doing the singing, or her voice was so pure and clean … but then maybe I needed those words at that time.

As the carolers finished and the crowd cleared, I stood there, watching Annie. She had the uniform on, as I’d said but the bonnet was off today and the sun made her hair shine, almost a halo sitting on her head. She looked like a porcelain doll, clean-cut features, an aurora of innocence hovering over her.

As I walked over, her face lit up with a huge smile and as she put out her hand and said, “Good afternoon, Crane! You look nice today.”

Her hand felt comfortable in mine soft but capable. Somehow I got the feeling it was a no-nonsense hand one made for doing, for working and not just an appendage to decorate with paint and jewelry. Managing a small smile I saluted her with my hand and turned towards Corral. Hesitating at first, then giving in to some atavistic need I thrust my hand in my pocket and with a quick movement put the three dollars change from breakfast in the kettle and turned hurriedly back to the theater.

It was about an hour before opening and John hadn’t had a chance to sweep up between all the seats. He was glad to have me there to help. I started working, not feeling too good. There was a sharp pain where I knew my liver was. I started sweating and had to sit down for a bit. I got the job finished and went out to get a soda from John. I felt dehydrated and knew I needed some liquid.

I went in and sat, waiting for the people to arrive and the movie to start. I dozed a little and woke up to hear Gene singing to his horse, Champion. I pulled out my pint to have a small nip; to be honest I didn’t want it, it was a habit! I felt like crap. I tried a swallow anyway and gagged as I broke into a sweat again. I put the bottle back into my pocket and managed to fall asleep.

I awoke when John turned the lights on; everyone was gone. As I walked up the aisle with him, he turned to me and asked, “You don’t look too good - you got a place to sleep tonight?”

I mumbled a faint, “Yes” and walked over to Gene’s place. There was only one customer and Gene asked if I wanted a shot. I shook my head no and asked if it was okay if I went in and lay down.

On his nod I went into the storeroom and collapsed on the cot. I realized later my body was totally worn out.

It was a strange night. A vision of “little girl in the dirt,” came to me but somehow different. She had a “Mona Lisa” smile on her face. Later the face was Annie’s on the emaciated little girl body. By that time I was half delirious.

The next morning, Sunday, the bar didn’t open so I took my time shaving and taking a shower. I noticed Gene had left a stack of used clothes on the table in the storeroom. The clean clothes felt good on my body. I felt a little better but shaky. I made some coffee and emptied the pot sitting at the bar, a cup at a time, looking into the mirror.

I thought about pouring some of the bourbon into the coffee but I wasn’t sure I could drink it. I wasn’t hungry at all. I felt ... apathetic. I went back and lay down on the cot. I woke to darkness outside. I felt like there were large rodents inside my body, gnawing away. Even the thought of drinking water made me dizzy. I staggered down the street to the Corral.

I had to stop every few doors. A cold wind had come up and I didn’t bring a coat. I felt like my body was shutting down, as if it had independently decided it didn’t want to live like this anymore. At that point I wasn’t going to argue with it.

I made it down to the Corral again. Leaning against the poster of Gene Autry, trying to catch my breath. I could hear music, horns playing softly in the distance. Was this it? Was this what it was like to die?

The music came closer; I could now hear singing, a song heard years ago:

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

I could see them coming, a band playing music, dressed in the uniforms Annie and Bill had been wearing. There were trombones, trumpets, baritones and a bass drum. I could see Annie in the first row alongside a small dark haired girl, both of them playing alto horns. Behind the band was another group, dressed the same way but without instruments, as they marched past I could hear the singers, continuing:

Gates of hell can never ‘gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ's own promise and that cannot fail.

I started walking on the sidewalk, following their progress. When they got to the corner of Broadway and Douglas, they pulled up in a semicircle facing the Kress Five and Dime, standing in the bus stop. They started playing Christmas carols and a crowd gathered round, watching the free entertainment.

I watched and listened, my body numb by this time, my mind floating free.

A man stepped forward, raising his hand slightly, as if asking for silence. He started talking:

“I was in the war to end all wars. I got caught up in the killing lust and I got angry with God. I swore at him! Forgive me, I cussed him out. How could he do this to us?”

I heard him, almost as a memory. Something tugging at me.

“Friends, I was standing where you are a few years ago. I was angry at the world! My wife had left me and I was angry with her! But that night a man asked me to let go of my anger, to talk with God again. I fell down on my knees that night and I did talk to God.”

I felt something break within me, my body, my mind. I leaned forward, pushing through the crowd and fell to the ground. I rose up to my knees, crying, face awash with tears, not knowing who it was I called out to, man or God, “Help me! Oh, help me!” and with the world suddenly dark I faded away.

I heard noises, faintly, like I had earplugs on. I opened my eyes, it was dark and I closed them.

Later the bright sunshine on my face woke me up. I could hear clearly. A nurse in uniform put her hand on my forehead and then a thermometer in my mouth. Taking it out a couple of minutes later she smiled and put her hand on my cheek.

A colonel walked in with a uniform on, a doctor from the insignia on his collar. “I’m Colonel Carnes but I prefer either Doctor, or Phil.”

I tried to talk, throat dry, my voice hoarse.

“Here, have some water. You were under sedation.”

Drinking some, I tried again. “What happened?”

“Well, Mister Hanson, may I call you Crane?” At my nod he continued. “Well, Crane, your body just quit. You collapsed in front of Kress and the ambulance took you to St. Francis. It was touch and go. It looked like your liver was going to quit; you came close to dying. Your body did start responding and after you stabilized somewhat you were brought over here to the VA Hospital. All they had was your name but the guy from the Salvation Army thought you were a vet and they checked with us.

“I’ll talk to you more later but we want to keep you here for a few weeks. Your body chemistry is all messed up so I want you in the hospital for at least a week until you gain a little weight. You have lost over thirty pounds from when you were here before.

“Then I want to move you to the physical therapy ward for about a month. I understand you don’t have a place to live now and it will give us a chance to help find you something. Also, you don’t have to but we have a group of guys, like you that went through terrible experiences during the war. They meet once a week for lunch and just talk to each other. Their experiences are such that a person that hasn’t experienced that can’t really understand.”

“Okay, can I have visitors?”

“Let’s give it another day and I’ll see. Are you hungry?”

I had to think about it for a minute but realized that I was. “Please, I am hungry. Anything is okay.”

The doctor laughed and said, “Well, not anything. Let’s start with some Jell-O and maybe some soup a little later. After you eat the Jell-O you need to sleep some more.”

Later the nurse brought me some chicken soup. Tasted like anyway but I didn’t want to question these little meaty things floating around – I might find out the answer! It was hot though and made me sleepy again.

It was night, time for more blood tests. The glass of water tasted great.

Sunshine again, a new day. The doctor stopped by to tell me he had okayed visitors. “What about my kids, Doc?”

“I’d rather wait for anything emotional until next week, okay? Later today we need to talk about what happened to you and what’s next.”

Bill came in, with his uniform on.

“Bill, it’s good to see you. I’m not sure whom to thank for what but I’m sure you had a key part in it! Anyway, thanks!”

“That’s okay, Crane. God put me in a position to help so I did. You are looking so much better now. I hate to say it but you look like death warmed over, which is a huge improvement,” the Major said with a chuckle. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yeah, Bill. Several things. I’d like to talk to that guy that was talking when I collapsed. I need to talk to someone who has gone through hell like I have.”

“That one is easy. That was Ike Johnson. He got that moniker ‘cause his head looks like Eisenhower’s does, pretty thin up there! He’s a great guy. If he can help in any way, it’ll make him happy.”

“Okay, Ike it is. Could you get hold of my wife and tell her what’s happened? She probably won’t want to see me but I need to see the kids. I feel terrible about what I’ve done to my family. I wrote her address on a piece of paper on the nightstand. I don’t know if she has a phone.”

“Sure, Crane. The Corps Officer over there is a good friend of mine. We get together for dinner a couple times a year. I’ll give him a call and have him stop by and see her.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, I’ve seen that term, “Corps” and why do you always wear a uniform, anyway?”

“I’ll talk to you more about when you are feeling better but the Salvation Army is basically just a church with a strong service and missionary focus. The organization and the uniform come from the founding of our church. Each separate church is called a Corps and I’m a Major in our little army,” Bill said with a deprecatory laugh. “Was there anything else?”

“Yeah, could you get me some writing materials? I’d like to start writing some of my experiences. Somehow I feel if I can put down what I saw and lived through, my mind might deal with it better. Also I’m really lonely. The Doctor says I can have as many visitors as I want as long as they are not too emotional or stressful for me.”

“Sure, Crane, I’ll take care of both of those things for you.

Later the nurse came in and said, “Are you accepting lady callers?” with a twinkle in her eyes.

Not knowing whom it might be I just shrugged my shoulders.

A few minutes later Annie came bouncing in, dressed in a long black wool skirt and a white turtleneck sweater with a black beret perched on her head. She was holding a bouquet in her hands; it was made from holly and pinecones arranged around some poinsettias.

She looked like she had walked off the pages of a storybook as she asked, “How are you, Crane? You do look better!”

“I guess I’m okay. I feel like I wrestled a bear and lost! You look wonderful; where is your uniform?”

“Oh, I only wear that at church or doing church stuff.” With a smile she added, “This will look great in your room, Crane!” as she put the bouquet on the little dresser.

“Annie ... Annie, I don’t have a room. I sleep wherever I can find a place. Lately I’ve been sleeping in bars. That’s why you saw me at the Corral Theater. The manager is an old friend of mine, I guess the only one I have left and he lets me sleep there sometimes. Annie – you know I’m a drunk, an alcoholic!”

With eyes tearing, she replied, “Crane! I’m sorry! That wasn’t very thoughtful of me. I knew you were having problems. And Bill is your friend! And Crane, I ... I can be your friend too!”

Annie stayed for a half hour or but mostly talking to me, excited at all the things the church was doing to get ready for Christmas in a couple of weeks. She finished with, “... and Bill said he would talk to the Colonel, he’s known him for years to see if you can come to the Christmas dinner!”

She was so keen on it I smiled and said, “I hope I’ll be able to make it!”

We said our goodbyes and being somewhat worn out from her energy level, I slept for several hours.

After I woke the Colonel came back in and asked with a grin, “Crane, are you ready to have our heart to heart doctor-patient talk? And don’t forget, my name is Phil!”

I agreed and he helped me plump up the pillows for our talk.

“Okay, bottom line is that you have cirrhosis of the liver. The quickest way to get it is to drink more than twenty-eight units of alcohol a week for an extended period of time. That’s like four shots of whiskey a day! I suspect you have been doing significantly more than that, right? By the way, if you have any questions just jump in. I’ll go through this with you again in much more detail and with your current status when I release you to therapy next week.”

I just nodded, dumbly.

“Okay then. Cirrhosis is a scarring of the liver caused by the breakdown of the liver structure. As I said, it is most commonly the result of an excess of alcohol. You had a bad case of jaundice and your blood was too thin to clot normally. The damage to the liver can’t be repaired but if we treat the symptoms, put you on a high protein diet and remove the cause, you can lead a fairly normal life. Do you understand what I mean by removing the cause?”

I thought about it for a minute, suddenly scared. “Yeah, Doc. Phil, I mean. It means I gotta stop drinking, right?”

“Let me be really clear about this, Crane, you only have to stop drinking if you want to stay alive!”

“Damn! That’s pretty straight, Phil! But I don’t know if I can do it?”

“Well, the good thing is you don’t have to do it by yourself. We work closely with Alcoholics Anonymous; in fact we have meetings right here at the hospital every day! I would highly recommend you get started with this next week. There are also daily meetings at the Salvation Army Men’s Social Service Center. I’ll have Bill look into that for you since you will need a place to stay once you leave here.”

“I don’t know if I can do it, Phil! I’m feeling shaky now!”

“I know, Crane! It will be hell for you for a few weeks. That’s part of why I want you to stay here for a month after you leave the hospital part.”

It was hell! There was no two ways about it. I sweat, I froze. I hallucinated, I screamed. Each day mostly got better. With sedatives I slept at night but the doc was weaning me off them. It helped a lot that visitors came by. It was mostly Bill and Annie sometimes alone sometimes together.

Bill talked to me about the Social Service center, about how they provided room and board for thirty days or but and taught a trade. They would take in furniture, whatever and teach the men staying there how to repair it. The one rule was no drugs or alcohol.

One day he said “I’ve got an idea about a place for you to live and even a job that the Colonel thinks you will be up to. This may not be what you want to do forever but I don’t think you want to go back to the police force.”

Annie was the reason God invented smiles. The only time ever I saw her without one was when some injustice had taken place. Then she turned into a tiger! She would read to me, tell me stories (some I’m sure she just made up!). She was also the one that brought me in some writing supplies.

To encourage me and to get me started, she would ask me to tell her a story about my youth and then she would write it down in a notebook. She said that I could re-write them later as I wanted.

One that I told her was about Texas humor and how it was different from other folk’s.

“When we were living outside Houston, in the swamps, snakes were a part of life. An example was swimming pools. One of the farmers or ranchers that wanted a pool would have a ‘dozer come out and dig a hole. Step two was to wait for rain. Some of these pools might have brush in them, most just muddy water. What added a dash of excitement was to see the little vee in the water coming at you with a cottonmouth at its point.

“Now my mom was somewhat used to snakes but everyone has their limit. On our path to the highway there is a low spot kinda bound in by the swamp on each side. One day mom was walking out to go to the little grocery store about a mile and half from our little shack. She found a big pile of dead snakes in the middle of the road where that low spot was. Well, that was enough for her; she went back to our clearing to wait for dad to get home.

“Of course all us kids ran down there as fast as we could. Pokin’ with sticks; swearing one moved and jumping back. It was great fun but we soon tired of it and went home.

“Later dad came home laughing about the pile of snakes. He kicked them in the swamp and just walked on by. I think that was when mom decided for sure she didn’t want to live in Texas no more.”

Annie laughed at that and said, “Well, I’m never moving to Texas!”

About ten days later I moved to therapy. It was in a different wing and wasn’t really just for therapy. Some of the guys had been there since the war. It was sad talking to them. It helped me; some had seen the horrors I had seen at the camps and it was good to talk to each other about it.

Ike, the guy that was giving the talk when I collapsed, came by. He had been on the Bataan march. Some of the stuff he told me curled my hair! It seems there is nothing more inhuman than humans. Gradually it felt like some of the ugliness was slipping away, the pictures in my mind starting to fade.

I got situated in my room, four of us in a fairly large place. The windows were big and the light was nice. I was writing more of my stories down and also started writing down some of the stories other guys told me. They all kept saying I should write a book.

I was really busy now. I had physical therapy twice a day. My muscles had really atrophied over the last couple of years. I was sore for a week but it started getting better. I talked to a psychologist about three days a week. He was really nice and he helped me understand how and why I was taken over by the drink.

I also started my AA meetings. It was a scary moment for me when I stood up and said, “I’m an alcoholic.” I told my story. A couple guys cried when I talked about Ohrdruf. One of the guys stopped by after the third meeting and told me if I was smart I’d never miss a meeting. He had been in AA for about five years and only missed a couple days when he had the flu. He’s the one that told me that I could go to any city and just drop in.

A couple guys also told me that if I ever need help, like I was craving a drink, to call them and they would come over and sit with me. They were all nice guys, just trying to do the best they could, one day at a time. We all knew what hell looked like and we wanted something better.

I could have visitors now. Bill kept coming a couple times a week. I liked to talk to him. He talked to me about the job he had in mind. There was a Salvation Army Summer Camp north of town. In the summer they would have camps for needy families, scout camps; the church used it a lot: there were four Salvation Army Corps in Wichita. The nice thing was it came with a cabin and I could eat at the dining hall whenever it was open.

I knew about the camp, it was close to where I grew up. I’d seen it lots of times floating down the river in inner tubes. Anyway they needed a camp manager, basically a watchman and someone that could do general maintenance work. It wasn’t anything really heavy, especially in the winter. In the summer it was mowing the grass, maybe putting new shingles on the dining hall roof. Security was the big concern though. They occasionally had trouble with the neighborhood kids out doing their pranks.

He also talked to me about the men’s service thing. I could live there for a month as a transition, kind of a security blanket for me with the built in structure. If it was okay with me, what he had worked out was to do as many of the general maintenance chores as I could to prepare me for the camp job. There were a couple guys that could show me how to do things.

One day I asked him, “Bill, why are you helping me so much?”

He laughed out loud at this and came back, “Well, Crane, truth be told it’s because I’m a really smart guy!”

I must have looked at him funny so he went on.

“See, there are a lot of people out there that need help. I look at you as an investment. I help you a little, then you take care of some of these other people for me!”

I had to laugh at that. “Bill, you’ve helped me more than a little!”

I thanked him and said I was game to try it out.

“Bill, if you’ve gone to all this work to set it up, it wouldn’t be fair of me to turn it down. I’ll give it my best shot!”

One day Annie came in all excited.

“Crane, the colonel said you could go to our Christmas party at church. Will you come? Please?”

Well, I couldn’t say no to that. Annie had become a friend. Maybe she was more than a friend but I couldn’t think about that now. Bill had set it up for others from the church to visit and a couple of guys from the police force also visited. Gene and John both came by and acted like they were proud of me. Suddenly it seemed like I had lots of friends.

I finally got to see my kids about a week before I was to get out. It was a warm day for December and we met outside, they had some picnic tables set up. It was sad at first. I thought I was looking good, I had put seven or eight pounds back on. Judy cried when she saw me. Later when they left she said I looked like a scarecrow.

The kids were great! They ran up and hugged me, crying. They gave me a Christmas present, a new watch. Cindy was a third grader and gave me a card she had made at school. Jimmy was in the first grade. They both looked wonderful.

I’d asked Annie to be there and watch the kids for a bit so I could talk to Judy. She took the kids to the cafeteria to get some ice cream. Judy and I looked at each other apprehensively, neither wanting to start.

Finally Judy said, “Crane, I’m sorry I had to take the kids but I couldn’t live with it anymore!” as she started to cry.

Putting my arms around her I quieted her down, then led her over to the table to sit down.

“No, Judy, I’m sorry. I put you through hell. The bad part is that I knew what you were going through. I couldn’t get those images out of my head! You tried to get me to talk to you; maybe ... well, it doesn’t make any difference now. You have a new life and I heard you have a new guy ... no, that’s okay. I understand and it’s okay. I want you to be happy and the kids need a stable life.

“I’ll always love you, maybe in a wistful sort of way. We were good together once before that damn war came along. I’m better now. I think I’ll be all right.”

“Crane, it was so hard at first, not knowing how you were, whether you were okay or not. I got to the point where I just had to put all my energy into the kids. I did meet a man, Walt. He was a pilot, B17s I think it was. His family owns a big wheat farm and a big part of four grain elevators. He’s a nice guy; you’ll like him!

“That girl, Annie you called her. Does she mean anything to you?”

“We are good friends. I think there’s more but I want to get my life back before I think about anything like that.”

I went on to tell her about the job at the camp. I could have the kids come for a couple weeks in the summer if it was okay with her.

The kids came back, Annie with them. I played some and talked to the kids while Judy and Annie talked.

Judy and the kids left, all of us feeling better.

I asked Annie, “What did you and Judy talk about?”

“Oh, nothing much. She said you were a great guy and I said, ‘I know,’” Annie said with a big grin.

It came time for the Christmas dinner. It was for the people that went to the Citadel Corps, Bill’s church. I was feeling much better. I had gained ten pounds back and wasn’t looking like a cadaver anymore. I sat outside a lot, even on chilly days and had some color back in my cheeks.

Dinner wasn’t anything fancy, potluck. But it was good, wholesome food and the people were the kind you want to know. They were friendly, straightforward and honest. There was a tree and gifts for the kids. There was lots of hot chocolate and coffee. I couldn’t have either yet but they had some hot cider that I liked.

I was looking forward to getting out of the VA next week. For the first time in years I felt like I had a future.

THE CORRAL THEATER 1950

I stood there for a few minutes, admiring the girl ringing the bells in front of the kettle. She was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, with a sweet angelic face, pale, curly blond hair imprisoned in an old fashioned bonnet. She looked slim in the dark blue uniform and heavy dark blue overcoat as she once again shook that large bell with its distinctive clang, clang.

She was standing behind a large kettle, next to a sign saying “Give Christmas to the Needy”, ringing one, then the other bell, smiling at passersby with cheery holiday greetings as they went about their Christmas shopping. I noticed the cold was making her cheeks a bright pink over her too pale face, her lips losing color in the cold.

I came up behind her and kissed her cheek. She looked up startled, then turned and gave me a hug.

“Crane, could you take over for me? I need to get over to the church to get the volunteers organized for the kids to come pick up presents. And don’t forget you are one of those volunteers!”

So I picked up the small bell and shook it: ding-a-ling. Then the big one: clang, clang. People walked by; I smiled and said Merry Christmas. Some smiled, some dropped a few coins or some folded up bills in the kettle. Some few, always seeming to be in a rush, angry already at the shopping crowds on the day before Christmas; those few would give me a dirty look as they passed by, thus earning an extra smile from me and the special treat that I reserved for the especially needy: “And a Happy New Year!”

Background note:

The things I saw beggar description ... The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were ... overpowering ... I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'

Source: General Dwight D. Eisenhower's letter to General George C. Marshall dated April 15, 1945.