A Chance Encounter Creates a Lifetime of Bliss

His Story

     There I was hitchhiking home after a day in town.  It was a chilly day in February and snow was drifting from the sky obscuring the mountains where I lived.  Hitchhiking can be a lonely business and sometimes there are long periods of time between rides.  Since I was going to the mountains, not only did I anticipate it would take a long time, I was sure it would entail several rides and freezing interludes.

     I was staring at the cars stopped at the light and saw a beat up old Chevy waiting for the signal to change to green.  I could make out a pretty girl at the wheel and that sent my mind into fantasyland.  Every hitchhiker has dreams of something exciting happening during the trip.  Little did I realize that my dreams were about to come true in a way I didn’t imagine happening. 

     The old Chevy pulled away when the light turned green and I stuck my thumb out.  I was amazed when the car actually pulled over and stopped.  I ran up to the passenger’s side of the car opened the door and saw a truly lovely young woman who asked me if I wanted a ride.  I certainly did.  I jumped in the car, shut the door and we took off.  She asked where I was going and I told her that I lived on the other side of the mountains.  I offered her a cup of hot chocolate if she would drive me all the way home.  I was stunned when she agreed.

    As we headed out of town on Route 66, I looked at her and noticed that her legs looked pretty good pushing the brake and clutch.  As we talked I heard her say that she was a teacher.  I thought that was wonderful, as I was unemployed and had no idea what I wanted to be.  After four years in the Marine Corps, I wasn’t even certain I could hold down a job!  She then told me she loved to cook!  As a young man living on my own that was probably the most appealing thing she could have said.  My mind was reeling with my incredible luck and I thought this is the girl I want to marry.

     As luck would have it, the snowfall quickened it’s pace causing the mountain road to become slick and difficult to traverse.  I asked her if she wanted me to drive and she said yes.  After changing places I began driving and thinking about this young woman and hoping that her feeling about me were about the same as mine about her.  Soon, I approached the turn off to the road that would lead to my house.  I didn’t want the ride to end and luckily, I lost control of the car and it skidded into a snow bank as we were turning into my driveway.  We were stuck!  We quickly ran to the house and we both realized she wouldn’t be able to leave that evening.  I didn’t have any chocolate but what a wonderful night we had talking and learning about each other. 

    Within six weeks we were married and together we have raised three children, pursued careers as educators and had the opportunity to travel around the world working as teachers in overseas schools.   I often think about how lucky I have been and believe firmly in love at first sight.

Her Story

    I moved to Albuquerque after graduating as a result of hundreds of applications and resulting correspondence. I had no job and my car broke down the first day in town. Fortunately a couple noticed my KS license plates and stopped to help. As fate would have it Mary Francis had relatives in a little farming community outside of Topeka where I had done my student teaching. She was four months pregnant, had 2 preschool age boys, her husband worked in Los Alamos, and she just learned she had cancer of the uterus. I had no job, a small u-haul of personal effects, and my cat and dog. They offered me a place to live while I looked for work in exchange for helping Mary Francis around the house and with the kids. After about 6 months, I had a job, Brian was transferred back to Albuquerque, the baby arrived, and Mary Francis's mother moved in with them. 

    One day on the way home from work, I saw a hitchhiker who looked cold. While sitting at the red light I debated as to whether I should pick him up or not when it started to snow, I picked him up. I was only going to take him to the last major intersection where I turned off, but he asked if I would drive him out Tijeras. We were having an interesting conversation so I agreed. The snow was getting bad by the time we got there and there was very little other traffic so I offered to drive him on home. Well, my car ended up getting stuck. Rick borrowed a neighbor's truck to get me to work the next day. He still had my car so I had to see him again. I moved in two days latter; we were married 6 weeks later and have been happy with that decision ever since.

Willow Wife

This story is similar to those you will find in my book Old Japanese Tales. If you like this you can find more by purchasing my book by clicking here for the paperback from Lulu or here for the Kindle ebook.

Willow Wife

In a certain Japanese village there grew a great willow tree. For many generations the people loved it. In the summer it was a resting place, a place where the villagers might meet after the work and heat of the day were over, and there talk till the moonlight streamed through the branches. In winter it was like a great half-opened umbrella covered with sparkling snow.

Heitaro, a young farmer, lived quite near this tree, and he, more than any of his companions, had entered into a deep communion with the imposing willow. It was almost the first object he saw upon waking, and upon his return from work in the fields he looked out eagerly for its familiar form. Sometimes he would burn a joss-stick beneath its branches and kneel down and pray.

One day an old man of the village came to Heitaro and explained to him that the villagers were anxious to build a bridge over the river, and that they particularly wanted the great willow tree for timber.

"For timber?" said Heitaro, hiding his face in his hands. "My dear willow tree for a bridge, one to bear the incessant patter of feet? Never, never, old man!"

When Heitaro had somewhat recovered himself, he offered to give the old man some of his own trees, if he and the villagers would accept them for timber and spare the ancient willow.

The old man readily accepted this offer, and the willow tree continued to stand in the village as it had stood for so many years.

One night while Heitaro sat under the great willow he suddenly saw a beautiful woman standing close beside him, looking at him shyly, as if wanting to speak.

"Honorable lady," said he, "I will go home. I see you wait for some one. Heitaro is not without kindness towards those who love."

"He will not come now," said the woman, smiling.

"Can he have grown cold? Oh, how terrible when a mock love comes and leaves ashes and a grave behind!"

"He has not grown cold, dear lord."

"And yet he does not come! What strange mystery is this?"

"He has come! His heart has been always here, here under this willow tree." And with a radiant smile the woman disappeared.

Night after night they met under the old willow tree. The woman's shyness had entirely disappeared, and it seemed that she could not hear too much from Heitaro's lips in praise of the willow under which they sat.

One night he said to her, "Little one, will you be my wife -- you who seem to come from the very tree itself?"

"Yes," said the woman. "Call me Higo ("Willow") and ask no questions, for love of me. I have no father or mother, and someday you will understand."

Heitaro and Higo were married, and in due time they were blessed with a child, whom they called Chiyodo. Simple was their dwelling, but those it contained were the happiest people in all Japan.

While this happy couple went about their respective duties great news came to the village. The villagers were full of it, and it was not long before it reached Heitaro's ears. The ex-Emperor Toba wished to build a temple to Kwannon [goddess of mercy] in Kyoto, and those in authority sent far and wide for timber. The villagers said that they must contribute towards building the sacred edifice by presenting their great willow tree. All Heitaro's argument and persuasion and promise of other trees were ineffectual, for neither he nor anyone else could give as large and handsome a tree as the great willow.

Heitaro went home and told his wife. "Oh, wife," said he, "they are about to cut down our dear willow tree! Before I married you I could not have borne it. Having you, little one, perhaps I shall get over it someday."

That night Heitaro was aroused by hearing a piercing cry.

"Heitaro," said his wife, "it grows dark! The room is full of whispers. Are you there, Heitaro? Hark! They are cutting down the willow tree. Look how its shadow trembles in the moonlight. I am the soul of the willow tree. The villagers are killing me. Oh, how they cut and tear me to pieces! Dear Heitaro, the pain, the pain! Put your hands here, and here. Surely the blows cannot fall now!"

"My Willow Wife! My Willow Wife!" sobbed Heitaro.

"Husband," said Higo, very faintly, pressing her wet, agonized face close to his, "I am going now. Such a love as ours cannot be cut down, however fierce the blows. I shall wait for you and Chiyodo -- My hair is falling through the sky! My body is breaking!"

There was a loud crash outside. The great willow tree lay green and disheveled upon the ground.

Heitaro looked round for her he loved more than anything else in the world. Willow Wife had gone!

• Source: F. Hadland Davis, Myths and Legends of Japan (London: G. G. Harrap and Company, 1913), pp. 177-180.
  
• Davis's source: R. Gordon Smith, Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan (London: A. and C. Black, 1908), pp. 12-18.
  

Canaries in the Classroom

I watched Bella as she sat quietly at her desk, looking at nothing I could perceive. She had done nothing in my class during the first quarter. I knew it was not just my History class, she was like this in all of her classes. It was almost time for report cards and I was discouraged that nothing I said, nothing I did could penetrate the armor she put on each morning before she came to school. I thought I would try another tact, “Bella, what are your parents going to say when you come home with all Fs on your report card?”

She looked at me in a way that spoke to her lack of emotion and replied, “They can make me go to school, but they can’t make me learn anything, can they?”

In my 31 years of teaching I encountered many Bellas, children traumatized by going to school. I did not love going to school, the same with many of my friends. However, I was not traumatized by the experience in the way that Bella was. Why do children choose to follow a gang leader rather than a teacher. What are schools doing that make them such a terrible place for some of the children in America?  

Perhaps a clue lies with another problem I had as a teacher. I taught U.S. and World History to 15-18 year old high school students. Part of my class included testing. Those terrible evaluations that teachers use to prove how little their students learned over a period of time.  I always included some type of question that required a written response. I was always amazed at the number of students who did not even attempt to answer reply to those questions. It was usually the same student who did not participate in class discussions nor particularly care what grade they received. It was the same symptom Bella displayed.

It is important to understand that not all students shut down like Bella, but I believe most students feel this way, even many who thrive at school.  Students like Bella are sending a powerful message to all of us. Something is not right in our education system and they are the first to let us know.  

So, what do we do, we label them, put them in special programs, take away privileges, demean, tutor, and provide all manner of treatment that seems to cause the disease of hating school to spread. It is a virus that has gone viral in our schools. Today we are holding the entire education system hostage until these students perform at 100%.

It seems that society has turned against it’s young, demanding that they be ready to solve the problems we have caused. Somehow our method of making this happens seems convoluted.  We continue to do more of the same, pouring knowledge into the brains of our poor canaries expecting them to sing upon demand, and sing better than all the other canaries. We place them under great stress by expecting everyone to perform in the same way.

In one respect Bella was wrong. She didn’t realize she couldn’t not learn.  

RIP

The heart is where compassion lives.

Without a heart others do not matter.

The heart of a country defines it’s people.

Who will we be after they finish

Ripping out our core?

The Love Fest

Un is very talented,

Intelligent too

What does it matter 

A murder or Two?

Adulation a must or

prison with others

not pc enough

to maintain

a happy God.

What choice do 

His people have?

That is why they

Love him just like

Our president.

Blooper Check

"That ain’t shit',"

Said the young soldier

At the theatre,

In the rear, waiting

For the flic to start.

I was behind him,

watched him arrive.

He and his partner

Had mud on their boots,

No twinkle in their eyes,

They met two others

Who just like them 

appeared to be taking 

a break from  the war.

The four of them

Were talking about

The week before

When a platoon

Just like theirs 

Massacred people

At the vill of My lai 

“Me and my man,"

He explained nodding 

At the soldier next to him,

"We got a new blooper

That had to be checked out.

There in a paddy

Not too far away

Was a Mamasan

And her kid with their

Buffalo planting some

Rice in the mud of a 

Field not far from their vill

We dropped in a grenade

pointed it at them,

Pulled the trigger and

Blew them away, the

Blooper checked out

just fine." He finished

With a grin

What the fuck I thought

To myself, But just then

the music began to play.

As we all stood for the 

national hymn and then

We all calmly watched

An adventure unfold

Before our very own eyes.

They are coming to kill us all

There has been a revolution,

The land of the free and

Home of the brave has 

Been taken hostage

By innumerate ignoramuses

Fearful of Ebola from Africa 

And terrorists from the Middle East

And children from Central America

They do not seem to fear 

Death from a gun

Bought closer to home
Home grown terrorists

Or the sickening rate of 

Carnage on the highway

Because others are coming

To take us away ha ha!