White Dress Shirts and Ties

White Dress Shirts and Ties

Laura Fischer

  Margaret liked sitting on her porch warm summer afternoons, sipping lemonade and watching the world pass by.  She lived alone, but she was never truly lonely.  She had a housekeeper, Ruby, to help cook and clean and run errands when needed, and she had a handyman she called to take care of repairs.  Best of all, she had caring neighbors who dropped by frequently to chat and check on her.  Young mothers taking their children to the park, married couples on their way to one of the trendy restaurants nearby, teens on skateboards, and mormon missionaries on their bikes - all waved and called out a friendly greeting to the elderly lady as they passed by.
      Margaret enjoyed them all, but she had a special place in her heart for the young LDS missionaries.  Her housekeeper often teased her about it.  "You never answer your door to strangers or let anybody in this house," she exclaimed.  "And you never listen to what those Jehovah's witness ladies have to say when they call.   But you always find time to sit and talk with those young mormon boys.  What is it that makes them so special anyway?  I know that's not your church."
      No, it's not my church, Margaret thought.  But it might have been.  Her eyes misted as she remembered a very special summer almost fifty years earlier.  "Did I ever tell you about the first mormon missionaries I ever met, Ruby?" she asked.  "It was a long, long time ago.  I was barely sixteen and was spending the afternoon with my brother and his new wife. A pair of nice looking young men in white shirts and ties knocked on his apartment door and asked if they could speak with us.  We were all too polite to turn them away, so we invited them in and we listened, rather dubiously I'm afraid, to the strange tales they had to tell.  They gave us a Book of Mormon and asked if they could stop by the next week to talk some more.   We didn't know how to refuse, and we didn't want to seem rude, so we agreed."
      "That was a mistake," Ruby told her.  "Once you let people like that into your house, you never can get rid of them."
      "I actually wanted to see them again," Margaret responded. "I made sure to visit my brother every Wednesday afternoon when the elders came to call.  Oh, I didn't really believe the tales I heard that summer.  How could I, you know.  But I was 16 and eager to find romance.  Both young men were so friendly and so handsome. They were so different from any boys I had ever known.   I couldn't help being attracted to them... especially one of them.  David Hansen was his name.  His companion was too serious, too eager to preach his gospel, but David was different."
      "In what way?" Ruby asked.
      "I don't know exactly.  I guess I sensed that beneath the stiff white shirt and tie there was a young man who wanted to enjoy life but had never known how.  I felt maybe he was putting in his two years between high school and college in the mission because it was expected of him, not because he had a burning desire to convert others to his faith. "
      "Did you feel that, or did you hope that?" Ruby laughed.
      Margaret ignored her comment.  "I wanted to believe the mormon teachings because I wanted David to like me.  I really tried.  I studied.  I prayed.   I didn't smoke or do drugs or drink alcohol or coffee already, and I had no problem giving up caffeinated beverages and colas to please them.  I shared their views on chastity and sex before marriage.  I liked the idea of being sealed in marriage in the temple for all eternity, not just till death do you part.  So that part was easy."

      "What was the hard part," Ruby wanted to know.
      "Accepting the history of the church itself.  Believing that Joseph Smith was visited by an angel and told to translate the Book of Mormon from gold plates with magic spectacles didn't make sense.  Neither did the whole story of Brigham Young as a prophet.  Why would LDS views on polygamy or black people's role in the church change over the years?  And then there were the strange customs like secret handshakes and temple garments I couldn't buy into.  I wondered how the missionaries could not question a lot of the LDS beliefs themselves."
      "I wanted to get to know Elder Hansen and have him get to know me, but the missionaries were not allowed to visit with a female alone, and they always called in pairs.  I didn't want to tempt Elder Hanson to sin, or put him in a compromising situation, but I wished we could spend some time together without my brother and David's companion always along."
      "Did you love him?" Ruby asked.  "Did he know how you felt about him?"
      "Was I in love?  I thought so.  But how could I really tell when we were forbidden to touch or to date or to spend time alone together  I only knew the Mormon lifestyle was one I could happily adopt if only the Mormon religion were one I could believe in as well!"
      "You didn't seriously  consider converting to please that young boy, did you?"
      "I did.  I thought about being baptized and joining the LDS church, but my parents forbade me to consider changing religions until I was 18.  They reminded me I had never had a steady boyfriend and was pretty innocent when it came to romance.  Thinking back on it, I'm surprised they didn't forbid me to even talk to the elders when they found out.  Maybe they thought it would make me more determined to join the church if they did.  I resented them for it at the time, but I know now they were right to make me wait until I was older and more experienced."
      Looking back now, remembering that summer decades ago, Margaret thought maybe she hadn't really been in love with Elder David Hanson.  Maybe the affection she felt was like the attraction other teens her age felt for the Beatles or their parents felt for Elvis.  It felt real at the time, but she had been only sixteen, and maybe she had been in love with love.  Maybe she had projected her ideas of the perfect man onto the handsome mormon missionary who was so nice to her that summer. Maybe something would have come of the attraction she felt if she only could have believed in the church's teachings.  But she couldn't, and LDS rules kept unbelievers at arm's length and prevented deeper feelings from developing between her and the missionary in the oxford shirt and tie.
      "I cried the day the boys told us they were leaving at the end of the week for Provo, Utah," she told Ruby.  I could see how excited they both were to be going home. That's when I realized that Elder Hanson didn't return my feelings, that he could never return my feelings until i could embrace his faith.  He would not miss me in the way I would miss him."
      "I asked if I could write to him in Provo, but he told me it wasn't allowed.  Two new missionaries were being assigned to the community who would call on my brother and me to continue our studies, he promised cheerfully.  But I knew it was over.  There would be no more lessons.  There was no sense in studying a religion I didn't believe in, and it hurt too much to grow close to a man whom I could not ever date, let alone be sealed to in the Mormon temple for all eternity."
      "So the boys in the white shirts and ties left," Margaret continued, "unaware that one of them had broken my heart.  I went back to school in the fall and dated others trying unsuccessfully to erase my summer fantasies from my memory.  I included BYU on the list of schools I visited when I was ready to select a college hoping to see him on the campus, or talk to someone who knew him, but we never crossed paths again.  I always ask the missionaries who stop to talk with me if they know David, but no one ever does. Probably he's already passed on they say."
      "A few years after I graduated I met Robert, and we fell in love, truly in love, and married.  A marriage doesn't have to be in an LDS temple to last for all eternity I told myself."
      "What did your husband think about you and that mormon boy?" Ruby demanded.
      "I never spoke of my 16th summer to my husband," she answered.  "I know he suspected there was a part of my life I was keeping from him, but I'm sure he had secrets of his own that he didn't share with me. We were happy and in love and nothing else mattered.  If only we had had more time together.  If only Robert hadn't died so young."
      Tears began to stream down her cheeks. 

      "I miss him so much, Ruby.  I miss them both so very, very much."

      As she wept remembering the two very different men that she had loved so deeply and lost so soon, Margaret felt a sudden tightness in her chest.  "Ruby," she cried.  Get me my pills and call an ambulance. I think I'm having a heart attack!"

      The housekeeper hurried to get help, but by the time she returned, it was too late.  Margaret lay slumped over in the porch swing, not breathing, with a strange happy smile on her face and arms outstretched at her sides as if reaching for someone who was to lead her into the bright light.

      "Was it Robert or David who came for her at her passing?" Ruby wondered aloud as the ambulance arrived and neighbors gathered on the sidewalk.

      If Margaret could have answered, her reply would have surprised them all.  David, her first love, and Robert, her last love, had both come to hold her hands and guide her to the other side.  "I guess the mormons were actually on to something about that polygamy thing after all," she would have said.  "And they almost got it right!"

The Pocket Shirt

The Pocket Shirt 

Laura Fischer

       Excitement was in the air at St. Stephen's.  It was the last Saturday of May and only a few more days until summer vacation.  It was also the afternoon of the annual spring carnival being held on the school grounds to celebrate the end of the school year.  Angie loved the festival almost as much as her students did.  The games, the food, the fun, the comraderie - it all brought back happy memories of  her own school days.  

       Most of the teachers and parents volunteered to work shifts for a few hours at the games and food stands set up around the playground.  Angie's favorite game was the Pick-a-Pocket booth.  She volunteered for it every year.  She liked the game because it was a favorite of the preschoolers and kindergarten students.  And she liked the younger children because for them everything was still new and magical.  She enjoyed seeing their excitement and sharing their anticipation as they tried to guess what treasure would be in the pocket they chose.  

       She also liked the game because it brought back happy memories of when she was a child and her father had been Mr. Pick-a-Pocket at her school carnival.  The pockets in his shirt were full of magic and mystery - at least that's what Angie thought when she was young.    She knew better now.  The magic wasn't real.  They were just pockets and plastic prizes.  She had waited her whole childhood for something wondrous to happen, and here she was at 30 still waiting.

       The game had changed over the years.  Once in more innocent times, Mr. Pick-a-Pocket had been a real person who walked around the school grounds in a hobo-clown costume inviting children to spend a yellow ticket and pick his pocket for a prize.  Now he was just a cardboard cutout of a clown dressed in a flannel shirt  - a shirt decorated with a dozen brightly colored pockets, each containing a different carnival prize.  The physical connection with the clown was gone now, but the little ones had never known any different, so they didn't really care.  Angie cared, but she knew things could never be like they used to be.  

       Angie didn't like the change, but she understood the reason for it.  If only she could turn back time to the trusting, carefree days of her youth.  She wanted to play the game the way it had been played when she was young.  She wanted to to be Ms. Pick-a-Pocket for the day and wear the flannel shirt with many pockets herself.  She knew those days would never return, and it made her sad to think of how fearful and suspicious everyone had become. She was glad the little ones gathered around her booth were unaware of their parents' unspoken fears.

       At last it was time for her break, and Angie headed to the snack stands to get a slice of pizza and a soda.  She noticed a twenty dollar bill laying on the ground.  Picking it up, she wondered how she could ever find the owner.   Stuffing the money in her pocket, she sought out the principal who was selling chances for the drawing to be held at the end of the fair and explained her find.  She handed him the money and suggested that if it wasn't claimed, it could be put with the rest of the raffle proceeds for the school.

       "I can't do that," he said," because the cash in my money box has to match the number of chances I've sold.  What I can do is take the money and give you a drawing ticket.  If someone claims he lost the twenty, I'll send him to you to get the ticket back before I give him the money.  If no one reports the loss, I guess you'll have a chance to win our trip to Hawaii."
       Wouldn't it be wonderful if no one claimed the lost bill and I won the raffle, Angie thought to herself replacing the money in her pocket with the drawing ticket.  Who knows what magic might be found on a singles' cruise to Hawaii.  She returned to the game with an eagerness and expectation she hadn't felt in many years.
       At long last the announcement came over the intercom that it was time for the drawing that would close the festivities.  Angie could hardly contain her excitement.  No one had come to claim the drawing ticket - she still had a chance to win the cruise.  Retrieving the lucky ticket from her shirt pocket, she clutched it tightly in her hand and waited expectantly hoping for the principal to call her name.  Maybe miracles do still happened, she thought.  Maybe magic can still be found in a pocket after all. 

Ugly Sweaters

Ugly Sweaters

Laura Fischer

      To celebrate the start of its winter break, Central Valley High School had decided to hold its first "Ugly Sweater" 5K-run in place of its traditional holiday choral program.  Spectators and participants alike dressed in the gaudiest Christmas sweaters and shirts they could find, and everyone brought a wrapped new toy or bag of canned goods for a local charity to distribute to the needy the next day.
  Jenny was just past 50 years old and knew she wasn't athletic enough to compete, so she had helped organize the race and had volunteered to hand out bottles of water to the runners instead.  Anxiously she scanned the faces of the students and teachers streaming past, looking for her friend Joanne.  Joanne was nearly 50 herself and had no business exerting herself so strenuously Jenny felt.  But Joanne had been athletic in her youth and was confident she could finish.  She insisted it would be fun, and there was nothing Jenny could do to dissuade her.  Most of the crowd in the colorful sweaters had already passed the checkpoint, and Joanne was still nowhere to be seen.  What if she had fallen or had a heart attack, Jenny worried.  Surely she should have been here by now.

  Jenny thought back to when the two had first met.  She had been teaching art at the school for a few years when the gym teacher left on maternity leave. Joanne was hired that December to take her place.  She immediately felt a bond with her new co-worker because of the gorgeous holiday sweater she was wearing.  Jenny was wearing a holiday sweater herself, the same one she had chosen to wear to the race today in fact.  Jenny loved holidays and especially Christmas because of her memories of happy gatherings with her large fun-loving family.  Joanne embraced the holidays to fill the void left by an unhappy childhood in a single-parent family that didn't celebrate any special times.  Each immediately recognized a kindred spirit in the other, and their shared love of the holidays and especially of Christmas was the glue that bound their friendship together.
      The colorful shirts were called holiday sweaters, not ugly sweaters, in those days.  The early ones were fairly conservative, mostly red or green plaids with fir trees or snow flakes knit into the pattern.  But over the years the designs morphed into a riotous display of all things Christmas: jolly Santas and frosty snowmen, jingling sleigh bells and trees with blinking lights, red nosed reindeer and cuddly kittens peeking out of Christmas stockings.  Teachers, especially the older women, loved dressing up in the sparkling holiday sweaters each December, seemingly unaware that their students laughed at their kitschy clothing behind their backs.
      But fashions change, and a decade or so later, when holiday sweaters had disappeared from the department stores, a new generation of students discovered their parent's and grandparent's cast-offs in the thrift stores, and ugly sweater parties became all the rage for the teens.  Now those parties were preceded by 5K-runs where everybody raced in the craziest sweater they could find before celebrating the festivities. Ironically, the old maid teachers who had once been laughed at by their students for their outrageous outfits were now admired for helping organize the runs and being in tune with the latest teen fashion.

      Jenny was now really worried.  The last of the runners had passed the checkpoint, and still she hadn't seen Joanne.  Finally she spied a group of stragglers who had given up running and were walking the last stage of the race.  There was Joanne, limping slightly but smiling and determined to make it to the end.  Relieved, Jenny ran to her friend and gave her a congratulatory hug, proud of her achievement.  With beaming smiles and heads held high, the two crossed the finish line hand in hand to the cheers of the crowd of students and former students urging them on.
      What fun that was, Jenny and Joanne both thought.  They wondered what they could do next that would be even more fun.  They looked at each other and, thinking of the law that had just been enacted, they knew.

  The invitations were printed.  The hall was lavishly decorated with flowers and Christmas greenery and brightly colored ornaments.  A many-tiered cake topped with two frosty snow-ladies holding hands overlooked long tables laden with delicious holiday treats.  Hundred of well-wishers, most wearing the requested holiday sweaters, filled the pews flanking the aisle leading to the altar.
      The Christmas music started, and two glowing brides in white satin topped with sweater vests of knitted snow flakes and crimson hearts slowly made their way to where the minister awaited - the first same-sex couple to be married at the first ugly sweater wedding!

The Cake Shirt

The Cake Shirt

Laura Fischer

Troy didn't expect much for his birthday.  His family didn't have a lot of money to spend on parties and presents and that sort of thing.  Gifts would be practical, and if there was any celebration, it would be a modest one.  He understood, but he wished just once that he could do something really special to commemorate his name day.  Maybe a trip to Disneyland or, even better, to a rock concert with his friends.  No, he'd be given clothes, and though he was glad to have something new, he wished just once the birthday gift would be something a teenager would actually want to wear.

He'd hinted to his older brother Vince that it would be really great to have a Cake shirt, hoping Vince would steer their parents to the band's merchandise on the internet.  He thought if he had a Cake shirt his friends might even think he got it at the concert being played that weekend in Santa Cruz.  

Cake was an alternative rock band from nearby Sacramento that was popular with his crowd despite the band's having started recording before the teens were toddlers.  Troy and his brother had all 6 of their albums, but they had never seen the group perform live.  They feared they never would since there were rumors that the band was giving up touring.  

Troy's birthday arrived and the family gathered for a special lunch to celebrate the day.  When they finished eating, his mother brought out a shirt sized box and handed it to Troy.  Maybe he was going to get a Cake shirt after all, he thought.  He eagerly opened the package - and found a cake shirt inside, but not the kind he had hoped for.  Inside the box was a sheet cake cut and decorated like an oxford shirt and tie, the kind of dessert people often order for Father's Day.  

Angry and disappointed, he forced back the tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.  How could his parents be so clueless, he thought.   How could they care so little about his needs and his wishes that they couldn't get such a simple request right.

And then he heard them all laughing, amused that he had fallen for the joke they'd played on him.  They produced a second box and gave it to Troy to open.  Inside was the coveted concert tee he had hoped for and tucked in the folds of the shirt was a pair of tickets to the live show that evening.
  "Better hurry and change your shirt," Vince advised.   "We don't want to be late for the Cake concert tonight."

Breakup Shirt Story

Breakup Shirt Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Colin packed mementos away into a box.

He had done this routine before. He would do it again. His closet had several small boxes just like this one. He was never quite sure why he did it each time. He didn’t go back and look. He wasn’t that type of guy. But he kept them. And when he moved, he moved them. But he didn’t like to look.

The box was a form of closure, except that it didn’t truly end things. They were safe and packed away somewhere. Everything was gone, but not really. Things could always come back if he needed them to. And therefore, there was never true closure. As long as he could dig them out and look at them again, there was always a chance, no matter how small, of a return to importance or a repeat of relationships. On some level he knew all this, but he was able to conveniently ignore and suppress it.

Photos, charms, letters, they were all going into this latest box. Some of her perfume that had been left behind. Something sexy made of black lace. Then he got to the shirt. He paused and looked at it. He wasn’t sure what to do.

It was a good shirt—the cut, the fit, the style, the color. They were all good choices. They all worked. He liked the shirt. He wore it a lot. He would have liked it and worn it, even if it hadn’t come from her.

No one ever knew how to shop for him. She did. She was the first of them to ever get his style. Or maybe she just had enough style of her own. But he preferred to think it was because she understood him and appreciated him. It made it seem all the more special, as if there was a true and genuine connection between them.

They all tried to buy him clothes. All of them. They always tried. He didn’t know if maybe that was just a desire that most women possessed—to dress their man. If it was, he didn’t understand it. Was that some leftover instinct from childhood, from playing with dolls? Or maybe they all just judged his wardrobe to be terrible and never felt comfortable enough to tell him. Maybe they were trying to make him better. Or maybe there was a sense of pride in seeing him in something they bought. It didn’t make him a possession, but it made him just a little bit theirs.

She bought him clothes and they fit and they were stylish without being flamboyant. He liked a simple quality to his clothes. Straightforward colors and designs. Nothing too flashy. Nothing too radical. He didn’t want to stick out in a crowd just because of some silly design. She got it. She got him. It was right.

He loved that shirt. It reminded him of her. It reminded him of all the good things that had worked. It reminded him of all the potential in the world.

He loved that shirt. It, of course, had to go.

Light a match, and drop it in. Burn burn burn.

He could never look at it again. He could never know it was packed away in some box. He could never be tempted. It was just too close to being her.

He sat on a lawn chair in his backyard and drank a beer and watched the shirt slowly be consumed by the flames.

The Lucky Jersey

The Lucky Jersey

Laura Fischer

     Jeremy wasn't superstitious - at least he didn't admit he was.  He didn't believe in four leaf clovers.  He didn't believe in lucky rabbits' feet. He didn't believe in any of the talismans that sports fans often carried to guarantee a winning season.  But ironically he did believe that wearing his favorite blue jersey to a Colts' game brought his team unexplainably good luck.
     The bright blue jersey with the "18" on the front and "Manning" on the back was a birthday present from his girlfriend Cassie their senior year at IU.  That same year the Indianapolis Colts made it to the Super Bowl for the second time.  Jeremy's friends insisted that wearing the shirt to the stadium and sports bars had nothing to do with the team's wins that season.  They pointed out that the Colts actually lost the last two games.  Jeremy countered that Peyton was pulled by the coaches to protect him from injury, and the team would have won had their quarterback played. 
     Jeremy knew the power of the lucky jersey.  He felt the Colts could have defeated the Saints and won the championship that year if only he and his lucky shirt had made it to the game.  But Super Bowl Sunday was the day Cassie had chosen for their wedding to commemorate her parents' marriage on February 7 twenty five years earlier, so Jeremy was wearing a tux instead of his lucky jersey that day as his team went down in defeat.

     Jeremy thought he knew why the lucky shirt was not so lucky for his Colts the following two seasons. Most fans felt Peyton Manning's injury and surgery had something to do with the team's mediocre record, but Jeremy feared he might be to blame.  Although he didn't have much time for football after being accepted at Harvard Law, he and Cassie usually socialized with their classmates at the sports bars in Boston on game day.  He didn't feel right wearing the Colts' jersey to watch New England games, and he thought he might be a little too old for sportswear anyway, so the lucky jersey hung in his closet. Evidently the magic didn't work unless he wore the shirt, and the Patriots and much of the rest of the NFL handily defeated  Indianapolis each week.  Perhaps if he had had displayed his pride in his hometeam, their season might have ended differently.

     Today Jeremy was back in Indiana and wearing his favorite jersey again.  He and Cassie, now expecting their first child, were on their way home from their day trip to Nashville, Indiana.  Cassie had wanted to enjoy the changing autumn leaves and to spend the day browsing the antique shops and craft stores in Brown County.  Jeremy was reluctant to go, but she promised they would leave in time to make it back to Indianapolis for the start of the Sunday night football game.
     It was going to be a very, very special matchup.  Former quarterback Peyton Manning was also back in Indiana playing against his old team for the first time since signing with the Denver Broncos.  Jeremy was anxious to see if his lucky blue jersey would still be lucky for the Colts - or whether the shirt numbered 18 would bring good fortune to the Bronco quarterback now wearing the same numeral and name on his orange and white uniform.

     About halfway home from Nashville, Jeremy's tire suddenly blew.  Gingerly he steered off the road, upset that the flat might make them late.  He opened the trunk looking for the spare that wasn't there.  "I'll have to call the auto club to fix the flat," he grumbled, angry at himself.  "I hope they'll get here in time for us to make the game."
     "Better call the hospital too," Cassie advised.  He looked at her and realized with a rush of excitement that their baby was on her way.
     After what seemed like an eternity, an ambulance could finally be heard racing down the road toward the couple.  About the same time, the first cries of a newborn infant could be heard from the back seat of the car.  As he took the red and yelling baby in his arms, Jeremy thought he had never seen a child more perfect or more beautiful.  
     "She must be cold," he said taking off the blue jersey and swaddling the baby in its warmth.
     "Don't.  You'll ruin your lucky shirt," Cassie protested.
     "It doesn't matter," he said.  He smiled at his wife and at his new daughter, cherishing the magical moment and the precious bond forming between them.  "It doesn't matter at all."
     And it didn't.

A Tale of Two Ts

A Tale of Two Ts
Laura Fischer

Dorothy's story:

  They say you never forget your first love.  Dorothy knew this to be true.  She smiled, remembering, and gently caressed the faded T-shirt before returning it to the rustic handcrafted box.  Along with a thin packet of letters tied together with a satin ribbon, the chest contained a single photo of 30 gangly teenagers in tie-dyed shirts. Called the Timber Wolves, her tribe of friends had shared a cabin and adventures that unforgettable summer at Camp Chippewa.

Of all the young people in their group, Dorothy had found herself strongly attracted to Roger, a tall and handsome teen almost as shy as she was.  They had met during the first boy-girl square dance lesson.  The Virginia Reel was chosen by the counselors to keep the campers at arm's length and their innocence intact, but when the two first touched, Dorothy felt something special.  She looked Roger directly in the eyes and knew he felt it too.  She tightened her grip so he wouldn't have to and, awkward and afraid, they do-si-doed their way through the unfamiliar steps.     

From that day on, the pair spent almost every moment together - swimming and hiking, laughing and joking, studying nature and crafting projects like the tie-dyed shirts they wore. The two weeks flew by all too quickly, and all too soon the big yellow buses arrived that would carry the campers to their homes the following morning.

That last night, after the stories and the singing had ended, and after the last marshmallow had been toasted and the campfire had burned to embers, the other weary campers retreated to their cabins.  But Dorothy and Roger slipped away from the watchful eyes of the counselors and strolled hand-in-hand into the woods.  There they held each other tightly and shared a magical first kiss.  They promised they would write and would remain faithful until reunited the following summer.  To seal their pledge, they traded the shirts they had made.  Dorothy slipped into Roger's sweaty tie-dye and Roger enveloped himself in the one smelling faintly of Dorothy's perfume.  They vowed never to wash away the lingering scents until together once more.

Half a century later, the sight and smell of Roger's shirt still brought back memories of that special summer and the broken promises made.  Wiping away the salty tears from her cheeks, Dorothy carefully packed the box of  summer treasures in the trunk that held her most precious memories: the family pictures, the love letters her deceased husband had sent when they were courting, the cards and artwork their children and grandchildren had made.  Taking a last look at the home she could no longer keep up alone, she called to her daughter that she was ready to leave.  She handed the trunk to a grandson to carry, and reluctantly she closed the door to her old life and set out on the journey to her new one.

"Who knows what surprises lie ahead," she exclaimed trying to be positive, "or who I may meet along the way!"  

Roger's story

Roger had Altzheimer's.  At least that's what his nephew said when he took away his uncle's car keys and put him on the waiting list for an apartment at Hillside Retirement Homes.  Roger didn't mind moving to Hillside.  He liked the pretty aides who helped him bathe and shave and who washed his clothes and cooked his meals - except for Sunday night when everyone ate in the large communal hall.  Every morning they counted out the pills he took to slow the memory loss, and every evening at bedtime they listened to the stories he told of his youth and of a very special girl he had loved once upon a time many, many years ago.  The dementia had slowed his current thinking.  He could not always remember where he hid his tv remote or the names of the girls paid to help him with the simple tasks of living.  But his memories of that summer at Camp Chippewa remained as clear as yesterday.

That autumn, before cell phones and the internet made it easy to keep in touch, Roger and Dorothy wrote each other every week.  But then one day Roger's father's company transferred the family to another city.  And Dorothy's mother, worrying her daughter was too young for a serious romance, felt it best to put an end to the infatuation by returning her daughter's mail unopened and unseen.  Roger did not understand why Dorothy returned his letters, nor Dorothy why Roger had abruptly ceased to write.  Heartbroken, each was left with only their tribe's photo, and the other's brightly colored shirt, and the bitter-sweet memories of that special summer.

Summer came again, but neither returned to camp Chippawa.  After Roger graduated, he tried to find Dorothy.  He thought that she had probably married and changed her name, but he hoped she still thought of him, and he knew, if he could find her, that they could rekindle the passion they had felt.  Unsuccessful, after a time Roger gave up his futile quest. He dated other women, but none could take Dorothy's place, so finally he resigned himself to the life of a lonely bachelor.  

Years before he moved to Hillside, Roger had Dorothy's shirt made into a pillow.  Now every night he slept with his arms tightly wrapped around the faintly scented shirt, reliving that special summer in his dreams.  The aides at Hillside tried to take it from him to wash, but true to his promise, he refused to let it go.  They finally quit asking, thinking his stubbornness was an aspect of the Altzheimer's.

"Maybe he'd forget this strange obsession with that shirt," one of the aides speculated, "if he could make friends with some of the women here at the home."

"Yes," the other agreed. " A nice widow just moved in who is about his age.  She has a camp photo like the one in his bedroom too, so they might have something in common.  Let's arrange for them to sit together at supper Sunday night and see what happens."