THE MOOSE LODGE

         Most of our Fifth Grade class at Pinchot Grammar School had been together since First Grade, but I did not join our group until late in Third Grade when Mom and Dad moved to Rosedale. There were two Fifth Grade classes at the school; Mr. Burnett taught the other class. I wasn't aware until I started in Junior High School in Seventh Grade, but Pinchot was just one of seven elementary schools in the Rosedale School District.

         I sat in the row behind Jimmy Young that year. If my memory is correct, the desks were arranged in four rows of eight. Jimmy sat in the second desk from the left in the first row. I was not directly behind him but one to the right. We were on the left side of the classroom, nearer the blackboards than the windows. Richie Chapman was directly in front of me, while Eric somebody, this kid with glasses, sat on the other side of Jimmy in the end seat. Judy Wiggins was on my left directly behind Jimmy, but I can't remember who sat on the other side of Judy.


         Jimmy had this really quiet voice. Unless you were next to him, you could barely hear what he was saying. Miss Brumfield always had to tell him to speak up. Except for his teeny-weeny voice, there was nothing odd about him. Judy and I thought he was kind of cute, and liked to talk to him. He was one of the few boys who had not entered his girl-hating phase. He didn't spend his time playing rough games, but the other boys did not seem to mind. He was lucky. If he had been given a set of ears like Herbie Jeffords in addition to that tiny voice, none of the kids would have ever stopped riding him.

         Herbie and Jackie Hilferty, a girl who sat in the last row, were the butt of all the jokes and jibes we could think up back in 1954. The boys all said that Jackie wore dirty underwear and never combed her blond hair, while to all of us Herbie was just goofy. Neither Judy nor I knew Jackie at all. The only friends she had were her sister in Third Grade and a girl in Mr. Burnett's class. I didn't ride on her school bus, but I knew that she was always getting in trouble for fighting on the ride home.

         It seemed like every day the kids on our bus would spot Herbie walking home and yell, "Hi Dumbo!" We didn't pass Jimmy walking home; he lived in the other direction, toward North Avenue. I knew where he lived because he had a Halloween party when we were in Sixth Grade for the Dexter Moose Lodge Number One, as he called us. It was in the early evening on a school night. I was surprised that his mother called him James, not Jimmy. As for the party, I remember bobbing for apples, and toasting marshmallows, but can't think of much else we did. It was the last hurrah of the Moose Lodge; by then we realized Mrs. Strunk did not share Miss Brumfield's appreciation for Creative Writing.

         Miss Brumfield had blue hair, or what seemed like blue hair then. Now I realize it was a tone of gray that was either natural or from something she applied to the wavy hair she brushed back on the side of her head and combed over in a wave from just right of center on the top. I had no idea of her age back then, but she held the job of principal at Englewood School for many years, starting the year after I graduated from Pinchot. I don't think she ever married, and don't even want to think about that fact and what it might mean today. For Judy, Richie, Eric, and I, she was our all-time favorite teacher, or at least that is what we said in Sixth Grade the next year.

         Miss Brumfield was fond of three things: nature, the stars and poetry. Pinchot was built on the edge of a small wooded area, through which ran the Muckinpates Creek. We took nature walks every week, gathering up dead leaves in fall and flowers in spring. In the warmer weather some boys would catch crayfish, but she would not have them brought back to our room.

         There was a trip farther afield one evening to the observatory at Springdale College. How we were taken there I do not remember. Surely the school buses did not run at night, but the class met there and each student had a peek through the telescope. When not at the observatory, we could look to the heavens on the glass brick walls above the crank-out windows in our schoolroom. They were filled with blue stars outlining constellations. The boys put these up, risking their limbs to climb ladders to tape the construction paper to the bricks.

         But it was poetry reading time that makes me wonder today if she were even over forty in that year. Her face would light up as she read to us. Looking back, I am sure she could have read Eliot or Frost, but she seemed to know that unless the dullest student followed the story, she would lose the entire class. We heard of the frost being on the pumpkin and the fodder being in the shock during the fall season, and other seasonal poems for winter and spring, but it was "The Highwayman" that would hold us totally silent. We did not even titter when her voice would ring out, "Though Hell may bar the way."

         It must have been after Christmas vacation when she announced that for the balance of the year we would be graded on our Creative Writing. Each week each of us had to write a story, a fictional story. It could be poetry, but it did not have to be. Now this was not going to be easy. The delinquents of 1954 did not have the stimulation that ten year olds have today. Lucy and Ricky were sleeping in twin beds, even if our parents had a full-sized one. Situation comedy plots seemed almost brand new to us, if not to the adults watching. Joe Friday was solving cases, but he made a poor model for our fiction. We were largely on our own.

         Left this way that first week, we turned in our modest works. The next day Miss Brumfield read several aloud, to the embarrassment of the writers. Then her face lit up as she said that we had a real writer in our midst. She asked Jimmy Young to stand next to her while she read his story of Dexter Moose. Today I can't remember what that story, or any of the subsequent Dexter Moose stories were about. I don't recall if Dexter was a moose living in nature, or whether plots turned on the animals acting like humans. Whatever Jimmy wrote, the class sat entranced.

         While the rest of us struggled to write any type of story, Dexter Moose tales were read by Miss Brumfield the next two weeks. In that third week, Richie Chapman had also written a story about Dexter Moose, and after asking Jimmy if he had written Richie’s work for him, and receiving a reply in the negative, Mrs. Brumfield read Richie’s also. The next day Judy and I confronted Jimmy on the playground after lunch. Jimmy was not the type to play sports with the other boys, so we badgered him when we caught up with him near the swings.

         “Why can’t we write about Dexter Moose too, Jimmy?” “Go ahead, I’d be absolutely delighted;” and so it came to be that four of us, five after Eric joined in, began to write Dexter Moose stories. Given a set of characters and a setting, we found it easy to write a story. Each of us began to think of new characters on our own and we added them to the world of Dexter Moose. We borrowed from each other, but we never copied plot lines. We would sit and read our stories to each other before school on the day the assignment was due and talk about them at recess or in the lunchroom.

         Miss Brumfield was pleased with my work and gave me not only high marks, but such a thrill when she read one of my stories aloud to the class. I started to like Creative Writing. Late in the year I began to notice impatience on my part with the limits of the world of Dexter Moose. It’s funny but I can’t remember what we wrote about but I can remember wanting to move a character I created, Dorothy Beaver, to the city and recall arguing with Judy and Richie about doing so. I never did carry through on my threat, but from writing stories about a moose with the silly name of Dexter, I began to enjoy writing for itself.

         I never could get the hang of producing essays for tests, or term papers about dry subjects like history, but given a chance to turn out a story, I did well in high school. After my children were born, I took up the pen again, putting my efforts down in spiral ring notebooks. I tried them out on my kids as bedtime stories, or when they grew older I read them romances at which I tried my hand. My son would never listen to these, and while my two daughters kept awake, one told me, “Don’t quit your day job, Mom.” To my husband Kevin, my scribbling, as he called it, was a blessing. It kept me out of his hair for the over thirty-two years he stuck out his obligation before leaving one day without saying so much as a goodbye. He’s now almost three thousand miles away.

         My brother was worse than my daughters. Seeing me bring out the notebook when he came over with his children, he’d grab their hands and pull the kids to their feet, telling them “Your aunt wants to put you to sleep.” Only my nephew Andy, as he grew older, would sometimes stop on his way home from school and ask me to read him a story. He asked how I thought them up, and sometimes made suggestions of alternate plot lines or ways to improve characters.

         At Andy’s urging, I began to record my memories of many moments in my life. With Kevin’s departure and the kids marrying themselves off, I had even more time to write. I wasn’t actively seeking a replacement to share my bed because by now I had acquired a new partner, an electric one, who like Richie Chapman, sat directly in front of me. The first few months I had my computer I transcribed my notebooks onto its hard drive, and from then on new efforts were saved into a folder I called “Scribblings.”

         I became the writing fool. I organized my folders into sub-folders for fiction, non-fiction and even had an area I called poetry. I was late jumping in to Miss Brumfield’s favorite discipline, and I believed fervently that it was not poetry if it did not rhyme, but I did set down a number of verses. I knew I could not hear my old teacher reading them in my mind, but they were fun to write. My poems lacked drama. Somehow the idea of writing a story in verse about Beth, the landlord’s daughter, and the Highwayman seemed impossible to me.

         When the Internet came to my job, I was hooked. It took me a while, but I signed up at home. To my amazement I found sites where I could post my writings. I joined and posted a story about the birth of one of my daughters. It was an account that if I tried to read it to her, she would have held her hands over her ears, but on this site that permitted readers to give feedback and ratings by way of email, I found I had a hit. I began to post other works, and met the same reaction. I tried my hand at new pieces, short romances set down in short chapters. I wrote slowly. I found that as I posted, readers would email me asking when the next chapter was coming. I had acquired a whole new vocation in addition to my regular job.

         There was one work I had written I had very mixed feelings about posting. For seven years I had been alone, with only myself to provide for my needs. Even before Kevin left, love and passion had fled our marriage. He had found his pleasures outside our bed. I found mine in food and in sitting at my table, and later my computer, writing. I had gained a lot of weight. I had always been friendly and participated in the male/female bantering at the office, but as my weight ballooned, I noticed the men averting their eyes. The idea that any man would want me seemed ridiculous, but my writing allowed me to put down my yearnings. I did so in a piece I could never show my family, or read to the grown Andy.

         I started writing my bit of erotica after deciding that it was time to get back into life again. I had these visions that my readers on the web-site might some day want to see their favorite author in person, or that my photo would appear on the back of a book jacket, and I wanted that image to be one I could point to with pride. I began to diet, to exercise religiously and to seek medical help. I completed the story of my imaginary sexual awakening and posted it. The response was startling to this divorcee nearing sixty sitting in her little apartment. My email Inbox was flooded. All wanted more, and as I had left the story with a very loose end, it was possible that I could provide them with an additional X-rated fix.

         As much as I wanted to give my public hungry for erotica more, I couldn’t because two men came into my life, men I had never expected. Both were writers on the site. The first had joined just after I posted my erotica. He had not read it, but rather I had read several of his works. I found that when I was not writing, I would read other writers, especially those new to the on-line experience. I wanted them to have the same welcome I had at this wonderful site.

         There was something in this man’s writing that touched me; it wasn’t only that he could write well, but there was this feeling that he was reaching out to talk to me personally. I emailed him my thoughts. He thanked me, read one of my works and offered criticism I had never heard before. I read what he said and looked at my work again and knew he was right. We struck up an email dialogue.

         The email exchanges were followed by Instant Messaging chat, and then a telephone conversation. We found we lived within two hours of each other, were near the same age and were both alone. The next part of this story is for the next chapter of my biography, one not written yet. It is sufficient to say that I wrapped up my erotic story with a happy ending both on paper and in life.

         Edward, the other man, lived at the other end of the continent. His little biography said he was fifteen years old, but as I read his works, I realized that he wrote both fiction and poetry well in advance of his years. It wasn’t just his writing ability, but his knowledge of the world. His adventures were exciting; his women and men seemed larger than life, and when he turned his hand to poetry, he expressed in a few lines what it takes older men books to tell.

         I wrote him and told him how wonderful his writing was and how amazed I was to learn his age. He was pleased and asked more about me. I told him my age, about my family and my occupation. In return he told me that he lived alone with his parents, who did not approve of his writing. He said that they resided far from other people. Gradually the picture of a lonely and sad young boy became clear to me. He seemed to value my friendship, and he continued to write pieces of such maturity. Sometimes I read him and wondered if he were who he said he was, but I believed him, and began to realize that I was becoming almost a second mother to him.

         Or at least that was the way it seemed to me until that day that he asked me to post my photograph on the site. The only decent photo I had was at least fifteen years old, but I posted it. What followed from Edward was a beautiful poem dedicated to our friendship and then another that rang alarm bells in my head. This young man had developed a crush on me. I told him I was old enough to be his grandmother, and I told him in no uncertain terms that this had to cease, but his reaction was to emphasize how miserable and sad he was with his life.

         He took to messaging me at work, and prying into my personal life. He would ask what I would be doing that night, and if it were something he did not approve, like going out with my girlfriends, he would tell me not to do it. Naturally I hadn’t any patience with such tantrums, and I would tell him off in no uncertain terms whether by instant messenger or by email. Sometimes I would just ignore him.

         When I would do that, often he would post a poem or short story that would tell me through his wording that he was angry with me. I doubt that other readers could understand, but I did and I would get back in touch with him and tell him he was going too far if he wanted me to be friends with him. The offending piece would then be pulled from the site and we would resume our long distance friendship, him promising to be a better boy.

         Sometimes I wonder if young men, like women, move on a monthly cycle. Looking back at it, it seemed that way. Within a month of telling me he would be good, he was back to his schoolboy crush again. It seemed ridiculous for a fifteen-year old boy to be enamored with a woman in her late fifties and her fifteen-year old photograph. I had creepy remembrances of that movie with Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, in which detective Andrews becomes infatuated with Tierney’s portrait. Terms I had not thought of in years came back to me: puppy love, lovesick calf and from my side of the equation, cradle robber! But I didn’t want to rob the cradle. I began to tell him that I couldn’t chat on line when he tried because I had a visitor, and left him no doubt that the visitor was a male.

         I became unrelenting, letting him know that in the end he would have to be satisfied with being friends and that his infatuation, which had become almost Lancelot-like by now, had to stop. I like to think he listened to me, but I will never know what happened in his mind. My other friend, who knew of Edward and his crush, emailed me to look at Edward’s web site one day. There was the most beautiful poem I had read in some time. Edward was renouncing his quest. He would not come to me in moonlight, tho’ hell should bar the way. Beth, the landlord’s daughter, would be safe.

         I allowed myself a smile and got back to the romance I was writing. From somewhere the idea of putting Dexter Moose into the plot came hurtling into my mind. Why I do not know. I had not thought of Dexter, or Jimmy Young in years. I thought to myself that Edward must have stressed me out far more than I knew.

         I sat near him again in Sixth Grade, but Mrs. Strunk, a woman who was as old as she looked, was too business-like to let the students write on their own. We had to study Latin America, and history and mathematics and many other subjects, but today, I can only remember South Of The Border. It was also the theme of our school show. We sang “Flying Down to Rio,” I can remember that.

         We had to produce reports on countries. Mine was about Venezuela, where I had lived before moving to Rosedale. I think I remember Judy, or Richie, telling me that Jimmy wanted to report on Canada, so he could draw a picture of a moose for the front of the report. Mrs. Strunk told him to take Peru, that Canada was not in Latin America. I can visualize my report cover today. What ever led me to draw a man, sitting against a cactus with a large sombrero on his head, to depict Venezuela is a mystery to this day, but then I had not thought of it in years, just as I had not thought of Jimmy and Dexter.

         In Junior and Senior High School, students become ambulatory, moving from room to room to meet different teachers for different subjects. I don’t remember Jimmy Young being in any of my classes except maybe first year Spanish in high school. He did not live near me, and he did not go to the Saturday night dances at ‘Canteen’ as it was called. They were held in the cafeteria at good old Pinchot. I don’t think he went to the Senior Prom. I found his photograph in the yearbooks. In the senior yearbook his activities are listed. He had belonged to the school literary magazine that was published twice a year, but apparently had never written for it for none of his articles were listed.

         I had been working since I was fifteen in the office of a fuel oil company. After graduating, I continued in that job until I had Brendan. I worked into the eighth month; it was in the spring, early in my pregnancy, that I opened the paper to check my horoscope and do the anagram on my lunch break. On the opposite page were the obituaries, and the photograph of someone I had known, Jimmy Young. The obituary said “Suddenly, on April 23.” That was the day before. I looked through the paper for more detail and there it was in the Suburban section.

ROSEDALE MAN LEAPS TO DEATH

He had been a student at the State University, living in a high rise dorm. There wasn’t a mention of his state of mind; there weren’t any interviews with fellow students. It had happened in the middle of the afternoon. He spoke in a very quiet voice; I doubt that he could have been heard had he screamed.

         Judy, who still lived near me, and I talked about it that night. Judy was going to a local college. She commuted from home every day. Maybe it was because of my pregnancy, but as soon as I started to talk about Jimmy, I started to cry. Judy wanted to call up the other members of the Moose Lodge, but Richie had gone away to school and neither of us really cared for Eric.

         Even then we could not remember many of the Dexter Moose stories, not even the ones we had written, but we did remember the Halloween party. Judy said to me that even if she couldn’t remember the stories, she could remember that Jimmy’s all had an edge of sadness to them. Why Jimmy picked a moose to be his main character she could never understand, but as she put it, “I guess none of us could understand Jimmy either.” We both felt that he must have been very lonely.

         Neither of us attended the funeral. We had met his parents on that night in the fall ten years before when the world seemed ready for a talking moose, and Halloween apples did not hold potential razor blades. Subconsciously I guess I was not ready to sign Dexter's death certificate.

         Judy moved away after college. I've followed her life in the High School booklets the reunion committee sends out every five years, but she has never made it back to attend one. Jimmy's name appears at the end of each booklet, in a list that grows longer with every new update.

         I wonder if she still writes. Maybe she is a member of this site; it is possible. Most members adopt a nom de plume, including me. I am “Andy’s Favorite Writer”, and that much is true. He is the one family member who reads my web site every day, hoping for something new. Maybe if I post this story Judy will see it and contact me, but I doubt that Judy continued on this path. I am probably the last writing member of the Moose Lodge. I have my children, my grandchildren, my new dearest friend and soul mate, and my desire to write and write and write. “Do so,” I hear Jimmy say in his quiet voice, standing on the playground. “I would be absolutely delighted.”

Valatie 6/17/02
4316 Words