Step One: Watch The Opening Video
Step Two: Read The Story
Who knows were the time goes, but the memories are of yesterday, close enough to touch, young enough to feel.
So much so that I can recount meeting Cass while I was a college sophomore in 1967.
I was too sick with the flu to attend classes, which I didn’t do anyway, even when I felt well. So my roommate drove me to the college infirmary one night. The nurse immediately called an ambulance to transport me to the local community hospital to be admitted. It seems that the bright red rash on my torso was her first clue that I had contracted Scarlet Fever.
When I arrived at the hospital that cold and wintry February night, business must have been brisk, with beds in high demand, so I ended up in a room reserved for elderly men with little chance of surviving the night! I lay there, eyes closed, before hearing the squeaky sound of rubber-soled shoes on the highly waxed linoleum floor. I turned my head to look from my darkened room into the brightly lit hallway. And there, walking through my door was an angel, a halo of light clearly visible . . . to me . . . above her head. I had never before seen such sparkling blue eyes! She didn’t say anything. She just made every attempt at fulfilling her assigned duties of taking my pulse and temperature. She had just turned 18-years-old, and had certainly never before seen such a handsome patient!
I suppose I should be honest and admit that she had never before seen a patient younger than 80-years-old. She placed her thumb and forefinger on my wrist to take my pulse, counting the heartbeats on her wristwatch, lips moving silently in counting, careful to avoid eye contact with this grubby young college student. It would be fair to say I was smitten by her gentle touch. But then the fun started. Her next task was to take my temperature . . . with a rectal thermometer. Let’s just say she saw my better side first and leave it at that. And, if you must know, my better side couldn’t have been all that bad, because we just celebrated our 52nd Wedding Anniversary. So there!
Embarrassed as she was, she spent the next 15-minutes greasing that thermometer, stalling for time. When it became apparent that this stalling tactic might well continue until morning, I decided to let her off the hook by dropping my own drawers and turning my . . . uhm . . . rear-end towards her. I soon realized she must have been covering her eyes, for that mighty thermometer began its first of several undirected jabs in the general vicinity of my derriere. With that, I reached back and took the thermometer from her hand, inserting it myself. Totally exhausted by the process, I fell asleep, dreaming of the angel who had just entered my life.
I awoke the next morning to a regimen of antibiotic shots that battered my butt for two solid weeks. I was disappointed when I didn’t see my angel from the previous evening. But then, as if in answer to a prayer, she walked into my room at three o’clock sharp, the start of her eight-hour shift. Once again, she took my pulse and, yes, my temperature. I asked her name. She wouldn’t tell me. I begged. It worked. “Cassie,” she said. That was it for me. I was hooked. Over the next two weeks, Cassie and I spent hours talking every day, getting to know each other. If asleep, I would awaken to find her sitting at my bedside, hiding from the head nurse. Finally, the day I was to leave the hospital for the trip home some 80 miles away, she secretly handed me a note with her name and address. I was in seventh heaven. When I arrived home that day, I immediately began my daily ritual of crafting a long letter to Cassie, unabashedly professing my growing love. Thankfully, she wrote back. Every day.
By early April, I was well enough to return to school to finish the semester. I arrived at Cassie’s house on a Saturday morning. I was decked out in my coolest blue jacket emblazoned with the University of Buffalo logo, eager to impress. I rang the doorbell. When Cassie opened the door, I was sure those blue eyes would never let go of my heart. If you’re lucky enough in your lifetime to experience this same feeling, you’ll truly understand there is a destiny that leads one to meet the right person at the right time. For some, that time never seems to arrive, or arrives too late. For me, it came at just the right moment in my life, and I know the same was true of Cassie.
It was a glorious weekend, the temperature promising to reach the seventies, which was about two months early for such an occurrence in Buffalo, New York. After spending that first afternoon walking and talking, Cassie agreed to play hooky from work on Sunday, which she had never done before, so that we might enjoy a day of hand-holding walking through Ellicott Creek Park in Tonowanda.
I have no doubt that our Love for each other was truly born that day, for we both realized that some strange force was at work, drawing us together as if destined to be so. How we wished the day would never end. From that day forward, I picked Cassie up from work every day. Two years later, we married.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
What a beautiful time of life!
Step Three: Watch The Closing Video
Step Four: Read The Story
Seven years ago when my mother died, I had the chore of clearing out her household goods; and what a task it was! My only sibling lives in North Carolina, and he was very agreeable to my making ALL decisions regarding the estate.
Looking at Mom's attic, I found countless garments from the 1940s to 2010, when she left her home shortly before her death: dresses - some almost dry-rotten from the heat of the attic - shoes, funny little hats, purses. There was even a silky pink bridesmaid dress that Mom wore in her sister Janie's wedding. There were many canning jars stored along one side of the attic wall. Boxes and boxes of canceled checks were found, and records of seemingly every business transaction made during her marriage added to the paper trail. An old kerosene cook stove stood forlornly near the chimney - relegated to the attic when the electric stove came along - its burners longing to heat up again! Wardrobes and trunks held countless items of yesterday. A double bed and cot on one side and another double bed across the room provided many an overnight getaway for visiting grandchildren throughout the years.
Mom believed in saving almost everything. Each Christmas she would eat her annual box of Whitman's candy and tuck the empty box in an open cubbyhole under the steps leading to the attic ‘just in case she needed it to wrap something in.’ Downstairs a closet contained Christmas gifts given to Mom during her many years as a schoolteacher. Christmas cards she saved, also - they were just too dear to toss in the trash. Those were the days when people actually wrote personal notes at Christmas. The very small closets and bureaus downstairs were also crammed full of clothes. Costume jewelry adorned her dresser. Mom lived through the depression so she felt that there might someday be a need or use for all these things, and she just couldn't trash them. As I spent hours and hours making decisions about what to do with all this and what to do with all that, I vowed MY children would not be subjected to this - that I would get rid of many of my things.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE! Seven years later and I feel myself changing into my mother. I start going through things and find it hard to part with much at all. There are far too many pictures and far too many mementos of the past. I have managed to pare down a considerable amount of paperwork, however. Dishes I've acquired through the years are hard to part with. There's a kitchen table from Grandma Robertson's house; we all used to sit at that table. A chair from Grandma's living room. A beautiful little desk from Grandpa Parker's home. A china clock and huge rolltop desk long in the Boyd family. I know I can't take all of this with me; but by darn, it's hard to give it up! I look in the mirror and can actually see myself metamorphosing into Doris Parker Robertson - and it's not a bad thing! Oh, what the heck--MY children can clear out MY house! It's a family tradition - and a mother's ultimate revenge!!
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Content © Jeff Resnick 2021
Production & Publication © JeffResnick.com 2021
All rights reserved.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations
in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.