Love in the Time of War

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August 4th 2006

Published: August 4th 2006

Hi Friends - Here's a lovely story from my Mom, the woman who helped me write my first stories. I saw a lot of me in the old man, the sense of judgment and entitlement and wanting things to go my way. And strong reactions when they didn't. Fortunately, I have had plenty of teachers who have helped me along the way to let go of some of those ideas that were getting in my way.

I wish I had interesting stories to tell you. I'm working a lot. Which might be bad, but since it is all yoga related, I'm happy with it. I've moved into a more permanent apartment, as permanent for me as things get anyway. It has a spare bedroom should you want to visit. And I have reorganized the kitchen so cooking is more fun. Last night I had my first dinner for friends. But more about that later. Here's my Mom:

A Glimpse into the Past; 347 W. Belden Ave., Apt.4, Chicago, Ill., March 24, 1945

I knew the two young sailors on the other side of the bridge over the lagoon were going to try to pick me up. I hadn’t counted on that when I decided to walk home through Lincoln Park that Saturday afternoon in late March, and now I was faced with a dilemma, excitement on one hand and anxiety on the other.

In the spring of 1945 the war was still going on, for how much longer, none of us could tell, and because of the war, many social barriers had been lowered. Now it was OK, even encouraged, to be friendly to our boys in uniform who were putting their lives on the line for those of us safe at home. But if you were an attractive19 year old girl in Chicago, you still had to be darned careful, and most of the time I still relied on old fashioned ways of introduction. So I crossed the street and paused for a drink at the fountain to give myself a little more time to consider these two handsome men, boys, really, who were so attractive in their tight-fitting Navy blues. But what choice did I have? There wasn’t another soul in sight. I would have to evaluate them quickly and fend for myself.

"Hi," the really cute one said. "My name is Mac, and this is my friend Willie. We don’t want to frighten you, honest, so I’ll just tell you the truth. You see, Willie has a date for dinner tonight and I don’t - you know how awkward that is - and we were hoping that you could help us out." Willie softly interrupted with an offer to carry my packages, which he gently took from my arms as my eyes focused on Mac.

Respectful attitude. Sure of himself but not overly aggressive. Suave but appealing. Poor thing, in a strange city and no date for dinner! Willie was at the ready to support his friend, "We’re really respectable guys - Juniors at Purdue before the Navy. Mac grew up in Kentucky and I come from Illinois. Honest, we just want a date for Mac for the evening, and we . . . . Would you like to sit down?"

What followed was assurance that these two guys were honest, reliable, and trustworthy, and only in need of a dinner date for Mac. They were both absolutely charming. My dilemma was resolved, excitement had won out, and I knew I would accept their invitation. But I wasn’t going to make it that easy. Besides, Willie was now carrying my packages which contained my purchases and a carton of cigarettes I had picked up for my sister. She worked part-time at a drug store mostly so she could get nylons and cigarettes, things almost impossible to get in 1945. I was aware there was no way I could gracefully get my packages back if I refused their invitation.

"Well, I live with my older sister just a couple of blocks down the street," I said. "I’ll take you up to meet her and ask her what she thinks."

The excitement grew as we walked along Belden Avenue. Conversation was easy, animated and interesting. We climbed the stairs to our small second-floor apartment, and I introduced them to Marie. While they took a seat on the living room couch, I drew my sister into our kitchenette, which was separated by only a curtain from the living room where they waited.

"What do you think?" I whispered. It was just a formality. If she had forbidden me to go out with them, I would have gone anyway, and immediately she understood. "They seem very nice," she said. "Go ahead, and have a good time."

Marie went back to the living room, retrieved her cigarettes, and brought me the package that contained the new dress I had bought that afternoon. By now I was almost giddy with anticipation, but Marie’s sane conversation with Mac and Willie was somewhat calming. Still there was a sense of excitement borne of the apartment itself. Although we shared the toilet in the hall with another apartment, we had our own sink and bathtub in our kitchenette, and while Mac and Willie talked with Marie, I bathed as quietly as I could, dressed, and put on my makeup using the kitchenette medicine chest just behind a flimsy curtain. I knew they could hear my every movement if they listened, and I knew they had.

The four of us went to Isabel’s Restaurant for dinner, famed for its fried chicken and chef’s salad. Willie’s date was rather quiet, but the three of us chatted in the usual getting to know each other mode. Suddenly, Mac corrected my grammar, whereupon I corrected his correction of my grammar. Willie hooted with delight. "She got you, didn’t she?" His laughter started us all laughing and this ended what formality that remained. I felt very comfortable being with these strangers who were now my friends.

Willie and his date went their separate way, and Mac and I went to a nearby bar that advertised a live band and a dance floor. We found two seats at the bar and Mac asked me what I would like to drink. I may have proved myself his equal when it came to grammar, but I had never been in a bar before. There was no way I was going to admit I was that young and naive. So with all my new-found sophistication, I asked, "What are you going to have?" "A rum and coke," he said in his best man-of-the-world manner. "I’ll have that, too," I said. Fortunately, I couldn’t taste or feel the rum, so I guess the bartender had seen girls like me plenty of times and didn’t put much in. Just as well!

Not surprisingly we danced perfectly together, and after he walked me home we sat on the steps outside the door to my apartment where we whispered together and smothered our giggles so as not to wake up the neighbors. At last it was time for him to go, and although I knew he wanted to kiss me, and I certainly wanted him to, nice girls didn’t allow that, so we settled for the warmest, most passionate handshake I have ever known, and he ran down the stairs with a promise to call me the next day.

Never had I felt quite like this before. How would I be able to sleep? How would I be able to wait for him to call? Would he be stationed here long enough for us to get to know each other? He told me he was soon to go for submarine training in Connecticut. Would he be sent to the Pacific? Would he be in danger? Would he come back? To me? With so many questions in my mind I slipped into my side of the bed beside my sleeping sister, and slept the sound, sound sleep of a healthy young person who couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

The telephone for our three-story apartment building was a pay phone in the hall just outside our apartment door. Every time the phone rang the next morning I dashed eagerly out to answer it. Why did everybody have to call everybody else on Sunday, this Sunday? I ran upstairs when the call was for Mary, I ran downstairs to tell Nancy when the phone was for her, upstairs, downstairs, and it was only the middle of the morning. Finally it was for me. Was I free for the afternoon? I tried not too sound to eager, but what can you do if you’re bubbling with excitement? We agreed that he would come over in an hour.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in late March, and we decided on a walk in Lincoln Park. My heart was singing. I was singing. The world was a beautiful place. We walked through the small zoo in the park, laughing together, and although the early spring breeze had a bite, the sun was warm on our backs. As we wandered along, not caring much which animals we saw or if we saw any animals at all, we were aware of no one but each other. There was a spark between us that forced our eyes to meet and dance with delight, and our hands could not stay apart. The magnetism was irresistible, and I knew I would remember that afternoon forever.

We had nearly two months together, Mac at Navy Pier and I at Apartment 4 at 347 W. Belden Avenue on the near north side of Chicago, or in the Loop on Jackson Street, where I worked as a secretary in the engineering department of the Traveler’s Insurance Company. We were together whenever possible, sometimes for a "date" but usually simply for the joy of being together. We read aloud to each other, we worked puzzles, we went to cheap movies. One rainy afternoon we got to wondering how much skin covered the average human body. Chemical Engineering was Mac’s major, so it seemed a natural enough project to undertake. We measured torso, limbs, digits and came up with a reasonable estimate. I have not the slightest idea what the answer was, but I remember that it was a very innovative way to spend a Sunday afternoon in a small apartment with sister Marie sitting right there supervising the game.

The first time I asked Mac to dinner I made sure it was on a night when Marie would be at work until ten. I set the table with candles and a blue bowl of yellow jonquils in the center of our small drop-leaf table that was usually pushed up against the wall. I served him an elegant dish of macaroni and cheese with an exotic salad on the side (I had never eaten a "chef salad" before I got to Chicago, so a mixed green salad was exotic to me) topped with a new salad dressing I had heard advertised on the radio called Kraft French Dressing. You have to remember that although my efforts to attain excellence may not have seemed heroic, there really was a war on. Many things were rationed: meat, butter, sugar, and many more items very hard to get. Macaroni and cheese was the best I could do. I needn’t have worried. My limited culinary skills, when compared with those of the cook at Navy Pier, were highly praiseworthy as far as Mac was concerned.

We talked as we walked together, we talked when we ate together, and we talked in what had become our own special place, at the top of the stairs just outside our apartment. But after awhile I realized that it was mostly Mac who talked. He told me his dreams of a house in the suburbs that would cost ten-thousand dollars or so, a wife and three or four children, and a secure, happy life. He didn’t formally propose, but as things became more serious between us, I began to worry. How about my dreams to see the world? I was only 19 years old. If I got married and had kids - which I did want eventually - would I ever get to travel? Never mind that I hadn’t figured out yet how I was going to make those dreams come true. It was obvious that if I joined his dream, I would be loaded with responsibilities when I was very young and probably never have the freedom to fulfil my own dreams.

I hesitated to bring up the subject, but Mac would be leaving in just a few weeks and we wouldn’t have a chance at a serious conversation for many months. My intuition told me that this was going to be a very sensitive subject, but I hoped I could just get across the idea that I thought we should not get too serious so soon. So, the next time we sat on the steps in the hall, as gently and diplomatically as I could, I broached the subject. It exploded like a bomb.

"You mean that all this time we’ve spent together and all the money I’ve spent on you have just been wasted?"

There were hundreds of things I could have said in answer to such a hurtful response, but I didn’t have the chance. He stomped down the stairs and slammed the front door with a decisive bang.

I was determined not to cry. I had a legitimate point to make, it took a lot of courage to make it, and if he wasn’t mature enough to discuss it with me, I was glad he was out of my life.

"But what have I done?" I sobbed. "I know I’ll never see him again and I’ve just ruined my entire life."

Marie tried to console me, but the more she tried to mother me the more I rejected her well-meant words and gestures. I was lonely, I was miserable, I was helpless. I had a telephone number I could call, but in 1945 nice girls did not call boys, even if it meant you would spend the rest of your life in pain, in sorrow and in regret. As the date for his departure to New London, Connecticut, came closer I lost all hope that Mac would try to make amends.

A week or two later there was a knock at the door. When I saw the navy blue uniform, my heart stood still - but for only a moment. It wasn’t Mac, it was his best friend Willie. I was glad to see him, but it was an awkward moment. Why was he here? I knew he liked me well enough, but he had always acted like Mac’s brother toward me. Was he going to try to move in and take Mac’s place? My guard was up as I let him in and invited him to sit down. After a few minutes of polite conversation, he announced rather stiffly that he had something serious to talk to me about.

"Mac and I have been fraternity brothers for a pretty long time now," he said, "and we take being brothers very seriously. That’s why I’m here."

I relaxed a little, but I still didn’t know what to expect.

"Maybe you don’t realize it, but Mac fell awfully hard for you. Since that last night he saw you, he has been impossible to live with. He’s just quiet; he just wouldn’t talk to me about it, so all I know is that he’s really hurt. Would you be willing to tell me what happened?"

As best I could I told Willie the whole story, trying not to cry, trying to be fair to Mac while at the same time getting my point of view across.

"Damn," Willie said, "I knew I should have warned you. Mac is so damned naive. I think he is seriously in love with you, and he’s suffering. I’d be willing to bet he’d like to apologize, but he just doesn’t know how. He’s stubborn, too, and over sensitive. Did you know he was engaged to a girl before and she called it off?"

"Yes, he told me about that. I had a serious boy friend who married someone else, too. That’s no excuse for how he treated me. Willie, he didn’t even listen to what I was trying to say. He didn’t give us a chance to talk about it; he just stalking off and slammed the door. When he closed that door he also closed the door on how we felt and on what we might feel in the future. That really hurt. I don’t think I deserved that. So I’m mad at him, too." Tears. Willie patted my hand. He was uncomfortable, but he waited around and we talked some more.

When I was calm he got up to leave. He scribbled an address on a crossword puzzle I had been working.

"I can’t tell you what to do," he said in a quiet voice, "but maybe you could just write Mac a little note of some kind to re-open the conversation. I won’t be seeing him for months, probably. I’ve decided to go to Officers’ Training School, and he’ll soon be in Connecticut. I won’t be seeing you, either, but I have to be honest: I hope you and Mac get back together."

He gave me a brotherly hug, we exchanged wishes of good luck, be careful, take it easy.

"Thanks, Willie," I said at the door as I let him out. "Mac is lucky to have such a good friend."

"Don’t forget," he answered, "I’m your friend too."

I hoped he had given me Mac’s address in Connecticut, but what he had scribbled was Mac’s address at Navy Pier in Chicago. Then I saw that Willie had left me his address, too. I felt a little less abandoned and alone.

I thought about what Willie had said. I remembered how well Mac and I seemed to be such a good fit, and how much we enjoyed just being together. I considered that he had tried to be kind, polite and thoughtful of my feelings until that last night. But then I reflected that, even so, he didn’t seem willing to listen to my point of view. I mulled the situation over for days. It was agony. Finally I concluded I wasn’t ready to call it quits. I wanted to find out if I was really in love with him and how he honestly felt about me, and I needed more time to see how the relationship would develop. I decided I that needed to give Mac an opening, a way for him to communicate with me, and I knew the first move had to come from me.

"Dear Mac," I wrote. "Remember that bet we had about whether it would rain? Well, you won, so your twenty-five cents is enclosed." After my signature I added. "P.S. I miss you."

The following year we were married.

Love in the Time of War

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