Author: William Douthwaite

Posted in Stories

Never too old, I guess.

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“There’s one. Grab it.”

My two year old granddaughter bend down to pick up a small twig, adding it to a fistful she would add to the fire pit at our campsite.

As we wandered down the path, past trailers, fifth-wheels, RVs, and a few tents, we happened by a guy sitting on a stump, playing a banjo. Nothing recognizable, but his notes that made us stop and watch and listen for a moment.

He nodded, smiled, and asked, “Is that your daughter or granddaughter?”

I chuckled. “Granddaughter.”

“You never know. My brother’s sixty-three; he and his girl just had a baby.”

I chuckled again. (I’m sixty-three.) I wondered out loud, “Can you imagine starting out at that age?”

This time, he shook his head, smiled and said, “Y’all enjoy.”

“There’s one.” She grabbed it and we headed back to our campsite. Almost time to kindle our fire.

Posted in Stories

Dead or alive?

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“If you ever see a dead possum on your front doorstep…”

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I see them in the road, just a step too slow to avoid traffic. I’ve seen their eyes aglow on the side of the road, staring down my headlights. According to some, it’s a good omen. Others say it’s a threat.

There is no way this possum had a heart attack or succumbed to COVID-19 or cashed in his chips right here outside my office door. Is this some kind of joke? Is someone trying to send me a message?

A dead fish on your doorstep means you will be killed. In the Godfather, a dead horse’s head in the bed was an offer you couldn’t refuse. A dead squirrel means you need more balance in your life. A dead bird is a sign of change and renewal. If you dream about a dead mouse, supposedly someone close to you is experiencing difficulty.

Or maybe he’s “playing possum.” He should be good at it. Pretending to be dead. A defense strategy to deter a predator. He saw me coming. He panicked. Instinct kicked in. He keeled over. Dead.

I grabbed a broom and swept him into the yard. Never saw him again.

Dead. Or alive?

Posted in senses, Stories

Silence was here.

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

For a brief moment this morning, I felt her presence. Silence was in the room.

The sky just beginning to lighten. The air conditioner is off. No one else is awake yet. No ice is falling in the freezer. The birds have not yet begun their song. The air is still. No cars pass by.

She rarely stops by. She never stays long.

Caffeine rings in my ear. My neck crunches when I move my head. My stomach rumbles. Is it time for breakfast? My pen scratches the paper. I reach for my coffee mug; my shoulder pops.

The dog breathes. A bird sings. A car drives by. The thermostat clicks. The air conditioner blows.

Silence was here. Now she’s gone.

Posted in flash fiction

The white violin

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Want to give it a spin?”

“Sure!”

What else did I have to do since the funding for the symphony dried up and I lost second chair. Without rehearsals or concerts to worry about, I had plenty of time on my hands. I’m not even sure why I wandered into the pawn shop. Just curious, I guess.

Plenty of jewelry in the glass case. I wonder how many engagements ended right here? All kinds of knives. People really carry blades that big? All kinds of bicycles. Tools. A few hardly used beginner trumpets and clarinets.

And a white violin.

It wasn’t a toy. It wasn’t spray painted. It was whitewashed and shiny. The strings were fairly new. The bow hardly used. When I ran my fingers across the strings, it was surprisingly in tune. It felt light in my hands and fit comfortably under my chin. Music resonated with the first pass of the bow.

“Can I step outside and play?”

“No problem. Give it a try.”

A few scales led to a couple of etudes and then a solo I had been working on. The notes filled the space outside the shop as the second movement changed to a minor key.

She stopped. Sobbing with tears running down her face, she just looked at me. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I’m a wreck.”

I stopped and so did she. “I’m just trying out a white violin. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

She just stared as I played a few syncopated major scales. And laughed. Along with the baby in the stroller. Not just a chuckle, but a side-splitting laugh and silly giggles.

I stopped and so did she. “Thank you,” she said, pushing the stroller down the street.

I launched into an aggressive series of diminished arpeggios, only to be confronted by an angry young man who stepped up and challenged me, “Oh yeah? You want a piece of this?”

I stopped. So did he.

Puzzled, I walked back inside the pawn shop. “What do you know about this violin?”

He shrugged.

I said, “How much?” He shrugged. I said, “Here,” and gave him a crumpled wad of bills from my pocket. It’s all I had. No supper tonight. I didn’t care.

I began walking down the street, playing. A familiar jingle from a fast food commercial. A car stopped and dropped a bag at my feet from that restaurant.

After supper, I played the theme from a car TV advertisement. A driver in that car pulled over and asked, “Need a ride?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll walk.”

I paused for a moment, then started to play a well-known love song.

“Hi,” she said. “Are you free tonight?”

Posted in flash fiction

Best hill ever

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Are you OK?”

I started over to the pile of little boys who had just slid down the AstroTurf hill on an old pizza box they found in the trash. They kept going when the box suddenly stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. Laughing and dirty, they jumped up and headed back up the hill, cardboard in tow.

Apparently, they were fine.

=======================

“And that’s the kind of playground we think will bring the children of the community together in a safe and fun environment.”

Artists’ renderings of swings, climbing rocks, twisty slides, tall treehouses, spring-mounted animals, swaying bridges, life-sized rope spider webs and winding tunnels wrapped around the meeting room. Rolls of blueprints covered the table. We’ve come a long way from metal monkey bars, squeaky chain swings and boiling-hot-in-the-summer metal slides. Every place a child could possibly fall was soft and cushiony.

The one person who counted, the woman holding a checkbook, sat quietly for a moment. Her eyes were moist but grateful. “This will be a wonderful memorial for a wonderful man who loved children and community.” With a smile, she ripped a check free and passed it across the table. “Thank you.”

========================

“Hey, want to go on the swings? Let’s try out the treehouse. Which slide do you want to try?”

It’s like I wasn’t even there. The cardboard sleds raced past me again and again.

Posted in church, memories

They closed the church

Posted on by William Douthwaite

My brother emailed me a few weeks ago to let me know that the church where we grew up, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania had closed. He thought the building was sold or given to an Ethiopian congregation that had been renting space there. The closing of the church feels like the loss of a close friend.

I was eight years old when our family moved from northeast Philadelphia to Ridley Park in 1965. We attended that church on Sundays because my aunt and grandmother lived in the adjacent apartment building, and that was their church. That’s how I became Lutheran.

When we first began worshiping there, the congregation met in a fairly small building that had a preschool and kindergarten wing on one side. I only have one memory from that older sanctuary. It’s from an Easter Sunday morning worship service. The pastor’s son, a few years older than me, was singing with the choir. He had a solo verse in a piece called, “In Joseph’s Lovely Garden.” He had a wonderful voice and sang well, but felt faint and passed out after his solo.

The congregation built a new sanctuary that I think was dedicated in 1968. My brother remembers going there with my dad to do things during construction, but I have no memories of that. The new sanctuary had two rows of 22 pews with a red-carpeted aisle between them. I know the exact number because I dusted them all many times when I worked there as a janitor while in high school. I have two vivid memories of the dedication worship service. From the loft the organ and piano played “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.” It was the first time I had ever heard that piece, and it too my breath away. The robed choir processed up and around the nave several times during the first hymn before ascending to the loft.

Our family always sat in the third pew from the front on the left hand side in front of the pulpit. My mom and dad never left us three kids there alone when they went up for Holy Communion. They went separately so the other could stay with us. A wise strategy. I didn’t find church all that exciting. The cross in the front consisted of many stained glass stones. We sat there and tried to count them all many, many times.

We never missed Sunday worship unless one of us was sick. I heard a lot of sermons from age eight until I graduated from high school. There is only one thing I remember from all my pastor’s sermons. He would preach about those who were on a “rolley-coaster to hell.” I’m not sure what that was, but I sure didn’t want to be on ride!

After high school, I went to college and then to work in New Jersey, only worshiping there when I was visiting my parents. Both mom and dad had their funerals there in 2005 and 2019 respectively. Over time, pastors came and went and the church went into a slow decline until her final service on May 9, 2021.

Over it’s seventy years, the church educated so many children on Sundays and during the week. It spawned four pastors that I know of, including my brother and I. It served it’s community in many ways.

If you grew up in the church, then you know there is something about the church you grew up in that makes it different than any other. When I grew up and moved away, it was hard to find a new place to worship. No other church ever really measured up.

Posted in flash fiction, Stories

A very nice gift

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“There’s more?” I wondered as I pulled yet another box of books off the closet shelf. “I’ll never get this all cleaned out.” I might be able to sell a few. I could give some away. I’ll probably just have to toss some.

“That’s strange.” I don’t remember ever buying this book. Hardcover. No slip cover. No title at all. Vol.1 stamped on the binding. Wait a minute, it doesn’t even open. It looks just like a book, but it’s solid, like a prop for a play or a decoration for a shelf. Not plastic, kind of leathery. Where did that come from?

I set it aside and boxed up everything else to stuff into the library donation box. They can deal with it. One more done; so many more to go. I’m talking a break.

I turned the book over and over in my hands. The cover was a raised pattern of overlapping silver, gold and copper crosses. No particular pattern, yet pleasing to the eye.

I’ll work on this some more tomorrow. I picked up the box of donation books and reached for my keys. That’s why that fake book seemed familiar. The small cross on my keychain looked like those on the cover. I usually don’t have anything extra on my keyring, but this was a special gift I had added. I dropped the box and held the cross up the cover of the book. A perfect match.

I felt a small vibration, like a cell phone haptic. I felt the spine of the book shift ever so slightly open in my hand. Opening it like a small door, I looked inside and pulled out a stack of hundred dollar bills, wrapped in a $10,000 band. I riffled the stack. All hundreds.

This can’t be real. Who’s is this? Where did this come from? What should I do with this? I put the stack back in and closed the spine. I couldn’t even tell that it had opened. I held the cross against the book and opened it up again. I pulled out the stack. They looked real. Very real.

The spine closed back up. I held the cross to the cover to open it back up. I don’t know what to do. Opening the book, I couldn’t slide the stack back in. What’s wrong? It looks like there’s another stack in there. No way. Pulled it out. It looked real.

Okay, let’s try this one more time. I shut the spine, placed the cross, and opened it up. Another stack. Quickly closing it up, I placed the book and the two stacks in my briefcase. Pulling out a piece of paper, I uncapped a fountain pen and began to write a better thank you note for the very nice gift.

Posted in Stories

We’re in good hands

Posted on by William Douthwaite

So I’m preaching. And the sermon is going well. My points are on point, my stories are connecting and my attempts at humor coax a hint of a smile from the most staid and serious congregants. So far, so good.

Suddenly, there’s a groan. Then a gasp. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see him go down. A few folks rush to see what’s wrong. Someone is already on the phone. Still another is out front waiting to direct the EMTs.

Now what? Bring everything to a halt? Just keep going? When in doubt, pray. Make the ultimate call for help. Done.

Now what? Sit there an do nothing? The silence is overwhelming, so we’ll sing. I call out a number of a familiar hymn. The organist introduces it and we work through the verses as the EMTs arrive to assess the situation. Before you know it, before the song is over, they’ve wheeled him out on the stretcher and pulled away in the rescue truck.

Now what? Well, where was I? As I reenter my sermon, I know that what we’ve just experienced is the point. This is the story. This is what should put a smile on our faces.

We’re in good hands, both human and divine.

Posted in Dad, memories

Lunch with Dad

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Hey, Dad!”

“Hey…William!”

“I get to have lunch with you today. How’s that sound?”

Dad simply shrugged.

“I think it’s time for us to head down to the dining room.” I flipped off the locks and the wheelchair began to roll towards the door, a familiar noontime ritual.

“Okay, I think this is your spot.” I pulled him up to the end of a long table and pulled up a chair next to him. ” Hi, everybody!”

Besides us, five sat around the table. One was nodding forward, doing. Another fiddled with a napkin. One smiled at me and asked, “So how do you like it here?” Another nodded.

After filling glasses with water and juice, one of the caregivers came around with a round of vegetable barley soup. I simply smiled and she set a cup in front of me. It was actually very good. My dad focused on his and I shared with him how my kids and grandkids were doing. Around the table, one lady poured her soup into her juice and stirred it up. The gentleman across from me pushed his cup of soup to the lady next to him and said, “Here, you can have it.” She slid it right back.

The main entree arrived next. Everyone had a choice. Grilled ham and cheese with potato chips, or a piece of grilled fish with some vegetables. I thought the sandwich looked pretty good. My dad didn’t look excited about either. The server set a sandwich in front of him.

Dad nibbled on a few of his chips as I ate my sandwich, pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was. At our table, some ate, some just sat, and some smiled at me as I tried to make conversation. “This is my Dad. I’m here from Florida. It’s snowing outside. How’s your lunch?”

Some smiled politely, some drank their juice, some looked off into the distance. Dad must have eaten a decent breakfast. He didn’t seem to be interested in lunch at all.

Until they brought out the ice cream.

Suddenly, everyone was on task. No one refused dessert. Everyone, including myself, dug into the small cup of vanilla. No matter what else is going on in the world or in your mind, if there’s ice cream, it’s a good day!

As we finished up our cups, I showed Dad the latest pictures of his great-grandkids. Some were wheeled away from our table. Others wandered off. Soon, it was just the two of us.

I gave him a hug as he asked, “Are you leaving already?”

“Yeah, my plane leaves in a few hours. But I’ll be up to see you again soon.”

Dad wouldn’t remember my visit to memory care that day. But I do.