Trains, airplanes, art and love; it's like a poetry salad for a Memorial Day picnic.
In early March some Brethren students and I finished up another Elders Project sponsored by SEEDS.
Since then I've been polishing up the kids' poems and writing a few myself.
All the interviews were conducted by middle and high school kids.
The Elders Project reaches deep into the primitive origins of history, storytelling and poetry. At right are three samples of the folk poems culled from the event.
I'm always amazed at how much more alive the landscape becomes when you hear the tales intertwined with the surrounding area. I'd never given a thought to how High Bridge Road got its name. Now I know.
So all aboard the memory train. If you hear some little ghosts giggling in the bathroom, after the first poem you will understand.
Don Stewart (83) High Bridge
If you drive down High Bridge Road
south of Brethren
headed north"¦on the corner of River Road
and High Bridge,
you can see an old trail
coming through the woods
at an angle.
That's the old railroad grade
going up the side of the hill.
If you look east from the road
about ninety feet,
that's where the bridge was.
The High Bridge
crossed the Manistee River Valley.
If you wanted to go places
you took the train.
There weren't any roads,
just trails.
One elderly lady told me
a story about that train years ago.
Riding the passenger cars
across the High Bridge
she said looking out the windows
you couldn't see the bridge.
It was like flying.
They were just kids,
and would go in the bathroom
and flush the toilet.
There was no tank under the bowl.
The water poured out on the tracks.
So they would flush the toilet
and look through the hole
at the bridge
and the river way below.
-- Terry Wooten
Evelyn Sorenson (95) "We"
In 1927 Charles Lindbergh flew across
the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the first time
anyone had flown
across that big expanse of water.
I was twelve years old.
Lindbergh was everyone's hero
for a long time.
Referring to his accomplishments
Charles always said, "We."
A lot of artists,
when they look
at something they've created
think, "Did I do that?"
It seems something was there
besides their own limitations.
I just wrote a blues song
that was played down in Memphis
at a national blues contest.
A friend of mine was there
with his band,
and played my song.
He likes to tell everybody
that his friend who is ninety five
wrote it.
My main art is tapestries.
One of them won a contest
a couple months ago.
When I look at my tapestry that won
best show,
I have that "We" feeling too.
Could I have done that myself?
There must've been some help.
I think that's what Charles Lindbergh
was talking about.
-- Terry Wooten
Al Leslie (84) A Year and Four Days
by Andrew Darling (Brethren High School)
I met her at a swimming party.
When I was a kid
I hung around the water.
It was a cold day,
wind, blustery and temperatures down to low sixties.
Here she was
swimmin' off the pier.
"How'd you get in the water?" I asked
"I dove in," she said.
"With all those stones and rocks?"
"I missed 'em"
I started talkin' with her.
She was interested in me.
The gal she was in college with gave her my phone number.
We set up a date.
From then on it was love,
lots of lovin'.
The first year
I would drive to Kalamazoo on Friday,
(She was a college educated gal.)
or she would come home for the weekends.
We'd have date night.
We got married
after my season on a lake freighter.
"Albert, I wanna marry you,
but not if you're gonna stay a sailor."
That made up my mind real quick.
We did our honeymooning down in Florida.
She made a wish
that we could be in our own house
within a year.
It took a year and four days.
