Colley

Colley was born into a very religious family and they were religious to the point of fanaticism. His entire family didn’t just go to church on Sundays like most folks; they went to church three times a week and twice on Sunday. If they weren’t there to pray, they were there to work. They were responsible for keepin the small church clean and orderly while the Reverend, their father, sat in his office and waited for messages from God.

Colley’s father, Alfred, was a minister in the small Pentecostal Church, which was located just a few miles down the Masardis Road from their home. His father, a tall, gaunt man had brown eyes that blazed with a religious fervor that consumed his very soul. His grandfather, George, had been a pretty decent farmer and when he died, he’d left everything to his son, Alfred. But, his only son and heir wasn’t interested in farmin, it was easier to be a preacher and the farm had gone to wrack and ruin in a heartbeat. His father would have rolled over in his grave if he could have seen his rich, farmland lying fallow, year after year and fallin to hell.

The only crop the Rev was interested in growin was in his church. He ran a pretty tight ship and that was puttin it mildly. He had total control of his family and his church. He was good at what he did and that was givin orders. He gave the orders and left it up to his wife and children to carry them out. If his wife dared to mention that there was very little food, no money with which to buy more and another child on the way, the Rev would simply roll his eyes towards heaven and say, “The Lord God will provide.” The subject was closed.

By the time Colley was born there were already three daughters ahead of him. His father took one look at the newest child and that was that. He was left totally in his mother’s care. From birth on, Colley was indoctrinated into the Holy Roller religion. His mother would gather up the small children and walk the mile and a half to the church for the worship services. She’d send the older children down to the very first pew to sit and wait until she’d finished greetin all the church members then she’d march the small boy down the aisle ahead of her to join her other children in the first row.

If Colley made the slightest sound during his father’s preachin or dared to cry, he was immediately taken to his father’s office where there was a tiny coat closet. The offending child was placed on the floor of the closet and the door was firmly shut. No matter how hard he cried or how long he screamed and kicked the door, the small boy soon learned that no matter what, no one was goin to come and let him out. He soon learned that he must be quiet when he was in the “House of the Lord” and he was there most of the time.

As Colley grew, he could cite chapter and verse of the bible at the drop of a hat. All that he needed to hear was a phrase or a word and the memorized litany would roll verbatim off his tongue. Colley’s father took this as a sign that his son was both blessed and gifted and he would sigh and roll his eyes towards heaven. That was the only time that his father really paid any attention to him. He was a “preacher to be.”

By the time Colley got to high school, he had the reputation as bein strange, not in a bad way but in a religious way. Kids avoided him like the plague because he had the tendency to preach at them. He was holier than holy and he never made a mistake. It wasn’t too long before he’d acquired the nickname “Rev,” just like his father.

He’d stand in the gym and listen to all the talk that swirled around him and make snap judgments about the other kids, based on his own religious teachings. If he heard something that was profane or shockin, to him, he’d walk right up to the offending person and say things to them like “God is watchin you.” Or “Don’t you know that it’s a sin to take the Lord’s name in vain?” Or “The only place you are goin to go is Hell!” Colley was about as popular as a pimple on your ass!

Colley lived about five miles from Ashland High School on the Masardis Road and as he grew older he became involved in sports. It was nothin for him to run the five miles home after basketball practice each night and it wasn’t too long before Colley had developed into a really good runner.

By his sophomore year, Colley was a pretty good athlete and Coach Grant pressured him to join the varsity basketball team. Joinin the team was almost the death of Colley. As soon as his feet hit the hardwood floor, all the other players had one goal in mind and that goal wasn’t to win the game; it was to try and do something that would make Colley lose his cool. He was tripped, elbowed, cussed, harassed, fouled and molested to the point that Coach Grant finally stepped in and told the other kids to leave him the friggin hell alone and “play” ball!

Colley didn’t have a lot of talent in regards to basketball but there was one thing that he did have and that was control. After years of sittin in the dark in a small, broom closet at church, he’d learned that no matter what life handed him, he could stuff it way down deep inside and it would never surface again. He had learned that as long as he was “in control” he was ok.

Colley especially hated the road trips. Whenever the team had an away game, Colley would wait until the coach had boarded the bus and then he’d get on and look for a seat as close to the coach as possible. The away games were pure hell for him because the coach couldn’t see all that the kids did to him on that dark, unlit bus ride.

The other players stole his duffel bag and took out all his gear and threw it out the windows or tied it in such knots that most of the time; he couldn’t get the knots out before the game started. He took to wearin his sneakers all the time because if he left them in his locker or in his bag, they’d disappear. The kids thought that if they harassed him enough, he’d quit basketball but he never did.

By the time he was a senior, the other kids had grown used to him. They still didn’t like him all that much and they still harassed him from time to time but they pretty much left him alone because they’d grown tired of harassin him and gettin no reaction and they now had other more pressin matters to deal with.

It was now nineteen sixty-four and Vietnam was staring them in the eyes. All the seniors knew that unless they could come up with a real good excuse, like leukemia or dying prematurely, they were going to be shipped off to the killing fields of Southeast Asia as soon as their diploma hit their sweaty hands.

Everyone was stunned when they walked past the Ashland High School principal’s office about a week before graduation and saw Colley sitting in front of the Army Recruiter. What the hell would a “holier than thou” person like Colley be doin talkin to the recruiter, they all asked each other.

On June twelfth, a hot, humid night in nineteen sixty-four, Colley was handed his diploma and at eight am the next morning, he was on a Greyhound bus headed south. He’d been in the “Army of God” for as long as he could remember and now he was in an entirely different army, the U.S. Army.

He sailed through basic training just fine and no matter what his drill instructors did or said, they couldn’t break him. He took it all in and waited for more abuse to be heaped on him. They’d never seen anyone like him. They tried every tactic they could think of and he didn’t flinch, waver or crack. He just stuffed it down and buried it along with all the other abuse he’d endured all his life. This was nothin new to him. All the instructors agreed that if any man in that unit had to be captured, they sure as hell hoped it was Colley because he would be the one that the enemy wouldn’t be able to break. “That son-of-a-bitch ain’t human,” one drill instructor said to the others.

At the end of basic training, Colley didn’t even go home on leave. He simply boarded the first military plane headed for Nam and he was gone. His ever-present bible was immediately replaced with an M-16 rifle. He had a new protector now and not only did he leave Maine behind; he left God behind too.

Twenty-four hours later, he stepped off the plane into Hell. The land had such a lush greenness that the color almost hurt his eyes and the heavy, wet air was permeated with smells that he’d never smelled before in the crisp, clear air of the county. Napalm, jet fuel, Agent Orange and the smell of death, were immediately imprinted upon his memory in his brain. He knew he would never get that smell out of his head for as long as he lived.

Colley was quickly loaded aboard a helicopter and flown south to the Me- Kong River Delta. His instructions were, “Hunker down in a rice paddy and if anything moves, blow the son-of-a-whores to hell!” Colley was good at taking orders and his perfect record in heaven was soon shipped down to be forever recorded in Hell.

Two years, eleven months and fourteen days was the length of time that Colley spent in Hell. He saw sights that inflamed his mind and he quickly stuffed them down, down deep inside and in the dark of night if those memories came crawlin up like a long, black snake, he’d take a deep breath and beat them down again. It was the livin that bothered him; he could deal with the dyin.

It was a warm, fall day in late September, nineteen sixty-seven when Colley returned to the county. When he’d left, he’d had the demeanor of a saint. All the years of being a bible thumper and a humble servant of the Lord had made him seem young and vulnerable. Now, he was six feet tall and twenty-one years old but inside he’d felt like he was a hundred and fifty. He was no longer vulnerable either. He walked with the assurance of a man who’d met the enemy and kicked his ass! He didn’t swagger but he walked in the boots of a man who’d witnessed what evils the world held and he wasn’t a man to be messed with. The left side of his uniform was filled with row upon row of bars and medals. He’d paid his dues!

It was just before noon when the bus finally rolled into the station in Presque Isle. He walked down Main Street for a short distance and went into a used car dealership where he rented a brand-new red, Corvette. He threw his gear into the seat and headed for Ashland. He drove quickly down the Presque Isle road and slowed down as he came to the sleepy, farming town of Mapleton. “Things haven’t changed all that much,” he thought to himself. “Hell, I could be gone a hundred years and things in this part of the world would still look the same.”

He pulled into the rest stop at the bottom of Haystack Mountain, took off his jacket and tossed it into the bucket seat. He took a cold beer out of his bag, shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans and started up. After about forty-five minutes of straight climbing, he reached the top. This was one of the things that he’s promised himself when he was back in Nam. If he made it home all in one piece, he was going to climb this little anthill and drink a cold brew at the top.

He pried the top off the bottle of beer and flicked it over the edge of the rocks. Then he brought his hand up, shaded his eyes and looked to the south. He saw the majestic snow-covered peak of Mount Katahdin off in the distance.

Colley turned west and looked in the direction of Ashland and all he saw was a vast forest of green stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. A slight, cool wind blew from the south and Colley could hear the ever-present sound of a chainsaw as it ate its way through the virgin timber of the county. “Some friggin things never really change,” he muttered to himself as he took another swig of the cold beer.

He found that going down was a littler harder than the climb up and his heart leapt into his throat a couple of times when he misjudged the trial. When he’d finally made it back to the bottom, he opened another beer and leaned against the car to drink it. He drained the bottle and chucked into the bushes at the side of the trail, checked the time and headed for the “vet.”

He floored the new Corvette and flew up the Presque Isle Road into Ashland in a couple of minutes and came to a stop at the corner of the Presque Isle Road and the Masardis Road. He sat where he was for a moment and looked at the front of Jimmo’s Grocery Store and his mind went back to all the nights that he’d stood on that corner after late basketball practice, in the mind-numbing cold, thumbing a ride home. “Nights when the mercury slid three clapboards below zero too,” he laughed to himself. After enduring the hell and heat of Vietnam, for nearly three years, he wasn’t really sure what had been worse, the heat or the cold. One was just as bad as the other he guessed. It just depends on your point of view.

He turned left and slowly made his way up the Masardis Road towards home. He couldn’t get enough of lookin as his eyes took in the long fields of potatoes. He’d forgotten how green the potato plants really were and God knows, he’d picked enough of them! He slid over the small bridge that spanned Squaw Pan Stream and made his way around the corner towards Masardis. It wasn’t long before his old home loomed up in the distance and he was surprised to feel a lump in his throat. “There’s nothing like goin home,” he said to himself as he wheeled the car into the dirt drive.

An old dog, asleep on the porch, pulled himself up off the floor and came slowly down the steps as Colley drew to a stop in front of the house. Nearly three years and he hadn’t written a letter. He didn’t know if they even knew what had happened to him. A wash of shame slid over him. “Well, it’s kinda late to worry about that now,” He said to himself as he eased himself out of the low vehicle and walked slowly over to the waiting dog. “Hi, Sunny.” He said softly as he knelt down and rubbed the dog’s head. The old dog shook all over with excitement as he finally recognized the visitor.

Suddenly, the screen door opened and his mother stood there in the cool, darkness of the shed. The once tall figure was now stooped and she walked hesitantly with the aid of a cane. “Sunny, come Sunny,” she commanded and the old dog reluctantly turned away to do as he was told. Colley dropped his hand and waited for his mother to recognize him. She shielded her eyes against the noonday sun and looked at him for a long moment and then she turned back towards the kitchen door and her words trailed in the air behind her. “Well, God does protect fools and children after all,” And she went inside and the screendoor banged shut behind her.

Colley smiled at hearing her words and headed for the house. His mother stood with her back to the door and she was stirring something in a pan on the stove. Colley walked past her and over to the table that looked out on the backfields of the farm. He was shocked at the way everything was so overgrown with popples and brush. He couldn’t tell where the fields started or ended anymore. All that hard work that his grandfather had done to clear this farm at the turn of the century was all gone now to wrack and ruin.

His mother turned and looked him over real good and then she walked over to the table and set a plate in front of him. He looked down and saw that it was filled with home fries, two eggs and toast. She poured him a large mug of black coffee and slid that across the table towards him. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down. He started to eat and waited for the inevitable questions that never came. His mother, ignored him, sipped her scalding coffee and looked out at the land.

Colley cleaned off his plate with a last piece of toast and tipped back his chair until it was resting on two legs. “So,” he said, “Is dad asleep or what?” Hearing this, his mother slid her brown eyes around until she was looking directly at him. “Well, I guess you could say that.” She answered. Hearing the vagueness of her answer, Colley looked at her. “A lot can happen in three years Colley,” She said. “Father died in May of “65’ and we buried him behind the church. The girls are scattered all over the place. Emma and Gerta are married and live in town and Emily lives over to Presque Isle.”

Colley felt his face turn red with shame and he dropped his gaze. His mother resumed her vigil at the window. “How long are you stayin?” she asked without looking at him. Colley cleared his throat and replied, “I’m out of the Army for good and I’ve paid my dues!” Hearing the finality in his voice she said, “You probably have and then some. We saw all that was goin on over there on the nightly news and I’d of worried more if I had known for sure that that’s where you really were.”

Again, Colley felt shame slide across his mind. “You know Colley, father always thought that you’d take over the church someday and he never did get over the fact that you just up and left without a word to anyone. We were never really sure what had happened to you.”

Hearin this, Colley shifted uncomfortably in his chair and then he said. “Mum, I know that I appeared to like all that religious stuff but it really wasn’t what I wanted to do. I’d heard it all my life and I had a gut full. Father always insisted that I’d be the one to take over the church but I couldn’t do it. So, I decided to go before father suspected that I wasn’t interested. I didn’t really intend to join the army if the truth be known. It could just as well have been the Navy or any other branch. But the army recruiter just happened to be there that day and I made my decision and that was it. I signed up and the rest is history.”

“Well son, I’m just glad that you’re home and all in one piece. We can discuss what you’re going to do with yourself later on.” With that, she pushed her chair back, stacked the dishes in her hand and headed for the sink.

“Pretty snazzy car sittin out there if you ask me,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s not mine mother, I just rented it in Presque Isle and I have to take it back in a week or so. I should know what I’m going to do with myself by then.”

Colley spent the next couple of days visiting his sisters and his old classmates and it was on his first Saturday night home that was to change his life forever. He’d gone into town about noon and had ambled over to Michaud’s Restaurant to have a few. Just as he was about to take a long drink, a large hand slapped him on the shoulder. Startled, he swung around and looked into the wild eyes of one of his old classmates, John Gordon. “John, you old son of ah bitch! What the hell are you doin home?” “Same as you Rev, same as you!” Colley looked up at him. “You mean to tell me that you were in Nam also? Where were you?” “Me? Hell, I was stationed up along the 49th parallel in the DMZ. My unit was in charge of settin sensors. Hell man, we had a body count of over twenty thousand during the Tet offensive and they weren’t all ours if you get my drift.”

With that, John slapped twenty dollars down on the bar and signaled to the barman for a bottle of Chivas Regal. When the bottle came sliding down the bar, John twisted off the top and poured the raw liquor down his throat in one swift move. He never even swallowed. “How tha hell did you do that?” Colley asked him. “Rev, you learn a lot of things in that hellhole that you ain’t never gonna use in real life but this is one thing that I learned that I can use forever!” And he lifted the bottle and poured the liquor down his throat. “You see, my friend, if you don’t swallow, you can drink and not make a sound, because a slight sound in the DMZ can get you real dead in a hurry!”

Now that Colley had a friend, he spent the next month in a drunken frenzy. His mother, shocked at her son’s deterioration, tried to talk to him but once she realized that he wasn’t about to listen, she gave up. Colley spent his nights in drunken stupor and his days in bed. One day slid into another and his mother kept hoping and praying that someone or something would change Colley and in the end she was sorry that she’d prayed.

It was the night before Halloween and the moon in the county was large and round and looked like a big pumpkin floating across the night sky. There was a hint of frost in the air with the wind out of the north and folks said that there’d be snow on the ground by mornin. Colley zipped his jacket up to his neck as he waited on the corner of Main Street for John to pick him up.

Just as he was about to give up, he saw the familiar blue Charger round the corner by St. Mark’s Church and head his way. John opened the door before he’d even stopped and Colley jumped in. John gunned the motor, wrenched the wheel and suddenly, with a screech of tires, they were headin back up Main Street towards Station Hill. John didn’t stop for the flashing red light at the intersection; he tore around the corner on two wheels and down over Station Hill like a bat outta hell. He flew up the Portage Road and on up through the small settlements of Winterville, Eagle Lake and Wallagrass towards Fort Kent like a man on a mission. And if the truth be known he was.

They sailed into the main street of Fort Kent and hit every bar until all the drinks they’d had and bars they’d tried, melted into one. At the start of the evening, Colley had tried to slow down John’s drinking but after a while it became too much of a struggle and he gave up. Colley, knowin that he’d probably have to drive home, tried to go easy on the booze but John, noticin that Colley wasn’t matchin him drink for drink, began pourin it on. And it wasn’t long before Colley was just as drunk as he was.

When they finally staggered out to the car around three, Colley argued with John about who was goin to drive and John pulled rank on him. He grabbed Colley by the neck and said, “I got your ass up here in one piece and I can git you home!” He opened the door and shoved Colley into the passenger side and stumbled around the car and fell into the driver’s seat. He fumbled with the key for a couple of minutes and finally got the car started. Hearin the sound of the motor, John leaned over and punched Colley in the arm. “See ole buddy, jist lay back and good ole John will git you home in a jiffy.”

The ride back wasn’t all that different from the ride up to Fort Kent. The trees and miles still flashed by in a blur and John’s driving hadn’t improved one dite. John kept his foot pressed to the accelerator and the miles flew by and it wasn’t too long before they were pullin into the outskirts of Ashland.
Colley slid his sleeve up a notch and checked his watch, three forty-five. They’d made the trip back in a little under forty minutes! “God!” he thought to himself, “We didn’t drive all them miles, we flew!”

They slowed down just a dite as they cruised through the Main Street of Ashland and the minute they passed Jimmo’s Grocery Store, John floored the car and they went tearin up the Masardis Road. All the places that Colley had hitch-hiked past all his life flew by, the Pike homestead, the Rafford place, the McKays, the Old South School site, the Winslows, the Cowetts, the Howes, the Bragdons, the Davenports and the Colbaths. Places that he hadn’t thought about in a long time. Some of the old homesteads were in pretty good shape and others were listin just a dite towards Sawyers.

Just as the Old Pentecostal Church loomed into view, he reached over and grabbed John’s arm. “Slow down a little, will you buddy. I want to take a look at the place where I spent most of my life.” John stepped on the brakes and the car slowed to a crawl. Colley looked at the small, neglected building, for the longest moment and then he turned to John and gave him a “thumbs up “sign and then he said. “I’ve got my answer man; I know what I’m goin to do with the rest of my life.” John looked over at him, “And what’s that goin to be, my man?” Colley laughed and replied, “That’s for me to know and you to find out! I’ve got a debt that I have to pay, that’s all.” John floored the car and they tore down the road like the devil himself was after them, and he was.

The car was goin so fast as it tore down the Masardis Road that the engine sounded as though it were screamin. John saw the short bridge that spanned Squa Pan Stream loom up in front of them and by then it was too late. The car became air-born and flew over the bridge and head-on into the trees on the other side of the bridge.

Neither man ever knew, what hit him. John was dead in an instant and Colley would never be the same. Folks said that the car was travelin so fast that it impaled itself in the trees. When they tried to pull the wreck out of the trees, it wouldn’t budge. They had to cut the car off the trees with blowtorches.

Colley, with severe head injuries, was airlifted down to Bangor and spent nearly six months in the trauma unit of Bangor General Hospital. When he finally came home, he was a totally different man. He couldn’t talk and he had a great deal of trouble walking and he couldn’t stay home. He wandered the roads of the county over and over again. He could be found standin by the road anytime, day or night, with his thumb stuck out, lookin for a ride. Folks said that if you stopped and picked him up, he’d get in and sit there without sayin a word and he’d get out as soon as you stopped. Then, he’d stick his thumb out and wait for a ride on to someplace else. Folks often wondered if he’d ever find the place that his mind, or what little there was left of it, was lookin for.

Colley is long gone now and folks say it sure gives them a start when they’re drivin down the Masardis Road late at night and Colley’s ghost suddenly looms up ahead of them in the road. Skeptics, upon hearin the story, often ask the teller how they knew it was Colley. Folks look at the disbeliever as though he were stupid and reply, “Folks around here all know its Colley. The ghost has always got his thumb stuck out; he’s still lookin for a ride.”

By Martha Stevens-David 2002

Dorothy

Dorothy Rossignol was my best friend ever since I could remember. We started first grade together and were friends right through high school. She lived with her parents, bachelor Uncle Vivan and fourteen brothers and sisters at the very end of the old Fenderson Road. Her brothers were also my brother’s best friends. If it involved the Rossignals, it involved us.

Dorothy was a tall, pale, thin girl and she wore her dark ash blond hair skinned back in a long pony tail and her eyes were a greenish blue with natural dark lashes. She had a unique sense of humor and we spent many happy hours laughing together at our brother’s expense.

We rode the bus daily throughout the school year. The bus driver would drive up the Masardis Road from Ashland until he reached the Fenderson Road. Then he’d drive to the very end of the road, turn around in the Rossignal’s driveway, pick up all the kids and then drive back to the Masardis Road. He’d then cross to our road, the old Goding Road, where he’d proceed to pick up the Dionnes, the Mountains and us. Then we’d all drive to the small settlement of Squa Pan where the bus would turn around and head back down the Masardis Road to the Ashland Elementary School and then on up to the high school. The whole trip was approximately twenty miles each way so some of us kids had a forty mile bus ride to school and back each day.

In those days, kids didn’t get to sleep over at other people’s houses like they do now. If Dorothy wanted me to come over for a visit, then we had to get our brothers, Jake and Lynwood, to agree to ask if they could stay over too. That way, each mother had the same amount of kids. So, if I went to stay with Dorothy, then her brother Lynwood came to stay at our house or vice versa. This “swap the kid” system worked out well for our harried parents.

Neither of us had a telephone. If we wanted to get in touch with each other, one of us had to walk to the other’s house to see them. If I wanted to see Dorothy, after getting mother’s permission, I’d set out to walk, run and skip the five miles to her house. This lonely, lovely country walk usually took about three hours.

The Rossignol house sat at the very top of a high hill and they could see everything for miles and miles around. They could see nearly the whole distance down the Fenderson Road to the Masardis Road and they usually saw us coming and someone would come running down the dirt road to meet us. Sometimes we’d have a prearranged schedule to meet each other half-way along the road on a given day at a given time and this usually worked out quite well.

In the summer, it was quite wonderful to set out early in the fresh morning air and see the landscape change right before your eyes. Every dip and valley seemed to have a special offering if you just took the time to notice. There were always wild flowers along the road or in the ditch. We picked fragrant white and purple violets, May flowers, yellow lady slippers and stinkin benjamins. We picked hundreds of yellow dandelion blossoms and made bracelets, necklaces and headbands out of them. We’d slip down into the grass-filled road sides and pick wild strawberries as big as our thumbs. We’d skip along the road stopping every now and then to pick up a shiny rock or pebble that happened to catch our attention. We saw snakes, frogs, toads, birds, rabbits, deer, moose and any other creature that one might find in the wilds of Aroostook County. By the time we arrived at Dorothy’s house, we’d seen and experienced so many new things that we were just bursting to tell each other all our news.

Dorothy’s house was quite different from ours because there were always more people around. Not only were there dozens of kids to play with but there were also many adults to talk to too. It was always an experience to stay at Dorothy’s house. Breakfast was an affair to remember. Mrs. Rossignol was very clean and neat and she always prepared a breakfast that would have rivaled a breakfast in any of the world’s finest hotels. She made scrambled eggs with bits of crispy, fried pork sticking out of them and hash brown potatoes sautéed with fried onions. Or, she’d fry bacon until it was crisp and then she’d crumble it all over the poached eggs, topped off with huge pat of her very own golden, homemade cow’s butter and you had yourself a treat.

She’d take a pan of biscuits out of the oven and poke a hole in the top of each one with her thumb and then she’d pour hot maple syrup, molasses, or honey into the hole and top it off with a lump of cow’s butter. Her yeast bread, muffins and buttermilk doughnuts were beyond perfection. And all of this was served with strong coffee, black tea, fresh milk with the cream still on the top and baked beans. It was a wonderful affair. All of the food was either homegrown or homemade and we’d eat until our eyes glazed over and then stagger off to have a nap and recover and wait for the next meal.

Dorothy’s father, Frank, was a gentle, soft spoken man and he used to tease Dorothy and me about all the boyfriends we were going to have when we finally got a bosom. Dorothy and I would look at each other and laugh because from the looks of our flat chests, it was going to be a very long time before either one of us had a boyfriend.

Her father and his bachelor brother Vivan had built their house and started the farm together in the early years. When her father, Frank, married Dorothy’s mother, she moved in with the two brothers and proceeded to fill the house with offspring. Her uncle lived with his brother’s family all of his life until he died when he was in his late eighties.

Uncle Vivan had a large bedroom which was situated on the second floor of the unfinished two-story house. Sometimes, if there was no one else in the house, Dorothy and I would sneak into his room to have a look at what an old bachelor’s bedroom looked like. He usually had a huge stack of “girlie” magazines piled on the wooden floor under his bed and since his bedroom was located directly above their kitchen, Mrs. Rossignol could hear if someone walked into his room. Upon hearing our feet on the floor, she’d yell that we’d better get out of Uncle Vivan’s room or else! We’d look at each other, grab a few of his magazines and run for Dorothy’s room across the hall as though the devil himself were after us. Once safe, we’d sit on the floor and look through the “girlie” magazines until we were bored then we’d find something else to do and there was always something else to do at their house.

Because she lived on a farm, we could go out and climb in the hay loft, pick apples in their orchard or play with all the baby animals. Sometimes Mrs. Rossignol would catch sight of our two blond heads going through the tall grass and she’d let out a yell, “Dorothyeeeee and Tooter!” and we’d have to go and help her do something. Generally though, we were left to do pretty much as we pleased.

Uncle Vivan’s bedroom wasn’t the only attraction in that house. There was another bedroom; her parent’s that we only got to see when there was absolutely, positively no one else at home but us. We’d wait until just the right opportunity and then Dorothy would sneak me inside. We’d carefully close the door and lean against it. This was a bedroom unlike any other bedroom on the face of the earth.

Like us, the Rossignols didn’t have electric lights at that time either and it was very dark in that room. Dorothy would light the kerosene lamp on the night stand and we’d hop up on her parent’s bed and lie there. We’d gaze about the room in awe. Her parent’s bedroom, the ceiling and the walls, was completely “wallpapered” from top to bottom with pictures of “naked or semi-naked” ladies. The entire walls and ceiling were one massive collage of pasted on pictures of women in various poses of undress. We’d look and look for as long as we dared and then we’d blow out the lamp and get the hell out of there!

We’d run up the long staircase into Dorothy’s room and throw ourselves onto her bed in a fit of laughter. It hadn’t impressed us too much but for my brothers, that was a completely different matter. After each visit to the Rossignal farm, Jake would come home and discuss “the bedroom” with Walt and Bub. “You know Walt,” Jake said, “I’d sure like to have a bedroom like that some day!” Once, I overheard my brothers telling Dad what they’d seen in Mr. Rossignol’s bedroom. Mother, overhearing, remarked. “That explains why they have such a large family!”

Every so often, a country music band would come to play in Ashland at the old opera house. The time I remember most was when Don Gibson, the famous country singer, was scheduled to play. He had a current hit called “Oh Lonesome Me!” Dorothy and I spent hours singing that song together when we walked each other home or on the school bus. Dorothy decided that she and I were going to practice so that we could enter the singing contest. We practiced and practiced and when the time came for us to enter the contest, I backed out. I just couldn’t go through with it. Dorothy entered it with her sister Florence. They didn’t win but, they had quite a good time anyway.

By the time we were fifteen or so, our lives began to take different directions. We didn’t see so much of each other because I’d left home to live with the Paul Rider family in Ashland. I’d go to school during the day and then work for the family taking care of their small children after school and on weekends. Dorothy was older than me by a year and the next thing I knew, she announced that she was going to quit school and get married! It seems that she had gone with one of her older sisters to a dance at Loring Air Force Base and she had met an airman there. I tried to talk her out of it but her mind was made up. She got married and moved with her military husband back to his home state of Georgia.

We lost track of each other after I’d graduated in 1963, when I too married and moved to Connecticut to live. My husband and I returned to Maine each year during our yearly summer vacation but Dorothy and I never managed to make it home at the same time except for one occasion.

In July of nineteen sixty-five, I became sick with viral meningitis on the way to visit my family in Ashland and ended up in the hospital in Presque Isle. Dorothy was home visiting her parents and she came to see me. She looked exactly the same except for the fact that she was pregnant with her second child. As we laughed and talked about our childhood memories, I asked her if she liked living in Georgia. She said that she liked it okay but she really didn’t like her husband’s family all that much. She said that after her new baby came, she was going to leave her husband and return with her children to her family here in Maine.

We again lost track of each other over the next few years but every time I was home, I’d go to see her parents and ask how everyone was doing. I was always greeted as though I was one of their own long lost kids and it was a happy reunion for me. But not this time, I was shocked to learn that my best friend was dead! “Dead, she can’t be! Not Dorothy!” “Oh yes, she is Tooter,” Mrs. Rossignol said sadly. “She died down there in Georgia and they cremated her and buried her before we were even told!” I went home in a state of shock and sadness.

Over the years, I heard the rest of the story in bits and pieces. Dorothy’s family strongly suspected that she had been murdered by her husband and they even hired a private detective to try to find out if it was true but they were never able to prove it. It seems that her in-laws had her body cremated as quickly as possible and there was no real evidence left.

Her parents did succeed in bringing their daughter’s body home for burial and my dear friend lies at rest in the small Ashland Cemetery, right next to her parents and Uncle Vivan. I don’t get to go home very often anymore but, when I do, I always make it a point to go and visit Dorothy. Rest in peace my sweet friend, until we meet again…