Friday, Three Thirty

Women mostly, some widowed,

A sprinkling of men, veterans all,

And maybe they’re bowed, but unbending still,

They gather.

Once hardscrabble kids, some wore Government Issue,

Some made do by washing their clothes every night,

Kids blackening potatoes over campfires in the graveyard,

Shivering, mittenless, on crisp winter nights,

Some sent off to relations rich enough to feed them,

Longing for mother and father and home,

Some walked miles of dark streets under twinkle of stars,

To deliver morning papers before going to school, or

Shoveled slop after school at the pig farm,

Some soda jerking, store clerking,

Gathering cast-off metal for scrap,

Errand boys and babysitters, some

Waited on tables at the local coffee shop,

Scrounging their pennies,

Saving their pennies

Adding them up.

Ten cents would buy a ticket to the movies

For previews, newsreels, even cartoons,

And then the main show, a great double double feature

Tarzan the Ape Man, The Wizard of Oz,

It Happened One Night, Dancing Lady,

The Pride of the Yankees, You Can’t Take It With You,

Heroes and baseball, fantasies and music,

Bright wisps of fabric on legs kicking high,

And dreams that inspired, dreams to remember,

While tucking a small piece of cardboard –

It would do for a sole –

Into an old worn-out shoe,

Maybe scuffed, maybe well-worn, but shined up smart anyway.

These kids, who jitterbugged into the night,

Twisting and turning, pushing and pulling,

Waving a finger high in the air,

Gleaming eyes, gleaming hair, everything gleaming,

Even their dreams,

Especially their dreams.

These scrappy, scrawny kids

Who left school days behind to go fight a war

In Europe or in Asia, while some stayed home waiting,

Holding real tight to those hopes

That someday, yes, someday, things would get better,

Someday, they’d do it, the wars would be won,

Someday, the boys would come back,

Home to the girls they loved,

Who held down the fort,

Tending those home fires,

Keeping things running,

Working and praying, hoping and dreaming,

Writing and waiting for

Someday.

Dreaming those dreams big enough to last a lifetime,

Someday, those boys would get educations.

Someday, they’d manage to find themselves jobs.

Someday, they’d find ways to buy their own houses

And they’d get a chance at a dream of a life

With a good job, and a car, and a home and a yard for their kids

Who could go out to play,

Who’d always have enough to eat,

Who wouldn’t have to work every minute of the day

Because times might still be busy, but not quite so hard.

On the far side of dreams now,

Some things aren’t so rosy.

Investments are dwindling, and costs going up.

Financial security ain’t all it’s cracked up,

So it seems.

Counting their pennies,

Making do,

They hope it’s enough.

They’re all making their way,

Some walking, maybe not so fast, but still on their own,

Some with canes, some with walkers, some of them in wheelchairs,

Heading to the big room with pushed-together tables.

They now carry glasses tucked in a breast pocket,

Dangling from a cord around the neck,

Perched upon a nose grown prominent with years,

And one of their number holds a green-handled magnifying glass,

All the better for seeing things with.

They bring with them pads of dog-eared yellow paper,

Filled with the lovely script they’d learned

At wooden desks with inkpots and wrought iron legs in school houses long gone.

Those with hearing aids settle down near the center,

Those who hear well fan out to the corners.

They gather each week for writing workshop.

Sharing the bounty of stories,

Pieces and scraps and bits of their lives,

Of hard times and good times,

Working and playing, struggle and triumph and loss and love,

Youth and age, feats of daring and laughs that last,

The heartbeats  of kids who never gave up.