By Juliana Lavitola

     Mom and I were butting heads again.

     “Why do you ask so many questions?”

    “Because I’m curious.”

    “Curiosity killed the cat!”

    “Satisfaction brought him back!” 

    But even if it’s satisfying I learned curiosity can be detrimental if you are, at the same time, naïve. 

    After tearfully breaking up a three-year courtship with my steady high-school sweetheart because he had a wandering eye, my younger brother suggested I date an Army veteran, home after ending his a tour of duty guarding the 38^th parallel in Korea. 

    “Come on, Sis.  He’s been away for a few years and doesn’t know anyone.” 

    “I’m having fun with my girlfriends.  I don’t want to meet anyone.” 

    “You’re going to end up an old maid!” 

    Giving in, after dating this army guy for two months, he proposed marriage.  My response was a firm, “No.  I do not know you long enough.”  Even though he was the perfect gentleman, it was evident there were no sparks flying.   

     We continued dating, sharing friendships with recently married friends, when he proposed for the second time.  This time, I told him, “I’ll have to think about it.” 

    A few nights later, I approached my older brother, recuperating at home from his Navy tour in the South Pacific, “Would you please walk me to my girlfriend’s home across town?”  He agreed and I bombarded him with questions. 

     I told him of the two marriage proposals and that I was torn between the love I had for my high-school sweetheart and the feelings I had for this other gentleman who was nice, comfortable and fun to be around with the friends we had in common. 

    Would love come later in a marriage? I asked him for his opinion. 

     All he would offer is “He seems like a nice guy.”  

    A few days before Easter of 1961, I decided to accept the gentleman’s beautiful engagement ring.  My family was thrilled and wished us all the best. 

    I was dumbfounded when my fledgling fiancé made feeble excuses not to inform his mother about our engagement.   

    Easter Sunday, sitting in a pew at church, twirling my ring with its emerald-cut diamond set in white gold glistening from the rays of the sun pouring through the window, I saw my mother-in-law-to-be. She was a singer in the choir. 

    Sad and embarrassed, I prayed for guidance. 

    My curiosity pushed me into approaching my fiancée again about his mother. But he was adamantly against it. 

    Distraught, I gave him an ultimatum. “Either take me to your mother’s house or you can have your ring back.”  He relented and drove me to his house. 

    His mother and sister were there and invited me to sit on a couch where I hugged a pillow for support.  

    Our announcement touched off outrage and screaming of a level that I, as a member of a family of eight where no one raised their voices with such anger, I was not accustomed. When his sister flung a shoe sharply just over his head, crying out, “How could you treat your mother like this?”  I hugged the pillow more tightly and I was much relieved when finally they were all spent. 

    My fiancée apologized for his family’s behavior, explaining, “They never approve of what I do.  They’re still upset over me signing up for the Army at 17 after I threatened to run away from home if Mom didn’t sign the approval papers.”  

    I put my concerns aside and everyone seemed congenial as we proceeded with plans for a wedding the following spring. 

    Our wedding announcement appeared in a newspaper and was seen by my old impetuous 

high school sweetheart. He showed up at the car dealership where I worked as a receptionist.  He leaned over the counter with his familiar smile. 

    “I stopped by just to say ‘Hello’ and to let you know I’m engaged too.” 

    We exchanged congratulatory compliments and he asked, “How about going out to lunch for old-time’s sake?  We could drive up to Botsford for one of their famous foot-long hotdogs.”  

    Hesitantly, but also curiously, I agreed and placed my purse between us on the seat of my old Chevy hoping he would get the message to stay on the passenger side. 

     Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him groping in my purse.  “I’m just looking for a cigarette,”  he said. 

   “You do not have that privilege anymore,” I yelled, swerving and redirecting the car back into the proper lane.  “We are not a couple anymore.  So stay out of my purse.” 

    Mother’s retort, “Curiosity killed the cat!” resounded in my head. I could see a newspaper headline: “Head-on collision on Rt25 Northbound.  Female driver and male passenger both died at the scene. Contents of her purse were scattered everywhere. They were both engaged to be married but not to each other.” 

    Years later I learned my old beau became a Bridgeport policeman and he was shot and killed by a sniper while driving his patrol car on the Merritt Parkway. 

    So it came to pass my gentleman friend and I were united with the religious ritual of a candle-lit church ceremony and all the pageantry and pomp, the three-tier cake topped by the miniature bride and groom, the scramble by the bridesmaids for the bouquet of flowers and the sparkling shower of confetti. 

    We brought three wonderful children into the world. But it became evident the marriage was bereft of the ardor and passion that sustains and enriches a relationship. 

    After 13 years, alone in the house with the children at school and husband at work, I gazed out a window overlooking our 20 acres of beautiful wooded property, I was struck that I really was alone with no sense of sharing. 

    Before me, I saw a dreary future. Our marriage ended with a divorce.   

    In the ensuing years I found love in a second but fulfilling marriage after raising my three children to adulthood. Two married and I became a grandmother of five. 

    My curiosity was satisfied by finally discovering that true love is a passionately communicated relationship filled with common interests and unity of family encompassed with love and laughter. 

    My naivety was replaced by compatibility built on caring, compassion and kindness.

By J.M. Whitmohr

           Firemen in Cloverton knew Fannie McDougal. So did the police. She did more single-handedly training them in novel rescues than any state program.

A decade ago Fannie suddenly realized she was teaching her first students’ children’s children, and retired. Remembered as the teacher who made Shakespeare come alive for 37 years, everyone in town treasured her.

Fannie’s strength was creative problem solving, a skill she’d learned from her widowed mother during the great depression. Consequently she was always reluctant to seek help.  Her weakness was God’s small creatures. She loved them. She lived with a yellow canary whose cage hung in a window of her Victorian home— so he could talk with birds visiting the birdfeeder outside.

 It was her empathy for animals that often led her to creative problem-solving which too often led to a predicament. Fannie’s current predicament was instigated when a parakeet landed on the bird feeder.

 “Heaven, help me,” she exclaimed and quickly resolved to get that bird inside before crows, cats or early snow got it first. She opened her window calling out “pretty bird.” He flew away and she removed the screen. There. He was back. She called out again. He cocked his head listening and left. Fannie named him Landsalot.

The next day Fannie put up a ladder near the feeder and waited. When Landsalot appeared she held out her finger.

“Come on pretty bird. Come to mama,” she coaxed.  Keeping one eye on Fannie, Landsalot enjoyed the lettuce treat. But he wouldn’t come.  That evening Fannie took down the feeder and carried it inside. By morning it was on the window sill with a juicy strawberry, window open.

Sparrows, a finch, Cardinals—investigated but shied away.  And then Landsalot was there. Bold as you please pecking at the berry. All day long Fannie sweet-talked that bird, but he wouldn’t come closer. By the third day Fannie was getting desperate. A northeaster bringing snow was on its way. The parakeet could perish. Then she noticed whenever he flew off, he landed in her tulip tree.

“I can get up there,” she told herself, “and net him.” She figured that her ladder would take her part way up the trunk. Then she would nail 2 x 4s crossways like ladder rungs to climb into the higher branches. The tree was without leaves so she could easily track Landsalot, tempting him with treats.

Fannie went to work and she climbed into the tree. Curious, Landsalot flew over to observe. Soon Fannie had climbed so high the tree swayed beneath her.

She told herself. “You’re safe.”  But was she? And for the first time she looked down. The back of her neck began to prickle. Her palms began to sweat. The net slipped and she watched it fall into the pachysandra 30 feet below.

“Stay calm. You got up here, you can get down,” she said aloud hugging her perch. But straddling the limb with her butt against the trunk Fannie had no idea how to turn around without falling. Landsalot hopped closer pecking a strawberry speared on a twig.

 Soon little Timmy Thompson, all grown out, strolled by with his two Chihuahuas.

 “Timmy Thompson, do you have your phone?” she shouted.

“What . . .” he asked pivoting slowly.

“Here. In the tree. Look up. It’s Ms. McDougal.” He dragged his dogs to the tree.

“Hi up there. You dropped your net?”

“Forget the net. I believe I need some assistance. I seem to be in a predicament.”

“Should I call somebody?”

“Please.” And Fannie listened with great embarrassment as he called 911. The town alarms sounded.

Soon fire trucks rolled up sirens screaming. The police arrived. An ambulance parked in her driveway and (oh, mortification) a TV camera crew appeared below.  All for a woman simply up a tree.

Within minutes little Brian Dunsmore without his cowlick, in fact without most of his hair, had scaled the tree using Fannie’s makeshift ladder and was throwing up a safety line.   

“What are you doing up here Ms. McDougal?” he grinned.

“Hello, Brian. Nice to see you. I’m rescuing a bird.” she nodded upward. Landsalot sat above them, tilting his head, watching.  Dunsmore relayed the information back to his chief and a shot of the parakeet suddenly appeared on television screens across the region.

“Ms. McDougal! You need to stop trying to rescue animals alone,” he said holding up a safety harness. “Slip into this. You’re going to get hurt one day.”  He signaled below. A ladder moved into position and a bucket rose.

“Hello, Ms. McDougal.”

“Roy Baker, is that you?”

“Yes, mam. It’s me, same as last time. I’m here to get you down.” He held out his hand.

She sighed grabbing his hand. Safe in the bucket she dared look down. “Oh, my. So many people.”

On the ground a reporter rushed to interview her. She told how she tried to lure the parakeet inside “Snow’s coming,” she said. “Landsalot could freeze to death.”

“Lancelot?  That’s Romeo,” said a man walking up. “I recognized him on television. Everybody, quiet!” he shouted and stepped out from the hushed crowd raising his left hand, one finger stiff as a perch.

“Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?” And with a flutter of feathers the parakeet flew to his outstretched finger, hopped to his shoulder and nuzzled his neck. Gently his hand clasped the bird and tucked him inside his shirt. The crowd cheered.

“You taught me that phrase, Ms. McDougal, “said the man. “Ralph Roberts, Romeo and Juliet.” He grinned. “Thanks for finding my bird.”

“’Wherefore’ Ralph, ‘wherefore art thou.’” Fannie forced a smile. “‘All’s well that ends well’,” she said.

But not for Fannie McDougal. No bird in hand. No bird in the tree. Only Dickie Bird alone in his cage. She so wanted that little budgie to keep her and Dickie Bird company, she told the TV reporter.

The next day Fannie received 14 parakeets from well-wishers. 

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By Ed Baranosky

    Writing is like practicing psychiatry. It gives you the ability to play with people’s minds. An added bonus is that to do it you don’t have to spend six years in a classroom and thousands of dollars for a piece of paper.

    Flattery is the whipped cream and cherry on the dessert of ego. I enjoyed basking in the aura of it. The caption under my picture in my high school yearbook read: “The wheels of his brain are ever oiled.”

    It was after I was discharged from the army that I found a job that was less taxing on  my back. I was pretty good at what I did for a living.

    At a company meeting when my solution to a problem was explained to the group, a colleague would ask: “How did you do that?”

    At a company celebration, my wife and I were asked to sit at the executives’ table. The head of the company stood up and said: “One of the reasons we can celebrate tonight is because of Ed.” I soaked up the applause.

     Can you imagine the amount of air that can be pumped into an ego when a graduate of MIT asks your opinion on a dilemma he is facing?

     In my dealings with sales people, at the conclusion of our business I don’t say: “Have a nice day.” My parting words are: “May the Publishers Clearing House agent knock on your door.”

    The usual response is “I wish” or “That would be great.”

    At the bank I use a teller signed up for the PCH Sweepstakes at my suggestion.

    Lo and behold the agent knocked on her door with all the hoopla. She was a winner.

    In an interview on national TV she told her story and mentioned my name.

     Later when I left the company several competitors hired me to find solutions to their perplexing problems.

     I believe it was Frank Lloyd Wright who said: “It’s difficult to be humble when you’re  a genius.”

     I really don’t have to tell you what gets me into the most trouble . . . do I?

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