Bacchus

By S. Glenn Wakefield

The story of a young environmentalist’s discovery of his dark and hidden family secrets. Some of the excerpts from the story:

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 12, 2005
• ISBN: 9781463485498

S. Glenn Wakefield

S. Glenn Wakefield grew up in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.  After attending West Chester College, he joined the Army and the Green Berets in 1960, serving as a Special Forces advisor in Vietnam and Laos for two years.  He was awarded a Purple Heart in 1963.  When he left military service, he completed his education, obtaining a B.A. from West Chester College and going on to obtain a Doctorate in educational administration from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in 1972.  S. Glenn Wakefield has written three books: “Take No Prisoners” and soon to be released “Through The Glass Window” an autobiography and “Bacchus”.  “Bacchus” is a story of the personal discovery of hidden family secrets of a young Environmentalist.

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© 2005 S. GLENN WAKEFIELD. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/12/20201

ISBN: 978-1-4208-3770-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-8549-8 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dedicated to Roberta Finley, my sister, who became a Mormon

Special thanks to Joyce McPherson and Susane W. Whittlesey my editor

and Roland and Ethelene West who made it all possible.

PROLOGUE

Thunder rolls over flat farm land through this rural Nebraska town. An occasional streak of heat lightning pierces the night sky, illuminating a small gray wood house already weather-beaten by prairie winds. Through the window the image of a woman appears and reappears with each flash of light. She is sitting on the floor, crying. A twelve gauge shot gun rests on the rough unfinished floor between her and the body of a man. There is a growing red pool where his head should be. The walls and ceiling no longer pristine white are splattered with the red and grey of blood and brains. Shards of shattered skull litter the floor like so many pieces of a dropped china tea cup.

The old pickup left the Holy Trinity First Baptist church of Bacchus, Nebraska, and the milling congregation in a cloud of dust. Eugene had pressed his face to the truck door window, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he watched the only home he had ever known fade away.

CHAPTER I

THE OLD HOMESTEAD

(WASH. D.C. TO BACCHUS, NEBRASKA 1965)

Eugene Roberts knew he had it made working here at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C. It was l993; he was twenty-four, had a masters degree in environmental science and had been selected as an intern in the Pesticide Division. He was in a straight track for his GS-12, a middle government management position, making $50,000. (GS) was government service and (12) was the pay grade. Nothing was going to get in his way. Gene thought this cultured gentleman has what it takes to be a superstar. All the way to the top. (Cogito ergo sum) I think therefore I exist. The correct word from a politician back in Philly, and his GS-13, fourteen and fifteen were in the bag.

Well, it wasn’t like they were giving him anything. He had earned it. Didn’t he compete with all those rich Main Line kids at the University of Pennsylvania for grades, number three in his undergraduate class? Not bad, not bad at all for a Nebraska hick, corn husker or whatever they called him.

He sat behind a medium size professional desk (middle management size). Gene leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes allowing his mind to ramble over the events which eventually led him from Bacchus, Nebraska to his present position with the EPA. Gene sat at his desk and allowed his mind to randomly ramble while recalling events of the past that eventually led him to employment with the Environmental Protection Agency. Gene pictured himself as a bitter calculating professional government employee, but how did he get that way.

Gene had tried to put the past behind him. He had been ashamed of the way he looked, sounded and dressed. With concerted effort he had changed his image. Although he was not a Main Liner by birth he could move easily in their circles. Gene was an excellent dancer so he had become very popular with the University women. He was a better than average athlete and he bathed in the light of many activities. His favorite academic subject was Latin, after four years of Latin in high school he was a natural to become President of the University Latin club while an undergraduate. Now looking back at his childhood as a country bumpkin, was he a hayseed? A Bama? Had he forgotten?

Not really. How could he ever forget the reception his family had gotten in Landsdowne, Pennsylvania in 1965? He remembered traveling from Bacchus, Nebraska to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in an old blue pick up truck? All the family belongings were tied to the top and packed neatly into the open back under a canvas. What a sight that must have been, he laughed to himself, recalling the pain and humor of the past. On top was a little red radio flyer wagon bought from Sears and Roebuck --or was it Spiegels? Well, at the time it was his prized possession.

He and Goodie Two Shoes, his ten- year-old sister, Susan, were uprooted for the cross- country excursion to the east coast. Good old Susan-Do-Gooder; just like his father, Alan-Do-Right. Mom had given his father the nickname because he always took the underdog’s position and defended it -- to the point of absurdity. Alan didn’t drink, didn’t swear and Gene never heard him say a bad thing about anyone. The name Alan-Do-Right fitted him well. Susan, like his father, had always taken some cause and defended it with strong convictions. Once she brought home a sick, three-legged dog and refused to let them put it to sleep. Another time, she brought home a blind cat.

Things had gone badly for the Roberts family back in Nebraska. When his father lost his job at the grain weighing station, Alan Roberts just picked up and headed east.

Gene remembered asking Susan, Why do we have to move? I don’t want a leave my friends and my pet turtle, Hercules. Mom said he would die if we took him with us. Susan, I like it here."

Gene act grown up now and we don’t have any choice but to go along with our parents. Dad doesn’t have a job.

Gene thought he never wanted to be a grown up if grown ups had to leave their friends and go to some distant land away from home. After that conversation, Susan and he never questioned the lost job or the move. Neither Goodie-Two-Shoes nor Gene knew why Alan Roberts has lost his job. His father refused to talk about it.

Uncle J his mother’s brother, James Conrad, said there were jobs at the Scott Paper Company in Chester, Pennsylvania. He was a foreman at the plant now. After Korea, Uncle James had married Aunt Connie, a girl he met from Chester, and settled in Upland, Pennsylvania. They had three children and a brand new Ford pick-up. Things were going well for them. He advised the Roberts family to come to Pennsylvania to make a new start.

Gene envisioned the congregation clustered on the church grounds. He realized he was a child in 1979 and he was surrounded by all these big people but the scene was so vivid.

It was a Sunday morning and everyone from Bacchus was there. Doc Adams and his wife looked sad. Bones Armstrong, his father’s best friend, had his head down. The Reverend Eli Potter was shaking his father’s hand.

How different they are! Gene had thought.

His father, Alan was five-eight, with dark hair and dark eyes. Eli was a head taller, with blond hair and funny colored eyes. They were blue, but with gold specks in them. Gene liked going to church and playing with all the children in Sunday school. He especially, liked those oatmeal cookies that Reverend Potter’s wife made.

The church cook-out was a good-bye to the Roberts clan and all the families were there. After church, they got into the old truck and took off for greener pastures, the Promised Land. At least, that’s what Reverend Eli Potter had said in his deep voice. Gene had been afraid, and now he remembered the fear, the forbidding black clouds to the east. Would they run into a heavy storm or something worse?

Eugene thought of Mary-Jane Potter who had been his best friend. She lived up the lane from the Roberts’ house, on the edge of Bacchus.

Eugene remembered playing with the willowy, blond haired girl; she had large, blue eyes and a sparking smile. They went to Sunday school together, to kindergarten and to first grade. She always shared her oatmeal cookies with him. One time, as discretely as a six-year-old could, he had told Mrs. Potter how much he liked her oatmeal cookies. He turned his head to the side, looked up and told her again how good her cookies were. Mrs. Potter, smiled, patted him on the head and said she understood. That was the only time he remembered seeing Mrs. Potter smile. How he would miss Mary-Jane and her cookies in the first months away from Bacchus.

The family was leaving. He saw Mary-Jane in her white dress and blond pig-tails, crying and waving as she held her mother’s hand. They drove into the sun headed for a new life.

The trip was hot, grueling and exhausting. They traveled across the country stopping only for gas and relief of bodily functions. The Roberts family didn’t have money for a motel or restaurant. His mother had packed