Paula's Prophecy

By Klacey J. Smith

To Sarah, growing up in England around American military children, America, “The Land of Milk and Honey,” sounds like Paradise. She dreams of immigrating to a place where anything seems possible. Yet life itself seems determined to thwart her…she has a series of death-defying experiences, and several tragic romances that distract her from her dream. Just when all hope seems lost, however, a handsome “Prince Charming,” rescues her, and carries her away to the land of her dreams…just as a psychic medium had predicted. Where the mysterious old lady, reading Sarah’s cards, refused to tell her the horrors that were to happen next, the previous suffering Sarah had experienced up until that time was nothing in comparison to what awaited her in America. Abandoning a familiar way of life and starting over again is much harder than she ever dreamed it would be. Dysfunction, domestic violence, and family catastrophe are among the challenges Sarah had faced in her life with much worse to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Mar 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483445823

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CHAPTER ONE

THE EARLY YEARS, WHERE IT ALL BEGAN …

On this rainy, cold day, April 20, 1991, I look out the window as I think to myself how much the weather mirrors my internal feelings at this moment. Sitting, waiting to hear if my application for an apartment at Brook Woods Apartment Complex, in Gammett, North Carolina, had finally been accepted or not, I worry about my pathetic credit score. My credit has gone seriously bad as a result of my inability to make good life decisions. As the large rain drops pound against the window, I think about all the new potential beginnings that I previously had in my life, how excited I was at the anticipation of most of them, but not this one.

Feeling lonelier than I have ever felt before in my life, my heart aches to have the contentment and peace that I felt I had in past times gone by never to be reborn. Instead of moving to Gammett, I wished I was moving to Navante, Florida, or Shrewport, Ohio, where my heart is evenly divided. Even better, I think to myself, let me go back to the wonderful little place where I grew up.

As I drown in loneliness and pure misery at my current situation, the more I wished that I could turn back the clock to those carefree, childhood, and teenage days, where I grew up in the tiny village of Steeple Aston, Oxfordshire, in England. Such a small, remote village at that time, had little, true understanding of the outside world and all of its controversy. Growing up there offered no insight as to the adversity one might face in the big world outside of its perimeters.

I gaze out of the window at the rain falling, falling, and I try to think to myself, where did I go wrong? Where did it all truly begin? If I had known the struggles I was to come through, having come to America, would I have still come here? As the rain slaps on the window with greater force, I attempt to answer the questions in my mind that brought me to where I am today. Slowly, my thoughts wander back; way back in time to the reason I became enchanted with America and where that love first developed.

I drift back to those joyous, unburdened days as a child in that sleepy rural village, but, was I really so joyous and unburdened? Instead, I wonder if it really was as I remembered it to be or was I merely being delusional? As I yearn to nostalgically recall those early days, I close my eyes in an effort to meditate and calm the turmoil that is building up inside of me, and I ask myself, how did I get to this point?

I then realize, of course, it began on October 9, 1957, the day that I was born, in the Horton General Hospital in Oxford. On the day that I was born, The Everly Brothers were number one on the pop charts with a song called Wake Up Little Susie. Prior to being born, had I been prematurely aware of all that awaited me in the world and my predestined life, I probably would have preferred to remain in the safety and security of my mother’s womb to have been born on a day when the outcome was more favorable.

"Monday’s Child, an old English nursery rhyme, states that Wednesday’s child is full of woe," and, guess what? I was born on a Wednesday, of course. Again, thinking back, my early years quickly passed by, I soon acquired a love for America, and squeezing my eyes tight shut at this moment, I search my befuddled brain frantically, and I struggled to remember just where that obsessively mystical love first began.

In the 1950s, not but a few miles from where my mother and father lived in the village, before my birth, the local base at Upper Heyford replaced the British RAF Members, their mass of planes and equipment, and moved them all to another location in the country, to make way for the invasion of the incoming U.S. Air Force Yanks. At first, after my birth, I was too little to know of such things, and the enclosure of these foreigners was, for the most part, maintained in the realms of the air force base whereby their presence wasn’t immediately apparent to me. In the beginning, my world consisted of my mum, my dad, and my brother, Mathew, of which my arrival on the scene, at a time when he was already fourteen years old, appeared to be a mixed blessing to him.

As a little girl growing up, I adored my big brother, and he appeared to reciprocate that familial adoration by drowning me in gifts upon his return from the many local youth club trips that he went on. Such was the love for me, his little sister that on one occasion Mathew brought back a beautiful black and white panda, twice my size. It was so huge that I couldn’t even lift it to sit beside me on the old fashioned sofa that was situated in the living room of our house.

To my brother, at this time, I was, above and beyond my mum, the most important little girl in his life, and I loved the position that I dominated, where he was concerned. He catered to my needs by entertaining me in the most boyish manner that he knew how to do, by running down the hill with me sitting in my pram, and turning the corner at the bottom of the hill, on two wheels. I, not knowing any better, shrieked with laughter at such daring and speed.

My mother, she later told me, would watch nervously from the living room window, holding her breath each downward run until such time as the pram, with me still in it, miraculously, came to a safe stop momentarily until the next run a few seconds later. Being the good looking fellah that Mathew truly was, chased by all the local girls, I hoped that someday, when I was older and ready to settle down, I would find a young man to love me that was as handsome as my big brother and would cater to my needs attentively such as he did.

My father also catered to my needs on too many occasions, for to him, I was his adorable and darling little girl. Being an amateur/professional photographer, my dad took hundreds of pictures of his two favorite women, my mum and me, especially. Every single Saturday morning, for as far back as I can remember, my father would take my mum and me to the city of Oxford and we would literally shop until we dropped. Upon returning home around lunchtime, or soon thereafter, mum and I would have to empty the multiple bags of shopping we had purchased and show my father what we spent his money on.

The purchases that mum made for me, and which I later made for myself, had to meet with my father’s approval, and I was graced with the prettiest, most fashionable, and quality little girl things that daddy’s money could buy. We were lucky that my father worked at the local British Leyland Factory as an electrical Sparky, teaching incoming apprentices, where he made good money to meet most of our necessary female wants and needs.

On Friday nights, I would stay home with my father while my mother went and had some time away playing Bingo at the village hall with other local women. Before leaving she would give my dad strict instructions as to what time I should be placed in bed telling him, Now be sure and have her in bed by seven o’clock Jim. Dad, being a laid back fellah for the most part would assure my mum, Now you go on off to Bingo Edie, you know I’ll take care of our little Sarah.

With that she would kiss the two of us goodbye, and off she’d happily go. Unfortunately, my dad’s favorite show, that became mine too, "Bonanza, came on at seven o’clock. Looking up at my dad with my big, brown eyes, my broad, bright, little girl smile, and my pleading to my father to let me sit up and watch Bonanza" with him often met with little to no resistance.

I was madly in love, even as a very little girl, with Little Joe, and I just had to watch each and every show with my father to see that adorable little cowboy once more. At the end of the show, before mum would return at 8:20 p.m., my dad would hurry me off to bed, kiss me on the forehead, after tucking me in, and tell me, Now hurry and go to sleep Sarah so that your mother doesn’t know that I let you stay up. Assuring him I would, he would exit the room and, dreaming of Little Joe, having seen him again on our black and white television, I would close my eyes and dream that I was all grown up and that he was my husband.

I would be so tired, that, I never would hear my mother’s return. Little did my father or my brother realize, but, their love and adoration of me, the way they catered to my every need, and the importance they placed on my need to be happy was setting a super high precedence for whomever that future lucky husband of mine might ever be.

Our new black and white television is what originally brought the awareness of America into our home. There were new American shows for all, and they were always so much more fun, interesting, and attention grabbing than the boring English shows that came on. I happily watched a variety of shows with my father such as "Rawhide, The Rifle Man, Hawaii Five-0, and The Fugitive."

My mum liked to watch the show "Marcus Welby, MD, and Peyton Place. Especially for kids, America graced us with The Flintstones, which was one of my dad’s favorite shows to watch with me. I was mesmerized by Lost in Space, The Andy Griffith Show, in which I loved Opie, and The Thunderbirds." After watching several episodes of Dr. Who, I was so scared of the Dialects that for a while I had trouble sleeping and mum threatened she wouldn’t let me watch it anymore.

My mum was, of course, my first maternal protector, and her friendship with a neighbor on our street, Jasmine O’ Riley, led me to the very first and life-long platonic relationship I was to have with Jasmine’s son, Alvin. As required to, at specific times of the month, my mum and Jasmine would plonk Alvin and I in side by side prams and walk to Lower Heyford, where the local doctor would do all of the checks on new babies and little children. Lower Heyford was a good two miles walk away, but come rain or shine, high winds or snow, the two of them would struggle down pushing our prams so that we could get all of our injections that we needed prior to starting school.

As Alvin and I got bigger, upon our being well behaved at the clinic, our mums would stop by the Lower Heyford swings and slides to allow us to have some playtime together. Jasmine and my mum sat on a near-by bench smoking their cigarettes and participating in the latest village gossip while watching the two of us play.

Upon being let loose, Alvin and I would run as hard as we could towards the swings and jump on the multi-seated swing. I would sit in the middle, and Alvin would work it to make it go. Higher, higher, I’d call to Alvin excitedly, and he would struggle at first to get that big heavy bar, full of multiple seats going high and back and forth. Then we’d run over to the little roundabout, where I’d jump on and Alvin would run around pushing it to get it whizzing at a fast speed before jumping on himself. We had such carefree fun.

During the spring and summer months, Alvin and I, followed by our mums, would like to walk back home along the little dirt path of the canal. The water was so clean and clear we could look into the depths of the canal and see all the tiny, and some larger, fishes swimming there. On the bottom were smooth pebbles, along with some smaller creatures. Alvin would point out to me, as he knew them, all the different kinds of fish we were looking at where we would stop temporarily to see what we could see. Towards the end of our walk along the canal, we awed and looked at the pretty hand painted barges that would be parked there and were, supposedly, people traveling through the canals and some of them did this as a means of being on holiday. Next to the canal was the train station, and this is where, when my grampy came to visit, he would take me to sit and watch the big steam trains come rushing through.

My grampy adored his little granddaughter also, and he would sit in a low back chair in our living room, for an hour or more, while I sucked my thumb and, standing behind him, twiddled the little bit of hair left on his head. Our most favorite thing to do together was when we were at the train station, where we would sit and wait for the sound of a train, and then we would hurry up the wooden steps that carried a bridge over the tracks to the platform on the other side.

Once at the top of the bridge, we would stand in the middle looking down at the tracks below us. Far away we could see the big, black steam train coming towards us, quickening its speed as it raced along the tracks. As the train got closer, I would smile and wave as hard as I could at the train driver hanging out from his cabin to wave back at me and grampy. Just as the train was about to go underneath us we would hold our breath while it went right below us, engulfing us in the smoke it extinguished, then we’d race to the other side of the bridge and watch as the train continued on until it disappeared out of sight and was gone.

Where there was once a ticket master contained in a small passageway through the old, brick house to the platforms, vandals had destroyed it, and the window where one could obtain tickets was all boarded up. It made me very sad to see that, but grampy would tell me that, In life there has to be change, nothing stays the same.

For the first time in my life, I felt the heartbreak of change when my mum told me that, my grampy had got up one morning to go to the bathroom and had told my Aunty Mary I don’t feel good today, I think I’ll lay down for just a bit longer. He never woke up again. After his funeral, I witnessed, in my mother, the horrendous grief and heartbreak she too felt at the loss of my grampy, her father. I saw her sob like I had never heard or seen her sob before, and I cried right along with her as my heart was breaking too.

It was soon after this that my mother would cause me to have another incidence of grieving and sadness, when she came to me and told me, Your brother is going to be leaving us Sarah, he’s going to get married and move in with his new wife. I had just turned five years old, and I immediately began to cry, No, he can’t do that, he lives here with us. My mother sternly answered my cries, No Sarah, he’s going to marry a young girl from Brownsfield, apparently he’s been courting her, and they are to move into a caravan in Wallingford. I continued to cry and insist, No, he can’t do that, he has to live here with us. Seeing my tears flood down my cheeks, my mum pulled me to her, looked me sternly in my eyes, and, with tears running down her face too, she cried, No Sarah, he has to do this.

In my mind I went over, time and time again, while lying in my little bedroom at the back of the house, all that I remembered of me and my brother together. The times he came rushing home with gifts for me from the latest youth club trip he’d been on, and the games he’d play with me. I didn’t know who this girl was, but I didn’t like her, and even felt as if I hated her. She was taking my brother away from me, my mum and dad, and I didn’t like it one bit. My brother, I thought, was merely a nineteen-year-old teddy boy, he hadn’t lived his life yet, he was too young to be married, surely?

I later got to meet this blonde, pretty, but somewhat plumpish woman that was taking my brother away from us, and even though she tried to befriend me, I wanted no part of her. During a time when Mathew had to go and do something where I couldn’t go, he left me with this young girl whose name was Erin, and I hardly spoke to her the entire time. She tried to befriend me, but I already didn’t like her and I wasn’t going to soften up either.

She tried to let me know that she would have liked me to be a bridesmaid, but I had no response for her right then and looked at her with the sourest face that I could conjure up. The best I could answer to anything she asked me was a No, thank you, at the appropriate times. Only when Mathew finally returned did I break a smile and ran full pelt to meet him holding my arms out for his to catch me, and save me from further interaction from Erin who I viewed, in my little girl manner, as the enemy.

On the day they were married, I sensed something was horribly wrong when Erin didn’t wear the traditional white wedding gown, indicative of virginal qualities, my mum told me. Her two-tone green pencil skirt suit, with a big white rose and netting plopped on the top of her head spoke the truth of which, at the time, I was a little too young to fathom.

My insistence not to be a bridesmaid was not only based on the fact that I was totally oppositional to this abrupt union, but, also, I suffered from the most horrible shyness and lack of confidence, even at this early age. Even though, the closer it got towards the wedding date, I actually wished that I had the confidence to perform the responsibilities that came with being a bridesmaid, but my fearful thoughts prevented me from saying Yes.

I would imagine myself walking down the aisle and treading on what I assumed would be Erin’s train, and ripping her wedding dress, not knowing that this was not to be her attire. Then I had embarrassing thoughts of tripping on an elevated piece of the red carpet, as I walked behind Erin, and hurting myself while those looking on laughed at my clumsiness. Such thoughts, consistent and troubling as they were, prevented me from partaking a role that I actually came to want to do.

After this presumed loss of my brother, my mum and dad continued to try to lessen the emptiness I felt inside by swamping me with gifts, and taking me to fun places to visit on the weekends, but it was a work in progress. I missed my brother horribly, and the house seemed so empty and quiet without him. There was no more of those favorite 1950s oldies that he loved to play on his record player so loudly, much to the frustration of my father. Only when my mother offered me my brother’s previous bedroom, the big one at the front of the house, as an alternative to the small one I was originally allocated, did my grieving for his presence somewhat subside.

It was with great joy that I received this benefit of my brother moving out. In some weird way, my assuming my brother’s old room helped me feel closer to him as a result of this recently planned and permanent absence. On that first night in my new room, after my mother had finished reading me a nightly fairy story of yet another beautiful princess, being rescued by yet another handsome prince, where they married and lived happily ever after, I lay in my bed thinking, thinking. Still somewhat sad at my brother’s absence, I thought about my grampy and how he said that life has to change.

I realized, based on the nightly fairy stories I would listen to my mum reading, which I too, later in my life, would go through similar changes as my brother had recently gone through. Out there in that big wide world is some handsome prince that I would be destined to meet, he would fall hopelessly in love with me, we’d have seven or more children, and we’d live happily ever after in a big house on some vast estate. I wondered where my future husband was right at that time, what did he look like, and how would he come and rescue me? Wishing that such a meeting would occur the next day, I fell into a deep sleep dreaming of my anticipated future.

Those early days rolled by very quickly. Mathew’s wife had a baby boy, which they named Irvin, and I, at a mere five years old, became an aunty. Saturday afternoons, every one, was spent visiting Mathew and Erin in their caravan, on a campground with many others, and my mum would spoil all of us by taking fresh cream cakes for tea. The very next fall I was due to start school, and that was a change that I was not looking forward to. In our tiny, rural village, the women pretty much fell into the mold of expecting nothing more than to marry well and have lots of babies, so, in my mind, I thought, why do I even need to go to school for that?

Despite my questioning my need to attend school, my father, where he had previously catered to my needs, put his foot down and thoroughly explained as to why I should attend school. He let me know that school was more than an education in subjects, it was an education in life, and one that I, especially, being so spoiled, needed to learn. Reluctantly, I was doomed to seeking an education whether I wanted one or not, and, so, as the time got closer, I tried to adopt a more bright outlook thinking of all the new friends I’d make and all the handsome little boys that would be there too. With that thought, all of a sudden, going to school didn’t seem to be such a dismal existence after all.

It was one day, when my mum and Jasmine were partaking of coffee and cigarettes in our kitchen, and the usual village gossip, that Alvin and I decided to go out to the front garden to play together. Now be good the two of you, my mum warned the both of us, and Jasmine added, And don’t let us have to come out and speak to you about anything. We both assured our mums that we would be good and play nicely, and off to the front door step we wandered to sit and talk for a while.

Where my mum had been pruning her favorite flowers, the roses, that she and my grampy had planted years prior, Alvin safely moved her shears off the step so that the two of us could sit down together. As we talked I verbalized how I wished that my mum would take me to the expensive and local village hairdresser to cut my hair, so that I could look pretty like the other girls on our street. Alvin offered, Sarah, you’re pretty enough, you don’t need to cut your hair. Assuming that, as my friend, Alvin was simply being nice, I brushed his compliments off with total disregard, and I began to cry.

Alvin said, Don’t cry Sarah, it will be okay. Then he paused and he declared, I have an idea, and grabbing the shears from off of the pavement where he had placed them he excitedly suggested, I can cut your hair for you. I’ve always wanted to be a hair dresser, I’m sure it won’t be that hard? Nervously I responded, Are you sure Alvin, do you know how to cut hair? Alvin smiled and stated, It can’t be that hard Sarah, let me cut your hair, I’ll make you look pretty.

Unsure of what we were about to participate in, I submitted to Alvin’s request and stated, Okay then, I guess it will be alright. Repositioning on the front door step, Alvin stood behind me, and grabbing chunks of my hair began to snip, snip, snip, as thick, dark brown masses of my straight locks fell to the ground. In trying to do a good job, and get the ends straight, I almost lost at least one of my ears, and Alvin would say, Oh, sorry for that. I would urge him, Now don’t cut too much off Alvin or else my mum will be mad. Alvin responded, I won’t Sarah, you’re going to look so pretty when I get finished.

About that time, with the two of us so quiet, here came my mum, closely followed by Jasmine; the two of them had come to see what we were up to that we were both so quiet. At the sight that immediately met both of their eyes, their mouths dropped open in shock, and my mum yelled, Oh my God, what on earth are the two of you doing? Nervously I explained, Alvin was trying to make me look pretty, ready for school.

Jasmine then spoke up and said to Alvin, You little bugger, you know you shouldn’t be cutting her hair. How is she going to go to school looking like that? Alvin put the shears down, stood quietly, and had a fearful look on his face. I also stood still and quiet looking at my mum fearing what was in store for me. Jasmine stepped forward and grabbed Alvin telling him, C’mon, we’ve got to go home, you little monkey you. Sorry Edie, she said apologizing to my mum. Very upset, my mum responded to Jasmine, We should have known they were up to something the two of them were so quiet. My mum continued to Jasmine, That’s okay, she sat there and let Alvin cut her hair, it’s just as much her fault.

With that Jasmine hurried Alvin home where she promised him a good spanking for what he had so tried to do with such good intentions. As for me, I was taken inside and given a good talking to. Even though my mum tried hard to spruce up the haphazard haircut I had just received, Alvin’s effort was actually desirably styled in comparison to my mum’s efforts to improve on it.

With school just a week or two away, in the local village that we all went to, there was little to no way to make my style of hair look better than what it currently was. As a result, instead of feeling prettier and ready to face all the new girls and boys I was to be amongst, I entered school with an elevated level of embarrassment and an even worse lack of confidence than I ever had before.

The first day of school was very traumatic for me, for it was the first time I had ever been away from my mother, and I was plonked in a room full of strangers that didn’t seem overly friendly. By lunchtime I’d had enough and, during the break from classes, I decided I was going to walk home and be back there with my mum.

Upon my arrival, she was horrified to see me enter in the back door to the kitchen, and my tears and upset at being separated from her held no importance in relation to my getting some kind of an education. As any good mother would do, she marched me right back up to the village school, on the far side of the village, and apologetically deposited me back to my classroom from which I felt the need to go AWOL. Not only was I miserable at having been returned, but then I had to face the wrath of my father at night.

Despite my father previously submitting to my every want, now the tides of change had turned. He very curtly gave me a crash course in social etiquette, reiterating appropriate behaviors for A young lady. I was always taught to behave the best that I could, and Please, and Thank you, were words you had better not forget and use as frequently as necessary. Now it was obvious that education was of great importance to my dad in relation to me, his Little girl. My father agreed with my goals of being a wife and a mother, but, he reiterated, you might need to work as well to help provide for your children.

He suggested, Maybe you should go to college and be an executive secretary or something like that. My enthusiasm for his suggestions was absent, permanently, even when my father attempted to reiterate that to marry well a young lady was expected to have some kind of education. Exhausted from having a little girl to whom his words of wisdom were not being received well at all, my father resolved to the fact by saying, No matter what you think, want, or do, you will attend school, and you will do well if you know what’s good for you.

As the days rolled by, school became a means of increased socialization for me, and I developed a friendship with a little girl, that seemed to almost replace the importance of the close bonding with my mother. Wanda Lovett was a petite blonde, and pretty girl just a year younger than me, and she lived on our street way deep into the end of the cul-de-sac. Getting older by the minute, the other kids on our street often played out until such time as the evenings drew in and it was dark. Eventually, mum resorted to allow me to play outside with the other school kids.

There was a big triangular green in the middle of our street where games of tag would routinely take place. By knowing Wanda, I became familiar with the many other children that lived around us, but Wanda was my best and first real little girl friend. Even though I adored her, as would be normal for all best friends, often times, our friendship was typical of little kids, families, and sisters as such. We would fall out and not be friends one minute and then be back to being friends again the next.

Sometimes, Wanda and I would, during the summer months, or in the early fall season, pitch a tent out in the back garden of my home or hers and spend hours and hours talking with each other. Eventually, from sheer exhaustion, we’d fall asleep in the early hours of the morning in our various sleeping bags. To me, Wanda was the sister I always wanted but which my mother absolutely refused to accommodate me with.

We were bonded like sisters and we fought like sisters at other times too. She was my inclusion into the acceptance of the other girls on the street and my exclusion from the same when we fought. On the times that things were going well, I was happy, and when we fought and I spent many lonely hours sitting at home with no one to play with, I would be miserable and spend much time crying. Alvin, in going to school a year ahead of me, was making his own friends of the same gender, and I was no longer his first priority anymore.

Now, instead of just my mum and me, my dad took full advantage of this new friendship whereby Wanda and I posed for many pictures together at the direction of my dad to do so. Such was the reputation of my father as a gifted photographer, that one day, during our playtime at school, he came to photograph all of us playing on big wooden blocks while wearing our favorite dress up clothes.

I chose to put on a Red Cross nurse’s uniform that my father photographed me wearing, and, at the time, I had no idea what the potential significance that little girl choice would have in my later years. I wanted to be popular, pretty, and do well in school, mainly to make my father and my mother proud of me, but I fell a long way short of these desires and expectations of myself.

In contrast to my father’s hopes for me, all I wanted to do was to find myself a boyfriend and become a wife and a mother. My first real local crush was on a young lad many years older than myself by the name of Hedley Younce. He lived across the street from me, and was a young teenager at a time when I was just starting out in school. I loved him so much, but, of course, his feelings for me were not reciprocated, after all, how could they be? I was just a little kid, and not even a pretty one at that. The villagers would often tease the two of us if we happened to be in one of the two local village grocery stores together, causing him to leave prematurely to be free from further ridicule.

My choice of beaus at school fared just as poorly if not worse. Brian, the next young lad I fell for, was in my class and was around my age, but, unfortunately for me, he preferred the attention of a new friend I formed, Geralyn Teachey, from a local village, who was also cousin to Wanda. After recovering from the rejection of that love, then I set my sights on yet another young lad, Kelvin Bing. He, in turn, made it very plain that he didn’t care for me attributing his lack of desire to my plain, unattractive looks. His cruel and penetrating words caused me to lose my temper and fight back whereby I ended up getting in a fist fight with him, much to the disgust of my mother, and, even more so, my father.

After that, I refused to fall in love anymore with any young lads at school. Still my school troubles continued when, in my first few years, Ms. Stell, my first school teacher, hit me across the back of the legs alleging that I had acted badly and not listened to her direction. My mother, being the maternal protector that she truly was, had to address such inappropriate behavior directed at me by the teacher, and she let Ms. Stell know that only she, my mum, was allowed to discipline me in such a hurtful manner.

I didn’t do well in school, even though I felt I tried hard, I was always so bored and distracted. I wanted to do anything but sit in a boring classroom listening to facts and manipulating figures that had no meaning to what I wanted to finally be. Like many of the other local women before me, they resolved themselves to a future of simple, domestic bliss, and nothing more was expected of them. I too wanted nothing more, even at this early age. For now my preferences were such that my idealistic goals consisted of having a little boyfriend, playing outside with my friends, and watching my American TV shows on our black and white TV.

It was at this time that, once again, that far off country called America forced its way into our English living rooms, and repeatedly brought our awareness to the realization of its distant presence. The only difference was, on this occasion, the story was not fun and entertaining. Even though I was very small, I vividly remember my mum and dad watching, in horror, the news regarding the death of that poor American President, JF Kennedy, where he had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas by an unknown killer.

My mother, more than my father, was horribly shocked at such primitive actions to what the news portrayed as, A seemingly delightful fellah. It occurred on November 22, 1963, I was six years old at the time. We were asked about it at school, and only because my mum and dad had obsessively watched the news report time and time again, did I know all the gruesome details of such a tragic event. For some reason I had an insatiable, morbid curiosity that was born in regards to this news story and the faraway country where this horrible murder took place. For the first time, something we talked about in school, which occurred in another country, had stimulated my interest.

Even though our school was on the far side of the village, some of the teachers had to travel from other close by villages. I quickly learned that snow, and the big six-foot drifts it often formed at places throughout the village, was my friend where school was concerned. On these days, school would be called off, and all the kids on our street would gladly grab their sledges and head to the fields that adjoined our back garden.

At this time Alvin, Wendy, me, and the other kids would have the best fun sledging down the hill with only one bad thing. We never quite learned how to stop before we got to the small, running brook that waited to greet us at the bottom of the field. Getting wet in the freezing cold waters of the brook was still preferential, in my mind, to sitting in a boring classroom.

Soaking wet and shivering with the cold, we would all run home, and Alvin, Wanda, and I, after having changed out of our soaking wet clothes into warm dry ones, would meet back at my house. Once there we would share hot tomato soup, with bread to dip, while sitting by a warm, real wood and coal fire. These winter days led to my next evasion of school, Christmas and the New Year’s holidays.

Our family was quite small, but the lack of members was made up by the closeness of the neighbors on our street, who had known each other for many years prior to the arrival of the children. I hoped that when I finally married, I would be a part of a family that had a million cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmas, grandpas, brothers, and sisters that I could joyously share holidays with.

My grandparents were all dead and gone, grampy was my last one to survive, my brother was gone and married with a family of his own now, and, pretty much, it was just mum, dad, and me on Christmas mornings. A little ways before Christmas, the local mobile grocer, Chester Parker, would come around in his van sporting a variety of Christmas trees on the top for villagers to purchase. Mum would have him get a number of them down so that together, we could choose the prettiest one, and upon paying for it, my father would come racing out to bring it in the house and mount it ready for us to decorate.

Christmas Eve was the most special time for our little family. Not only would we go and visit neighbors, where my mum and dad would be greeted with a small glass of Christmas sherry at each house, but the neighbors in turn would come and visit us too. My brother, his wife Erin, and little Irvin would come over on Christmas Eve, often accompanied by my brother’s contractor, work partner whom I called Uncle Bob.

The highlight for my dad was to have a local neighbor, Bernie Parker, come over early on Christmas Eve and, being a barber in an addition to his full time job, he would cut my dad’s hair. The two of them would chat happily and boisterously about anything and everything, but, most of all, about their wife and kids.

There were carolers that would come around from the church singing Christmas cheer, and my mum would open the front door and give them some financial offerings. As it approached closer to bedtime, I remember laying in front of a real wood and coal fire watching such terrific Christmas shows as "The Andy Williams Show, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman," and many more all of which added to the treasured memories of this season. Occasionally, I would glance over at the beautiful Christmas tree that mum and I had decorated, the lights in the front living room window, and the many Christmas cards carefully placed at a multitude of locations throughout the room.

I would be so excited, after being put to bed, that sleep simply evaded me, and I wondered what would Christmas be like when I was grown and had a family of my own. I couldn’t wait for the morning wondering what Santa Claus was to grace me with, hoping that he felt that I had been good, as I thought I had been. While Uncle Bob, Mathew, Erin, my mum, and dad would be downstairs sharing Christmas Eve joy together, I couldn’t sleep for their talking loudly, and their laughter, and I wished that I was big enough to be allowed to stay downstairs with them and partake of some Christmas Eve cheer too. Despite my happiness at this joyous season, for some reason, there was an emptiness that remained inside of me and for which I couldn’t equate for.

Christmas Day began when I would jump out of bed at four o’ clock to six o’ clock in the morning to see what Santa Claus had brought for me. To be sure that my mum and dad observed the gifts I received based on how good I had been throughout the year, I insisted that they get up also to go downstairs with me. Amongst many moans, groans, and suppressed complaints, the two of them complied with my request and struggled out of bed to make it down the stairs behind me to the living room.

Once there I excitedly ripped open one gift after another. In this particular year, I thought at the time, I must have been especially good as a result of the gifts that I received and in which Santa Claus had delivered to me, my own little baby, Tiny Tears. Not only that, but she had her own chiffon and net quilt for a cherry wooden bed, with matching pillowcases and blankets. Upon seeing my new little baby doll my immediate thought was, now all I need is my prince.

After the thrill of Christmas was over, New Year’s Eve was another holiday where neighbors swarmed to our house for a glass of New Year cheer and wishes for the next one to be better than the last. I didn’t see this, at a young age, as a holiday celebration that I particularly thought was important, and my thoughts were already racing ahead to the summer months and the simple, but pleasurable, activities which were all that was available to us in this remote village.

My mum, with Jasmine, Alvin, and me would go down to where a local river offered not only edible pleasures but swimming ones as well. As the summer months neared, Alvin and I were recruited by our mums to help pick blackberries from the many huge bushes that grew along the wall, which lined the field where the river, The Beeches, was. Unfortunately for our mums, Alvin and I tended to eat more blackberries than we put in our bowls, and we always received many scoldings from both mothers because of that. As a result of our efforts, no matter how minimal, our mums would make Alvin and I the most delicious blackberry pies, and tarts, with blackberry jam for our sandwiches.

Even more pleasurable, at The Beeches, was the swimming, which ranged from the shallow end to a deeper end where the teenagers of the village used to swim and horseplay. I always envied not being bigger so that I could go and be with some of the older kids that hung out at the deeper end sharing friendship, love, and fun times.

For the time being, my fun times were limited, for me, Alvin, and Wanda, to the shallow end of this clear, cool, fast flowing river. Mum would often pack snacks and sandwiches at times that she would take any one of us there, me with Wanda and, or, Alvin, and we would spend many summer afternoons, splashing each other, bathing in the shallow waters, and making childhood memories together.

It was at this same river that I was to first meet a new and young girl, a year or so older than myself, that would become my future role model. She was idolized by me for her natural beauty and magnetic personality that would easily have the local boys swooning to her feet. It was a hot day in the summer when Emily Corbin’s mother brought Emily down to the river hoping to help her daughter make some new friends.

They had just moved in to our street, and poor Emily knew no one. She was taller than Wanda and me, with long blonde hair. So pretty was she that I envied her the beauty she had so naturally been privileged with, and I wished that I could have a beauty that was even half as noticeable. Emily’s mother had us pose together for a photograph, and, with me, feeling like Miss ugly, especially next to pretty Wanda, and now the even more beautiful Emily, my face portrayed the goofiness which I viewed as appropriate for my already less than attractive appearance.

New people were infiltrating our village more and more than ever before; Emily was not to become a close friend such as I wished she would have been. Instead, she formed a close friendship with another transient that also moved into a house at the top of our street, Stephanie Lehrich, another beauty to which I couldn’t even begin to compete with in regards to the attention of the local lads.

The summers were also filled with me, my mum, my dad, and sometimes Wanda too, going to another river not too far away called Wolvercote. My dad brought a deep seated canoe for me and him to enjoy there. After my dad taught me how to swim, my mother would sit on the embankment sun bathing, reading, or knitting, while he and I would take off in the canoe.

My mum never learned how to swim, so she had no interest in going in our self-propelled little boat. I loved these summer Sunday afternoons whereby I’d carry my radio in the bottom of the canoe, and would continue to listen to "Saville’s Travels" as we glided down the river together. Jimmy Saville was a disc jockey that, on a Sunday afternoon would play oldies from times gone by, my father’s time and those days when Mathew was just a young teddy boy before he was married.

My unrest at having to endure these years, prior to my dream of having a family of my own, were softened by the peace I acquired from the beauty of the river and all of its surroundings. From the hot sun that would glisten on the rippling waters, to the shade we sought as we would float under the large over hanging branches of the massive trees, that lined the right side of the water’s edge. Looking to my left and across emerald green fields, and the Friesian cows grazing there, piercing the bright blue, clear skies was the multiple spires of Oxford City, an amazingly beautiful sight that would take my breath away, momentarily.

Dad and I would be careful to try and not disturb the fishermen along the left side of the bank, all fishing and hoping to catch something for their Sunday supper. As we passed by, many of them would wave to us and yell out to us such as, Tryin’ to teach that young lady to be a sailor eh? My dad would yell back, Yes, but it’s a hard task, she has a hard head.

The fishermen would laugh at my dad’s sense of humor as we passed on by. To the right of the river, not far from where we left mum on the embankment, was a pretty riverside pub with outside tables and opened umbrellas, to protect people eating there from the hot sun. I often asked my father, Dad, can we please go and eat there? My dad’s response was, One day Sarah, we’ll go and eat there one day. My dad’s procrastination of the moment left him without thought as to when, much later in time, he would be forced to meet that promise, and never could I have imagined the surrounding circumstances of that One day, either.

It was around this time, again, that a gruesome fascination would be aroused in me, when I saw my mum and dad constantly watching and listening to the latest news from America. Thousands of poor, young lads were called up on behalf of their country to go and fight some political argument that was going on in an Asian country called Vietnam. The confusion, on both sides of the ocean, it seemed, was that this wasn’t exactly a war, but, at the same time, planes were being sent in to bomb, men wore army uniforms, metal camouflaged hats, and carried guns?

I often saw my mother become teary eyed as she watched the latest news from Vietnam, and although I tried to listen too, see all the pictures the news dared to show, and make sense out of it all, such worldly things were way beyond my level of comprehension. As some of the pictures were horribly honest, my mother would shoo me away while she continued to watch and listen with her mouth dropped open and silent tears running down her face.

As the U.S. Air Force base in Upper Heyford began to bring in more American families, a large estate at the top of the South Side of our village began to be built, to try and help accommodate them all. When mum and I would go for walks around the village, it seemed as if the builders there were only just beginning to lay the foundations down one minute, and the next minute the estate was completed.

In the realms of the subdivision, the roads split into two separate cul-de-sacs, shaped like an upside down Y, and the roads were lined on both sides with the prettiest, large, brick houses I had ever seen. Looking at them and realizing that, soon they would be filled with American families, an anticipating excitement filled my insides completely as I thought to myself, some of those families will surely have a bunch of kids just like me? There would be new friends to be made, and, more importantly, the potential for new lads and future boyfriends.

I continued to watch my American kid shows with more enthusiasm, paying closer attention to anything that would hint at the kind of lifestyle to be had in this far off country. English TV continued to add more and more American programs all of which I loved over and above the English ones. Mum and I began to stay up late together on non-school days so that I could watch our mutually favorite show, "M*A*S*H."

I swooned as I watched the amusing and gorgeous, over sexed character Hawkeye, the goofy characters of Hot Lips, and her lover Major Burns, and their great American accents that constantly came from their mouths as they stated their various lines. The uniforms of all the guys, especially Hawkeye, made my heart beat unusually faster, and I daydreamed that I had a husband just as handsome and intelligent, if not more so, than Hawkeye. My love for America, in my innocent curiosity, was initiated, I wanted to move there tomorrow, and I began to nag my parents to do so immediately. Of course, those days of Catering to Sarah, were long gone, and they merely laughed at my ridiculous insistence expecting them to jump up and submit to such requests.

Mum soon added "Knots Landing" to her list of American shows that we would watch together, and "Happy Days" was a show where my previous adoration of little Opie, now became a romantic one for the character Richie Cunningham, both parts played by Ron Howard. The Fonz was cool, but I knew that I could never love a young lad that had girls swooning and hanging all over him. I loved Richie’s perfect parents, Marion and Howard, and I knew I wanted the kind of lifestyle that they were living, as portrayed in the show. I wanted my prince to be American and whisk me off to the kind of life that I saw in all the American TV shows.

Each show hinted at something bigger and better than what I had in England. I got on the last nerve of my parents, by my constant nagging, that they both should immigrate to America so that we could all enjoy the kind of life the American shows bragged was there to be had for all. My parents merely tuned me out in the end for the sheer fatigue of not wanting to have to explain, yet again, as to why they were not going to do that.

I even tried to get my dad to switch from going to our annual holiday in Weymouth each year to at least one visit to America, but that request also was totally refused when my dad promised, As long as I live I will never go on holiday to anywhere but Weymouth. My father didn’t realize that, in the years to come, this is a promise he would, in a manner he could never imagine, be destined to break. Nonetheless, I didn’t understand my father’s current reluctance to submit to my request, that is, until another horrific news story came blaring across our TV.

I only questioned this out of control adoration, to up and move to America immediately, upon hearing and watching yet another tragic news story that appeared on every single news report for a while, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1968. Again, he was portrayed as a seemingly Good fellah, in that he was fighting for the equal civil rights of black people, it seemed, so, my mum questioned, Why would someone want to shoot such a nice fellah?

My dad used this as a means to reiterate why we didn’t want to go to America stating to me, There Sarah, do you want to go to a place where they do nothing but shoot each other all the time? I had no immediate argument to offer when I was questioning my own previous desires to go to America and wondered how the shows could portray such a perfect way of life when the American news screamed the exact opposite?

I began to question, what is this strange country that portrays a seemingly characteristic way of life in its shows, but then the news depicts danger, violence, and murder of its citizens who are trying to do good? What kind of country sends its young men to a far off country fully armed but then denies it’s at war, and knowing that thousands upon thousands of those young lads are going to wind up dead? How could these young fellahs foolishly go off to fight when they didn’t even know who they were fighting for, or what they were fighting about, and leave their loved ones knowing that they probably would never return? I saw these youngsters as foolish, but I was about to get a lesson in life that would show me a much different point of view from a personal perspective.

On another boring day in school, on May 12, 1969, situated in a classroom that was nothing but floor to ceiling glass, I sat trying to fight sleep as a result of my general lack of interest. With the hot sun shining through this gigantic plate glass mass of windows, it warmed me so that staying awake was a challenge that I was about to lose. All of a sudden, I became wide awake and very alert as I, and all the other kids in my class, heard this horrendous roaring that had a sound that wasn’t common to our ears.

With a startled response, we all stopped listening to our teacher, and we all turned to look out the massive wall of glass that contained us in our classroom. The teacher, Ms. Madison, gasped, as we all did, to the frightening sight that met with our eyes, and we were stiff with fear. Just above the tree tops, it seemed, on the far side of the playground, a massive, single seat, U.S.A.F. jet flew past going slower than what any of us, even at this young age, thought was normal.

The plane didn’t sound like the normal jets we heard day after day, in fact, the engine sounded like it was truly sick and had seen better days. Within minutes the plane disappeared, and we all turned around, breathing a sigh of relief and wondering what in the heck that was? Immediately, our relief turned to horror once more when we all heard the most horrific explosion, and the glass wall of windows shook such that we thought it was going to shatter.

Ms. Madison screamed, Get out all of you, run, get outside now on the playground, and she continued screaming, Hurry children, hurry. Then a mass of confusion ensued, and amongst pushing, crying, screaming, and running, we all scrambled to find the nearest exit and run out, away from our building, onto the school playground.

There awaited the most gruesome sight to the left and south of the school across the emerald green fields. About two miles away, we could easily see that the plane, that had almost barely skimmed the tops of the trees, moments ago, obviously was in trouble as we immediately suspected, had come to an unplanned, horrific halt. Now, where it had crashed into a tree, there rose thick, black, puffy, smoke intertwined with roaring, orange flames, and we all knew that poor pilot had to be dead, surely he was?

The teachers did a quick count to make sure everyone was safely out of the building, and many of us cried at the event that we had just witnessed, knowing that the poor pilot inside just had to be dead. As we stood there in the playground, afraid, sad, and waiting for the head master to tell