James and Paul joined in doing the next junctions and it was not long before they had a large mat made up of twelve smaller ones, and it was reasonably rigid. But, already, the sun was setting.
“We are ready to create the first palm frond lean-to. Shall it be for Val and Shelly or for Ron and Jim?”
Ron: “Ladies first, don’t you think?”
Val: “Oh, no. I think it is the job of the men to experiment with such things before we women have to sleep in them, don’t you?”
Ron: “Oh. Well, OK.”
Maria looked up from her work in the kitchen, “Val, you and Shelly can sleep in our lean-to tonight. James and I will sleep down the beach under the stars.”
Shelly squeaked her delight at this idea, and it was settled. A work expedition of Ron, Jim, Roger, James, Ralph and Paul set out carrying three tent posts and the large mat to the location chosen for their lean-to by Jim and Ron. They staked the eastern edge down and raised the western edge on the tent posts. The rigidity of the weaving along the junctions was more than adequate to make a functional lean-to. Everyone had some concerns about just how dry it would be in a heavy rain.
By the time they returned to the Kitchen Tent, it was supper time. The supply of palm mats had increased – there were twelve awaiting conversion into another lean-to and several more were in progress. But it was supper time, and Marcella had created something delicious.
Supper
By the time James and Paul had returned from reconnoitering, Shelly and Maria had collected an interesting variety of cans from which to make supper. What they proposed to Marcella was the use of most of the remaining smoked meat as the stock for a soup for which they had pulled out six cans of beans (pinto, black and lima), and eight cans of vegetables, including pearl onions, peas, carrots, beets. They also pulled out ten cans of fruit for a fruit salad. Marcella agreed with the proposal, but added dumplings to the top of the soup, which she mixed to be less watery than Shelly and Maria would have thought.
Marcella had been well in process on the stew by the time of the general meeting, so she was able to attend without worrying. She left that meeting giving a hug each to Maria and Shelly, with special thanks for helping her so much that day.
As usual, when supper was served, the range of tastes incorporated into it included a variety of herbs and spices selected by Marcella, much to everyone’s delight, and shreds of coconut added to the fruit salad. As so frequently in the past, all were impressed by her ability to whip up something delicious – an ability that was even more impressive in the aftermath of the storm. Maria, Shelly and Julia manually ejected Marcella from the kitchen after supper and proceeded to clean up without her. She sat with Paul, talking about his adventures of the day.
Mark continued preparing palm fronds for weaving. Val, Jeanne, Ralph, James, Ron, Jim and Roger were valiantly working on making more woven mats.
Roger tells his story
Tonight it was Roger who spoke up to say he thought it would be his turn to tell a story tonight. The storm had been a disturbing enough experience for the others that no one else was prepared to tell a story, so it was no contest. Roger began:
“Once upon a time a boy was born in a small town in central Australia. His father was a teacher and his mother stayed at home to raise their five children – the boy was the second to be born, with an older sister and two younger brothers and a sister as the youngest of the lot. The boy was a dreamer – he liked to imagine things that might be, and to act out his dreams. Much of the time, his brothers and sisters would act with him. They would create intricate scenarios of kings and queens or of noble bandits, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, or of swashbuckling sea captains who rescued damsels from the pirates.
“The boy didn’t know what was happening in his family, didn’t understand the level of despair felt by his mother and father, he was just happy with his imagination and with brothers and sisters to help him make his dreams seem more real. He went to school where his father taught. He did well in school, but he was bored. He was beginning to think about going away to college when disaster struck.
“His father, who had been drinking alcohol more and more over the years, was driving while drunk and ran off the road into an embankment about a month before the boy’s graduation. He was killed instantly. The boy’s mother went to bed and would not get up. The boy’s older sister tried hard to take care of the family while her mother stayed in bed, but the other children ran wild in the house. The food they ate was not good – his two younger brothers got dysentery and died. The boy’s older sister got pneumonia. She was in the hospital and was on a breathing machine and eventually, she died. The boy had finished school by this time, and went to work to try to support what remained of his family. He came home one night to find that his mother had shot his little sister and then herself.
“The boy was all alone. He arranged funerals for his mother and sister. When the executor of his parents’ estate, a local bank, reviewed his financial situation with him, he discovered that there were a few hundred dollars in the bank accounts and that the house had a mortgage on it for which he could not afford to make the payments.
“The boy suddenly became a young man. He stopped dreaming and worked on surviving instead. He sold the home and took all of the savings he had and started off toward the city. He worked at odd jobs to earn enough money to pay his way. He arrived in the city with his savings intact. He worked at one job after another, always doing his best, always getting by and saving a little money.
“Gradually, he came to understand a need in the business community for temporary help. He dared to start a temporary help agency. The demand for help was far larger than he could fulfill, so he started to grow the business, using his savings to rent more space and hire more people. He worked very hard at this business, so hard that he stopped taking any other jobs, and was frequently in his own office for 16 to 20 hours a day.
“He was running out of money to keep growing. Then a benefactor came and he borrowed money and was able to consolidate his position in the business community. He married his benefactor. From here, it was smooth sailing – hard work, but smooth sailing – and the business now produced enough money to support him and to grow as it needed to. The young man became a middle aged man, and he thought he was happy; he knew he was successful.
“He and his wife decided to go on vacation – a dream cruise in a tropical paradise. She died on that vacation and he ended up on a small island, grieving for his loss. And, one day, he started dreaming again. He looked around and saw a beautiful place and beautiful people. He began to imagine them as heroes and heroines. He began to imagine a different life.
“What is strange is that he now feels alive again in a way he hasn’t since his mother killed herself. He doesn’t know what life will bring next – today it brought one hell of a storm – but he is sure it will be something beautiful.”
There was silence; Val and Shelly were hugging one-another, tears streaming down their faces; Marcella was sniffing away her tears as Paul tried to comfort her. Jeanne was leaning on Ralph’s shoulder for comfort as tears rolled down his face. Maria gave Roger a hug. They were joined by James, then, one by one and two by two, everyone joined in. It was a statement of group solidarity and after the storm, they all needed it.
Jim sorted himself out of the massed group and suggested, “Shall we sing?”
The hug dissolved into a uniform “Yes!” But what would they sing? Dona Nobis Pacem seemed the best adapted to their situation – “God grant us peace” – because night had finally brought peace. As they sang, the stars began to show through holes in the clouds as the sky gradually cleared after the storm. No matter how bad things were, they were warm, the fire was lit, and the stars were out. And the full moon was ascending the eastern sky.
They sang “Home on the Range” to celebrate the moon. Then they sang the crazy verses they had invented for Home on the Range. This brought on a
fit of giggling and demands for Kookaburra, which they sang with gusto. By this time, the clouds were gone. Jim suggested they sit on the beach for a last rendering of Dona Nobis. They moved out from under the palm trees, far enough from them to have most of the black sky above them, bright silver moon now high in the eastern sky, its reflection shimmering across the water, still quite rough after the storm, millions of stars smiling down on them. With this as a backdrop, they sang Dona Nobis Pacem again, overwhelmed in the awe of the moment, consumed by a love of their companions that let each of them slip out of ego into a collective us, finding the harmonies in the softness of the texture of the music. This was the best they had ever sung.
After that, there was nothing left to sing. Disconnected from the music, abruptly severed back into individual people, they walked separate pathways, most with partners, each wrapped in silent contemplation. A blanket over his arm, James walked with Maria westward down the beach, looking for a place to lay out the blanket on the sand and lie together in the light of the full moon. Ralph and Jeanne walked north to their restored lean-to. Ron and Jim walked to a newly created palm-mat lean-to on the north side of the palm grove, where they lay in one-another’s arms until sleep came. Val and Shelly sat and looked out over the water for some time, side by side, arms around one another, glad to be together, then walked to James and Maria’s lean-to, where they slept well. Mark limped at Julia’s side to their lean-to, where she did therapy exercises for his knees, after which he slept soundly. Marcella led Paul again to her lean-to, where they comforted one-another again before sleeping.
Roger walked in a daze to his lean-to, hardly knowing where he was or whether this was a dream or not. He had played so many roles in one day and had given so much of himself that it seemed there could be nothing left to give, but he felt full, filled to overflowing with the love of his companions. As he slept, he dreamed of owning an island much like this one, with a built-in infrastructure to support a small colony of vacationers in style and comfort, sleeping in something not much more substantial than his lean-to, but a bit more private, with open areas for the community to gather in the shade, and places for recreation. He saw grass shacks and a volleyball setup on a sandy stretch of beach. He imagined sand castle building contests and snorkeling and scuba lessons. He heard the sounds of laughter and saw people looking at one another the way Ralph and Jeanne looked at one another. It was the happiest dream of Roger’s life.
Acknowledgments
I want to acknowledge all people involved in this book series, without their permission and their support of whom this work could not be accomplished: Mr. Samuels, Mr. Del Mar, Captain Ashley, and the free spirit of Mr. Gallagher.
Distributed by Nick Niels Sanders with all rights and permissions required.
Table of Contents
Routine Activities
2
3
Acknowledgments
Routine Activities Page 8
