I hate Grand Island, Nebraska.
I hate cornfields. I hate our modern ranch style house with its modern windows and modern treeless front yard. I hate my own room with its cozy privacy. Back on Eudora Street, my sisters and I sleep together. Now I am alone in a little corner of the basement, and my parents think I will be over the moon to have a room to myself.
Everything about Grand Island is foreign. As soon as we arrive after the long trip from Denver, Dad drives downtown. Red explodes in every shop window. Signs scream to passersby.
"Support our 1971 Huskers!" "RED Hot Deals!" I have never seen so much red in my life. It's all very quaint. Very midwestern.
I hate it.
Mostly, though, I hate Central Catholic High School. Mom drops Joe, Mick and me off in the circle drive, and we nervously meet the superintendent, Father Frank Hoelck, in his office.
"It's great to meet the Brown kids!" Father Hoelck smiles broadly. He is tall and handsome, probably too handsome to be a priest. After he arranges for classmates to escort us through the building our first day, my brothers march stoically off. I am waiting outside the office for my own tour guide feeling queasy with fear when a short man with iron gray hair saunters out of a nearby classroom.
"VOLAAARE!" he croons like Frank Sinatra and waltzes up to me. For one wild second, I think he will ask me to dance. He laughs when he sees my startled expression. "Hee hee!" And it really is "hee hee". Gripping my arm, he looks all the way up at me. I am six foot one. He is five feet five. "How are you, young lady?" he greets me in a strong Rhode Island accent. Then he disappears into the office.
I blink. That odd little man is like my own crazy father. All of a sudden, things don't feel quite so strange.
My first period class is typing. I am a few weeks behind and wonder how I will ever catch up. The typing teacher, however, Mrs. Ley, reassures me in an instant. "We're so glad you're here." Mrs. Ley is beautiful like my mother. She places a comforting hand on my shoulder and smiles with her lovely, kind eyes. "I'll help you catch up. Don't worry."
Mutely, I nod. I am afraid to speak in the wake of such sympathy for fear my voice will crack with emotion. Everyone is so kind. Even the bouncy little cheerleader in the hall who guides me toward the cafeteria. She seems to have springs in her feet. "It's just down the hall to the right," she beams. "Come to the pep rally Friday!"
She throws the invitation over her shoulder before careening away down the hall.
After lunch is chemistry with Mr. Kayl who, as it turns out, is also my advisor. I shyly introduce myself to him, and awkwardly - because he is just as shy as I am - he shakes my hand. How old is this guy, I wonder. Mr. Kayl appears to be a high school kid himself but apparently is old enough to be married to the elfin woman down the hall who teaches English. Mrs. Kayl is 4 ft. 10 but tries to elevate her stature by wearing six inch platform shoes. She treads with careful dignity down the hall so as not to fall off the side of her shoes.
At the end of a long, exhausting first day, Fr. Hoelck meets with me in his office.
"How'd it go?"
I shrug. "It went great."
"Give it a chance," he says kindly. "You're missing everybody in Denver right not, but I promise we're not so bad. See how it feels in a couple of weeks or so."
That night in my own room all by myself, I open a letter from one of my best friends in Denver.
"We miss you!" she writes. Her letter is full of multiple exclamation points and all the news from Machebeuf High School. I suddenly toss the letter aside and cry my eyes out. It has not occurred to me until now that I won't be graduating with my old friends next year. Instead, I will march to Pomp and Circumstance with these strangers from Nebraska.
Father Hoelck is right. Central Catholic's not such a bad place at all. It's so nice, in fact, that after graduating from college, I return to teach my own brothers and sisters and eventually their children.. I wonder how surprised that teenage girl would be to know that one day she meets a tall, funny, sarcastic fellow teacher who will become her husband? That she will give birth to two very tall boys who will also graduate from Central Catholic?
I hate cornfields. I hate our modern ranch style house with its modern windows and modern treeless front yard. I hate my own room with its cozy privacy. Back on Eudora Street, my sisters and I sleep together. Now I am alone in a little corner of the basement, and my parents think I will be over the moon to have a room to myself.
Everything about Grand Island is foreign. As soon as we arrive after the long trip from Denver, Dad drives downtown. Red explodes in every shop window. Signs scream to passersby.
"Support our 1971 Huskers!" "RED Hot Deals!" I have never seen so much red in my life. It's all very quaint. Very midwestern.
I hate it.
Mostly, though, I hate Central Catholic High School. Mom drops Joe, Mick and me off in the circle drive, and we nervously meet the superintendent, Father Frank Hoelck, in his office.
"It's great to meet the Brown kids!" Father Hoelck smiles broadly. He is tall and handsome, probably too handsome to be a priest. After he arranges for classmates to escort us through the building our first day, my brothers march stoically off. I am waiting outside the office for my own tour guide feeling queasy with fear when a short man with iron gray hair saunters out of a nearby classroom.
 |
| The odd little man - Mr. Northup |
I blink. That odd little man is like my own crazy father. All of a sudden, things don't feel quite so strange.
 |
| Mrs. Peg Ley, typing teacher |
Mutely, I nod. I am afraid to speak in the wake of such sympathy for fear my voice will crack with emotion. Everyone is so kind. Even the bouncy little cheerleader in the hall who guides me toward the cafeteria. She seems to have springs in her feet. "It's just down the hall to the right," she beams. "Come to the pep rally Friday!"
 |
| Karen Pfeifer - the cheerleader |
After lunch is chemistry with Mr. Kayl who, as it turns out, is also my advisor. I shyly introduce myself to him, and awkwardly - because he is just as shy as I am - he shakes my hand. How old is this guy, I wonder. Mr. Kayl appears to be a high school kid himself but apparently is old enough to be married to the elfin woman down the hall who teaches English. Mrs. Kayl is 4 ft. 10 but tries to elevate her stature by wearing six inch platform shoes. She treads with careful dignity down the hall so as not to fall off the side of her shoes.
At the end of a long, exhausting first day, Fr. Hoelck meets with me in his office.
"How'd it go?"
I shrug. "It went great."
He searches my face with penetrating eyes. There's not much you can hide from this guy, I think. I stare down at my lap.
"Give it a chance," he says kindly. "You're missing everybody in Denver right not, but I promise we're not so bad. See how it feels in a couple of weeks or so."
That night in my own room all by myself, I open a letter from one of my best friends in Denver.
"We miss you!" she writes. Her letter is full of multiple exclamation points and all the news from Machebeuf High School. I suddenly toss the letter aside and cry my eyes out. It has not occurred to me until now that I won't be graduating with my old friends next year. Instead, I will march to Pomp and Circumstance with these strangers from Nebraska.
I cry and cry but finally sit up defiantly. Someday, when I am older, I will move back to Denver and into my old house. For now, however, I'm stuck in Hooterville. I sigh longingly. If only it was possible to travel forward in time. If only it was 50 years from now, and I could be an ancient woman sitting on the front porch of the old house on Eudora Street remembering with fondness the brief stint I spent as a teenager in Grand Island, Nebraska.
I cannot travel in time. Yet, the years pass so quickly that often I feel as if I have catapulted through time. 1971 seems but a brief, dizzying age ago.
It's not quite 50 years later. In fact, it's 45 years ago to the day that Joe, Mick and I first step foot into Grand Island Central Catholic. I think about that 16-year-old girl and wonder how she would react to seeing herself 45 years later - still in Grand Island, Nebraska. Still at Central Catholic High School.
 |
| Father Frank Hoelck |
I cannot travel in time. Yet, the years pass so quickly that often I feel as if I have catapulted through time. 1971 seems but a brief, dizzying age ago.
It's not quite 50 years later. In fact, it's 45 years ago to the day that Joe, Mick and I first step foot into Grand Island Central Catholic. I think about that 16-year-old girl and wonder how she would react to seeing herself 45 years later - still in Grand Island, Nebraska. Still at Central Catholic High School.
 |
| Mr. Kayl |
Those lovely, kind people she meets that warm September day in 1971 will become lifelong friends. The Sinatra crooner, Fred Northup, is a second father and surrogate grandfather to her husband and sons.
The bouncy cheerleader, Karen Pfeifer Robison, will also return to Central Catholic as Development Director and continue to be one of Central Catholic's most exuberant cheerleaders. She and I will share not only our friendship but an enchanting little girl called Maggie - Karen's granddaughter and my great-niece.
Father Frank Hoelck becomes a grandfatherly chaplain to another generation of Central Catholic students. A week before his death, I will visit him in his hospital room to hold his hand.. "Thank you so much," I weep, "for being so good to me when I was a kid." Even in a fog of cancer, he will stare into my eyes with that same kindly, penetrating gaze.
My typing teacher, Mrs. Peg Ley, is one of my very closest friends. Even at 91, as I often remind her, she is still a beauty.
"You are so prejudiced!" she waves a hand at me. Only last weekend, she tells me her good son has decided to make all the decisions regarding her imminent future.
"That's good," I tease her. "You're too damn old to decide anything." She laughs her glorious laugh. I am relieved that her faithful Bobby takes such tender care of his lovely widowed mother. But I also swallow with emotion. I do not care to live in a world without Peg Ley. She is too important to me and to so many others.
Pat and Julie Kayl are the best friends I will ever have in this life. Julie has always been the person I turn to for consolation, advice, gossip and a good laugh. Legally blind, she nevertheless continues to teach for many years and makes her slow cautious way down the hallway. Because I am more than a foot taller than she, I have to restrain myself from picking her up and carrying her down the hallway so that we can get there faster. She and Pat are retired now, but Pat is still fixing everything that breaks at Central Catholic and is the only one who knows for sure where the leak in the ceiling of the old gym is.
Not long ago my brother Rick, now a grandfather, reminisces about that fateful day 45 years ago. "It's funny how we all swore we'd move back to Denver," he shakes his head."We all came to love Grand Island so much. It's where we were meant to be."
None of us ever moved back to Denver. All of us live in Nebraska, and eight of us are still in Grand Island. In 1971, we are blissfully unaware of the events that will unfold in our family in the years just ahead, events that will change our lives forever. Because of those events, however, we become even closer through the years and vow never to be far apart.
"Family is everything," Dad tells us again and again as we grow up together. But he neglects to tell us that family includes not only the people we start with, but the people we grow close to along the way. As long as we're with people we love, we make a home.
We don't know it in 1971. But when we move to Grand Island, Nebraska, we're finally coming home.
The bouncy cheerleader, Karen Pfeifer Robison, will also return to Central Catholic as Development Director and continue to be one of Central Catholic's most exuberant cheerleaders. She and I will share not only our friendship but an enchanting little girl called Maggie - Karen's granddaughter and my great-niece.
Father Frank Hoelck becomes a grandfatherly chaplain to another generation of Central Catholic students. A week before his death, I will visit him in his hospital room to hold his hand.. "Thank you so much," I weep, "for being so good to me when I was a kid." Even in a fog of cancer, he will stare into my eyes with that same kindly, penetrating gaze.
My typing teacher, Mrs. Peg Ley, is one of my very closest friends. Even at 91, as I often remind her, she is still a beauty.
"You are so prejudiced!" she waves a hand at me. Only last weekend, she tells me her good son has decided to make all the decisions regarding her imminent future.
 |
| Mrs. Kayl |
"That's good," I tease her. "You're too damn old to decide anything." She laughs her glorious laugh. I am relieved that her faithful Bobby takes such tender care of his lovely widowed mother. But I also swallow with emotion. I do not care to live in a world without Peg Ley. She is too important to me and to so many others.
Pat and Julie Kayl are the best friends I will ever have in this life. Julie has always been the person I turn to for consolation, advice, gossip and a good laugh. Legally blind, she nevertheless continues to teach for many years and makes her slow cautious way down the hallway. Because I am more than a foot taller than she, I have to restrain myself from picking her up and carrying her down the hallway so that we can get there faster. She and Pat are retired now, but Pat is still fixing everything that breaks at Central Catholic and is the only one who knows for sure where the leak in the ceiling of the old gym is.
Not long ago my brother Rick, now a grandfather, reminisces about that fateful day 45 years ago. "It's funny how we all swore we'd move back to Denver," he shakes his head."We all came to love Grand Island so much. It's where we were meant to be."
None of us ever moved back to Denver. All of us live in Nebraska, and eight of us are still in Grand Island. In 1971, we are blissfully unaware of the events that will unfold in our family in the years just ahead, events that will change our lives forever. Because of those events, however, we become even closer through the years and vow never to be far apart.
"Family is everything," Dad tells us again and again as we grow up together. But he neglects to tell us that family includes not only the people we start with, but the people we grow close to along the way. As long as we're with people we love, we make a home.
We don't know it in 1971. But when we move to Grand Island, Nebraska, we're finally coming home.
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