Poet's
Corner
By Ron Crowe
IPS Features

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IPS Features Staff

International Press Service

DURING MOST OF THE WAR

(Fairfield Highlands, Alabama, 1943-45)

That's where we lived during most of the war:

a winter neighborhood of dingy

white houses and yellowing lawns on

a red clay road always sticky after rain.

I slept in a room with three brothers

and at night listened to the distant clamor

of steel mills: endless iron pigs dropping into railroad

flatcars, like God dropping handfuls of barbells.

And the Loughlin boys next door had a daddy

off in a German prison camp, whom they

talked of only in whispers, while

our own traveling salesman daddy--

anchored safely to the home front by six kids

and forty-one summers--with his green '41 Hudson

and shiny shoes--appeared as if he were somebody,

next to our steelworker neighbors in grubby denims

and old Fords.

Our patriotic club in Tommy Johnson's

basement had a red, white, and blue Uncle Sam mailbox

holder that we saluted and gave the secret password

("Old Glory") upon entering and leaving.

Tom Mix sang over the radio every afternoon:

"Shredded Ralston for your breakfast starts

the day off shining bright...,"and we listened to

Green Hornet, Terry and the Pirates, and the Lone

Ranger, viewing them on our internal screens.

One late spring day Polly Merkle caught me and 

Bo Smith swimming naked--with shame, giggles

and blushes to follow for weeks--and later, my oldest

brother Sonny earned Dad's long-smouldering wrath

by floating Tar Creek in the old man's homemade

plywood boat, spotting the shiny varnish with

roach-like stains that would never come off.

That's where we lived during most of the war.

One of the last things I remember was old Mr. Lee,

in striped gray overalls and blue work shirt,

walking down the red clay road, holding

the Birmingham News up for us to see:

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT DEAD,

and tears rolling down his cheeks.