In 1968 I worked at the Kroger Warehouse in Evendale, Ohio five nights a week from 11:00 pm to 7:30 am. I came home with the sun, went to bed, slept for a few hours, then drove to a swim club where I climbed into the pool for a few laps, dried off, then tried to add a few more “z’s” before climbing back in my car, then back to Evendale for another night on the loading docks. And a Whopper at the local Burger King at 3 am.
One morning an eight-year old girl came over to my chaise lounge, sat down, and began talking to me. Charmed, I found her adept and comfortable in conversation with ‘an older man.” “Do you want to meet my family?” she asked. “Of course,” I replied, still under her spell. I met her father and mother, her younger sister Mary Alice, her older sister Anita, her brother Bryan, and then was surprised to meet her identical triplet sisters, Cindy, Kristy, and Kathy. Seven kids! All between the ages of five and twelve.
How we came to meeting at a swim club to my coming for dinner many Sundays, taking the kids out to drive-in movie theaters, escorting them on Hallowe’en, spending Easter mornings on Easter egg hunts. and becoming an unofficial brother-father-friend to this motley collection of pre-teens, is a blur.
At that time I was in a college fraternity, dating Marianne Mesloh, the UC Homecoming Queen, a year away from graduating, and well on my way to an uncertain future punctuated by race riots, RFK and MLK’s assassinations, political upheaval, the arrival of hippies, Hare Krishna, a culture war, free love, long hair, and the never-ending Vietnam war. I was an English major and had no idea how those “first days of the rest of my life” would have upon me, but I was prepared to go into that future armed with a full tank of ignorance, naivete, and optimism. I found myself sidetracked by this wonderful family who welcomed me in ways that I had a chance last week to summarize in an address I recorded on the occasion of the matriarch’s ninetieth birthday, some fifty-three years after we all went swimming together.
Although I suddenly found myself with six sisters and a younger brother, it was one of the Anderson girls, the second youngest, the one who introduced me to her family, that made the deepest impression upon me. I always looked forward to going to their house, to talking, playing or just being with them all, but I also was puzzled to discover that this twenty-one year old was falling in love with an eight year old. And let’s keep this in perspective. I wasn’t a pervert. I had no designs on her. I just loved having a little sister, a girl with whom I felt comfortable chatting and just spending time with. I was bewildered, but having her and her family in my life was a rewarding change from college girls, drinking in bars, and grooming myself to make sure I didn’t stand out in any unfavorable way from my fraternity brothers.
Back: Don, Anita, and Barbara
Middle: Kristy, Cindy, Kathy, or Kathy, Kristy, Cindy, or Cindy, Kristy, Kathy, or…
Front: Gail, Bryan, Mary Alice
It was at that time that I bought my first camera, a Yashica rangefinder that my brother purchased for me in the base exchange at his Air Force base in Big Spring, Texas. This was one of my first efforts, in happier times.
Bryan on the left, Anita in back, and the triplets sandwiching Gail and Mary Alice
I had a field day photographing the triplets, even if I coudn’t tell them apart
Right Coumn
Time passed. We lost contact, first in letters, then in birthday greetings. Gail married, brought three children into the world. Seven years ago I found them again on Facebook, and it was as if nothing had changed between me and them. The triplets married. Cindy adopted a boy, Kathleen, two girls, and Kristin had twins (of course). Mary Alice married, too, and her husband died in her arms on Christmas morning. Kathy divorced. Her former husband died this year. Kristin’s husband died, too And last week Gail’s marriage, after thirty-nine years, ended, too. Don died a couple of years ago, and Barbara celebrated her ninetieth birthday last week.
And then there’s this whole thing about what we remember, how we select, embellish, change, improvise, or invent what we’re always so certain we actually remember, when in fact, it might never have happened the way we remember it…or if it ever happened at all.
The Andersons happened. They happened to me at just the right time. I believe, too, that not everything that happens to us can be explained, that there are connections created that defy understanding. I’m not superstitious. I’m not religious in a traditional sense. I don’t believe in ghosts. I do believe in the soul, the spirit, and life, and I believe that even after more than fifty years I'm still a part of the Andersons….Gail and I are real friends, have been, are now, always will be…I am grateful.
Gail, 8 or 9
Mary Alice, 5
Don and Barbara a few years ago
I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1969. The Andersons had moved to Columbus, then to Chicago. Before I left I had a few moments alone with Gail, now nine years old. I told her then that I loved her. She was the first female, other than my mother, I ever loved. Now sixty-one, she remembers. I wrote her a poem. She knows it by heart.
I returned to California, entered the Peace Corps, met Jadyne, and sent Gail a photo of Jadyne. She burned it.
We stayed close for a while. Gail came to visit us in Oxford, then after Jason was born, came to California. She learned to love Jadyne, too.
Gail at thirteen or fourteen
I remember how happy I was with the Andersons. I loved being with them, and I remember that they loved having me as a guest.
It wasn’t long after I moved to California that Anita started college. During her freshman year she took a vacation to Jamaica where she was killed in a motorbike accident. I never learned the details. Gail wrote me with the news. She wrote again when Bryan lay down in the garage, started the car and closed the door. It’s unimaginable for parents to lose a child. Barbara and Don lost two.
Something there is that doesn’t prevent life from continuing. Barbara looks radiant, even after her recent knee replacement. Kristy and Gail have grandchildren.
Gail and her daughter Natalie