True Stories Well Told

By Marlene Samuels

We’d read every book— about the experience, recovery, getting organized—plus had watched numerous documentaries. Four weeks before our life-changing event of becoming parents, our obstetrician encouraged us to register for Lamaze class taught by Nurse Practitioner Maureen McDougal, Chicago’s ultimate authority.

I was beginning my last trimester. Larry, my husband, and I were at least ten years older than every couple in the class except Maria and Enrico. The four of us hit it off immediately that first meeting. A May-December marriage, Enrico presented as an elegant gentleman. A successful architect from Italy, he was eighteen years Maria’s senior. He arrived to classes attired in his interpretation of casual: gray flannel slacks, cashmere blazer, silk shirt, ascot at his neck. We marveled that he felt comfortable for sitting on a floor mat to support Maria during our exercises. 

“Quickly, take your places, everyone!” Ordered Nurse Maureen, our distinguished instructor. She clapped her hands loudly as though calling kindergartners to order, one of her numerous annoying habits. “Folks, we’re on a schedule. Your babies aren’t!”

“Gentlemen, be seated on your mats, cradling your partner’s head in your lap. Remember, your job is to ensure her comfort!” We scrambled into position for our first exercise. Women awkwardly lowered themselves. “Men, no whining about leg cramps! Tough it out. You’re not the ones giving birth.” As we assumed our positions, Maureen shouted more commands.

“Okay, time for breathing practice. I must have undivided attention.” Everyone nodded. “First, we’ll exhale fully before deep breathing. Ready? Exhale! Now deep inhale! Hold for ten now, exhale slowly.” Maureen possessed the finesse of an army drill sergeant. By the end of our first class, she’d earned the moniker, “Lamaze Nazi.”

During week two, Maureen issued her three-minute warning to get into position. We’d barely returned to our mats following a fifteen-minute break when Maureen and my husband engaged in a stare-down, a death-glare really. He’d joked about focal-point exercises with Maria and Enrico, “I’ll bet Lamaze-breathing is like aspirin.” He whispered too loudly. “It works, but you have to believe.” They burst out laughing, actually guffawing. Larry inadvertently made eye contact with Maureen, who was hardly amused.

Sunday Lamaze classes became our weekly foursome ritual. After class, we’d go out for lunch. By our last session, Maria was too exhausted to eat out, and I focused only on changing into my Hawaiian muumuu. We had zero interest in food or socializing. “You’re due next week, right?” Asked Maria as we bid one another goodbye and good luck.

“How’d you remember?” I asked. “And you?”

 “Two weeks, three days, but who’s counting? I have a great idea! Let’s have a reunion dinner at the end of June. We each should have had our babies, and we’ll be more than ready for adult company. Interested?” An ex-fitness trainer, Maria was that pregnant woman other pregnant women resented because, from any view but sideways, she didn’t look pregnant. I feared she’d be reunion-ready well before I was.

The last Friday of June, my phone rang. I grabbed it, my shrieking newborn flat against my chest. “Hey, Marlene,” the familiar voice said, “it’s Maria. Remember me?”“How couldn’t I?”

“So, whad’ya have?” She asked.   

“A boy, three weeks ago. You?”

“Same, two weeks ago. You up for getting out yet? My mom’s helping with Giancarlo so I’m actually getting some sleep.”

“I’d love to, but honestly, I’m not ready to leave David with anyone.”

“Of course you aren’t. So I’ll cook dinner, and you’ll all come over!” She sounded like a peppy, excited schoolgirl. “We have a porta-crib, so we’ll put the babies to sleep in the same room. My mother’s in our guest room next to the nursery. She insists she’ll take care of them.”

 “Wow, that sounds fantastic!” I could hardly believe her invitation.

“Does next Friday, six-thirty-ish work?”

 I hung up the phone with a new understanding of cabin fever. The prospect of socializing underscored that it would be the first time in months I’d wear clothes not designed by Omar-the-Tent-Maker.

We parked in their building’s garage. Nervously, I lifted our newborn from his car seat while Larry emptied our trunk of enough gear for a month abroad. We entered the lobby. The doorman called our friends, announcing our arrival. “I’ll key in their floor for you.” He said, holding the elevator doors. “You’re going to the penthouse.”

The elevator doors opened directly into their apartment. Elegantly dressed, Maria and Enrico were waiting. The instant Maria saw us, she giggled, “Hey, we’re grown-ups again!”

Their stark white living room’s ultra-contemporary furniture was a contradiction to Enrico’s reserved appearance. Touring the apartment, we admired the skyline from their penthouse. Simultaneously, we realized it was time to ready our newborns for bed. Remarkably,  both fell asleep immediately, and we repaired to the living room for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Next, Maria directed us into a narrow dining room where a massive black granite slab supported on six concrete pillars served as their dining-table.

“Marlene, sit there.” She said, pointing to the end of the table. “It’s the best view of Chicago at night.” I was mesmerized by the skyline from the fifty-fifth floor. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner, several wines, a pasta first course, Osso Buco, salad, then tiramisu. Next were cheeses and shots of Grappa. We laughed hysterically. We ate chocolates. We laughed some more. Maria proved an outstanding cook. 

After weeks stuck home with less sleep than either Larry or I needed, our evening out was an excellent break, but by eleven o’clock we were exhausted. “It’s gotten so late!” Larry said, consulting his watch. “We need to get going.”

“Such a brilliant idea and fabulous evening!” I gushed to our friends. “Next time, our house.” Enrico pressed the elevator’s call button while we chatted away. The doors opened. We hugged and kissed, Italian style — cheek to cheek to cheek— agreeing to get together soon. Larry and I stepped into the elevator, totally relaxed, given the evening’s food and wine.

Suddenly, horror hijacked Maria’s face. The elevator doors were closing and she shrieked, “Oh my god, you can’t leave! You forgot your baby!”

©2026 Marlene Samuels

Marlene holds a Ph.D., from University of Chicago. A research sociologist by training, she writes creative non-fiction by preference. Currently, she is completing her book entitled Ask Mr. Hitler: A Memoir Told In Short Story.  She is coauthor of The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, and author of When Digital Isn’t Real: Fact-Finding Off-Line for Serious Writers. Her essays and stories have been published widely in anthologies, journals, and online.  (www.marlenesamuels.com)

By Sandra Hurtes

The first time I became aware of having a heart as big as my mother’s was when we left Crown Heights for Canarsie. I was almost fourteen. Everything and everyone I said goodbye to seemed fragile in a way they hadn’t appeared before. As if my leaving weakened them. When we packed up the Crown Heights kitchen, I almost cried when my mother said she was throwing away our old silverware—two mismatched sets of stainless steel—as soon as we purchased two new sets. We needed one set for dairy and one set for meat, since we were kosher. I felt a special connection to our forks, which in Yiddish we called goopels.

If a fork was missing from my father’s place setting, he would ask me, Please bring me a fleishig goopel [a meat fork]. His words seemed to rise from the soles of his feet, as if the rugged Russian terrain he had fought on during the Holocaust had seeped inside him. His heavily accented voice came out thick and gravelly, spoke of the sadness of Jewish history, told of his family’s lives that were no more.

Sometimes I accidentally messed up the silverware. I ate a cheese blintz with a meat fork. If we had lived in the country, I would have run out the door, covered the fork with soil to make it kosher, as was the law. But since we lived in the city, as soon as I realized my mistake, I struck a match and put it to the gas burner, watched the flame rise. Then I held the goopel inside the fire, burned off the dairy particles.

I followed the Jewish laws my parents selected. Although once a week, my mother and I went out for chicken chow mein against my father’s knowledge. As we scurried down Utica Avenue to the darkened restaurant, she told me, “It’s our secret.”

We sat at a small table like spies and ordered wonton soup from Column A and an egg roll from Column B. We shared the one bowl of soup which we slid back and forth between us. All the while, my mother told me things about my father. She said he was cheap, his sisters were mean, he didn’t give her enough money for the house. That was why we shared the soup.

I ate two or three spoonfuls, leaving the strips of pork which my mother loved. I told her I was full, said she should finish. That’s what my mother had done in her shtetl in Czechoslovakia. She saved her food for the others.

When my mother and I strolled the promenade of Eastern Parkway, we memorized the walkway’s terrain. Trees sprang from the edges of the sidewalks; in spring, branches arced over us, blossomed with color, so that pink petals carpeted our path.

My mother. Goopels. Eastern Parkway. Everything I loved was alive with feelings and needs. When we threw away the goopels, I imagined them rising out of the garbage can, flexing and dancing in the air. The friends I left behind in Crown Heights waved a sad goodbye, and I promised I would return, see you soon. But my words were stiff, due to my self-consciousness of expressing love for anything outside my family.

My heart was big, maybe bigger than my mother’s. But she could never know.

©2026 Sandra Hurtes

Sandra Hurtes is a writer and teacher living in New York. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Women in Judaism, and numerous other publications.

By Donald A. Ranard

“In memory of Amy Ranard”

He’s an orange tabby, a big-bellied, easy-goin’ good ol’ boy from Wilmington, North Carolina, 16 when we bring him back to our home in Arlington, Virginia, after the sudden death of my sister, his owner—wait, “pet parent,” the preferred term among animal lovers—though Goober at 16 is 80 in human years and therefore older than his parent, who died alone in her apartment, her body found four days later, Goober by her side. Turns out the good ol’ boy belly is a tumor and Goober might die at any moment, says the vet, who wants to put him down. I’m a dog person, not a cat person (I know, I know, in the eyes of cat people, that makes me a control freak, even a closet misogynist, cats being independent, inscrutable, and, regardless of gender, feminine), but I love my sister and decide to do what she would have wanted me to do—let Goober live out what’s left of his life, until there’s pain—and that evening we take him outside in the last light of a late summer day to see and smell and hear what he, an indoor cat, has never seen or smelled or heard before. He sits up in my lap, suddenly alert, twitching his tail and jerking his head back and forth and up and down, trying to keep up with it all: cardinals and crows jockeying for position at the bird feeder, squirrels leaping from tree to tree, our resident rabbit nibbling the woodland phlox, a lone flickering firefly, a breeze rustling the leaves, carrying scents no human nose can ever know. He looks up at me in disbelief. It’s something, isn’t it Goober? I say. Overwhelmed, he curls himself into a ball in my lap and falls asleep, dreaming of his strange new world that has such creatures in it. My wife looks at us and smiles. “I guess he doesn’t know you’re not a cat person,” she says.

PS On Saturday evening, January 31, 2026, a year and a half after we brought Goober home, he passed away peacefully, lying between us on his favorite spot on the couch.

©2026 Donald A. Ranard

In addition to True Stories Well Told, Donald A. Ranard’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, New World Writing Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Vestal Review, The Washington Post, The Best Travel Writing, and many other publications. In 2022, his prize-winning play ELBOW APPLE CARPET SADDLE BUBBLE placed second in Savage Wonder’s annual playwriting contest. Before settling in Arlington, VA, he lived and worked in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

By Jeremiah Cahill

Our nation’s self-proclaimed “War Secretary,” Pete Hegseth has spotted the enemy, and the peril we face comes from—the Boy Scouts! A recently leaked Pentagon memo reveals Hegseth’s intention to cut off decades-old support for what is now known as Scouting America.

Language in the memo—not yet official policy—criticizes Scouting for having become “genderless,” and echoes Hegseth’s earlier attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion. The proposal calls for the Pentagon to quit providing support to the National Jamboree, a gathering of thousands of Scouts held every four years. It proposes a ban on any Scout meetings at military installations. (But apparently Congress requires the Pentagon to support the Jamboree.) Preparations are currently underway for the 10-day event in summer 2026 hosting as many as 20,000 Scouts.

Hegseth’s proposals to dismantle the military/scouting relationship have already been widely criticized—and they run counter to one of my earliest impressions of Scouting.

I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, joining Cub Scouts and then moving on to the local Boy Scout troop at about age 11. Not long after that, there was a large gathering to provide Island scouts with an event similar to the National Jamboree. This was the Makahiki, a name chosen to echo a traditional Hawaiian festival. In the pre-contact Hawaiian kingdom, Makahiki marked the beginning of a new year, and was a time of celebration and rejuvenation. Warfare was prohibited, allowing for peace and tranquility.

The one Makahiki I attended was held at a site not commonly used by Scouts—the iconic (and extinct) volcanic crater, popularly known as Diamond Head, on the eastern edge of Waikiki Beach. Early in the 20^th century, the crater became a key part of the U.S. Army’s coastal defense system, replete with bunkers, artillery batteries, tunnels and a command center.

At the event in the 1950s, we must have numbered easily 500 or more boys, spending a weekend camping in tents and doing what Scouts do—crafts, games, and various skill-building challenges. It was a big logistical effort, supported by the U.S. Army—trucks, equipment, chow lines, and a medical station. All highly impressive, compared to our small weekly troop meetings.

On arrival, we were instructed to take off our shirts, get in a very long line, and undergo a cursory physical exam. This procedure was unexpected, and I was mildly uncomfortable. Suddenly, I felt alone (where were my troop mates?) There I was, a skinny, self-conscious white boy amid a sea of diversity.

The exam would be brief—Army doctors with stethoscopes would listen to heart and lungs, ask a question or two, then move us along. Still, I remember my discomfort as the line inched forward.

One Army officer, likely a doctor himself, was standing to the side monitoring the line as we approached. I’m not sure what caused him to notice me—perhaps he sensed my unease. But as I got closer he spoke to me quietly, directly: “You’ve got good stomach muscles, son.”

Huh? Me? I’m sure I mustered a weak smile and a thank you. Then it was on to the stethoscope and the following three days of activities, of which I remember little. What has always stood out is that a competent and kind professional took an interest and informed me that, hey, I actually had well-toned abdominal muscles!

I went ahead with the activities—building rope bridges, stumbling along in a three-legged race, or hustling to build a fire and boil water—with just a bit more confidence than I might have had previously. It was a small gesture from that Army doctor, but it had an outsized and lasting impact on me.

That experience, and Scouting in general, has helped guide me through a lifetime of physical fitness, preparedness, and values endemic to Scouting. One of those values, which in those early years we seemed to absorb almost unconsciously, was acceptance of diversity.

My Scout troop, like so much else in the Islands, comprised a wide range of races and ethnicities. We were pals in the neighborhood, schools, and Scouting—Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Portuguese, Caucasian (known locally as haole), and plenty of racial mixtures. It was simply how life was during my early years in Honolulu.

More recently, Scouting America has expanded female participation. Currently, nearly 1,000 young women have earned the Eagle Scout rank, Scouting’s highest achievement. Welcoming girls is part of a broad, multi-year effort toward greater inclusivity, with the organization now accepting LGBTQ+ members and recruiting families from all backgrounds and ethnicities.

Military support for scouting—an association that goes back more than 100 years—has obvious benefits for the armed services. It’s an opportunity for future recruitment, getting the attention of patriotic, civic-minded youngsters.

But Scouts take different paths. I went on to become a civil rights activist, anti-war protester, and, eventually, a Quaker. Regardless of any particular direction, I’ve seen the impact Scouting has made in the lives of my peers and others around me.

And while I now decry the vast U.S. military budget—approaching $1 trillion per year—I think back to what seems a more worthwhile spending priority—logistical support for Scouting activities. How about just a tiny sliver of that budget to encourage future leaders?

Secretary Hegseth sees Scouting America as not representing the “warrior culture” he seeks to promote. But consider the Scout Oath, conceived in 1908, in which a Scout promises to “…help other people at all times; keep myself physically strong, mentally alert, and morally straight.” In a perilous world, that seems like timely guidance not just for young Scouts, but all the way up the chain of command.

©2026 Jeremiah Cahill

Jeremiah lives and writes in Madison, Wisconsin, endeavoring to keep himself mentally alert during challenging times.

Writers gathered Monday night as usual for the monthly meet-up for reminiscence writers I host, First Monday, First Person. Rich shared this ripped-from-the-headlines poem, a cri de coeur for our country and the brave people of Minneapolis. Anyone alive in the U.S. in the 1960s will recognize how “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

By Richard Senn

There’s something happening here

And it’s not good I fear

There’s millions of people in the street

Everyone is up on their feet

Protesting what is going on

Singing a freedom song

Tired of bullies and clowns

Ready to take them down

They are killing people for no reason

ICE thinks it’s a citizen hunting season

Fascism is rampant here

But for me democracy is still dear

To get it we must fight

For what is just and what is right

Freedom in America is dear

I hope to you that is still clear

Never submit to a fascist state

Because once again, America can be great

©2026 Richard Senn

Rich is retired from working for over 25 years in the biotechnology industry. He started spending more time on his writing this year with a particular emphasis on creative nonfiction.

By Kurt McGinnis Brown

“My Islands” originally appeared in Wisconsin Writers Association Creative Wisconsin magazine, October 2025.

I’m in love with islands.  Their siren call streams through me like those neutrinos constantly passing through all of us.  Thinking of an island of any type makes me happy, and when I’m on one I find special freedom in its circumscribed space.  On an island our limit is proved, death certain, and so there is no escaping the knowledge that every one of our actions is consequential.

The first island I landed on was Monhegan, off the coast of Maine.  One square mile, no cars, no paved roads, reached only by ferry.  I was eight.  My sister and I spent the first day on the wild eastern side, Atlantic breakers crashing over us and pinning us to black rocks.  That night over dinner in the lodge we were chastised by the owner.  It impressed me that he spoke to us, not my parents.  He’d seen us playing on the rocks, dodging waves and hanging on through the streaming foam when hit.  Perhaps it was made up to terrify us but he claimed that the week before two kids had been swept from those rocks and out to sea.

Islands that followed are Ibiza, San Juan (in Washington), St. Lucia, Barbados, Big Pine Key, the big island of Hawaii, Ko Samet, Sicily, and Lesbos, which is so large it contains two mountain ranges.  Sappho and her exquisite sensibility came from there.  Aristotle, the observer of phainomena, exiled himself there to do biology experiments in the skinny lagoon that makes Lesbos look like an amoeba undergoing mitosis. 

Its now ten years since the great migrant crisis of 2015.  My partner Susana and I were on Lesbos that October when ten thousand people every week landed on the north coast after crossing in small boats from Turkey.  We were aware of the refugee crises but didn’t know that Lesbos was a prime destination until we arrived and found the shuttle from the airport crammed with reporters and camerapeople.  Driving to our lodging near Molyvos on the north coast we passed hundreds of refugees walking toward the capital Mytilene.

We were tourists.  Our first full day on the island we visited a small building covering pools fed by hot springs.  The women who owned the building instructed us to first immerse ourselves in the near-scalding water for two minutes then race outside to stand in the cold sea before returning for another immersion.  Susana couldn’t force herself into the hot water and instead relaxed on a bathchair in the humid air.  Counting off the seconds while trying to not panic I finally stood up and ran outside to cool off in the sea. 

And there I am, hip deep in the Aegean, fingers swirling the water, staring into the distance, oblivious, relaxed, and psyching myself up to go back inside for the painful-then-pleasurable-then-panicked spell in the hottest water I’ve ever been in when, bouncing over the waves toward me, there appeared a dingy full of people.  There must have been forty adults in a craft built to hold twenty.  I ran inside to dress and then back outside to meet people clambering up the rocky shore to the dirt road where I stood. 

A jeep with aid workers zoomed up behind me, the woman driving yelling at me in French.  I understood by her gestures that she wanted me to urge the people to come to the jeep.  “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” I blurted out, a melodious phrase remembered from French films.  Or possibly I said “Quelle heure est-il?” because that too rolls off the tongue.  Whatever nonsense came out of my mouth, my astonished point was, “Aren’t you the aid workers?”  But the woman got out and shooed me toward the new arrivals, again telling me to get them to come to her. 

I had only English to use.  “Excuse me, that lady over there might be able to help you.”  One of the travelers who spoke some English explained that they had no intention of talking with aid workers.  Next to me another man unwrapped what he’d used to waterproof his phone and made a call.  I was told that the boat his brother and family were on was still out there in the waves, and this first group was going to wait to see if that boat made it across.  I went back to report this to the French in the jeep and received scowls.  They zoomed off.  To do what I have no idea, as they seemed reluctant to engage directly with the cold, wet people who had just arrived.

The travelers’ greatest fear was to be separated forever from family members still trying to make it over the sea.  Once they got on one of the many tour buses pressed into driving people to the camp near the capital, there was no telling what would happen to them.  Most chose instead to walk over the island’s mountains to reach the harbor at Mytilene, hoping to avoid the camp and somehow find a way to continue on to the mainland and then central or northern Europe.  They chose to stay together and govern themselves rather than turn their lives over to the well-intentioned but chaotic (and sometimes literally imprisoning) aid process.  Many of the people who made the crossing remain trapped in the giant migrant camp.  Today a second camp is being built.

To be on vacation and to find myself unexpectedly among heartbreak and chaos and suffering was to also witness a tenuous hope as expressed by the majority of Greeks, who though struggling themselves, were sacrificing to help strangers.  A common sight in the little shops along the coast was locals mingling with aid workers and tourists, speaking many languages, all of us buying up whatever we could carry down to the thousands of people arriving every day.  One shop owner near the hot springs simply said “take, take” when we came back and no longer charged for the items.  At one point, I stood side by side with a local watching the latest group to set off over the mountains on the walk to Mytilene.  As if he needed to explain why he provided help, he said in accented English, “Some people know what time it is, some remain asleep.”

The women who ran the hot springs had a method of helping that was heartbreaking and beautiful in its practicality.  When a boat landed they coaxed people with children to come to their building.  Of that first group I saw land, the women managed to direct a few women and several children to their building.  All were soaking wet.  The Greek women stripped the shivering children of their wet clothes, threw these in a pile to be washed and dried and then, because the families had to keep moving, dressed the children in the clean, dry clothes of previous arrivals.

Susana helped strip, dry, and dress two little Iraqi girls.  Then, wearing the clothes of Afghani girls who landed on Lesbos the day before, these girls continued with their family on their frightening journey of hope—to find a safe, welcoming country in which to start a new life.  Soon their clothes would wind up on children from another country.

As they were being dried and dressed, I sat next to the large colorful bag covered with a multitude of hearts the girls carried on their journey.  Their only belongings.  Imagine what’s inside:  the well-worn, the well-loved, the things they judged most valuable moments before they left their home forever.

After landing back in the U.S. and entering our comfortable house we saw a news story from that same coast.  One of the dinghies sank and babies, children, fathers and mothers died.  That year 100,000 people made that crossing.  I feel helpless to hope for happy endings for all those desperate people.  Yet sometimes late at night, in my yellow armchair by a window where the moon often peeks in, I find myself trying to picture where those Iraqi girls are now.  Here on this yellow cozy island where imagination is free, I’m able to construct stories in my head of the girls happy, safe, and laughing.

© 2026 Kurt McGinnis Brown
Kurt’s plays have been performed across the country, and his fiction has appeared in national journals. He’s finishing a book tracing his transformation from criminal to creative writer. His work on land and poverty took him to countries he’d otherwise never have experienced. http://kurtmcginnisbrown.com/

By Marlene Samuels

This January in Chicago, where I feel fortunate to have settled, temperatures have given me a serious “deja vu” attack. Our arctic blast brought to mind a period in my life I’d all but forgotten!

Until my teens, I lived in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Situated on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The city is renowned for its old-world ambiance, lip-smacking cuisine, and the quirk of French remaining the legal language in one of our closest geographic neighbors. Americans often remark that when they visit Montreal, they feel as though they’ve gone to Europe—France specifically—only much closer and without jet-lag. That’s great except Montreal is also notorious for shockingly brutal winters.

Throughout high school and my first two years of college, I’d saved all my pennies and all my dimes from summer jobs and weekend babysitting. Religiously, I’d walk to our neighborhood bank—savings account passbook proudly in hand—humming as I strolled. The song: lyrics of the 1962 Beach Boy’s song, “Little Deuce Coupe,” “I saved all my pennies and all my dimes…”

In 1970, the summer before I would enter junior year at university, the administration approved upper-class students having cars on campus. I was beyond ecstatic and intended to do just that. My small fortune, faithfully saved over the years, totaled an amazing $536. With Dad’s guidance, I found a road-worthy 1959 black Volkswagen Beetle for $500. The remaining $36 paid for floor mats and a pre-paid gas card. The car’s odometer read 160,000 miles. The number was of little concern to me since I’d read that due to the Volkswagen’s extreme simplicity of design, the road-bug was destined to run forever.

My black beetle was a four-speed stick-shift on the floor, cute and somewhat other-worldly looking on campus. It sported exterior running boards—a tad rusted and sagging in parts—plus shiny metal bumpers with their share of dents. None of these features soured my love of my first car. But the pure “simplicity of design,” I soon discovered, meant the 1959 VW lacked both a gas gauge and a fan that might deliver heat into the car during the frequently arctic Midwest winters. And seatbelts? Of course not. In retrospect, we didn’t pay attention to them. Given our youth, we perceived ourselves as indestructible, and besides, seatbelts weren’t standard equipment in cars until 1968. But we definitely knew about gas gauges and car heaters! Every car I’d ever been in had them.

My black Volkswagen Beetle was equipped with a “reserve tank.” The metal acorn-squash-sized globe under the steering wheel held precisely one and a half gallons of gas. Should my beloved bug begin to sputter — a sure sign I was running out of gas—I’d flip a lever on the acorn squash. Reserve gasoline would pour into the main tank, the VW shuddered and bucked like a rodeo bull for a few seconds, and then all would be good again, at least for a while. My math wasn’t the greatest but at approximately thirty-eight miles per gallon, the extra fuel gave me anywhere from fifty-four to seventy more miles, depending upon weather, traffic conditions, terrain, and how much coasting in neutral I managed in my search for a gas station before totally running out of gas and getting stranded.

The absence of a gas gauge was simply inconvenient compared with the vastly more serious, even life threatening one: the absence of a heater or fan. During Chicago’s arctic winters, that was the only way to generate heat in my 1959 Volkswagen Beetle. Increasing the motor’s RPM’s (revolutions per minute) by downshifting usually did it but only when the car was warmed up. The racket did make the engine sound ready to explode, however. The method forced hot air from the motor to blow through thin slits at the windshield’s base, the auto designer’s concept of vents.

The first winter I owned my beloved beetle, I quickly learned the importance of never driving anywhere alone unless absolutely unavoidable, and if I did, wrapping a scarf over my mouth and nose to minimize my exhaled breath that reached the windshield was essential. Why? Because condensation from breathing when reaching the windshield created an ice layer at an alarming rate.

The lifesaving task assigned to every passenger: remain as quiet as possible so as to reduce breath that condensed into yet more windshield ice—but also take responsibility for the ice-scraper. Passengers scraped the windshield’s interior ice as it formed—the task’s importance could not be underestimated— since accumulating ice obscured the road’s visibility.

Objectively, I probably overpaid for the car. But the freedom it provided remained unquantifiable. I’d bought myself independence plus the means to distance myself from home and parents at a point in life when such things could not be over-stated. After my first arctic Midwest winter with my 1959 beetle, my friends and I settled in to a comfortable “winter travel in the Marlene-wagon” routine. I was the envy of most of my friends, rarely lacking for passengers eager to assume the ice-scraper job. By the time I graduated university, the running-boards had rusted off and my metal bumpers, beyond dented, had been replaced with rubber strips cut from old tires.

This week, temperatures have hovered at below-zero double digits. Getting into my modern-day wonder vehicle and pulling out of my garage, my steering wheel heats up, my bottom feels warm as the seat-heater turns on, and my toes grow toasty. I exhale a deep sigh without the slightest concern about icy windshield consequences.

My little black beetle may have lacked heat, a gas gauge, seatbelts, and in all likelihood shock-absorbers, but always will retain a spot in my heart as the greatest car I ever owned.

©2026 Marlene Samuels

Marlene holds a Ph.D., from University of Chicago. A research sociologist by training, she writes creative non-fiction by preference. Currently, she is completing her book entitled Ask Mr. Hitler: A Memoir Told In Short Story.  She is coauthor of The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, and author of When Digital Isn’t Real: Fact-Finding Off-Line for Serious Writers. Her essays and stories have been published widely in anthologies, journals, and online.  (www.marlenesamuels.com)

By Faith Ellestad

It was a celebration of someone’s life, and I dreaded going. What was the matter with me?  Normally, although I don’t look forward to such occasions, I’m okay to go.  But this was different.  We weren’t close to Lana and Bob, her recently deceased husband; in fact, we had only met a few times.  I knew they were involved in good works, and politically active, which I admired

But I didn’t know the last time I had encountered Lana, at a gathering of mutual friends, that Bob had developed rapid-onset dementia, Blithely unaware of Bob’s diagnosis, or that he had been admitted to memory care, I made a light-hearted remark about his absence, suggesting he had better things to do, ha ha. Lana replied, imforming me–somewhat tersely–of his whereabouts.  I felt awful and embarrassed and started to nervously over-apologize, which of course made her tear up.  Had there been a hole available, I would have unquestionably crawled in.  Instead, Lana turned away to join a different conversation while I silently inhaled my order of fish tacos so quickly I barely noticed their limp coldness. Lana left shortly thereafter, and I sat dejectedly blaming myself and desperately uncomfortable, wishing I had known about Bill.

With that very discomfiting memory of our previous meeting front and center, I now faced having to express my regrets to an acquaintance I may or may not have insulted.

After two weeks of almost constant worry, I reminded myself that not everything was about me, and at the very least, I would be increasing the attendance for her husband’s memorial. It was the one thing I could do.

Normally, I would have had little angst over what outfit to choose, but the previous week, I had managed to trip on our bedframe in the middle of the night and break my little toe, And, may I add, for purposes of sympathy, it was quite painful.  My sartorial quest was to find an outfit that would at least diminish the unfortunate mismatched footwear, one normal and one toeless Velcro strapped surgical shoe. I chose a midnight blue top and midnight blue patterned pants.  Black socks hid my bare toes in the surgical boot and a black shoe on the other foot was the best I could do footwear-wise. A deep breath and I was ready to go.  Except–

Just as we were about to leave for the event, I remembered a small shoulder bag I hadn’t used in several years, buried in my bottom dresser drawer.  The purse was cherry red, easy to wear over my shoulder, with just room for my phone, wallet, and comb.  Just that little pop of color I was always reading about in those “what to wear” fashion articles online, subtly enhancing my very somber outfit.  It was a celebration, after all.  I was delighted to have remembered it at the last moment, that little bright red dot of confidence. At least I looked as good as one could limping around in two wildly mismatched pieces of footwear,

As we arrived, I was still having reservations.  Should I mention our conversation and apologize, or just not say anything?  At least I would be there in friendship; Lana was free to think whatever she might. Whatever.  I would just have to deal with myself.  Remember, it’s Not. About. You.

I asked my husband to check my shirt for cat hair before we went in, and he did some serious brushing on the back of my shoulder.

 “Just some fuzz, or something,” he reassured me.

I didn’t have any idea where I had encountered fuzz between our garage and this parking lot. But at least he had removed it before I went in. 

“Just a minute.” He had stopped at the top of the stairs. “A little more fuzz.”

“Huh, is there a cottonwood around here?”

“Don’t know, but I think I got it all.”

We walked downstairs and I switched my purse to the opposite shoulder.  A little tuft of fuzz wafted by. Then I noticed the strap had a wee bare patch at the top and the lining had rubbed off on my shirt. A brief pluck of my shoulder before stepping into the receiving line.

Lana saw us, gave us each a warm hug, and held my hand tightly.

“Oh, you came! I’m so glad to see you. Thank you, thank you for coming!”

I was so relieved it was my turn to get a little teary.

As we left the line, we ran into a couple of good friends.

“Faith!” said my blunt-spoken friend in her broad Australian accent, “@hat’ s going on with your purse?  It’s shedding!”

“I know. I guess the strap is a little worn. I should have checked it out before I left.”

“It’s not just the strap.” She was laughing so hard her wine began to slosh over the edge of her glass.

“What?”  I squeaked.

Now my husband and her spouse were starting to laugh, too.

I pulled the purse off my shoulder and examined it.  Unbelievably, the entire covering had begun peeling off the liner, which was shredding exuberantly.  White fuzz was everywhere, covering me and floating throughout the room, stealthily drifting onto other guests. At first, I was mortified, then suddenly the hilarity of the situation struck me, and I was laughing as hard as the rest.

“Let’s find a table,” my friend suggested.  “You can hide it in the corner.”

 Had I been wearing pants with pockets, I would have taken my phone and wallet out and thrown the damn thing away. It was kind of like wearing the Scarlet Letter. Hard to live down.

“Do you happen to have a trash bag with you?” I asked.

She did not. She just laughed. I parked my little desiccated accessory behind a floral arrangement, brushed my entire outfit off, with a little help from my friends, and proceeded to fill a plate with delicious snacks and enjoy the presentation. 

Returning home, I showed the purse remnants to my son and amused him by dropping it emphatically into the trash, 

So really, it wasn’t all about me, only it kind of was, too.  I did the right thing for Lana, and I wasn’t arrested by the fashion police. Score two!

© 2026 Faith Ellestad

Faith has been writing to amuse her family since she was old enough to print letters to her grandparents.  Now retired, she has taken the opportunity to sort through family memorabilia, discovering a wellspring of tales begging to be told, which she hopes to expand upon in written form (where appropriate, of course!).   She and her husband live in Madison, Wisconsin. They are the parents of two great sons and a loving daughter-in-law, and recently expanded their family to include Thistle and Bramble, two irrepressible young felines.