Dear Reader,
In the upcoming weeks I'll be featuring some Honorable Mention entries from this year's Write a DearReader Contest. People put their heart and soul into their writing, and I like to share as many great entries as I can.
Congratulations to every single person who took the challenge and entered this year's writing contest. Thank you for opening your hearts and sharing your stories. It was a privilege to read them. -- Suzanne Beecher
Whose Turn Is It to Tap the Pump?
Everyone has a secret that only they know. It could be as simple as fibbing to your parent as a child saying "I didn't eat the last cookie," but you know you did. Or a dark, gut wrenching secret, which you could never share with anyone. I tend to think we all have those.
My father never wanted to marry my mother Loretta. He really wanted to marry her sister, but she wouldn't give him the time of day, so he just settled for my mother. Oh, another secret: my mother was pregnant with his child!
I'm from a family of eight. Eight dysfunctional siblings, who really didn't realize that we were until we left home. Navigating the world around us was difficult, but we did it.
My father decided to leave Chicago for the country. He bought a tiny unheated cottage with some electricity, a hand pump in the kitchen and an outhouse. He put down the money, then he told my mother. He couldn't stay in Chicago anymore, as he was wanted for an outstanding DUI. My mother also had her fill living in her in-laws' basement, with six children under the age of thirteen. Two more children came later in the "love shack" after eight years.
After five years of the hand pump continually breaking and the outhouse being pretty damn cold in the winter, my father's parents took pity on us and bought a used pump that would supply water so we could have an actual toilet and a faucet in the kitchen.
However, the real fun was the Russian roulette game of "Whose turn is it to tap the pump?" Once a day, at any time, the pump would hum and stick and not shut off. One of us six, not the little ones, would straddle the outside basement step and door {we were way ahead of any yoga stretch} and take the bamboo fishing pole, {our summer meal planner}, and hit the pump at the right angle and spot to stop it from running and not burn out. Here was the challenge, you had to balance perfectly because the floor always had water on it from a crack in the foundation and the wires that hung down from the floor above were live and you could be electrocuted. The incredible thing is we all survived!
Let's be honest here. All of us shared this and so many, many secrets, but we never spoke of the pump tapping or for that matter, other more serious things. And yes, believe me when I say more serious.
My two younger siblings never had the opportunity to play our pump game, but I know they had their taste of other fun things. Us six got out of that house ASAP. They were years behind us. It wasn't all bad for them. They were the lucky two. My brother secured a wall heater and they had the luxury of standing in front of it in their winter coats while watching the Ed Sullivan show on Sunday nights. Oh how they were spoiled!
I could go on about the secrets we all keep. It would serve no purpose. The amazing thing is that all of us became strong and determined. We worked and studied hard, became successful and happy. There are more secrets in those chapters of our life, but that's for another time.
I am the keeper of the bamboo fishing pole. I look at it sometimes and just have to laugh because I never told anyone, but wait...now you know one of my secrets.
Linda Ann Falster
Honorable Mention, 2020 Write a DearReader Contest
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
* There's still time to enter this week's giveaways:
It's Chocolate Chip Cookie time at the book club. Every month I bake for readers. Enter the November Chocolate Chip Cookie Giveaway and see photos of October's cookie winners, click here.
Today is the last day to enter this week's special two-book giveaway: a copy of Wanda E. Brunstetter's Amish Friends From Scratch Cookbook and a copy of The Blended Quilt. To enter, click here.
AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.
This month's Penguin Classics book is The Cancer Journals, by Audre Lorde, with a foreword by Tracy K. Smith. I have a copy to share with you, so start reading and enter today.
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