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Also by Alan Sorem
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LUCY SCOTT’S GRAND STAND
Age Is an Attitude, Not a Condition
A Novel
Alan Sorem
Lucy Scott’s Grand Stand
Age Is an Attitude, Not a Condition
Copyright © 2014 Alan Sorem. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-0107-0
EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-0108-7
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Some of the text in this novel first appeared in the musical Lucy Scott’s Grand Stand, copyright © 2013 Alan Sorem.
For Elizabeth and John
Fides et Fortis
Preface
My name is Lucy Royster Scott. This is my book. I’ve written it to give other older people courage to take a stand for the life they want rather than what the world dictates.
At times it takes a while for me to remember a name, an address, or a date. I’ve heard that the brain is a magnificent computer that in our later years is so full of data that it may require extra time for sorting information requested. I sometimes take naps in the afternoon. I usually go to bed no later than nine o’clock and rise by six.
I am not feeble, infirm or disengaged from life. Respect my opinion: Age is an attitude, not a condition.
I have always lived in Brooklyn, New York. I grew up in Bay Ridge an only child, rare in my neighborhood. My parents shipped me off to my maternal grandmother in Sparta, New Jersey during the summers.
My grandmother was born in 1876. She was a widow and enormously proud of her deceased husband, a West Point graduate who died in France in 1917. Her views on manners were very precise and my activities prompted her to say often during my summer visits, “Lucy, so unladylike!”
She disliked it when I rolled down the grassy hill in her backyard, when I stuck my tongue out at older boys when they sauntered by on the sidewalk, or put my chewing gum under the front pew at church on Sundays, and especially when I whistled a John Philip Sousa march while washing dishes after supper.
Nevertheless I adored her. She had backbone. She could sniff at my antics, but if anyone else expressed an opinion about my behavior, they received an icy stare from her cold blue eyes.
I think it was her stories about her husband and the letters she read to me from wartime France that prompted my early curiosity about all things French.
I live in The Russell House, a comfortable Brooklyn apartment house built in 1926 by Roy Russell across from the Park. It was his first major construction project and he designed it with high ceilings and spacious rooms with grand views because he and his family were to live there.
October 24th, 2013 was my 85th birthday, the sixty-first birthday I have celebrated since my husband and I moved into The Russell House. Jim is gone now, and of the three bedrooms, two are storage rooms of memorabilia for his awards at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and items from the lives of my three children.
But enough of all that. On the eve of my birthday, I had a fairly usual Wednesday: Aqua-aerobics at eleven in the pool at the community center, then a light lunch at the café nearby. I returned books to the Public Library and checked out a romantic novel by one of my favorite authors. I went on to the high school to meet with three students for French tutoring. Afterwards I picked up my special treat at The Bagel Hole on 7th Avenue and made my way home to enjoy two halves of a lovely poppy seed bagel with cream cheese, lox, Bermuda onion and sliced tomato.
After my feast I passed on the evening news and settled in for my annual pre-birthday reading of selected items in my packet of letters I have saved over the years. I always begin with two letters from my mother’s brother, dear Uncle Paul. And this year I will end with a letter that Mr. K slipped under my door recently.
1
Seattle, Washington
November 20, 1942
Dear Whistler,
Thank you for your letter. Straight A’s! Your good grades are an example to all of us working in the war effort here on the West Coast.
I apologize for missing your birthday. Please forgive me. I was busy becoming a married man.
The lucky woman is Constance Sawyer (goes by “Connie”), who is a very accomplished pianist for the junior high Sunday School and teaches math in high school. You will meet her whenever we can make the trip back East.
I agree that the news from Guadalcanal is bad, and, along with you I am very sorry for the parents of the five Sullivan brothers who went down with the USS Juneau. I recommend five whistles of Stars and Stripes Forever to honor their sons.
We must keep our spirits up and support our fighting men. Rommel is on the run in North Africa. The Nazi attempt to take Stalingrad has failed. They should have learned from Napoleon!
Give my regards to your parents. If your mother seems overly strict at times, please remember she loves you and wants the best for you, as does your father. If that doesn’t work, remind her about the time Stinky Smith hit her in the face with a snowball and I beat the tar out of him. That should make her smile!
Affectionately,
Uncle Paul
Seattle, Washington
June 8, 1944
Dear Favorite Niece (yes, you are my only niece but you still are my favorite),
Thank you for your letter. You certainly are mopping up the opposition with your academic record! And in answer to your question, my work is going well at the factory.
Our boys and the Allies are doing a great job. What an enormous effort D-Day was, and I am glad it paid off! And Rome has fallen so the rest of Italy should be easy. Mr. Mussolini will be running scared. I hope for good news from the Pacific.
Our son Paul Junior is doing fine and I am busting my buttons as the proud father! At the rate he is crawling (here he is at my chair as I write), I figure he will be walking soon.
Have a good summer working at the Y Camp. Teach those young hooligans nasty words in French. They’ll eat it up.
Give my regards to your parents. If they seem strict about not dating until you graduate, just remember that from their point of view they are fearful it will lead to kissing and (quelle horreur!) canoodling! Notice how I worked a French phrase in to make you smile.
Affectionately,
Uncle Paul
Milo Oberson High School
212 Park Place
Brooklyn, N.Y.
June 12, 1946
Dear Miss Royster: