Going Home

I first heard this story a few years ago from a girl I had met in New York's Greenwich Village. Probably the story is one of those mysterious bits of folklore that reappear every few years, to be told a new in one form or another. However, I still like to think that it really did happen, somewhere, sometime.

They were going to Fort Lauderdalethree boys and three girls and when they boarded the bus, they were carrying sandwiches and wine in paper bags, dreaming of golden beaches as the gray cold of New York vanished behind them.

As the bus passed through New Jersey, they began to notice Vingo. He sat in front of them, dressed in a plain, ill-fitting suit, never moving, his dusty face masking his age. He kept chewing the inside of his lip a lot, frozen into some personal cocoon of silence.

Deep into the night, outside Washington, the bus pulled into Howard Johnson's, and everybody got off except Vingo. He sat rooted in his seat, and the young people began to wonder about him, trying to imagine his life: perhaps he was a sea captain, a runaway from his wife, an old soldier going home. When they went back to the bus, one of the girls sat beside him and introduced herself.

“We're going to Florida,” she said brightly.“ I hear it's really beautiful.”

“It is, ” he said quietly, as if remembering something he had tried to forget.

“Want some wine?” she said. He smiled and took a swig. He thanked her and retreated again into his silence. After a while, she went back to the others, and Vingo nodded in sleep.

In the morning, they awoke outside another Howard Johnson's,and this time Vingo went in. The girl insisted that he join them. He seemed very shy, and ordered black coffee and smoked nervously as the young people chattered about sleeping on beaches. When they returned to the bus, the girl sat with Vingo again, and after a while, slowly and painfully, he told his story. He had been in jail in New York for the past four years, and now he was going home.

“Are you married?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know?” she said.

“Well, when I was in jail I wrote to my wife,” he said. “ I told her that I was going to be away a long time, and that if she couldn't stand it, if the kids kept asking questions, if it hurt too much, well, she could just forget me, I'd understand. Get a new guy, I saidshe‘s a wonderful woman,really somethingand forget about me. I told her she didn't have to write me for nothing. And she didn‘t. Not for three and a half years.”

“And you're going home now, not knowing?”

“Yeah,” he said shyly. “ Well, last week, when I was sure the parole was coming through, I wrote her again. We used to live in Brunswick, just before Jacksonville, and there's a big oak tree just as you come into town. I told her that if she'd take me back, she should put a yellow handkerchief on the tree, and I'd get off and come home. If she didn't want me, forget itno handkerchief, and I'd go on through.”

“Wow,” the girl exclaimed. “Wow.”

She told the others, and soon all of them were in it, caught up in the approach of Brunswick, looking at the pictures Vingo showed them of his wife and three children. The woman was handsome in a plain way, the children still unformed in the much-handled snapshots.

Now they were 20 miles from Brunswick, and the young people took over window seats on the right side, waiting for the approach of the great oak tree. The bus acquired a dark, hushed mood, full of the silence of absence and lost years. Vingo stopped looking, tightening his face into the ex-con's mask, as if fortifying himself against still another disappointment.

Then Brunswick was ten miles, and then five. Then,suddenly, all of the young people were up out of their seats, screaming and shouting and crying, doing small dances of joy. All except Vingo.

Vingo sat there stunned, looking at the oak tree. It was covered with yellow handkerchiefs20 of them, 30 of them, maybe hundreds, a tree that stood like a banner of welcome billowing in the wind. As the young people shouted, the old con rose and made his way to the front of the bus to go home.

Copyright by Henlen. EVToys shows large number of cheap kids toys for christmas products such as car neck pillow and so on. All the best Kids toys are provided with superior quality and favorable price.

How to Find True Love

As a writer of romance novels, I create exotic fantasies. My heroines are beautiful, my heroes gilded with a touch of the legendary, my plots larger than life.

Fans sometimes think of me as an "expert" on love, but my children never ask my advice. When I try to give it anyway, they roll their eyes. To them, I'm just Mom - too impossibly old-fashioned and ordinary to understand the winds of their times.

Since they have reached their teens, however, their often painful searches for that special someone have left me sleepless many a night. There are so many things I wish for them that I am utterly powerless to provide. Sometimes I imagine a little scene. Robby and Johanna ask me, "Mom, how do I find true love?" Here is what I say:

1. Understand that love is a state of mind and heart. It is not dependent on beauty, physical strength or the romantic settings I use in my book. Though it may be begin with infatuation, it moves from physical attraction in a golden curve, often involving sacrifice, to the deepest bond between two people.

Love for me is specific: I speak of your father, Robert, my husband of 23 years. To you our marriage is as plain as vanilla ice cream, but it is the core of my life. Ours is the kind of love to which romance novels are just a prelude.

Your dad doesn't arrange intimate dinners or second honeymoons. He doesn't bring me flowers. What he does is keep my car repaired and full of gasoline so I'll never be stranded. He vacuums the carpet when your grandmother is coming - not because he cares, but because he knows I care. Though your dad is not a pet person, when our old cat died, Robert buried him for me. He held me while I wept. After I'd mourned for several months, he encouraged me to adopt a kitten. So remember, true romance - the enduring kind - often comes so cleverly disguised it's easy to overlook.

2. Settle for nothing less than total commitment. I've seen couples live together in a "trial marriage." That seems as logical as biting into an orange to see if you have an appetite for an apple.

I know a man who has bitten one orange after another for years. He claims women are too "into themselves" to commit to a relationship, but he's got it backward. No one can open up the depths of her heart to a mere experiment.

A marriage certificate won't solve all your problems, but until you have the guarantee of one, you can't begin the struggle to forge yourselves into one unit against the world - the ultimate goal.

A mate is the post you can lean on, the person who, when you've really screwed up, loves you anyway. The only way to get that kind of mate is to make the dreadful leap of trust and be that kind of mate.

3. Talk about everything - expect divorce. I was not a talker when I met your dad. In my childhood, I'd learned that it was best to remain silent around my alcoholic father, who could twist any statement into a weapon. But Robert stubbornly refused to accept my silence. It was my first intimation of the strength of his love.

There is only one subject, we discovered, that should be taboo in a marriage: divorce. The mere mention of this word brings it into the realm of possibility.

Your father and I learned this the hard way. During a trying period years ago, I found myself calmly saying, "Maybe we should get a divorce." He answered, "Maybe we should."

How did we get to that point? Simply by mentioning the ugly "D" word in times of anger ("If we can't work things out we might have to consider divorce") and by slipping it sideways into discussions ("If we ever got a divorce...").

The day we frankly confronted the divorce option, we were not terribly angry with each other, but we had gradually let divorce become a real choice in our thinking. We made a pact, then and there, never again to mention the word "divorce" in association with us. We haven't dared break that pact in 17 years.

4. Want the best for each other. Being married doesn't mean that you are glued together. One of the wonderful things about love is that it binds without crippling. Remember not all your activities, friends or enthusiasms will be the same as your mate's.

When you father went back to college for his teaching degree, it meant starting over, but I wanted him to fulfill his potential. When I decided to abandon paramedical training and become a writer, he encouraged me.

Loving someone doesn't mean your goals are always identical. But if you want something, then your mate wants it for you too.

5. Only one person can be crazy at a time. Life is seldom a smooth highway of cooperation. You get angry. Your mate becomes obsessed. Either one of you can become totally obnoxious. Buy you can't both go wild at the same time. One of you has to stay in adult mode.

Please be forewarned: sometimes these attacks of craziness last a long while. Days. Weeks. Months.

One of my more prolonged bouts came in 1971s when I started reading back-to-the-land literature. I spouted undigested theories about the beauty of nature versus the ugliness of modern civilization until your dad agreed to move to a three-acre farm. I bought a hundred chicks, two piglets and seeds for a garden - and commenced to learn a few realities, such as the relationship between manure and flies, between irrigation and weeds, between nurturing animals and arranging for their butchering. When I suggested we moved back to town, your father nodded his head in stalwart relief.

We laugh about it now, though other incidents even time hasn't made funny. Some of them wear my name, some wear his. Whenever you're feeling martyred, remember, your turn will come. So learn early two of the most important sentences in marriage: "I'm sorry" and "you're forgiven."

An acquaintance of ours pouts if her husband forgets their wedding anniversary or the anniversary of the day they met. He appeases her by taking her out to a showy dinner every month or so - but otherwise he spends as little time with her as he can. They have fallen into a surface display of romance, perpetrated by the myths of an advertising age. It is a glossy shell that has little to do with the real thing.

The real thing has to do with love. And it isn't always glamorous - or easy. Love helps you get to the bathroom when you're sick. Love agrees to disagree on serious subjects. When you walk out the door in a rage, love trails after you, shouting "You can't get away from me! I love you, and I'll follow you wherever you go!"

And so in my sleepless hours, Robby and Johanna, I wish for you that moment when you look up and find someone watching you as if you were a candle - as if you were the only light in a world of darkness.

Copyright by Henlen. EVToys shows large number of cheap kids toys for christmas products such as Birthday teddy bear ferrari rc car and so on. All the best Kids toys are provided with superior quality and favorable price.