Labor day River Cruise

By

Gerry Niskern

Is your family looking for a way to celebrate Labor Day?   May I suggest a river cruise like our family used to take in Arizona?

Unlike the mandatory fashionable wardrobe for an ocean trip, let me describe our attire for a river cruise.  I don’t know what you call a river in your part of the country, but ours were not always deep and swift through the desert country.  All we needed was a bathing suit, a pair of cut off jeans; (to keep your backside protected from submerged logs and sharp rocks.) Everyone wore some old tennies and a hat.

We took our cruises on the Salt and Verde rivers here in Arizona. Grandma’s Romel style straw hat had a bill. She wore it like the general when she directed the launching of our summer river cruises. Grandpa couldn’t swim so he didn’t join our floating party. He trucked the inner tubes to the river and met us down stream at the end of the day.

In the middle of August, it wasn’t necessary to be a good swimmer, just a strong walker. You were always glad you had your tennies on when you had to swing your leg down inside the tube and push off against the rocks if you were grounded. In no time at all, you would be bobbing along with the current.

Our kids, along with their cousins, wiggled into their tubes, clomped down the muddy bank and with a whoop and a holler, were on their way.  They delighted in the heady freedom of being allowed to go on ahead of the grown-ups.

The water was pure and cold. It felt like melted snow against our hot skin as we floated away, one by one.

We cruised the low, clear river over water sculptured rocks in ever changing moods and colors. As the desert glided by, we passed mesquite, palo verde and an occasional stand of giant cottonwoods, their green and yellow foliage hanging over deep green pools.

Invariably, as we floated by, we were ambushed by a band of river pirates dropping from the branches above. Waves swamped our river craft and grinning kids who looked very familiar popped to the surface.   Sooner or later, one of the river pirates asked grandma for a safety pin to hold up his bathing suit; or another needed a Band-Aid. Grandma provided the items without fail from her waterproof plastic purse. You name it, she had it.

We floated on past little hidden pockets of lush vegetation. Blue herons swooped above the trees and settled on their skinny legs in the shallow water. Meanwhile, the strong, sentinel mountains held the brooding July thunderheads at bay.

Later, we sailed into a deep, green pool. Shouts and splashes echoed from the nearby cliffs as older kids cannonballed off huge rocks. Tiny rainbows arched through the sprays of wate

In late afternoon, we rounded a bend and saw the orange sunset reflecting off grandpa’s glasses as he stood waiting at our rendezvous point. The river moved swiftly there, so the men hauled themselves out of their tubes and waded us in.

Soon the smell of hot dogs sizzling from supple sticks filled the air. Damp towels hung like limp capes from kids’ shoulders while we listened to the ripple of the river, chirps of crickets and an occasional owl.

The moon rose cool and bright. Reluctantly, we packed up to go home. We knew we would be back to celebrate another Labor Day on the river that enticed us again and again.

So, have you been on a water journeys lately? How soon can you pull your wardrobe together for a Labor Day River cruise?

“NOTHING FAIR ABOUT STATUES”

By

Gerry Niskern

A wise author once said, “You can only write about war by writing one soldier’s story.” I’d like to go back in Arizona history and tell you about two Arizona war heroes. Lt. Frank Luke Jr. and Sgt. Sylvestre  Herrera,  who  both received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Luke’s was awarded posthumously after WWI and Hererra, during WWII, was the first living Arizona Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.

When I was a young girl, my friends and I used to wait for the streetcar in front of the State Capitol. While we waited we gazed up at a statue of the handsome Frank Luke Jr.  and fantasized about the history of the young flying Ace. Frank was looking upward into the sky, his flying cap and goggles in hand.

Surprisingly, I was not taught in school about Luke’s heroic skills as a “balloon buster” during WWI. He flew his planes thru such punishing enemy fire that five were written off after his missions.During two weeks in September, l918, in only ten missions, he destroyed fourteen heavily defended German surveillance balloons and four airplanes.  He was only twenty years old when he gave his life in an air battle near the village of Murvaux, France.

I finally learned more about Lieutenant Frank’s life from the fascinating and factually correct book, “Terror of the Autumn Skies” by Blaine Pardoe.

Different vivid memories of Silvestre Herrera take me back to Union Station on 4^th Ave in downtown Phoenix in August, l945 during WWII. One evening when I was a little girl my parents took me to see a brave young hero’s return home. When the train stopped the crowd surged forward and many hands plucked him from his wheelchair. I was distressed to see that he had no legs as he was passed from shoulder to shoulder of the cheering crowd. Finally Sgt. Hererra was placed on the back of a red convertible for a parade up Washington.

History tells us that when his platoon was pinned down by Germans in a forest near Metzwiller, France, he charged the enemy and captured 8 enemy soldiers. That same day, to draw enemy fire away from his comrades, Hererra entered a mine field and in two explosions lost both legs. He continued to fire upon the enemy which allowed his platoon to skirt the field and capture the enemy position.

Both young men came from completely different backgrounds. Frank was one of nine children from a prominent Arizona family. The statue of Luke is in front of the Arizona State Capitol on l7th Ave, facing down Washington.

Sylvestre was an orphan, born in Mexico, and raised by an Uncle in Glendale.  He was 27, married with three children when he volunteered and answered this country’s call. You won’t find a statue at the capitol erected in his honor.

THE THINGS THEY CARRY

By

Gerry Niskern

One of the characteristics that my mother loved when we moved to Arizona when I was a kid was the openness and lack of prejudice. We had moved here from a small town in the East and she loved the fact that no one cared if you were Italian, German, Austrian, Polish, Russian, or whatever. That had not been the case when she was growing up. She especially liked the idea that her girls were going to go to school in a state where most families were newcomers. No one carried  “home grown” bigotry to school.

I went to school with Mexican and Asian kids at Jackson and Adams Middle School. I graduated from Phoenix Union in l950 and there were many Mexican and Asian students graduating too. Daisy Yee was the Valedictorian of our class. Yes, the African American kids went to Carver but that changed the following year and the schools became desegregated.

I went to work at the Valley National Bank, which later became Chase. I worked along side Mexican and Asian girls in the Installment Loan Dept. We ran around together shopping on our lunch hour. One of the Mexican girls, Amelia, took part in my wedding.

Our ideas from home carried us thru school and on into adult life. Sure, some of our parents were liberal Democrats and others were conservative Republicans, but that didn’t define our lives. We were there to learn from past history and prepare for the future.

The kids in Arizona went back to school this month. Almost all wore new backpacks to carry their tons of books. But, think about this: they carried something else. They carried a heavy load of  political rhetoric that  they were saturated with from TV and the Internet. Even the Kindergarteners could probably tell you if their mommy and daddy was  Republican or a Democrat and the “state of our union” right now!

Think about it.

“Rolling On”

by

Gerry Niskern

I wrote this little story as related to me by my younger brother-in-law. He started driving after he retired from the Centura Rocket Company, Colorado,  where he was a designer.

Keith crushed the pink slip of paper in his fist as he strode from the office. His heart was pounding. The numbers on the driver’s lockers were a blur. He yanked  the metal door open and started throwing his personal things into a box.

“What kind of a joke is that? Saying I can’t drive my bus anymore. I don’t care what their new rules say about age limits; after years of hauling kids!”

He sat down abruptly and took a few deep breaths. He remembered his blood pressure and told himself to calm down.

“You have the blood pressure under control and passed the physical one more year, don’t blow it now.”

After a few minutes, he picked up his compass  and studied it. He chuckled as he remembered the first morning he drove the huge yellow vehicle. “Man, was I nervous…afraid I’d forget the route, get myself lost, or leave some kid stranded. I was scared that I couldn’t make friends with the children. He tossed the compass into the box and pulled out a sweat stained cap. “I remember I was drenched in nervous sweat when I finally stopped for that last pickup that day.”

A little girl was clinging to her mother when he pulled up. The first grader climbed the high steps, one at a time, sniffling and blinking back the tears. She said something to him; he couldn’t hear her at first. He leaned down to hear her timid voice. “Hi, Bus.”All the first day’s tension disappeared with his laughter.

He pulled his gloves from the locker shelf and thought back to the first winter of driving…November, December when the snow came. He used to stand on the bumper in the pre dawn darkness scraping thick frost from the windshield as icicles formed on his mustache.

He  prayed on those icy mornings as he made his way slowly from one huddled group to another, white curls of breath disappearing above their heads as they scrambled aboard.

He learned how to spot the troublemakers fast. When he wrote up a student and they lost their riding privileges for a week, he knew which driver of the nearest route to notify, so the culprit couldn’t sneak on with another crowd.

Keith chuckled when he thought how he had gotten so he could predict the day, usually at the end of the first week, when five or six kids would jump out the back emergency exit. He would be standing there ready to herd them back on the bus.

Sure, times had changed a lot over the years. Kids had changed. First, the district  installed the surveillance cameras, then came the CB radio. “Code Red” to the office meant he was pulling off the road, doors locked, send the police. He sighed, tossing his first aid kit into the box. There was one time he wasn’t likely to forget.

One day he wrote up an eight year old boy, an automatic “no ride” for a week. The next morning, at the boy’s stop, a massive body hurled through the bus door towards him. Hands of steel dragged him down to the ground. A large woman pounded him while small feet kicked him in the head.

Keith drove the next day , taped ribs and all. The vice of fear gripping his stomach didn’t show as he joked  with the kids at the young kickers stop.

So it went…Now he had reached “that age” and been relegated to a van, a mini van at that! He’d be picking up pre-schoolers for a special education program. Forget it…not for him. He made a vow  to himself, “I’ll stay  one week, one week only, until they find a replacement. Not a minute longer.”

On Monday morning, Keith reluctantly pulled the yellow mini van out of the district yard. He was glad the other drivers had already gone. It was down right embarrassing. Six seats. Six pitiful seats! No way, thank you very much.

Later that morning, he eased the van to the curb on the last stop. A little girl slowly climbed aboard. Her chin trembled and he saw eyes bright  with unshed tears. She waved a brave good bye to her mother. Then as she turned toward him, she placed a small trembling hand on his arm and said softly, “Hi, bus.”