: Dave Oliver
: Dorotha, A Mostly True Story
: BookBaby
: 9798350997651
: Dorotha, A Mostly True Story
: 1
: CHF 8.30
:
: Geschichte
: English
: 400
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Dorotha is set in the Midwest during the middle of the last century. It is a time of great challenge and change: the second wave of the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Depression and a World War. Dorotha and her husband face these extraordinary trials as well as a few of their own - perhaps not totally unexpected when a gambler's daughter falls in love with a man who resolves issues with his fists -- and there is dynamite hidden in their henhouse.

Dave Oliver is one of Dorotha's three children. He was a naval officer who rose to the rank of rear admiral and later to a senior position in the Pentagon. From the day he was born, no matter how formal the setting or how august the attendance, Dorotha referred to this son as 'Davy.' After leaving Indiana for college, Dave spent thirty-two years in the Navy. He and his spouse, Linda, lived in the states or countries of California, Connecticut, Japan, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, most of them more than once. Dave did Navy things. Linda, a lawyer licensed where they lived, plus her own home state of Idaho, worked in private practice until it became clients demanded she sue her husband, when, for the sake of more cordial dinner table conversations, she shifted to legal and supervisory roles in the federal government (White House, Pentagon, etc.). After the Navy, Dave ran several small businesses and worked for some very large ones. He was a political appointee in the Clinton and the George W. Bush administrations, serving in the Defense Department. He and Linda both represented the United States Government in dozens of foreign countries and were members of the Coalition forces in Iraq. Linda and Dave now live in Northern California, in the same town as both their sons and their three grandchildren. His other published books can be found at daveoliverbooks.com.

1

The Beginning

Sunday, 20 April1997

My memory is capricious these days. I suppose it is just a consequence of being eight-years-old, but it is annoying. I can’t recall the title of this morning’s sermon, while events from decades ago are crystal clear. Heck, I remember the ruffled bodice on the yellow dress that Mama was wearing on my wedding day. Years later, as my sisters and I watched, my first child in his bassinet at my feet, our father buried Mama in that sameoutfit.

I set my glass of iced tea on our kitchen table and ease myself down into my chair. My hip is reminding me I will pay dearly for so much walking today. I square my yellow legal pad with the table’s edge and reach for the teapot that holds our writing instruments. There is an assortment of yellow No. 2s, along with the last remaining promotional ballpoint from my husband’s union, good old UAW/CIO933.

I pause for a second, remembering. The teapot is the only item that has survived our sixty-plus years of marriage. It was originally part of Pop and Mama’s wedding gift. We lost a cup and saucer during the FBI move to DC, when all our possessions didn’t even completely fill the Oldsmobile’s back seat. I dropped the second cup when I heard Lois (my favorite sister, always) was pregnant—what a shock that was! I have no idea where the creamer and sugar bowls went; probably lost in a box misplaced during one of our five moves in Indianapolis. I finally reluctantly relegated the lidless teapot to serve as the house’s pencil holder. I sip the glass of tea and take in a long, ragged breath. Mama, Mama, Mama, how different might it all have been?

The thought causes me to sit up straighter in my chrome kitchen chair. No regrets. Not today. So much water has passed under the bridge. I remember our wedding as clearly as if it were yesterday, even though it was the final day of 1935. It was chilly, gray and overcast, with intermittent sleet. Weather rather common to December in SouthernIndiana.

I awoke early in order to compose alist.

Tuesday, 31 December1935

Today:

  • Slop the hogs.
  • Feed the chickens.
  • Take Cecil the pumpkin pie.
  • Dust the parlor one final time!
  • Write Lizzie a note about why.
  • Ask Mama to move the damn rifles.
  • Let Rose choose any books she wants.
  • Try on my dress. Such small stitches!
    THANK MAMA AGAIN!
  • Pack everything except traveling clothes (does Ruth
    have tissue paper?).
  • Get married!!!

I chuckle to myself. Hell’s bells! Marrying in a depression. What are we thinking? Especially today. At least I’ll never have to jog anyone’s memory. In five years, my husband’s not going to come home, look at my disappointed face, snap his fingers, and say, “Whoops, New Year’s Eve, now I remember, it’s our anniversary!” Given the unusual date and my perceived “rush to the altar,” I expect everyone will be counting months as alertly as an owl observing a rustle in the grass. When I don’t show pregnant, this date will eventually become part of “our story,” like a charcoal sketch of a forgotten great-aunt hung in a dimly lit hallway. 

At the moment, the rush and the Depression are two of my lesser worries. My parents remain opposed to our nuptials. If they don’t change their minds and throw in a few dollars, my husband-to-be doesn’t see how we will be able to stay in college. If they don’t come through, we will face more problems than spitting snow. To begin with, no one these days is employing married women. “Save the jobs for the men” has become nearly as ubiquitous a phrase as “Use it up, wear it out, mak