Born in her grandparents’ bedroom on October 11, 1925, Violet Grayson says of her writing, "At the age of fourteen, I wrote a poem and a rather dismal short story. I sent the short story to Collier’s magazine, where it was immediately rejected. I redeemed my pride by later winning a school-wide essay contest at Cumberland High School and becoming an at-large reporter for our school paper, The Chronicle. As a senior, I was named literary editor of our yearbook. My English teacher, Mr. Skahan, suggested I switch to the college course since he saw me as scholarship material, but that was too much of a reach in those Great Depression years. After graduating in 1943, I worked in an office, married in 1949, and became a mother in 1950 and then a single parent in 1952. My writing would have to wait until January 1986 when, at the age of sixty, I launched my literary career." Violet has had twenty-four personal-experience stories, articles, how-to pieces, and short stories published. She also wrote a column for the Foxboro Reporter in her former home of Foxboro, Massachusetts. In California, since 1993, she contributed to "Two Cents," an opinion column in the San Francisco Chronicle maintained by a pool of citizens. She is an active member and Secretary of Writers West of Alameda Inc. This is her fourth book. The first, In the Village Lonsdale, was published in 2006. Her second, A Gossamer Cord, was published in 2011. Her third, Jeremy’s Cottage, was published in 2013.

Auszug. � Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

A Life Not Expected

But a Journey Worth Taking

By Violet Grayson

Trafford Publishing

Dedication, vii, 
Introduction, ix, 
Gaspee Point, 1, 
1941, 5, 
The Brothers, 9, 
The War Years, 15, 
Back To Earth, 21, 
1946 to 1949, 26, 
The Aftermath, 35, 
Learning The Truth, 38, 
My Gift, 42, 
The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, 46, 
The Merry-Go-Round, 50, 
Square One, 54, 
My Own Rules, 57, 
Moving On, 61, 
Bridges To Cross, 66, 
Foxboro, 72, 
Bringing Up Darcy, 75, 
School Days And Beyond, 78, 
Not Yet, 81, 
Dating And Waiting, 84, 
Two Busy Years, 88, 
Carl, 92, 
Me And My Cat, 98, 
Out Of The Rut, 102, 
Dean, 110, 
1968, 115, 
More Of 1968, 119, 
Our First Christmas, 124, 
My Fork In The Road, 127, 
Getting To Know You, 132, 
The Golden Years, 135, 
The Reluctant Career Woman, 140, 
Time Waits For No One, 144, 
Darcy, 149, 
The Worst Is Yet To Be, 153, 
Dean's Last Bet, 159, 
The Remainder Of The Year, 172, 
The Space Between, 177, 
Three Strikes And You're Out, 181, 
California, Here I Come!, 186, 
Alameda, 190, 
Beyond Alameda, 194, 
Who's George?, 198, 
Into The Whirlwind, 208, 
Companions, 213, 
Bittersweet Days, 217, 
Let George Be George, 221, 
Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, 225, 
Where Were You On September 11Th?, 230, 
Potpouri, 234, 
God's Comma, 238, 
7,000 Miles From Home, 243, 
An Old Guy Like Me, 249, 
Over The Bounding Main, 254, 
Epilogue, 259, 
History, 267, 
My Writing Credits, 271,

CHAPTER 1

GASPEE POINT

A hurricane borne in the subtropical heat of the West Indies howled up the east coast in September of 1938, a month before my thirteenth birthday, siring a tidal wave that scoured clean the campground at Ocean Grove in Swansea, Massachusetts, where our family had spent summer weekends from the time I was six. Partnered with winds reaching one hundred twenty-one miles an hour, it demolished or swept out to sea the wooden floors and frames built by the campers to accommodate their house tents. Five hundred residents of southern New England lost their lives in its fury.

To my dismay and that of my sister, Ruth, our parents broke the news that the owner, after seeing the destruction, announced the permanent closure of the campground. We could no longer anticipate piling into the back seat of our old Plymouth on the weekend before Memorial Day for the drive to Ocean Grove to check our campground spot and greet our summer friends while my mother and father and the other families set up their tents for the coming three months. That first sniff of salt air as we drew near to Ocean Grove would become a cherished memory, along with our Sunday night goodbyes to our friends, part of our childhood that could no longer exist.

Gone would be the lazy days of lying on the beach or racing our friends into the waves or roaming the area surrounding the campground while our parents relaxed, knowing we would take care of each other. In later years, Ruthie confessed that although she loved me she also loved those weekends when she wasn't required to keep an eye on her little sister. At Ocean Grove, she could enjoy just being herself. She admitted that she mourned the loss of her summer freedom.

That summer, not realizing our good fortune in having places to swim in Cumberland, we reluctantly adjusted to fresh water, splashing in a widened section of the Abbot Run river. At times, my father drove us to Hunt's Bridge which reached over Abbot Run in Adamsdale, Massachusetts, a village set on the border of both states. As a last resort we walked to New River, a bulb-out of the Blackstone River whose deep and swift-running waters had lured textile manufacturers in the 1800's. My mother frowned on that because the mill owners used the Blackstone as a sewer to wash away their waste, a common practice before Americans began taking care of the environment and before the Blackstone enjoyed a clean bill of health.

She had also heard rumors that farther up the river bank a group of boys had slung a rope over a tree branch which allowed them to swing out over the water and drop into it, stark naked and boisterous. Wanting to verify or dismiss the rumor, we crept through the bushes one day, peeked and hurried back, giggling all the way. We never confessed it to her but she was right about that, too.

It isn't surprising that we lunged at the chance, in the summer of 1941, when Aunt Betty asked, "Would Ruth and Vi like to stay at our cottage with us next weekend?" Their daughter, Marian, a good friend to both of us, was an only child and a year or so older than Ruthie. The family cottage at Gaspee Point sat in a colony arrayed along a bluff overlooking Narragansett Bay, a few miles below Providence. Our pleading looks convinced our parents and they both agreed we could do it.

On the Friday night in July that our parents took us to Gaspee Point, Marian was waiting to greet us and we all rushed to sit on the beach. After a chat to catch up on each other's lives, she remarked, "There's a family renting the cottage next to ours. They're from Cumberland." The last name wasn't familiar to us so she suggested we go to the cottage and meet them.

Besides their mother, Annie, and their father, Henry, the family consisted of three sons – Jack, 20, Tom, almost 19 and Don, soon to be 15. Their ages dovetailed almost perfectly with ours. Hollywood could not have improved on that set-up. Tom was smitten the minute he met Ruthie. Don gave me a big smile and Jack and Marian had already become good friends.

They had been about to go swimming which sent us back to the cottage to quickly change into our bathing suits. We all scampered down the wooden steps to the beach and splashed into the water, giving us a better chance to get acquainted and to learn that they had just moved to Cumberland from Seekonk, Massachusetts. That accounted for the fact that we didn't know them. When we were called in for our evening meal, Don asked, "Will you be back later?" I liked his looks – about five feet, eleven inches, with wavy light-brown hair and a nice build – so I nodded.

After supper, the others decided to take a walk. I met Don and suggested we go with them but he wanted to sit and talk. Alone with him on a darkened beach, I panicked, wondering what to do next. I needn't have worried. He took care of that by asking whether I liked to wrestle but gave me no chance to answer. Before I realized what was happening, he had wrestled me to the sand and was laughing, pretending it was a big joke.

At that point in my life, not much had come of the crushes I'd had on boys, except for a quick, shy kiss once in a while. None had reached this stage. Besides that, my parents, though kind and loving, were not overtly demonstrative. I'd been hugged and kissed as a small child but that ceased when I reached my teen years. This type of intimacy, especially with the opposite sex, scared me. I had never known a boy as aggressively familiar as Don and breathed a sigh of relief when someone called from the top of the stairs, "Violet, are you down there? We're going for ice cream. Do you want to go?" I pulled away and jumped up, making a dash for the stairs.

We didn't return to the beach that night. On Saturday, Marian showed us the tennis courts and...

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