Read My Own Two Feet for Free Online

we filled the backseat. Sitting in the old car, I felt lap-deep in fragrant, golden luxury, oranges crisp and more flavorful than any I had ever eaten.
    There was, however, one indication of the Depression in Ontario. Wives of men on the Chaffey faculty who also taught were allowed to work only half-time. Verna, the librarian of both the high school and the junior college, worked more than half a day for half pay, especially now that a new earthquake-proof library was under construction. I knew she felt this was unfair, but she enjoyed her work and did not complain. Often, in the evening, I would see her looking through the encyclopedia and other reference books, searching, searching, searching. Librarians, I was to learn, are always haunted by unanswered reference questions.
    Verna maintained a remarkable calm toward her children. Once, when we walked home from school together, we found Atlee, Virginia, andtwo of their friends battling with decayed oranges fallen from the trees across the driveway. The side of the house was thick with rotten oranges. Verna laughed and said, “All right. Now get the hose and wash it off.”
    Another time, when Verna learned that Atlee had hopped rides on freight trains, she did not reprimand him. Instead she picked up the newspaper and pretended to read. “Why, here’s a dreadful story about a boy who tried to hop a freight train, fell under the wheels, and was be-headed.” I wondered if Atlee caught on.
    Fred understood boys. Atlee had a large room over the garage connected to the bathroom with a door about three feet high. His room was a jumble of tools, comic books, and other boyish clutter that no one told him to clean up, at least as far as I knew. When people criticized Fred for letting Atlee drive around town in his red Rickenbacker, Fred answered, “What do you expect a fifteen-year-old boy to do—hang around Gemmell’s drugstore?” He found a broken-down motorcycle for Atlee to tinker with. Atlee worked hard on his motorcycle, and one day, with pops and bangs, got it to run. We all rushed outside to see the miracle: Atlee riding around and around the house on his red motorcycle. He lent me a pair of pants and took me for a wild ride—at least, it seemed wild—down Euclid Avenue. Everyone who saw us cheered.
    Fred, brimming with vigor, was always busy with one project or another. While I lived there, he built a fireplace for barbecuing near the pergola beneath my bedroom windows. He also moved a two-room cottage from Upland, the town that separated Ontario from the mountains, and set it on his property for rental income.
    Another time Fred brought home five gallons of cleaning solvent, cleaned the family’s clothes, and asked if I had anything that needed cleaning. I did, the navy blue dress with the white collar I had traveled in. The next time I wore the dress, it exuded solvent fumes as my body heat warmed it. I am sure Paul was amused, but he did not comment.
    Most amazing of all, to me, was Fred’s help with housework. Except for my father’s polishing floors, I had never known a man to touch housework. Every morning Fred made a broilerful of crisp toast. Once a week he charged into the laundry room, which was built onto the rear of the house. He churned several loads of laundry through the washing machine and, with the help of anyone who happened to be around, hung them, sometimes by moonlight, on lines in the backyard. Ironing was a social event, or so itseemed to me, with Verna ironing shirts while Atlee, Virginia, and I lined up in front of an ancient commercial-sized mangle, which was heated by gas. “Now!” Fred would order. The three of us fed napkins, sheets, and towels into the contraption while Fred pulled a lever that lowered the top and pressed the linens as they rolled through.
    Then one day Fred came home driving a fourth Rickenbacker, which he had bought for twenty-five dollars from a man who heard he