Jaci Dawn

I picked an Express for sleeping. Fewer stops, and fewer mandatory layovers. When I wanted to see the country, a Local was great, but on this day in May, 1977, I wanted to sleep. I also wanted to be warm. The bus driver had the air conditioning cranked too high or I caught a chill. I could not get warm. I slept fitfully, my head resting against a window as we passed through the cities: Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, and on to Boston. I desperately wanted to see Boston, but I was so cold and I’d arrive there in the night. Also, my arrangements were to call Sheila from Hartford where she was going to meet me.

Somewhere between Rochester and Albany, I woke up just enough to realize that the man who was sitting next to me had removed his fine leather jacket and placed it over my shoulders. I was much warmer and the shivering had ceased and the smell of leather was comforting, but the aches in my muscles remained. I wanted to tell him “thank you”, but I could not wake up enough to. When I did wake up in Boston, when we stopped, he’d already disembarked from the bus. I have a vague impression of a caucasian man about 35, moustachioed. He had brown hair parted in the middle and neatly trimmed. But I might have been dreaming.

From Boston to Hartford, I was awake. My body ached from the cold and the air was still on in the new bus. Sheila was on her way to Hartford to meet me: she’d borrowed her mother’s car for the occasion.

We were pen pals. I had two pen pals from Stamford: Sue Eng and Sheila Gaillard. Sue rarely corresponded and our letters were usually short and sweet. Sheila was a gifted poet and a deep thinker. Our letters were often pages long. Do I remember how we became pen pals? I wish I could tell you, “yes” but I don’t. I remember how and when I started writing the two pen pals with whom I still correspond, but I no longer remember how Sheila, Sue and I “met” on paper. But now I was going to meet Sheila in person, in the flesh, and her mother had agreed to let me stay in their home for a few days.

This was a Very Big Deal. Sheila’s mother was newly divorced, a struggling single woman raising four children between the ages of 5 and 18, and she worked two jobs to make ends meet. An extra guest was an imposition.

Not that she ever showed any resentment to me: she was a very gracious, but very tired woman.

It was great to meet Sheila! She looked just like I pictured her.

There was sticky rice waiting for us when we arrived in Stamford. Sheila’s mom then showed me where I could take a hot bath to relax my sore muscles while Sheila and her siblings cleaned the kitchen. I sank into that bathtub, just so grateful for the warmth of a real family and hot water.

One look around the place told me just how badly Sheila’s father had harmed his ex-wife. She had the house, but it needed a lot of work that a struggling single mother could not do for it: a new roof, dry rot on the porch, peeling paint. There were four children (and I wish I could remember their names! I can only remember Sheila and Shawn. I think her sister was Sarah? Too much time has passed…): Sheila was the oldest. Then another brother whose name escapes me (or maybe he was between Shawn and Sarah?). Then Shawn. And Sarah, who was funny, articulate and bright. Well, they all were, but five year olds are cute.

I spent a few days with my friend, getting to know her in person and touring around Stamford. We had bagels & cream cheese at a kosher bakery. We visited a friend of hers (I’ll call her Julie) who drove the school bus in the area and who was recovering from having been beaten up by two big thugs. It was race related: Julie was a petite white woman not much bigger than me and her attackers were football player sized Blacks. But Julie was not about to give in to the race card. She wouldn’t make it about race, even though it had been. She was a brave woman, and she was still driving bus. She had the same spirit Jackie Kennedy showed when she walked, unprotected, behind the hearse in 1963. “I will not give in to terrorism,” she said.

My memory is full of impressions: tins of tea, herbs, earthy colors, and flowers. Sheila lived in a two story Victorian- style frame house. Julie and her beau lived in a bungalo similar to what one might find in the Hawthorne area of Portland. There were porches and narrow streets and Volkswagen buses. The smell of pot hung in the air at Julie’s house or the sound of an acapela drummer reverberated through the walls. There was laughter and warmth, and just enough tension to be real.

We borrowed Mrs. Gaillard’s car one day to go to the mountain. Sheila wanted to show me that there were really mountains in Connecticut. (I can hear Levi snorting: “there are no mountains on the East Coast. If they aren’t tall enough to have permanent glaciers or reach timberline, they aren’t mountains.” We westerners are such mountain snobs.) We went to Bear Mountain. I actually remember the name of the mountain, but I didn’t remember the statistics that the web page displays. We did hike out on the Appalachian Trail a little way. Then we raced back to Stamford because we were late and Sheila’s mother was upset because she needed the car.

One day, we called Sue Eng.

Sue and I. I wish I had stayed in touch with her.

Sheila and Sue.

One night, Sheila’s bus driver friend came by and we three drove down to New York City for Sheila’s Tae Kwan Do class. We passed a stripped out car on our way into the City. Julie told me that you did not want to break down and leave your car: it would only be there five minutes before it was sitting on blocks like the one we just passed.

We went into an area of the Big Apple that seemed pretty seedy to me, on the edge of Harlem. Instead of giant trees, everywhere we were surrounded by towering buildings. While Sheila and Julie worked on their Tae Kwan Do, I sat on a bleacher and had a staring contest with a Very Large Cokroach. It wasn’t the least bit disturbed by the light, the class or myself. It was the King of the Gym. It was one big New York City Cockroach.

Sheila also took me to meet her Great Aunt. Ont, not Ant. Great Aunt Ruth (I can’t remember!! It was a very traditional name) lived in a secure apartment building, so we had to buzz to get in. And except for the color of her skin, she might have been my grandmother. She was baking chocolate chip cookies and she wanted to feed us into oblivion.

OK, I made that part up, but I associate her with the smell of chocolate chip cookies, the same as my Grandma Melrose. And she insisted I call her “Great Ont Ruth”, laughing at my attempt to spit out “Ont”. I have Ants. Mark down another pronunciation difference.

As I was contemplating writing this, I thought I’d try to find Sheila. I figured I would never find Sue Eng – that’s like looking for Jane Smith. But how many Sheila Gaillards could there be? More than one, I can tell you: I found one, but she isn’t the Sheila I knew in 1977. Rats. It might be that neither Sue nor Sheila are online. Happens, you know. But if someone sees this blog and knows either Sue Eng or Sheila Gaillard – the ones who were 18 in 1977 and lived in Stamford, CT – would you let me know??