Writing and
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Autobiography
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Considering
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Considering
Introductions
Four
Meanings of Life
Godot
and the Great Pumpkin
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Major is More Minor Than
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The
Poetry
Process (A look at 4 versions of a poem.)
Thoughts
About
Picking
a Major
Quick
Points About Education
Quick
Points
About
Writing
Reading
Poetry
and Cloud Watching
Revising
Revision
Reviving
Experience
Reviving
Symbolism
Using
an Audience
Videos
What
Makes a Story True?
What's the Subject of This Class? (Being revised.)
Why
Write?
Writing
and
Einstein (The Difference Between Information and Meaning)
Writing
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the
Goldilocks Dilemma
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Sadie
on the Bridge by
Forrest D. Poston
Herman left Sadie in a West Virginia coal camp with three
small children and another coming. Life for Sadie had
gone from difficult towards unbearable. In the 1920s,
she had none of the options we might fall back on today long
enough to get by, and coal camps were never populated by
those with a lot to give, though some still found ways to
help.
Only Herman’s lack of math skills took a little of the edge
off the harshness and slowed the decline toward
starvation. When company scrip was given out on
payday, the man in charge shorted Herman and held back some
food money for Sadie and the kids. This covert child
support was a generous act but not enough.
Sadie struggled and searched for ways to keep her family
together and alive, but solutions eluded her. Her last
hope finding a way to reach Charleston and seek help from
agencies there. She got to Charleston but found no
help. With her last hope a bitter failure, Sadie
decided that the only thing to do was take the children for
a walk onto a bridge. It seemed a simple task now, the
only answer she could see. She would push the two
older children over and take the baby over with her last
step.
Before and after this moment some would have called Sadie
and much of her line flaky, and rightly so in many
ways. A generation or so earlier, many would have said
fey. Perhaps that has something to do with what
happened next, with whatever actually happened on that
bridge one step from embracing despair. According to
Sadie, an angel appeared and told her not to take that
step. The angel made no promises, but Sadie took the
children home and hung on.
Eventually, George, who had for some time tipped his hat and
said hello on his regular trips past the house decided to
tip his hat, say hello, and stop by. Sadie and George
had a till death do us part marriage with a combined “yours,
mine, ours” family of 15 children.
No one knows if Sadie saw an angel. Perhaps her
subconscious managed to project the one image strong enough
to overcome her desperation. Perhaps a glint of light
grew with each telling of the story until the angel was
born, or perhaps we can only say that the world is full of
things we can’t know.
The ripples from that step not taken have widened through 4
generations now. Perhaps none of these people have
kept the Bailey Savings and Loan from going under or any
other acts on the scale of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, but that
moment means everything to some of us. One of the
three children who walked back home from that bridge was my
father.
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Other Essays and Poetry
Something
Somewhat
Vaguely
Like a Resume
Being
Like
Children
The
Blessing and the Blues
The
Cat With a Bucket List
David
and the Revelation
The
Dawn, the Dark, and the Horse I Didn't Ride In On (an
odd, meandering, semi-romantic story)
Ghost
Dancer
in the Twilight Zone
The
Hair Connection and the Nature of Choices
The Mug,
the Magic, and the Mistake
Trumpet
Player,
USDA Approved
Videos
Poetry
Selected
Poems
The
Poetry
Process
Writing by Current or Former Students
Ms.
Write Meets Her Match in Jr. Ms. Write Now
by Heide Perry
I'll
Just
Have Cats
by Cara Hummel
Toys
to
Toys
by Allyson Bowlds
Scribbles
and Bits
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to
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