What about the swirling
currents that move us
through our lives? Sometimes,
like a floating leaf,
we tumble over shallows
and rocks; sometimes we
snub briefly against a
shoreline. What about those
currents? Is some plan
spinning itself out, or are
we carried on and to the
end by sheer chance?
Beats the hell out of me,
friends! But when I look
back across my decades,
I’m awed by what has
brought me (so far) and has
beached me happily in Fly
Creek.
Maybe I’m only snugged
temporarily here; maybe
some errant wave will
swing me out and on, down
the stream. I don’t think so.
I believe Fly Creek, more
like home than any previous
place, is where I’m
beached for good.
But, oh, how I got here!
You know much of the story:
a boy from Annapolis,
Maryland, a sleepy southern
town back in the `fifties,
goes off to be a monk. Then
thirteen years praying,
studying, teaching. Then
two-dozen years at a fine
Maryland community college
as professor and dean;
eighteen of them happily
married to another academic,
Gwen Vosburgh.
After cancer took Gwen,
a few more years at the college,
and then answering
an urge to move north, to
what had been our planned
retirement home in Fly
Creek. And, months before
leaving Annapolis, meeting
Anne Geddes, product of
her own sweep of events
that had carried her, south
and east, all the way from
Calgary, Alberta, to southern
Maryland.
And then our happy
marriage, already a dozen
years old, and our blessed
life in our hamlet, our town,
our county, our home.
It dizzies me to think
back on my sweep down the
stream, and the improbable
surges that moved me from
one setting to another. I’m
tempted to change the image,
think of myself as a
pool ball, caroming from
other balls and from cushioned
sides till I come to a
temporary rest — only to be
rapped and sped on my way
again.
Here’s an example, not
from my life but from
Gwen’s. For her childhood’s
events ended up defining
my later life, and Anne’s,
too.
Gwen’s dad, pastor of
Edmeston’s Second Baptist
Church when she was
small, accepted a call to a
church in Cameron, South
Carolina. That’s a village
about the size of Edmeston,
though its wide streets and
lawns are shaded by live
oaks festooned with Spanish
moss, and the old houses
all have deep porches
and rocking chairs. Rev.
Vosburgh had moved his
family a thousand miles
south, from peaceful Edmeston
to another village of
peace.
Cameron’s peace had
been shattered once,
though, a decade before.
Sheriff George Tilley, a
man in his thirties, had
been called out of bed in the
middle of the night. An escaped
murderer had been
recaptured and needed to
be hauled back to the jail. A
generous man and widely
respected, Tilley dressed
and headed out to do the
job.
Whoever turned Willie
Gideon over to Sheriff Tilley
had not properly
searched him. Out on the
highway, though in handcuffs.
Gideon pulled a pistol
from his boot and shot Tilley.
The mortally wounded
sheriff was found in his
wrecked car. Rushed to the
hospital, he died soon after.
Gideon was later caught,
still in his handcuffs, and
returned to prison, now to
face a second murder
charge.
That story was already
legend in Cameron when
the Vosburghs and their
three daughters arrived in
town. And the sheriff’s widow,
Miss Johnny Tilley, as
everyone called her, rocked
on her front porch as the
Vosburgh girls played
around in the shaded yard
with her own adopted niece
Nancy.
The Rev. Vosburgh, by
all accounts, was a selfless
pastor; he took on two poor
country churches as well as
his Cameron charge. And
he was a witty man and a
practical joker, too. But
strong of will, he began to
lock horns with his oldest
daughter as she entered
her teens. That was my
Gwen.
When Gwen was fifteen
and the tension was high,
the pastor still carried on a
practical joke that had long
since become old hat. He’d
come in, exhausted from
his schedule, stagger towards
the bed, and fall on
it, gasping and holding his
chest. ``This is it! Goodbye
all! I’m gone!’’
This act had long since
brought only a dismissive
``Oh, dad!’’ from the girls
and his toddler son. But
one dark evening he fell on
the bed, gasped, and fell silent.
It was ten minutes before
they realized that this
was no joke. He was dead of
a coronary.
My Gwen, shocked,
grieved, guilt-ridden that
she’d somehow caused this,
ran screaming into the
moonlit streets. People
poured out of houses; and
down her own porch steps
came Miss Johnny, the
dead sheriff’s .38 revolver
in her hand. If something
awful was happening again,
by God, she was going to
stop it!
Gwen ended up moving
north again to spare expense
to her widowed mother,
two sisters, and a baby
brother — and perhaps to
flee undeserved guilt. She
lived with Edmeston’s Chesebrough
family, who generously
supported her first
years in college. Gwen
eventually earned an
M.B.A., taught first at Alfred,
then was recruited
down to Anne Arundel in
Maryland, the same year a
young ex-monk joined the
faculty.
That’s how an awful
night in Gwen’s childhood
changed the current of her
life, made it overlap with
mine, and brought me to
Otsego County. From grief
over her death, I later fled
north, too.
Mere chance or plan beyond
grasping? I don’t
know. But, sharing life with
dear Anne, who gave me
life again, I’m awed, humbled,
grateful.
Read about Jim Atwell’s
book, From Fly Creek--Celebrating
Life in Leatherstocking
Country, at JimAtwell.
com.
