Afterglow

Frank Lowell was born in a lonely farmhouse in upstate New York at the height of the great depression.  As a poor farm kid, he was introduced to hard work early in life, thus missing out on most of the comforts and luxuries of growing up.

"Frank, it's a quarter to six," Dad called from the foot of the stairs.  "Time to start the chores."

Oh! I did not want to leave this warm bed.  Just putting my feet on that cold floor soured my whole day.  More than once I stepped into a blanket of snow that had seeped in around that drafty, rattling window.  And when we had a winter ‘noreaster,’ this room was not much warmer than the great outdoors.  Experience had taught me to tuck my socks into the tops of my work shoes before going to bed, so they would not be saturated with snow.  Just thinking about it made me curl up into a tighter ball.

His real discontent came when he had to leave the one-room school atmosphere and begin high school in the nearby town of Heuvelton.  It is here that he meets and falls immediately in love with Ellen Mason, the daughter of a very well to do family in the area.

As I sat waiting for the proctor to read the instructions to the Mathematics regent's examination, I kept glancing at the auburn-color hair of the girl sitting in front of me.  It looked so soft and well-combed.  She wore a light blue dress, white socks with white and brown shoes.  What beautiful hair.  The sun came in the large window at the back of the room, and played peek-a-boo with a tree branch outside.  As it struck her hair it created a rainbow effect of colors.  I was beginning to notice girls, and I couldn't take my eyes off her or her ever so cute dimple when she smiled.  She had the most beautiful hazel-green eyes.  I had never seen anyone with such interesting eyes.  They changed from a pale green to nearly a brown on a moment's notice. 

I took special notice as she signed her blue book.  Her name was Ellen Mason.  She also dotted her i's with big circles.  This lovely person is Ellen Mason.  I repeated her name over and over in my mind.  If I lost it, I feared I'd lose something precious, like a rare gemstone.  Ellen Mason!  I was immediately in love with this girl, and I haven't so much as met her.

Leaving home, no matter how bad the conditions may be, is always stressful, often heart-wrenching.  It was this way when Frank decided to join the service during the Korean War. ...

As I completed packing my overnight bag in my room I had second thoughts about leaving Random Acres and joining the Air Force.  The thought crept over me like a pall that I might never see this room again, and if I did survive, I might sleep in this bed only a couple of more times in my whole life.

I looked around the old room.  There was the boarded up chimney hole leading through the attic and the roof, when there was a stove downstairs in that area of the house.  I touched the loose window, making it rattle like it did so often on cold, windy nights.  There was my desk and catchall that Dad made for me when I was twelve, and the sagging wallpaper on the ceiling that had browned from dripping snow and water.  It would come down long before I returned.

Saying good-bye was never easy, and to say it as I left for the service was extremely difficult.  I sensed a permanence to it that stuck in my throat, like a bad cold. We could joke about the service, but war's stark reality loomed before me.

Mom was quiet and looked away much of the time while I joked and kidded with my younger brother, Lloyd and sister Peg.  I knew my leaving hurt Mom, as it does any mother sending her son to war.  I knew from her reddened eyes, she had been crying most of the night.  Mothers do those things, whereas men attempt to belittle the situation by making light of it with jokes or trite remarks.

The Korean War soon made use of Frank’s talents.  He was trained and immediately sent to Korea as a pilot.  As the war wages on, he is battle scarred and completely fed up, and wishes he could go home.  But he never knew what trouble was until this one fateful afternoon ...

Our function, as fighter pilots, was to protect the bombers, and see that they arrived at their targets. We had just flown over the city, when suddenly, out of the sun came at least a dozen MiGs.

"Oh, oh, we've got company at ten o'clock!" Smith radioed.

We immediately broke formation and prepared for combat.