Ripples in the Water

A mere youth faced the most powerful men in school, a David facing not one Goliath but two.  Alone, he challenged them, holding firm, not wavering, obstinately standing up for what he knew was right.  He stood before them and fought to stop what was being done to his new friend, a friend who was going through terrible persecution because he was different.  The youth had lain awake the night before and planned to go to war.  He had pledged on his sacred honor to fight to help this friend. No one knew of this pledge. Except God, so Andy knew he couldn’t back out. He had everything to lose, but still he stayed and faced the bullies because he knew what was going on was wrong.  Besides, his father had made him a man that morning, and a real man didn’t turn and run like a craven coward, his tail between his legs. Andy stayed firm and soon others stood with him, challenging the bullies, too.  By afternoon, the whole community was involved in what was now being called, “Andy’s War.”

This sequel to The Other Son continues the story of the Bjorn family and Jock, the strange boy who blew into their barn in a raging blizzard, nearly dead.  If Gus and Annie are to save Jock's life, they need to rush him to a specialist in Denver, leaving their children home, not realizing they are leaving them alone facing life-threatening circumstances.

The book is the continuing story of Jock, who for the first time in his life finds a family who loves him, a family willing to sacrifice anything they can to get him well.  Jock has been so lost, so bitter, so alone before he came, can he believe the family actually want him, that they won't throw him away as his mother did, that he really can turn his life around and become a different person, one the family will be proud of?

Ripples in the Water also shows a cross-section of a small, rural community in the Great Depression.  From the crusty old janitor, Pete, who recites poetry to the new banker, T. Cameron Ross from Boston, who thinks he has arrived at the end of the world, we become involved in the lives of the people in Bloody Scalp, Montana.  We cry for the couple who lose their beloved child because they have no money to get her the milk she needs to live.  We laugh at the antics of Ralphie ("My name is Ralph") the smallest boy in the eighth grade, and we hurt for Bart and his mother, Rosa, who loses her daughter at birth and is devastated.   Mostly, we cheer for Andy, for his rag-tail little army who stand beside him, and for the various minorities he champions.  We glow with pride as his sister, Mary Kate, attempts to stop Andy's war with words and ideas, not violence.  We stand horrified with our backs against the wall as the school principal tries to kill Jerome, the new kid in school.

Mostly, Ripples in the Water is an enduring love story of Annie and Gus, both immigrants, who meet in 1914 on Ellis Island. They cleave out a new life in a new land, face whatever tribulations come their way together, their love growing stronger each year, until--

Annie discovers that that Jock is Gus's other son --- a son he didn't know existed.  Can Annie find it in her heart to forgive her gentle giant who has been her lover and friend through the years, who has comforted her, has given her strength when she lost hers --- can Annie forgive Gus the sin of passion?

Carolyn J. Fosdick, Carol, was born in Pueblo, Colorado at the end of the Depression in 1939.  Love of the West and of western tradition is buried deep in her roots.  Money was very tight, but she says theirs was a happy and loving family.  A strong sense of religion, moral values, and patriotism became a part of her character. Her earliest memories are of World War II.  She remembers the blackouts, the victory gardens, and saving everything, including bacon grease, for the war effort.  She remembers her mother, who valued life more than anything, stating grimly that if the Germans came over to America, she was going to take out a few before they killed her.  Carol couldn’t have been older than three at that time; thus she learned early there was both good and evil in the world. 

Carol’s first love was horses and she trotted, galloped, and whinnied her way through childhood.  When she was twelve, she was lucky enough to get a horse, even though she was a “town kid.”  She and her girlfriend used to ride the horse double to one of the ritziest restaurants in Pueblo, tie the horse outside, go in wearing their sweaty jeans, and order the cheapest thing on the menu, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for fifty cents.  She says today that she wouldn’t have the nerve to do this. Her second love was painting and she majored in art at Colorado State University. Once she overheard one art professors tell another, “Carol would be a good artist if you could get her to do anything but horses.”  She still paints horses set in the grandeur of the western landscape. 

She and her husband, Ray, raised three children on a small ranch in Southwestern Colorado. Where they live, back then a person could get on a horse and ride all day without seeing another soul, but in recent years this has all changed as more people moved to the area.  Carol laments these changes, saying that there was then a real sense of pioneer life in the small nearby community of Dove Creek, where both she and her husband taught for years.   In fact, she modeled her school in Ripples in the Water on her experiences as a teacher in Dove Creek.

Carol has had a physical handicap since she was thirty that limits her ability to walk and stand, but this didn’t stop her. She taught the next twenty-five years with this handicap and feels this made her more compassionate and understanding of children with differences.  She has a special feel for the “obnoxious weeds” that she taught --- the kids who had problems, who had trouble fitting in.

In 1982, Colorado State University recognized her as Teacher of the Year, one of six teachers so honored from a five-state area.  She got her Master’s Degree in Art Education in 1991, writing her thesis on the art and culture of the Four Corners and used many of her ideas presnted in her thesis in her own classes. Carol has written one other book, The Other Son, published in 2002.

In 2000, she had an operation to fuse her left ankle.  A week later, an ambulance she was in crashed.  Tied to a gurney and with her oldest daughter at her side, they rolled three times and a half, and then flipped end for end.  She felt her parents’ presence in the ambulance, both who had been dead for ten years. Later, in excruciating pain, she said her parents told her she and her daughter would live.  This spiritual experience saw her through the summer as she lay in the hospital, having several near-death experiences but, with her family beside her, she beat the odds.  She and her daughter, however, will bear the scars of the accident for the rest of their lives.  Today, she enjoys each day more than ever, often thanking God for her blessings.