A000-M000P000--1963_08_23-CPS-MASTER-COMBO--Treasure_Hunting-Part_010-220823-A

to give Jackie Jean the diamond engagement ring he had bought for her in 1934 before hightailing it out of town to escape the hired goons of the Geary Brothers’ gambling syndicate. About an hour later, almost to the town of Perryville on the Susquehanna River at the head of the Chesapeake Bay, Charlie suddenly realized the gas gauge needle was pointing to the cautionary red line past EMPTY. Tensing up, he exclaimed, “Uh-oh. We need to find a gas station, pronto!” and started looking for potential spots to pull off the road if the need arose. Travis, who had been idly daydreaming while listening to the radio and watching the scenery float hypnotically past, was startled out of his reverie. Now it was ‘all hands on deck,’ so Travis sat upright and, practically holding his breath, scoured the distance ahead looking for a gas station. By the time they reached the intersection of Horseshoe Pike and West Route 40 in downtown Perryville, the Roadmaster was literally running on fumes. Luckily, a Texaco station was on the left-hand corner, and on the right was a Sunoco. They had a choice of brands. “Sunoco,” Travis insisted. “That’s the kind of gas Mr. Hamel always used.” It felt weird to speak about his mentor and friend in the past tense like that. Charlie teased, “Texaco Fire Chief gas is much better.” And he sing- songed the advertising jingle, “Trust your car to the man who wears the star.” “No way,” Travis protested, then repeated Sunoco’s selling points almost word for word. “Sunoco offers eight octanes of Custom- Blended gasoline from its Dial-A-Grade pumps.” And he followed with, “‘Sunoco octane 260 is the best gas for the Roadmaster.’ That’s what Mr. Hamel told me.” “Okay, Money Bags,” Charlie chuckled as he turned into the Sunoco station. “It’s your car now. Have it your way,” He took a deep breath, exhaled, and thought, Damn, we just barely made it. 51

As the front car tires, then the rear ones, passed over a cable stretching across the concrete entrance driveway, a loud bell sounded ‘DING-DING DING-DING, alerting the station attendant that a new customer had arrived. Travis always got a kick out of hearing that bell but wondered if he would still feel that way if he worked there. You see, Travis was interested in gas stations and garages because he was considering getting an after-school part-time job at one in West Reading. His Vo Tech teacher had advised him that the experience would benefit him when applying to become an apprentice race car mechanic at the Reading Fairgrounds Speedway after high school. It was pretty good advice, actually. Travis observed that all the national brand gas stations and even most small independent ones had certain similarities. An attendant, almost always male, pumped the gas, checked the oil, and cleaned the windshield for the customer. Self-service was unheard of at the time. He usually had a hat or cap with the company logo on his head and wore a uniform with an embroidered name patch above the shirt pocket. And also on duty was a coverall-clad mechanic with oil- blackened fingers who repaired cars in the service bay, where the obligatory girlie-picture calendar was posted. The twin gas pumps on the island of this Sunoco station were the old-fashioned kind topped with lit-up milk-glass globes emblazoned with the bright yellow rhombus logo, pierced by a red arrow, and the dark blue brand name in the middle. Beside each pump stood a lamppost topped with a barn-style metal shade, and standing on the other side next to it was a combination water squeegee & trash receptacle box. Between the pumps was a carefully assembled stack of oil cans. Travis was always tempted to pull one out from the bottom just to see if they would tumble down. Both Charlie and Travis were feeling pretty sun and wind burned by that time. So instead of waiting inside the car for the attendant to come out, they decided to put the convertible top back up. Charlie, 52

considered a wizard at mathematical and statistical analysis, especially by certain suspicious bookies, but not so adept at things mechanical, contemplated the retractable contraption as if he was confronted for the first time with Fermat’s theorem. Observing his hesitation, Travis stepped in to raise the top with ease. That was because he already knew how from working on the car with Mr. Hamel. But still, Charlie was enormously impressed. After that, because the attendant still had not yet appeared, Charlie told his grandson, “Go inside and find out what’s going on … and get us a Maryland roadmap while you’re at it.” While walking to the entrance, Travis noticed that the Sunoco station had a very curious logo displayed above the door. It was a winged staff with two snakes around it like the ones he had seen in doctor’s offices. That’s odd, he thought. Inside, Travis found no one behind the service counter. The area was empty. He peered through the door leading to the service bay. There he saw a middle-aged woman wearing blue jeans and a white men’s shirt with a button-down collar, kneeling beside a black 1955 Pontiac Chieftain parked over a grease pit for repairs. She was handing a new exhaust pipe down into the pit to a mechanic working on the car from underneath. This was one of the older stations that did not have a modern hydraulic car lift. Travis made a mental note to find a place that had them when he went to get a job. Back sitting behind the wheel of the Roadmaster, Charlie reflected on the familiar red-brick colonnaded antebellum hotel and bar located next to the filling station. It was the old White Horse Hotel, a place he remembered very well. He had spent more than a few wild nights there back when he was, as they say, ‘young enough to get in trouble but old enough to know better.’ The façade had been updated and modernized since Charlie last saw it, more than thirty years before. He was tempted to peek inside to see if the interior was still how he remembered it but checking the time on his watch again, he decided against it. There was 53

still that unfinished business to take care of across the river in Havre de Grace before continuing on to southern Maryland. The woman in the service bay stood to see Travis patiently waiting for her to finish helping the mechanic. She glanced through the garage- door windows at the Buick sitting at the gas pumps. “Sorry, I’m short- staffed today. I’m coming now.” Travis asked her if he could get a Maryland roadmap. “Sure thing,” she said as she hustled through the customer service area towards the pumps, rolling down her sleeves and buttoning the cuffs. “Just take one off the rack. I’ll add it to your payment for the gas.” As the woman approached the Roadmaster, she recognized the person sitting behind the wheel. “Well, I’ll be damned!” She exclaimed, “If it isn’t Charlie Mann, Mr. One Night Stand, who leaves in the middle of the night and never calls you back. Charlie was surprised to see her. He slid down in the car seat apologetically. “Edith, I’m sorry I did that to you.” “Ahhhgh, I got over it. Besides, it was a zillion years ago. I’ve buried two good husbands since then anyway. The last one was Alan Nuff. Remember him? He owned an icehouse down by the river and this place when it was still just a wooden garage shed with a hand-operated gas pump outside.” “I remember it. Nuff’s Garage.” “Uh-huh. When Alan died, I decided I had enough of Nuff’s, so I used the money to purchase a Sunoco franchise. Heard you married a movie star.” “Yeah,” Charlie said, “That was a long time ago too. We got divorced right off, and I never remarried. After my father passed away, I moved to the old family place in Montgomery County. And I’ve been there ever since.” Admiring Edith’s cleavage as she leaned across the hood to clean the windshield, Charlie flirted, “You’re looking pretty as ever, Edith.” 54

“Don’t even go there, Charlie Mann.” She laughed, flicking some water off the squeegee towards him. “You just keep your wandering eyes to yourself.” While taking the cash from Charlie, Edith squeezed his hand and said, “Good to see you again, handsome. You take care.” Turning the ignition key to start the car, Charlie responded, “You too, Edith. Glad you’re doing well.” Charlie then realized that he had forgotten all about his grandson, who had been standing beside the passenger door the entire time so as not to interrupt the conversation, holding the roadmap and listening with amusement. Charlie motioned to Travis. “Come on, Amigo. Let’s get a move on.” When Travis opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat, he attempted to maintain a poker face, but the harder he tried to keep from smirking, the more the corner of his mouth quivered. Charlie took one look at him and asked, “Whaaaat? … You thought your Pop-Pop was a saint or something?” Then they both cracked up. With that, Charlie steered onto West Route 40 toward the tollbooth of the Hatem Memorial Bridge, in sight of the Sunoco station. After paying the toll, they drove onto the bridge towards Havre de Grace. The broad Susquehanna River sparkled in the sunlight below. Simultaneously, about a half-mile downriver to the south, a seemingly endless train of multicolored boxcars clickity-clacked across the Susquehanna Railroad Bridge. Glimpses of the Chesapeake Bay beyond flashed through the trestles. Travis carefully unfolded the stiff new roadmap and held it up to take a look at where they were going. In an instant that took him entirely by surprise, the map was sucked from his hands, straight out the window, and fluttered down behind them towards the water below. His empty hands still grasping the missing map, Travis looked agape at his Pop-Pop. 55

Charlie burst out laughing. “Damn! I guess we’re flying blind now.” Our Story continues in Part 5. See you there. ♦♦♦ 56

220716-A E200-The Time When Pop-Pop and Travis Went Treasure Hunting - Part 5* ___ Part 5* After exiting the Hatem Memorial Bridge on the Havre de Grace side of the river, Charlie steered off Route 40 West using a well-worn, unofficial shortcut across the median strip to Old Post Road. Then, he drove back to the east towards the river, over a steel trestle bridge spanning the railroad tracks. That same seemingly endless train of boxcars seen while they were crossing the Susquehanna Railroad Bridge was still moving underneath. “Where we going?” Travis inquired, twisting his body to look around? “Into Havre de Grace, my old stomping grounds, for a bit.” Pop- Pop explained, “I have some things I need to take care of before we head back out for southern Maryland.” Maybe it was from something in the tone of Charlie's voice, but who knows why, a vague sense of apprehension bubbled up within Travis. “I… don’t know, Pop-Pop.” Charlie continued, “We can grab some food there too. Aren’t you getting hungry?” Travis had completely forgotten about eating lunch in all the excitement of his unexpected birthday surprise. But thinking about it, he had to admit, “I am kinda starved.” Pausing for a moment at the stop sign where Old Bay Lane intersected Old Post Road, Charlie checked the time on his wristwatch. It was already twenty-three minutes past two in the afternoon. “Uh- oh,” Charlie uttered aloud. He wanted to pay his respects to the old Graw Racetrack, now permanently closed, before going into Havre de 57

Grace, but time had gotten away from him. He urgently needed to get to the First National Bank on St. John Street before it closed, and if memory served him well, that was at three o’clock. So, instead of turning on Old Bay Lane to visit the shuttered horserace track as he had planned, Charlie took off like a bat out of hell straight up Old Post Road towards town, where it turned into Revolution Street. But rather than going directly onto Revolution Street, then left on Market Street to reach St. John Street, Charlie reflexively followed the same route he always took during prohibition to avoid the cops when going to the speakeasy district. He hung a Louie on Juniper to the railroad tracks, made a Ralph on Warren, and then in view of the Susquehanna Railroad Bridge, he went just twenty yards north on Union. Catacorner across that intersection stood the ancient Lafayette Hotel. Upon seeing it again, Charlie experienced something called Location Evocation, a term found in the Glossary of Enigmatic Phenomena, rolled up and tied with a ribbon in the bottom drawer of the mahogany desk in Estella’s library at Chestnut Point. It was defined therein as ‘the same memory evoked every time a specific place is encountered or visited.’ Whenever Charlie saw the Lafayette Hotel, the recollection of celebrating Saint Patrick’s there in 1926 came flooding back to him. That evening he witnessed a man get stabbed to death by a drunken stranger over a wolf whistle directed at his curvaceous dinner date, which, needless to say, put a damper on the evening festivities and fixed the incident solidly in Charlie’s memory. Contemplating the senselessness of that long ago bloody confrontation, Charlie took a 45-degree hairpin turn back to the right around the corner onto St. John Street, just six buildings up from the bank. Luckily there was an empty parking spot on that side of the street. But Charlie fumed as he tried to parallel park the Buick. It took him three tries, much to Travis’s amusement. 58

The First National Bank was a Romanesque Revival edifice with rusticated Port Deposit granite walls and a terra cotta roof. Two huge double wood doors studded with brass nailheads were centered within a tall entranceway, framed with smooth stone, crowned with a stained glass arch, and flanked on each side by tall, stately windows. When Charlie saw customers on their way in and out, he sighed with relief. “It’s still open.” Then to Travis, he said, “Wait here, or come in if you want. I won’t be long.” Travis anxiously wondered, what is Pop-Pop up to now? He shrugged, “I’ll wait, I guess.” “Alright, hang tight. The bank closes at three. See you in about twenty minutes” Charlie said as he got out of the car, grabbed his alligator skin valise from the floor of the backseat, and skedaddled across the street into the bank. Once inside, he asked a banker to accompany him down to the safe deposit vault. The officious acting young man did not recognize Charlie, so he asked to see his renter’s key to the box and some identification. Charlie complied, taking a black leather envelope from the valise, unzipping it, producing the key, his birth record, and an affidavit, stamped by a notary, affirming his legal surname ‘Mann’ and the one on his birth record were not the same. Just to make things thoroughly confusing -- Very few people knew that Charlie’s birth name was actually Charles Sweets Ochoa. His grandfather, a quote-unquote “negro cowboy” from Oklahoma, was Dan Ochoa. His mixed-white and Cherokee grandmother from Missouri was Martha Jane Sweets. Their daughter, Linda Sweets Ochoa, was Charlie’s mother. Everyone called her ‘Little Sweets.’ Little Sweets played a sizzling-hot accordion in the family ‘two-step’ band which performed regularly at the dancehall in the St. Louis Fairgrounds. And Charlie’s father, Jim Mann, was a high-wheel cyclist from Maryland who was competing at the fairgrounds racetrack when he met and bedded fifteen-year-old Little Sweets. So, you guessed it, Travis’s great-grandfather was ‘that Jim Mann,’ the renowned daredevil 59

and wealthy bicycle entrepreneur from Chestnut Point, Maryland. But let’s move on. In Charlie’s opinion, the banker was barely out of college and still wet behind the ears. He seemed somewhat confused as his eyes darted back and forth between the birth record, the affidavit, and the driver’s license. Charlie started tapping his foot and looking impatiently at his watch. It was thirteen minutes until three. Then, seeing the man’s name ‘Thomas Fischer’ on the wood nameplate sitting on his desk, Charlie asked, “May I call you Tom?” The banker answered with an almost imperceptible grimace, “I would prefer Mr. Fischer.” Charlie now had the fellow’s number, deciding, He is called Tom by his parents, which makes him feel like a kid instead of the mature, respected banker he wants others to see him as. “Mr. Fischer,” Charlie explained, “I was a bastard child. My father, who people said was ‘the real bastard,’ knocked up my mother when she was only fifteen years old. That’s why my mother’s name is on the birth record. She came to live in Maryland with my father, but he never got around to marrying her. So she left him, high and dry - my little sister and me too. We were raised by my father and took his name, legally.” Tom, Thomas, Mr. Fischer, take your pick, was taken aback by Charlie’s candor. He got red in the face and stammered, “Well, Mr. Mann, everything seems to be in order. Please sign this admission card, and I will take you downstairs. But, I must remind you that we close in eleven minutes, so you will have to make it quick.” Charlie just couldn’t resist spouting the old cliché, “Don’t worry. I’ll be done faster than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking competition,” and ending the sentence in his mind, ‘Tom.’ He then said, \"But before leaving, I would like to close my safe deposit account. Alright?” Fischer nodded. “Yes, I’ll prepare the paperwork and have it ready for you to sign on the way out.” 60

Once inside the safe deposit vault, the banker unlocked the bin door with the bank key, removed the metal box, and set it on the marble countertop in the center of the room. He then left Charlie in privacy with a reminder that the bank was closing in seven minutes. Charlie opened the metal box using his key. Inside were five stacks of $100 bills, snugged in sideways to fit. The cash added up to fifty thousand dollars, which was a helluva lot of moola in those days! He removed the money and arranged it in the alligator skin valise underneath the leather envelope containing his identification papers and the burgundy velvet presentation box holding Jackie Jean’s diamond ring. Unknown to Charlie, when the banker went back upstairs to file the admission card, he happened to see a note on its front side, which appeared to have been written when the account was opened in 1934. And curiously, the message was penned and signed in the unmistakably precise, upright, and legible cursive of someone he knew very, very well -- his own father, who was the manager of the bank at that time but had long since retired. The note read: “Please notify me promptly when the key holder accesses this box. Colin Fischer.” Tom went back to his desk and telephoned his father. His mother, Phillis, answered and greeted him with delight. “Tom, it’s so nice to hear from you on a weekday. How are you, darling?” “I’m fine, mother. You sound chipper.” “Oh yes. My bridge club is here today, and we’re having a splendid time. Say hello to the girls.” She held up the phone handset toward her three elderly friends seated around the card table. “It’s my son, Tom!” They chimed in unison, “Hi, Tom,” and with ears cocked, attempted to discern his muffled response. Phyllis beamed as she loudly repeated her son’s words “He says, ‘Hello lovely ladies.’” Upon which the bridge players tittered amongst themselves gleefully. “Could I speak with father?” Tom asked. 61

“He’s taking his afternoon nap,” she answered. “Mother, wake him up, please. I think he’ll appreciate it.” “Alright, darling, but you are to blame if he bites my head off.” Tom placated her attempt at humor with a perfunctory laugh. “Ha- ha, mother.” He waited on the line while she went downstairs to arouse her husband, Colin, contentedly and loudly sawing wood on a cot in his darkened basement workshop amidst a clutter of duck decoys in various stages of completion. Tom’s bleary-eyed father trudged up the stairs behind his wife, stuffing his wrinkled shirt back into his waistband and brushing back his tousled hair with his hand. He felt like a prisoner being escorted from his cell to be paraded past the bemused gallery of old dames sitting at the bridge table. Putting the handset to his ear, Colin grumbled, “This better be good, Tom.” “Father, I’m calling from the bank about something unusual from when you were the manager.” All ears now, Tom’s father straightened up. ‘Yes son? What is it?” “Listen, I just took a man down to his safe deposit box. And there is an old note on the admission card saying to notify you if that box is accessed.” Colin knew immediately which safe deposit box and customer his son was talking about. He slowly iterated the name that came to mind. “Char-lie Mann … Thank you for calling me so quickly, Tom.” “No problem, father. Yes, that’s his name, Charles Mann … but his birth record identifies him differently. What’s it all about?” Colin turned his back to the ladies at the bridge table so as not to be overheard and quietly answered. “I can’t tell you right now. But find out where he is going and what kind of car he is driving. Then call me right away, alright, son?” “Okay, I’ll ring you back shortly,” Tom assured him, now intrigued by his father’s unforeseen reaction and stern instructions. He hung up the telephone and watched for the customer to come up the stairs from 62

the vault as he assembled the paperwork necessary to close the account. After disconnecting the call, Tom’s father, Colin, immediately dialed the number of a bank client from back in the old days, a gambling syndicate crime boss who had just recently been released from maximum-security federal prison. The man he called was Louis ‘Spats’ Geary, now living in Joppatowne with his younger brother and partner in crime, Bernard ‘Benny-Boy’ Geary, who had been granted early release several years before him for good behavior. Well, actually, since leaving prison, Bernard had started going by the name ‘Beebe’ and dressing in women’s clothing, much to his red-blooded brother’s consternation. We’ll tell you more about that later. When the phone rang in the living room of the old Geary family waterside summer cottage, Beebe was struggling through the front door carrying bulging brown paper grocery bags in both arms. He was dressed sensibly for the hot weather in a silk color-blended blouse with self-covered buttons and roll sleeves, tailored pink pants lined with Sanforized cotton, serge, pressed seams, darts in front and back, and a snag-proof side zipper. He also wore comfortable soft-leather beige pumps and a pink hair band to match the pants. The complete ensemble had been purchased by mail-order from that year’s Sears Spring & Summer catalog. Beebe’s manly older brother was outside idly floating around on an inflatable air mattress in the backyard swimming pool like he used to do when he was a kid. Louis, who went by the nickname ‘Spats’ during prohibition, was a trim, muscular, bald sixty-one-year-old who was otherwise extremely hairy despite losing all his dark hair on top. And his skimpy Speedo swimsuit left nothing to the imagination. Beebe impatiently summoned Louis to the phone and then returned to complete the task of taking the groceries into the kitchen and unpacking them. Louis rolled over into the water with a splash, swam 63

to the edge of the pool, and hoisted himself out. He was still drying himself off with a beach towel when he picked the handset off the side table in the living room. “Hello, Louis speaking.” “Louis, this is Colin Fischer.” “ …. Oh yes, Fischer … been a long time. What is it?” “You’ll never believe who just showed up at the bank here in Havre de Grace,” Colin stated coldly. Although Colin’s wife, Phyllis, couldn’t clearly discern her husband’s words, his uncharacteristic dark tone of voice prompted her to look up from her cards towards him with concern. Meanwhile, waiting outside in the car for his Pop-Pop, Travis spotted a movie theater, two doors up from the First National Bank, called The State Theater. The billboard above the ticket booth announced the showing of \"The Pink Panther.\" It was a comedy that he and his neighborhood pals, Debbie and Mike, were dying to see. So Travis strolled across the street to look at the movie poster displayed beside the ticket booth. Travis thought the poster was hilarious. The banner lettering splashed across the top read, \"The Pink Panther. You only live once, so see the Pink Panther twice.\" Below was an illustration of inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) playing the violin in bed with his cheating wife Simone (Capucine). The other movie characters lounged on a tiger skin rug beside the bed, wearing winter clothes and having a picnic while holding ski equipment. A cartoon depiction of the Pink Panther was looking down on them from behind the headboard. Charlie was the last customer in the bank before it closed. After hurrying up the stairs he headed straight to the young banker’s desk to close his safe deposit box account. Trying to sound as innocuous and chatty as possible, Tom Fischer asked, “Visiting, huh?” 64

“No, Just passing through,” Charlie answered absentmindedly, distracted while reading over the paperwork and signing it. “My grandson and I are headed down to Charles County on a road trip” “In high school, I went on a field trip to St. Mary’s, the first capital of Maryland,” the young banker remarked. “On the way back we visited the civil war prisoner of war camp at Point Lookout. On the way back home the bus took us through Charles County. But we didn’t stop so I don’t know any of the places down there. Oh, that’s not true, I do know the name of one place, Port Tobacco. Is that where you’re going?” Handing the paper and the pen across the desk and picking up his valise to leave, Charlie said, “No, that’s on the Potomac River. We are going to Benedict on the Patuxent River side of the county. I appreciate your help with this. You take care.” “You’re welcome. Have a good trip.” A uniformed security guard waited patiently at the front doors for Charlie to walk the length of the mezzanine. \"Thanks,\" Charlie said as he hustled out, carrying the alligator skin valise in the crook of his arm like a football player rushing the goal-line. As Charlie approached the Buick, he did a diggity-diggity-doink. Travis was gone. Turning in a full circle, he wondered, Where is he? He envisioned Travis’s other grandfather, Werner, wagging his finger and snidely saying, “I told you so. That reprobate Charlie Man cannot be trusted with the care of my grandson.” \"Pop-Pop, Pop-Pop, I'm over here,\" Travis called to him from across the street. \"Good God!\" Charlie loudly exclaimed, \"You scared the hell out of me.\" \"Sorry, Pop-Pop,\" Travis apologized as he dodged oncoming traffic back to the Roadmaster. At that moment, both he and Charlie were unaware of the banker, Tom Fischer, coming out of the bank and slipping past them about 65

thirty feet away with a notepad and ballpoint pen to jot down the make, model, and license plate number of the car they were getting into. But the ghostly spirit of the ex-pirate Julius Teller was well aware of what the banker was doing. As you probably already realized, he had stowed away in the back seat during the road trip and had gone undetected the whole time, except by the taxicab driver Big Benjamin who had the nagging sensation that someone or something was back there. Despite how difficult it was for a ghost to interact and communicate with the living, Julius was bound and determined that nothing would hinder the recovery of the trove of Spanish silver eight stolen from him in 1723. That unfinished business was what kept him hanging about on the earthly plane for so many decades. Due to his stubborn persistence, throughout the years, several members of the Mann family had made attempts to find the purloined treasure. But, in keeping with Julius's long history of bad luck, every effort proved to be unsuccessful for one unforeseen reason or another. This time around, however, Julius was leaving nothing to chance. Our story continues in Part 6. See you there. ♦♦♦ 66

220713-B E200-The Time When Pop-Pop and Travis Went Treasure Hunting - Part 6* ___ Part 6* After pulling away from the curb across from the First National Bank, Charlie told Travis that he needed to find a telephone booth to call an old girlfriend of his. “Who’s that?” Travis asked. “Her name is Jackie Jean. We both worked at the racetrack here back in the day and we were very close for a while. I have something to give her while we’re in Havre de Grace.” “What’s that?” “Well, Amigo, it’s kind of personal … just between her and me. Someday, I’ll tell you the whole story. But, how ’bout we leave it at that, for now. Okay?” Travis shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, Pop-Pop” He wondered what the big secret was all about but didn’t question him further. Charlie cruised slowly down St. John Street, looking for a payphone to call Jackie Jean, whom he hadn’t seen or spoken to in twenty-nine years. But he had kept up his subscription to the Harford Democrat newspaper, which he received by mail a few days after each issue came out. And from it he fastidiously clipped out all the reviews of the local little-theater productions she was in until recently when her name stopped being listed among the cast members. Concerned that Jackie Jean had taken ill or died, Charlie turned his attention to the obituaries instead. But then he saw her name mentioned several times in the agricultural section of the paper as the owner of ponies cross-bred with Appaloosas, which she was providing for children to ride at local fairs and charity events. That had touched Charlie’s heart. His fears were 67

soothed, and he contented himself with the thought, Though Jackie Jean has stopped acting, she is doing just fine. But regardless of how old they became or how their priorities changed, one thing remained certain; how much Charlie adored Jackie Jean, the love of his life. You see, on the same day every year, he wired money to the Harford Democrat newspaper to place a personal message in the classifieds that read, “Happy Birthday to Jackie Jean, the most beautiful woman in the world. With love, Chuck.” Coincidentally, back in the early ’30s, ‘Chuck’ was not only a common nickname for Charles but also used as a term of endearment, making it the perfect alias for Charlie to keep his torrid love affair with Jackie Jean hush-hush. Charlie honestly believed that this would be his last chance, while he was still able, to demonstrate to Jackie Jean how much he loved her, despite being apart for so many years. So, now more than ever, Charlie wanted her to have the diamond engagement ring he bought in 1934 before he had to skip town to escape the impending wrath of the Geary Brothers. But this time around, Charlie was determined; he would give Jackie Jean that ring before he headed out one way or the other. Still, he worried, What are the odds that Jackie Jean will be at home to answer my phone call on a Monday in the middle of the afternoon? And what if, like back then, she still doesn’t want to talk to me or see me again. Then, almost immediately, only one block south of the bank, Charlie spotted a phone booth on the corner outside of Foley’s Pharmacy, where he used to purchase seltzer and aspirin tablets for his hangovers. The old red-brick storefront sat empty with soaped-up windows and a ‘For Rent’ sign posted on the door. It faced out onto Rochambeau Square, an irregularly angled five street intersection which was not ‘square’ by any stretch of the imagination. Foley’s was located in a neighborhood frequented by visitors strolling from the historic district down to the waterfront at the end of Green Street to dine on the world-famous crab cakes at The Golden 68

Crab Restaurant or see a musical put on by the Susquehanna Players on the Show Boat Floating Theater moored at the dock next to it. Across the way from the old pharmacy was a small, brightly painted wooden tourist stand selling postcards, gifts, and refreshments. Its sign emblazoned in red, white, and blue stars & stripes announced: Yankee Doodle Dandy’s * Post Cards * Sodas * Balloons * Popcorn * Shaved-ice * * & Free Dyed Feathers for Your Hat * The colorfully zany stand stood in the middle of a tiny triangular park, next to the Masonic Temple building, on the jutting corner formed by the intersections of St. John, North Washington, and Green Streets. Charlie pulled up to the curb in front of Foley’s. “Amigo, I’m stopping here to make a call. Hang tight, I won’t be long.” As Charlie got out of the Roadmaster and walked across the sidewalk to the phone booth Travis looked on uncomfortably from the passenger seat in the muggy August Chesapeake Bay heat. The shaved- ice advertised at Yankee Doodle Dandy’s looked pretty good to him right about then. The glass of the phone booth was covered with political campaign stickers. -- LBJ, All the way -- Goldwater, the best man for the job -- George Wallace, Stand up for America. Missing was the one woman candidate, Margaret Chase. No matter, because Travis did not have a clue who any of those people were. He was basically still a kid with little interest in current events, except sports, movies, and, oh yes, rock- n-roll. Charlie opened the hinged folding door and raised the thick Harford County directory, hanging from a chain, onto the small shelf under the phone box. He opened it, leafed through the pages, and slid his finger down the columns until he found the listing he was looking for; Jacqueline Jean Osterman 1-something-99 Chapel Road. Although the second printed numeral was an illegible typo, the address still seemed 69

very familiar to Charlie. He thought, Jackie Jean must be living back at the farmhouse again. Charlie inserted a dime in the slot, lifted the handset to his ear, and listened for the dial tone before dialing the numbers one by one. (All the phones were rotary in those days.) Each time he rotated one of the numbered finger-holes around the circular spring-loaded wheel, the internal gears produced a soft mechanical clickety-clickety- clickety ending at the metal stop at about 2 o’clock with an abrupt CLICK then repeated the clickety-clickety-clickety in reverse as the wheel returned around to its original position. Jackie Jean did not answer the call, but Charlie immediately recognized the man’s voice who did. It was Jackie Jean’s elderly father, and he sounded like the same decrepit fuddy-duddy he always was. “Hello. Mr. Osterman?” Never had Charlie called Jackie Jean’s father by his first name. It was always Mr. Osterman. In fact, it took a few moments for him to dredge up the irascible codger’s first name … Eberhard? That’s it! “Yes.” “Mr. Osterman, this is Charlie Mann.” “Who? Speak up. I can’t hear you.” “Charlie Mann. I am an old friend of your daughters’. Remember me?” “C-h-a-r-lie-Mann, C-h-a-r-lie-Mann,” Eberhard slowly iterated, “Well, well, well. I thought you were in jail or dead. What do you want?” “Could I talk to Jackie Jean?” After a long pause, he answered. “No. “Please, Mr. Osterman, It’s something important.” “You can’t talk to her because she’s not here,” Eberhard responded, cackling at his own sense of humor. He then left Charlie hanging … After waiting a few seconds, Charlie asked, “Okay, could I ask where she is? I really do need to see her today.” 70

“About what? Probably nothing good, knowing you.” “It’s a long story, Mr. Osterman, but I promise it’s not anything bad. I am only in town for an hour or so, so would you mind telling me where I can find her.” “Huh? What’d you say? Charlie enunciated his words even louder, “It’s-nothing-bad. She- will-be-happy,” which was followed by another long silence. Finally, Eberhard relented. “Ahhh. Okay. She waitresses at the Esso Servicecenter diner, out on 40, the five o’clock evening shift, but she’s real busy. I doubt she will have the time.” “I’ll give it a shot. Thank you, Mr. Osterman!” “What?” At this point, Charlie was practically shouting into the phone. “I said, Thank you, Mr. Osterman! I’ll give it a try. Goodbye, Mr. Osterman!” Charlie Mann hung up the phone, closed the hinged door to the booth, and got back into the car. “Who was that?” Travis asked. That was my friend’s father. She wasn’t at home, but he said she will be at work, not far from here, at five o’clock. I want to stop by then to see her for a little bit before we hit the highway again.” Travis, who was feeling very hungry by this time, asked, “I thought we were going to get something to eat?” Charlie answered, “Luckily, she works at a diner. We can eat then. Would you like to grab a snack now, to tide you over?” “The shaved ice over there looks good,” Travis said, pointing to the tourist stand across the intersection. “Alright, let’s walk,” Charlie responded, thinking, I can lock up the car and keep an eye on it from there. At Yankee Doodle Dandy’s, Travis had a choice between a traditional Maryland style Egg Custard shaved-ice cone with a drizzle of marshmallow on top, a Tiger’s Blood which was a mix of fruity watermelon, coconut, and strawberry flavorings, or a Skylight Special, 71

guaranteed to turn your tongue bright blue. Travis was skeptical of the old-fashioned Egg Custard option but decided to give it a try on Pop- Pop’s recommendation that it tasted a lot like vanilla-caramel ice cream. Charlie would have been satisfied simply to take a drink from the park water fountain and smoke a cigarette, but ‘just for grins’ he picked the Skylight Special for himself. Charlie was pleased to find that the stand also sold Maryland roadmaps. So he purchased a replacement for the one lost while crossing the Hatem Memorial Bridge. Then sitting on the only bench, they hurried to consume their refreshing but rapidly melting shaved-ice treats. About halfway through, they decided that the other’s choice would be more to their liking, so they traded cones which resulted in both of them having blue tongues. Charlie opened up the map and spread it out on his lap. He then pulled out a golf pencil and a scratched plastic magnifier from his shirt pocket to plot their course from Havre de Grace to southern Maryland. Pointing to a spot on Route 40, a smidgen to the west, he said, “Alright, this is where the diner is located.” Travis started skootching closer to lean across his Pop-Pop’s right arm to get a better look, but instead, Charlie handed him the pencil and the map, saying, “Here, this will make it easier for you to see where we’re going.” Travis took the map and pencil from him and drew a small circle around the spot where Pop-pop had indicated the diner was at. “After we leave the diner, it’s all straight highway to Baltimore, so you will take another turn at driving before it gets dark.” Travis’s eyes lit up. “Yeah.” Charlie ran his finger along Route 40 to Baltimore. “But no speeding this time. Okay?” Travis nodded his agreement. Charlie then asked, “See this?” He pointed to a straight red line below the city of Baltimore, stretching across a body of water, printed in baby blue on the map. “That’s the Baltimore Harbor Bridge. It can 72

be kind of hairy to drive over, especially during rush hour.” Charlie couldn’t resist sliding in the corny joke, “But I don’t know why they call it rush hour when the traffic barely moves.” Travis just shook his head. “Hah. Hah. Oh please, Pop-Pop.” Unfazed, Charlie resumed, “So instead of having you drive across the bridge, we are going to trade places at a truck stop, right about there.” Oh, sorry, we forgot to mention that the trucker’s service station was one of Charlie’s planned destinations on his road trip itinerary. You’ll find out why when we arrive there later in the story. Travis was following along intently. He traced Route 40 in pencil from Havre de Grace to Baltimore and marked the location of the truck stop. Charlie then ran his finger from the Baltimore Harbor Bridge down Route 3 to 301. “After the bridge, the local roads going to Highway 301 are tricky. So from the truck stop, I’ll take over the driving again until we get right here.” Charlie pressed his fingertip on the town of Upper Marlboro in Prince Georges County. “By that time, we will probably need to find another 'Sunoco' station.\" Charlie teased Travis, poking him playfully in the ribs. \"After gassing up, you can drive the rest of the way straight down 301 to La Plata, in Charles County. We’ll stay the night at a motel there. Then, tomorrow morning, it’ll take us only about a half-hour to get to Benedict, so we’ll have the rest of the day to look for the treasure and all day Wednesday if need be.” Travis pumped his fist. “Alright!” “But, on Thursday -- really, really early -- we have to leave to get back to Reading to beat the New York bus. Sound like a plan?” “Uh-huh,” Travis responded as he continued following the path of Charlie’s finger in pencil. “So, where do you think the treasure is buried?” Charlie pointed to a spot on the roadmap just a tiny bit west of the Patuxent and the town of Benedict. “The lost Spanish silver is right 73

there.\" The ghost of Julius Teller, who was looking over his shoulder shook his head in exasperation. He shouted, “No, no, no, dunderhead! That is John Lyttlejohn’s empty crypt where I hid the silver in the first place. Someone stole the eight from there and reburied it in another unknown location!” He was frustrated because Charlie was making the same elementary mistake as had all the others in the past. Travis felt a subtle chill from eating the shaved ice -- or so he thought -- and had the odd sensation that someone was standing behind him. Then, for some unfathomable reason, he was gripped with skepticism and demanded, “Pop-Pop, how do you know for certain?” Charlie twisted his torso around to get his wallet from his back pocket, and from it, he withdrew a business-card-sized cellophane envelope. Neatly folded within the envelope was a small photocopy, which Charlie removed and gently unfolded. He then held his plastic magnifier above it so he and Travis could see the detail better. The photocopy was the black-&-white image of a partially burnt page fragment from a small book. Some of the words and letters on the charred scrap were illegible. However, this is what was readable: 1st of May 1723 The Old Lads--------pact------------oath of ----------------------- -------with-------------matter resolved. Julius nd Bajan------- -----The silver---------moved from the Osprey in darkness-- ------------hilltop graveyard---------------------------------------- -------------------found empty---------------believed burie---- nearby--------Patux nt Surprisingly intact, under the writing was drawn a crude map, showing the shoreline of the Patuxent River where Mill Creek flowed into it. They were identified by the abbreviations Px. R, and M Cr. In the spit of land formed by their confluence was the irregular geometric outline of Benedict Town, as it was then called, identified by the letters Bndct Twn. A hill with trees 74

growing on it was sketched in spare, symbolic lines on the far side of Mill Creek. And upon the hill, a gravestone with a cross was depicted. The abbreviation Slvr. was penned next to it. Without comprehending the significance of the partial phrases in the text ‘found empty’ and ‘believed burie nearby,’ Charlie again pointed to the corresponding spot on the roadmap. “That’s how I know where the lost Spanish silver is buried.” “Whoa!” Travis exclaimed, excitedly marking the spot on the map with a Pirate X, and asked, “Where did the old map come from, Pop-Pop?” “Your Aunt Jennie gave it to me after finding it in a burnt diary written by your many-times great-grandmother, Estella Chastaign, who came to Maryland in 1723 with your many-times great-grandfather, Captain Robyn Mann. He and Estella are resting side by side in the family graveyard on The Point. You’ve been there.” Travis drifted off in thought. “Oh yeah….” He had this spotty memory from when he was eleven, walking on a path through the woods, with his Aunt Jennie, out onto a rocky rise overlooking Brighton Dam and the Triadelphia Reservoir. Aunt Jennie led him to a little cemetery under an ancient Lebanon cedar tree. Although at the time, he didn’t know what kind of tree it was or its significance, it reminded him of the haunted house trees in the movies. Travis had been especially impressed by the size of the cast-iron anchor chain that enclosed the graveyard and astonished at how large and heavy the links of the chain were. He also remembered the broken-in-half millstone set into the ground at the gate serving as a threshold. He had speculated about how difficult it must have been to haul the weighty six-foot half- wheel-shaped stone all the way up to the overlook. Aunt Jennie had insisted that he stand with her at every grave plot to expound upon the person buried there. The only names retained in his memory from that experience were of the two sea captains, Robert Mann and his son Robyn. But now, the name of Travis’s many-times great-grandmother, 75

Estella Chastaign, was forever etched into his consciousness. And although he didn’t realize it, her call to him across the centuries would someday lead him to find his destiny. Our story continues in Part 7. See you there. ♦♦♦ 76

220818-A E200-The Time When Pop-Pop and Travis Went Treasure Hunting - Part 7* ___ Part 7* While Charlie and Travis were examining the photocopy of the burnt page from Estella Chastaign’s diary, the retired banker, Colin Fischer, was making a follow-up phone call to the paroled gambling syndicate crime boss, Louis Geary. Luckily for Colin, his wife’s bridge club had taken a break from their game and were in the sunroom partaking of canapés, tea sandwiches, and Long Island iced tea served in hurricane glasses ornamented with colorful paper umbrellas. Still, Colin knew from experience that Phyllis had eyes in the back of her head and would notice what he was doing and try to listen in on his conversation. So he moved the phone as far away from the sunroom as the telephone cable would allow. And again, he turned his back to her. Keeping his voice down, Colin relayed the information that his son, Tom, had gathered at the bank. “Charlie Mann is on his way to the town of Benedict in Charles County with a teenage boy in an older model yellow Buick Skylark convertible.” Then Colin slowly repeated the license plate number of the automobile several times so Louis could write it down correctly, concluding with, “And he took the contents of his safe deposit box along with him.” Before hanging up, he asked, “So, are we square now?” Louis left Colin twisting in the wind for seven long seconds before cutting him loose. “Sure, Fischer, we’re square. And I hope your snoopy little wife and goody-two-shoes son have a long, happy life.” 77

Colin took a deep breath, silently sighed in relief, and hung up the phone, believing that, at long last, his illegal involvement with the Geary Brothers was finally behind him. But in truth, once you were indebted to Louis Geary, he never entirely let you off the hook, and if you crossed him, it was curtains. Prompted by her husband’s suspicious behavior, Phyllis excused herself from the table in the sunroom and went into the living room to ask, “Is everything alright, darling?” “Yes, Phyllis, just some old bank business requiring my attention. Don’t worry. It’s completely taken care of now.” Colin assured her and returned to the basement to work on his duck decoys. Meanwhile, at the Geary family waterside cottage in Joppatowne, Louis walked from the living room into the kitchen in his still-wet speedo and damp beach towel draped across his shoulders. His brother, Beebe, wearing an apron over his spotless color-blended silk blouse and pink pants outfit from Sears, was preparing a roast with carrots and onions to put in the oven for dinner. Louis snarled, “We’re going to kill that son of a bitch!” “Kill who?” Beebe inquired as he put the cover on the roasting pan and placed it into the preheated oven. “Charlie Mann, that’s who.” “Hmmm. Charlie Mann. I thought he was long gone, living under an assumed name.” Beebe mused while wiping his hands on a kitchen towel and twisting the knob on the Everhot Appliance Timer to two hours and fifteen minutes. “Well, apparently not. According to Colin Fischer, today he emptied his safe deposit box at the First National Bank.” “That’s interesting. I was sure we’d never see him again … or his winnings,” Beebe commented. “But Louis, you’re going to have to off him yourself. I don’t do that sort of stuff anymore. You’re welcome to my old bag of goodies, though. There are some great choices in there. If you decide on using poison, I suggest replacing the old vials with new ones. I know you’re familiar with most of the tools, but if it’s 78

garroting him with piano wire, I should show you the right way to do it. And you always make such an awful mess with a knife. So, if that’s what you choose, let me teach you the quickest, cleanest, quietest way to do it first.” “What happened to you, Bernard?\" Louis lamented. \"I used to be able to count on you.” Beebe put his hand on his hip and scolded his older brother, “My name is Beebe now! People change, you know, and sometimes for the better. Why can’t you just be happy for me?” “Sorry, Bern… I mean Beebe. I didn’t mean anything by it. But I miss the old you. Besides, you were always so much better at whacking people than me. But, if that’s how you want it, I’ll take care of Charlie Mann myself. At least come along and keep me company, for old time’s sake.” Beebe put his hand on Louis’s shoulder to console him. “Alright, Louis, just this one time. But after that, you’re on your own.” Louis nodded gratefully. “Thanks, little brother. You and me, one more time, for old time’s sake.” About the same time, Charlie carefully placed the cellophane envelope containing the photocopy of the diary page back into his wallet, folded up the roadmap, and walked with Travis back across the intersection on Rochambeau Square to the Roadmaster. He again checked the time on his wristwatch. It was 3:43 p.m. There was plenty of time to pay his respects to the old Graw Racetrack before Jackie Jean started the five o’clock evening shift at the Esso Servicecenter diner, only a mile and a half away on Route 40. So, Charlie drove the Roadmaster west on Old Post Road, out of Havre de Grace, and turned left onto Old Bay Lane toward the track near the Chesapeake Bay shoreline. He then drove slowly past the ornate iron racetrack entrance, the dilapidated grandstands, and the neo-classical New England-style clubhouse renovated by the Coast 79

Guard, who took ownership of the track after it closed for use as an armory and office space. Finally, Charlie went all the way to the far end of the racetrack grounds. There, he turned left onto an ungated gravel road winding through the weathered sheds and horse barns of the backstretch, some of which were being used to store Coast Guard marine equipment and supplies. After parking the Roadmaster, before turning off the engine, Pop- Pop said, “Let’s close the windows and lock up so no one steals the stuff in the backseat.” It’s going to be like an oven inside when we get back, Travis thought and wondered why Pop-Pop didn’t just put his bags in the trunk. But then he remembered it was where Mr. Hamel stored all his Boy Scout supplies and camping equipment, and Mrs. Hamel had probably forgotten to remove it. But Pop-Pop must know that, he figured. However, Travis found it very curious when Pop-Pop took the alligator skin valise off the backseat floorboard to carry with him and wondered, What’s inside the bag? Then, Charlie led Travis through the backstretch barns out onto the track, which was sparsely overgrown with patches of weeds and wiregrass. A group of Coast Guard personnel working by the clubhouse on the far side of the infield paused for a moment to check them out. Deciding the two were some of the harmless curiosity seekers or sentimental old-timers who wandered in from time to time, they turned back to their work. It was too much bother to chase them off, apparently. Charlie set the valise on the ground beside him and stood silently, with his hands in his pockets, staring up into the sad, silent grandstands. He focused far away into the past, transported back to the heyday of the Graw. He could hear the raucous commotion and ritual ceremony of race day, the tattoo of the bugle calling the mounts to their starting positions, the loud bang of the starting gun, the dramatic 80

pounding of hooves as the horses charged towards the first turn, and the rhythmic staccato of the track announcer calling the race over the loudspeaker. He saw a throng of men crowded at the railing, cigars in mouths, neckties loosened, waving their tickets and shouting as if they could magically will their favorite horse into the lead. In the box seats, he watched jubilant parties of women, wearing gaily decorated wide-brim sunhats, fanning themselves as they sipped mint juleps and black-eyed Susans. In his mind’s eye, they leaped to their feet, ecstatically cheering as the horses came thundering around the final turn onto the homestretch. And Charlie nostalgically relived what happened precisely two minutes before the start of the 1932 Chesapeake Stakes race, the annual midseason event at the Graw. That was the moment he saw the beautiful smiling racetrack poster girl, Jackie Jean Osterman, and fell in love at first sight. Charlie remembered that the up-and-coming jockey, Eduardo Samos, and the Race Starters had a tough time getting the skittish bay mare Hildiko into position behind the starting rail. The mare was Charlie Mann’s long-shot pick to place second in the exacta. Charlie was convinced that the favorite to win was a shoo-in, but the field of possible number two finishers was wide open. Yet, based on his research, the unproven speedster Hildiko, injured as a two-year-old, was fully recovered and ready to make a splash. Charlie had three hundred bucks riding on Hildiko’s performance in the exacta and felt as nervous as the horse in anticipation of the starting gun. But then, the gorgeous young woman caught Charlie’s eye, and as if fallen instantly under the spell of a magic love potion, he forgot all about the race. When Charlie saw Jackie Jean Osterman for the first time, she walked beside the track cameraman toward the winner’s circle to await the race’s conclusion. She was struggling comically to hold in her arms both the Silver Cup award for the victorious trainer and the flower wreath for putting around the winning horse’s neck. Wearing high 81

heels, she kept tottering on the uneven walkway, which made her alternately curse like a sailor, then regain her smiling composure as the poster girl for the event. One word came to Charlie’s mind -- Adorable - - and then, I have to meet her. What was it about that particular woman who left Charlie the helpless casualty of love-at-first-sight? Granted, she was a knockout, but no more so than countless other ‘lookers’ that Charlie might have fallen for. She was blonde -- he did have a penchant for blondes. She wasn’t too short or tall -- Charlie liked a woman he could look in the eyes while dancing close. And there was nothing snooty or hobnobby with the horsey crowd about her either. We could go on, but suffice it to say, it was not any or all of those qualities. Rather, it was a certain unexplainable, intangible, something Charlie found overwhelmingly appealing yet at the same time comforting – making him think he could happily spend the rest of his life with her, despite the fact she was a complete stranger whose name he didn’t even know. After a while, Travis became bored waiting beside his Pop-Pop and started kicking at the infield dirt. Observing his Pop-Pop from a teenager’s judgmental perspective, he noticed how old and out of fashion he seemed, with his goofy cowlick, his always bulging shirt pocket, out-of-date jokes, and out-of-style clothes. He thought, I’ll never be like that when I grow up. I’ll be super cool, like James Bond in From Russia With Love.’That was a movie he had seen recently with his pals, Debbie and Mike. However, at sixteen, Travis didn’t yet understand, in many ways, he was the spitting image of his Pop-Pop and would exhibit many of the same mannerisms and tendencies when he grew older. Suddenly aware of Travis’s restlessness, Charlie broke from his reverie and pulled the pack of Luckies from his shirt pocket. Still scrutinizing his Pop-Pop’s appearance and behavior, Travis realized he went through the exact same ritual every time he smoked a cigarette. First, Charlie held the pack at an angle with his right hand and smacked it against his left palm to dislodge a few of the unfiltered cigarettes up to the torn-away top of the wrapping. He snagged the 82

highest one with his lips into the left corner of his mouth, so he could talk while he slipped the pack back into his shirt pocket and extracted a small cardboard box of Diamond Red Top safety matches. With the unlit cigarette wobbling up and down between his lips, he said, “Right here is where your great-grandad won his first big-money race, back in 1914 with a big two-year-old long-shot named Wacky Wack.” Travis repeated the horse’s unusual name. “Wacky Wack.” He liked it. “Yeah, Whacky Wack,” Pop-Pop said as he palmed the matchbox in his left hand, pushed it open using his right thumbnail, selected one of the matches, and dragged the red tip of the wooden stick along the abrasive strip of powdered glass on the side. After it flared, he held it still for a couple of seconds to make sure it caught fire. Then, cupping his hands around the end of the cigarette, he lit it and puffed a couple of times to get it going. Pop-Pop continued, “Wacky Wack was a real monster of a horse. Do you remember when you first came to live with us at Chestnut Point? I showed you those black and white photos of him, framed with the winning ribbons, on your great-granddad’s office wall in the stable, the one Jeb Greely uses now.” Travis had not forgotten. At the time, however, he was focused less on the horse than on how his Pop-Pop looked as a teenager – slim as a string bean, with a toothy grin stretching from ear to ear, and that same ‘ol untamable cowlick sticking out from his thick dark hair. Travis chuckled softly and responded, “Yeah, Pop-Pop, I remember.” Pop-Pop followed with, “Wacky Wack was a big, strong stallion. After he started winning, they made him carry a lot of weight in the handicaps, but still, he was as fast as lightning. People thought he was a good bet to win one or maybe all three of the top national races, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont, the next year as a three-year-old, but he never made it there. After the racing season was 83

over that November, Wacky Wack was out grazing in the upper pasture at Chestnut Point when a cougar attacked him.” That got Travis’s attention. “A cougar! Really?” “Really. There were still some big cats around in Maryland in those days. It must have come down from the mountains. Wacky Wack survived the attack, but it was the end of his racing career.” Travis never forgot that story and thought about it every time he was in the upper pasture as an adult. As you already know, there is a term for that found in the Glossary of Enigmatic Phenomena rolled up and tied with a ribbon in the bottom drawer of the mahogany desk in Estella’s library at Chestnut Point. The term is ‘Location Evocation,’ defined as the same memory evoked every time a specific place is encountered or visited. Pop-Pop said, “The horse’s name came from a song that his trainer used to sing.” He searched his memory for the trainer’s name. Stanley … Stanley Hitchcock, that’s it. “In those days, your great-granddad wanted to get into the horseracing game, so he brought over this Cockney horseman, Stanley Hitchcock, from England to breed and train a line of thoroughbreds for him. Everyone called him ‘Hitch.’ Wacky Wack was the first and only real winner to come from it, mainly because Hitch turned out to be a drunk. I was about your age then, a little bit older, seventeen, I guess. I used to walk the hots and help out around the stables, mucking out the stalls … cleaning the saddles and bridles. When Hitch drank, he liked to sing British music hall songs in a Cockney accent. And he was always singing.” Charlie checked between drags to ensure he wasn’t boring the you- know-what out of the kid. But Travis seemed interested, so he continued. “It wasn’t so much that Hitch sang constantly, but he had the bad habit of repeating the same song over and over again. It drove your great-granddad batty. I guess he ended up firing Hitch in the end, so he wouldn’t have to strangle him with his bare hands instead.” He paused for effect, and Travis laughed. 84

Pop-Pop went on. “One of Hitch’s favorite tunes was ‘Whacky Wack Wack’ recorded by a sexpot named Marie Lloyd, and after the horse was foaled, your great-granddad was asked what he was going to name him, and ‘Wacky Wack’ was the first thing that came to mind.” Pop-Pop tossed the still smoking cigarette butt onto the dirt track and put it out with his foot. Picking up the alligator skin valise, he said, “Aright, Amigo. Let’s go get some dinner.” Our story continues in Part 8. See you there. ♦♦♦ 85

220812-B The Time When Pop-Pop and Travis Went Treasure Hunting - Part 8* ___ Part 8* The Esso Servicecenter gas station, just outside Havre de Grace on Route 40-West, was a shiny white tile Art Deco structure with red accents. The glass-block window walls of the customer service area met in a curve at the front corner, and a tall red-and-white metal sunray capped the entrance. A neon Esso sign towered above the roof with a flashing arrow pointing downward to the station below. In contrast, the cubical cinderblock diner standing adjacent to the gas station was an unconvincing Art Deco wannabe, despite being painted bright white with red trim around the windows and a red stripe around the parapet. As they drove into the parking lot, Travis was disappointed. “That’s not a real diner,” he grumbled, expecting an aluminum-and-glass one like Blankenbiller’s back home. That was where he and his pals, Debbi and Mike, rode their bikes for burgers and shakes on Saturdays during the summer after hanging out at the West Reading swimming pool. Thinking about his pals just then made Travis feel like kicking himself. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. In all the hubbub of Pop-Pop showing up to give him the Roadmaster and take him on the road trip to find the lost Spanish silver for his sixteenth birthday, he’d forgotten that Debbi and Mike were throwing a party for him that evening. Well actually, it was mostly Debbie, and she had invited a bunch of kids from school. Travis realized he needed to call Debbie right away to let her know what happened. He informed his Pop-Pop urgently, “I need to make a 86

phone call. I forgot to tell my friends that I wouldn’t be there for my birthday party tonight.” He looked around anxiously for a phone booth and spotted one under the highway gas-price sign at the curb between the Esso station and the diner. “Uh-oh, sorry about that, Amigo,” Charlie commiserated while pulling into a parking space in front so he could keep an eye on the car from inside the diner. Before turning off the engine, he raised the windows using the power-windows button. “Do you have enough change for the phone?” “Yeah.” “Okay, you go take care of that, and I’ll meet you inside.” As Travis crossed the parking lot, Charlie got out of the Roadmaster and removed the alligator skin valise from the back seat. Before locking up, he remembered the birthday gift for Travis from his sister, Jenny. This would be a good opportunity to give it to him. I’ll order cake for dessert to make a little celebration of it. So Charlie unbuckled the straps from around his old Louis Vuitton suitcase to retrieve the festively wrapped, six-inch cubical box. Charlie strolled into the diner, cradling the gift in his left arm and casually swinging the alligator skin valise by the handle with the other. As you already know, the valise contained fifty thousand dollars in cash from the First National Bank safe deposit box and the expensive diamond engagement ring he had been saving to give Jackie Jean Osterman. But admittedly, it was the thought of seeing her again after twenty-nine years that made Charlie feel nervous. In the meantime, back at the Chestnut Point Manor House in Sunshine, Maryland, Jenny Mann had been fretting all day about the ghost of Julius Teller. Her concerns were well-founded because most ghosts stayed reasonably close to the place they haunted for fear of getting lost in the ethereal mysts of the surrounding aether. She realized after a while that he’d taken off with Charlie in the taxicab to West Reading. To Jenny’s knowledge, he had never ventured away from 87

Chestnut Point like that before. Although Julius was no longer among the living, she cared for him as if he were family. It would break her heart if he were to be lost forever to the myst. Of course, you could say the same thing about the other ghosts of Chestnut Point, with one notable exception -- a troubled spirit who only appeared on supermoon nights three or four times a year. But in the interest of brevity, we’ll save our introduction of that unlikable spirit for some other time. We use the word ‘haunt’ loosely to describe a place on the earthly plane where ghosts hung about. Contrary to popular belief, a majority of them were benign. It was the few scary, vengeful ones giving them a bad name. Most ghosts were just harmless spirits, with some unresolved matter keeping them from moving on. In Julius Teller’s case, it was the loss of his trove of Spanish silver, which had been stolen in 1723. And he stubbornly refused to depart until it was recovered. Well anyway, a few minutes before five o’clock, Jenny had a premonition that something terrible was going to happen to her brother, Charlie, and possibly even to her grand-nephew, Travis. But she knew from experience that trying to communicate with Charlie telepathically would be fruitless. He was one of those skeptical individuals who adamantly refused to accept the existence of the spirit world and scoffed at any mention of the occult. Jenny’s only hope was somehow to pass along a warning message through Julius to Charlie or maybe to Travis. So she went into the parlor of the old farmhouse wing of the Manor House, cleared off the card table, and draped over it the compass rose tablecloth she once used for divinations at seaside resorts and county fairs. She then lit the candle-sconces lining the walls and turned off the electric lights. But she did not set up her Ouija board, untie the leather roll-up containing her Chinese yarrow stalks, or take out her deck of Tarot cards. Instead, Jenny held in her hand the last remaining necklace created by Julius after discovering the treasure in 1680. It was 88

fashioned from tiny exquisite seashells, surf-polished nuggets of pink coral, and a piece of silver eight found in the sand of the Turtle Cay cove. You ask, Whatever happened to the other two necklaces Julius made back then as gifts for the beautiful women he imagined would someday fall in love with him?” Well, that’s a story for another day. Sitting still in the flickering candlelight, Jenny closed her eyes, cleared her mind, and put herself into a hypnotic trance. Then she navigated, as the blind do, step by step, landmark by landmark, into the aether. Most likely because she was having trouble setting her worrisome thoughts aside, this time, she found herself tentatively traversing a dense, disorienting fog. And not wanting to be waylaid by one of those irritating lost souls who would insist on following her, Jenny decided to turn back. But wait! She could hear Julius’s muffled voice in the distance, shouting her name. She attempted to relay the message to him that Charlie was in imminent danger. A nefarious person was out to murder him! But hearing no response from Julius, she doubted the message was getting through. Then Jenny heard him faintly calling out a series of numbers and realized, It’s a phone number! Repeating the numerical sequence so as not to forget it, she hurriedly retraced her path back to consciousness in the farmhouse parlor. Once there, Jenny quickly jotted the number on a loose scrap retrieved from the waste paper basket. She went directly to the nearest telephone, located in the kitchen of the Manor House’s modern wing. When she entered the kitchen, Clarita was sitting in the breakfast nook playing solitaire. She looked up to greet Jenny and, noting her urgent demeanor, inquired, “Hola, Jenny. Que pasa?” Clarita spoke in Spanish because, at the time, Jenny was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to learn the language – for reasons we’ll explain later. That facility was not one of her strengths. Jenny answered, “Using the teléfono.” 89

Clarita chuckled at her brusque manner because Jenny was not one to beat around the bush, mince words, or make small talk. She watched with curiosity as Jenny went to the wall phone hanging next to the archway into the formal dining room and dialed the numbers scrawled on the note in her hand. A little earlier, while Charlie was parking the Roadmaster in front of the Esso Servicecenter Diner, the ghost of Julius Teller riding in the back seat had sensed that Jenny was somewhere nearby, unseen in the surrounding aether. Even though she was outside the perimeter of his perceptual acuity on the earthly plane, he called out to her. “Jenny, I’m here.” He called out again. “Jenny, can you hear me? Jenny? Jenny?” That time he heard her respond, but her voice quickly faded. “Yes, Julius, I hear you. I have a message for ………. Either the conditions weren’t right, or Jenny was too distant for Julius to make out what she tried to communicate. Coming up with a spur-of-the-moment solution, Julius raced ahead of Travis to get the payphone number. Somehow, someway, he was going to get Jenny on the line with Travis. While Julius was inside the booth, hastily memorizing the number, the phone rang. It gave him a start. -- Yes, just like us, ghosts could be startled by unexpected events. Then a buxom, long-legged Clairol blond wearing a short leopard print mini skirt, block-heeled pumps, and a clashing flower print top came rushing out of a Ford Fairlane parked at the curb to answer the phone. Upon entering the booth, unaware that a ghost was there, she felt an inexplicable chill and shivered involuntarily. Julius, repulsed by the intermingling of their beings, shuddered and sprung outside away from her. Without a second to waste, he loudly and repeatedly shouted out the phone number hoping Jenny would hear him. And though he didn’t know it, she did. While approaching, Travis heard the phone ring and saw the woman come out of her car. So he stopped and stood patiently beside 90

the Ford until she was done. The conversation lasted about three minutes, but to Travis, who was anxious to reach his friend Debbi, it seemed to take forever. During the delay, he couldn’t resist peering through the windows because it looked like the woman was living in her car. Half of the backseat was piled with open cardboard boxes filled with an unruly assortment of household items and toiletry supplies. A faded patchwork quilt and pillow had been tossed in the backseat with them. Beside the boxes sat an open suitcase with an assortment of blouses, dresses, shoes, and underwear, along with nylon stockings and a makeup bag. The floorboard in the back was littered with snack bags, carry-out food boxes, and discarded glass soda bottles. A cooler and an unlit camping lantern sat on the front seat. Oddly, about twenty paperback and hardcover murder mystery books were arranged across the dashboard, all with public library stickers on the spines. Obviously, the woman had a library card and was a prolific reader of crime novels. After hanging up and exiting the booth, ‘Blondie’ checked out the good-looking teenager waiting next to her car. As she pressed past him, she gave him a big playful wink and puckered her lips in a kiss. “Honey, it’s all yours.” Taken by surprise, Travis blushed and, while fleeing to the phone booth, tripped over the curb, almost falling on his face. He glanced back to see if the woman was watching. All he saw was her butt because she was rummaging for something in the back through the open window. Just as he entered the booth to call Debbi, the phone started ringing again. Rats! Travis cursed in frustration as he listened to it ring on and on without stopping. It felt like the gods were conspiring against him. Assuming the phone was ringing for the woman, Travis looked back at the Ford and did a diggity-diggity-doink. She was now in the front seat, bare-shouldered in her bra, hurrying to change her blouse. 91

Travis averted his eyes, politely staring off into space as the phone kept ringing. But then, as if some invisible person was whispering in his ear, he thought he heard the words, “Answer it.” Weirdly, it wasn’t the first time that had happened. When he lived at Chestnut Point with Pop-Pop and Aunt Jenny, he occasionally heard voices like that but figured it was related to the earworms which kept him awake at night. He let the phone ring two more times. Again he heard the same voice adamantly demanding, “Answer it, Travis! It’s for you!” So he yanked the handset off the hook impatiently and put it to his ear. All of a sudden, so unexpectedly that it gave Travis a fright, a woman’s arm snaked around him and snatched the phone out of his hand. Travis could only turn far enough in the tight space to see, as he suspected, it was the blonde from the Ford Fairlane. She now wore a black sleeveless blouse to go with her leopard print mini skirt and block-heel pumps. She smelled like perfume and cigarettes, and he felt her large breasts pressed against him. “Sorry, kid. This call is for me. You can scram now.” “Okay, Okay, Okay.” Travis agreed as he tried to extricate himself. They were wedged so tightly together that he had to shimmy out sideways through the narrow booth door. The woman put the handset to her ear with her right hand while pulling the hinged door shut with the left. She then shooed Travis away with a wave of her bright red fingernails. Having observed the event unfold, Julius stomped his feet, threw his tarpaulin hat on the ground, and swore in frustration, “Poo on that whore.” Fortunately, no one with delicate sensitivities witnessed the irate ghost at that moment because the ensuing string of obscenities was not for the faint of heart. Travis stood there looking dumbstruck, still unable to reach his friend Debbi in West Reading about the birthday party. So he waited for the woman to finish talking again. 92

Then, the woman started yelling into the phone, “No! No! There is no Charlie here. Wrong number! …I said, no one named Charlie here. You called the wrong number!” She slammed the handset down to end the call and barged past Travis toward the diner shaking her head and muttering, “Crazy old woman.” The first thought that popped into Travis’s head was, Aunt Jenny? Then he rationalized, No, no, that’s impossible. But the ghost of Julius Teller knew better. Unfortunately, he was still in the dark about Jenny’s urgent message. So he resolved to figure out a different way to communicate with her as quickly as possible. As we started to tell you, while Travis was attempting to make the phone call to West Reading, his Pop-Pop, Charlie, had walked casually into the diner, cradling the gift box in his left arm and swinging the alligator skin valise by the handle with the other. A chilly blast of air conditioning greeted him and raised chicken bumps on his arms. As the heavy glass door swung shut behind him, Charlie stood momentarily surveying the interior. Jackie Jean was not in sight. Visible through the pass-through window behind the lunch counter, an energetic, youthful colored cook assembled a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich on slices of toast slathered with mayonnaise. Humming the melody of the Four Tops’ popular hit “Baby, I Need Your Loving,” he pinned the sandwich corners with two pom-pom toothpicks, cut it precisely in half on the diagonal, plated it on a ceramic platter with a heap of fries, garnished it with parsley, and pushed the dish through the opening onto the counter. “BLT and fries, table eight,” he called out loudly to someone out of sight in the kitchen behind him. Charlie got a real kick out of the guy because he so obviously enjoyed his job, despite the somewhat seedy surroundings. 93

When the cook saw Charlie at the entrance, he leaned forward into the pass-through and said cheerfully, “Take a seat. The waitress will be with you shortly.” Charlie chose a booth along the front wall with a clear view of the Buick. He set the valise and birthday gift out of sight on the floor beside his feet, lit a cigarette, and looked around at the other customers. Two dating teenagers were making goo-goo eyes at each other while sharing a plate of fried onion rings and slurping a strawberry milkshake through two bent straws. In the middle of the room, a frazzled mother struggled to placate a squirming baby girl attempting to slide out of her seat under the chrome and vinyl restaurant highchair tray. Her sunburned husband, with white raccoon eyes from wearing sunglasses, was dressed in a wrinkled polo shirt and Madras shorts. He tried to hurry his little son, clutching at his pants, to the restroom. The boy looked to be about kindergarten age. A toy Roy Rogers six-gun in a plastic holster was buckled around his waist. He clutched a straw cowboy hat tightly in his other hand, insisting on taking it “to the potty” with him. And sitting silently in a booth along the far wall, without a word to each other, an elderly couple dined on meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, and green beans. The man had thin silver hair and was smartly dressed in a suit and tie with a silk handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket. An expensive fedora rested on the seat beside his thigh. The tiny bird-boned woman sitting across from him wore her best suitable-for-church dress and a pheasant feather hat. Apparently, after all the decades spent together in marriage, everything that ever needed saying had already been said, and they knew each other so well that mind reading was sufficient to get them by. Those observations gave Charlie pause. There you have it, three generations of love, all in one place. And waiting for his own one true love, Jackie Jean Osterman, to come out of the kitchen, Charlie felt he had missed the boat when it came to matters of the heart. 94

Right about then, Blondie sashayed into the diner. To quote a Charlie-ism, “She had such a high center of gravity if you blew her a kiss, it would knock her over.” As Charlie watched, she started chatting up a man in a cheap suit sitting on one of the revolving chrome and Naugahyde stools at the lunch counter. He appeared to be some kind of traveling salesman. Sensing someone staring at her, Blondie looked directly at Charlie in the window booth. She assessed him from head to toe and, noting his disinterest, turned her attention back to the salesman. Charlie chuckled and remarked under his breath to no one in particular, “Hooker.” Upon which, he amended his reflection. And there you have it, sad as this last one may be, four versions of love, all in the same place. By then, Travis had finally reached Debbi by phone and was strolling back to the diner, so Charlie rapped on the glass several times to get his attention. Seeing a captive audience, Travis stopped before the window to make funny faces and pantomime, like a gorilla beating his chest and scratching under his armpits. Feigning irritation, Charlie pursed his lips and shook his head from side to side. Then, spinning his finger at his temple, he mouthed the word cuckoo and gestured with his thumb toward the door for Travis to get his embarrassing-you-know-what inside. When Travis entered the diner, he had to walk past Blondie. She swiveled around on her stool, patted the salesman’s knee, and joked, “You better watch out. Here comes my boyfriend.” Embarrassed by the woman’s comment, Travis avoided making eye contact. And after sliding into the seat opposite Charlie, he kept his eyes straight ahead to keep from looking back at her. Just then, a stocky no-nonsense pug-nosed red-headed waitress in her thirties, with her hair in a bun, hustled out from the kitchen into the lunch counter serving area. She took the BLT and fries order from 95

off the stainless steel pass-through ledge, set it on a serving tray, and marched it to the two lovey-dovey teenagers at table #8. Once there, she gently nudged their almost empty milkshake aside with the sandwich platter, then placed it between them so they could share. After asking if they wanted anything else, she took a pad from her apron pocket, tore out their check, and set it down, saying, “You pay at the register when you are done. And, thanks for coming to the Esso Diner.” As she turned around to go back to the kitchen, Charlie raised his hand and waved to catch her attention. It had been an inordinate amount of time since he had come into the diner without a waiter coming to take their order. Noticing Charlie signaling to her out of the corner of her eye, the waitress abruptly changed course and headed through the dining tables to the booth where Charlie and Travis were sitting. “Hi, my name is Becky. Welcome to the Esso Diner. Can I help you?” Before Charlie could respond, the good-natured cook called out from the pass-through kitchen window behind the lunch counter. “Becky. Beef Stroganoff, easy cheesy biscuits--Chicken a la King, wedge salad, Russian dressing—Kid’s plate fish Sticks & fruit cup-- apple sauce for the little one. Table #5!” The waitress gritted her teeth and loudly called back at him over her shoulder, “Hold your horses, Terrence. I’ll be right there!” Then pulling a smile, she addressed Charlie. “Sorry, it’s been a long day, and my shift was supposed to end at five. But at the moment, I’m the only waitress here. The head waitress’s pickup truck broke down on the way to work and the other evening shift waitress went to get her.” Becky looked impatiently at her watch, noting that it was almost ten minutes after five as she continued with her explanation. “Her truck died only about a mile or two away from here. So, they should be here any minute now. I hope so anyway because I’ve got to pick up my daughter from daycare, and they charge me extra if I’m late.” 96

Charlie nodded to her with patient understanding and asked, “Is Jackie Jean Osterman working here today?” “Yeah, it’s her truck that broke down. She’ll be your waitress when she arrives. Do you know Jackie Jean?” “She and I go way back,” Charlie said, “but we haven’t seen each other in almost thirty years. I’d like it to be a surprise, so don’t tell her I’m here when she comes in. Okay?” She shrugged her shoulders and answered, “No problem. But I’ll be back to take your order first anyway, just in case it takes them a while more to get here.” Right then, the cook loudly repeated the order call-out to her. “Okay, okay, Terrance! I’m coming,” she answered and turned abruptly to head back in that direction. Part 9 of our story is next. See you there. ♦♦♦ 97

220807-B The Time When Pop-Pop and Travis Went Treasure Hunting - Part 9* ___ Part 9* While Charlie was waiting in the window booth of the Esso Servicecenter diner for a waitress to come, in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Werner Tannenbaum was on his way home from work in his 1962 silverleaf-green Pontiac Bonneville station wagon. And wouldn't you know it, the first thing Werner noticed rounding the corner on Pavilion Park Drive, in sight of his house, was that the neighbor's driveway was empty. The 1954 Buick Skylark Roadmaster convertible, with the for-sale sign in the window, was gone. What perfect timing! Dorothy found a buyer for the Buick today. That settles the matter as far as Travis is concerned, Werner thought jubilantly. With the car out of the picture, the controversy over Travis wanting to withdraw a thousand dollars from his college savings to buy it was a moot point. And perhaps now he could smooth things over with his disgruntled wife, Elsie. You may have noticed that we always say Werner's car, Werner's house, Werner's this, and Werner's that. That's because only his name, not Elsie's, was on the title to everything they owned. Even though, as the lyrics to Bob Dylan's new song went, \"the times they-are-a-changing,\" they hadn't changed yet, and that kind of dependency was still the customary legal status of women in most marriages. As Werner pulled into the driveway, he saw Dorothy, the recently widowed wife of Earnest Hamel, next door, kneeling in the front yard flower garden, deadheading her beloved daylilies. 98

Werner grabbed his leather briefcase from the back seat and walked around the station wagon past the driveway retaining wall to talk to her. Unlike what you might think, Dorothy was not your ordinary bereaved housewife without any job skills or formal education. She had a Ph.D. in Behavioral Psychology, which she earned at the remarkably young age of twenty-eight. That was before getting married and embarking, with her husband, Earnest, on a long, frustrating, and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to have children. And despite having never taken a 'real job' at any of the research institutes or universities eager to recruit her out of post-grad school, Dorothy kept up with the literature. She had even started researching a book on non-punitive behavioral management techniques for parents. Not-so-coincidentally, it was an idea she came up with from observing the way Werner interacted with his grandson, Travis. You see, Dorothy Hamel was a fiercely independent thinker with a strong belief that one should look at the world through the lens of proven empirical evidence. Therefore, unlike Werner, she wasn't very keen on the teachings of scripture, which she viewed as purely anecdotal mythologies. But, lest you get up in arms about it, she did acknowledge and appreciate how meaningful and relevant the Bible was for most people living in western society. However, for Dorothy personally, kneeling daily in her garden to nurture her flowers was a form of prayer that put her more reliably in contact with the creative force behind the universe than any religious practice ever could. And there was also a fundamental difference of opinion between Dorothy and Werner on how to manage children. That was why she carefully avoided bringing up those subjects in his presence. With Elsie, however, it was a different matter. They both felt free to discuss whatever came to mind during their regular morning coffee klatches, including the veracity of the Bible and concerns about Werner's autocratic treatment of Travis. Over coffee and crumb cake, 99

Dorothy explained the hypotheses behind her research, \"Rewarding children for good behavior is more effective than punishing them for misbehaving. And I've accumulated plenty of data to back it up.\" Elsie had only a high school education, but it was just common sense to her. She privately laughed at the thought of going to school for all those years and doing the 'peer-reviewed research,' whatever that was, to come up with the same simple conclusion. But she knew from experience that most people found it completely ridiculous to believe you could change people’s behavior by only rewarding them for the good things they did and ignoring the bad. Her own parents didn't hesitate to spank her and her siblings, withhold meals, or even lock them in 'the closet' on occasion for misbehaving. And one time, when Elsie’s father caught her mother cheating on him, he began beating her, but she screamed so loudly that the neighbors called the cops. After arriving and determining that it was a domestic dispute, they let them both off with a warning to keep it down so the neighbors wouldn't complain. \"That's why,\" Elsie told Dorothy, in Werner's defense, \"I have stayed married to him. He is a religious man who never beat our children or me. Although he spanked them, no one considered it to be abusive.\" She did admit to wishing Werner wasn't so overly strict, narrow-minded, and old-fashioned. But as husbands go, he was better than most. Dorothy's assessment of Werner wasn't all negative. She conceded that Werner was honest and reliable, with a secure, well-paying job as a money manager. And having benefitted from his bachelor's degree from the Susquehanna University School of Business, he wanted his grandson, Travis, to get a college education like he did. That, of course, was only in select disciplines. Literature, philosophy, theater, and certain areas of Godless, mumbo-jumbo science, including 'Behavioral Psychology,' were strictly off-limits if his grandson expected any financial support or recognition from him. 100