An Elaborate Plan

The character of Anna in my science fiction series is in many ways based on my mother. They do not resemble each other physically as Mama had dark, straight hair, brown eyes that could turn almost black when she was angered, and a rather dark complexion for someone of German descent, but character wise they are almost the same.

Mama was passionate and loved deeply, particularly her husband and children. Anna like Mama had an explosive temper. Once it ran its course, she was over the anger and would ask God to forgive her. Anna like Mama is clairvoyant; either seeing the future in dreams or it would suddenly come to her in a waking state.

My second oldest brother, an English major college graduate, of course, did not believe Mama could do that. He insisted she just had lucky guesses. One summer, he set out to prove it.

I have mentioned that my allergies were so horrific in Iowa that I could not live there. Mama had taken me to Phoenix the first time during the winter months and we returned home in the summer. It took three months before I was back into the same state of health and we returned to Phoenix. The next summer, I went to San Francisco to stay with my brother who was taking California (as he called them) blackboard credits. His BA degree in English from the University of Iowa didn't include the teacher courses (on how to teach) that the State of California required.

I worked at Foster's Cafeteria that summer and saved my money. When I returned to Phoenix I rented a room and returned to high school. The next summer I went back to San Francisco.

My brother had completed the courses required by California and had a teacher’s job for that fall. He purchased a Buick sedan and planned on driving our cousin and me back to Iowa for a six week visit before he returned to his new post in California. I was to go back to Phoenix with Mama that year.

Rather than tell my parents we would be driving back, my brother wrote that we would be coming by Greyhound. He went so far as to go to the Greyhound terminal and verify when the bus would roll into Council Bluffs, Iowa. The station in our little town had been closed. He felt that way my oldest brother could verify the schedule and my parents would have no idea that we would be driving up some afternoon or night honking the horn.

It was a fabulous trip across the country. I was able to see the Sierra Mountains, the Salt Flats of Utah, and the immense farm communities that dotted the landscape at that time. My brother continued to chortle about how he was fooling our Mother. My cousin and I just shook our heads. We really didn't think he could do it.

True to his plan, we drove up one summer evening about eight o’clock with the horn blaring. Our oldest brother and family were there on the pretext of driving my parents down to pick us up within two days. Our father, our youngest brother, and oldest brother had been outside, and my sister-by-marriage came through the gate with their two children. As we disembarked from the auto, our mother came running out hands waving in the air as she shouted, “I told you they were driving and would be here tonight!”

It seems she had been canning one afternoon and walked out to the car where my youngest brother and his friend from a neighboring farm were discussing whatever teenage boys of the 1950’s discussed. She leaned into the car and said, “Norman has bought a car and they will be here Thursday night.” She later told our father the same thing.

I asked my youngest brother what he had said when Mama made her pronouncement. His response was partly a sputter. “Nothing. How can you answer something like that or explain it.

My second oldest brother kept insisting that it had just been a lucky guess on Mama’s part. It wasn't until he was older that he admitted that she had proven him wrong.