Prompted by Poet's Place Cafe

Longbarn, Summer of "59"

Longbarn, Summer of "59"

Bunked in "the palace",
a rickety, squeaky cabin
behind the lodge,
Johnny Mathis crooned
"Chances Are", at all hours,
from a tinny turntable.
Daytime splashes, screams,
laughter, and guests' wet,
bare feet slapping the pavement,
and my voice raised incessantly,
yelling, "No running on the deck!".
At night, the clank of pots and pans,
the clink of dirty dishes,
late-night girl talk.
"I ran like greased lightning",
mumbled by a drunk dumped
by friends onto the palace floor,
stifled giggles while sneaking
an inebriated, stumbling
teen to his lodging by moonlight.
These are the sounds
of my 18th summer.
                   ~~Judi Van Gorder


Notes ▼

22 Lines
Free Verse
Inspired by "DISCUSSION: Finding Your Voice"  

Just graduated, headed for college in the fall, my summer was spent working at Longbarn Lodge, high in the Sierra Mountains, a scootch east of Twain Hart and a hop-skip-and-a-jump west of the town of Strawberry, as in Strawberry Lake.

I bunked with two other girls in "the palace", a run-down cabin with a pull-cord toilet, an outdoor shower, windows without glass and a rope for a door knob latch. We could only tie it closed from the inside. We did have electricity, Johnny Mathis crooned to us from Sissy's turntable all summer long.

My job, three nights a week, dishwasher, three days a week I was the lifeguard at the lodge pool which consisted mainly of yelling "don't run on the deck". Besides the owners, two cooks, and two bartenders, there were five of us teens, me , Jenny, Sissy, Rich and Adam, who did whatever we were told to do. Sissy the owner's niece and a year older than the rest of us was the lifeguard the four days I didn't lifeguard, she had no other job. She was the princess of the palace and had her own room. I bunked with Jenny.

One night, Jenny and I went to a party in Twain Hart, when we came home the palace door was wide open. Lying on the floor was Rich, our co-worker, passed out, face-down in his own vomit. Pants, wet up to his knees. We knew he had gone to the lake drinking with "the guys", There was a Cal-Fire station about 5 miles up the road with a crew of young firefighters. The guys had jumped off the dock at Strawberry Lake, running from the sheriff, they were drinking and all underage. He kept slurring, "I ran like greased lightning" This was decades before the movie "Grease" came out.

We cleaned him up, propped him between us, staying in the shadows, stifling giggles we half carried, half drug him across the badminton court and community BBQ area up to the back of the lodge where Rich's room was located, dumped him on his bed and snuck by moonlight back down to the palace to clean up the mess before Sissy got there.

Every time I hear the song from Grease, I smile and think of Rich, splashing through the water, running from the sheriff, "running like greased lighting" and ultimately landing unconscious, face-down in the palace, knowing we girls would take care of him.