Safety Harbor. Chuck Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ had grown up in Colorado in a good stable home. He had not been coordinated enough for competitive sports, but he’d gone out for track and kept the respect of his peers by being a recognized athlete. He was not a scholar but a good student, pulling mostly B’s with a few A’s and a sprinkling of C’s, enough of the latter to keep him off the honor roll. His long light brown hair and blue eyes along with a good build, had made him popular.

      They were Catholics in a largely Protestant town, but, in school, nobody mentioned that part of life, so mostly, it didn’t matter. Religion, everybody said, was a private thing, and didn’t have to do with the rest of life. It was in the same category as a car or a pickup truck preference, and maybe a category or two below that in the town where he lived!

      Then one day, about three miles from his house, a school friend and all of his family had lost their lives in a car accident when two young men from a neighboring town with too much beer in them had swerved and met them head on.

      None of the local churches could hold enough people for the funeral so they had services in the local school gymnasium. Four coffins lined the front of the stage. It was hard for Rocky to fathom how it could be that Tom and he had just been talking on the school bus last Friday and here, on Tuesday, his voice was silenced and he was about to be buried.

      That week, Rocky went to Mass even though his parents didn’t. For the first time since he’d been an altar boy, he paid attention throughout the service. Suddenly, Mass became real rather than just some rote, form, or formula. Affected deeply, when he went out into the street again, he knew somehow life would be different.

      He made an appointment to see Father Crucey, who was polite but who really wanted to talk about the high school football team. He predicted a “building year” since last year most of the good players had graduated.

      Rocky was disappointed. Not until he went to college did he find young people who were asking the same questions he was. The second year of his college career, the campus chaplain had offered a vocations fair but nothing struck Rocky as anything that would fit him.

      “It’s all right,” said Chaplain Bill Reedy. “Just keep asking those questions.”

      No one, even Father Bill, seemed to understand that Rocky lived out of his heart. It was meaning and experience he was looking for and if they were missing, he couldn’t make up his mind about anything. After graduation, he still didn’t know what to do. He took a job with a small radio station as their program manager. His heart was calling him elsewhere. But, where would he go?

      One of his college professors had once quoted the aphorism to him, “Go West, young man!” and he had never forgotten it. Nine months later, Rocky had saved up enough money to move to California.

      Fifteen years later, with two divorces, a job loss, and financial ruin, Rocky fled the accumulated pain and landed back in his hometown. It was humiliating for him to stay with his parents, while all the good townsfolk who had praised him, now whispered about his marriage failures and his dissolute life in California.

      Six months later, he made off to Oregon, where a distant cousin lived, and took a job at the State Hospital in Salem. One day, his eyes landed on a stunning brunette, a new employee with an incredible smile and laughing, dancing eyes. They were inseparable for months. Then, she went away. He tried to find her for weeks. Finally, she showed back up at work. It turned out she had a husband in Arizona and had gone back to try to reconcile. It hadn’t worked out. She had asked for her old job back, and got it.

      Magdalena and he gradually renewed their relationship, but it took him a while to forgive her for leaving him without a word of explanation. He never understood and he never forgot. Had he not loved her, he couldn’t have gone on with her.

      Now, things had finally changed it seemed. Rocky and Magdalena were a real pair. Rocky knew she overlooked so many of his imperfections and recognized them as wounds.

      “My middle name is Grace,” Magdalena always said, “for a reason!”

      Rocky always smiled when she said that. He smiled when she said most anything.

      They had often taken trips to the Oregon Coast together and the Safety Harbor area had become their favorite place. They often found themselves just south of town in an old campground called Embers. It was down a little lane off the main road that led to a group of shacks under a virtual cascade of trees that provided shade except for a few intense rays of sunlight that pierced the limbs and the leaves.

      They had been delighted to find that a glassblower worked there. They became friends with Daniel over the next two years. Trust built between them and, one day, Daniel invited them to come and be a part of the little vagabond community of misfits that was starting to form under the trees. He had allowed a couple of people to pitch tents there. He also had a vacant house that he could rent to Rocky and Magdalena.

      “Rocky, I think we can do this!” said Magdalena. When she said those seven words, Rock knew that it was true. So, they moved.

      After they had been there a few weeks, a few more tents started appearing and three lean-to huts were being constructed.

      Rocky went to see Daniel.

      “How many people are we going to allow?” he asked, calling over the noise of the bellows.

      Only after it came out of his mouth did he realize that he had said, “we” instead of “you.” Daniel smiled. He noticed this too. He placed his most recent work in the lehr and came over to talk. His face always looked a bit gritty and carried a semi-permanent indentation from the facemask he had to use while working the furnace.

      “I’ve been thinking, too, that this situation needs immediate attention. Word is spreading and people are coming here every day asking for shelter, just a place to be. I find it hard to turn away people, but I admit there’s going to be a problem from the county pretty soon.”

      “Unless we have some reason for them to be here,” said Rocky.

      “What are you thinking?” asked Daniel.

      “What if you expanded your glass blowing work and offered people jobs? I could see that we could have a whole community of glass blowers and related shops here. I could quit my job at the lumber yard and Magdalena could quit working at the library and come out here and organize things.”

      “That takes a good deal of money,” Daniel said. “I can’t take too many risks. I’m not twenty-one and flush with money, you know!”

      “We have some savings,” Rocky offered.

      “Have you talked to Magdalena about that?”

      “Truth be told this was her idea,” he grinned. “All my good ideas come from her!”

      “Since when have my good ideas become yours?”

      Magdalena’s distinct voice came from behind him. She was home from work early. It always gave him a thrill and made him blush. She came up behind him and put her arms around his waist and kissed his ear.

      “There will be hurdles. Your savings won’t last forever.”

      “What if there are some facts-on-the-ground before we go to the powers-that-be?” Rocky asked.

      “Oh, Rock, I think that would just irritate people.” Magdalena’s voice was firm. “And we СКАЧАТЬ