THE HOUSE ON ELM STREET

     Pat and I stood outside the house on Elm Street. Like the rest of the block it was ramshackle, dilapidated and kind of looked like it would fall down. I didn't want to go inside. I certainly didn't want to live there for the next 3 weeks while I was being trained as a VISTA Volunteer.

     In early 1972 my draft board invited me to be drafted into the army. I refused, telling them I was a conscientious objector who would not fight or serve in Vietnam. To my surprise they agreed and said I should do 2 years of community work in the national interest. Great! I joined VISTA (think domestic peace corps) and was sent to Newport, Kentucky, a town of about 30,000 people on the Ohio River, right across from Cincinnati.

     I was excited about Kentucky...looked forward to seeing blue grass...but there was none in Newport, just broken glass filled streets with bars just about everywhere. And I didn't want to go into the Elm Street house.

     But Pat knocked on the door and we entered. There, in the middle of the room,  stood a witch! A slightly stooped old woman with a badly wrinkled face and long stringy white hair, holding a broom while a toddler held fast to her leg.

     "I'm not ready for the boy now, Pat," said Mrs. Clarke. "The house isn't ready. Come back later."

     "Yeah, let's get out of here," I thought. But instead Pat responded, "Oh, Mrs. Clarke, it's fine. Mike will love it here." Before I could answer that I wouldn't, Pat had left and abandoned me.

     I looked around. The wall paper and the paint were peeling in many spots. There were bugs. The staircase had many broken steps and some that were at strange angles. There was a man sleeping on a couch in the Front Room that I later learned was Mrs. Clarke's paralyzed oldest son and was always sleeping there. I had to go to the bathroom several times and soon found out that the sink was ajar and at such an angle that water wouldn't drain and the toilet could only be flushed every half an hour or so. The water pressure was so bad that a shower seemed impossible and a bath extremely unlikely.

     Sam Oder was Mrs. Clarke's nephew who I would be sharing a bedroom with. He was 17, hyper in his talk and laughter and, after a few minutes, decided to show me the scars on his arms from several knife fights. I'd never lived anywhere but home and in my college dorm. I'd never met anyone like this. I was scared!

     Ken, the middle son and father of the toddler, came in. He told Sam that I didn't want to see such things and couldn't he see that I was a nice guy and a gentleman. I wasn't sure if he was teasing me. But he wasn't. He was protecting me. Then I met the youngest son, Peachie, who had the bedroom next to ours. Ken said he was the first of the Clarke family to go to college and everyone was proud of him.

     That night I went to a party to welcome the new VISTAS. I was having trouble with all the new things and new people I was seeing and meeting. I walked up to Peachie on 3 separate occasions and introduced myself. He thought it was funny.

     It had been warm that night though it was February, but the temperature plummeted the next. Which was unfortunate because there was no glass in our bedroom window. The wind howled and I froze. I put on my clothes, my heaviest jacket, got under the covers, but it hardly helped. I thought the South was supposed to be warm?

     I went out a few evenings later and didn't come back to Elm Street till the next morning. I didn't call, of course, because why should I? Ken told me that certainly I could do whatever I wanted but his mom had worried about me so could I please just let them know the next time I didn't come home? I agreed. I felt bad. This was sort of homey.

     Mrs. Clarke was very sweet, kind of insecure and a good cook. I enjoyed my meals there as I became more and more comfortable. She told me that she had housed many VISTAS in training before me and I was the first one that didn't make her feel bad about the state of her home. Moving.

     When training ended I found an apartment on Boone Street but it wouldn't be ready for 2 more weeks. So I asked Mrs. Clarke if I could stay. Of course she said yes. I'd learned how to negotiate the bathroom, stopped noticing the bugs, didn't care at all about the peeling paint and wall paper and regarded the askew steps as kind of a game. Only thing I couldn't do there was shower!

     After leaving I knew I should do something nice for the Clarke's. They were baseball fans so, in the spring, I got tickets for a Cincinnati Reds game...naturally, against the Mets. As the only Mets fan in Riverfront Stadium I cheered extra loud and was rewarded with a Tom Seaver pitched close victory.

     The next day Peachie called. His mom was furious with me. "How could that boy cheer so loud against our team," she had asked. She didn't talk to me again for several days but when she did she invited me over the following Saturday. The Mets game was on NBC and I had no television.

     On game day, Mrs. Clarke said she had baked a strawberry pie. Would I like a slice? Well, I don't like strawberry pie, but given that I was still on probation from the ballgame and Mrs. Clarke was quite sensitive, I said yes and quickly ate it. Too quickly, perhaps, as she offered me another slice. Still feeling I shouldn't say no I had the second piece but ate it more slowly. When I finished she asked if I'd like a third. I felt that it would be okay to say no but turns out I was wrong.

     "Oh, I guess you didn't like the pie, " said my host. Naturally I relented and had the final slice!

     As a VISTA I did a few things. I set up a basketball league, a crafts and recreation program for kids in public housing and a program for those who hadn't finished high school to train to get their equivalency diploma. Mrs. Clarke was very smart but hadn't been able to get her degree. So she got into my program and got her high school degree at age 65. She was pretty proud.

     A year after I left Kentucky, the Mets battled the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Chanpionship series. The Mets won. I called Mrs. Clarke.

     "Oh I was just talking about you to Ken," she told me. "I said if his Mets win, no matter what, we'd be hearing from him!"

     I was sure lucky that I stayed in that house on Elm Street.