WordSisters

Author: cmkraack

  • Spring Break

     During spring break 2024, we explored Hilton Head and Savanah. Southern sunshine made summer clothes the right choice for a couple of days, otherwise we wore jeans and layers of shirts. Spring break 2025 we hunkered down during a Midwestern winter storm that included freezing rain, a quarter to half inch of ice, snow and wind. 

    A small generator, water stored for at least two days without an electric well pump, battery-powered lights and our propane grill awaited a human emergency. Nothing could be done about ice coating trees. With each wind gust, the clacking of iced tree limbs created a loud, grim sound. As the rain changed into sleet then then heavy snow, the original ice threatened to take down anything delicate. Birch trees bent gracefully. Pine trees looked tortured. One froze to other trees before they all dipped to our driveway to solidify there.

    A large oak fell, its branch canopy crushed a garden area of plants transplanted from my deceased mother-in-law’s home, rose bushes and other lovely perennials. Its heavy fall and bounce over the septic system startled the dog and me. He barked. I wished I could howl.

    Other years forsythia buds are tightly closed on early April branches. Daffodils poke out of the ground and hellebores send out leaves. This year, for a few nights of spring break, we kept emergency kits near our beds and tried not to think about whether we’d be awakened by a tree busting through windows or crashing on the roof. 

    When an actual sunrise brought an end to additional layers, walking remained ill-advised as large twigs or even larger branches jettisoned down around the clock. Birds sang in away, safer places. For days, the sound of falling ice and breaking tree parts filled the outdoors. Two more trees behind our house gave up the struggle. 

    Ten miles away trees remained free of ice, but water covered farm fields. Ducks bobbed about as if everything was normal. On April Fool’s Day, the day for a variety of elections in Wisconsin, we needed to clean up messes many folks only knew because of television coverage. Iced treetops looked like diamond decorated holiday trees, but the sound of the melting and dropping branches didn’t stop from Saturday until later Tuesday. 

    My first spring ice storm was less dangerous than a tornado or wildfire whipped by winds, but a few days of stretched nerves does not make for a vacation. Add the unknowns of trade war tariffs and mid-term elections to 2026 spring break weather surprises and we’ll hold off on making plans.

  • Anything I’d Recognize?

    Writing paid part of my tuition and living expenses in both high school and college. Stringer work, editing school publications, working in media relations, internships, freelancing. I stepped out of journalism school into local newspaper work then the wild world of advertising before settling into corporate communications.

    Now, a retiree from the briefcase world, I would love to have some years back from when creative writing took second, third or fourth place behind big obligations. There have been successes, some brilliant like being a part of a regional Emmy award-winning team, Midwest book awards, C-Span Book TV. Maybe there could have been more.

    When Joe Tachovsky and I wrote 40 Thieves on Saipan, folks who discovered I was co-writing a World War II history book had many questions. Some would follow me to share personal stories about uncles or grandparents who served in the war. I handed out business cards like a realtor at an active open house.

    Response is less enthusiastic about freelance work and falls dramatically into the same interest zone of talking about high school dance competitions in a gathering of day traders when I share that I write contemporary fiction. “Anything I’d recognize” is a standard response or its companion “Would my wife recognize your books?” If lucky, someone asks how you think up your stories and a brief conversation opens. 

    It’s probably fair.  Social media, family, sports, travel take a lot of time. Bumping into a writer is kind of like listening to a bar band. If they don’t know how to play your favorite song, you disengage. 

    Anonymity isn’t limited to B list writers. Years ago, I stood next to a crowd growing around a hotel counter at a major conference. Voices were rising as news spread that the staff did not recognize Nikki Giovanni when she attempted to check in without a reservation. Giovanni, who died in 2024, was one of the world’s best-known African American poets and someone who spoke out on social issues. But chances are mixed that that reservationist was one of the 50% of Americans who read at least one book a year and even more minute that she was in the 12% who read poetry.

    Some days a writer may as well talk with their characters, cause few other people are paying attention. But I wouldn’t stop working just because of that. 

  • Another Crisis

    My family moved from Luxemburg, Wisconsin, population less than 500, to Milwaukee during the summer of 1961. From a grade school with eight grades spread over six classrooms, my brother and I were enrolled in a Catholic elementary school with 150 kids in every grade. We had never seen so many kids. 

    The first year was rough on my mother who no longer had a part-time job, a bowling league, or knew the names of everyone in the parish. She didn’t even know the names of women on our block. By the summer of 1962 life could be testy in our household. My great-grandmother moved back to Luxemburg and took me with her at the start of summer. 

    Our second school year began with more confidence and my mother found a seasonal job. She was happier. Until October 16 when the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis moved the world toward danger. People were deeply afraid that Cold War was morphing into actual war with Russia, including missiles falling on the United States. Adults knew about the horror of war. Kids were directed in useless duck and cover drills, crawling under our desks with our hands over our heads.

    My mother wanted to be in our Luxemburg home with its dug-out basement, food cellar and indoor pump. Our Milwaukee ten-year-old ranch offered no place to hide. It was too late to build a bomb shelter. She emptied the clothes closet in a spare room, brought in blankets and pillows, water jugs, crackers, peanut butter and other food plus towels, tissue and a bucket. She listened to the radio constantly. We went to bed fully dressed. October 28, she woke us with orders to get into the closet. Blankets had been placed over window curtains, a rug rolled at the bottom of the door. We listened to news coverage throughout the night. The crisis was averted. Nerves remained raw for years.

    We’re back to practicing some odd form of duck and cover. And it is just as useless. The stakes are high for every citizen and much of the world.

    Square