SERVICES: Samples
The following are excerpts from some of the stories I've had the privilege to document.
The Overwhelming GifT
by Karen Huck
"A GNAWING HOLE TO FILL"
The letter was here in my hands. As I stood holding the letter I asked myself, “Will this be able to help me get the answer I’ve been looking for?” There had always been a hole in my soul inside of me that wanted to be filled when I was growing up. Knowing I was adopted all my life, I was curious about my birth family. Would this letter help me fill the hole in my soul that kept nagging at me? My adoptive mother, Carol Fleehart, had just passed. I called my adoptive father, Clark Fleehart, to see if he could help me find my birth family. He was back in Roswell, New Mexico, the town where he had grown up, after living many different places after divorcing Carol. He loved it at Roswell. When he answered the phone, I told him I was concerned if I would be able to have children or not. I asked him if there was any way he could find out any information about my birth family to help me get my medical history. He said, “Well, I can ask Paul Snead.”
At that time Paul was a sitting judge in Roswell, where I was born. Paul wrote me a letter giving me as much information as he could. He gave me the name of my birth father – Jaccamo Rapone. I remember thinking, the minute I read this, “With that name I am truly Italian!” Everyone said to me that I looked so Italian, but I was never sure. I definitely got my dad’s Italian side in the family features. Little did I know at the time I read this letter that my birth mother was blond with blue eyes.
Paul wrote that he knew for a fact that was the correct name of my father. At the time I just accepted the information. That could well have been all Paul knew at the time or that may have been all Paul may have felt he could share at the time. To get the name of my father, Jaccamo Rapone, was huge for me!
The letter was here in my hands. As I stood holding the letter I asked myself, “Will this be able to help me get the answer I’ve been looking for?” There had always been a hole in my soul inside of me that wanted to be filled when I was growing up. Knowing I was adopted all my life, I was curious about my birth family. Would this letter help me fill the hole in my soul that kept nagging at me? My adoptive mother, Carol Fleehart, had just passed. I called my adoptive father, Clark Fleehart, to see if he could help me find my birth family. He was back in Roswell, New Mexico, the town where he had grown up, after living many different places after divorcing Carol. He loved it at Roswell. When he answered the phone, I told him I was concerned if I would be able to have children or not. I asked him if there was any way he could find out any information about my birth family to help me get my medical history. He said, “Well, I can ask Paul Snead.”
At that time Paul was a sitting judge in Roswell, where I was born. Paul wrote me a letter giving me as much information as he could. He gave me the name of my birth father – Jaccamo Rapone. I remember thinking, the minute I read this, “With that name I am truly Italian!” Everyone said to me that I looked so Italian, but I was never sure. I definitely got my dad’s Italian side in the family features. Little did I know at the time I read this letter that my birth mother was blond with blue eyes.
Paul wrote that he knew for a fact that was the correct name of my father. At the time I just accepted the information. That could well have been all Paul knew at the time or that may have been all Paul may have felt he could share at the time. To get the name of my father, Jaccamo Rapone, was huge for me!
Most adoptees say they start their search for their birth family with the purpose of looking for their birth family for medical reasons. That's a good excuse, but it's not really what I find to be the real reason people start their journey. When you start to talk to adoptees about it, the truth is they want to know about themselves.
An Interesting Life
by Art Sorenson
Art is joined by his friends Bob Tresknak and George Lee, of Company L, on the 60th Anniversary tour of Europe where they were treated as the heroes they truly are. Here they dressed up in Army uniforms provided at a banquet hosted by the people in Holland who are grateful for their service!
"My family was really excited about my book, 'It was an Interesting Life' and I've enjoyed sharing it with them." — Art Sorenson |
"ART SORENSON SHARES HIS EXPERIENCES OF WORLD WAR II"
I myself landed on Omaha Beach. In the beginning we didn’t do anything outstanding but then the supply lines got too long and the Army needed to open up the port of Antwerp so that their supply lines were shorter, because right now the supplies were coming all from the French beaches in Normandy, clear across. Eisenhower had a lot of problems with Montgomery because he just couldn’t seem to get his bat off his shoulder. Eisenhower sent our division to open up the port of Antwerp, which we did. When we got through with it, they pulled us down to Aachen and then we were first going into Germany. That’s where the Siegfried Line was. The interesting point there was that we went up and replaced the unit that was there and our company commander went back to have a conference on what we were going to do. When he came back he said, “Well, the Army line has become static because our supply lines are too long and they’ve decided that the 1st Army is the one that’s going to go off first. Second Corp is going to be the first of the 1st Army that’s going to go off and the 104th is going to lead off the attack, and guess which company is going up the hill first.” (laugh) - K Company and L Company, which was our company so we were the first ones at the Battle of Hill 287. Our mission was to secure this. Hill 287 was a key to the Siegfried Line. They said,” Don’t worry because the Air Force is going have a heavy concentration of bombing and neutralize that hill before we got up.” They were going to fly over about 11:00 a.m. and what they did was they flew over but they didn’t drop any bombs. They just dropped tinfoil. That was done to knock out their air defense equivalent of radar. Behind this hill was the heavy industrial area of Eschweiler. They wanted to knock out the air defense (laugh) which meant we really didn’t have any help at all. They thought we’d accomplish our mission in a couple of hours. Well, in a couple of days we hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards. We had pretty good losses. But we eventually conquered Hill 287. From there we went down into the Eschweiler area. Just past Eschweiler was another industrial area called Weisweiler. We were going to make a night attack from our position here (pointing to a point on desk) across this beet field. They raised sugar beets there. This beet field was about a half a mile across, till we got to the City of Weisweiler. We began our attack just when it was starting to get dark. We no sooner got started and the Company Commander says to affix bayonets (laugh). I thought, “Oh hell, (laugh) this is going to be worse than I thought it would be.” Anyway, we got across and got our mission accomplished without too much difficulty. |
THE RELUCTANT MADAM
by Laurel Small
"CLEMENTINE'S — THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY WORKING YEARS"
When I look back on my life, my time bartending at Clementine’s stands out more in my memories than anyplace else I worked. It was a whole different life dropped on me and I had to figure out how to handle it. I ended up being accused of being a madam for a string of girls up and down the West Coast. That was such an unfounded accusation that it’s ridiculous, but there were reasons the police accused me of it. They wanted to get rid of me.
The first night I worked at Clementine’s I could hardly believe what was happening. I’d worked for years in the elegant restaurants of Nendel’s, Thunderbird and Milton and Oscars. After a while, I knew I couldn’t stay at Milton and Oscars, as it was declining, and when Paul Goodall came in and asked if I was ready to come “downtown” to Clementine’s, I said, “Yes!” The following Tuesday, I went to work. My thought was, “Now I’m back in a nice place. And best of all, downtown, across from the mighty Hilton Hotel.”
The theaters, movies and elegant night life – what I anticipated to find set me up for a rude awakening! I found out that most of the customers worked at the Oregonian. After the nine to five workers of the Oregonian and other local workers went home, the “Seedy Night Life” filtered in to Clementine’s – pimps, a few locals, and five or six black girls staring at me while drinking sodas. Men would go away with the girls and then come back. There was no real steady business and I was so scared I hardly dared to leave the bar area.
But now I had another problem – the Portland police. There were lots of them every night, arrogant and rude. I eventually put them all out. I figured out real quick why my boss, Paul, handed me the keys and said, “Lock the doors, put the money in the safe and never call me.” I never did call him for six years, handled the problems and took his business from shabby to thriving. I treated everyone alike, pimp or janitor or City Council members that came in late. When the “working girls” saw that no one got special treatment and I didn’t tolerate the police arrogance, they told me which cops were even selling drugs on the streets and which ones hassled the little boys.
I spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering how I was going to handle it. I just got stronger. It was traumatic for me. Having to deal with the police every night and never knowing a hooker before in my life gave me challenges. I enjoy a challenge and I hate mediocrity. I decided I wanted the job and I would make it work. I have so many memories to share of that time.
When I look back on my life, my time bartending at Clementine’s stands out more in my memories than anyplace else I worked. It was a whole different life dropped on me and I had to figure out how to handle it. I ended up being accused of being a madam for a string of girls up and down the West Coast. That was such an unfounded accusation that it’s ridiculous, but there were reasons the police accused me of it. They wanted to get rid of me.
The first night I worked at Clementine’s I could hardly believe what was happening. I’d worked for years in the elegant restaurants of Nendel’s, Thunderbird and Milton and Oscars. After a while, I knew I couldn’t stay at Milton and Oscars, as it was declining, and when Paul Goodall came in and asked if I was ready to come “downtown” to Clementine’s, I said, “Yes!” The following Tuesday, I went to work. My thought was, “Now I’m back in a nice place. And best of all, downtown, across from the mighty Hilton Hotel.”
The theaters, movies and elegant night life – what I anticipated to find set me up for a rude awakening! I found out that most of the customers worked at the Oregonian. After the nine to five workers of the Oregonian and other local workers went home, the “Seedy Night Life” filtered in to Clementine’s – pimps, a few locals, and five or six black girls staring at me while drinking sodas. Men would go away with the girls and then come back. There was no real steady business and I was so scared I hardly dared to leave the bar area.
But now I had another problem – the Portland police. There were lots of them every night, arrogant and rude. I eventually put them all out. I figured out real quick why my boss, Paul, handed me the keys and said, “Lock the doors, put the money in the safe and never call me.” I never did call him for six years, handled the problems and took his business from shabby to thriving. I treated everyone alike, pimp or janitor or City Council members that came in late. When the “working girls” saw that no one got special treatment and I didn’t tolerate the police arrogance, they told me which cops were even selling drugs on the streets and which ones hassled the little boys.
I spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering how I was going to handle it. I just got stronger. It was traumatic for me. Having to deal with the police every night and never knowing a hooker before in my life gave me challenges. I enjoy a challenge and I hate mediocrity. I decided I wanted the job and I would make it work. I have so many memories to share of that time.