I wanted to share my story opening because this begins a book I will hopefully write;  it has been about three years in the preparation.

The Mushroom Tree

Zachariah stomped out of the house slamming the back door. He headed for the forest grove; his refuge and the only place he felt comfortable in this rural heartland. So many thoughts rumbled around inside his head about leaving the only friends he knew and moving from Arizona to this small Midwest community. I don’t want to live in this hick town. Why did Mom have to be the one to take care of sick old Aunt Elizabeth? When are we gonna go back home to Phoenix?

A firefly flitted over the small creek as Zachariah crossed the stone bridge and moved closer to the woodlands. A tiny glow reflected above the clear water as the firefly switched on its lamp for the coming sunset. These mystical insects reminded Zach of fairies, but at eleven, he didn’t believe in such things.

“I won’t go near the mushroom tree,” Zachariah mumbled to himself. He had sensed strange things around it that made the hair prickle on his arms and his stomach leap. The tree bark was peeled away, exposing the inner guts all sticky and oozing. Large mushrooms grew like awnings over chipped out woodpecker holes. Once he thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye… no, he would not go that far as it would soon be dark.

As Zach walked farther away from the clearing, a clammy mist enveloped him. The unnatural fog seemed to have come out of nowhere, aromatic of almond butter snickerdoodles, leading him deeper through the thicket. He could barely see the winding path; the leaves crunched beneath his feet as he traveled. Calmness came over Zachariah as he felt himself disappear into the scenery. That’s how he felt most of the time…invisible.

Yesterday was my day for errands.  Although it is September, here in Glendale the temperatures are still hovering around 104 degrees. A couple of everyday practices, such as keeping the blinds closed to keep the house cooler and getting out early before it got too hot, collided with my intended fashion sense. Having used the headboard lamp in order to see the grocery ads in my bedroom, I was temporarily blinded when I flipped the light off and grabbed my shoes. I wandered the house for a few minutes while I gathered up my essentials for my outing and headed out the door. 

I had to make a couple of quick stops, so I decided to have my prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy first. The drug store was busier than I had normally encountered it because it was now lunchtime. After turning my prescription over to the pharmacy technician, I decided to cruise the store and price some items.  Eventually I wandered my way out to my car and drove to the next stop.  As I was leaving, I noticed a young man looking at me with a slight smile on his face.

The bank inside the local grocery store was where I was going next.  As I was hopping out of the car, a flash of color caught my eye.  I looked down to notice that I was wearing one each of the same shoe in different colors.  I was horrified that I was in a public place and people could see my mistake.  What would people think? That I am an idiot, someone eccentric trying to make a fashion statement or a person who really doesn’t care what she looks like?  My first thought was that maybe I should hurry home and change into the correct shoes.  I decided to abandon my ego and just laugh at my error whether anyone noticed me or not.

The bank teller was alone so when I approached her, I mentioned how I was laughing at myself because I had left the house with two different shoes on.  I tried to explain that my bedroom was dark and I hadn’t noticed the difference in colors.  She laughed and tried to be sympathetic by asking, “One blue and one black?”

My response was “Not even close, one black one red.”

What a humbling experience this was.

In September 1977, there was a book published called “The Amityville Horror.” I wanted to read this book, but with daily care of a young child, that seemed impossible so I passed on buying it. By 1981, my oldest son was two years old and I was pregnant with the second one. I found myself often tired and not wanting to get out of bed much, but it was around the holidays so I eventually needed to go shopping for Christmas items.  It was now a couple of years since the book was published in paperback and it was no longer prevalent on the store shelves, so I had quite forgotten about it. As I was standing in line at the cash register, I caught a glimpse of the book on a bottom shelf and decided to buy it.

George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house in Amityville on December 23, 1975.  This was close to the time I had actually bought the book…just a coincidence perhaps.

With my son playing quietly beside me in the bed, I was able to find some time to read.  As I was making my way through the chapters, I thought about the unusual stuff that had happened to us in our own house.  I kept thinking that if this Amityville story was true, then these people went through some weird experiences. One chapter talked about the house being plagued by flies despite the winter weather; another, about the Lutz’s five year old daughter who developed an imaginary friend, a demonic pig-like creature with glowing red eyes; and then, the priest who blessed the house would run a high fever whenever he would think about the house.

Naturally, these incidences made for an interesting story, but they didn’t really make an impression on me until the crisp December morning when I walked into my kitchen and found dozens of flies congregating on the inside patio doors.  It freaked me out to say the least as I managed to swat to death the last fly, only to come back an hour later to more flies.  A week or so later, my two year old told me he saw a pig looking in his bedroom window. I never talked about this book to my young son.  By now, all I could think about were the strange demonic happenings in the Amityville house.  I began to run a fever and got very sick with flu-like symptoms.  This lasted about 24 hours and no one else in the house got sick.  I wasn’t sure at this point whether I wanted to finish reading the book, but continued on.

One of the last lines of the book read, “On January 14, 1976 George and Kathy Lutz, with their three children and their dog Harry, left 112 Ocean Avenue leaving most of their possessions behind.” As I closed the book, I realized that the day’s date was January 14, 1982.

James Marion Winter was in the Army during World War II and the Korean War.  The only stories I have of him were through my mother and I’m sure her memories became sweeter with time, painting him bigger than life for me. I know he was a captain and at one point used to run cable lines ahead of the troops for communication purposes.  There was a time during WWII that he was doing his job high above the ground when a mortar shell exploded nearby knocking him down.  He managed to live through that but sustained injuries from vertebrate crammed into his brain.  He either had a benign tumor already or developed one from his injuries.  He lived for years until the headaches became so severe that doctors at Fort Simmons Army Hospital in Colorado decided to operate.  Unfortunately, the doctors in 1953 did not have the skills and resources for delicate brain surgery like they do today.  My mother was nearly nine months pregnant with me and had an eighteen month old child back in Arizona.  It did not surprise me that she wanted to keep his memory alive as her knight in shining armor.

I had no real emotional connection with my Dad until Saving Private Ryan came out.  The opening scene took place at a military cemetery.  My thoughts were flooded by a similar memory of my sister and I in our twenties roaming the cemetery in Denver looking for my Dad’s grave.  From that moment in the movie, I began to cry.  Tom Hank’s character became the image of my Dad and the tears were non-stop as I held my son, Shaun’s hand, through the entire movie.  I found the emotional connection with my Dad that day as I literally sobbed for another two hours when I got home.  I have never been able to see Saving Private Ryan again.

The horrors of war take a toll on everyone.  Please be grateful for all of the men and women who serve this country so we can live the lives we have.  Savor your memories of those who have fallen and never forget that they did this out of love for this country and their families.