A Place We Knew Well (32 page)

FOR TRAVIS

T
his book began as a way of setting down my own vivid childhood memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it would never have been finished without the generosity of so many others, whose insights helped me grasp the larger, communal story.

Thank you, Maggie Aguiar of Miami and former Florida senator Mel Martinez, for sharing your poignant Pedro Pan stories, and to Isabel Roach of Verona, New Jersey, for your mother's Cuban exile story as well as that of your family's tragic 9/11 loss of your beloved Stephen. Thank you, TSgt. Glenn R. “Chap” Chapman, whose memoir,
Me and U-2: My Affair with Dragon Lady,
confirmed that the strange, dragonfly-shaped planes my father took me to see on the runway of Orlando's McCoy AFB were indeed the mysterious U-2 spy planes that supplied President Kennedy with photographic evidence of the missiles in Cuba. Chap was a U-2 mechanic at McCoy that fall (“We were armpit to armpit with other crews at that place!”). He put me in touch with Air Force Captain and U-2 pilot Tony Bevacqua, whose stories brought the mission as well as his good friends and fellow U-2 pilots Gary Powers and Rudy Anderson to life. Thanks also to A3D pilot Bob Provencer for taking me to school on the role of the navy's aviators who flew defensive cover for the unarmed Air Force and CIA U-2s and later, during the peak of the Crisis, provided dangerous low-level surveillance of missile site acivities. Also helpful were Bill Saavedra of the Air Force History Support Office at Bolling AFB in Washington, D.C.; Barbara Angel at Patrick AFB; Herb McConnell at Andrews AFT; Fraser Jones of FAA Public Affairs; and Molly Townsend of Martin-Marietta Public Affairs.

Tana Porter of the Orange County Regional History Center dug up long-buried information on Orlando's Cold War Civil Defense Plan, its seven woefully undersupplied shelter sites, plus the delightful detail that many of the city's first families thought the storage vault of LaBelle Furs the safest place in town. Nena Runyon Stevens, Bishop Moore High School Class of '63, gathered friends and fellow classmates Gale Hergenroether Deming, Karin Economon, and Maureen Carpenter Odom for an evening of shared laughs and senior year memories. In addition, Nena contacted classmate Patty Heidrich, who forwarded her father's emailed memory of the late-night middle-of-the-Crisis phone call “requesting” the immediate loan of Heidrich Citrus flatbed trucks and drivers for “an unspecified length of time.”

Jean Caldwell Presley, school secretary, provided access to Edgewater High's 1963 yearbook as well as back issues of the school's newspaper,
The Eagle Eye
. Jean also treated me to her stories of growing up across the street from Apopka baseball and racing phenom Edward Glenn “Fireball” Roberts. More than a few former Edgewater High teachers and students kindly contributed their memories of the fall of 1962, including art teacher Glen Bischof, band director Delbert Kieffner, and graduates David Hughes, Carl Weisinger, Karen Scofied Marshall, Pat Raymond Hodge, and Wayne Rich. Thanks, everyone. And to Edgewater High's actual Homecoming Queen Beverly Arnold Wheeler; longtime College Park residents Reta Rivers Jackson and her daughter Teressa Jackson Carver; Donna Whelchel; Clifford Davis; and Bob Patterson, owner of Bob's Texaco (now Sunoco) on Edgewater Drive—special thanks for helping me fill in so many blanks. To Brenda Bray, sister friend since kindergarten, thanks for letting me hang out at your lovely home on Lake Silver and absorb the peaceful ambiance of lakeside College Park living, a world away from the tiny rented cottage on busy Princeton Street I inhabited just after college. Billie Nunan, thank you, too, for sharing your 1962 panicked, hormonal mother-of-a-newborn story, begging your parish priest to baptize the baby immediately to avoid limbo. “It's too soon” was the priest's epic reply. “But if it looks like the end is near, I'll give you a call.”

As a writer, I received some incredibly helpful responses from my intrepid group of readers; some have been with me since the first tentative draft of
Trumpet,
others newer to the process yet expert at spotting unintended holes beneath the polished surface of a final draft. Thanks so much to Monika and Kevin Stout; Julie Clark and her dad, Joe Bear; Sarah Browne; Chuck Gordon; and, of course, my brilliant book club ladies and friends: Anne Spindel, Barbara Goetz, Carol Parker, Diane Mandle, Gwenn Adams, Jan Brownell, Joan Thatcher, Karen Evans, Tricia Rowe, and dear Val Gilbert. It was their wonderful suggestion that the final chapter, originally written as an Author Afterword, be recast from an adult Charlotte's point of view. Giant heartfelt thanks to Debra Douglass and Joanne Martinez, my two most dedicated readers, who made time to read, discuss, and often debate almost every version of this years-in-the-writing story.

Whenever I lost heart, my agent, Jill Marr, jumped in with excellent advice, sound opinions, and fine humor. Thanks, Jill, and Andrea Cavallaro, Elise Capron, Thao Le, the inimitable Sandy Dijkstra herself, and everyone at the “Best in the West” Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

My editor, Kate Miciak, has been terrific through three books now. Many, many thanks, Kate, for always challenging me to do better, and better still, and for never failing to cheer me on while I spent months “just five or six pages” away from being done. Big buckets of gratitude also to Julia Maguire for excellent editorial assistance; Kelly Chian and Angela McNally in production; and our esteemed Senior Vice President, Editor in Chief, and Associate Publisher Jennifer Hershey.

Paul, thank you for the inspiration of your long-ago after-school job at Charlie's Chevron in San Rafael, and for the ties that bind us together, no matter what. Connor, your gifts with language, especially for the spot-on metaphor, delight me to no end. Thanks for undestanding that on all your adventures all over the world, my heart is a reluctant stowaway soothed only by a well-timed POL. Joanne, we've been best friends for thirty-five years, and always will be. Ultimately, this book belongs to Travis. The shattering loss of that bright spirit, dark humor, and booming belly laugh taught us all how thin, how fragile the line between normal and nightmare, and the painful, humbling lessons of How to Grieve a Dream. Firstborn darling of my heart, not a day goes by…

A Place We Knew Well

True Fires

Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands

S
USAN
C
AROL
M
C
C
ARTHY
is the award-winning author of two novels,
Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands
and
True Fires,
and the nonfiction
Boomers 101: The Definitive Collection.
Her debut novel has been widely adopted by U.S. schools and selected by libraries and universities for their One Book–One Community and Freshman Year Read programs. A native Floridian, she now lives in Carlsbad, California.

Susan Carol McCarthy is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at
[email protected]
or (212) 572-2013.

www.SusanCarolMcCarthy.com