Also by M.T. Bass
Go to Lodging Page at mtbass.net
"*Sigh*…such a bittersweet story to make me weak in the knees and sorrowful all at once…I HIGHLY recommend this read for anyone." ~Review by JenacideByBibliophile
The high Kansas plains are scarred with mile-long runways that I’ve marred with many a rubber skid mark. They were used to train the thousands and thousands of pilots and crew members needed for World War II. Perusing the Wichita Eagle-Beacon one morning during harvest season I read about ‘lodging’ which is the bending of the stalk of a plant (stalk lodging) or the entire plant (root lodging) and the germ of an idea for a story took root (so to speak).
Fast forward decades later: Mrs. V was one of Lola’s dearest lady friends who lived to be 100, reading voraciously by increasing the font size on her eReader to the redline. The anecdote she shared of Mrs. V reading the biography of Keith Richards (“He was a good boy, because he loved his mum”) finally crystalized that story. Mrs. V passed away in 2016.
While World War II engulfs every nation on the globe, Rebecca and her high school friend Sarah can only dream of escaping a dreary, wind-blown existence in western Kansas, until their boring, stodgy old hometown fills with handsome young men learning to fly Army Air Corps bombers known as Liberators, and their lives are suddenly filled with temptation and, perhaps, true love.
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Excerpt from Lodging
“Grandma… Grandma! Can she even hear me?”
“She comes and goes. Some days are better than others.”
“What is she looking at out there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grandma!”
Of course, I could hear them. But sometimes it is easier to pretend not to. How do you tell your family — your children and your children’s children that their lives are — or maybe, were unintended. That they might never have been.
I don’t know if “unintended” is the right word. Accidental? Like getting shot with a ricocheted bullet.
I loved Bill. I did. Captain Billy — the pilot of my soul. We had a good life and we were happy. But, he wasn’t the one. He was the one who came back, but he wasn’t the one.
A ricocheted bullet…
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It is funny how children can be so oblivious to deprivation. My best friend, Sarah, and I were so. The world was at war and we were yet young girls in high school, still filled with the wonder of life, not caring about rationing or war bonds or newspaper headlines. And suddenly the world seemed to be coming to Liberal — boring, stodgy old Liberal, Kansas. West of town a giant airfield was cultivated out of the wheat fields. Soon after, the sky filled with airplanes and the streets flooded with young men from all over the country coming to our town to learn to fly the planes they called “Liberators” — from New York, from California, from Florida, from Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco — places Sarah and I could only dream of, trapped as we were on the empty high plains in the middle of North America.
We used to ride our bikes out to the Army Airfield and wade into the fields of grain to lie down at the end of the runways like lodging wheat to feel the roar of the huge bombers shake our bodies. Fear tingled our toes as they swooped in to land, so close — so close overhead that we could see the rivets. So close, we could feel the heat of the exhaust of those grumpy, growling engines. So close. So big. So close.
The planes came so low overhead we could see the faces of the boys in the bubbles — the bombardiers, nose and tail gunners. It wasn’t long before they noticed Sarah and I and they began to smile and wave at us. They pressed their faces against the Plexiglas or hung out the side when the tornado of air off the wings and propellers tried to lift the hems of our dresses. Sometimes — just sometimes, we kind of let our fingers slip just a little and the caboose boys — that’s what we called the tail gunners — would give us a big grin and a thumbs up. Of course, that was a secret that only Sarah and I…and the Army Air Corps shared.
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