                           Images
                              &
                         Reflections
                              
                 Sample Short Story from the
                              
              PALO ALTO WRITERS 1996 ANTHOLOGY




          COPYRIGHT  1996 BY THE PALO ALTO WRITERS
                              
                       Second Edition

                              

     Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Palo Alto Writers
Palo Alto Writers 1996 Anthology
     1.Writing.         I. Palo Alto Writers     II.
     Title.Images & Reflections
     
     
     ISBN 1-57555-36-9 (soft cover edition) ISBN 1-57555-37-
     7 (electronic Book-On-Disk edition)
     
     
     All rights reserved. No part of this work may be
     reproduced or  transmitted in any form by any means,
     electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
     recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
     system, except as may be expressly permitted by the
     1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the author(s) or
     representative(s). Requests for such permissions should
     be addressed to: Palo Alto Writers, 1520 Sand Hill Rd.
     #406, Palo Alto CA 94304-2039.
     
     
        Manufactured by CEDAR BAY PRESS L.L.C. in the United
         Federation of the Takelman-Kalapuyan
         
                    Released January 1996

                              
              PALO ALTO WRITERS 1996 ANTHOLOGY
   116 PAGES 8.5 X 11 comb bound $12.95 + $1.00 shipping

     Cedar Bay Press LLC Box 751 Beaverton OR 97075-0751

                              

       Table Of Contents

The Road Less Traveled by Eleanor K. Prager
Tablemates by Kate Kellogg
Remnants of the Past by Myrtle Carey
Tuesday Afternoons at Bubbies Dining Room Table by Carol K.
Rainwater
Holidays in Helvetia by Kendall Moll
The Day I Lost My Faith by Louise Burton
The Fire Boats by Kay Weis
The New Years Eve Party by Mary Kate Spencer
Rain Drops at Dawn by Shepard A. Insel
Family Secrets by Inge Golovin
Half Chinese, Half Irish by Leah Brooks McDonough
The Tree Left Standing by Vicky Kelly
Serendipity by Estelle Schultz
The Patrol by Walter Winterburn
The Players Party by Charles Shoens
Doing Something by Joanne Pasotti
Night on Ben Lomond by Jerry Lundquist
Josies Shooting Stars by Dolores Stevens
The Boar Hunt by Estelle Schultz
Hang Loose by June Swan
Too Much Togetherness by Anne W. Busterud
Earthquake Talk by Hans J. Schmidt
Trivializing Ezra by Don Volkman
The Baths at Atami by Kay Weis
Christmas is Coming by Helga Hardy
Home Sharing by Kathleen Chamberlain
Two Days of Surprises by Anne Marie Waller
Darly the defiant by Dan Meyerson
The Writers (Biography)




                           Images
                              &
                         Reflections
                              
                 Sample Short Story from the
                              
              PALO ALTO WRITERS 1996 ANTHOLOGY




          COPYRIGHT  1996 BY THE PALO ALTO WRITERS
                              






                   The Tree Left Standing
                              
                       by Vicky Kelly
                              
                              
     The house was a low-slung ranch house, in a
neighborhood of shake-roof ranch houses with well-trimmed
lawns and neat shrubs.  The movers had lugged, pulled and
shoved furniture, boxes and a lifetime of junk out.  The
children had come and taken what they wanted, Goodwill had
come.  The house stood empty, after thirty years.
      Jane stood in the quiet house looking through the
expanse of picture window, across the patio to the
sprawling, neatly fenced backyard.  It was summer.  Bees
swarmed among the bright green leaves of the lemon trees,
and the apple tree was laden with a crop of tart
Gravensteins.  Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at
the old peach tree.  It showed its age, its trunk gnarled
and weathered, wounded by insects, it continued to struggle
to produce.
     "What do you want a peach tree for?", he had asked
twenty-five years before.
     "I love peaches, and so do you."
     "Oh hell, it'll be nothing but work."  But when he
turned to look at her, he knew he would plant a peach tree.
     At the garden shop he had asked, "Which one?  You pick
it out.  I don't know anything about peach trees.  You're
the farm girl."
     That's how it had started.  He had grumbled, but
planted a bare-root twig, watered it, sprayed it, pruned it,
and swore at it as it produced box after box of peaches.
When the children lived at home, she canned peaches, made
peach pies, cobblers, jam.  Later, when the two of them were
living alone in the house, it became a race.  What to do
with the peaches before they spoiled.
     They had boxed them up to share with the neighbors,
carted them to the church to feed the hungry.  He joked that
they would stand by the side of the road and sell them.  He
demanded to know why he couldn't have a peach tree that only
produced enough peaches for him to slice on his morning
cereal.
    "That damn tree is killing me," he told her grinning.
Everyone told him how good his peaches were, the sweetest
they'd ever tasted.  He was proud of his tree.  He knew he
had grown something good.
     Jane thought about the huge leafy avocado tree that
shaded the patio and cooled the kitchen.
     I'm going to chop that avocado tree down," he said.
"It's shading the house too much, and keeps dropping leaves
all over the patio.  Too messy."
     "You'll be sorry."
     "Nonsense."
     They had stood in the bedroom that first morning after
the tree was down, looking at the yard, at the blank space
where the avocado tree had been.
    Why didn't you stop me from cutting that tree down?"
He smiled at her as he pulled her into his arms.  "I miss
that dumb tree."  A week later they picked out a Camphor
tree to replace the old avocado.  It was flourishing now,
twenty years later, didn't drop its leaves, either.
     At the back of the yard was a huge old native oak tree.
Once there had been two oaks, growing so close together it
was difficult to tell where one began or the other left off.
The two oaks had prospered on the property decades before
this housing development.  Jane remember the night of the
big wind storm.  It had knocked over the neighbor's fence,
shearing it off flat at the ground.  As she lay safely in
his arms, they listened to the wind, unable to sleep.
Suddenly they heard the sharp crack as one huge oak had
split and fallen, its limbs bouncing and shattering, as the
other tree struggled to hold it up.  With a final shudder it
crashed to the ground sending leaves and splints of limbs
out across the yard.
     Now as Jane looked at the remaining oak she could
clearly see the silhouette where the other tree had been. It
was a kind of hole in the foliage, a reminder that once
there had been two trees.  Although the remaining tree was
weakened, it had survived.  But the shadow of the fallen oak
had left its mark.
     As she wandered slowly through the house, she
unexpectedly began to hum to herself.  The old Helen Reddy
song he had loved leaped into her memory.  As she hummed,
she thought of the lyrics--how did they go?  Was it
something like this?
          When one of us is gone
          And one of us is left to carry on,
          Then, remembering will have to do Our memories
          will see us through. Think about the days of me
          and you, You and me against the world."
          
Suddenly the front door opened.  The song slipped away.
     "Are you ready?" the voice called.  She turned to see
the outline of a man with the sun's brilliant light behind
him.  There was something familiar--the shape, the angle
of the head.  As her eyes adjusted to the bright light,
she saw the man was her son.  This was not the little boy
she had run along beside, hanging onto the seat of his
first bike as he struggled to get the hang of balancing.
Instead it was a man with the shape, the look, the voice--
vaguely like, but different.
     His voice was gentle, "You OK, Mom?".
     "Yes," she said slowly, "I'm OK".  She didn't look
back, instead Jane pulled the door closed firmly, for the
last time.





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