I was 18 when I learned to drive a car.

I was 68 when I learned how to put gas in it.

Why did it take so long?

Because that was my husband’s job and after he died his jobs became mine. Besides that, the gas tanks scared me to death. I’d seen too many movies where gasoline spilled on the ground, a careless cigarette got tossed into it, and the whole station blew up.

For several months my children took turns filling the tank and I was so grateful I could have cried. When no one was around and the tank was almost empty I felt panic stricken. I took slow deep breaths and realized there was no way out. I needed to learn how to do this awful job myself. But I needed help. So I called my neighbor and said, “Gracie, do you mind going with me to the Shell station to teach me how to use the gasoline pump?”

I actually thought she would say, “No problem.” But she didn’t. She said, “You mean…you don’t know how?”

“No. Denny always did it. ”

“I can’t believe that you drive a car and don’t know how to put gas in it.”

I was not a dimwit. Gracie acted like I didn’t know how to tie my own shoes. I said, “Well, it’s true. Will you teach me?”

The silence meant that Gracie’s shoulders had dropped a foot and she was thinking it over. I waited until she said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

On the way to the Shell station at the foot of our hill she said not one word. It made me uncomfortable. I wanted her to break the silence and she finally did after I stopped at the first tank. She said, “You’re not even close. Pull the car up. Not that far. Back up. Not that much. Try again. Okay, okay, stop. Now–step one: get out your credit card and stand next to me and watch what I do.

I felt like I was back in fourth grade when the teacher tried to explain the ruler to me; all those lines and numbers. I wasn’t gettin’ the ruler at all and was more interested in her pretty fingernails and the ring she wore. The same was true with Gracie at the gas pump. I was in awe, distracted by her efficiency, not listening to the instructions she rattled off so fast they flew right past my brain. I didn’t have the nerve to tell her to slow down so I just kept watching her smooth moves. She must have been nine-years-old when she learned how to drive.

At least my car tank was now full. But two weeks later it was empty again and the kids were all at work. I had no choice but to call Gracie again, because I could not recall her instructions.

She said, “I already taught you how to do this. Have you forgotten?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Then write it down this time.”

I was beginning not to like Gracie very much but I needed her, so I wrote fast because, again, she was hurrying. I think I got it right and thanked her over and over, realizing that my gratefulness was kind of sickening.

After the tank got low the third time I took my notes with Gracie’s instructions and tried hard to leave the impression with other customers that I had done this all my life. But I was nervous and had purposely left the card on the seat so I could pretend to be looking for something in the glove compartment while reading step one. After step one was accomplished I glanced at steps two, three, and four. I managed to look like filling the tank was a ho-hum job instead of a nerve-wracking necessity.

It seemed that I was finished but I was looking for a button that said, The End.” I was so afraid of pressing the wrong one. It could send gasoline spilling all over the concrete causing a deadly explosion that I always saw in the movies during gas station scenes. I was eternally grateful that nothing spilled and I was alive. Before driving away I looked around to make sure I was not still hooked up to the tank. I’ve seen those kinds of scenes at movies, too, where the driver leaves and takes the gas tank with him.

When I pulled out of the Shell station I couldn’t keep a smile from taking up my whole face. I was in rapture. If I could fill my own tank with gas when it scared me so much, this meant I could do anything. The world was mine. I smiled so hard that my face hurt, but I felt like a new person.

It seemed the car was floating down the street when I came to the stop light. Me, my full tank of gas and my smile sat there waiting for the light to turn green. Out of the corner of my left eye I noticed the man in the passenger seat of the car to my left kept glancing my way. So I glanced back and he waved and I waved back, feeling a tinge of excitement because he was flirting with me. I felt I should smile more often because it obviously made me look like a hottie. A smile can sure change your looks.

Then he rolled down his window and I knew he was going to hit on me, so I rolled down my window and said, “Yes?” I was feeling flirty, too.

He said, “Ma’am, your gas cap is hangin’ off.”

My smile froze in place and I said, “Oh, thank you SOOO much.”

What a bummer!

What gas cap? I didn’t remember any gas cap. Where was it? I got through the light, pulled to the curb to see what a hanging-off-gas-cap looked like. And there it was sitting in a little thingie inside of a small door that was wide open. I didn’t remember seeing that before, but I must have touched it because I had put gas in the car. I screwed the cap back on, shut the little door and drove home knowing that a smile is just a smile and that practically everyone but me knew how to fill a tank.

But maybe they didn’t.  I needed to find them and teach them how to do it.

This is a letter I received from a fan, Darryl Trapp,  who read my newest book: The Home for the Friendless

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that I simply cannot eat and drink the same things that I did when I was in my twenties. First to go were Vodka Gimlets (lime juice = acid indigestion). Next it was eggs (I developed an allergy.) After last night, I’m crossing red pepper hummus off the list.

When I was a kid, my mother was convinced that comic books, scary movies, and Dr. Seuss would give me nightmares. The only time I could get a fix of “Green Eggs And Ham” was if I snuck off to the children’s table at the doctor’s waiting room and pretended to be reading “Highlights” magazine. I can honestly say, though, as far as I can recall, none of those taboo objects of my childhood actually caused my nightmares, at least not directly. I read comic books at my best friend’s house, saw both “Psycho” and “The Birds” as a young child (thanks to my older siblings), and feasted on Dr. Seuss books at the doctor’s office. I had nightmares, but they usually had to do with flying and suddenly dropping out of the sky.

I’ve come to the conclusion that certain foods bring on these nightmares. Like Ebeneezer Scrooge, that “bit of undigested potato, that dab of gravy” can wreak havoc on a night’s sleep faster that you can say “double dip sundae.” Last night I had a snack of pita chips and red pepper hummus before going to bed. I paid dearly for it. I dreamed myself into Betty Auchard’s book, The Home for the Friendless – but I was an eight year old Betty whose mother was taking her for an operation.                                                               

I (as Betty) had developed a weird, mysterious growth, underneath the surface of the skin on my face, and it needed to be removed…not my face, but the growth. Without batting an eye, Betty’s mother, Waneta, escorted me to the local doctor, who evidently didn’t feel the need to operate within the confines of a hospital, but instead of an operating room, he used a hybridized Airstream trailer that was parked in his driveway. The sign on the roof said, THE DOCTOR IS IN. Very convenient for the emergency removal of almost anything.

The operation was a success, but to my horror, I discovered that the “growth” was a whole other face, complete with nose, chin, brow and lips, which the doctor had somehow removed all in one piece. It looked a little like the mask used in The Phantom of the Opera; white and waxy. Disoriented from the anesthesia, and terrified by this bizarre turn of events, I slipped away while the doctor was otherwise occupied, wanting only to be home with my mother. Keep in mind that I was a homeless 8-year-old Betty in this dream.

Moving from backyard to alleyways, I traveled from suburb to downtown. Nothing looked familiar. This was Cedar Rapids, Iowa of the 1940’s, complete with streetcars and congested with pedestrian traffic, but with a very different topography. The streets had changed and suddenly bisected at acute angles. The real Cedar Rapids is laid out in a square grid. In the dream, buildings shot up to impossible heights, bypassing the modern skyscrapers that exist today. Hills popped up where none had existed before. Everything had taken on an odd, dusty coloration.

I wandered into a department store looking for help, and suddenly even the laws of physics had deserted me. Without warning I found myself climbing up the banister of a set of stairs sideways as if it were a ladder. A trapdoor loomed in the floor – which was actually the ceiling of this topsy-turvy world. I could see two saleswomen, far below or was it above? I tried calling out to them for help, but my voice dwindled away, like a whisper on the wind. I was lost and alone, hurting and sad, and all my eight-year-old self wanted was to find my way back home. I was lost and friendless.

I woke up shaken and sweaty. From here on, I’m sticking to warm milk for a bed time snack. And just to be safe, I’m avoiding Dr. Seuss.

By Darryl Trapp, a grown up man

Betty’s Book Tour in Iowa

As many of you know I live in California and I had my first book tour promoting The Home for the Friendless in Iowa from June 8 to 16. The memoir stories are set against the backdrop of the Depression and WW2 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where I was raised. My literary publicist, Stephanie Barko (www.stephaniebarko.com ) in Austin, Texas set all of the events up many months before they happened. Scheduling these personal appearances in my home state was only one small part of our book activities because Stephanie and I worked together for ten months promoting The Home for the Friendless with a “virtual book tour” that took place on the Internet. I never left my computer chair while traveling all over the country. My wardrobe was pajamas and my face and hair were in complete disarray most of the time. .

That was a virtual tour — this tour was different because my brother and I had to dress nice. He was my driver. We stayed in three different hotels in Iowa and drove over 900 miles. Gas was cheaper there.

Here was our schedule.

June 8, flew to Omaha, Nebraska, met my brother, Bob, and just started driving.

June 9, Iowa Public Radio Interview with Charity Nebbe in Iowa City – excellent interviewer

June 11, History Center book talk and signing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – Great stories told by all

June 12, Tanager Place reunion former residents of The Home for the Friendless, same town

12 former residents of the institution attended the first annual reunion and now they want to meet every year.

June 13, Peal Family reunion in Tucker Park, Hiawatha, Iowa – met cousins I didn’t know I had.

June 13, Public Library book signing, Ames, Iowa – several writers in this audience

June 14, Prairie Lights Book Store, Iowa City – audience of summer writing workshop members.

June 15, St. Matthews Church, book signing , Cedar Rapids, Iowa, members were mostly seniors

June 16, Convent, retired nuns Mt. Mercy University, Cedar Rapids, Iowa – like no nuns I’ve met!

June 17, Left for California; from the air I saw miles of farms under waters of the flooded Missouri River. Terrible sight.

Highlights:

Bob and I reviewed our lives while driving from one town to another, laughed a lot and put miles behind us.

Charity Nebbe, a wonderful interviewer, asked many questions about our childhood. Even interviewed my brother, Bob.

The History Center program was a good mix of 24 people who shared stories about growing up in Iowa.

Tanager Place, the modern day rescue organization for children in jeopardy, hosted a reunion for former residents of the original Home for the Friendless. Twelve “kids” aged 50 – 85, attended. All of our records from 1902 to 1978 are at Tanager Place. It’s like a college campus with nine acres of land with classrooms and cottages. In the picture below I am in the front row between the red and blue blouses and my brother, Bob, is right behind me in the back row, third from the right.

The Peal Family reunion, June : the above photo represents cousins from three of the six uncles in the Peal Family. Bob and I are on the left end of the picture, and next to me is Bonnie whose dad was Uncle Jiggs on page 34 of The Home for the Friendless. The next six cousins in the above photo were in the story, Outhouse Adventure on page 110. This photo, taken on June 13, 2011, was a reminder of our frequent family gatherings as kids in one of the many parks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, our hometown. But this time, none of our aunts or uncles were there. The only one still living was too frail to attend, and my cousins, brother and I were the new generation of  OLD people. First-cousins-once- removed were in abundance and we had to get acquainted all over again. Picnic food was plentiful and I could NOT get enough of the sauerkraut salad; YUM.

Ames, Iowa is one of the locations of Stephens Press, my publisher, and we had a lovely gathering of interested citizens in the public library there.

Prairie Lights Book Store is well known and I was at first intimidated about appearing there. The audience was made up of men and women from all over the United States who were attending the famous summer writers’ workshops hosted by the University of Iowa. By the way, the university was the first to ever  have a degree in creative writing. Famous authors graduated from there and are also on the faculty for the summer workshops. Those people attending were down to earth and not one bit too sophisticated for me. What a relief that was.

St. Matthews Church was a responsive crowd of men and women, our contemporaries (77 – 81) who knew exactly every location that was mentioned in the book. They, like my brother and me, are living history. I wonder if they realize it?

Mt. Mercy Convent and the retired nuns were such a surprise. I expected formal older women in long black gowns with black veils over their heads and hands folded in a permanent pose of prayer. But they don’t look like that anymore. These lively ladies looked like anyone you might meet in the grocery store. They were such fun and laughed at all the right places. What a great way to end our book tour.

My brother and I missed the presence of our younger sister, Patty, who we lost to cancer in March, 2010. But she was with us in memory during this whole trip.

Frequently asked question: Betty, do you plan to write another book?

My answer: Nope. I’m way too busy writing and illustrating my blog stories that I change every three weeks. See them for yourself at www.bettyauchard.com/blog.

PS I’ll write a blog story later about going to Las Vegas to record the audio book for The Home for the Friendless. This time I’ll be reading from a teleprompter instead of a paper manuscript. I love reading for recording. It feels like one long open mike night.