born Russian raised American/ part 4

born Russian raised American/ part 4

fiction
edward w pritchard

Only a few miles from town but really in another World I got involved in the recruiting activities of the local Mennonite's communities Thursday night meet and greet for recently Divorced adults. I had ventured to the outreach program desperate for attention in the hopes of meeting a few young women, the one's in the starched and meticulously ironed yellow dresses and blue bonnets who stand and sit very straight and lower their eyes when they talk to you.

The woman running the Thursday night get together had a strict corporate agenda that she kept to in running the meeting and arriving nearly late I had to decide quickly who to sit next to at the long table and glancing down at the syllabus neatly arranged at each seat how to play the first question in large bold type " Who Am I and how did I arrive to be here tonight? "

A few of the women were absorbed in the syllabus but a couple were listening politely to a man in a navy blue blazer or cardigan style sweater from the K Mart explain about his ex wife and his twenty eight years as a driver on the Frito lay truck.

An old hand at this recovery divorce business I sat down across from the facilitator of the Meeting Miss Johnston and ignoring the syllabus begin to read the copy of Albert Camus' " Lyrical and Critical essays" that I often at such times carried as a prop.
end part 1