His first new car
purchased from a dealership
near Woodward and Second
on a bitter cold Saturday,
December 6, 1941.
It was an economical sedan
stripped down, two-door,
green Plymouth.
During the war years
he’d stop at bus lines, streetcar tracks,
any corner a serviceman waited
with a thumb extended.
He’d drive downtown,
pick up sailors, marines,
war weary soldiers home on leave
use his prized gas rations
for those fighting—
drive them to a mother’s arms,
back to barracks, or to a local USO
contributing in the only way he knew
for owning the last car sold in Detroit
until the men came home.
Sharon Lask Munson was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She taught school in England, Germany, Okinawa, and Puerto Rico before driving to Anchorage, Alaska and staying for the next twenty years. She is a retired teacher, poet, coffee addict, old movie enthusiast, lover of road trips—with many published poems, two chapbooks, and one full-length book of poetry. She now lives and writes in Eugene, Oregon. She says many things motivate her to write: a mood, a memory, the smell of cooking, burning leaves, a windy day, rain, fog, something observed or overheard—and of course, imagination. She has a pin that says, “I Make Things Up.” You can find her at http://www.sharonlaskmunson.com
califragile.org 