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Tibet: Bridge and Mountain - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

fliesinyoureyes.com

In 1956 our family returned to Lusk, Wyoming, my father’s home town, to live for a second time.  The first had been only a few years before when Mom moved with my brother and me, while Dad went to Korea.  It was here she received a letter from the Department of the Army stating that her husband had been mortally wounded in combat and was not expected to live, and only days later to receive another which corrected the first.  Yes, the major had been wounded, but his wounds were less serious than supposed, and he should expect a full recovery.  This time the family came back home to run a filling station after a trial in the ranching business in Montana went sour.

We moved into a modest two bedroom house with walls that enclosed a living space considerably less than a thousand square feet.  From here it was only a short walk to school, and where in first grade I saw the beautifully drawn letters of the alphabet and the ten numbers on display above the blackboard which were the standard of penmanship.  All were precisely the same height with smooth contours and perfect proportions.  Our teacher, Mrs. Grove, had the class practice writing them everyday in hopes we could duplicate their form.  This was a simple task for girls, who with their delicate, coordinated hands could print flawlessly.  The boys struggled, as letters seemed to fall randomly on their writing paper with varying heights, shapes, and spacing and with lines that resembled saw blades.

"7" was my favorite number, and it was my goal to be able to write it exactly like the one I saw daily above the blackboard.  I practiced writing the number hundreds, maybe thousands of times, but it was never quite right.

Mom kept a clean house.  Every item had a place, and my brother and I were expected to be as neat and tidy as two little boys could be without becoming neurotic.  One day I was in the bedroom that I shared with my brother with the door closed to the rest of the house.  Beneath the door knob was a metal plate painted white with the keyhole half way between the knob and the base of the plate.  For some unknown reason known only to a seven year old, I grabbed a pencil and wrote the number 7 between the knob and the keyhole.  It was perfect, better than the example in the classroom.

I would have liked to have shown my mother, but she would not have appreciated its significance and put it to the scrub brush.  I kept my secret.  Everyday when I returned from school, I would look at the inside of the door near the keyhole, and there it would be, undisturbed and only visible to someone in the bedroom with the door closed.  It remained there for the entire year until we moved away.  Now that I am married with four children, I realize it was the first and last thing I ever did perfectly.