TWO GRANDFATHERS, OTHER TIMES

You have followed this blog faithfully. For that, I thank you so much. I am including a fun piece this afternoon that I posted a few minutes ago on www.lengthofdays2112.blogspot.com. I hope you will enjoy it. Feel free to pass the link on to a friend.
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TWO GRANDFATHERS, OTHER TIMES

"Albert, the church trustees and I would like to talk to you," the Pastor called up to the gray haired man in bib overalls who balanced himself near the church steeple.

The old man moved his block and tackle across the steep roof ridge a little further and inched his body into position. "Sure, Reverend, just as soon as I get these shingles nailed down," Al agreed.

"Well, now, Albert," the minister stated respectfully, "that’s just it. It’s the roof we want to talk to you about."

"Can’t stop just yet. I’m losing daylight." Albert Kime faithfully kept at his job.

Al was my husband’s grandfather, a strong, gentle man who began rearing his youngest daughter’s children when they were five months, two and a half, seven and nine-years old. Grandpa was seventy-six and Grandma was sixty-six when the children moved in.

Albert had already retired from the New York Central Rail Road as foreman of the bridge building crew after an accident that cost him the sight in one eye. When he started parenting the second family, he added to his eighty-eight dollar a month pension with his work at the church across the street. Nothing seemed to stop him. Every day, he would carry two, twenty pound buckets of coal ash in each hand, from the furnace in the basement, up the steps and out the door.

After the sun set and Albert had finished his shingle repair, the trustees finally met with their busy custodian in the pastor’s study. For want of other words, the chairman of the committee asked, "Albert, you just had your birthday recently, didn’t you? What am I thinking? Of course you did. The whole church celebrated."

"The thing is, Al," the pastor stumbled into the conversation, "some of the men are feeling guilty about you climbing on the church roof. The roofing company had refused the job. They said the slope was too steep for them—and, well, you are ninety-two years old now."

Grandma and Grandpa Kime were different from Christiana’s grandparents in my novel, Length of the of Days - The Age of Silence. Even though Christiana’s wonderful old ones were privileged citizens in 2112, at age seventy-five, they had come to the end of their Length of Days. They would be picked up and driven to the portal chamber under Howard Mountain. Grandpa Kime lived to be ninety-four years old and died at home, surrounded by his loved ones.

Each set of grandparents were loving and kind, good and steadfast people. But, in 2112 the country had forgotten about those qualities. A reverence for life had been driven from the heart of man.

Christiana is constantly pursued by the Chief Inspector of the Blue Guard. Will she be able to shake his stalking long enough to find a way to overturn the Length Days laws and save her grandparents from the never-ending-sleep? Will she be in time?

Doris Gaines Rapp

Copyright 2012 Doris Gaines Rapp

Length of Days - The Age of Silence will soon be released in paper form on Amazon. It is already available as an eBook on www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.