Victory Gardens

The time has come for me to cherish my relative independence, because it has a time limit on it; I just don't know what it is.  I see it all around me in my peers.

The next and presumptively final stop will be a place where living is "assisted," and where the fruits of the victory gardens feature peas, carrots and mashed.

We, the inmates, don't call the place by its proper name.  Having seen how our world has shrunken in the transition, and how things we talk about now are real to us but have already melted into history for those who have come after, we refer to it sardonically as "The Walled-off Historia."  We speak of rabbit ears and curb feelers, book bags, newspaper routes, wax lips and ice cream push-ups.  But also politics, bitterly.

The chaplain comes to visit once a week, whether we need him or not.