I had just tucked my three kids into bed when my husband, Jack, called from his night job at the utility company where we lived in Provo, Utah. “I left my lunch at home, in the fridge,” he said.
“Oh, no. Can you come back and get it?” I asked.
“No, I can’t leave, so I sent the night janitor to pick it up. He should be there any minute. His name is Ralph.”
“Okay, I’ll watch for him,“ I replied, thankful that the man was willing to help.
I remembered Jack telling me that the janitor liked to entertain him with stories of how he survived WWII in Germany. He had said, 'I wish you could meet him. He has some amazing stories to tell.'

I tidied up the living room, anticipating the janitor’s arrival, then hurried to the kitchen for the lunch.
Upon returning to the living room, I heard a knock on the front door. Okay, Jack, I’m about to meet your gabby janitor. Is he really so special?  With the lunch bag in hand, I swung open the door and scanned the man standing before me. So this was the storyteller. We stared at each other a long, awkward moment. He didn’t say anything.
 I finally blurted, “Are you the janitor?”
He shot back, “I can’t help it!”
We both laughed and I found myself inviting this stranger into my house. I didn’t want to appear rude, and besides, this man was funny. We chatted for a few minutes and he left with Jack’s lunch. Soon after, I met his wife. Jack and I had them over for dinner and they reciprocated by inviting us to their house. This was the beginning of a life-long friendship. I had no way of knowing the impact that meeting Ralph in the fifties would have on our lives.

Jack was so taken by Ralph’s stories that he made brief notes and suggested that he and Ralph use the notes to write and publish a story. They were going to be famous authors!  Fate had different ideas. Jack and I moved our family back to California where our parents lived. Ralph and his wife visited us from Utah and spent a few days with us one summer. After that, we lost track of them.

This storyteller and I came from two different worlds. During WWII, from the age of eleven to sixteen, Ralph fought to survive the bombs that the enemy dropped over Mannheim, Germany. After the war, his problems worsened when food and fuel became scarce.

My life in America between the ages of eleven and sixteen, in stark contrast to Ralph’s, was peaceful, without serious incident. I played in fields of wildflowers and waded through ditches full of colorful autumn leaves. My father, who was a carpenter, built a nice playhouse for my brothers and me. This worked very well until my little brother burned it down while playing with matches. Watching the fire truck come and put out the fire was the most excitement we had experienced for a long time. As I matured, my only concerns were my looks, pretty dresses, make-up, and movies starring my favorite movie stars.

I didn’t know about the Poland invasion until I saw a movie about it. The war was a world away. The sugar and butter rationing was the only way the war affected me as far as I could see. Each person in our family had their allotted sugar in their own container. I remember my mother sharing some of hers if the kids used theirs up too soon.

Ralph experienced his first air raid in Mannheim on December 16, 1940. As a child of eleven years of age, it must have seemed to him that the world was coming to an end. He saw things no child should have to see. On October 22, 1940, he watched German authorities herd hundreds of Jewish men, women, and children into boxcars at the train station. Most were destined to end up in concentration camps. The same day, he saw Jewish furniture and belongings burning in the streets.

At age eleven, I was excited to go with my family to camp at Yosemite National Park. I remember complaining about having to brush my teeth with freezing mountain water. What Ralph wouldn’t have given to have such a minor thing to complain about.

On December 7, 1941, I was roller-skating on the street in front of my house when a neighbor boy ran up to me and shouted, “Go tell your mother to turn the radio on. Japan just bombed Pearl Harbor and we are at war!” I remember being scared. Did that mean our homes might be bombed?

After the Normandy invasion, Ralph, as a member of the Hitler Youth, had to go to France to dig trenches for the German troops. While there, he had to scurry to get away from strafing planes.

At that time, I lived with my parents and brothers in Pleasanton, California, near the air force base in Livermore. I was preoccupied with watching planes fly over our house and fantasizing about the pilot of the plane. I had heard that Robert Taylor, the movie star, was stationed in Livermore. I waved at all the planes. Surely, he was one of the pilots and could see me.

By June 1944, most of Mannheim had been destroyed. Nothing remained but skeletons of bombed-out buildings. The surviving citizens huddled in basements, contended with lice and rodents, and had very little food or water.

My comfortable home in America was intact and secluded on a large piece of property overlooking the elementary school and town.

In 1945, Ralph walked on the sidewalk, pulling a wagon filled with things he had found abandoned at an anti-aircraft site. He was captured by the conquering American soldiers and questioned. They released him in a few days when his captors realized he wasn’t a threat.

At age sixteen, I was “captured,” so to speak, by the principal of my high school, who questioned me in his office about why I was tardy. In spite of taking a short cut over a train trestle, I didn’t make it to school on time. It was a traumatic day for me.

I’m sure Ralph and his family must have felt relief upon hearing of Adolph Hitler’s death on April 30, 1945, but they didn’t know the worst nightmare was still ahead because of the lack of food and fuel.

Hitler’s death had little impact on me. What did he have to do with my life? Eighteen days earlier, my own president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Georgia. I was at high school the day he died. The principal announced the news over the loudspeaker in our classroom. I was devastated. He was the only president I had known in my lifetime.

V-Day finally arrived; the day so many had prayed would come. I can only imagine the relief felt by Ralph and his family. My mother and I stood on the porch of our white house on the hill in Pleasanton and listened to bells ring out the good news from town. We watched an elderly man cross in front of our house on his way to our barn where he housed a horse or a cow. My mother said, “I wonder what he is thinking right now. He lost a son in the war.”

After moving from Utah to California, Jack and I settled our family in Livermore for several years. I found myself, once again, living in a large white house with a big front porch with a railing, but this time, it was located next to a well-traveled street. Ralph and his wife visited us from Utah and since the weather was unbearably hot, and we had no air conditioning, we pulled mattresses out to the porch so we could cool off and sleep.

Some years later, while looking through some boxes, I came across those old, yellowing notes Jack had written about Ralph’s war experiences. I was intrigued by what I read. I told Jack that I was going to make up a story and use some of those notes. He said he would help me. It wasn’t long before we realized we were butting heads about how to write. He said since I seemed to be the most committed to the task, he would back off and let me do what I wanted with it. After writing off and on for several years, I had created a novel that I titled, Pocket of Guilt.

Many times, I had wished that I could locate Ralph to ask questions about what I was writing. One day, I found Ralph listed in the white pages, still living in Utah, but in a different town. I wrote to him and he and his new wife came to California twice, in their motor home, to visit us. Ralph read the manuscript and offered several suggestions. Without the contributions of that storyteller standing at my door long ago, there would be no book.

Now, in the twilight of my life, Pocket of Guilt has been published. Fate has dealt Ralph and me a pretty good hand after all.