Mr. Write's Page

This is a story about me, my late mother, and a book that turned out to have unexpected significance. Sometimes, small things are important.

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No rolling of the eyes, please, but I have to begin this tale at the beginning.

I was born January 26, 1943, at a place that no longer exists: Cochran Army Airfield, Georgia.

Cochran Field was located just south of Macon, and it operated from 1941 until 1945 as an Air Corps training base. My dad was assigned there as a flight instructor, teaching RAF cadets how to fly. Mom and Dad lived in Macon, which, conveniently, was her hometown. I was born at the Cochran Field Station Hospital.

Cochran Field, Georgia, 1943.

According to Dad’s military records, he arrived at Cochran Field in September 1941. He was there until June 1943, when he was sent to Europe as a bomber pilot. Mom and baby Rocky went to live with her mother in Macon.

Not counting the arrival of me, the time Mom and Dad spent at Cochran Field was a quiet interlude before the war turned everything upside down; it was only a year later, in June 1944, that Dad’s B-24 was shot down. For months, he was missing in action, fate unknown.

I’ve written several posts about Dad’s war years and his time as a POW. This story, however, is about other matters, which I shall address directly.

Cochran Field was just one of numerous places Dad was stationed during his military career. Mom reminded us often in later years, usually with an edge to her voice, that she moved 20 times before her oldest child (me) reached high school.

When Cochran Field was deactivated in 1945, the base was turned over to local control. Today, it is the site of the Macon airport — or, more precisely, Middle Georgia Regional Airport.

In the late 1980s, I finally became curious enough about Cochran Field to go see the place for myself. I talked to Mom and Dad, and they told me where the base hospital had been, relative to the main gate, the flight line, and other landmarks.

So, one Saturday, I drove down to the airport to look around. And I located what may well be the site of the old base hospital.

What I found was a row of foundation stones in a grassy field. The location matched the clues Mom and Dad gave me.

But realistically, it was hard to know. When the base was constructed in early 1941, it was done as speedily and economically as  possible. Most of the buildings — quarters for officers, barracks for enlisted men and trainees, mess halls, the various administrative facilities — were the same size and design.

Maybe those foundation stones mark the location of the hospital, maybe they don’t.

It seemed sad that my only connection to the place where I was born was the memories of others. As for tangible connections, there was only my birth certificate.

Still, whether or not I found the location of the hospital that day, my trip to the airport gave me a new connection. Which was gratifying.

Twenty years later, the book I mentioned — the one of unexpected significance — entered the story.

It happened in 2005, after Mom died, and we faced the difficult task of dealing with her possessions.

The books in a person’s home are intimate things. Although they are openly displayed, only family members and visitors see them.

And when they do, it amounts to a passing glance at the titles on the spines. Only the owner of the books has any real knowledge about them.

Many of the books on Mom’s shelves were familiar sights to me. “Robinson Crusoe” was there for as long as I can remember. So was “Wake of the Red Witch,” an old seafaring adventure. I remember both because of their colorful and melodramatic 1940s dust jackets.

Another book I recall seeing is “The Hawk’s Done Gone” by Mildred Haun. I knew nothing about it, but I remember it because the title is so wonderful.

Mom’s books needed a new home, but frankly, I didn’t need any more books. My house was, and still is, full of books. I have bookshelves in four different rooms. I own books by the hundreds.

But as I stood there at Mom’s house, seeing all those familiar titles so soon after her death, I was compelled to take a moment, sit down, and let the memories flow.

I took down several of her books and thumbed through the pages. All were clean; Mom was meticulous about her books. She never wrote notes or underlined passages.

When I reached “The Hawk’s Done Gone,” I opened the cover to find, looking back at me from the first blank page, this time-and-date stamp:

Property of the Cochran Field Station Hospital? Incredible.

As you can see, the ink on the date stamp misfired and didn’t record the day and month the book was cataloged. But “1942,” when Mom was pregnant, is visible.

The book isn’t a library book in the classic sense. It has no checkout card or a sleeve for one.

Maybe it was part of an informal “lending library” at the hospital. I  can imagine a volunteer pushing a book cart from room to room so the patients could select a book to pass the time, or return one.

Which brings up obvious questions: how, being hospital property, did the book end up in Mom’s possession? And why, 60-odd years later, was it still in Mom’s possession?

I can’t imagine either of my parents being book thieves. Perish the thought. Was the book taken home accidentally? Was it a gift?

The war years were frightening times for the entire population. Family members and friends were at peril in faraway places. The status of a mere book was of no importance. Yet, the questions remain.

Ironically, Mom knew the truth for my entire life. She could have explained it at any time. I just didn’t know to ask the question.

“The Hawk’s Done Gone” is the only book I claimed from Mom’s bookshelves. It’s a first edition, copyright 1940. The pages have yellowed a bit with age, but the condition is good.

I keep it on a shelf with a handful of other books that are special to me. I take it down occasionally, look at the “received” stamp, and think about how people coped during the war years.

The book, by the way, is a collection of short stories that chronicle one dirt-poor family in the Tennessee mountains, from the Civil War years to the Great Depression. The narrator is a midwife who uses meticulously accurate mountain dialect.

Although the stories involve dramatic subjects — witchcraft, incest, infanticide, interracial dalliances — they are less about the people than their unique society; the book is almost an anthropological study.

Actually, I was expecting more and was disappointed. I wonder what Mom thought.