"Dad, the President is a Roman Catholic," Julie offered.
"Yes, and the Lord obviously had some plan with this that neither you nor I could begin to understand," said Reverend Green. "The Lord in his wisdom made us different, but while He wants us to be tolerant of each other His will is for us not to become overly familiar."
"So, I shouldn't be friends with Roman Catholics?" Julie asked.
"You should be polite and respectful, but keep your distance," said Reverend Green. "It's not just Roman Catholics. There are many fine Jewish people, but do we go to a synagogue? No, we do not. And it is the same with other Christians. Negroes have their own churches. Tomorrow, should I miss our service at our church and take you, your mother and brother to a Negro church? No, we would feel uncomfortable there, and the Negroes would also feel uncomfortable. It would be the same as if we attended a church for Chinamen. We should respect the Negroes and the Chinamen and their churches, but it is not part of God's will for Whites, Negroes and Chinamen to worship Him together."
"Your father is right, Julie," asserted Mrs. Green, seeing the confused look on Julie's face.
"Yes, he is," Julie said. Often it was easier to agree with her parents whether she did or not. Times were changing, but her mother and father and many of their friends were not, clinging to the past with an iron grip.
"Now, talking about church, we'd better get a move on, there's a lot to do this morning for the fete," said Reverend Green.
Julie again stifled a sigh. A church fete, quite the opposite of fun. Not that Julie nor her brother Peter had much fun anyway. Well, Peter's idea of fun was to read about the Solar System in books from the library, so in his own weird way he had plenty of fun. However, things that Julie thought were fun were more in line with normal teenagers such as modern music, hanging out with friends, going to the movies and dancing, things her parents disapproved of and therefore she was banned from.
Julie was a picture of pretty perfection with her long, dark-brown hair, beautiful brown eyes and sweet doll-like face. This Saturday morning her slim figure was attired in a pink dress -- slightly old-fashioned but which still looked good on her - and she had tied her hair back into a pony-tail with a pink ribbon. Part of the reason Julie didn't have the same levels of fun a pretty teenage girl of her age might normally experience was of course because she was the Reverend's daughter and her life strictly controlled, but this was not the only reason. Even if Julie had more permissive parents, she would have found it hard and in the case of some activities such as dancing, impossible to enjoy many of the things her peers did.
Putting both hands on the table, Julie slowly pushed herself out of her chair. A casual observer seeing the girl from her right-hand side might have simply thought she had some sort of back injury. It was only when Julie's left leg came into view and one saw the metal brace that she wore on that limb that it was evident what caused the girl her mobility issues.
As a child, Julie had always felt bad that she was good at sports and games, while her brother Peter struggled with the basics of coordination, not even able to tie his shoes by the time he started elementary school. Julie wished that there was not such a disparity between their abilities. Her parents assigned their son's struggles as some test from God, but Julie still felt bad about it. Then along came the summer of 1954, and Julie was so excited about attending summer camp for the first time. It was a Christian Bible camp, but there were plenty of other outdoor activities and lots of other kids to play and have fun with. The then eight-year-old Julie counted down the days until the camp arrived, and also wished that the summer would last longer and she didn't have to return to school in sunny September, but rather in October when the fall weather was starting to change.
The first three days of the camp were the wonderful summer vacation Julie had anticipated, but on the fourth day Julie was dismayed when she came down with the flu. At least Julie thought it was a dose of the flu. Julie soon found it wasn't as she got worse the next day, suffering a severe headache and neck stiffness and almost before she knew it Julie lay paralyzed in the polio ward of the children's hospital, the sick and terrified little girl wondering if she would even survive let alone walk again. Julie spent the entire summer in hospital recovering from paralysis, crying herself to sleep many nights and wishing her mother was there to comfort her. But her parents could only see her from behind glass due to the quarantine procedures to prevent the spread of the disease, and Peter of course was allowed nowhere near the hospital, not that it would have been any good for a boy so young to see his sister in that state.
When Julie finally got out of hospital it was mid-October and she regretted her wish that she could have an extra month off school for the summer. Julie also sorely regretted making the wish that there was not so much difference between her and her brother's physical ability, as upon her return to school she struggled up the front steps on crutches with her legs in braces.
Over time, Julie's right leg returned to its normal function and she was able to get around without crutches, but her left leg while never withering like the limbs of some polio victims never recovered properly from her illness and remained too weak to support her adequately, so she would need to wear a brace on this limb for life. The brace she currently used as a young adult was far lighter and less ugly than the leg braces she had worn as a child, but to Julie it reminded her that she was crippled, and always would be. That and her bad back which gave her intermittent problems, another legacy of her childhood soured by the scourge of poliomyelitis.
Julie's back was causing her pain this morning as the girl made her way slowly up the stairs to her bedroom, gripping the special rail installed to help her with her mobility problems. There were other rails around the house installed for her too, one in the shower so she would not lose her balance in there and another next to the toilet so Julie could sit down on it then stand up again when finished with greater ease. Julie was grateful that these rails were installed as they did help her especially when she wasn't wearing her brace, but she wished she could walk normally and the rails weren't there at all.
Collecting her purse, Julie made her way back downstairs and helped her mother wash and dry the breakfast dishes, then walked out to the front garden to catch some early morning rays of the warm sun before they left for the church fete.
With her parents discussing the Clayton family so much that morning, Julie's attention immediately went to the house across the road where the four members of the said family were at work in their garden. The front garden contained deciduous trees that were now losing their leaves in the fall, and Ben Clayton was on the roof ensuring they were cleared from his gutters.
Julie looked at the handsome, rugged man with a fine physique as he ran his hands through his light brown hair and continued working. He was so much younger than her own parents -- Julie guessed he was aged in his mid to late 30s - and so much cooler too, although Julie always found herself feeling bad about thinking this. Despite her parents' distaste for the man, Julie admired him as April and Brad had told her that their father had been awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery when serving in the European campaign during the Second World War. Julie had mentioned this to her father, but the Reverend Green was dismissive of the notion, saying that Ben Clayton seemed too young to have served in the Second World War, and that April and Brad seemed like the sort of kids who enjoyed telling tall tales.
Julie's parents however, could not dispute that Ben Clayton's current occupation was as an electrician, and his van was currently parked outside the garage. His electrical contracting business, ran in partnership with two other war veterans, seemed to be a successful one.
Brad was mowing the lawn and like his father, the young man had the good looks of a matinee idol, although his hair was dark brown compared to Ben's light brown hair. The fit and muscular Brad was on the school football team and he dated Susie Jones, one of the cheerleaders. Julie often heard her parents talking disapprovingly about how short Susie's cheerleader skirts were when the girl visited her boyfriend, and all Julie could do was suppress her boredom at the endless pious rhetoric from her parents.
Chip who had red hair and fair skin, was pruning a hedge and Julie always felt so confused when everybody said what a bad kid he was. True, Chip lived with his uncle and cousins rather than his own parents, Ben's older sister Jane, her husband Donny and Chip's 16-year-old sister Katie. There was some talk of past troubles with Chip, but whatever had happened in the past had never been disclosed and Julie reasoned that this was of no concern to anybody else outside the Clayton family.
