Bricks, by Gillian

My mother, not someone I would identify as a religious person, used to read me stories from the Bible. She favored the New Testament, particularly the Parables. I think she believed, quite rightly in my opinion, that they would have a more positive influence on me than Fairy Tales, many of which seem to be about little girls coming to bad ends through little or no fault of their own.

Occasionally she chose readings from the Old Testament, and one of these was the tale of Making Bricks Without Straw. (This is how it is generally thought of, anyway, though to be accurate that is incorrect. Pharaoh did not tell the Israelites they had to make bricks without straw but rather that straw would no longer be provided for them; they would have to get it themselves.) I suspect that she liked the tale because, in this post-war time of severe rationing, she felt that she spent her life trying to create the necessities of life without the basic ingredients.

Be all of that as it may, it was my introduction to bricks.

The house I grew up in, like most homes in rural Britain, was made of local stone, not brick nor wood. Various ambitious British monarchs building various ambitious fleets of wooden ships had depleted British woodlands almost to the point of oblivion. Brick was expensive. Stone was frequently there for the taking. The problem is, rough-hewn stone such as that of my childhood home, is rather like a badly-cut jigsaw puzzle. The pieces don't fit together well, and require great amounts of mortar to keep things stable. The mortar requires constant repair, and even with that the incessant rain finds it's way into and through the walls. The house was always cold and damp.

When I rode the local bus to to the local town, with it's burgeoning suburbia, I looked upon the brick homes with envy. Perhaps they did, as my mother said with sniffing disdain, all look alike. But that look was warm, and snug, and cozy; none of which adjectives could be applied to our home. They were, perhaps, 150 years younger, but that failed to register. In the event, I moved from English fieldstone to American wood siding and never did live in a brick house until Betsy and I got together. Over the twenty-eight years we have been together we have had three houses, all brick, and all living up to my dreams of warm and cozy.

In the Britain of my childhood, I'm not sure about nowadays, we would call a certain type of person a brick. Ooh, you really are a brick! you'd say to the kind neighbor who, unasked, took your children to her house for a few days so that you could go to bed with that awful flu. He's such a brick, you'd say, about the friend who was always there to lend a practical hand in times of trouble. A brick is someone thoughtful, kind, reliable, generous. Betsy is a brick. It's a large part of why I love her so much.

Several years ago I signed up for a tour of Lakewood Brick Company. It was scheduled to start quite early in the morning, and we lived in Park Hill at that time, so I left home about 7.00 a.m.  There was surprisingly little traffic about. Was it some holiday I'd forgotten? Rather than wondering about it I gave thanks for quiet streets which gave me time to pop into the grocery store to get a snack for lunch. The store somehow had an odd feeling to it, rather the way the roads had. The few customers all seemed to be standing in little groups engaged in serious conversations rather than actually shopping. I was getting a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

'What's going on?' I asked two employees who stood muttering together.

'Oh! Haven't you heard?' They stumbled over each other to give me the news.

'A plane crashed into one of the New York sky-scrapers,' said one.  'Only, then there was another crash so they don't know what's happening,' added the other.

I forgot lunch and went back to the car to listen to the radio. Clearly what they had told me was what was being reported, but all in total confusion. The newscasters obviously had no clear picture of what exactly had happened and what continued to happen. The only certainty was; it was not good. It was serious. It was some kind of national emergency.

What to do? Should I go back home? To do what? Would they cancel the Brick Company tour?

Uncertainly I turned through the high fence gates and parked, to be joined in the next few minutes by a few other cars. The tour began as scheduled but with about a quarter of the number expected. Those of us who had turned up gave it our best but it was hopeless. The man leading the tour tried, but was clearly distracted. He wasn't concentrating on what he was saying and no-one was really listening. Cell Phones kept chiming and chirping. The recipient would listen, disconnect, and pass on the latest to the rest of us. Pretty soon, by some kind of unspoken but unanimous decision, we gave up and went home through streets that were, if anything, even more silent than before, to sit at home and stare in horrified disbelief at our televisions along with everyone else.

Where we live now is not very far from Lakewood Brick Company. We drive past it quite often.  But no matter how many times I pass it, it never fails to take me back to that terrible day which so changed this country, and indeed the world, forever.

Until I started to write this piece, I don't think I had ever realized that bricks actually loom quite large in my psyche, one way and another. Amazing what you discover about yourself writing these little Monday afternoon vignettes.

© 12 Oct 2015 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.