Samantha at the Crossroads  (eBook - PDF)

Samantha at the Crossroads Book Description

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In the late 1960s, America was at a crossroads. It was divided over the war in Vietnam. The counter-culture challenged the World War Two generation. The Cold War held the threat of nuclear destruction. The race to the moon was in full swing. The sleepy cow town of Mineral Valley, Montana was no longer as isolated from the rest of the country as it once was. The culture war of the 1960s touched the family of a thirteen year-old girl, Sam Matijevic, growing up in this small town. In the early 1900s, the Milwaukee railroad was giving away land in central Montana to entice settlers to work in the mines that supplied the coal they transported to market. Sam’s grandparents had immigrated from Austria-Hungarian to homestead near Mineral Valley. Grandpa had worked as a coal miner to sustain his ranch until an accident had killed him during the Great Depression, which left Grandma a widow with seven kids. Sam, as a second generation American, did not experience her father’s life on the homestead, but she felt it. Her father’s feud with his brothers that drove him from the ranch left him with a hurt that he held onto as if it were a legacy for his children. He had tried to run a gas station at the edge of Mineral Valley, but the business had failed. As his father had, he took up the trade of a coal miner to hold onto his dreams. In 1968, Sam noticed that the frequency of the trains on the Milwaukee railroad was tapering off as the local mines were closing up. The town, as well as this young girl’s life, was at a crossroads. Sam was clinging to her childhood as she was reluctantly growing into a woman. She watched her two cousins, once close to her, slip away as they were being seduced into the 1960s counter-culture. Meanwhile, with the help of an understanding teacher and an elderly artist, Sam was breaking the pattern of having her reality defined by others. She was beginning to see what she really saw, hear what she really heard, and feel what she really felt.

Excerpts:
Chapter One
"Alex? Is that you?" Sam Matijevic asked in the twilight between sleep and consciousness.
The big gray tomcat scratched at the windowpane, generating high-pitched squeaks, which were as grating on Sam's nerves as hard fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.

Sam moaned, rolling up into her blanket like a burrito, but the cat kept on scratching.

"Okay. Okay. I'm coming," Sam said, unraveling the covers that had kept her so toasty that morning.

One foot touched the cold floor. Sam held her breath, and then took the plunge out of her warm bed. Running on her tiptoes, she banged her shins against the cold steel radiator. Last night, her folks had turned down the thermostat as far as it would go, less than fifty degrees. They always did that. It saved them money on coal, they said. It was ironic that Dad was a coal miner.

Sam wrestled with the window, twisting its corners up and down, walking the frame up its grooves. Alex's green eyes grew big and round. He nodded his big gray head as he watched his mistress coax the window open a crack. Sam reached through, pulling in twelve pounds of cat by the front paws.

Wedging the beast between her hip and arm, she whispered, "Oh, Alex. Why do I baby you like this?"

A pan clanged in the kitchen. Bacon crackled and popped as its salty, sweet aroma permeated the house. Sam lay back down in her warm bed, sniffing at her Dad's breakfast, which Mom was cooking up.

Sam knew Dad would share that breakfast with Trixie. That small dog occupied a large place in her Dad's heart. Sam could picture Dad setting aside some of his scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttered toast, putting them on a little plate, and cutting up the food into dainty portions. Then, he would set the plate by his feet so that he and the dog could eat together like best friends.

"There! How's my puppy dog? It's eats time. Eat 'em up good." Sam strained to hear her father coo in baby talk.

A few minutes later, Sam heard Mom turn on the television set. The Montana Morning Farm Report blared. Some announcer was broadcasting quotes on pork belly futures. Nothing else was on. It was too early for the Saturday morning cartoons.

That television set would be on till late into the night. When Sam wanted it quiet, she wasn't allowed to turn off the TV. Mother had to have the background noise. She said it kept her mind off things.

Sam knew that Dad would soon be going to work in Foster's mine. It was well into October, and he worked every Saturday as well as Monday through Friday. The mine had hibernated all summer and it woke up every fall, coming to life for the winter. The mine's cycle of activity was the opposite of the few brown bears that remained in the nearby hills. The mine was rushing to feed the local furnaces all hungry for Foster's coal. Moreover, that hunger would not abate till next spring. Then, the mine would sleep again.

"It won't be long till Tim comes." Sam closed her eyes, nestling in her bed, feeling secure and warm. She put her arms around Alex, lying on her hot stomach, purring luxuriously while kneading her chest with his front paws.

Sam sighed, looking up her room's pale green walls shoring up a dull white ceiling, the corners stitched with dusty cobwebs. It wasn't a pretty, girlish bedroom, but it was all hers now. For years, she had shared it with Debbie. When her brother John left for college last month, Debbie moved out, and both Debbie and Sam couldn't have been...

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