Opus

Wayland Middle School's Literary Magazine

Walter Brundl

Written By: mpeirce - Jun• 16•11

Walter Brundl
by Ben Verdi

Six Million. That is the number of people killed in the holocaust.  During a twelve year period beginning in 1933, a man named Adolph Hitler started a war which in the end led to the  persecution of  many people: Jews, Socialists, Labor workers, Handicapped people, anyone who Hitler saw as a threat to his control.  His victims were targeted for who they were and what they believed. They were men, women and children all across Europe and especially in Germany where Hitler ruled. This wasn’t 500 years ago.  This occurred when my grandparents were kids like you and me.  Many people at the time knew that Hitler’s actions were wrong.  Some even had the courage to stand up and fight against Hitler’s actions.  I would like to tell you the story of one of these brave people, my great grandfather, Walter Brundl.

My great grandfather Walter was a Lutheran minister living in Germany with his wife and seven kids, one of whom is my grandma Alei.  As a Christian minister, his life’s work was to    deliver the beliefs of God and Jesus.  Even though many people followed the Nazi party, my great grandfather, Walter, believed that Hitler’s ideas were wrong no matter what race, ethnicity, or religion was targeted.  He had the courage to put himself and his family at risk to stand up for social justice and against Hitler’s injustice towards the people of Europe.

One Sunday morning, in a small  town in Germany, my great grandfather was delivering his sermon when he heard a group of Nazi soldiers marching by his church.  He was standing  in the church when he heard the noise getting louder and louder.  My great grandfather’s church is very big.  The distance from the pulpit to the front steps outside, is 65 steps. I often think about how many times, during those 65 steps, he thought about turning around and not putting his and his family’s lives in danger. But what kept him walking, past the two Nazi soldiers in the back of the church monitoring his sermon and double checking his message, was the power of his conviction and his belief that the Nazis were wrong in their actions.  When the Nazis approached his church, he shouted for them to never march past a house of God on a Sunday ever again.  This was in part because they were interrupting his sermon but more significantly because what they were marching in support of was so wrong.

 

This is one of the examples of how my great grandfather stood up for what he thought was right.  It was public knowledge that my great grandfather was opposed to the war and the Nazi party.  When the Nazis burned the local synagogue, where Jewish citizens worshipped, my great grandfather and his wife mourned with the Jewish people who had lost their place of worship.  As a result of my great grandfather’s outspoken actions against the Nazi party, he and his entire family were placed on Hitler’s black list, which meant that they were put at risk of being removed from their community and placed in a concentration camp.  Though Walter knew this was a probable consequence to his actions, it did not get in the way of his bravery and passion to stand up for what he believed.  He was not famous, he wasn’t a public figure, he was just a regular person who was not afraid to stand up for what he believes.

I think this is exactly what Martin Luther King, Jr was trying to do for his whole life.  He knew not everyone could be the leader of a civil rights movement or give famous speeches, but his goal was to have people stand up for the small injustices occurring in their lives.  My great grandfather and Martin  Luther King Jr may not have ever met, but their ideas about social justice and freedom were of the same school of thought.  To quote Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, “when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”  My great grandfather knew he could not change the world or the Germans’ views, but in his community, he knew he could make a difference by standing up for what he believed was right in God’s eyes and our own daily lives.  I light this candle in honor of my great grandfather Walter Brundl.

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Anne Cundari

Written By: mpeirce - Jun• 16•11

Anne Cundari
by Katie Cundari

The crash of a bomb over a hill, or the cry for water that comes from nearby.  The need for food or some kind of shelter, and the relief that comes when it is received.  I have never experienced any of these things, but everyday I am reminded of them.

My mom works as a writer, but she writes for a very special purpose.  Her company is an engineering company that designs for social development.  They build schools, roads, bridges, hospitals, and irrigation systems in places like Afghanistan, Liberia, Ethiopia, and many other third world countries.  My mom’s goal with her writing is to make proposals that tell the government what needs to be done and what her company can do to help.  The writing she does every day saves people from many tragedies that can be prevented.

The company for which my mom works puts a big emphasis on capacity building or, in common language, teaching instead of doing.  Just like the famous saying that if you give a man a fish he’ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.  This helps with social justice because my mom and the company she works with provide and teach how to create the basic rights like life, water, food, and shelter.

I would like to light a candle to my mom because of how much she really cares about the people we don’t necessarily think about every day.  Even though she is not an engineer herself, my mom makes a difference in the lives of many others every day using her gift of writing.  The best thing my mom does is make every part of her work as personal as it should be.  People in need have to have other people care about them to make real change happen, and even though my mom can’t be in the countries herself to see the change that occurs, she still finds a way to make good in other peoples’ lives.  As Martin Luther King Jr. has said, my mom believes that “their destiny is tied up with their destiny.  We cannot walk alone.”

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Richard O’Keefe

Written By: mpeirce - Jun• 16•11

Richard O’Keeffe
by Megan O’Keeffe

Sandra Day O’Connor, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie- Just some of the names that come to mind when I think about people that have worked for justice, though they all did it in different ways. But today I am here to talk about my grandfather, Richard O’Keeffe. A father, a
husband, and in ways, a hero.

Richard Kevin O’Keeffe was born in 1930 and was the first of the O’Keeffes to be born in America. All of his older sisters and his brother were born in Ireland, and his mom moved to America when she was pregnant with him. So I guess you could say that he was a first generation American, at least for the O’Keeffe family.

Between 1950-1955 he was in the Navy. He served on the USS San Pablo, a sea plane tender, between 1954 and 1955 during the Korean Conflict. A sea plane tender takes damaged sea planes and brings them onto a ship so they can fix them up so they are able to be used again. My grandfather was more in the delivery part of that system. His job was to draw the big metal claws down onto the water and pick up the sea planes and put them on the ships to get fixed up so some men could go back out and fight.

During his time in the Navy he fell in love with Beverly Mone, my grandmother, and married her in 1953. At this time he was 23 and she was 22.

After he left the Navy, he and my grandmother settled down in New York. Throughout the 1960s they had five children, two daughters and then three boys. During this time my grandfather was a union organizer. He did this between the 1960s and 70s. He worked to make sure that nurses, maintenance workers, and hotel workers were treated fairly and got fair pay. The majority of people he organized and represented were underprivileged or new immigrants.

But during all of this, in the 70s, he was also doing his best to raise five children. One time, in 1973, he was going to the model store and asked everyone if they wanted anything while he was there. My dad, Will, who was 6 at the time, asked for a Woolly Mammoth. My Uncle Michael, who was 4 at the time, thought that he said Willy Mammoth, so he asked for a Michael Mammoth. So my grandfather went out and bought two Woolly Mammoths, left one as is and on the other he crossed out Woolly and wrote Michael on it just so his youngest son would be happy and wouldn’t feel cheated out of a model.

Although there are some things that he did in certain time periods, there are some things that he did basically throughout his whole life. Like controlling the radio. Take a moment and really imagine the picture I’m about to paint for you. He, my grandmother, and their five kids, a couple of them teens and the rest still elementary school age, all driving in the family Lincoln Continental—think long, but not spacious. They are driving down the highway peacefully, or at least it seemed like that, but then all of a sudden the Irish music stops playing and everyone starts yelling out the type of music that they want to listen to. One of the girls wants country, the other wants folk, and the boys want rock. My grandfather, however, just puts on more Irish music, completely ignoring what everyone else wants to listen to. It didn’t matter to him, as long as he had his Irish music, and I’m sure you could all imagine how that made everyone else feel. But nobody would argue, because it was the fair settlement.  No one received special treatment, and it was consistent.

And then there are the fundraisers that he did. He did them to help people who were displaced from North Ireland due to the conflicts between the British and the Irish Republicans. Since his family was from Ireland, he thought that it was right to help people who needed assistance and had their lives disrupted. He didn’t think it was fair for some people to have so much but for others to be so needy and really need help to get by. He thought it was important to help out others as much as you possibly could.

He even helped out his nieces and nephews out a lot. A lot of them came from bad home lives, parents or parent dead or divorced. So he employed them so that they could have an opportunity to turn around their lives and make something of themselves.  Just like King, he believed in fairness and people being treated justly. My grandfather didn’t care about someone’s race or gender or sexuality, he just cared about people being treated as they should be.

Although, unfortunately, he died of Melanoma skin cancer in 1978 at age 48, I know that he has helped many and that his legend lives on within me, my sister, my father, and many others out there helping out the less fortunate.

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Madeline

Written By: mpeirce - Jun• 16•11

Madeline
by Maria Arenas

My name is Madeline, just Madeline. The rest isn’t important. I live in Paris with Miss Clavel and eleven other girls. You see, none of us have mommies or daddies, but that’s all right ‘cause we have Miss Clavel, and she’s all we need. And each other of course, we’re like sisters. Except we’re all different sizes and colors and shapes and all. I’m the smallest. Except no, there’s Mary Lou. She shrunk so I ‘spose she’s the smallest now. People say I have red hair, but I know they’re wrong. If they looked close enough, they’d see it was really orange, like the clementines we see as we walk by the market. We always go on walks, Miss Clavel, the other girls, and myself. That’s when it all started. That’s why I have this funny looking scar on my stomach.

I remember it so clearly, like it happened yesterday or even just a second ago. It was real pretty outside. Miss Clavel was pointing out the birds to us, telling us all sorts of names that none of us were gonna remember. The sun was so strong, I had to squint and put my hand up to my forehead, so that I looked like a captain scouting the navy seas. I liked it; I got into it.

“Ahoy!” I said, standing up stick straight. That is, until I felt a sharp pain right here, on my stomach. I folded inwards, like a little beetle. It felt like a knife jabbing into me, as if pirates had come aboard my ship and were swinging their swords. It hurt so much, I almost keeled over onto the ground. But Betsy caught me, and called for Miss Clavel, who swooped me up into her arms, so I could smell the lavender perfume on her neck. By that time, the pain had disappeared and all that was left as evidence that it had happened were all the girls crowding around me, their eyebrows knotted together in concern. I smiled and said it was alright, jumping out of Miss Clavel’s arms and landing neatly, like a gymnast, on the flagstone ground to prove it.

That night it was normal routine; we ate, brushed our teeth, and were tucked into bed. With a chorus of voices sleepily saying “Goodnight Miss Clavel,” she was out the door. The only light left in the room was from the moonbeams shining through the window. I started to hum, like I did every night. This sweet, light tune that Miss Clavel taught me one day.

That day that she found me, that day that was cold and grey and rainy and I was all alone. She was holding a big bag of groceries, almost spilling over with fresh fruits and vegetables. Not to mention those thick, warm loaves of bread Monsieur Finn bakes every morning. She saw me with my yellow ribbon wet and limp against my head, my shoes in tatters and my feet soaking wet. I looked terrible. Now that I think about it, it’s pretty embarrassing. But she didn’t even stop to think. She took my dirty, grimy hand, bent down to my eye level, and asked me for my name.

“Madeline,” I said shyly. She smiled, the most beautiful smile I had  ever seen. Her teeth were like pearls, the kind I used to see in the windows of the shops the beautiful ladies walked into.

“Madeline,” she repeated. It sounded like a word in a song, the way she said it. Then I smiled for the first time in forever. I liked the feeling of it, the way it stretched your skin and pulled up on the corners of your mouth. Then she started to sing a song. I stopped smiling, so I could concentrate. It was so beautiful, like everything of hers was, that I wanted to remember it forever. I asked her for the name of it. She thought for a second, and then shrugged.

“I don’t know about the name, but I do know that it’s magical. Sing this song, little Madeline, and you won’t ever have to be afraid.” I remember everything up until there, and then this weird fog spreads in my memory, and I can’t remember the rest. I don’t like how time does that, fogs things up I mean. But then again, I guess I do because I don’t want to remember any of that awful stuff that happened to me before Miss Clavel rescued me. So I guess I should say thank you, Time, for dulling down the pain.

Anyways, there I was, in the moonlit room trying to sing myself to sleep.When all of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, there’s that sharp pain again. But this time it hurts more, and I can’t stop it. And pretty much against my will, a long low moaning sound escapes my throat, waking a few girls up. Whispers of concern quickly circulated around the room and wide eyes with long lashes tried to peer through the darkness to see what was happening to me. I started to get dizzy. Either that, or the bed really did slip from under me, and I really was sinking through the ground. Until those warm arms grabbed me, held me tightly like they would never let go.

“Madeline, Madeline what’s wrong? Madeline, can you answer me? Madeline?” I couldn’t move my mouth, it felt like mush on my face. And my eyes, they wouldn’t open. They were squeezed shut. Time oozed on, and all I could think about was that pain pinching my insides, growing and growing and never getting better. But I do remember being wrapped up in something warm and fuzzy. Something that smelled like hospital, something that brought me right back to that day when Miss Clavel brought me in to see the doctor. He had looked at those purple tinted pools on my skin, sometimes poking at the ones that were turning murky green. He shined a light in my eyes, looked in my ears as if he were searching for treasure. I tried to tell him he wouldn’t find anything, but then he pulled a coin out of nowhere and I thought maybe I did have treasure in my ears. He laughed until I tried to dig around there and find some for myself. Then he snatched away my hand and told me never to do that, that I would lose my hearing or something silly like that. That was almost as silly as him looking in my ear for treasure, but then I remembered that he had found that coin after all, and I stopped digging. I think he was tired of me by the end, the way his arms sagged at his sides and his shoulders were just a little bit too forwards. But then he handed me a small stuffed bunny, and said that I had been good. I looked up at Miss Clavel.  “You hear that, Miss Clavel? I’ve been good!”
I woke up to the smell of plaster and soap. Hovering over me was a plump woman, her face puckered up and worried, clucking her tongue as she arranged the blankets around my legs. I blinked, and stared at her for a second, waiting for her to notice. but she kept going, as if I were a doll that she expected to stay still as porcelain and never speak again. I sat up very suddenly, giving her the surprise of her life I think, ‘cause she ran out of the room calling “Doctor! Doctor!” Then a man rushed in, dressed in one of those long white coats that almost trailed on the ground. He flashed a light in my eyes, peered in my mouth, and even searched in my ears. This time I knew to stay still. He mumbled a few things, and scribbled some stuff on a notepad, then rushed out the room while at the same time, ushering someone in. It was Miss Clavel. Her steps were graceful and light, so that it almost seemed like she was gliding right above the ground on her own personal cloud. I couldn’t help but smile, she looked like an angel.

She didn’t smile back though. Instead she came to my side and asked, “Madeline, are you feeling alright?” I rolled my eyes, I was getting tired of having people worry about me all the time. She smiled at that, and kissed me on the forehead. She pulled a chair over to the side of my hard hospital bed and we spoke for a while. Mostly about little things, like how all the girls were so concerned about me, and how Monsieur Finn sent me flowers and here they were. Mostly I just smiled and nodded, happy just to see Miss Clavel.  Then she said something crazy, something I almost couldn’t believe. She lifted up my shirt, and right there on my stomach was a weird little scar. It was just a line, just a simple old line. But I had a birthmark right near the end so to me it looked more like a musical note. She told me that they had opened me up right there and taken out that thing that was hurting me so bad. She said that I didn’t even notice because they had put me into some weird sleep. She made it sound like science, but I knew it was really magic. That all the love of my sisters and Miss Clavel had helped me get those pirates off my ship.

That night, before my nurse switched off my light and I was lying in bed, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. Right up on the ceiling, was a bunny. I swear it. It was sprawled up there, bigger than me. It looked like a mistake in the painting of the room, but to me it was no mistake. I ran my finger over the little hill of skin that made my scar. I had been good.
The rest of the story isn’t much. Miss Clavel came with all eleven of my sisters. They brought me the most beautiful flowers!  “From Monsieur Finn,” they said, smiling.

Miss Clavel placed them all around me. “A little taste of sunshine,” she said. I stood up on the bed, lifting my shirt up so they could see my stomach. A chain of gasps sounded in the room as each one of them took turns looking at it. I told them the whole story of how they had cut me open, taken out that evil little organ, and then sewed me right back up again. They stared at me amazed, calling me strong and brave and giving me hugs and apologies that they hadn’t come sooner. That they had wanted to but Miss Clavel had told them it would be better to wait. Soon after, they all left, promising me that they would visit me again soon. All except for Miss Clavel. She asked the girls to wait in the hall and then closed the door to the room. She came over to the bed and wrapped those warm, soft arms of hers around me so I could smell that same lavender perfume.

“You’ve been brave, my dear little Madeline.” Those are words I’ll never ever forget, not in a zillion lifetimes.

 

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Welcome to Opus

Written By: admin - May• 01•11

Welcome to Wayland Middle School’s Online Literary Magazine -OPUS!

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