The Volunteer

ACS friends; We moved into 1047, a portable in Dhahran's eastside and the head of seventh street; we were on the edge of the desert. There was no camp perimeter fence then and the Saudi police station was just behind to the north. Their marching band (percussion and symbols) used our oily street to practice and we would sit on the stair stoop and watch them in the late afternoon. Workers poured the sidewalk on one of those days and as we watched the band, the finisher pressed my sister's feet into the wet cement.

In 1950 we moved next door to 1049-A. We had a woven barasti (stripped palm frong) fence; the grass was plugged and began to spread. Dad fashioned a swooping fence of privet hedge along the front; he trimmed that. I did the lawn and trimmed the side hedge. In the front corner where the hedge shared the corner with 1047, I noticed a small vine sticking above the hedge one day while mowing. The leaves were different from the privet. I searched into the hedge and found the trail down to the ground. It was actually several tendrils and they were twisted about one another. I showed it to Dad and over the years we watched the volunteer acacia grow to become a 20 or 25 foot sentinal. It was a kind of landmark. During shamaals it would bend to the south and whip like laundry on the line. It shaded both yards and the sidewalk. Pedestrians used to pause beneath it on hot days.

When I returned to Dhahran in 1982, I went right to 1049-A. The hedges were tall, untrimmed, and the acacia was gone- a driveway covered its resting place. Ten forty-seven wasn't the same either; it was still a portable but a different kind and the property line between the two homes had been adjusted. The sidewalk was badly spalled except where the hedge overlapped the concrete. I pushed the base of the hedge back in several places and finally found my sister's tiny prints. They are final testimony to families who had gone before and days that have gone bye. I made a rubbing and later sent it to her.

Rolf Christophersen