Chester A. Arthur
by Marcia N. Lynch
The moon frightened me. But let me back up a bit. This happened before tennis balls were neon yellow — back when they came out of the soft-farts of the compressed cans fuzzy white. My older brother and I would collect the lost balls that went over the chain link fence of the tennis courts that were a short walk from the boy’s dormitory, which was our home, on the prep school campus where our father taught. Honeysuckle vines grew over the fence, and we would find old balls, gray and bald, lost in the sweet-smelling vines.
My brother had a homework assignment: Make a Puppet of Your Favorite United States President (I think Eisenhower was President at the time). He picked Chester A. Arthur, “Because he’s the most forgotten President,” he said. He asked our father to poke a hole in one of the gray tennis balls and cut a slit for a wide mouth. Elliott stuck it on his finger and squeezed the equator to make him talk. Neither of us knew what Chester A. Arthur was supposed to say, but Elliott made somber pronouncements like, “Four score and seven years ago,” and “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I loved Chester A. Arthur, the tennis ball President.
Early one morning my parents woke me up to see a stunning lunar eclipse. For the first time I saw the moon, not as a flat dinner plate, but as a gray sphere hanging impossibly in midair. I was so scared, I thought it might fall out of the sky and crush us. My father, ever the teacher, tried to calm me with astronomical explanations until Elliott said, “Look! It’s Chester A. Arthur! We have nothing to fear but fear itself!” I smiled up at the gray moon. There he was. Chester A. Arthur. The most unforgettable President.
About the Author
Marcia N. Lynch’s experience as a storyteller comes from working as a children’s film editor and from having been written into the story of Christ’s redemption. She studied sculpture at Mount Holyoke College. Sculpting, like film editing, requires an artist to cut out anything that does not relate to the primary subject matter, and these two disciplines have honed her storytelling skills. Marcia lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband of 38 years and has three grown children. She surrendered to Christ in 1975.
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Image is in the Public domain.
