Family’s Love, Concern For Son Move To Front
‘It’s scary when we go down to Croatia and Bosnia,” Pfc. Ed Starr confesses over the telephone. He’s nine time zones away from home, living in a U.S. Army tent on the border of Hungary and Croatia.
“I don’t mind being over here, but I don’t like being away from home - and I miss my fiancee,” he says in a poorly disguised plea for a phone-moment alone with Angie Lickfold.
Ka-ching, ka-ching. Lane and Judy Starr can hear the telephone bill growing as their son updates Angie, his parents and grandparents about life on an overseas peacekeeping mission.
“When he first got there, our phone bill was $400,” Lane says, quivering his lip in a mock whimper. “Then it was $280. I don’t know what this month will cost.”
It’s the price the Starrs pay for peace of mind. They talk to Ed more than to his older brother, who’s a senior at the University of Idaho. But they know their older son is safe.
“There’s no nurturing them when they’re far away,” Judy says.
Lane wears Ed’s black Army T-shirt proudly. Lane served in a M*A*S*H unit during the Vietnam War, so he understands what his son is feeling and facing.
“It’s scary. There’s sniping. They’re shooting rockets,” he says. “There are rebel factions that haven’t bought into the peace.”
Ed graduated from Lakeland High School at Rathdrum in 1993 and joined the Army last spring to earn money for college. He planned to serve in Panama but wasn’t needed there by the time he had finished training. So he chose Germany.
Just before Christmas, his unit was sent to the Hungarian border.
His parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and fiancee gather regularly to share news about Ed and pack him care packages. Grandma Evelyne makes persimmon cookies. Judy packs pounds of peanut butter balls and warm socks.
“The only way to really support him now is to send him things,” Judy says, her eyes roaming to the 8-by-10-inch photo of Pfc. Ed on Evelyne’s end table.
And to pay for his phone calls.
Touchdown!
Tim Hayes made major points with his mother, Marilyn Hayes, during last Sunday’s Pittsburgh Steelers football playoff game.
Marilyn lives in Mullan, where Tim grew up. But Tim settled in Pittsburgh 20 years ago after marrying an East Coast girl.
He was thrilled he had tickets to the big game and phoned his mother days before the game to tell her.
“I told him to do something, like paint his head black, so I could see him in the stands,” she says. “And he said, ‘Oh, I will.”’
Before Marilyn could turn on her TV set Sunday to watch the game, Tim was on the phone, calling her from the stadium parking lot to tell her about the pre-game excitement.
He called again at halftime and told another spectator to pipe down so he could speak to his mother. Then he called her at game’s end so she could hear the roaring crowd.
“He told me all the hoopla,” Marilyn says. “He thought it would be a kick for me for my birthday, and it was.”
She never did see him in the stands, but for some reason, it didn’t matter.
Favorite places
I’ve probably trudged, hiked or run over Coeur d’Alene’s Tubbs Hill several hundred times, but it never is boring to me. I go there when I need a refuge and when I need a place to run off excess energy. My daughters and I share stories there, and my dog and I exhaust ourselves there.
What’s your favorite place and why is it so special? Do you have a picture of it? Capture it in words for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; send a fax to 765-7149 or call 765-7128 and woo me away from Tubbs Hill.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo