Betty Reid Soskin - The Test

 

The year was 2017, and my friends were settling for Friday night bingo at the senior center. I was a full-term permanent park ranger at Rosie the Riveter Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

But I had reached that age with problems that meant I had outlived my sense of future, and was involved in a grand improvisation. I was making up life one hour at a time. I was meeting with my attorney, going over end-of-life issues in the morning, going to work and then coming back to an exploding life. It was intense. I spent my days as a ranger doing things that rangers do, guiding tours. I was being involved in trainings. Of course, that takes up most of our lives as rangers.

 

Trainings in CPR, in which I was most often the victim, [audience laughter] trainings with that defibrillator that’s on the wall, just in case one of my visitors got in trouble, but also answering phones. And that was tricky for me, because I would answer the phone, "Rosie the Riveter Home Front National Historical Park," to a visitor or a potential visitor wanting to make reservations to hear one of my programs, because I was in the theater three to five times a week, doing programs involving the history of that great place. They would say, "My mother or my grandmother or my grandfather heard this woman and was excited." They would go on, on and I would feel more and more embarrassed, and Betty would go more into the third person.

 

And by the time the phone call was over, after I had gotten to the reservation books, which, incidentally, usually booked two or three months in advance. And they'd say, "To whom am I speaking?" And I would say, "Helen." [audience laughter] This became a joke among my colleagues, so much so that on one of my birthdays-- My supervisor had a new brass ID tag that I wore above my other tags, which said, Helen. [audience laughter] Helen became the persona that did all the things that Betty didn’t have the nerve enough to do, and Helen was to become a strong feature in my life. Because my family was involved in concern, and I was involved with those end-of-life issues and wondering whether living in an apartment alone was something I needed to go on doing. I had become a park ranger at the age of 85. I mean, who does that? [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

But my sons were deeply concerned about the fact that I was living alone. I’d given up driving, because my sight was failing, but I didn’t want my kids to have to wrestle my car keys out of my hand. So, my life was becoming more and more constricted, right? But on June 30th, I woke in the night to a presence. I realized that there was someone in my bedroom, and I turned to see a man standing not six feet away, with a small flashlight, looking through my things. 

 

I reached over to the nightstand where my cell phone was. Anyone would do that, right, to call the police. But my turning signaled to him that I was awake. And within seconds, he had leaped across my bed, had wrestled me out of the bed and flung my cell phone across the room. I remember feeling grateful that neither of us was armed, because had it been a gun, it wouldn't have lasted more than six seconds. 

 

We wrestled in that room, the stranger and me. I screamed as loud as I could scream. He pinned my arms. My back was against his chest. And I remember, for some strange reason, realizing that my head ended at his chin, and that he was probably 5’8”, 5’10”. It's amazing what comes to you in times like that.

 

We wrestled across the floor. When we got to the door of the hallway, I suddenly realized, even though I was still screaming, but my screams were being muffled by the fact that his arm was over my mouth. I was to learn later that no one was hearing me anyway, because the downstairs apartment was empty. But as we got to the doorway of the hallway, I reached out, and kicked his leg out from under him and we both fell. I fell with my back on the floor and he was straddled with his knees on each side of my body, my torso. And his hands were freed up, and he was trying hard to keep me from screaming, so he was pummeling my face with his bare fists. 

 

I suddenly realized my hands were free. And that he was wearing what was probably pajama pants, because there was a drawstring that I could feel, which meant [audience laughter] that the family jewels were exposed. [audience laughter] And somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered this magical thing. I reached in, [audience laughter] I grabbed his balls and I squeezed as hard as I could. [audience laughter] [audience holler, cheer and applause] 

 

And magically, he toppled over in a heap. [audience laughter] I was suddenly free. I was right next to the bathroom door. I plunged my way through the door and sat with my back against the lavatory and my feet propped against the door, so he couldn't get into me. And suddenly, suddenly I felt safe. I listened. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear anything. I don't know how long that session ended, but I suddenly realized that under the lavatory was my electric iron. So, I reached in, I pulled it out, stood up long enough to plug it into the wall and turned it up to linen. [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

I was going to brand him for the police. [audience laughter] It was still silent. As soon as I felt it was safe enough, decided that he was gone, that my intruder was no longer there, I went in calmly, got myself into some clean pajamas, went out the front door, still with the iron in my hand, now cooling, pounded my neighbor's door, neighbors I had not met, pounded on. And suddenly, Arthur Hadley, my neighbor who I'd never met, arrived. He opened the door, let me in, yelling to his wife, "Call the police, Helen." [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

That night, I think I received a gift that was unattended. Because when the police arrived, and the city officials with them, and the police department was there because I'm a pretty noted figure in my city, they offered not only counseling, but to relocate me if I needed that to happen. And I suddenly realized, despite my kids' fears or even my own, that that intruder had given me a gift, that for the first time in my life I knew that I'd been tested, not only survived, but prevailed. And I'm now 97, still living alone. Thank you. Thank you.