Hamm said, “Naw, Rodney, I don’t think it’s just the money—they are different from us. I was around a few of those rich people once and found that out myself.”
“When was this?”
“After the war, when I was in school, I met a few of those rich college boys while I was waiting tables. I used to joke around with them every once in a while. I wasn’t friends with them or nothing like that, but this one kid from Minneapolis must have thought I was unique or something and invited me to go home with him one weekend.”
“Wait a minute. You? Unique?”
Hamm smiled. “Yeah, well, they thought I had a funny accent and I laid it on a bit, you know, played the hayseed for them. So anyhow, I go home with him and we pull up to this big, huge three-story deal where he lives. I never saw anything like that in my life, the whole damn backyard is a lake.”
“What lake was it?”
“It was their lake. I’m telling you, these people were rich, and the kid tells me it’s their summerhouse. I said, Where do you live in the winter, Buckingham damn Palace? Anyhow, I never felt so out of place in my life. That family of his was nothing but a bunch of cold fish. I don’t even think they liked each other and they treated me like I was something that just dropped out of a tree. And I’ll tell you something: After that weekend, I’d take any one of those farmers over them any day of the week. I don’t want a thing they have. They can keep all their big houses, the servants, the cars, I don’t need them.” Then his voice trailed off. He looked down at the little stream with a faraway look in his eyes and said quietly, “But they did have this boat. One day his old man took us all out on the lake in it and oh, man alive, that was the prettiest thing you ever saw . . . all white, with shiny wood inside.” He shook his head. “To tell you the truth, sport, I’d cut off my right arm for a boat like that.”
Rodney suddenly felt sorry for him. He tried to cheer him up. “You know what you need, Hambo? You need to come up to St. Louis with me, play a little poker, we’ve got some good games up there, and fool around a little. Have some fun for a change, what do you say?”
“Wish I could but I just don’t have the time to spare,” Hamm said, getting up to leave.
“Well, you know what I always say . . . if you can’t get anywhere in this world, you might as well have fun while you aren’t getting there.”
Up in a Tree
AFTER AUNT ELNER lost her husband, Will, she had wanted to stay on the farm but Norma was worried about her living out in the country all by herself and insisted she move to town. She wanted her close so she could keep an eye on her and she was not going to rest until she did. So Aunt Elner sold the farm and Norma and Macky found her a house a couple of blocks from them. It was a small house, with a bedroom, kitchen, living room, and a nice front porch; but the thing Aunt Elner liked right away was the big fig tree in the backyard. She brought a few of her favorite chickens and her cat Sonny and moved in, but Norma still checked on her day and night. Aunt Elner said, “You’d think two blocks was twenty miles the way you carry on. I might as well have stayed out on the farm.”
“Yes, but at least I know we can get to you in a few minutes if anything happens.”
“Honey, if I die here or out on the farm, getting to me faster is not going to make much difference.”
“Maybe not to you but I’ll feel better knowing you’re not lying around in the yard dead, with the chickens pecking at you.”
Aunt Elner laughed. “It would not bother me. I’ve eaten enough of them in my day.” Aunt Elner liked to tease her but promised her she would take good care of herself. Even though Elner said and meant it, she was still capable of upsetting Norma from time to time. Just this morning there had been an incident, and Norma was still going on and on about it. “You shouldn’t even be climbing stairs at your age, much less a ten-foot ladder. I have never been so close to fainting in my life. I came out into the yard and looked up and there you were just hanging in the top of the tree.”
“I wasn’t hanging, I was sitting.”
“Well, sitting or hanging, what if I had not come over? You’ve got to be more careful. What if I’d found you dead on the ground?”
“Oh, Norma, I’ve picked fruit all my life and I’m not dead yet. Besides, it’s that Griggs dog’s fault. He’s the one that knocked the ladder down chasing after poor Sonny. Go fuss at him.”
“I don’t care whose fault it was, promise me you will not get on that ladder again. Let Macky do it or call next door and get Merle.”
“All right.”
“You are not as young as you used to be, you know.”
Later that night, Aunt Elner called. “Norma, let me ask you this.”
“What?”
“Who is younger than they used to be? I don’t know anybody; even those that get face-lifts are still just as old as they were. Even if you went into a different time zone you’d still be the same age, wouldn’t you?”
Norma had to admit she was right but added, “That’s not the point; the point is you need to be more careful.”
“The point is that Griggs dog ought to stay out of my yard and quit chasing my cat.”
“Aunt Elner.”
“I know, a promise is a promise.”
But a new day is a new day. The next morning around ten, when Linda was at school, the phone rang. Norma picked up.
“Norma? I have a question for you,” said Aunt Elner.
“Hold on, let me turn off my beans.”
“What kind of beans are you making?”
“String beans. I just threw in a handful so Macky would have something green with his lunch. Why?”
“I just wondered. . . . What’s he getting?”
“Salmon croquettes, sliced tomatoes, corn, and string beans.”
“What kind of bread?”
“Cornbread. I had a few slices left over. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“Did you have a question for me?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What was it?”
“Wait a minute . . . let me think.”
“What was it about?”
“I know. Norma, do I have any insurance?”
“What kind of insurance?”
“Any kind.”
“Uncle Will had his Mason’s policy, I think. Why?”
“Well, some lady came to the door and wanted to know and I didn’t know what to tell her so I told her she’d have to ask you.”
“What woman?”
“Some woman. I don’t know who she was . . . she left her card. Do you want me to go and get it?”
“Yes.”
There was a loud clack when Aunt Elner put the phone down on the table. A few minutes later she came back on the line.
“Her name is June Garza. Do you know her?”
“No, what company is she with?”
“Aetna . . . Insurance . . . so I told her that my niece and her husband handle all that for me.”
“Good, what did she say?”
“She said she wanted to know where you lived so she could ask you about it.”
“Good Lord, you didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Well, I had to. She asked me.”
“How long ago . . . ?”
“Just a little while ago—”
“Oh Lord . . .”
“She’s real nice. She has on a green suit and—”
“Aunt Elner, let me call you back.”
“Okay . . . I just wanted you to be on the lookout.”
“I’ll call you back.” Norma put down the phone and ran into the living room and looked up and down the street and shut the front door and closed her blinds and pulled the curtains. She went back to the kitchen and closed those blinds and she hid down under the wall phone, reached up, and dialed Macky’s number. When he picked up she whispered, “Macky . . . when you come home, don’t come in the front door, come up the alley and come in the back. And knock three times so I’ll know it’s you.”
&
nbsp; “What?”
“Aunt Elner gave some insurance woman our address and she’s headed over here . . . and I don’t want to have to deal with her.”
“You don’t have to deal with her—just go to the door and tell her you don’t need any insurance.”
“I’m not going to be rude to her, for God’s sake.”
“That’s not being rude.”
“You can’t just say no, until you let them go through their sales things. You don’t know why that poor woman is having to work . . . she might have children to support. You might be able to break her heart but I can’t—”
“Norma, you are not going to break her heart. She’s an insurance salesman.”
“She’s probably married to some alcoholic and . . . shhh.” There was a knock at the front door. “Oh my God, she’s here . . . be quiet!” She pulled the phone into the pantry and hid.
“Norma, just go to the door and tell her thank you very much but we don’t need any insurance. If you don’t go now, she’ll just come back. You don’t want to get her hopes up . . . that’s even worse. You have to learn to say no. You don’t have to be rude. Go on now, get it over with.”
The woman at the door continued to knock. She was not going away.
“Oh, Macky, I could just kill you.”
Norma put the phone down, stood there for a moment, screwed her courage to the wall, took a deep breath, and headed for the door.
About forty-five minutes later the bell over the hardware store door rang and a lady of about forty, wearing a green suit and carrying a brown attaché case walked in. She approached Macky with a pleasant smile. “Mr. Warren?”
Macky said, “Yes, ma’am, what can I do for you?”
“Mr. Warren, I’m June Garza from Aetna Insurance and your wife said that you might be interested in hearing about our new three-and-one policy . . . and I wondered if now might be a convenient time?” The phone rang. “I can come back after lunch if you like. . . .”
Macky was caught. “Uh, well . . . excuse me, Mrs. Garza . . . let me get that.” He picked up the phone. Norma was on the other end.
“Macky, is she there yet?”
Macky smiled back at Mrs. Garza. “That’s right.”
“Now, before you get mad at me, I just wanted you to know her husband is a diabetic and lost his left leg and is probably going to lose the other one somewhere down the line.”
“Yes, well, thank you very much.”
Norma continued. “And her mother-in-law has had three strokes and is on very expensive high-blood-pressure medicine. And one of the reasons she has to work today is because they didn’t have insurance.”
“All righty, anything else?” He pretended to be writing down a list of things.
“I know you’re mad at me . . . but—”
Macky tried to sound pleasant. “That’s correct.”
“Don’t take it out on her. Just come on home and take a gun and kill me, shoot me in the head, put me out of my misery.”
“Thank you, I’ll be sure and do that. Good-bye, Mrs. Mud.”
Macky wound up buying two home-owner policies, one for them and one for Aunt Elner.
Small-Town Living, February 1953
If a stranger walked down the street past the barbershop in Elmwood Springs on Saturday afternoon and glanced in, he would see a group of middle-aged, gray-haired men sitting around chewing the fat. But if you were one of the men inside you would see six friends you had grown up with, not old men. Doc didn’t see the wrinkles on Glenn Warren’s face or notice that his neck had turned red and sagged with age or the wide girth straining his suspenders to the breaking point. He saw a skinny boy of seven with lively eyes. They were fixed in one another’s eyes as the boys they used to be. When Doc looked at sixty-eight-year-old Merle he saw the blond boy of ten he used to go swimming with. And to all of them, the balding man in the short sleeves with the little potbelly was still the boy who scored the winning touchdown that won the county championship. There wasn’t a secret among them. They knew one another’s families as well as they knew one another. Their wives, now plump gray matrons in comfortable shoes, they still saw as the pretty dimpled girls of eight or twelve that they had once had crushes on. Since they’d all grown up together, they’d never had to wonder who they were; it was clearly reflected in one another’s eyes. They never questioned friendship; it was just there, like it had been when they were children. They had all been at one another’s weddings. They’d shared in all the sadness and happiness of one another’s lives. It would never occur to them to be lonely. They would never know what it was like to be without friends. They would never have to wander from town to town, looking for a place to be; they had always had a place to come home to, a place where they belonged and where they were welcome. None of these men would ever be rich but they would never be cold or go hungry or be without a friend. They knew if one died the others would quietly step in and their children would be raised and their wives would be cared for; it was unspoken. They had a bond. Small-town people usually take these things for granted. As a certain young man named Bobby Smith was to find out for himself that year.
On January 3 Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn in as the president of the United States and Tot Whooten was not happy about it. She said, “Just my luck. The first time I take the trouble to vote and my man loses.” On January 21, Neighbor Dorothy and Mother Smith traveled all the way up to Kansas City to welcome Harry and Bess Truman back home to Missouri. They stood in the crowd at the station along with ten thousand other people and waited for the train. It was an hour late but they were there as Harry and Bess arrived and the American Legion Band played the “Missouri Waltz.” It was hard to realize that Harry would no longer be in the White House but, as they say, time marches on. Yet, even though other things in the world may have changed, The Neighbor Dorothy Show remained the same. She still had her same loyal audience, who would no more think of missing her show than not having their first cup of coffee in the morning.
February 19 was a cold, wet, windy day in Elmwood Springs. Dorothy had just finished her last Golden Flake Flour commercial and was rather circumspect and subdued. As the show was ending she said, “You know, so many of you have written in over the years and asked me what is the best thing to do for a blue mood . . . and asked if I have ever been in a blue mood, and yes, you can be sure I have. I can only tell what helps me and that is baking. I can’t tell you how many cakes I have baked over the years, how many cups of flour I have sifted, how many cake pans I have greased, all because there is something about baking a cake that gets me out of a mood, and so I’ll just pass that on for what it’s worth. Speaking of that, you all know I’ve been a little blue lately, missing my children, but I feel so much better today and I’d like to share a letter with you we got from Bobby yesterday . . .
“Dear Mother,
“Since you gave out my address over the radio, you would not believe how many cards and letters and other good stuff has come my way. Please thank them all for me and the rest of the guys. A lot of these guys don’t get mail and they are getting a big kick out of reading mine and helping me eat all the cookies, fudge, and cakes that have made it all the way to Korea. Most of the guys in my company are from big cities. I guess it took sending me all the way over here to really appreciate my hometown. So love to Dad and slam the screen door for me will you, so your listeners won’t be too lonesome for me.
“Love, your son,
“Pfc. Bobby Smith
“And I also want to thank you. You all have been so sweet to write and send him things. You know I don’t like to get sentimental but I will say this: We all know he was a handful and I think of all the times I yelled at him to sit still, to stop running, not to slam the door, but today I’d give a million dollars if I could hear him slam that door or see a cake where he had run a finger around the bottom. Oh, if we could only stop time, and speaking of time . . . I can see by the old clock on the wall that it’s time to go. I can’t wait until
tomorrow, when we can visit with each other again . . . you mean so much to us . . . each and every one of you. This is Neighbor Dorothy with Mother Smith on the organ . . . saying . . . have a nice day.”
To Dorothy’s great disappointment, the very day Bobby had turned eighteen Monroe had driven him over to Poplar Bluff and he had joined the army and left school. It had come as a surprise to everyone but there was nothing they could do. The night before he left Jimmy had come into Bobby’s room and handed him his watch. “I want you to wear this for me while you’re gone. I’d be going if I could.”
Bobby was touched and put it on. “Thanks, Jimmy, I’ll take good care of it.”
“Well, I won’t get a chance to see you in the morning, so good luck to you over there, buddy.”
“He’s just going to training camp,” said Doc to Dorothy, trying not to make a big deal out of it, but the next day when he looked up and saw the 10:45 bus drive by the drugstore with his son on it, he wondered if he would ever see him again.
As soon as he finished dispensing Mrs. Whatley’s thyroid pills, he stepped out in the back alley for a moment and leaned against the building. The sun was shining and he could hear the high school band practicing over at the football field just as if it were another ordinary fall day.
Winter Wonderland, March 1953
FROM THE TIME Bobby had arrived in Korea he’d felt as if he were trapped inside of the big display he used to see in the window at the Morgan Brothers department store every Christmas. Only in this winter wonderland the things moving around were ugly, brown, grinding tanks, men with machine guns, and medics carrying stretchers full of wounded, dead, or dying soldiers. Bloodstains littered the white snow, as did an arm or blown-off leg, as well as bodies that lay twenty feet away. Trees that had been shot into nothing except shattered sticks were lying on the ground. He vowed that if he ever got out of there alive he never wanted to see snow again.