My Redacted Life: Chapter 39 (Cont._2)

We engaged a real estate professional to help find a house. He insisted on our spending more. We insisted on buying what we could afford. Knowing little about the market in Little Rock, we passed up a couple of deals that would have been quite lucrative as time passed. The fact of buying on the GI Bill limited our choices to a small degree. Some sellers opted not to face the additional paperwork. We held hands and observed in awe like a couple of kids in a candy store. The agent fed our excitement.

We settled for a housee in what might now be called “mid-town.” It was one of those “spaghetti subdivisions” with lots of crooked streets and dead ends. Ours fronted on a collector street, though, and provided a more or less clear shot through town, albeit much too far to walk to work. The street was called “Evergreen” and it was a primary artery in a subdivision known as “Leawood,” or “Leawood Heights.”

Churches sat to the immediate East, and diagonally across the street, so we felt secure from unforeseen developments. Or so we thought. Stay tuned.

We began the paperwork and immediately encountered a loan officer that had a bur in his saddle about veterans. That wasn’t unusual in those days. He seemed to resent the fact that we could purchase a nice home without amassing a large down payment like respectable couples. We ignored him. He threw a few stumbling blocks our way, but I had expert advice from those in the office who had been through a home purchase. We swept him out of the way without bother.

The folks at work, by the way, seemed happy for us. We were settling in to become settled members of the community. The house seemed large to us, although by later standards it would be termed tiny. We had no neighbors directly across the street. We met the two ladies who lived next door, along with a large Doberman named “Man.” We discovered later that the name implied that it was the only one, man that is, that they needed. They treated us graciously and life verged on the sublime.

Now, if we only had furniture to fill an eleven-hundred square foot home. We also needed to calm my father, who thought it highly ostentatious to purchase such a mansion. Only millionaires and other deadbeats, he assured me, would live in a home costing $20,000. Were we crazy?

Yeah, at that time pretty much crazy, but just purely wonderful.

That's what I thought anyway.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 39

When you live with someone, you learn things. My little wife with the long red hair and the splendiferous sashshay had secrets. When she wanted to make a design for something, she could draw. When she spoke, she spoke with neither confusion nor equivocation. She listened creatively. When she sat down at a piano, she could play anything from Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca to the song Jump Up from the James Bond film Dr. No. She had never told me. The realization shocked me, as did all her many secrets.

Then one day she wrote something. It was a masterpiece of clear, concise, declarative sentences. It made the point with neither flourish nor pretention. It led to more self-doubt on my part.

“Why don’t your write more?” I said.

“I don’t have that much to say,” she said.

I let it go. In the meantime, I had discovered that the well-known urban planning experts from whom I was to learn didn’t share Brenda’s writing skills. Sad to say, they had no writing skills at all, a fact that had first convinced me I was stupid. I would read a page of work and realize that I had no idea what the author had said. Sentences negotiated a tricky canyon of stilted hyperboles and headstrong allegories, circled back upon themselves, and landed topsy-turvy on a spiked bed of sharpened adverbs, only to encounter a sinister semi-colon that opened a door to more confusion. The typical planning expert couldn’t have described a bowling ball in five paragraphs without the overextended use of the word “efficacious” and a slathering of neo-traditional sentence structure.

A planner with a typewriter formed a fearsome spirit. Some stooped so low as to describe the size of an area using the antiquated terms "zygocephalum"—a measure of land based on the area of land a yoke of oxen could plow in one day. It grew worse with time. They made up words and phrases: complex and nonsensical ditties that made the public shake their heads in bemusement. They dubbed directional signs “wayfinding devices,” for example. They used the term “sense of place,” to replace the venerable standard, “No matter where you go, there you are.” Citizens lost that time-honored title that went back to the evolution of Common Law, and became “stakeholders.” Empowering them, it seems, was important, whatever it meant. A scary world, verbally speaking, urban planning is.

I struggled through the morass, sometime with little wayfinding assistance. I often struggled from a lack of effaciousness, limiting my search, like the drunk searching for his keys, to the areas most brightly illuminated. That eased the way.

At the same time, I struggled with a nagging suspicion that I had, perhaps, over-married.

Writing is like riding a horse.
You just saddle up and go.

Sunday Break

It's Sunday and time to take a break from the adventures of being a newlywed in 1972 Little Rock. Here's a short story I wrote, base on an incident when I was writing pieces for the Quapaw Quarter Chronicle when editor Starr Mitchell was trying to make it a serious publication. Any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental.

The Assignment

By Jimmie von Tungeln

           

Truth be known, I didn’t want to do the piece in the first place. Hell, I wasn’t even a journalist. I was a consultant, a pretty good one, and should have stuck to it. But I had been doing these modest little columns for a Little Rock quarterly that promoted historic preservation. I was acquainted with the editor, I lived in a so-called historic district, and I knew most of the people who lived there. So, I agreed to help.

 It was a good fit. People associated living in historic neighborhoods with eccentricity back in those days. Things that supported that viewpoint were always welcome. So, folks liked my little “human interest” pieces. As for me, I was happy to stick to them. There was no chance of running out of characters, and I didn’t have to travel.

            Then the editor called me one day and asked me to stop by. When I got there, she up and gave me an assignment. Just like that, like I was some cub reporter or something. This posed a noticeable departure from the usual process whereby I just picked out some local oddball and wrote about how they had adjusted to living in an old house.

This time she picked the subject. Why? Beats me. Maybe I was getting stale or she was trying to sell more copies or something. Rather than speculate, I went along with her for the moment.

            Well guess what? You never know what dish life is going to serve up and what decisions are going to throw themselves in front of you, threatening your hemostasis like a group of western bandits with their pistols drawn and ready.

Here’s how it started.

            A local banker, known to us all as a neighbor and a nice guy, had bought one of the most historic homes in the city. It boasted such long-term ownerships that the house and grounds came with a caretaker who had worked there since the Depression. Mr. Pitts cared for the grounds and lived in a small apartment attached to the carriage house, a.k.a. the garage. He was a quiet little man of advanced age who lived alone and remained out of sight when not working. All the neighbors knew him to nod at, but none of us had ever talked to him.

            The editor explained the human-interest angle. Supposedly, a friendship had grown up between Mr. Pitts and the banker’s young son Alfie—Alfred Chidester LaRue was his full name—a little blond-haired kid from the high-rent side of life. Get it? Old black gardener and white heir apparent, the image of an odd couple as corny as it was appealing to our liberal audience. All I had to do was interview the old man, mine a few historic nuggets and take a picture of him and the kid together. It would produce enough “ain’t that cutes?” to make a tough man buy a round of drinks. There was no Pulitzer looming, but it would get me through until another deadline appeared, like a hungry tiger emerging from the mist. No problem.

Anyway, I didn’t have to. These columns represented a public service for me. In other words, I didn’t get paid. Seeing my words in print provided my only emolument. So, I had a degree of leverage unavailable to a poor inky wretch actually writing for a living.

I could have refused the assignment and interviewed, instead, a friend who was restoring a cottage near ours and who looked more like Charles Manson than Manson did himself. He played cello in the city’s symphony orchestra and would have been great material for a photo essay, the research being carried out over a couple of beers. Why should I spend a dry afternoon interviewing the town’s oldest gardener? It didn’t make a bit of sense. “To hell with the editor and her aspirations,” I kept telling myself. Was I my own man or what?

            Naturally, I took the assignment. I had to go through the banker himself and he pretty much outlined what he wanted the piece to say. Alfie was an only-child and, having few young friends in the neighborhood, he had taken up with Mr. Pitts. Followed him everywhere. Shared secrets with him. Even helped with the yardwork. Well, maybe a little. The important thing was the friendship that had developed between man and boy. That was the angle.

            Sure. One of the greatest and most persistent dreams of American Caucasians is that, someday, an African-American will love them. But I could pretend with the best, so I pressed on to complete the assignment.

            I set up an appointment for the next Saturday afternoon. It was a nice autumn day that welcomed a person outdoors like an old friend wanting to show you his garden. I grabbed an ancient Rolliflex camera that I used for such work, made sure I had pen and paper, and walked the two blocks to the house.

The house sat on a half-block facing one of the two main streets leading directly to downtown. When it was built, wealth had followed the topography. The larger houses were on the highest ground and homes fell off in size and value as the topography dropped. It was never more than a short walk from the mansions to the homes from which domestic help could be hired, for practically nothing, in the good old days. In other words, urban form followed economic function. Households weren’t separated by income as they are now. That’s how, thanks to the historic preservation craze, I could afford to live near a bunch of mansions.

            Anyway, I arrived. Mr. Pitts had dressed up a bit. He always wore neat clothes with a narrow-brimmed dress hat. Today he had added a tie. He stood at attention with his hands to his side and presented a smile like a boot-camper at inspection. Alfie was bouncing a ball against a tree and the parents stood by with pride. All was set for this to be a painless adventure. Wham, bam, thank you m’aam and I meet my deadline.

            I called little Alfie over and made him sit for a picture with Mr. Pitts. As I lined it up, I pulled a few grunts out of the kid to the effect that he liked Mr. Pitts and enjoyed helping him with the yard work. Mr. Pitts sat smiling through thick eyeglass lenses that distorted his face to where it looked like one of those cartoon characters that has just seen something either real juicy or real dangerous.

            So far, so good.

            Figuring I had about all out of Alfie I was going to get, I excused him with “Now Alfie, why don’t you let Mr. Pitts and me visit while you get back to your yard work?” In other words, “Scram, kid!”

            Alfie was more than happy to be rid of adults so he walked to beyond the garage. There, someone had dug a shallow pit from which smoke was rising. Within the pit, I assumed from the smell, were dead leaves, trash, and some sort of organic waste. Alfie amused himself by kicking more leaves into the fire.

His mother saw the opportunity and appeared from nowhere with a tray of cookies and iced tea. She sat them on the bench between us and asked, sweetly, and devoid of sincerity, the way a southern woman can ask, if we were comfortable. After receiving affirmatives, she then swished away amid a crackling of petticoats and an almost audible smile. I pushed the tray toward Mr. Pitts. He smiled and pushed it back toward me.

            “No, please, go ahead,” I stammered, fumbling for my writing pen.

            “Thank you, suh,” he said. He exaggerated the “suh” so I—so we both—would know he didn’t attach any meaning to it. Then he took a cookie in one hand and a glass of tea in another. He neither drank nor ate right away, though. He rested the arm with the cookie on his leg and wrapped a hand around the glass of tea as if to keep it from flying away. He smiled at me. His eyes looked even larger than before.

            A breeze filled the yard and blew smoke from Alfie’s fire toward us. As it did, Mr. Pits finally raised the cookie in a soft arc to his mouth and took a small bite from it. He lowered it and raised his glass with the same grand gesture and sipped his tea.

            Hoping to get started, I asked him how long he had lived around there.

            “Oh, I was born around here,” he said. “I been here for as long as I can remember. We lived on Tenth Street but it went for the freeway. House ain’t there no more.”

            He chewed his cookie with what I thought was a grim expression. As he did, the smoke circled us and I caught the pleasant smell of burning leaves punctuated by the sharp odor of the other trash smoldering in the pit. Mr. Pitts stiffened slightly and his eyes seemed to retreat behind his thick glasses.

            “I been here since when things were different than they are now,” he said. “Way different.”

Then, that far into the interview, he stopped talking. His voice didn’t exactly trail away as much as it fluttered beyond us like a feather caught in a whirlwind.

            I was losing him. I hurried back to work.

            “Different in what way?” I asked.

            He just looked at me. He seemed to struggle to respond and when he did, it wasn’t really to me but, it seemed, to the trees and the garden and maybe to the city itself with all its history and smoky secrets.

            “Way yonder different. Folks weren’t as good to you then.” He took another bite of cookie and drank from his glass. That energized him.

“My folks had it hard back then.”

            I tasted panic. Alfie had disappeared behind the garage and I felt as if I were on an asteroid hurtling through space with an alien. This affair wasn’t going according to plan. I nodded as if I understood and scratched on my pad without looking up. He continued.

            “The worse was what they done to Mr. Carter.”

            “Mr. Carter?” That was all I could manage.

            “Ain’t nobody should have had that done to them. Nobody. I don’t care if he was colored.”

            I gave up and stared at my pad. What was he saying, and where was he taking me? I stared right through my pad and into the ground. From therein oozed a memory. I met it halfway and solved the mystery.

Back in the 1920s, there had been a lynching in Little Rock, less than a half-mile from where we sat. It happened right in the middle of what was then the center of the “colored” commercial area, along Ninth Street.

“Oh my god,” I thought. “This is where he is going.” I tried to raise my head but it took three attempts to overcome the gravity created by that realization. When I did manage to look up, Mr. Pitts was somewhere far away, and scared. I mean really scared. His hand was shaking so much the tea was spilling.

            “I remember that day like it was yesterday,” he continued. They made us all go inside, for they knew there was to be trouble. I was just a child, but the oldest. My Momma put the youngest under the bed and made me watch after them. She said the white folks had done killed Mr. Carter and was draggin’ him down Ninth Street behind a car. She was scared and she made us all cry.

“We could hear people yellin’. They was honkin’ their horns and yellin’ so loud we could hear them in the bedroom. Wasn’t no colored folks on the street, except Mr. Carter and he was dead. They hung him and beat him and drug him up and down Ninth Street. We was all hidin’ and cryin.’ My Momma was tellin’ us to be quiet.” He stopped, looked away and back, directly at me.

“They shouldn’t have done that.”

            Here I was. It was a nice brisk autumn day and I should have been somewhere else, but I was sitting in someone else’s yard listening to an old man reciting his version of our city’s most awful moment and I couldn’t escape.

            “They drug him and drug him. All back and forth on Ninth Street. We could hear the cars and them horns honkin’, the honkin,’ oh my lord, the honkin’. Ain’t nobody ought to have that done to them. We was still cryin’ when they built a fire at Ninth and Broadway and burned him up. We could smell the smoke and that made us cry harder. My momma had some cookies in her apron pocket and she gave one to the younger kids to hush them up. She broke one in half and gave me a piece. She took the other half and then she started cryin’ too.”

            He looked at the cookie in his hand, then returned to that awful day.

            “Somebody said they broke one of his arms off and waved it at the cars going down Broadway,” he said. “I don’t know. Nobody looked out the window the whole time, for we was too scared.”

            I pretended to write something.

            “Too bad,” he said so low I barely heard him. “Them was bad days. Bad for us all.”

            The smoke circled us and I sat as still as I could. Mr. Pitts stopped talking and sat with his hand with the cookie resting on his leg. As the fog of remembrance cleared, he began to smile. He didn’t say anything. He was done talking to white strangers for the day.

            He sat there proud and triumphant, a black-skinned Cicero having had his say, needing neither accolades nor approval. I thanked him, not sure at all whether he even heard me, and then eased away and headed home. I was all confusion, trying to sort out what had just happened. I still had an assignment but what the hell was I going to write? The truth about what happened? That would be the honest thing. It might even be a good piece. Shake the readers up a bit. Let them know that history wasn’t all about Victorian houses. Hell yes!

            Back home, I sat in the kitchen and stared through the window. When I tried, I could hear the shouts on the street, feel the throb of the car engines running, and smell the acrid smoke of man and wood burning.

Damn that old man!

Outside the afternoon was dissolving into evening. The shadows got longer and darker the way our thoughts will as we doze. Beyond the kitchen window, the air was still crisp and clear. Inside, it was dark and gloomy. The evening sky changed purposefully that time of year like a lover moving from caresses to kisses, and then to the dark undertones of passion. My thoughts moved that way, too, as I reflected on the day and what it was trying to tell me. Maybe it was trying to tell me to be brave, or truthful …, or honest. Maybe it was suggesting that I approach what I was doing with something a little deeper than just seeing my name in print. Maybe it was just trying to tell me to say something else entirely, before darkness came. Maybe. Maybe.

After a time, I stood up and retrieved a beat-up Remington typewriter and package of paper from a closet and carried them, with as much gentleness as I could muster, into the kitchen. I placed the typewriter on the kitchen table so I could see beyond it into the deepening gloom. Then I slid a page of paper into it and turned the cylinder so the paper was position precisely across the top, aligned there neat and worthy of higher-level thought. I drew and released a long breath of sad air—air that had once moved through the city and down the streets and around the large oak trees past the moving cars and quaint old houses and had once even flowed around the twitching, smoking body of John Carter.

I didn’t want to, but I smelled that smoke.

Click, click, I advanced the paper.

I was ready. My mind was as clear as the way of a traveler making the last turn on the last curve before home. I rubbed my hands. I thought how funny it would be to make the Sign of the Cross.

Instead, I started to type: “Mr. Otis Pitts, age 70 and a lifelong resident of Little Rock, has a new best friend who is only five years old.”

July 2009

Revised 2017

My Redacted Life: Chapter 38 (Cont._4)

Here is what happened with regard to our company’s first development project, a charming subdivision in a thriving community. It started out well, four lots pre-claimed. We couldn’t sell lots until the Final Plat gained approval, signifying that we had completed all improvements. Ron McConnel and I went down of a Saturday morning and secured a sign to a timber wall at the entrance, announcing Wellington Heights. All appeared ready.

The city planning commission approved the plats and final closings took place on four lots, only 40 more or so to go and we would be in the pink. Interest was high. Building materials appeared on two of the lots. This would be the finest small subdivision in south Arkansas.

Then in happened. An African-American family purchased the fifth lot. The man worked for the local railroad line, a good job that assured his ability to pay for the lot and finance a nice home. Somehow word of the purchase got out, no doubt passed around by a local competitor.

Next day, four “For Sale” signs went up. Did I mention that this was south Arkansas? Everything stopped. Realtors in the area quit accepting phone calls or answering messages. The subdivision sat as deserted as a Jewish cemetery in Nazi Germany. We sat as dumbstruck as a deserted lover. What happened?

We didn’t know. There was some talk of sabotage by local developers. There were some snickers from those who knew secrets of land development of which we were unaware. Some hinted at a plot by a local advocacy group seeking to “universalize” human rights. What cheek.

The truth? I’ve always believed that it was an honest effort by an honest man to provide a decent home in a decent location for his family in a land, and at a time, that we didn’t tolerate such presumption.

Perhaps the man had survived the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, and felt that entitled him to respect.

Perhaps he had led an honest and productive life and felt that earned him a place in society.

Perhaps he just felt that his god blessed all people equally.

I never knew. The entire operation went into “top-secret mode” at that point and little news filtered down. What I did know was that no further action occurred in the subdivision until much later when the development was sold to a group of local African-American business men for pennies on the dollar. The financiers of the development absorbed the loss, and life moved on.

At home, I contended with my own struggles, albeit small ones. I was learning. One thing was that heaven help the man who woke my young “trophy-wife” up of a Saturday morning while she was enjoying her day off by sleeping late. Brenda looked like the very picture of a modern precious angel as she enjoyed her leisure moments. I knew though, from my brief experience, that her fractious sister Brendhilda lurked ever so slightly beneath that angelic face. She was, no doubt, ready to pounce upon the perpetrator of the slightest transgression.

One can imagine, therefore, my consternation when I slipped out of bed one Saturday morning to go into work to address a deadline that beckoned like a child needing a visit to the toilet. With a change of clothes in hand, I quietly entered the small bathroom in our apartment to witness a sight I had never, even the darkest days of my military service, encountered. There, hanging across the shower rod was a still damp pair of pantyhose.

What was a man to do? I chose circumspection and prudence. I needed to prepare for work, but feared unauthorized tampering. Seeking guidance was out of the question. Following a Methodist rather than Baptist approach, I chose sprinkling over full immersion and left the dangling garment in place to be attended later by the adult of the family.

After leaving a note, off to work I went, as refreshed as common sense allowed. On the way, I told myself that I was learning a lot about the world that might come in handy in the future.

And it did.

"Lord help the mister,
Who comes between me
And my sister." - Irving Berlin

My Redacted Life: Chapter 38 (Cont._3)

We started looking in earnest for a house a month or so after we married. We had advantages, of course, being Caucasian. Also, the GI Bill offered me a lowered interest rate and a no-down payment loan. Friends gave us a lot of advice, some good and some bad. One said, “buy more house than you can afford and you’ll grow into it as your income rises. That sounded to me like the cowboy who bought a horse he couldn’t ride because it might quit bucking someday.

The best advice simply said buy the least expensive home in a stable and popular location. The value of the more expensive homes will exert an upward influence on the value of yours. Also, buy a home you could conceivably pay for with one salary. Life is unpredictable. Some advice is ageless.

The generation before us had settled, when the war ended, for modest frame homes, some no larger than 800 square feet. Their sons and daughters would settle for no less than a three-bedroom, two-bath, brick structure as a “starter home.” That was to be one of many differences between the so-called “Greatest Generation,” and the Baby Boomers.

It also confounded the “trickle-down” theory taught for so long in planning schools. The older generation was supposed to move from their “starter homes” into more expensive ones, freeing cheaper units for purchase by the younger set. It didn’t quite work out that way. Nobody wanted the cheaper houses and they quickly converted to rental properties, with no provision for upkeep.

The only thing that trickled down was rain flowing through rotted roofs.

About this time in America, the purchase of a home began to represent, for many families, the best way of amassing wealth. This would require a steady rise in housing values over decades, much like a company’s stock that never stopped rising. It would also generate substantial benefits for homeowners that didn’t accrue to renters. We had no idea at the time how much this trend would change our country.

My non-white comrades who had served alongside me in the military faced different challenges in taking advantages of the GI Bill’s housing benefits. They faced few choices in housing location at that time. An urban renewal project in Little Rock had cleared a slum neighborhood and converted it into a spacious subdivision of mini-mansions for the wealthy and elite African-American families: physicians, attorneys, business owners, and, once, a star of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Less affluent brothers and sisters were relegated to racially acceptable neighborhoods. One can easily understand what that meant.

There wasn’t anything equitable about it. That’s just the way things were. Life rolled on. We, as a family, were about to take advantage of the inequity. We, as a company, were about to learn how rocky the underlying racial prejudice in our country could make the road of life. At the time, we were foolish enough to think that prejudice might dissipate someday, become gone with the wind, so to speak. The most wondrous dreams can sometimes be the most foolish.

We plan on buying a house.

My Redacted LIfe: Chapter 38 (Cont._2)

 What did a young married couple do back in the fall of 1972 when they had no spare money to spend, i.e. neither pot nor window? Oh, we were making money enough, but spare cash went into saving for a home. The GI Bill offered substantial benefits in a home mortgage and I intended to take full advantage. So, recreational outings were both creative and inexpensive. We saved and improvised.

Brenda introduced me to a cheap pastime. The area in which her family farm sat was rich in Native American history. A sluggish wetland called Baker’s Bayou was the center of much ancient activity. After a farmer had plowed a field rains had come, one could walk around and spot artifacts rising to the surface of the earth. We would collect specimens and store them roughly by location. Later we learned that the major collection points coincided roughly with bases identified by the state archaeologist's office. The effort produced much fun at little cost.

I suppose collecting them was insensitive, but by now they would have been pulverized into unidentifiable bits of stone by the huge farming rigs.

Brenda’s dad, Julius, told us of being a very young boy and talking to a very old former slave who said he could remember the last Indian family that lived on the Bayou. One morning they had simply disappeared during the night. Figuring placed the time somewhere in the late 1850s. An archaeologist acquaintance, who once helped us categorize our collection, considered the ages and verified that the story could have been true. I’ve thought about it many times over the years, the continuity of history and all.

While we were walking the ruins of a past civilization, I was working to control the nature of the next civilization. It struck me as how little impact the ancients left on the land and how much power we now possessed to enact change. Maybe the role of my profession wasn’t to design paradise, but to ward off hell. It made me think.

In the meantime, Brenda taught, I travelled the state, and, after a rain, we walked, hand in hand, over the remains of a past civilization of people who had no doubt worked, loved, and dreamed of a future. I suppose, perhaps, that one day some life form will walk over the remains of our efforts to lead a meaningful life.

Wonder what they will find?

Cars probably. Lots of
rusted old cars.

My Redacted LIfe

Out earning today. Tune back in tomorrow for more thrilling adventures.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 38

Life rocked on. Brenda began teaching her second year of school, carpooling with a colleague. I was working on projects and continuing to study. Once a month, Tom and I would motor from Little Rock to Blytheville, Arkansas to attend the planning commission. Author John Grisham had been born there in 1955. By then 17 years of age and living in Mississippi, he was no doubt trying to decide whether to starve as a writer or grow rich from studying the law.

I had settled on urban planning, and was learning a lot about it. For example, cities in Arkansas weren’t required to plan at all. Those who chose to, however, all followed the same process as defined by state statutes. Arkansas existed as a so-called “Dillon’s Rule” state, a descriptor named after an old judge somewhere, named, aptly enough, Dillon. He opined that cities were creatures of the state and had no inherent powers, only those granted by the state. That was news to me, and it complicated things.

The secret was in the plan. If cities chose to make plans, they were to protect the health, safety, welfare and morals of the community. The plans set policy rather than law. In order to carry them out, the cities could enact zoning and subdivision regulations which did constitute municipal law.

Most people didn’t, and many still don’t, understand the difference. In reality, many cities simply adopted plans, then went about business as if those plans didn’t exist. Planning was important primarily (to many cities) because it made them eligible for certain grants.

It closely resembled the way our new household was forming. As the husband, and, by the power granted by no less than the Apostle Paul himself, I was head of the household. As such, I set both policy and law. The wife, in this case my new bride Brenda, was to adore me quietly and diligently while setting about to help me carry out my policies and enact my rules. Smooth is as smooth does, so to speak. I think that may be in the Scriptures somewhere.

Here’s how it really worked. I could set all the plans and policies I chose. No problem. Then it departed from standard doctrine. The rules we lived by had nothing to do with my plans or policies. A set of rules, rules that Herself enacted and enforced, governed our day-to-day activities.

It worked more peacefully that way. In similarity to the benefits of urban planning, compliance qualified me for benefits not available to the recalcitrant. As with any fledgling form of government, it took a number of years for the doctrine fully to establish itself as governing methodology, but it would finally settle into a standard process of “plan and ignore.”

That’s urban planning in a nutshell. Marriage is, after all, a metaphor for many aspects of modern life. That’s why it is fitting and proper that it be available to all.

Oh wow! This marriage thing
 isn't so bad, after all. Is it?
Women can rule. Neat.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 37 (Cont._4)

Not much out of the ordinary occurred during our first month of marriage, except the near annihilation of a Sears salesman. It’s true.

It happened this way.

I only had an ancient TV set my sister had lent me. It worked sometimes, in some manner, but we decided that a young couple, both professionals, needed a modern, working television that befit our new place in society. There were only three commercial stations and PBS available, so installation would be simple. We could retire the heavy metal thing that had served me, when it chose to, until that point.

So off to Sears we went. Why Sears? It was the “in” place to shop back then, It carried everything. Besides, Brenda, during her first year of teaching, had acquired a Sears credit card. We were saving all our spare cash for the purchase of a home, so paying a TV off over a few months didn’t seem like a bad idea. Despite our good intentions, though, the plan almost went to hell.

A middle-aged salesperson showed us the choices, beginning with the most expensive, of course. As he babbled, I foresaw storm clouds gathering on the distant horizon. As far as the salesman was concerned, Brenda was invisible. This was a transaction between two men. This particular set would be great for watching those Razorback games or the popular local fishing show hosted by Jerry McKinnis. Just look at those colors. “Sir, you can’t go wrong with this one.” I heard the unmistakable sound of steam beginning to rise. The man just kept talking, his face only a few inches from mine.

Just for the pure fun of it, I suggested that he might ask her what she thought since she was the one paying for it.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I thought you were married.”

“Oh, we are,” I said. “But it’s her credit card.”

A curtain of clouds spread over the salesman’s eyes. I might as well have told him that we were arranging a loan from a far-away planet in a distant galaxy. “You mean,” he said, “that she has her own credit card? And you want to buy a television set for the both of you with it? With her credit card? She really has one? I’ll have to check about that.”

Brenda began to move toward him. A voice from behind us saved his life. “That’s Mr. and Mrs. Jim von Tungeln,” it said. “Whatever they want, let them have it.”

I turned to see a face I hadn’t seen in years. It was young Woody Bohannon, son of the elder Woodrow Bohannon, one of the true eccentric southern characters produced in such abundance by our state. I hadn’t seen young Woody since my high-school graduation. He was a couple of years behind me and had always struck me as one of the nicest young men on the planet. I would learn that he had attended college, graduated, and gone to work for the retailing giant, already reaching the role of senior manager.

We had a nice visit. The salesman sold Brenda a television set, thus assuring his continued life in the corporate world. Brenda maintained equilibrium, but it took a while for the steam to dissipate. Everyone finished the evening happy.

That Saturday night, we watched a show that had started airing the year before, one called All in the Family. It was about, as we saw it, a bigot forced to live in an increasingly diverse and tolerant world. We thought it pretty funny at the time.

Do me a favor and don't
talk to me for a while. Okay?

Sunday Break

Another short story, this one as close to reality as an aged mind could manage.

A Bag of Marshmallows

By Jimmie von Tungeln

            This is hardly a southern morality tale. It has no nubile farmer’s daughter. It has no beloved dog. It has no eccentric relative. It doesn’t mention a snake. Even once. But it circles around the seven deadly sins, all of them: envy, gluttony, pride, lust, greed, sloth, and even anger, like atoms around an electron. Or in this case, a marshmallow.

            Yes. I once loved marshmallow like the Savior loves a sinner. Because of them, I

-        Silently cursed those kids who could afford a ten-cent bag while I was stuck with nickel one,

-        Ate more than my share at any opportunity,

-        Boasted that I could eat more of them than any kid at Lakeside Elementary,

-        Dreamed of immersing myself in a soft, yielding, embracing pile of them,

-        Stole one or more of them at ever opportunity, and

-        Once pushed my little brother to the ground because he wouldn’t give me one of his after I had devoured all of mine.

This gave rise to my great plot and subsequent adventure. I was eight years old, a fact that placed me at school all day without the attendant good sense to control my impulses. These were more innocent and peaceful times, so when a kid reached the third grade and was sentenced to schooling for an entire day, the taking of lunch presented a veritable plethora of choices.

            One could bring lunch in a brown paper bag and enjoy it with others in a designated lunchroom, a choice generally reserved for the poor and the untrustworthy. One could take a quarter and walk four blocks north to the Pine Bluff High School campus and dine there at the cafeteria. One could walk the same distance due west on 15^th Street until one reached a diner called “The Little Chef” and have a hamburger or chili dog with drink for the same amount. One could walk one block farther and dine at a corner drug store lunch bar, expensive but classy.

            The rich kids, most of whom lived within walking distance, dined at home. They included some of the prettiest girls in town.

            Being an adventurous sort, and when I wasn’t on probation and sentenced to the lunchroom with a bologna sandwich, I opted for the western sites. I think it was because I silently dreamed that someday, when I had been particularly mistreated, I would just continue walking until I reached California where I would become a rich movie star. More likely it was because if I skipped a drink with a meal, I could purchase a five-cent bag of marshmallows at the drug store.

            Neither drugs for the dope fiend or solitude for the poet had a greater pull on one than the thought of a bag of marshmallows for desert.

            Therein sprang the plot.

            You see, they didn’t just sell nickel bags at the drug store. They sold ten-cent bags and these were tempting. But the piece de resistance, the Treasure of South Cherry Street, the Holy of Holies, was a 25-cent bag of marshmallows the size of a small pillow. They hung from clips on tall display stand like talisman on a totem pole. By the time I began concocting my plan, the image of those bags had invaded my mind until I thought of little else but the day I would buy one and devour its entire contents.

            But how? I only received a quarter a day for lunch, tightly tied with a knot in a lady’s handkerchief and placed in my left pocket each morning by my mother, one who knew too well that to advance a boy of my age funds for more than a day’s food was to telegraph an open invitation to Satan to make room for another soul.

            No, I would have to operate within the perimeters set for me. I had to skip the normal meal. It was that simple. Besides, a meal of marshmallows had to be at least as healthy, probably more so, than a chili dog. Tastier too. Yeah, that was it: a good plan made more sound by the reasoning.

            So one late autumn day found me walking west along 15^th Street with a jaunty air as if the world existed solely for my pleasure. My left hand clutched a quarter. (I always untied it while I was walking to lunch to avoid teasing.) As I passed the diner, I could feel the eyes upon me for I hardly ever opted for the drug store. I whistled and concentrated on a repair shop across the street. I turned casually south on Cherry and slid into the drug store sideways. Phase One was successful.

Once inside, I relaxed. Assuming a practiced nonchalance, I eased to the candy area and took what seemed like an hour, but could only have been a few seconds, to peruse the candy offerings as if I had the prerogatives of a Rockefeller.

Quite without warning, synapses tuned by billions of years of evolution registered a danger warning. An adult appeared, staring down upon me as if I were the least of creatures crawling upon the earth. “May I help you?” it said.

“Just want some marshmallows,” I said. “I have money.” I retrieved the largest prize on the totem pole. I stood without moving, feeling its weight against my chest, and waiting for the apparition to disappear.

“Having a party at school?” it said.

Now I was in a jam. Lying, my mother had warned me more than once, was a terrible sin, one of the worst. She petrified me telling about its deadly consequences and those of similar vile habits. A liar who allowed the allurements of sin to rule his actions was destined for a cruel fate, even blindness, or a partial state thereof. I pondered. I felt sweat forming on my brow. The potential consequences of my actions swirled about me like debris around a funnel cloud. My heart began to pump furiously at the thought of continuing this sinful escapade: regrets, nightmares, pimples, full or partial blindness…

The spectacles upon the bridge of my nose bear mute testimony to my next act.

“Yessir,” I said. “I’m supposed to bring the marshmallows.”

Surprised that I could still see, I stood patiently while it patted my head and moved to help another customer. I paid my quarter like a gambler paying his debt, executed an “about face” and left the drug store, Phase Two completed.

            I felt that a young dandy walking down Cherry Street snacking on a knee-high bag of marshmallows must have been a remarkable sight, even in a city as large as Pine Bluff. I assumed a swagger as I slowly tasted the first fat victim from the bag. I allowed the flavor to roam my mouth like a frightened pony circling a corral. The process took an entire block.

            On the next block, I crammed pair after pair into my mouth at once, just for the fun of it. As I chewed, I turned back to the east, deciding to flaunt my wealth by returning through one of the richest neighborhoods in town.

            Four more victims, now I was the Cyclops tasting the crew of Ulysses. I let out a soft roar and devoured another pair. I continued east, passing the homes of any number of pretty girls who must have been watching from their lunch with amazement. When I finished the crew, I slowly devoured the captain, grinning all the while.

            Then I released my inner gymnast and began pitching the soft white balls into the air and catching them in my mouth. Another block passed in this manner. I missed the fifth and it rolled into the gutter by the sidewalk. I didn’t bother to pick it up, for I had plenty. Besides, I was beginning to feel a little odd.

            Lest what follows strike the reader only as burlesque, allow me to produce empirical statistics that should be recorded in some vast reservoir of knowledge somewhere on the planet to serve as an object lesson to the logic-challenged.

            Statistic One: The difference between wanting another marshmallow and beginning to think you have had all you want is approximately four marshmallows.

            Statistic Two: The difference between thinking you have had all the marshmallows you want and not really wishing to eat anymore is approximately three marshmallows.

            Statistic Three: The difference between not really wishing to eat any more marshmallows and vomiting a white stream of projectile foam into a fence in an alley behind a house is two marshmallows.

            Statistic Four: The length of time an eight-year old boy must sit with his head in his hand lurching with drive heaves from eating too many marshmallows is somewhere between ten and 15 minutes.

            No cars came through the alley as I suffered alone. The only thing that passed in front of me was my life, and my regrets. I hadn’t apologized to my sister for reading her diary. I hadn’t looked after my little brother properly. (There was this matter of the “dirt sandwich.”) I hadn’t asked Nell Phillips to be my girlfriend. Hell, I hadn’t even made out a will.

            When I had quit retching, I folded top of the bag of marshmallows—it still appeared, somehow, to be full—and slowly gained my feet. I used alleys to escape the prying eyes of the fancy homes and found my way at last back to 15^th street where I placed the remainder of the bag of marshmallows in the hollow of a tree, although I knew I wouldn’t return for them. Back at school, I avoided classmates as I eased into the classroom and began the worst afternoon of my life.

            This was more than 65 years ago and I have never willingly eaten a marshmallow since. In fact, I become nauseated to this day at the very thought of one. While contemplating this account of the incident, I happened to be in my hometown and with my business in the city completed, I drove the route from the old elementary school, now closed and boarded after yielding to one of those mega-campuses wherein they incarcerate students for eight hours a day to prevent episodes such as mine. I also passed the corner where the drug store stood.

            The neighborhood is no longer affluent. Nell Phillip’s home has disappeared, all that remains is a slab that looks too small for a real house. Cheap “For Rent” signs struck the cadence as I drove along. Parked cars had destroyed all the lawns. I slowed when I came to the corner where stood the tree in which I had stored the remnants of my unholy adventure. All that remained was a withered stump, the remainder having fallen, as have so many of our dreams, to age and reality.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 37: (Cont._3)

It all ended soon, the wedding that is. We enjoyed a nice reception and met most of the folks in Lonoke County who knew my new bride. That was nearly all of them, as Hazel had worked in the local doctor’s office for years. Also, the two families had been around for a spell, well-known if not infamous. Most inquired as to what I did for a living or what church I attended. A few wanted to know, indirectly, if I had completed high school or college. I could tell I had landed amongst people who liked to stay informed.

Uncle Roy took pictures. Vernell and her sister looked gorgeous in the gowns Brenda had sewed for them. The parents got to know one another, and I had a chance to visit Leland Bassett, down from Fayetteville. A lady who worked with Hazel had made a splendid wedding cake. We cut it and did the full routine. I do believe I behaved satisfactorily. At least I never received censure from the three harpies who had been retained to supervise my pre-wedding training.

It was a good sendoff. We flew to Denver the next day, then to Aspen, where I fulfilled my brief assignment. We rented a car and drove farther into the mountains. We shopped and ate well. So far this marriage thing was going well. Before we knew it, we were on the last leg of the flight to Little Rock, ready to face the reality of life as a married couple.

I soon discovered that she didn’t roll a tube of toothpaste correctly: from the bottom up, choosing, simply to squeeze arbitrarily.

She discovered that I didn’t always pick discarded clothes from the floor immediately upon dressing.

I discovered we didn’t have enough vertical storage area for all her makeup.

She discovered that I snored.

And so on. Maybe marriage wasn’t as simple as some imagined. Maybe one only masters its intricacies in a bleak classroom labeled “experience.” Unlike some other of life’s trials that must be overcome, though, it was a hell of a lot of fun trying.

I went back to work the next week and discovered that the company’s subdivision was progressing. We weren’t allowed to sell lots until the improvements were completed, or some sort of payment assured for their completion. Despite this, early interest bloomed and there were already “dibs” on some of the lots. We talked enthusiastically of selling the thing, enjoying the profit, and beginning another. What could possibly to wrong?

Have you ever gone to a skating rink and watched the tall, thin fellow with oily black hair, sideburns, form-fitting jeans, and a tight black tee-shirt with a pack of Lucky Strikes folded into one sleeve? Yeah, the one who glides around the floor with unbelievable ease and grace, making turns and moves so breathtaking that the girls gasp. Recall how easy he made it look? Anybody could do it.

That’s the way we felt about land development.

As I was trained to do.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 37: (Cont._2)

Robert Julius Cole, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Germany, walked his only child to the alter for marriage. The look on his face suggested that surviving an artillery barrage may have been easier. But, he left her with me, and the preacher took over. Julius joined Hazel in the audience. Vernell was standing to our side and, I’m sure, took a deep breath and held it. My brother, on the other side, probably looked as if he might faint any second. I prepared to follow instructions. Brenda smiled. She was the only one who looked happy. Everyone else waited. For me, there was no turning back. The die was cast.

I had spent a year and a half of my new civilian life studying urban planning and, after I started earning a bit of money, seeking the ladies, all sorts of them. I had felt as thought a bright new world had opened for me and I was ready for a life of working, gaining respect, and chasing women. But, the latter was over now, no more looking for women.

I had found me one.

We went through the words flawlessly, I placed the ring on her finger and the preacher announced us “man and wife.” Whew. Time to flee the scene. Then Brenda reached up and kissed me full in the mouth, in front of that whole church full of people. I declare.

Have I mentioned that I had never been to a church wedding before? The Navy certainly never taught you about them. The service was your beloved spouse. Anyway, we kissed and it was over.

Then Brenda folded her wings, took my arm, and walked me down the aisle and out of the church. I think maybe the congregation applauded. I’m not sure. Maybe they were just laughing at my shoes. I didn’t care. The ceremony was over and I was living a dream.

Trust me. I was stepping lightly.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 37

The time came for me to get dressed, drive to Lonoke, and marry the woman who had sashayed by and grabbed my heart not 200 feet from where I stood, long ago in a bachelorhood now nearing its useful end. I set my mind and managed everything, ready in plenty of time. All was set. There was no backing out now.

I folded my suit coat over the passenger seat of the Green Angel, checked once more to make sure I had the rings, and set off. There wasn’t a great deal of traffic in those days. With plenty of time, I drove carefully, taking old Highway 70, where we, Brenda and I, had taken so many late-afternoon drives back when we were courting. I wondered to myself if I had ever thought it would come to this. Was I a lucky man or what?

Or what?

Folks had already started gathering at the Methodist church just south of the main business corner of Downtown Lonoke. I went around and parked across the street, heading north for a fast getaway. I locked the doors and walked across the street. Once inside the church, I was happy do see my brother, Ricky, who was to be my best man. Others stayed stashed away somewhere. They directed us to a room just off the front of the church. I could see the crowd beginning to gather. Then I saw Leland Bassett sitting alone on one side of the church. The ushers, one my brother’s friends and a couple of Brenda’s neighbors from her childhood, were busy. They were placing everyone away from Leland, on the other side of the aisle. What was that all about?

Have I mentioned that I had never been to a church wedding before?

Several hundred years later, the church was full and the ushers escorted Hazel and Sainted Mother down the aisle. By this time, there were a few family and friends on my side and the ushers had begun to guide the overflow toward them. I panicked at a wandering thought. What if I needed to attend the men’s room before things got started?

Then the piano hit a chord and a voice of wondrous beauty filled the air. I have no memory of the song, except that it was quite beautiful and expertly delivered. When the singer finished it was so quiet that I could hear my blood flowing. Someone told my brother and me to walk out and stand, side by side, facing the audience.

Oh my goodness. I looked out at all those faces and just wanted to take off running. We could still elope later. The piano started again, with a familiar tune. At the far end of the church, She walked in with her daddy, and I forgot all about running.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 36 (Cont._4)

Woke up early the day of my marriage, still wondering what I had gotten myself into this time. I had 12 hours to figure it out. I went back to sleep. When I finally did get up, I called my folks to make sure they were set. I called the office to check on things. I went over my modest wardrobe for the event. I checked on all the details for the honeymoon trip. I put my new purchase of Will the Circle Be Unbroken on my phonograph and sat on the couch thinking. It still didn’t make sense.

How had I moved from a lowly Naval Bosun's Mate, driving an admiral's wife and friends around Charleston Harbor to a developing professional about to marry the prettiest girl in Arkansas in the space of less than two years? I tried to think. That wasn't what I did best, but it helped pass the time. The effort proved too great, and I fell asleep again.

Later, I tried to pick the guitar like Doc Watson. That didn’t work. Then I tried to write down my thoughts like John Steinbeck might. That didn’t work either. I tried some calisthenics but that made my head hurt. Was I a failure at everything? Why would anyone want to marry me, especially such an “aggravating beauty” as I had landed—or was about to land? What if she changed her mind at the last minute? It would just show that she had come to her senses at last. Nobody would blame her.

Was there hope for me? That freeway, I thought, that ran to Lonoke would lead straight on to the east coast if one didn’t stop. From there, a man could escape to France, where I heard they had wine with breakfast. And here I was, fixing to be stuck in Arkansas the rest of my life. Or was I? One simple missed turn and the whole world awaited me. Maybe Brenda's mother, Hazel, was correct in worrying that I might not show.

Then the vision engulfed me: the smell of her full and flowing hair after she had washed it, the taste of that first kiss, the faint freckles under her eyes, the feel of hands when they held my arm, and the excitement in her voice when she told about going out on a snowy morning with her daddy, pretending to be rabbit hunting.

Oh, what the hell?

You might better be
getting your mind right.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 36 (Cont._3)

Marriage Day Minus One: After addressing the effects of my so-called bachelor party with a couple of beers, I felt better. I cleaned up and drove to the farm so I could take Brenda to the airport to pick up her aunt. The aunt’s given name was Mildred, I think. I knew her, as everyone did, as “Pill.” Why? The stock answer was that she was one, a "pill." I soon discovered the truth in that.

What can I say?

“She’s the one who taught me to fish,” Brenda explained, “and how to dig bait for fishing.” I thought perhaps I was going to meet an interesting character. I was so right.

I learned that she was the human resources director at a large corporation in the Chicago metro area. She had a nice office and a wall festooned with her college diploma and an assortment of credentials. They had all flowed from an inventive and creative mind. I’m not sure she ever finished high school. I would learn more, first hand, about the marches she made through life to a number of different drummers. My education started at the airport.

By the time we arrived, Pill and her adopted daughter Jennifer, who was to be the flower girl, had retrieved their baggage and were waiting for us. An array of baggage lay around them and they pointed me to the largest. I expected a normal load, but when I grabbed the handle, the bag didn’t move. What? With some effort, I carried it to the waiting car. Having secured Pill and Jennifer in the back seat of Brenda’s car, we loaded the bags in the trunk.

“What’s in there?” I whispered to Brenda as the two of us loaded the monster suitcase into the trunk.

“Liquor,” she said.

I nodded a complete lack of understanding.

“She knows there won’t be any at our house,” Brenda said. “She came prepared.”

“She brought her own liquor all the way from Chicago?”

“Lonoke is in dry county, don’t you know?”

I suppose it made sense. It sure made me wonder what was inside the suitcase. It also made me wonder just what kind of family I was getting myself into. Over the coming years, I would continue to wonder, though there was one thing I would become completely sure of as time passed.

Aunt Pill deserved her name, no doubt. She and I would become good friends, no doubt about that as well.

I left Brenda at her folks’ house after we had unloaded the ladies, their clothes, and the liquor. They all stood in the yard and waved me off. I was going to Little Rock to contemplate my future. They were going to catch Pill and Jennifer up on the news. As I waved, I knew I would only see Brenda Cole for a few more brief minutes, ever again. After that, she would be “Brenda von Tungeln.”

Now that was a sobering thought. I imagined that Aunt Pill would address it in proper fashion as the day wore on.

Aunt Pill, in a photo
she would have liked.

Sunday Break

Dear Readers: It's the day I take a break and watch the services at Pulaski Heights Methodist Church. That inspired me to post for you a short story I wrote some time ago based on an incident my Sainted Mother told me. She swore it was true. Decide for yourself.

Memories

By Jimmie von Tungeln

Mama used to say us girls picked on Eula Faye or else egged her on, but I can tell you that she gave about as good as she got. Like the time we stole her Bible verse. We all had a good laugh out of it at the time but we didn’t get ahead of her. No sir. Not at all.

Now there are those who wouldn’t think this little episode was important. They have never lived out at the end of the world where everybody you knew was either direct-kin or step-kin, or sometimes both. It didn’t take much to create a story that would last forever. Particularly if you were as poor as we were.

After Daddy died, Mama raised us as best she could. While she didn’t hold out much for preaching, or churches in general—I think it had something to do with the hardness of her life—she did send us off to church when we got to aggravating her.

Ever third Sunday Brother Elmer Tisdale would ride out from the Pansy community with his old mare pulling his wagon and hold services in Pleasant Grove Church. I guess this must have been about 1930. I couldn’t have been over twelve or thirteen, I reckon since I was married and gone by the time I was sixteen.

The church was nothing but a little frame building set off from a cemetery that went way back past the civil war. My granddaddy had been a charter member but he had died young so Mama could barely remember him. The church building rested under the shade of three enormous oak trees. We kids called them “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” but not around any grown-ups for they had no sense of humor whatsoever about religion.

We would gather up around nine-thirty in the morning and have an hour of Sunday School before the services began. So, Mama made us leave early to get there to serve the complete sentence. Naturally she didn’t trust us as far as she could spit and I can still see her on the porch as we took off, threatening to cut a switch and wear us out if we didn’t get there in time. We always did, mostly.

The older ones were gone by then and it was just Sister and Jim and me had to go. Mama made us because she said it wouldn’t do us any harm and might do us some good. She was welcome to her opinion. We had our own, but we went just like she told us to.

We dawdled around as much as we could. Jim would usually cut us off some grapevines to smoke on the way and we would make up all sorts of imaginary trips that we were really going on. None of them included a church house. Hog Eye Ben Creek would be the River Nile and a clump of oak trees would be a pyramid. We used clouds for the Alps and the road we were on was the main street through Paris. For a bunch of country kids, we weren’t bad at making things up.

Anyway, Hattie Ruth Turner taught school at Woodlawn so they had her teach Sunday School to the girls on preaching day. There were about seven or eight of us. Eula Faye was distant kin and her daddy had a pension from World War One. They also owned a grocery store out on the state highway, so they was about the richest family in the community. She was a round-faced thing with freckles ever place they had a spot to be in. Her mamma kept her hair done up in curls so tight I bet you could have played music on them. She kind of had this little bounce when she walked and we would giggle that someday she might just bounce off like a rubber ball. She would hear us and say that rich women in the city walked like that. We liked her okay, I reckon. We didn’t mistreat her. It was just that she would sometimes create the opportunity for a laugh or two.

All the girls had to have a Bible verse memorized to recite first thing in Sunday School. This was supposed to help us into Heaven in some way, but it wasn’t real clear to us how. Anyway, we didn’t care much for it. It might have been due to the lack of scriptural resources available to a bunch of little country kids. Some of those girls were from families that couldn’t even afford a Bible. We had one but our step-daddy wouldn’t hardly let us touch it. We were in a constant of agitation about it. It sure wasn’t our favorite part of this whole salvation thing.

Miss Hattie, since she was a regular school teacher too, had to remember what side her bread was buttered on so she would always let Eula Faye go first. We would start to snicker even before she stood up. We met in the back of the church house and the boys in front. Eula Faye would make sure the boys were watching her and then when the room got real quiet, she would brush a hand across her hair and say it just like some movie actress.

“Jesus wept, John 11:35”

She got away with it ever Sunday.

Then we would have to stand up and quote some regular verse. And you weren’t allowed to repeat someone else’s choice. It got to where it played on our nerves.

Well this one Sunday, we fixed it up so Sister held Eula Faye up outside the door on some pretense and she hadn’t come in when we started. So Eloise Covington jumped up and asked if she could go first. What could Miss Hattie say?

Eloise was in on it, see? She stumbled around until she saw Eula Faye come in then Eloise shouted out loud enough for the whole church to hear: “Jesus wept, John 11:35”

You could just about see the color drain out of Eula Faye’s face when she took her seat. We swallowed our giggles until our stomachs started to swell, expecting to see Eula Faye have a nervous breakdown. But she didn’t miss a beat when Miss Hattie called on her. She stood up and took a deep breath. The boys knew something was up and had all stopped talking and were watching like a bunch of hounds at hog dressing time. She nodded to them as if they were her audience and then gave us her best “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet” look. Then she announced to the world, as if she might be telling the Red Sea to part.

“Moses crept, John 3:15.”

She said it real loud and then just set back and smiled the same as if she had just recited some long-winded psalm. We all broke up laughing until Miss Hattie stared it out of us. The boys didn’t know a Bible verse from horse-collar so they mostly just stared with their mouths all open. Then it was all over and we re-commenced our recitation period. Miss Hattie never let on like anything unusual happened at all.

That was the day we knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get something by Eula Faye. But Sister and I laughed all the way home over it anyway. Jim just smoked a grapevine and stayed puzzled over the whole thing.