The Lovely Chocolate Mob

On Lovely Hill

“Live, from Lovely Hill, it’s Darla Bell with a KDBC news special, and with us today is Hal Ostrander, chairman of the board of directors of the Lovely Chocolate Company.”

This one sentence opened a special local television KDBC News Show, which most of the people of Lovely watched, at least half of them being affected by the financial well-being of the city’s largest and most influential business. And half of those viewers tuned in to watch the ever-perky Darla Bell, local newslady who would obviously leave Lovely one day at the summons of one of the national news networks, or, if she chose, could work for any media company in the southern hemisphere, since she was fluent in Spanish.

“Mr. Ostrander, how close were you to Cornelius Lovely?” she asked, hoping to unearth a little emotional drama for ratings’ sake.

“I can’t say I was close to Mr. Lovely, per se, but of all the members of the board and Lovely staff and employees, I think I could safely say I knew him best.”

“What kind of man was Mr. Lovely?” Darla asked, since the first answer fizzled on the emotional level.

“Mr. Lovely was a very principled, very disciplined man, who loved the surrounding community almost as much as he loved making chocolate for all the world to enjoy. Chocolate was his life, his reason for getting up in the morning, the cause of his very being, his raison d’etre.”

Miss Bell, sensing a product plug for the Lovely Company, changed the subject quickly. She asked, “Now that Mr. Cornelius has passed away, do you know who will carry the mantle of the Lovely Chocolate Company? And will there be any dramatic changes, and modernization, any mergers in the near future?”

Mr. Ostrander, a bit disappointed he couldn’t continue to inform the viewers about the health benefits of chocolate as he had planned, went back into his chairman role and said, “Let me assure the general public that there will be no immediate changes to the Lovely Chocolate Company. We are and always have been a family-run, family-oriented business, a business that cares about the children, the community, and of course, our country.” This sounded a bit odd to Miss Bell, who knew that there were other countries, albeit civilized, western countries, who enjoyed the product of the Lovely Chocolates. Mr. Ostrander continued, “As chairman of the Board, I will probably be in charge of the company until a suitable leader, or, should I say, a fitting and competent successor is chosen to lead the company for the foreseeable future.” Darla Bell smiled and nodded at the whole answer, and looking to the camera, said, “It’s common knowledge that Mr. Lovely was a widower with no children who are interested in the role; do you think his granddaughter, Susan Lovely, celebrity model, might consider taking up the challenge?”

This question completely caught Mr. Ostrander off-guard; he knew that Susan Lovely was probably the beneficiary of Cornelius Lovely’s will, and that she would also inherit the bulk of his estate, which would probably include the majority stock holdings of the chocolate company. He hated the idea of a young to middle-aged irresponsible, untried, and uneducated in business, someone, who had never shown an inkling of interest in the company’s business, being over this chocolate empire. She would also become his new boss, and he didn’t want to have to prove his worth to an upstart, after having served his whole adult life one man, Cornelius Lovely.

He cleared his throat, then said, “Well, of course, I can’t really say anything about this since the will, of course, hasn’t been read, or probated just yet. I’m sure we will know the answer to this sometime in the near future; I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Darla Bell wasn’t through with the subject, though, and threw another curve when she said, “We have Susan Lovely with us in our studio…” and at that, Hal Ostrander looked shocked that an outsider, perhaps soon to be an insider, would meddle in the affairs of the business.

The picture on the city’s television screens immediately showed Susan Lovely, well dressed in a tight outfit, seated in the KDBC studio in downtown Lovely, along with another newsperson, the charming and dapper Gregory Jouglard. Greg was the man-about-town reporter, a newer reporter from just across the border, who was thought to appeal to viewers from Louisiana. He smiled to the camera, and said “Good morning. With us today is Susan Lovely, model and granddaughter of Cornelius Lovely, our founding father and benefactor to the city of Lovely. Miss Lovely, first let me express my condolences for the passing of your grandfather, Cornelius.”

The camera showed Susan Lovely, who was checking a mirror, but quickly put it away, saying, “Thank you, Greg. Yes, it was hard on the whole family losing my beloved grandfather.”

Greg Jouglard then asked, “Can you tell us how close you were to Mr. Lovely? Can you tell us about him, his life, his beliefs, his work ethics… the whole man?”

Susan Lovely looked as though she were caught offguard by the question, but tried to answer it the best she could: “Like I said, it was hard on the whole family losing my beloved grandfather. He loved us all so very, very much. I don’t believe anything has hurt me as deeply as losing my Pee-Paw.”

Mr. Jouglard looked at her, and Susan continued, “That’s what I used to call him when I was little.”

“I see,” said Mr. Jouglard. “Well, do you have any stories to tell about Mr. Lovely? Did you ever spend any time with him growing up?”

“Yes, I used to spend summers with he and Mee-Maw here in Lovely, when I would come to live with them at their home on the company grounds. My parents only wished the very best for me, and so instead of summer camp they’d pack me up and send me to live with my grandparents, and that’s how I became his favorite grandchild!”

Mr. Jouglard was smiling along with her, but it was a bit forced; he was smiling for the show’s sake. “Rumor has it, Miss Lovely…”

“Yes?” she replied.

“Rumor has it that as a family member, you will be the next-in-line to the Lovely command, so to speak. Is there any truth to that?”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out when the will is read, won’t we?” And with that, she gave a little giggle at her own cleverness.

“If indeed you are the will’s benefactor, or… benefactress, would you be interested in becoming the CEO of the Lovely Chocolate Company?”

“If selected, I would serve,” said Susan Lovely, with a straight and solemn face.

Mr. Jouglard figured he’d better end the interview before it got any worse, so he turned to the camera and said, “Well, I guess that wraps up what we needed to know here; back to you, Darla.” This was not one of his better interviews, and he knew it.

The television screens then showed Miss Bell with the board of directors, all middle-aged to older white men, with one black and one Asian man, and one middle-aged female dressed in purple, in their meeting room, eating chocolate candies while standing around Miss Bell, who also had one. They were smiling and mugging to the camera, and all the wrapper labels were properly shown, in the right direction and fingers placed so the product could be read and recognized by the viewers.

“Thank you, Greg. And to the town of Lovely, it looks as though all systems are go here at the Lovely Chocolate Factory, and the transition from one leader to the next should be smooooth sailing, with no problems whatsoever to the community. And with that, this is Darla Bell, and the board of directors, saying ‘Good-bye, Lovely!’”

The cameraman pulled the lens back a little so all the board members could be seen, and they were waving to Lovely with one hand, holding chocolate bars with the other, saying, “Good-bye” in unison as the camera faded to black.

“Boy, that must be humiliating,” I said to myself, having watched the local news special. I turned off the TV and went to bed, feeling disgusted for viewing it, but like everybody else in Lovely, wanted to know the state of the company.





A Sad Childhood Story

The next week I was back in Miss Planter’s office, telling her a few stories about childhood days growing up on the southside of Lovely.

“You could say we were Americana,” I said. “Little girls wore dresses; little boys wore baseball caps and blue jeans, t-shirts, even overalls. Girls had long hair, and boys wore theirs short; there were no tattoos or body piercings then. We hosted lots of neighborhood kids in our backyard, since Mom and Dad took out all the stickers in the yard and put in some swings.”

Miss Planter gave me a look of curiosity; I needed to explain.

“A sticker was a burr in the grass; my parents had both gone out back with yard tools and gloves and pulled up all the weeds so we wouldn’t have any problems going barefoot, something common that kids did then.”

“How did you get along with your playmates, Mr. Owen?” Miss Planter asked.

“I think I got along with them rather well. I did have a run-in with one of them when I was younger, but it was just a childhood fight, nothing to be upset about.”

“Who won the fight?” asked Miss Planter.

“I did.”

“Then you didn’t have to be upset about it.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “The winner doesn’t have to be upset about that. The loser was the one who had to adjust.”

“Do you have any stories about your neighborhood playmates that did upset you?” she asked.

I stopped for a moment to recall one story that I kept buried.

“Yes,” I admitted, after the pause became awkward. “I have one. I’m still ashamed about it.”

“Would you care to share it?” she pried.

“I suppose I could. It was a long time ago, and it was another backyard episode. I was playing in our sandbox when Billy Blevins came from next door to play. He was about 18 months younger than me, and so he was always a bit of a tag-along friend. Anyhow, we were playing in the sand box, when he decided that he was going to climb up one end of the swing set, crawl across the top of it and down the other side, like the bigger kids did. I told him I didn’t think that was a good idea, since our parents told us not to do that. He knew, but said he was going to do it anyway.”

“Did you tell him ‘no’?” Miss Planter asked.

“No, I decided to let him go ahead, since I had warned him. I had my back to the swingset, and was working on a project in the sand box. I could hear him climbing up the swing frame, and getting to the top. Then he started across on the support beam, and that’s when he ran into trouble. I don’t know whether he slipped and couldn’t make it, and decided to come down the chains on the swings instead of the poles… well, that’s probably what he did. I didn’t know; I didn’t turn to see. He called for help, but I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to help him; I was just a little kid, too. His mother heard him crying for help. She called to me from their backyard next door to help him, but I just ignored her. She ran around the fences through the front yards to get to our backyard to help Billy down from the swingset. She then carried him back to their house. I sat the whole time in the sandbox, working on my little sand project.”

“You ignored his cries for help?”

“Yes.”

“And you still feel guilty about this?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Billy was my friend, he was younger than me, and I should have helped him. But at the time it seemed to be a matter of self-preservation.”

“Why? You wouldn’t have been able to do anything anyway,” she said.

“I didn’t even try. I could have at least tried to help.”

“You may have got caught up in the swingset chains yourself,” she said, trying to help, or else was acting the devil’s advocate.

“Maybe so, but that would be better than carrying this guilt around all these years,” I replied.

“Did Billy ever hold this against you?”

“No, strangely enough, he didn’t. We were playing again a couple of days later. His mother didn’t say anything to me about it, either.”

“What did your parents say?”

“I never told them. It’s as if it never happened.”

“Why do you think you reacted as you did?”

“I don’t know. I did that as a child; whenever something too big for me to handle came along, I just froze or pretended it wasn't happening. That’s what I did in this case.”

Miss Planter spent a few moments writing on her tablet, not looking up, which was smart of her because I really couldn’t read her too well when she had her head down.

“What do you think was learned from this experience?” Miss Planter asked, suddenly sounding like a school teacher.

“I think Billy learned that when adults tell children not to do something, you don’t do it,” I said.

“What did you learn from it?”

I already knew the answer. “I learned that I could be a coward.”

“You were a child,” she said.

“Yes, and Billy was my friend. He was younger and smaller than me; I should have looked out for him. I heard him calling for help; he relied on me.”

Miss Planter wrote some more, then said, “You’re being too hard on yourself, I think, Mr. Owen. As you said, this happened a long time ago.”

“Maybe I am, but Billy trusted me, and I let him down. I now think it’s better to get hurt than to let someone down like that.”

Miss Planter thought a moment, and wrote some more on her notepad, saying, “Perhaps you did get something positive out of this experience.”

“I’d hoped to be able to make it up to Billy, but his father took a job transfer and they moved away to another city shortly after that.”

“You can’t always get to do what you’d like to do, Mr. Owen,” Miss Planter said.

“How well I know that, Miss Planter.”





Miss Planter Gets Personal

After a few more meetings, Miss Planter zeroed in on some matters that some might consider personal.

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Owen? I hope you don’t mind my asking this.”

Why should I mind her asking this? She was a mental health counselor, which pretty much gave her the right to ask anything. I had put myself on the line, so it was no big deal. “I don’t mind. I’m an engineer.”

Miss Planter looked up from her clipboard. “An engineer? Are you saying you work for the airlines?”

“No, nothing so dramatic,” I said. “I’m a civil engineer. I work for a company in town called Root and Bonham, which handles contracts from businesses, schools, and some government work, both city and state. I’m a bit of a concrete person, and I handle water run-off.”

Miss Planter looked perplexed, so I continued. “I am the fellow who draws plans for drains and ditches; after a rain, water has to go someplace, and it’s my job to divert it away from companies and their buildings towards lower ground, and make sure it arrives in one of our area rivers or lakes.”

Miss Planter didn’t show it, since she was wearing her poker face, but I’m sure she was a bit disappointed. It was quite a long fall from the airlines to ditches, and there wasn’t much excitement when it came to water run-off.

I felt as though I had to explain more. “My job is a quiet, reliable day-to-day job. It’s fairly routine and sometimes boring, just like me.”

“You’re anything but boring, Mr. Owen. Routine, maybe, but I wouldn’t categorize you as being a run of the mill person.” Strangely enough, this made me feel better.

“How would you categorize me, then?” I asked. I really wanted to know. She’s a healthcare professional, and I could use her professional viewpoints. Besides, I was starting to have respect for her opinion.

“I’d have to say that you’re dependable, Mr. Owen. You haven’t missed a meeting yet, and all your checks have cleared.”

I laughed out loud at this, which surprised Miss Planter, although she seemed glad I was laughing. “It’s good to be appreciated!” I said. “Don’t all your patients pay their bills?”

“That falls into the not-yet-doctor/patient confidentiality arena. I’m afraid I can’t comment on that.” She smiled. “Let’s just say it’s good to see someone who tries to be responsible.”

That was even better to hear. “Thank you Miss Planter.” She said nothing, just looked at her clipboard and smiled.

“How do you see yourself, Mr. Owen? How would you categorize you?”

“How do I see myself? Besides being routine and boring?” Miss Planter looked up.

“Just kidding,” I said. “I see myself as a person who isn’t the same man he was just five short years ago. I used to have energy and darker hair, and more of it! But now I’m changing. I used to be able to eat rocks for breakfast, now I’m finding that I’ve got to be careful what I eat so it doesn’t upset my stomach for the rest of the day. I used to be made of rubber as a young man, plastic as a middle-aged man, and now I feel as though I’m turning into wood. I’m weaker, slower, and not as chipper as I used to be. If my life keeps going like this…”

Miss Planter was peering directly into my eyes. I paused, then continued, “… I don’t think I’m going to like the experience very much,” I said. “Plus, I don’t think I am much to write home about.”

Miss Planter looked at her notes, thought for a moment, then said, “The aging process is quite normal; what you’re going through can be a sort of a minor middle-aged crisis. You’ve started looking at the future with dread; you may not have accomplished all you have wanted to do, you see your energy levels getting lower, and you realize that you’re probably more than half way through with life. That’s not a very appealing outlook, but it’s quite normal for men your age.”

Men my age? Men my age? Did she see me as some kind of grandpa here, a fossil, a relic? I still have most of my teeth and can jog a mile every other day, although I haven’t done it for a few years now. Who do you think you are, you middle-aged mama? Shirley Temple?

“Oh. That’s good to hear,” I said. “So I’m normal, am I?”

“’Normal’ is a word we don’t use much in this business,” Miss Planter said, matter-of-factly. “We prefer the term ‘healthy’. It’s more positive, and when a person hears he’s ‘healthy’ as opposed to just ‘normal,’ it gives him hope.”

“Healthy,” I said out loud. “I could use a little hope; I’ll settle for healthy, then.”

Miss Planter wrote some more on her clipboard. She didn’t look at me when she asked the next question: “Are you married, Mr. Owen?”

I felt my back get tense, then I tried to sound casual when I said “No.” I braced myself for what the next question would be, one that’s been asked at other times by other people.

“Have you ever been married, Mr. Owen?” I paused, waiting for the appropriate moment to respond. “No, I’ve never been married.” Miss Planter lowered her clipboard and looked at me. It wasn’t a look of disgust, but more of surprise. I took that as a good sign.

Miss Planter turned her gaze back to her clipboard, and flipped it a few pages. “She’s heading over to different territory,” I thought. “She’s looking for reinforcements. The next few questions are going to be invasive.”

“Have you ever considered matrimony?” she asked.

I almost laughed. Have I ever considered it? Only every day for the past 35 years!

“Yes, I’ve given it some thought,” I replied.

“Well, what were your thoughts on the subject?”

“My thoughts were that marriage wasn’t an option at the time,” I said, hoping she’d wrap this subject up in a hurry.

“Was there ever a time you felt it might be right for you to marry?”

She’s gone from thinking to feeling. That’s what women do; I wondered if she realized it.

“Yes, I felt it might have been a good idea to get married around the magic age of 25 or so, as a person just out of college who had worked a few years. But that was half my life ago.” That ought to kill the subject.

Miss Planter looked a little frustrated, as though she was having difficulty remembering that this is a “non-judgmental” office. She was masking her emotions, but I “think” she was “feeling” mad at my answers in this territory. I wondered how mad I could make her before she blew her top? Should I push her buttons and see if I could get her to explode? I decided against this; she’s done nothing wrong to me, not yet, anyhow.

Her next question drew blood. “Have you ever been in love?” she asked.

Well, now, that’s a romantic question. How did we go from marriage to love? My answers had to sound detached, devoid of showing any care.

“Yes, once I allowed myself to become emotionally involved … in a significant way.”

I had just opened the door for all kinds of questions now. Miss Planter would probably want to know all the details. Hopefully she, the mental health counselor, could remain professional.

“Since you haven’t married, I can only assume that you never pursued the relationship with marriage and family as being the ultimate goal.” Boy, she said a mouthful. She was prodding and poking around in the dark, trying to draw me out.

I replied, “And I assume you want to know why I’ve never married.”

I saw the lights go on in Miss Planter’s head; she nodded. “Yes, I think that would be helpful information.”

I continued, “The reason I’ve never married is… because nobody’s ever asked me.”

I saw Miss Planter’s face drop, and I couldn’t help but chuckle, which now seemed to annoy her. I laughed at this for a moment, then said, “You were hoping for some good stuff, weren’t you?”

“No,” she said, “I was hoping for some answers. Haven’t you ever thought about this?”

“Haven’t I ever thought about this? Yes, I’ve thought about it all the time! Truthfully? The honest answer is, I don’t really know why I’ve never married. It’s something I’ve never put all my effort into. I’ve been mostly content these past few decades, and I guess I just didn’t want to rock the boat.”

That seemed to placate Miss Planter, at least for this session, perhaps. She would probably retreat and think of some more questions for me on this subject, I’m sure. This would give me more time to come up with more punchlines.

“Do you like women?” she said, a lightning bolt out of the blue.

“Do I like women?” I said. “Yes, I like women: fried and over-easy.”

Miss Planter didn’t laugh. I waited to get chewed out, but that didn’t happen. Guess I’d have to tell the truth. “Yes I like women, in a way. As long as they don’t stress me out and cause any trouble.”

I could see Miss Planter’s eyes grow cold and glaring when she asked, “What kind of trouble, Mr. Owen?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied. “Any kind of trouble. Trouble in the way that they can draw you away from your work or purpose, or pull you away from what you’re supposed to be doing, or be a financial drain, or hate your family, your parents, that sort of thing.”

I heard Miss Planter’s pen click, and then there was more writing on the clipboard. “You have dated much in the past, Mr. Owen?”

“Was that a question?” I asked, looking for clarification.

“Yes.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve dated some, but not what I’d call ‘much.’ Every now and then when I felt as though I was out of touch, I’d get a date to meet some sort of mental quota, but I’m not what you would call a wolf on the prowl.”

“Quota? Explain this ‘quota’ system to me, if you would please,” Miss Planter asked, professionally.

“The best I can explain it is, starting way back in high school, if I didn’t have a date at least once every few months, I’d think less of myself and become anxious. Why? I don’t know. I think it’s because I had unrealistic expectations to be like the men on television, who seemed to have no trouble attracting and keeping young and beautiful women on their elbow, and so I probably had youthful views of what life was supposed to be. I’d get a date every now and then, just to meet this mental ‘quota,’ but it was really so I’d feel better about myself.”

“Were you happy with this quota system, Mr. Owen?” Miss Planter was still not smiling at this point; she wanted to hear more.

“No, not really. I wasn’t what you’d call successful in the area of relationships, in a boy-girl sort of way…”

“Success is many things to many people,” said Miss Planter. “Did you consider yourself to be a failure in this area, then, Mr. Owen?”

“No, I wouldn’t…” I stumbled. “… I don’t think I’d call myself a failure here. I just wasn’t a fellow who always had a girl around, or handy. And dating really proved to be more trouble than it was worth, in my opinion.”

“And why was that, Mr. Owen?”

“Because, back then, anyway, the guy was the one who was supposed to do all the asking, all the arranging, all the permission-getting, and on top of everything else, the person who paid for it all. And I’d wind up paying for dates, and many times I didn’t even like the girl I was with. I was trying to do the proper and socially acceptable thing, as I knew it, something I didn’t enjoy. So I guess this translated into marriage, somehow. I figured that since I was the person who was responsible for everything, the house, car, relationship, payments, bills, I figured it was just too much to bother with.”

Miss Planter looked as though she understood what I was saying. She seemed to be enjoying what she was writing on her clipboard, anyhow. I wondered if what she was writing had the word ‘loser’ in it. She also looked as though she was suppressing a grin.

I also thought and felt as though I’d sweated off five pounds.