—
TOO BAD ABOUT HANNA Marie’s Prince Charming. Had Ander Swensen followed his instincts and made just a few strategic inquiries, he would have found out that Michael Vincent had indeed been raised in Lake Forest, Illinois, and had attended Northwestern University. But the man his daughter had just married wasn’t that Michael Vincent. In fact, “Michael Vincent” wasn’t even his real name. He had picked the name out of a yearbook.
* * *
THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING
* * *
by Mrs. Ida Jenkins
This week, same as last week, the whole town’s talking about the big plan to build an indoor shopping center across the highway from the nursing home. The rumor mill has it that several of our downtown businesses have already started making plans to relocate to this new “mall.” So many changes are taking place.
And as Elmwood Acres, the new trailer park, is now completed, many worry that it will attract tornadoes to our area. Husband Herbert tells me this belief is just an old wives’ tale. I hope he is right. My question is, “Why can’t things stay the way they are?” I like our town just the way it is. Husband Herbert says progress is good for everyone, but sometimes I do wonder.
Oh, how we hate these long, cold winter days. Just a reminder, houseplants are such a lovely way to bring nature inside. A begonia, azalea, or hydrangea turns a dark room into a festival of color. And does anyone remember the lovely collection of blue glass violins with blooming ivy that Dorothy Smith displayed in all of her windows? Oh, dear, I must be getting nostalgic in my old age.
Is it my imagination or is time just flying by? It seems only yesterday that my daughter, Norma, was a baby. Now she is a grown-up young woman with a daughter of her own.
By the way, on our recent trip for husband Herbert to see his heart specialist in Chicago, I was most impressed with the new stylish form-fitting navy-and-white outfits the stewardesses were wearing. Très chic!
* * *
Ida could not say so in her column, but she was not only concerned about the new trailer park attracting tornadoes to the area. She was also concerned about the certain class of people it had brought. One family in particular. She had seen the mother (who had three front teeth missing) beating the living daylights out of her five-year-old son named Luther. True, he had kicked her in the grocery store when she had tried to take his candy bar away from him, but the language she had used and the names she had called him were not the kinds of things usually heard in Elmwood Springs. Except maybe from Tot Whooten. But Tot’s salty language had not been directed at a child. And her use of certain words could be understood and forgiven, under the circumstances.
Poor Tot. After she’d put up with her drunken husband for years, he had finally sobered up, only to run off a year later with a younger woman named Jackie Sue Potts. Tot was in such a rage over it that everyone’s hair was a mess for months. She had given Verbena such a tight permanent, Verbena couldn’t get a comb through it.
People in Elmwood Springs had always loved a good joke or a tall tale and told a lot of them, so they were always suspicious that someone was pulling their leg.
So in 1969, when Mr. Clayborn came up to Still Meadows and told them that an American named Neil Armstrong had just walked on the moon, almost nobody believed him.
“Sure, Willard, we may be dead, but we ain’t stupid,” said Old Man Hendersen.
“No, I’m telling you, it really happened. I saw it on television. And he even talked. He said, ‘One small step for man, a giant leap for men.’ Or was it ‘mankind’? Something. But believe me, it’s true. I’m not kidding. I swear.”
“Oh, sure, Willard. And my grandmother has three heads.”
Even though they suspected Willard was kidding with them, they all looked up at the moon that night and wondered if it could really be true that a man could get all the way up there and walk around.
—
A FEW WEEKS LATER, when Jack Look came in by way of a stroke, the first thing they asked him was, “Did a man really go to the moon?”
“Oh, yes, I saw it on television from the moon. Neil Armstrong.”
“And he talked up there?”
“He did.”
“I told you so, you bozos,” said Willard.
When that unbelievable information turned out to be true, the old guys stopped even wondering what they would come up with next. After going to the moon, what else was left?
Hundreds of body bags were being stacked in the back of trucks, ready to be shipped home. It was another sweltering day, and some of the soldiers on duty were stoned, and the others making out the tags might as well have been, they were so tired. They had been there far too long, and mistakes were being made.
As usual, Lucille Beemer greeted the newcomer. “Welcome to Still Meadows. I’m Lucille Beemer. What is your name, dear?”
The boy seemed confused. “Uh, Jackson. C.J. Where did you say I was?”
“Still Meadows. Still Meadows Cemetery.”
“Am I in New Jersey?”
“No, you are in Missouri.”
“You’re kidding…”
“No.”
“Well, I’m not supposed to be. I’m in the wrong damn state. I’m from Elmwood Hills, New Jersey.”
“Oh, dear. Well, honey, I just don’t know what to say. But if it makes you feel any better, we are honored that you are here.”
Rusty Hagood, another recent arrival, over in plot 431, realized what must have happened and jumped in. “Hi, buddy. I just got back from Nam myself. What happened? Where did you get it?”
“Phnom Penh,” said C.J. They had a long chat, and Rusty introduced him around to all the other vets, including Gene Nordstrom.
Later, C.J. was exhausted from talking to so many people and settled down for a nap. Before he went to sleep, he thought about his odd predicament. Oh, well. He hadn’t much liked New Jersey—at least not the part he came from. The only relative he had there was an older half sister, and she never liked him much, so he guessed it was all right. These people seemed nice. He figured he might just as well hang out here as any other place. He had always wanted to go to the Midwest. An army nurse from Iowa had been mighty nice to him once. Mighty nice. So what the heck?
1971
The next arrival at Still Meadows didn’t wait to be greeted; she just jumped right in. “Hello, everyone. It’s Ida Jenkins. I’m here far too early, but that’s another story. I just wanted to say that now that I am here, feel free to ask me about our latest project.”
“What’s she talking about?” asked Bertha Gumms. “What project?”
Mrs. Bell said, “Oh, she was the president of the Garden Club. I guess it’s a Garden Club thing.”
“I don’t even know who she is.”
“Well, just be glad you didn’t have to deal with her. She ruled that club with an iron thumb, and if she wasn’t happy with the way your yard looked, she was known to come to your house and clip your hedges.”