to donate one or ….when from behind me I heard a very dramatic Phyllis
Ross tell her friends Sally Coleman and Carol Carney about the “wonderful
letter” someone had left by PJ’s grave. I swallowed my donut hole and
choked down the rest of the last bit of ridiculously strong decaffeinated
coffee in my Styrofoam cup. I feigned an increasing interest in Albert’s
generator talk, but backed myself into a position where I could better
eavesdrop on Phyllis and friends.
“Goodness, how lovely. Who was it from?” asked
Carol.
“Well that’s the thing,” Phyllis answered, “it wasn’t
signed.”
Sally put a hand over her heart and gasped loudly.
“It wasn’t signed?” Carol whispered. “Oh my, an anonymous letter.”
“At the bottom of the letter it just said He won’t be forgotten .”
“I’ll bet it was Pastor Judy,” said Sally. “She
was very fond of PJ.”
“I thought of that, too,” Phyllis said, “but I don’t
think so. For one thing, Pastor Judy’s only been here four years and something
about that letter made me think it was from someone who had known PJ for longer
than that. Plus, the handwriting looks like a man’s.”
I shifted a half-turn on my feet and could see them
out of the corner of my eye. I nodded my head toward Albert, but fine-tuned my ears into the ladies’
conversation. Carol and Sally peppered Phyllis with questions from the
left and the right. Breathy and desperate, they gasped out their
speculations.
Left: “Well,
who do you think it was?”
Right: “Must
have been Ivan Sheridan. He and PJ were friends since they were boys.”
Left: “No,
I bet it was Cal Dierke , he’s more the literary type
than Ivan.”
Right: “Maybe
it was Glen Hoover? He replaced PJ as Sunday usher and he works for the post office?”
Left: “The
Post Office? Now what difference does that make? You think that
letter went through the post?”
Right: “I
don’t know, maybe. It could have.”
Left: “Yes,
Sally, that’s right. It was special delivery and PJ signed for it
himself.”
Sally gasped at this and stared at Carol with mouth
agape. Carol turned to Phyllis and dipped an apologetic look.
Phyllis smiled tenderly and grabbed the hands of her two good friends.
“What do you think, Phyllis?” Sally asked.
Phyllis sounded dubious, “I don’t know, that just
doesn’t seem like something that any of them would do.”
“Well who then?”
There are some memories that are so corner-of-the-eye
difficult to recall that they are like that powerful dream that startles you
into consciousness, but by morning has faded into nothing more than a general
recollection of intense emotion. In that living waking moment, you can’t
imagine how you could possibly forget that foundation-rocking sleep-movie, and
yet we always seem to manage to lose the details. Fortunately or
unfortunately, with both dream and memory the mind will fill in the gaps to
help complete the story in a way that makes it memorable. And so it is
with my memories of my Aunt Paula.
Aunt Paula lived two houses away from Grandpa and
Grandma and had been the town mayor forever. She was also the town
beautician, her living room the salon. Henry Ford once famously said that
people could have their Model-T in any color they wanted as long as it was
black. And so it was at my Aunt Paula’s beauty parlor. The salon
patrons, some of whom seemed to have multiple appointments weekly, entered that
parlor like loose items on the assembly line and reemerged hours later as the
finely engineered finished product, packaged up nicely in box and string.
Riding out on a conveyor belt and sporting dreadfully similar hairdos,
cellophane-wrapped and fastened securely to their heads - each one an exquisite black Model-T. My mind has somehow tied
these memories of Paula’s beauty shop to the song Hotel California by The
Eagles and that is the tune that plays in my head with this
Ross tell her friends Sally Coleman and Carol Carney about the “wonderful
letter” someone had left by PJ’s grave. I swallowed my donut hole and
choked down the rest of the last bit of ridiculously strong decaffeinated
coffee in my Styrofoam cup. I feigned an increasing interest in Albert’s
generator talk, but backed myself into a position where I could better
eavesdrop on Phyllis and friends.
“Goodness, how lovely. Who was it from?” asked
Carol.
“Well that’s the thing,” Phyllis answered, “it wasn’t
signed.”
Sally put a hand over her heart and gasped loudly.
“It wasn’t signed?” Carol whispered. “Oh my, an anonymous letter.”
“At the bottom of the letter it just said He won’t be forgotten .”
“I’ll bet it was Pastor Judy,” said Sally. “She
was very fond of PJ.”
“I thought of that, too,” Phyllis said, “but I don’t
think so. For one thing, Pastor Judy’s only been here four years and something
about that letter made me think it was from someone who had known PJ for longer
than that. Plus, the handwriting looks like a man’s.”
I shifted a half-turn on my feet and could see them
out of the corner of my eye. I nodded my head toward Albert, but fine-tuned my ears into the ladies’
conversation. Carol and Sally peppered Phyllis with questions from the
left and the right. Breathy and desperate, they gasped out their
speculations.
Left: “Well,
who do you think it was?”
Right: “Must
have been Ivan Sheridan. He and PJ were friends since they were boys.”
Left: “No,
I bet it was Cal Dierke , he’s more the literary type
than Ivan.”
Right: “Maybe
it was Glen Hoover? He replaced PJ as Sunday usher and he works for the post office?”
Left: “The
Post Office? Now what difference does that make? You think that
letter went through the post?”
Right: “I
don’t know, maybe. It could have.”
Left: “Yes,
Sally, that’s right. It was special delivery and PJ signed for it
himself.”
Sally gasped at this and stared at Carol with mouth
agape. Carol turned to Phyllis and dipped an apologetic look.
Phyllis smiled tenderly and grabbed the hands of her two good friends.
“What do you think, Phyllis?” Sally asked.
Phyllis sounded dubious, “I don’t know, that just
doesn’t seem like something that any of them would do.”
“Well who then?”
There are some memories that are so corner-of-the-eye
difficult to recall that they are like that powerful dream that startles you
into consciousness, but by morning has faded into nothing more than a general
recollection of intense emotion. In that living waking moment, you can’t
imagine how you could possibly forget that foundation-rocking sleep-movie, and
yet we always seem to manage to lose the details. Fortunately or
unfortunately, with both dream and memory the mind will fill in the gaps to
help complete the story in a way that makes it memorable. And so it is
with my memories of my Aunt Paula.
Aunt Paula lived two houses away from Grandpa and
Grandma and had been the town mayor forever. She was also the town
beautician, her living room the salon. Henry Ford once famously said that
people could have their Model-T in any color they wanted as long as it was
black. And so it was at my Aunt Paula’s beauty parlor. The salon
patrons, some of whom seemed to have multiple appointments weekly, entered that
parlor like loose items on the assembly line and reemerged hours later as the
finely engineered finished product, packaged up nicely in box and string.
Riding out on a conveyor belt and sporting dreadfully similar hairdos,
cellophane-wrapped and fastened securely to their heads - each one an exquisite black Model-T. My mind has somehow tied
these memories of Paula’s beauty shop to the song Hotel California by The
Eagles and that is the tune that plays in my head with this
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