The Latest News from Watervalley

Winter has arrived.

The thermometer fell to 18° last week and all the old timers who gathered in the tack room down at the Farmers Co-op had a lengthy discussion about maple trees… about when the sap runs, when it doesn’t run, or when it just jogs in place.

Out at their farm on Fattybread Road, Beatrice and Charlie Tomlin bid farewell to the last of the zinnias. The frost got them. Several years ago, Beatrice had planted a few seeds in one of the raised beds. But since then they had migrated horrifically, apparently bent on world domination. They took over the next two raised beds, creating an explosion of size and color. Graduating seniors and brides-to-be would come out to have their pictures made in front of them. Charlie and Beatrice, both of whom were retired, were thrilled with the company and jokingly referred to themselves as the “Zinnia Citizens.”

But last year, things started getting out of hand. The zinnias had invaded the tomatoes, the sweet corn, the peonies, the pond bank, and even the drainage ditch. At first Charlie and Beatrice were amused with the proliferation. But then the zinnias started making lustful eyes at Beatrice’s beloved rose garden. Enough was enough and Charlie weeded them out.

But he worried. He feared that he’d wake up one morning to the sight of pink, and yellow, and orange blossoms peering into his bedroom window, plotting revenge. Charlie spent his days puttering by himself around the farm. With so much time to his own thoughts, sometimes his imagination would start talking back to him. But, despite the cold aching every bone in his body, he was thankful for the heavy frost. He could now rest easy.

At least until next April.

Hoot Wilson drove into town last Thursday to fill his truck up with gas. It was cold. He had on his Carhart overalls, his blue jean jumper, and his rubber milking boots. He stopped at the Twice Daily and began pumping gas when Winston Cramer’s boy, Carson, pulled up to the pump beside him. Carson was sixteen, small and thin with stooped shoulders, a pointed chin, and a moody outlook. Despite the cold, he was wearing black jeans, a black AC/DC tee-shirt, and a wool beanie that almost covered his eyes. With his windows rolled down he was playing a rap song two decibels below the threshold of pain …enough to take the paint off Hoot’s truck.

Hoot didn’t so much mind the kid’s attitude or his choice of music. To each his own. What he did mind was the volume. So, he casually opened his truck door and with his newly installed 500-megawatt boosters paired with a triple blend woofer and tweeter, he cranked up some polka. The blistering sound of the accordion made the rap song sound like background noise. He casually walked back to continue pumping gas and smiled at Carson, who was now wincing at Hoot with a face of confusion and disbelief. Hoot let a few moments pass before yelling over the din.

“Annoying, ain’t it. Ya know, it makes you want to ask the question, ‘What is it about me that I need to draw so much attention to myself?’”

Carson re-holstered the pump handle, put his gas cap on, and sped off. In an act of heroic rebellion, he never cut the music down. He drove home to vent his passion and frustration like a true misunderstood artist. He would journal about it.

He wrote about how the older generation was oppressive and viciously quashed freedom of expression. Hoot Wilson was just a tool. He was part of a larger conspiracy among the adults of Watervalley to keep the free and artistic spirit of the town’s teenagers in check The only thing impressive about Hoot was his daughter Wendy, who without doubt, was the prettiest girl in school….a girl he’d like to know better, even though her dad was a wheel in the machinery of subjugation.

As he finished penning the words of defiance, the smell of lasagna wafted up from the kitchen. It brought him back to reality. He read through his latest entry again. Satisfied, he closed the journal, hid it in his bottom desk drawer, and went downstairs.

Righteous indignation didn’t march on an empty stomach.

Down at the Three Sisters Beauty Buffet, Jean, Irene, and Maxine are in an uproar. There are numerous Christmas parties happening this Saturday and the Beauty Buffet is way overbooked. To make matters worse, Irene had to postpone several appointments yesterday to do an emergency hair and make-up over at Beaumont’s Funeral Home. Leslie Beaumont, who normally did this job, was visiting relatives in Mobile.

Carmilla Chumley was the poor soul who had suddenly shed her mortal coil. She was sixty-two, a heavy smoker and drinker, and a nightly fixture at the bar at the Alibi Roadhouse. She wore low cut tops which had the effect of keeping the older guys on their toes. Irene wasn’t exactly chummy with Carmilla but thought it her Christian duty to do what she could. Women in the south always want to look their best, especially if they happen to be dead.

Mildred Hamilton had a hair appointment early that morning. Mildred wasn’t just a customer; she was an event. She was a snooty old coot who by marriage claimed the mantle of being a WFF, a Watervalley First Family. Mildred talked non-stop. Ultimately, she didn’t have much to say. Unfortunately, you had to listen to her for a long time to figure that out. She didn’t suffer from boredom, but she was certainly a carrier.

She was on a tear about how the new Presbyterian minister was advocating some pretty advanced theology and people couldn’t wait for him to leave. Mildred acted as though piety was a contest, even though when it came to church, she was a shrewd economist, saving her soul with the least possible outlay. She had gone to the new pastor with some questions about congregants wearing blue jeans to church and thus not showing proper reverence. She didn’t much care for his answers and thought about going to Reverend Pickard at the Episcopal Church to get a second opinion.

Mildred also had the insufferable habit of bringing her little dog, a Bichon Frise named Mr. Belvedere. She normally kept Mr. Belvedere in her laundry bag size purse. But on this occasion, she decided to let him run free.

Mr. Belvedere was a ten plus on the yipe-o-meter and was small enough to be kidnapped by squirrels. Even though the little fluff ball was a mere five pounds, he came into the beauty parlor displaying the confidence of a dog who could factor a quadratic equation. Mildred talked to him like he had an IQ of 160 and was ready for a middle management position. Whenever he started one of his nuclear-powered yipping sprees, Maxine, who had something of a mean streak anyway, would go into the supply room and blow a dog whistle she had bought on Amazon. This would send Mr. Belvedere into the corner, quietly assuming something akin to a doggie fetal position. Maxine would occasionally come by, scratch him on the head, and sigh. If only there was a whistle that had the same effect on Mildred.

Around ten o’clock on Tuesday night, the Sheriff, Warren Thurman found Noah Walker passed out on the bench at the North shore of Watervalley Lake. A light snow had fallen, covering Noah in a silvery blanket. Normally such behavior would buy you a free night in the drunk tank. But Warren had a notion that Noah would be there. It was December seventeenth.

Noah was near seventy-five now and retired. He and his wife Lydia had been teachers at the high school for over forty years. Their relationship went back much further. They were childhood sweethearts. In May of 1968, after their graduation ceremony at the bandstand, he took her hand, and they walked to the bench. It was their favorite place in all of Watervalley. And on that sunny May afternoon, he proposed.

They would finish their degrees first and then be married. They were patient people; thoughtful, methodic people. He had a scholarship to Sewanee. She went to Belmont. Two weeks after they graduated college, they were married in a simple ceremony down by the lake. That fall, they began teaching at the high school. He taught math and she taught English. They bought a house near the lake and began the life they had so carefully planned. But the years passed, and no children arrived.

Then, over time, teenagers would stop by in the afternoon for a quick tutorial or to hand in a paper that was due that day so as not to be counted late. Sometimes the students just wanted to talk… about problems with a parent, or a girlfriend, or an undecided future. Hanging out at the Walker’s became a daily affair.

Before long Noah converted their two-car garage into a rec room with chairs, couches, a fridge and a pool table. Teenagers began to stop by before and after a date, or a dance, or a basketball game. Everyone came by on the night of prom. There were always cokes and snacks and ice cream sandwiches. One of the FFA boys made an engraved wooden plaque in the woodshop at school that read, “Third Base.” It was proudly hung on the rec room wall. Noah didn’t quite understand. Finally, someone placed a piece of paper below it that said, “Last Stop Before Home.” Year in and year out, the house was filled with life.

Along the way Noah and Lydia would follow a daily ritual of walking to the lake and sitting on the bench. From there they watched the slow processional of the seasons. They grew older. But for Noah, Lydia never changed. She remained ever lovely, with eyes full of slow surprise and tenderness. He still marveled at her. She had an engaging spontaneity, completely incapable of wholly believing the worst about anyone. She was the eternal curiosity of his life, the source of color and animation.

But three years ago, the light in her eyes began to fade and the onset of dementia became the long goodbye. On December seventeenth of last year, she passed away. Warren remembered.

Now when Noah awoke each morning his first thought was of her. And from that moment forward he would carry her with him through the day. Often, he would walk down to the bench and his mind would draw back into the world of his youth; of the immortal stillness of summer evenings, the secreted sounds of laughter echoing across the lake, the expressive eyes, the wisps of auburn hair, the adoring smile.

He would return home but she was not there, leaving him haunted by the emptiness of the big house. He moved through the shadows of each day, living in this absence.

Warren touched Noah’s shoulder. He moved slightly with a low mumble. But nothing more. He was out. The bottle lay in the snow next to the bench, empty. Warren stood calmly over his old math teacher, taking in a deep draft of the fresh, living air of December. He gazed into the immense and silent winter sky above him, filled with tender and homely particles of distant stars. Somehow, all the light seemed to gather on the man lying on the bench before him, illuminating him against the encompassing darkness.

Noah Walker seemed small and frail now, not the extraordinary man of years past whose response to everyone was warm and natural. Warren didn’t regard him with pity, but with reverence. There welled within him remembrances of the boundless charity, the patient ear, the soft wisdom, the welcome house warm with mellow light.

He touched Noah’s shoulder again, with no success. So, with his six-foot, three-inch frame, he simply lifted him up and carried him to the patrol car. Warren drove Noah home, took off his coat, and got him in bed. In the morning he would talk to Connie Thompson and together they would devise a plan to gather a group to look in on him. For the people of Watervalley, Noah was a well source of their best of memories. He was a fixture of their youth, of a season, however brief and beautiful, that was filled with laughter, and hope, and unspoiled dreams. There would be no shortage of volunteers.

For now, that’s the news from Watervalley where, as we always say….. there’s not much to see, but what you hear makes up for it.