Explorations 2007MECC’s Arts E-Zine

The originality, creativity, technical skill, and enormous artistic vitality represented in these pages are something to be proud of. We hope that everyone will enjoy and appreciate the talents displayed. We especially want to thank all the students and alumni who entered the competition, and all of the people on campus in Student Services, the Wampler Library, and the staff of the Public Relations office who make this competition and the publication possible.

WELCOME to the 2007 EXPLORATIONS arts magazine produced by students and alumni of Mountain Empire Community College. The writing, photography, and artwork featured here were chosen by a very distinguished panel of judges. We want to thank Dr. Neela Vaswani, Dr. Amy Clark, Leatha Kendrick, Claude Kelly, and Anita DeAngelis for sharing their time and talents with us.

The originality, creativity, technical skill, and enormous artistic vitality represented in these pages are something to be proud of. We hope that everyone will enjoy and appreciate the talents displayed. We especially want to thank all the students and alumni who entered the competition, and all of the people on campus in Student Services, the Wampler Library, and the staff of the Public Relations office who make this competition and the publication possible.

NEELA VASWANI - Short FictionNeela Vaswani lives in New York. Her short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals, includ-ing the Prairie Schooner. The recipient of the 1999 Italo Calvino Prize, her first book, Where the Long Grass Bends, published by Sarabande Books in 2004 has received wide critical acclaim. She has been a faculty member in the MFA program atSpalding University.

AMY CLARK - Personal EssayAmy Clark is an assistant professor at UVA-Wise who earned her master’s degree from Virginia Tech and a Ph.D from Indiana University in Pennsylvania. Her dissertation was recently named among the six finalists of the 2006 James Berlin Dissertation of the Year awards given by the national College Composi-tion and Communication Conference. She’s currently working on a book about Appalachian dialect.

LEATHA KENDRICK - PoetryThe author of two books of poetry: Heartcake and Science In Your Own Back Yard, Leatha Kendrick has taught creative writing at the University of Kentucky, the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, the Appalachian Writer’s Workshop, and many others. A former editor of Wind magazine, her work has been widely published in such places as The American Voice, The Louisville Review, and in anthologies from the University Press of Kentucky and Helicon Nine Editions.

ANITA DEANGELIS - Drawing and PaintingAnita DeAngelis has been an ETSU faculty member since 1994. She received her BFA from the Univer-sity of Texas at Austin and her MFA from Arizona State University. She has exhibited nationally and her work can be found in many places, such as Berea College, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. She also serves as the Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences at ETSU.

CLAUDE KELLY - PhotographyAn award-winning photographer, photography judge, and teacher for over 30 years, Claude Kelly has a large exhibit currently on display at the Renaissance Center in downtown Kingsport. He received the Northeast Tennessee Tourism Pinnacle Award in 2005 in the Cultural History Category for a book he photo-illustrated entitled Lydia’s Gift. His work has received awards from the Virginia Highlands Festi-val, the Arts Council of Greater Kingsport, and the Southeastern Council of Camera Clubs.

Faculty SponsorsRita QuillenAlice HarringtonBill Harris

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About the Contestants:Stephanie Cassell - participated in the Fall 2006 Creative Writing class at MECC. She has a degree in Writing for Media from Birmingham-Southern College and is currently a fulltime mom to two boys in Norton.

Robin Charles - resides in Dickenson County and teaches English at Haysi High School. She was a member of the fall Creative Writing class at MECC.

Roy Davis - is a General Studies major at MECC who plans to transfer and study Illustration after graduation.

Shane Flanary - of East Stone Gap is a Graphic Design major here at MECC.

Tanya Hale - is a very well-known local photographer from Fort Blackmore.

Rita Justice – is a Guidance Counselor at Haysi High School. She has been involved with the Appalachian Writing Project at UVA-Wise and a student in MECC’s Creative Writing class.

Valerie Kelly – received a certificate in Photography from MECC in 2003. She’s currently pur-suing an education degree.

Loretta Lester-Dorton - is a Liberal Arts major here at MECC who is an avid reader and a lifelong story writer. She was a member of Rita Quillen’s Creative Writing class in the fall. She re-ceived prizes in both literature and art categories.

Sharyn Martin - from Kingsport, is retired from a career in broadcasting. She’s the Winner of the 2003 Lonesome Pine Short Story contest, a previous Explorations winner, and has been pub-lished in Jimson Weed at UVA-Wise.

Candace Miller

Angie Orndorff - attended MECC and is now at James Madison University.

Aaron Robinson - from Clintwood, is a General Studies major at MECC.

Carolyn Scalf - from Nicklesville, is a very well-known local photographer.

Chris Starnes - is a professional photographer from Gate City. You can see more and purchase his work at www.starnesphoto.com.

Teresa Ward – is a 1977 graduate of MECC. She recently retired from the Wise County School System to spend time writing, traveling, and playing with her first grandchild.

Neka Wilson - is an MECC alumni and the college’s resident photographer in the Office of Public Relations, a founder of the Hotshots Photography Club here at the college, and a very well-known local photographer.

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Table of Contents

Color Photography1st Place - Tanya Hale - “Pier Pilings” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52nd Place - Neka Wilson - “A Mother’s Love” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63rd Place - Tanya Hale - “Silent Lucidity” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Honorable Mention Carolyn Scalf - “Old Mill” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Chris Starnes - “Sunset Fisherman” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Tanya Hale - “Pink Slipper” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Valery Kelly - “Misty Morning” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Black and White Photography1st Place - Chris Starnes - “Alaska Beauty”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122nd Place - Neka Wilson - “Self-Portrait of Neck” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133rd Place - Chris Starnes - “Age of Honor”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Honorable Mention Chris Starnes - “Out of the History Book”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Tanya Hale - “White Trillium” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Valery Kelly - “Daddy, You’ll Always be my Hero” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Poetry1st Place - Stephanie Cassell - “Where I’m From” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-192nd Place - Loretta Dorton - “afternoon” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203rd Place - Rita Justice - “Where I’m From . . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213rd Place - Robin Charles - “Where I’m From” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22-23Honorable Mention Teresa Ward - “In My Time Here”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Teresa Ward - “The Swan Song of the Last Tobacco Farmer” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Short Story1st Place - Loretta Dorton - “A Splendid Life” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26-332nd Place - Sharyn Martin - “Rivers and Reeraws” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34-393rd Place - Robin Charles - “The Rock” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40-45

Essay1st Place - Stephanie Cassell - “More for Less” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46-492nd Place - Sharyn Martin - “And it Came to Pass” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50-533rd Place - Rita Justice - “Unanswered Questions” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54-57

Painting1st Place - Angie Orndorff - “Three’s Company”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582nd Place - Candace Miller - “Self Portrait” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593rd Place - Aaron Robinson - “Fruit” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Drawing1st Place - Roy Davis - “Study after Michelangelo” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612nd Place -Rebecca Durham - “Country Comfort” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623rd Place - Angie Orndorff - “Mamma Portrait” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Honorable Mention Loretta Dorton - “Calla Lillies” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Shane Flanary - “Happy Birthday Squiggy”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

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Color Photography1st Place

Tanya Hale

Pier Pilings

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Color Photography2nd Place

Neka Wilson

A Mother’s Love6

Color Photography3rd Place

Tanya Hale

Silent Lucidity7

Color PhotographyHonorable Mention

Carolyn Scalf

Old Mill8

Color PhotographyHonorable Mention

Chris Starnes

Sunset Fisherman9

Color PhotographyHonorable Mention

Tanya Hale

Pink Slipper10

Color PhotographyHonorable Mention

Valery Kelly

Misty Morning11

Black and White Photography1st Place

Chris Starnes

Alaska Beauty12

Black and White Photography2nd Place

Neka Wilson

Family

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Black and White Photography3rd Place

Chris Starnes

Age and Honor

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Black and White PhotographyHonorable Mention

Chris Starnes

Out of the History Book

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Black and White PhotographyHonorable Mention

Tanya Hale

White Trillium16

Black and White PhotographyHonorable Mention

Valery Kelly

Daddy, You’ll Always be my Hero17

Poetry1st Place

Stephanie Cassell

Where I Am FromI am from paper dolls,

Coca-cola, and clutter on the kitchen counter.I am from the brick colonial on the curve

where cars crash whenever it rains.I am from crepe myrtles and hydrangeas,

pass-along plants that could be rootedand taken with you as far north as anyone should ever go.

I am from scrapbooks and spider veins,from Gene and Julia and four siblings.

I’m from the procrastinatorsAnd the do-gooders.

From blessed are the peacemakersand just wait until your father gets home.

I am from going to church whenever the doors were openand first kisses at church campby the light of a lakeside cross.

I’m from Montgomery and Dixie,peanut butter balls, cold sweet tea,

and “hot now” Krispy Kremes.I am from tradition and contradiction

From the country cluband country flea markets.

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I am from the cradle of the Confederacyand the birthplace of Civil Rights.

From Brer Rabbit and the Tar Babyand black best friends in public schools.

From a journey that’s brought mefrom flat white cotton fieldsto towering black coalfields

with a ribbon of gray highway connecting them.

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Poetry2nd Place

Loretta Dortonafternoon

sleeping cats / curled like commas/on the pillow/ on

the rug/voices/ value, unintelligible from his room/and you walk

behind me/ to pick up a book/

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Poetry3rd Place (tie)

Rita JusticeWhere I’m From......

I am from linoleum rugs,from Tide and strong smelling Clorox burning my nose.

I am from a four room house, plastic curtains hanging over doorways for privacy,

swinging as people pass.

I am from Easter lilies and lilac bush scent floating on the breeze.

I am from getting up early and working hard,from Fullers and Howards.

I am from story telling with relativesand family reunions.

I am from “Never go in debt.” “Fords are better than Chevys.”

I am from Primitive Baptist faith, shaking hands, singing and shouting,

and dinner on the ground.

I am from Tilda Anderson Branch,soup beans, turnip greens and corn bread.

From the coal fields of Southwest Virginia,from a living dug out first by my father,

now by my husband.

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Poetry3rd Place (tie)Robin CharlesWhere I’m From

I am from the front porch, from Windex and “See yourself in the shine!”

I am from screens that let in the breeze and kept out the flies, grid like,

almost transparent, looking at the world through dragonfly wings.

I am from the purple stain of the orange-red poppy on prickly stem, tiny dancers

twirling, whirling darkly in the orb of ink.

I am from trips to Ball Mountain, arguing at the tops of our lungs, from George and Sam, from Nell Scott and

the Purple Gang.

I am from being ripped into and fiercely protected by the Puckett Clan.

I am from suffering fools—not lightly—and being accountable.

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I am from spitting, foaming-at-the- mouth Freewill Baptists, spewing

scriptures to suit their own purposes.

I am from Royal Oak, Michigan, transplanted to Dog Branch Gap, Dickenson County,

Virginia, unsweetened iced tea washing down

fried chicken.

From beneath the heart of my mother, strangled like the child before me;

just as surely as the cord tightened around her neck, her legacy stifled me.

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PoetryHonorable Mention

Teresa WardIn My Time Here

In my time here,I have watched

the vast green archingof wild Virginia mountains

lose their graceful ridgesto industry and air.

What oncestood high and lush

and made the sky seem smallare merely coal-blackened coughs

on the dusty streetsof deserted towns.

Skeletal remains of when theearth stood proud and fertile

shiver in the shadows of progress...in my time here.

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PoetryHonorable Mention

Teresa WardThe Swan Song of the Last Tobacco Farmer

He tilled the thawing earth of spring with the rhythm of harrows

and the disc plates whined thin rowsin the firm, disturbed

clumps of cold, rich soil.

The field’s oat cover was turnedunder to the bared fence row

upsetting new purple songs of cloverwhistling white into the wind.

The tractor hummed as the discwailed up broken leavings of old blossoms,

arrowheads, wild onions,sienna stems and rotted roots.

He had passed this way so many times before.

The tractor and harrow grumbled pastfamiliar surface boulders and tree stumps.He wiped the sweat from his forehead and

envisioned row upon row of tall, green tobacco.Another sun began to drop behind the Appalachian Mountains.

The giant, black steering wheel turnedin his big strong hands.

The harrow sang

and stilled...

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Short Story1st Place

Loretta DortonA Splendid Life

Ruby Grace Sweet is wiping off the red-checked tablecloths on the tables in the main dining room. There is another smaller seldom used dining room upstairs be-neath a sloped timbered ceiling. When she is finished wiping off the tablecloths, Ruby Grace will refill all of the salt and peppershakers.

Then if it isn’t too crowded, and it never is, she will sweep and mop the floors of the restaurant where she has been working since moving back to her hometown of Clintwood, Virginia. The name of the place is, “The Front Porch,” but, there is no longer a front porch, the town council forced the owner to remove it because it was too close to the street. There is one man sitting in the corner reading a newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. Refills on coffee are free.

While she works, Ruby Grace hums a song by Allison Kraus, and thinks about her daughter Jessie. Jessie is twelve years old, and in the sixth grade, she should be in the seventh grade, but she lost one year while Ruby Grace was traveling with the band.

Ruby Grace is waiting for her big break; she has been waiting since she graduated high school, fifteen years ago. While she waits to be discovered, she works as a wait-ress; she’s good at it because she’s a people person, unlike her mother Charlotte who seems to hate everybody.

Ruby Grace knows moving around so much has been difficult for Jessie, especially in school. She’s a smart kid, a tom-boy who prefers jeans and tee shirts to anything else. She doesn’t make friends easily.

This move to Virginia has been particularly hard on Jessie, what with starting another new school and getting to know her grandmother Charlotte. Jessie saw her grandmother only once before, when she was four years old. Ruby Grace only called Charlotte on her birthday; or at Christmas, or when she ran out of money.

Ruby Grace is starting to think it was a mistake to move back to Virginia, a mis-take to move in with her mother. Under the circumstances though, she thinks she really had no other choice. When she asked Charlotte for a loan so that she could

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record a demo of her singing, Charlotte agreed with two conditions: Ruby Grace had to move back to Virginia with Jessie, and live with her for one year; and she could not tell Jessie the truth about her father. After the year is up, if Ruby Grace still wants to pursue her singing career, Charlotte will loan her the money.

Jessie doesn’t know about the agreement between her mother and grandmother. Ruby Grace knows if she told Jessie it wouldn’t make any difference to the girl. She was happy in Florida. For the first time in her life, she had a close friend; his name was Orbin and he rented one of the trailers in the court where they used to live.

Orbin is sixty-five years old; part Seminole Indian and Jessie thinks he hung the moon. Orbin taught Jessie how to fish, how to change a tire, and how to track wild animals through the swamp. He was teaching her the legends of the Seminole people when Ruby Grace agreed to move to Virginia. At first Ruby Grace was suspicious of Orbin. Why would he befriend a twelve-year-old girl? As it turns out, he is a nice old guy who just misses his grandchildren who all live in Savannah.

Jessie pitched a fit when Ruby Grace told her they were leaving Florida. “Why do you hate me so much?” She screamed at Ruby Grace. “I don’t want to move! I’m sick of moving around all of the time! I want to stay here!”

Now, Jessie barely speaks to her mother. She is not doing well in school; she has no friends, and she has started stealing things. Ruby Grace found Jessie’s loot in an old trunk in the attic. There are tubes of lipstick, unopened packs of pencils and erasers, a small jewelry box with the requisite ballerina on top, and three egg-shaped glass paperweights, each with a different color swirled inside. The oddest thing she found was a book of poetry, “Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle.” Ruby Grace had not known Jessie liked poetry. But, she had not known she was a thief either.

There was no money, not a cent; Ruby Grace supposes she should be glad about that. She’s been down on her luck many times in her life, but she has never stolen a thing. She has no idea what is going on with Jessie.

She plans to talk to Jessie that afternoon when she gets home from work. The steal-ing has to stop; and Jessie has to start doing better at school. Ruby Grace is scared that Charlotte will find out what is going on, and ask them to leave. Then she won’t get the money she needs to make the demo.

Ruby Grace is not surprised that her mother has not changed at allover the years. Charlotte’s main priority in life, according to her daughter, is making sure that ev-eryone else thinks well of her. She bases all of her decisions on this one desire. It is why she works in a bank; it is why she volunteers at the nursing home, even though it depresses her to go there. It is why she attends the Methodist church. The Method-ist church is the largest church in town and the church that the most affluent of the townspeople attend.

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Ruby Grace shudders to think what would happen if Charlotte ever finds out that her granddaughter is a tiny redheaded thief.

Outside the weather is miserable; it is raining again. The wind is whipping bits of trash and dried leaves around the parking lot. Ruby Grace looks up from what she is doing and watches the wind catch a small white coffee cup, and make it dance.

Later when a customer comes in, a nice-looking guy with his brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail; Ruby Grace looks around for the new girl, she’s no where in sight as usual. She pushes her thoughts of Jessie to the back of her mind. With the dishcloth in one hand, she sashays up to the front to take the guys order.

A few miles away at the Clintwood Elementary School, it is lunchtime ;and Jessie Sweet is trying hard to ignore the group of girls who are taunting her.

“If that Brandi Watson says one more word I’m going to pop her one.” Jessie thinks.

Brandi is the ringleader of the group. She has made it her mission in life to make Jessie miserable since the first day of school, two months ago.

Jessie’s grandmother, Charlotte, works as a secretary for Brandi’s father at the largest bank in town. Jessie reminds herself of this fact while counting to ten. Ac-cording to her best friend Orbin, who is part Seminole Indian, and a very patient guy, counting is suppose to help her control her temper. So far it has not worked.

Jessie grabs for her cap again. She is smaller than the other girls are; Brandi eas-ily dodges her and tosses the cap to someone else. The girls all laugh at Jessie’s frus-tration.

“Give it back, Brandi!” Jessie says. One of the girls crams the cap on her head backwards. Jessie moves towards her, but Brandi blocks her way. Brandi is a short, pudgy girl with frizzy brown hair.

“Why should I?” Brandi smirks.“Because it’s mine!” Jessie says and lunges for the cap again. Orbin gave her the

cap; it has the emblem of the Florida Marlins on the front. They used to watch all of their games together. Jessie wears the cap everywhere she goes. She cannot wear it inside the school building, so she keeps it in her backpack. Brandi snatched it while Jessie was returning her tray.

Brandi gave Jessie a shove. “Well I think it looks better on Heather.” Jessie feels the blood rush to her face, her heart is pounding so hard she is certain

if she looks down she will see it beating through her shirt. She is humiliated and she is mad, madder than she has ever been at anyone in her life.

Years later, she will look back on that day and believe that at that moment in time, she really could have killed Brandi Watson. Had Brandi dissolved, melted,

right in front of her, like the wicked witch in Oz; she would have laughed and clapped her hands in delight.

However, that didn’t happen, Brandi didn’t melt, and she didn’t kill her. Instead, Brandi stood there smirking at her as she got even madder and then started to cry. Everyone at the table was laughing at her. Their laughter roared like ocean waves in her ears. In her entire life, Jessie would never hate anyone as much as she did Brandi Watson on that cold November day in 1994.

In the face of her anger, Jessie’s promises to herself to not get in anymore trouble at school flew out the window.

Through her tears, she screams at Brandi, “You just wait Brandi Watson, you’ll see, one of these days I’ll prove it to you! You don’t know everything! I will play ma-jor league baseball, I will, you just wait and see! I am going to have a great life, a life so…

Jessie searches her mind for the perfect word, and then she remembers the word of the day. Mrs. Mullins, their teacher gives them a new word to learn each morning. That morning the word she gave them to use in a sentence was, “splendid”. “I’m go-ing to have a life so splendid it will just make you sick with envy!”

At that Brandi retorted, “In a pig’s eye you will, it’s just like my mama always says,” Brandi could mimic her mother’s caustic voice perfectly, “White trash is white trash. You’re just like your mother Jessie Sweet; you’ll never amount to anything, you’ll never be anything but a waitress either!”

Jessie stops trying to stuff her books and papers back into her backpack. It is one thing for Brandi to make fun of her, but she is not about to let her get away with mak-ing fun of Ruby Grace. She turns around to face Brandi. “Take that back, Brandi, right now!”

Brandi took a step backwards, “What if I don’t want to?” She smirked.“Then I’ll have to make you take it back.” Jessie warns. “You can’t make me do anything!” Brandi isn’t laughing anymore, and the other

girls have all sat back down. “Wanna bet?” “Go ahead; you just try to make me take it back.” Brandi blustered.“O.K.,” Jessie is not crying anymore, “You asked for it!” Too late Brandi realizes

what is coming. She turns her head to the right a split second before Jessie’s small fist connects with her jaw.

Brandi put her hand up to her mouth, the corner of her lip is bleeding; she looks at Jessie, her eyes blazing, “You’re going to regret doing that!” Then she starts howling.

Jessie ignores her. She turns around and shoves her things into her backpack. She

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knows Brandi’s screaming will alert the teacher on lunch duty. She will be ready to go to the principal’s office when it does.

Mrs. Gibson, the principal at Jessie’s school, calls Ruby Grace at work and asks her to come in to the office and pick Jessie up. Unfortunately, Jessie is expelled for fighting. Gibson informed Ruby Grace that Jessie hit a girl at lunch; and according to several eyewitnesses, she was the one who started the fight for no apparent reason. Jessie cannot return to school until the following Wednesday morning.

As they walk out of the school building together, Ruby Grace looks over at Jessie, and says, “Well you’ve done it this time!”

“What are you talking about?” Jessie pulls open the car door and slides in. Being expelled does not bother her; she’s glad to be going home. She is already planning how she will spend her free time.

“There’s no way I can keep this from Charlotte!” Ruby Grace turns the key in the ignition of the old Chevy Malibu, and silently prays that the engine turns over.

“I don’t care if you tell her.” Jessie says defiantly. “She hates me anyway.”“She does not hate you, Jessie, and you should care; where do you think we’d be

right now if your grandmother wasn’t helping us out?”“Florida!” Jessie shouts.“Listen kid, don’t shout at me, you’re already in trouble; don’t make it any worse!”

Ruby Grace looks over at Jessie. Jessie is staring straight ahead. She looks so tiny and so sad it breaks Ruby Grace’s heart to see her so unhappy. “Look, just tell me what the fight was about O. K.?”

Jessie looks at her mother. Ruby Grace is wearing one of her “outfits.” Jessie begged Mrs. Gibson not to call her mother. Mrs. Gibson thought Jessie was afraid of what her mother would say to her. Jessie didn’t want the other kids to see the way Ruby Grace dresses. Today, she is wearing her Martina McBride outfit, tight leggings and black boots with three-inch heels. And Jessie hates that Ruby Grace always wears so much jewelry. She reminds Jessie of a Christmas tree. Ruby Grace believes in dress-ing for the stage even when there is no stage in sight.

Her mother’s wardrobe is the only thing Jessie agrees with Charlotte on; they both think she should burn everything and start over.

“So, tell me what was it about? Why did you hit that girl, Brandi, that’s her name right?” Ruby Grace asks again.

For just one second, Jessie is tempted to tell her what Brandi said about them both. But she can’t do it. She doesn’t want to see the look of hurt that would pass over her mother’s face if she knew.

“She took my cap; she wouldn’t give it back so I hit her.”

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“That’s all that happened. You got mad enough to hit someone over that cap!” Ruby Grace looks over at Jessie; her strawberry blonde curls are sticking out from under the treasured cap. She has a feeling there is much more to the story than Jessie is telling her, but decides not to push it.

“Yep.” Jessie says.“Well I want you to apologize to her, when you go back to school.”Jessie whirled around to face her mother. “Are you kidding me? You want me to

apologize to Brandi, she started it, she should apologize to me!”“You hit her. You shouldn’t have done that. You should have told a teacher that

she had your cap, let them get it back.”“You just don’t have a clue, do you?”“What’s that suppose to mean?” Ruby Grace touches her fingertips to her temple.

She feels a headache coming on.“Brandi Watson’s father is the president of the largest bank in this town.” Jessie

says. She wishes she had a nickel for every time she has heard Charlotte say the exact same thing.

“So, that doesn’t mean she’s any better than you are.” Ruby Grace flips her signal and pulls into the driveway beside her mother’s house.

The old white house glows in the waning sunlight. Charlotte is already home, she can see her through one of the windows; moving around in the kitchen, starting sup-per. The house once belonged to Ruby Grace’s grandparents. It stands two stories tall, with a wrap-around porch and long white-curtained windows. Ruby Grace notices that the maple tree to the left of the house has not lost its golden leaves yet. She sighs deeply, she is so tired, and she still has to talk to Jessie about the stuff she found in the trunk.

“Listen,” she begins, “Forget about Brandi for now, I want to talk to you about something else.”

Jessie looks at her mother, instantly suspicious. “What’s going on?”“I want to know what’s going on with you; I want to know why you’re stealing

things?” Jessie’s mouth drops open. “Don’t even try to deny it. I found your stash the other day, up in the attic in that

old trunk of grandma’s.” Jessie is indignant. “Why were you messing around in my stuff?”“The price tags are still on everything. Those things don’t belong to you.”“I bought those things with my allowance.” Jessie lies. She doesn’t really think

Ruby Grace will fall for it, but it’s worth a shot.

Her mother laughs. “I give you your allowance; I know you can’t afford to buy that much junk.”

“It’s not junk.” Jessie says defensively.“Why did you steal those things, Jessie, did you really want all of that stuff bad

enough to steal it?”Jessie starts crying. “No! I don’t know why I do it. I never did it before we came

here. I go in to a store and I mean to just look around, you know, and then I see all the stuff they have to sell; it’s all so bright, and new I just can’t help taking it. Then for just a little while I’ll feel better about…well things.”

Ruby Grace is crying too, she did not realize Jessie was so miserable. “It makes you feel better about what things, Jessie, what are you talking about? I know you miss Florida and Orbin; maybe he can come up here for a visit, would you like that? If its something else, tell me, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on?”

Jessie can hear the frustration in her mother’s voice, and realizes an opportunity that may not come again. “I thought when we moved up here I would finally get to know my dad.”

“Oh God, Jessie, not that again! You know I don’t want to talk about that! Maybe when you’re older, but not now.” Ruby Grace starts to open the door on her side.

“Why won’t you tell me who he is? What can it hurt? I promise not to go running to him, and calling him “daddy,” or anything.” This is exactly what she’s been plan-ning to do the second she finds out who he is; but she knows she can’t tell Ruby Grace.

Ruby Grace looks at her child. Jessie doesn’t know it, but she looks so much like her father. She has the same blue eyes, the same sweet smile, and the same stubborn chin. She wishes she could tell Jessie everything, but she can’t. She stands too lose too much if Jessie ever finds out the truth about her father. “I am not getting into this now. I want you to take all of that stuff back, tomorrow, understand?”

Jessie glares at her mother. “You just don’t want me to know him. You’re afraid he’ll like me better than you!” Jessie pushes open the door and starts to get out. Ruby Grace’s next words stop her.

“Jessie there’s no way you’re ever going to get to know your father.” There is only one thing Ruby Grace can risk telling Jessie about her father.

“Why!” Jessie shouts.“Because he died a long time ago.” The instant Ruby Grace says the words she

wishes she could take them back.Jessie slumped against her seat, holding back the tears that stung her eyes. “What?

What do you mean; he died? He can’t be dead! You’re lying! I don’t believe you!” The beautiful dream Jessie has held close to her heart for so many years died with her mother’s words.

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“Jessie I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you like this; but you just kept at me all of the time about it. I swear to you it’s the truth. He died a long time ago, right here in this town. That’s why I never wanted to come back here before.”

“If it’s true why didn’t you just tell me?” “I didn’t think it would hurt to wait until you were older.” Ruby Grace gives her

the only answer she can.“Where, where is he…you know?” Jessie hesitates, but she has to know.“In the Phipps Cemetery, the one we just passed.”“Can we visit his grave sometime, just you and me?”Ruby Grace pretends not to hear the question. “Jessie I’m really beat. Promise

you’ll take all of that stuff back tomorrow; and don’t say a word to Charlotte o.k.?” She opens the car door and gets out.

Jessie slowly nods her head. “I promise. Can I sit here for a little while?”Ruby Grace leans down to peer across the car seat at Jessie. “Don’t stay out here

too long, it’s getting cold.”Jessie watches her mother walk to the house and go inside. Then she reaches be-

hind the car seat for her backpack. The backpack is old, beat up, and made of brown leather. Ruby Grace used it a long time ago. Charlotte gave it to Jessie a couple of weeks after they moved in with her. Jessie carries it everywhere she goes. It is big and roomy. It will hold most anything Jessie wants to put in it.

A new gift shop opened up on Walnut Street. It is a small quaint store owned by an elderly couple; they have many beautiful things to sell. Jessie knows this because she visited the store yesterday afternoon.

From the old backpack, Jessie takes a small oval picture frame. The tag says it is ten-karat gold plated; it is the most expensive thing Jessie has stolen so far. With her shirttail, she polishes the glass, and then she sits with the frame on her knees, tilting it first one way and then the other; admiring the way it picks up the late afternoon sunlight. Jessie thinks the frame is beautiful, but that is not the reason she took it. At night she places it on her bedside table, it is the last thing she sees before she goes to sleep; and the first thing she sees when she wakes up. Some nights she practices kiss-ing the picture inside the frame goodnight.

After awhile, she wraps the frame back up inside several layers of paper towels she got at school; and then she puts it carefully back inside the backpack. She plans to hide it somewhere safe; somewhere Ruby Grace or her grandmother will never think to look.

Jessie thinks she would not be able to bear it; if they took the frame away from her, with the photograph inside it, of the smiling, dark-haired man, his arm around the little girl sitting next to him.

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34

Short Story2nd Place

Sharyn MartinRivers and Reeraws

“Mary Lee-e-e-e-e. Mary Lee, get in here right now.”I heard Mama, but I sure wasn’t in any hurry to go in the house. I figured there

was a good chance of a whipping, or at least a strong talking to, which was worse. Hiding behind the big lilac bush in the front yard, I waited ‘til I heard the back door slam. Peeping thru the fragrant blooms, I saw Mama going toward the coal shed. That was another one of my favorite hiding places.

“Did you think you could hide from me?”I jerked around real fast, and there was Mama. I hadn’t seen her leave by the side

yard and come around to the front. “No, ma’am, I was just sitting here admiring the flowers.”“Well, now that you’re through admiring, let’s go talk about what you’ve done to

your brother. He’s in the kitchen right now waiting for us.”Mama took my hand and we walked just a little faster than I would have liked up

the path to the back door. Mama grabbed the handle on the screen door with one hand and held onto me with the other. Alfreda, our orange cat, and her three kit-tens scattered to the other end of the porch, sensing that Mama was in no mood for foolishness. Alfreda used to be named Alfred, ‘til one morning we woke up to kittens sleeping in Mama’s wringer washer on the back porch.

Claude Junior was sitting at the kitchen table, sniffling and snubbing. His arms were a curious mixture of red and yellow skin, and his face a pale blue. Claude Ju-nior was three years younger than me, and would do almost anything I told him to. I told him we could play cowboys and Indians in the smokehouse, and told him it was OK to paint his face with the leftover paint from the front porch ceiling and he could use the yellow paint from the kitchen to decorate his arms. Mama had tried to get the blue paint off his face with cold cream, but that didn’t work too well. His arms were almost raw where she had scrubbed them with Octagon soap and a rag, leaving rough red skin and yellow streaks.

“Young lady, what do you have to say for yourself? Did it ever occur to you that your little brother has young, tender skin? This stuff could have poisoned him and I don’t know yet that it didn’t”.

I tried not to laugh, ‘cause Claude Junior did look funny. I knew if I did laugh though, Mama would really get mad. Right now she was just teetering on the edge and I might get by with just being sent to my room. I could do that, and it wouldn’t be too bad, ‘cause I could read or color, or watch the crows out the window. The worse thing would be if she made me go get a switch, ‘cause then I knew I’d get my legs striped. I always tried to get one with a lot of leaves that wouldn’t sting too bad, but Mama usually pulled the leaves off and that left a little keen switch that really hurt. She would only hit me a couple of times on my legs, but I would cry more from embarrassment than pain.

“We were going to go down to Mr. Hawkins and get Claude Junior’s hair cut, but now we can’t go ‘til next week sometime. Claude Junior can’t be out in the sun too long after I’ve had to scrub his skin, and it’s at least two miles to walk down there.”

Mr. Hawkins lived down on the river road. He made his living by cutting hair and everybody took their kids to him. Mama said for us to be real nice to him and not stare at him. Mr. Hawkins had something wrong with his legs and he sat in a red Ra-dio Flyer wagon all the time and would pull himself through his house by grabbing onto furniture or door frames. I thought what fun it would be to ride in a wagon all day! He would set out on his porch and wave at everybody who came down the road. It was always a treat to go anywhere, but to get to walk down the river road was extra special and to miss a chance to go was a big punishment. I had to think about that for awhile, according to Mama.

Mama, Daddy, Claude Junior and me lived in Carter’s Valley, just a little way from the Holston River. Mama lived in fear that Claude Junior would find his way to the river and drown. She worried about stuff like that all the time, but Daddy told her he’d lived there all his life and hadn’t drowned yet. We had a great big yard and lots of old buildings to play in, and a whole field behind the house where we could tease the cows that stayed there.

We had a few neighbors, but even the closest ones were almost half a mile away. Mama wouldn’t let me walk on the road unless she could stand in the yard and watch me ‘til I got where I was going, so most of the time I had to go through a field to get to somebody’s house. I had to take Claude Junior with me sometimes, especially when I went across the road to Evelyn Brooks’ house. She had a bunch of sisters and broth-ers so I could leave Claude Junior with them while Evelyn and I played somewhere else. The big gully down below her front yard was a fantastic place to play. There

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was one great big tree growing on the bank of the gully and it had a thick grapevine. We could grab that grapevine and swing from one side of the gully to the other, and that was a wonderful game, until I fell. I hit my head on a rock in the bottom of the gully and cut a huge gash right above my right eyebrow. Evelyn started squall-ing that her mother was going to kill her for letting me get hurt, and I was squalling just as loud cause my head ached and I hated to see blood, especially since it was mine. We finally got back up to the house and Mrs. Brooks cleaned me up and put some kind of salve on my head. It looked kind of good when it started healing, and I thought I looked like a pirate. A scar was just as good as an eye patch. It wasn’t too long after that the Brooks’ moved. I sure do miss Evelyn.

Every other Tuesday Mama would take us to Jim Kyle Brown’s. He raised a lot of chickens and sold eggs. Jim Kyle also had a big collie dog named Ed. Ed didn’t like anybody but Jim Kyle and everyone else got barked at and chased out of the yard. Mama was scared of Ed and always had to call for someone to rescue us before any egg business could be transacted. Last Tuesday was the beginning of the end.

“Jim Kyle, JIM KYLE!” Mama, Claude Junior and me were stranded on the fence across the road. Edna

Ruth, Jim Kyle’s wife, came to the front door to see who Ed had treed this time. Mama was almost in tears, and Jim Kyle called for Ed and took him to the barn. We got the eggs, and Jim Kyle and Edna Ruth were apologizing all over the place, telling Mama there was no charge today, and to please come back. Well, Mama told Daddy about Ed when he came home.

“Nancy, that’s the last time. I’m going to take care of that dog, but it won’t hurt him. A week from Tuesday, you and the kids go back for eggs. It will be OK.”

Tuesday week, Mama, Claude Junior and me went back to Jim Kyle’s for eggs. We had just got within sight of the yard and here came Ed, standing on the bank, bark-ing his head off. Jim Kyle was coming around the house. Mama marched right up to Ed, opened her purse, and took out a gun, but I noticed right off that it was one of my cap pistols I had got last year for Christmas during my ‘wanting to be Dale Evans’ period. Jim Kyle shouted “Nancy, don’t!”

Well, Mama fired that gun, Ed barked, turned and ran….except he ran right up behind Jim Kyle and bit him in the rear end. Hard enough to bring blood. Mama went up and knocked on the door and hollered at Edna Ruth to come see about Jim Kyle and to bring her eggs. Mama said after that we’d be buying eggs at Piggly Wig-gly, fresh or not.

“Mary Lee! Mary Le-e-e-e-e-e! Go get Claude Junior and you all come in to sup-per.”

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I searched and searched for Claude Junior, calling him and looking in all our hid-ing places. I was afraid to go toward the river ‘cause I knew Mama would be right. Claude Junior would be floating in the water, and somehow, it would be my fault. I went to the field behind the house, calling for Claude Junior at the top of my lungs. I heard a whimper, and the closer I got to the fence, the better I could hear. There was Claude Junior, soaking wet, and crying.

“What’s the matter with you? Why’re you wet?”“I found a calf and followed it to the river. Its’ mama didn’t like me and chased

me and I fell in”, he sniveled. “I was afraid to come home ‘cause Mama would be mad since I got my clothes wet, and she would whip me ‘cause I got in the river.”

“You wait here, and I’ll run back to the house and get you some dry clothes”.Well, I did feel sorry for him. I figured he’d have to save me sooner or later and it

was always good to have a favor in reserve.I sneaked around to the front door and back to the closet where we kept the dirty

clothes. I grabbed some shorts and a shirt and ran back out before Mama could catch me. He put on the shorts and I helped him with the shirt and we gathered up the wet clothes.

“Claude Junior! What in the world are you doing wearing those shorts? That’s a pair of Mary Lee’s old ones”, Mama said as she watched us come in for supper.

That probably wiped out any favor I had.We had just started to eat supper when Daddy’s cousin Marvin knocked on the

back door. “A mad cat bit Mother this morning”, Marvin told us. “She had been to the barn and it attacked her. We had to take her to the hospital, but she’s home now and Juanita is staying with her.”

That was another one of Mama’s fears. She was always telling us not to pet any strange animals or bring any strays home ‘cause we could get rabies. I didn’t know what rabies was, but I could understand ‘mad’. I just didn’t know why a cat would be mad unless somebody hurt it or took its food and I didn’t know what Aunt Belle had done to make it mad, but I guessed she was sorry. Marvin said Aunt Belle would have to take a bunch of shots in her stomach to keep from getting sick, and I couldn’t imagine anything as horrible as that! I hope Alfreda never gets mad.

“Mary Lee! Mary L-e-e-e-e-e!” Find your brother and get ready to go to the store”.Mama, Claude Junior and me always went to the store on Monday. The local

store was just a small one room building called Reba’s where we could get a few things. We’d have to get the fancier stuff at Piggly Wiggly in town. Reba was an odd name for a store that didn’t have anyone working there named ‘Reba’. Mama always said it was somebody’s girlfriends’ name, but she never did say who. Mr. Pratt, who

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owned the store, was not the friendliest person around and just sat behind the coun-ter glaring at everybody. His fingers were stained brownish yellow where he held his cigarettes, and he smoked all day long. Daddy said Mr. Pratt was too lazy to breathe if he could get somebody else to do it for him. I liked to watch him flip through the charge accounts. He would write out a ticket and give the customer a copy and put a copy in a little wire clip on a big board. I wanted to go behind the counter and flip the boards, but I knew better than even ask.

We saw Edna Ruth at the store Monday and she was telling Mama about Jim Kyle.There had been several stray cats around their place and Jim Kyle had decided to

trap them. He put them in a pillowcase and was going to take them over to Stanley Valley and let them out in a field somewhere. Well, according to Edna Ruth, the cats started fighting in this pillowcase, got loose in the front seat of Jim Kyle’s truck and caused him to run out of the road, over the bank and into his tobacco patch. The cats escaped when he opened the door to get out of the truck, and Jim Kyle walked back to the house to get iodine for his scratches and a tractor to pull the truck out of the tobacco patch. I noticed Mama with a slight smile. I guess she figured it was a good payback since Ed had tormented her for years.

I’m really looking forward to Sunday this week. I heard the preacher say we were going to have Decoration Day and dinner on the ground. Last year at decorating time was right after Mr. Crawford died. His grave was still open, waiting for the funeral service on Monday afternoon. The preacher said since dinner and decorat-ing had already been planned, we’d go ahead with it. Claude Junior and me were sitting on the blanket with Mama and Daddy, eating fried chicken and potato salad, just waiting for the others to finish so we could go play in the cemetery. Mama had always told us to be respectful of the dead and not to play on any graves, so we kind of stayed on the borders. Everything was going fine until Claude Junior saw Mr. Crawford’s open grave. He took off running toward the grave, and was jumping back and forth across the open pit. Mama saw him just as he fell in. She screamed, and Daddy and some of the other men had to pull Claude Junior up from the hole. He was scared silly! Mama promised to ‘take care of you when I get you home’, and was so embarrassed that it was her son who had caused such a commotion. “You’re going to get it when we get home”, I teased him. Claude Junior spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the blanket. I got to help Mama put out the flowers we’d brought in the jars. Great Grandpa’s grave looked a lot prettier when we left that day.

Last night Mama and me set on the porch looking at the stars. She pointed out the Big Dipper and told me stories of people who had gone on to heaven. I told her I knew it was a nice place but I wasn’t in any hurry to get there. She just laughed and

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told me she wasn’t either. Claude Junior had been in trouble most of the day yester-day, and he had to go to bed early again, so he didn’t get to sit on the porch with us. I sneaked into his room when I got back in the house and told him he wasn’t going to heaven since he was so mean. He was crying and sniveling again, telling me he was sorry. I told him he’d better be telling Mama he was sorry instead of me. He’d locked us out of the house yesterday morning, and we could see him through the kitchen window. He was sitting right up on the kitchen table eating sugar out of the bowl. Mama was standing there knocking on the window telling him to let us back in and he just acted like he couldn’t hear us. I thought we were out there for forty hours, but Mama said it was more like thirty minutes. Claude Junior had a bad habit of lock-ing people in or out. It hasn’t been too long since he shut me up in the dugout when I went after sweet potatoes. It was dark in there and I was scared to death a spider would get me, or even worse, a reeraw. Grandma Smith always said reeraws lived up in the mountains and would eat children. I never did want to see one.

“Mary Lee! Mary Le-e-e-e-e-e! It’s time to get up. Today is another day.”

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40

Short Story3rd Place

Robin CharlesThe Rock

That an old man with arthritis in both knees and shrapnel in one hip could move so silently seemed impossible. Yet there he was, a grayed shape in the pre-dawn light, limping his way soundlessly along the path to the garden. The girl tried to breathe quietly as he walked to the top of the hillside garden and into the tree line where she lost sight of him. The girl breathed deeply, and then hurried on to the outhouse, sud-denly achingly aware of why she had ventured out into the chill morning mist.

The Sears fall big book sat beside the girl in the dim interior of the toilet. Its pages would serve only one purpose this trip out. Her mind was too preoccupied with the old man to look at corduroy jeans and jumpers in fall colors with matching striped sweaters and oxblood penny loafers. He had seemed so intent on his way. He had looked neither left nor right, but had plodded straight up the narrow path.

The girl tore some pages from the menswear section of the catalog, set the catalog aside, and absently crumpled a page into a tight wad, uncrumpled it, then to further soften the glossy paper she rubbed it rapidly between the knuckles of both hands as though washing out a dishrag. She smoothed out the softened page on top of the cat-alog and picked up another page. Her mind still on the old man, the girl wondered what could make a man in his seventies, long since retired from the coalmines, labor up the steep path before the morning sun cut through the fog. If she had seen him through his kitchen window laying a fire in his old cook stove, she would not have been even one bit curious. But, as it was, she couldn’t help wondering why Caleb had gone into the woods.

The girl took her time going back to the house. She kept looking back over her shoulder hoping to glimpse Caleb coming back from the woods. Her mother was building up a fire in the Warm Morning coal and wood stove when the girl finally went inside.

“I told you not to eat so many of those golden cherries.” Her mother’s voice was serious, but her eyes were laughing.

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“Yeah, after I ate a quart!”They both laughed. The girl never could resist the amber cherries streaked with

crimson and filled with golden juice.“Mom, why would Mr. Caleb be going into the woods above the garden this early

in the morning?”Her mother had her back to the girl. She had the bale of an old five-gallon lard

bucket filled with split wood in her left hand and a stick of stove wood in her right. She almost had the poplar completely into the mouth of the stove, and her hand stopped mid-motion when the girl spoke. She deliberately dropped the yellow wood into the stove, added two more pieces, shut the door, straightened up, reached back to the stovepipe, opened up the damper, then turned to face the girl as she dusted the wood grime off of her hands onto one of her husband’s old flannel shirts.

The girl was aware of the flames crackling from the kindling and imagined that they were hungrily licking along the sticks of pale yellow poplar as she waited for her mother to speak.

“Lucy, you shouldn’t be spying on that old man. It isn’t right.”“I wasn’t, Mom. I promise. I saw Mr. Caleb go into the woods when I went to the

toilet. I didn’t mean to see him, but I couldn’t help it. Where was he going, Mom? Why?”

Lucy’s mother almost opened her mouth. Lucy could see her jaw working. Instead she turned her back to Lucy and acted like she was straightening first the stove wood in the one bucket and then the kindling in the other.

“Maybe he was going squirrel hunting.” She didn’t sound like she had convinced herself. She sure hadn’t convinced Lucy.

“He didn’t have his twelve gauge.”“Maybe he ate too many cherries.” Lucy’s mom wasn’t completely serious, but she

wasn’t quite kidding either.“Aw, Mom. You know something. I know you do. What’s the big deal? Is it a se-

cret? I’m not a little girl anymore. Tell me.”“Nothing to tell.” That’s all she would say.Lucy squirmed a bit and then froze as Caleb opened the screen door and stepped

onto the front porch. She was lying on her belly in the dew damp grass at the edge of the yard just out of sight of the big picture window in the living room. Caleb’s frame house was below the bank on which Lucy’s parents had built their more mod-ern house with the parti-colored brick that had the imprints of leaves, nuts, twigs, and wildlife paw prints on random bricks. Lucy loved the paw prints especially. She would often put her fingertips into the depressions and imagine what it was like to

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be whatever woodland creature had left its tracks on the brick. Her favorite was the raccoon.

Caleb walked to the far end of the porch and sat heavily on the white porch swing that faced away from Lucy and offered Caleb a view of the valley that fell away be-low him. He set the swing in motion with what he considered his good leg, the one without the shrapnel he had carried for decades, and gazed across the valley.

Caleb was troubled. Once he would have been soothed by his wife’s kind heart and soft words. She had been gone these six years past. He missed her still. He couldn’t bring himself to sit on her side of the swing, so he rocked a bit off-kilter. Her side of the bed had seemed so lonesome that he had taken to sleeping on the couch a few years back. He seldom ever entered the bedroom after that. The last time had been to move his clothes, shoes, and personal things to the spare bedroom, all of his belongings except his blue serge suit. That he had brushed and slid into its dry-cleaning bag, and then he had hooked the hanger over the empty clothes rod. He had pinned a note to the bag that had burial printed on it in neat block letters. He had left the closet door open and had shut the bedroom door with a firm finality that had resounded in his thoughts for days.

Caleb had thought that he had lived long enough, yet now he knew that he still needed some time. He wasn’t quite ready after all. Something was unfinished. A lone dove flew into his thoughts and onto the lowest limb of the huge old tulip pop-lar just under the hill below the porch. It was soon joined on the branch by three more doves. They sat there, softly rosy brown, and pretended to preen, eying him. One-by-one Caleb counted thirty-seven more doves over the next few minutes. They drifted to the ground by twos and threes and devoured the cracked corn he had put out just after he had returned from the woods. It was part of his morning ritual to toss out handfuls of the corn in the early light of day, go in and fix a bowl of oatmeal with raisins, butter a single piece of toast, and settle into the recliner to eat breakfast and sip coffee while he watched the early news show. By the time he finished up the dishes, the doves were usually coming in for their breakfast.

Caleb liked watching the doves. They seemed sociable. Some were comically clum-sy when coming in for a landing on the poplar branch. Others bypassed the poplar and landed in the edge of the yard. The doves had long since lost any fear of him, so they walked along beneath the edge of the porch just below him in search of stray bits of corn. They sort of seemed like visiting family coming and going throughout the day. They would coo and settle into the grass as the sun warmed the yard. Caleb was always a bit sad when they whirred away and left him sitting there alone in the morning silence. The morning came alive with doves, wings thrumming, startled

into flight as Lucy came around the corner of the house.“Morning, Mr. Caleb.”“Good morning, Lucy.” Caleb heard the shortness in his voice. He almost didn’t

care. The kid had ruined his morning routine. What else will go wrong today? The sight of the doves wheeling around toward the woods stilled his thoughts.

“Mr. Caleb, do you ever get lonesome?”That kid sure gets right to the point. “Doesn’t everybody?”“Is that why you go to the woods, because you’re lonesome?”Caleb started to snap that it was none of her business when he looked into Lucy’s

face. The child was tomboyish. She was wearing faded jeans cuffed at the ankles, a striped tee-shirt, scuffed brogans—all hand-me-downs from her older brother—and an old flannel shirt with a duck hunting scene repeated on the worn fabric that was once her father’s. Caleb often thought she looked like a mischievous pixie, but just now her usually grinning face was adult serious in the morning light, her eyebrows dipped toward each other, her brow furrowed, and her lips pressed together as she waited for his answer.

“I miss Anna. I’m lonesome without her.”“Is that why you go into the woods, because you’re lonesome for Mrs. Anna?”Caleb sighed. Rather than answer Lucy, he looked away from her, back out across

the valley. He felt her hop onto the swing beside him and settle into Anna’s place.“Is it?”Lucy’s quiet voice brought Caleb’s eyes back to her. She peered into his thoughts

and it seemed to him that it somehow wasn’t Lucy there beside him, but Anna.“No.”“Then, why? Why, Mr. Caleb? Why do you go into the woods every morning? I

haven’t been spying on you, honest. I just saw you once a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been watching for you ever since. You go every single day in the gray of the morning. I see you go along the path. Why, Mr. Caleb? Why?”

Caleb looked across the valley, across the years, and he told his story.“I was a young man, full of piss and vinegar. You know how I was, full of myself.

My older brother, Lum, had a gambling streak. We lived down in the hollow then, all of us kids, with Mom and Daddy. Sometimes on a Friday night Lum would get up a card game. Daddy didn’t allow card playing, said it was the Devil’s own pastime, so we would say we were going to walk into town to see a movie, and then we would sneak up the hollow to the big rock in the woods above the garden and play blackjack and poker. We’d sit spradle-legged on that big rock, playing and drinking rockgut or moonshine until around midnight.

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“This one night things got out of hand. Lum was dealing from the bottom of the deck. John and Arlen, two boys from down on the creek, started complaining that Lum was almighty lucky. Then Arlen caught Lum pulling the bottom card. It was on then.

“Lum and Arlen wrestled on the rock until they rolled off onto the ground. Arlen was on top of Lum, pounding him in the face. I jerked Arlen off of Lum and threw Arlen to the ground. John tossed Arlen a knife. Arlen came at me. Lum stepped between us. Arlen took a couple of steps back toward the rock, then turned toward Lum. Arlen was going to cut Lum. I was facing Arlen. I could see it in his eyes. He was going to kill Lum if he could. He slashed at Lum. Lum sidestepped him. Arlen hunkered down, getting ready to lunge at Lum. I pulled a little twenty-two out of my jacket pocket and shot him square in the chest as he sprang up. He was going to cut Lum. Arlen was going to cut Lum. Arlen fell onto his face at Lum’s feet. I could see Arlen’s chest as he fell. Dark blood spread across his checkered shirt before he hit the ground.

“John went wild. Lum took the gun from me and hit John across the back of the head with the butt of the revolver. While John was out, Lum tied his feet and hands with some baling twine from the barn. Lum stood over John and Arlen for a few minutes. The sweat stood out on his forehead. He was considering what he could do.

“Lum told me it would be alright, that he had gotten me into it and he would get me out of it. I was fifteen. I was scared. Lum told the sheriff that John had caught Arlen cheating, that John had shot Arlen. He handed the sheriff the twenty-two and told him that he had taken it off of John.

“The sheriff asked me if that was how it happened. I said it was. I said it again on the witness stand. It was my word and Lum’s against John’s. John went to prison. He died there.

“I had this place. I had my Anna. I had my kids. I had my job. I had my fishing. I had my hunting. I had everything a man could want, everything John and Arlen never had, everything but peace.

“I go to the rock in the woods everyday to beg God to forgive me. I beg God to forgive me.”

The strangled sound of Caleb’s voice died in the air. It was so still Lucy could hear a ground squirrel as it scurried to gather the corn the doves had left behind. Caleb had been twisting his old cap in his hands as he spoke, but now his hands were limp in his lap. Lucy placed her small, smooth hand atop his large, wrinkled hand. Caleb had forgotten that Lucy was there. As softly as her hand rested upon his, she spoke.

“You’ve already been forgiven. You don’t need to be forgiven again.”

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Caleb looked into Lucy’s upturned face. Her words curiously soothed his troubled mind and eased his weary heart. You’ve already been forgiven. You don’t need to be forgiven again. It was something his Anna would have said.

“I’ve already been forgiven. I don’t need to be forgiven again,” he whispered. Lucy smiled and nodded.

Caleb made one last trip to the rock. There was a small depression on its top near where he knelt daily to pray. As he rose from his knees he noticed a frail sprout reaching up from the leafmeal that littered the stone. He smiled.

“I don’t need to be forgiven again.”Lucy climbed the path to the garden. Weeds had reclaimed it. Saplings stood

where the cornstalks once had been. Lucy was a new mother with an infant daughter of her own. She had brought the baby for her mother to see. She had worked it out with her boss, and he had agreed for her to take a few days off while the late autumn weather was still warm. She had driven south over four hundred miles to her child-hood home. Anna was being cradled by Lucy’s mother after a five a.m. feeding when Lucy slipped outside and up into the woods.

The rock was still there. Rising from its edge was a perfectly symmetrical leafless dogwood resplendent with crimson berries. Where it rose from the rock, where its roots had burrowed deeply, where the winter rains that had sustained it had some-times frozen, the ice had swollen, and the rock had been cloven. Lucy put her finger-tips into the depressions on the side of the rock and gave voice to the word Caleb had chiseled there. FORGIVEN

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46

Essay1st Place

Stephanie CassellMore for Less

Thriftiness was a way of life with my parents. They came by it honestly. My daddy

had a forty-year career in public finance, managing the state of Alabama’s money when he wasn’t managing our family’s. Mama had grown up dirt poor, practically raising herself while her widowed mother worked long factory hours and now she wanted a better life for her five children.

We weren’t poor by any means, and many would have simply called my parents cheap. Sometimes even to me, the way my parents could pinch a penny was down-right embarrassing. Like with restaurants, which were considered a frivolous waste of money in my family. (As soon as the last bite is swallowed, you have nothing to show for your money.) Anytime somebody suggested going out to dinner in a group situation, my dad would always quickly pipe up, “How about McDonald’s?” before anybody could throw out a more expensive alternative. This coming from a man who came back from his state-sponsored business trips describing with great apprecia-tion the rich delicacies he had feasted on at some of the finest New York restaurants.

But no matter what the restaurant was, my mama never ordered more than a side salad, planning instead to clean the inevitable leftovers off her children’s plates. (There’s no point in letting good food go to waste.) Even today, she does not enjoy eat-ing out. (There’s no point in paying somebody to serve you and clean up after you.) This bothers my brothers a lot. Whenever our family – now even larger with spouses and grandchildren -- gets together, they want to save my mother the task of cooking and cleaning for such a large crowd, especially since we can all easily afford an occa-sional dinner out. They feel like my parents’ thrifty habits have shortchanged them from enjoying the life that they deserve.

To me, though, my parents’ thriftiness was an adventure. A way to give us more for less. It seemed my mama and daddy could always come up with a creative way to conquer the fiscal challenges of life.

Even though she always “stayed home” with us kids, my mama found ways to

contribute to the family income. I remember one time she was a “secret shopper” for Burger King. Every day that week, all five of us kids would load up in the station wagon and go to Burger King locations all over the city. First, we’d go through the drive-through window and then we’d wait in the car while she ran inside to place another order. Then she’d fill out a form rating the service, taste, temperature, and other attributes. Stop by stop, we kids would all eventually get fed, at least after Mama took her “test bite” out of each item.

As soon as we could write our names, my daddy took us to the bank to open our own savings accounts (a penny saved is a penny earned) and we watched the pennies, and later dollars, add up on the monthly statements that came in the mail. We went to matinees and snacked on candy bars stuffed in Mama’s purse. We made weekly trips to the public library, stood in line for shots at the county health department, and got two-dollar haircuts at the local cosmetology school. We washed and re-used plastic eating utensils, freezer bags, and aluminum foil. When a coupon said “one per customer,” we lined up five-deep behind Mama at the check-out even though my younger sister could barely reach up to the counter.

Coupons were big with my mama back then. Friends saved their Sunday news-paper coupon inserts for her, and she had shoeboxes full of coupons with dividers to organize them. Some of the grocery stores would have days when they doubled and tripled the value of the coupons, which is, of course, when we would do our shopping. I remember the Winn Dixie employees all gathering around as the cashier rang up the final total, amazed to see how my mama could get a cartful of groceries for only a few dollars.

Sewing was another talent of my mama’s. I could not have felt any more stylish in the beautiful smocked dresses she sewed for me from scraps of seersucker and cotton gleaned from the pajama factory where my grandmother worked. My brothers and I once even modeled our blue-ribbon winning outfits in a fashion show at the county fair as she collected several dollars in prize money. And even later, when we became old enough to want the brand-name store-bought clothes our friends were wearing, she still came through. With one pair of Izod socks and her handy little seam-ripper tool, she could create alligator-adorned shirts for two of us. And later on, she repli-cated expensive designer dresses out of “Teen” and “Vogue” magazine for my prom and college formals.

As the oldest child and a daughter at that, I became her protégé and she passed on many of her recycling methods to me, tips that still echo in my conscience today anytime I reach to throw anything out. White tissue paper from gift boxes can be saved for cleaning windows. Plastic grocery store bags make great packing material.

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Plastic newspaper bags are perfect for storing crystal wine goblets. Use a Q-tip to get the last bit of lipstick out of a tube. Add a couple of drops of water and shake to get the last shampoo out of the bottle. No amount of leftovers is too small to save. Keep a bag in the freezer and save those “little bits” of vegetables for a pot of soup. Save the turkey broth – and ham hocks – for noodle or bean soup. Even as an adult, I have been scolded for throwing away “perfectly good bacon grease.”

My mama also taught me valuable yard sale strategy. Start early. The better neigh-borhoods tend to have the best finds. Use the newspaper ad to map out your route. Dig through the undiscovered boxes in the back. Always ask them if they’ll take less.

Although I once swore differently, many of my daddy’s philosophies on household management have been passed down to me, as well. The only acceptable thing to buy on credit is a house (because otherwise you’re throwing away rent money with noth-ing to show for it). Much to my sixteen-year-old disappointment, this attitude also extended to cars. That new-car smell is the most expensive perfume in the world. My dad only traded cars every ten years after he had saved up for it, then always choos-ing the most basic, stripped-down model on the lot. Those power windows are always the first thing to tear up. Not only did I not have a cool car to drive when I got my license, I didn’t even have a cool car to borrow. Of course, when I wrecked the family station wagon a few months later, my understanding began to evolve.

In my family it’s always been a matter of pride how little we paid for something. Half-price was not good enough; we didn’t buy until it was at least 75 percent off. My parents shopped at outlets long before they were trendy.

But in spite of their thriftiness, my parents were never cheap with what counted. They tithed to the church we attended, always helped our neighbors in need, and had friends to dinner. Our lives were sprinkled with carefully-selected indulgences – soft-serve ice creams from the Dairy Queen and paper dolls from the TG&Y. Our birthday parties were the envy of our classmates – with activities planned by Mama and one-of-a-kind cakes she designed and decorated herself. We always, always had whatever we needed for school -- from poster board to a senior trip to Europe. And later, there was money for all five of us to go to college without student loans.

My parents’ eccentricities have become magnified as they have aged. In spite of -- or perhaps because of -- their thriftiness, my parents have become collectors. Collec-tors of old coins and Cool Whip containers, vintage postcards and salvaged squares of wrapping paper, vintage costume jewelry and old t-shirts that could be used as cleaning rags. Anything that might someday be of value to them or anyone else.

They love antiques, particularly anything with sentimental value. My brother and I once shattered a vase that had been a wedding gift to my great-grandparents

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and my dad painstakingly glued every ceramic shard back together. They buy an-tique furniture at estate sales just because they’re a good investment. My parents own generations of crystal, silver, and china that they promise me if I’ll only take, I’ll have a need for someday. Every piece of furniture that ever belonged to my daddy’s family has been hunted down and rescued from abandoned shanties or bargained for right off a front porch.

They pick up things off the side of the road with no shame. My daddy has carefully refinished or re-upholstered cast-off furniture – including my Duncan Phyffe living room sofa – and given back their dignity. When my neighbor who owned an upscale gift shop cleaned out her attic and set discarded items on the curb, the items soon found their way into my parents’ house and later a consignment store.

My daddy is retired now. He has been visiting National Parks, traveling around the country on airline tickets earned with the credit card he pays in full each month. He’ll usually pitch his tent at a campground and of course, eats at McDonald’s.

My mama continues to work the part-time sales job she took with Hershey’s choc-olate after we were all in school. Even though we five kids are spread out in different places now, we can always count on frequent cards from home thanks to a water-damaged case of several hundred greeting cards my mama got from a Hallmark sales representative she met at the grocery store. If it doesn’t have the right saluta-tion, she’s been known to cross it out and write in her own sentiment. She’s even tried to save us money by giving us Mother’s Day cards to send to her. She also maintains a gift closet of items that she finds on clearance and saves until she needs it. When-ever we come home it seems she always has a little gift for us. There’s no point in asking where it came from; she’ll just smile mysteriously.

My parents say they are ready to downsize now that they’re growing older. They beg us to take the furniture right off of their walls. Lately, Mama’s been cleaning out closets, planning to have one more big yard sale. She’s even contemplating e-Bay.

My brothers and I joke about what we’ll do with all their stuff when they’re gone. We threaten bulldozers and promise the estate sale of the century. We also talk about furnishing a Cracker Barrel in their honor with all the rusty old farm and kitchen implements my father has salvaged from his old home place. But when it comes down to it, I know I’ll probably be the one to take whatever my brothers and sister don’t want. The thriftiness is in my blood now, and you never know when I might have a need for it.

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Essay2nd Place

Sharyn MartinAnd It Came to Pass

My ten year old niece was reading one of the stories I had written. She finished

reading and brought it back with a puzzled look.“I understand all of it except this”, she said, and pointed to one sentence. “What

is this?”The troubling phrase was ‘wringer washer’.Things that I have taken for granted all these years are being lost. She had no idea

that her grandmother had washed clothes for many years in anything except an au-tomatic washer with detergent and bleach dispensers and spin dry cycles. We didn’t even get into the discussion of clotheslines and washboards.

Years earlier, her older brother had talked with his grandfather concerning Hal-loween pranks. He came back to us laughing because ‘Papaw had told him about turning over peoples’ ‘porta-potties’. He could not believe that at one time many people did not have indoor plumbing and or that outdoor toilets existed.

………………………………………………………………………………..Children and young adults in this time have missed so many things. The fast

paced world has jumped ahead and left behind so many experiences, both good and bad, that current and future generations will never know.

I can remember going downtown when there was a downtown. One of our biggest pleasures was going to J.C.Penney’s candy counter and taking time to choose which treat we’d get for the day…..would it be chocolate stars or maple nut clusters?

Standing in front of a vending machine just doesn’t have the same magic.Summer Saturdays’ in town brought a variety of experiences. Local preachers

were on every corner, vacant lot, and sometimes stood on top of cars to deliver their message from God. Each one had a little crowd surrounding them, and the crowds would move from one preacher to the next seeking the words that comforted or con-demned. There were no demonstrations or calls from the ACLU to offer equal time

to an opposing voice. Blind men sold pencils and money was dropped in a cup. One man who could not walk sat in a red wagon, asking for donations so he could buy food. All these people made Saturday more exciting to a small child because they were never seen in your neighborhood during the week.

Shopping would be going from one store to another from the outside and down the sidewalk instead of walking down one boring hallway after another. Christmas shopping was wonderful! McCrory’s and the Woolworth store would have affordable gifts inside and sales people who politely answered questions. I can remember the smell of the wooden floors that had been oiled and the sound footsteps would make as shoppers came through. Little Gerry Archer from the Salvation Army would be outside McCrory’s, ringing the bell and thanking everyone with a “God bless you” as coins hit the kettle.

Grocery shopping was a social encounter because you would meet most of your neighbors on Thursday or Friday as you did the shopping for the weekend. Stores were not open on Sunday and usually closed early on Saturday. The corner market would be glad to box and bring your groceries to your home if you couldn’t get there in person. If you weren’t home, the back door was never locked and the items would be placed on the kitchen table and the perishables would be put in the refrigerator. Large grocery chains put an end to all this. Now one has to dodge unruly, noisy children running through aisles with unwieldy carts. You stand in long lines with strangers waiting to pay just to escape, while torrid headlines shout at you in large letters about aliens from outer space and Elvis being seen at a Kansas City Burger King and love affairs of the rich and famous.

…………………………………………………………………….Spring meant time for garden planting. Beans, corn, cucumbers, beets…all were

planted in anticipation of vegetables in the late summer and fall. Each member of the family had a job to do. Mother and Dad planted and the children came along behind covering each row with dirt. Most of the time this meant kicking the dirt over the seeds, the cool soil caressing bare feet. Carrots and tomatoes were especially de-licious when eaten in the garden, taken straight from the dirt or vine, wiped off on your shirt, and enjoyed with each bite.

Summer was a season to be cherished. Beans were ready to be picked and canned in July and bean breaking was a community event. Chairs were brought from the kitchen and placed outdoors under the trees. Women and children came to spend the day. Gossip and news flowed freely as beans were snapped, and children had all day to play outside. No one had a television or computer and the few who had bicycles were always willing to share.

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Children now just assume vegetables can only be found in cans or appear by some miraculous method in boxes and cartons in the produce section at Kroger’s. Many have never seen a garden or farm.

Fall brought apple butter stirs. Apples were cored, quartered and cooked in large brass kettles outside which someone had to stir constantly with a long wooden ladle. Getting to taste the finished product on a hot biscuit was the ultimate reward. A few in the outlying neighborhoods may have had cane that could be made into molasses. This was another all day adventure.

Haircuts were given outdoors under the shade trees, or if in winter, usually at the kitchen table. We would walk to Mrs. Bellamy’s house and she could give haircuts or a home permanent. The permanents (and they did seem to last a long time) mostly resulted in a tight, frizzy curl that couldn’t be combed. The idea of any male going to a ‘stylist’ was preposterous. Hair color was bought at the drugstore, quickly placed in a paper bag, and the buyer hurried home before anyone could ask questions. The results the next day could have startling effects…brassy red-blonde or coal black were the most popular.

………………………………………………………………………………Church services were long and loud. Windows were opened in the summer since

there was no air conditioning. If revivals were in progress, people would come and stand outside and listen through the open windows, because if you didn’t get there early, there were no seats left inside. Church services were respected for what they were, a worship service. Businesses were never open on Sunday, which was reserved for church, visiting, and resting. Baptizing services were held in the summer down on the river bank and sometimes, if the new convert insisted, ice would be broken in the river during winter and the baptizing service was held in the chilling cold. Me-morial Day was always the ‘decoration day’ when graves were cleaned off and new fresh flowers were placed there in Mason jars. This was a joyous occasion which lasted all day and dinner was served at noon. There were no ‘fellowship halls’ and the ‘family worship center’ was your home. Everyone brought a covered dish and a blanket to sit on, someone would start singing, and a church service would break out. Hymns were usually led by a song leader and sung with a spiritual fervor, some-times with no music, and certainly no band or orchestra. There were no ‘praise and worship’ services as our young people now have.

So many things have “progressed” and so many children are missing so much in this process. Doors are now locked at all times to keep out predators and are seldom opened to welcome visitors. Youngsters cannot be allowed outside without constant supervision because you don’t know who lives next door. Many families have only

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a single parent. Children are sometimes left alone or with friends or other family members because both parents have to work. Parents feel they must give their child everything they themselves did not have while growing up while sometimes it might be better if they tried to give the children what they did have….a sense of respect for themselves and others, responsibility, and a love for God, country, and their fellow-man.

….old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Cor 5:17)

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Essay3rd Place

Rita JusticeUnanswered Questions

I am like my dad. He taught me so much. Here are some things I learned from

Larry Fuller:Get up early, you will feel better all day, even on the weekends. You need to get

your work done before the sun gets too hot. Always leave for work early. You may get held up somewhere along the way. On the weekends he would come and wake us up. Get up time’s a wasting he would say. We have things to do.

Don’t waste food. Always clean your plate. He grew up poor and he thought you shouldn’t waste food. He had to work hard in the garden to help raise food for the family.

Save for a rainy day. You never know when you will have some unexpected ex-pense to come up, and something will always come up.

Be honest. You won’t have to try to remember what you have said before. People will trust you if they know that you are an honest person.

Drive carefully. Buckle up before you start the car. Never exceed the speed limit. Make sure to keep your vehicle serviced.

Be careful with firearms. He taught me to shoot a gun. He stressed to me that you never point a gun at anyone no matter whether it is loaded or not.

He knew when to plant and dig potatoes. He always went by the signs in the al-manac. I would always call him when I had a question about planting something.

The son of a mailman, he was born in Dickenson County, VA and never ventured too far from his home. Once, we went to see the Atlantic Ocean. Dad rolled his pants legs up to his knees and waded out into the ocean. He was so excited he walked out too far and the waves soaked his pants all the way to his waist. Dad said the next time we come to see the ocean we will stay about a week, but there never was a next time.

He worked on his car. He always believed that you should keep your car in good

running condition. He knew that you would pay later if you didn’t. I always liked to help him. He would pull the car up on the handmade grease rack as I watched in amazement how precisely he drove upon the two narrow boards. He would always ask if I wanted to help. It would take all of my strength to pump a small amount of grease from the large can while he took the hose and put it where it needed to go up under the car. I remember the strong smell of the oil and grease and how it would be on our clothes when we came back inside the house.

He put lighter fluid and flint in his cigarette lighter. I loved to watch how he would squint as he dropped the tiny flint into his lighter. He would then squirt the bottle of lighter fluid into it and the smell would float into my nostrils, it was a sweet smell.

Dad would comb his coal black hair. He would squirt his favorite oil into the palm of one hand. He would take his hands and rub them together, spreading the oil all over both hands. I loved to watch as he took both hands and smoothed his hair down just like Elvis Presley. He would comb and rub until he got it just right.

He always had a tan. He was always outside working at something. The sun never seemed to bother him; he could stay out all day working in it. His skin was naturally dark and the more he stayed out in the sun the darker he got. I thought he was so handsome.

Dad never was without his watch. He would put it on the minute he woke up in the morning and he would take it off before he got into bed. He always called it his huckleberry, and I never knew why. You could see his tan line around his watch when he took it off.

Dad was a coal miner for 30 years. He never complained of hard work. He would say that hard work never hurt anybody. He was always grouchy through the week. When weekends would come he was a different person, he would relax and turn into our Dad again.

Friday night, Mom would put the black shiny coal in the potbelly stove until it became red-hot. She would put a dishpan full of water on to heat for dad’s bath, and then lay out his towel and washcloth. A sheet was hung on two nails over the kitchen door for privacy. Weekend nights were the only nights we were allowed to stay up that late. Dad would come in with his skin covered in coal dust, the whites of his eyes shining. He would ask what we were doing up so late, and we would say, “It’s Friday night, Daddy. No school tomorrow.”

Dad would go into the kitchen where Mom was ready to help him with his bath. She would help him wash his hair, rubbing the shampoo into his scalp, and then pouring the water over his head to rinse it. Then she would wash his back with a washcloth lathered with soap. I would lie on the couch pretending to watch TV and

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listen to them talk as the strong smell of the Lava soap floated into the living room. After his bath Dad would pop a top on his Miller High Life and light up a Winston.

I remember watching Dad shave on Saturday mornings. He would lie out his ra-zor, his soap, and his shaving brush. He would run some water in a wash pan and heat it on the stove. Dad would take the brush and put it into the water to soften it. He would then take it and start to slap the cake of soap with the bristle brush until lather started to form. It seemed to me that it took only a little effort to make such a large amount of lather. Finally, he was ready to shave. I watched as he ever so care-fully ran the sharp razor over his face until it was smooth. He would splash water over his face to get rid of the excess soap, then take the towel and pat his face dry. He would then take the little white bottle of Old Spice and pour just enough to cover the palm of one hand, then he would rub his hands together and pat his face. The smell lingered in the house for the rest of the day.

After all of the Saturday chores were finished, and he was in a good mood, I could coax Dad into letting me drive the car. He would usually have had a couple of beers by that time in the early evening, and he wasn’t too hard to convince.

The whole family loaded up in our big, black, Ford LTD and headed for the John Wright place. It was just a big open field and I would just drive around and around in a circle, practice backing up and parking. Everyone stayed in the car the entire time that I was driving. Mom complained every breath, especially if Dad let me drive back home.

Before I was old enough for driving lessons, sometimes on Saturday morning Dad, Mom, my brother, my sisters, and I would walk a couple of miles to my grandparents’ house. Dad would stop us along the way to point out a stand of young birch trees or a patch of ginseng. I learned to recognize maples, poplars and oaks. When we stopped so the little kids could rest, Dad would tell a few jokes or a story.

Dad had a great sense of humor. His stories were usually funny. He loved it when people would ask him what happened to his upper arm. It had a huge scar from a terrible childhood burn. He would tell people, especially children, that he was blow-ing up his muscle one day. He would go through the motions with his thumb to his mouth, blowing with his jaws puffed out and making a full muscle with his arm. “I blew it up too big, and it busted and left this big scar.” Kids were amazed over this, convinced by the scar that the story was true. I know I believed it for years, before Mom told me the real story.

Not only did Dad tell funny stories, he was always drawing funny cartoon pic-tures. He would draw on anything, what ever he was reading or working on, the side of a newspaper, or a puzzle book, what ever was handy. It would just be a funny

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head of a character with big ears, but it would always make me laugh.Dad continued to make me laugh even after I was a grown woman, with a daugh-

ter of my own. All of those years of mining coal had damaged his lungs. As Dad’s breathing began to worsen, I tried to help him occupy his mind with things he had always seemed to enjoy. I convinced him to draw me a few pictures. He said that he really didn’t feel like it, but he would try. His hands were shaky from the breath-ing treatments, but he steadied them long enough to draw a respectable picture of a horse. He reached it to me, proud that he could still please me. I reached it back to him for his signature. He said, “There is no use in me signing it.” “Yes there is. Who will know who drew it years down the road?” He signed it. I put it away with everything else I save.

A few years after Dad passed away; I found the hand-drawn pencil sketch and decided to share it with my family. I made copies on nature print paper and framed them for my mother, brother, and sisters for Christmas gifts. You would have thought that I gave them a Picasso. Seeing Dad’s signature on it, everyone cried.

I am glad now that I asked Dad to sign the horse sketch. I wish I had asked him many other things, before it was too late. I have so many unanswered questions that only Larry Fuller can answer.

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Painting1st Place

Angie Orndorff

Three’s Company

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Painting2nd Place

Candace Miller

Self Portrait59

Painting3rd Place

Aaron Robinson

Fruit

60

Drawing1st Place

Roy Davis

Study after Michelangelo61

Drawing2nd Place

Rebecca Durham

Country Comfort62

Drawing3rd Place

Angie Orndorff

Mamma Portrait63

DrawingHonorable Mention

Loretta Dorton

Calla Lillies64

DrawingHonorable Mention

Shane Flanary

Happy Birthday Squiggy65