Gone Already
Mark A Stuart

 

Gone


Small southern towns are renowned for a couple of things.
First of all, there is a level of hospitality that is unmatched anywhwere. Truly. People have been known to become physically ill (in rare cases, bedridden) when their ability to showcase their hospitality is impeded in any manner. People in my hometown stockpile casseroles in anticipation of the day when they can rain a few down on someone in need. I’m not making this up. My mom has a special section in one of her 5 chest freezers dedicated to emergency rations of a presentable variety. The standard is the green bean with Durkee freeze dried onions. This has evolved over the years as one of the favorites due to the fact that it holds up well in the freezer (they have a documented shelf life of seven years) and also because people will eat just about anything in a cisis. Veg-all concoctions and pies of all known varieties also claim their share of freezer space around town. There are specialites beyond food, for any crisis as well, that various people have come to adopt over the years. On my wife’s first visit to my hometown, she jokingly asked if we had running water and power. “ Of course we do –we are not primitives.” I replied. Little was I to know that a storm knocked out the power during our travel to see my parents and there was in fact, no power or running water. So much for the primitive comment. This turned out to be of no great moment since one of the sub- specialties of hospitality in my hometown was portable power generation. Big H showed up within moments of the power outage with a portable generator to restore water, lights and the ability to bathe, thus ensuring that my new bride’s first impression of my hometown was a favorable one. These sub-specialites extend to areas that you would not imagine and can be truly mind boggling. Fire wood, baked hams, turkeys, the use of power tools, additional fire-arms for the home arsenal, home repair, clothing, and sound advice on any subject, only begin to scratch the surface of available means that people display their hopitality and good neighborlyness. As previously stated you must accept this hospitality at the risk of offending or making someone sick. To refuse someone’s graciousness is to invite the CDC upon your town to deal with undiagnosible outbreaks. It is just not done. In most cases it would also lead to censure from the local Women’s Mission Union from the First Baptist Church, (the acknowledged Jedi master’s of hospitality) and that is a fate that most people I have ever known just can’t bear up under.
 Secondly, there is, just about always, absolutely nothing going on. I mean nothing. Calling the pace slow in my hometown would be a disservice to turtles. A potential rain shower consititutes a going –on. A storm, heaven forbid, would be classified as an event, and a storm that actually lead to damage (like the time the silo down at the oil mill had the roof blown off of it) is news that circulates for a long time. The pace of life in my hometown would have to speed up to reach a stop. There just isn’t much happening. Never has been and God willing, it will always be that way. One of the charms of small town life is the ability that its inhabitants have of making something out of nothing. It is an art form that only those in these small towns have mastered. The first time you witness a group of men or women sit around and discuss all that has not been going on in town for three or more hours, you will know what I mean. This discussion of nothingness is an integral survival mechanism for inhabitants in small places. I will always believe that if it was looked into deeply, it would be discovered that the writers of the “Seinfeld Show” spent some quality time in a small southern town.
The combination of the above two traits, can, on occassion, lead to situations (dare I say, events?) that are confusing and comical on a grand scale, made all the more so because of all the good intentions behind them. One such situation that highlights these two common denominators of small southern towns occurred in my hometown. It is worth sharing.
Like so many days, the day that lead to the events described here was normal. That is to say, nothing special was happening. It was another hot one and there was some discussion that all of the recent heat may result in a thunder storm brewing up later in the day. My mom and dad were about the business of normalcy. Not doing much beyond laying in another couple of casseroles and a pecan pie for the unforseen opportunity to be useful and the weekly washing out of the dog pen. This was an especially thankless task, one that featured the removal with high pressure water hose of all the little doggie surprises that had accumulated on the concrete and baked under the relentless heat into little black blocks of stuff that had to be removed. This was so that the dogs could continue about their assigned job of making more of them for the coming week. I never heard a single dog in all my years thank my dad for doing this. I often thought that these little turds might have had a use as an alternate fuel source or perhaps some exotic bilogical weapon but never persued my ideas. In between this flurry of activity the day progresses with no indication of the events that would soon unfold.
Late in the afternoon,the long awaited and highly sought after thunderstorm that had been predicted every afternoon for the proceeding three weeks began to make up. Ominous black clouds began to form up out of the southwest and if you looked across the road in the direction of CL’s house you might imagine that it was beginning to rain already on the more fortunate fields and yards of our distant neighbors. This was a good thing. Rain in south Georgia is a highly prized commodity. On of the oddities of the area is that it might rain in your front yard while never releasing a drop of liquid relief in your back yard. This is why we had two rain gauges (one for the front and one for the back). In this manner, we could always accurately report the exact tenths of inches that we might receive on any given day in any given location. Rain reporting is one of the things that was much talked about when one had the time, so it was good to be prepared.
Dad as it was later reported to me, was ensuring that the rain gauges were empty when calamity struck. A rouge bolt of lightining, ahead of the paltry 1.5 tenths of rain that the impending shower was to produce, hit the gas line that ran from the storage tank in the back yard to the house. How this actually almost lead to disaster is unclear, but in the ensuing investigation it was determined that this line in combination with the bolt of electricity somehow started a fire. This my dad or mom first discovered when smoke was spotted under the eaves of the house.
Well, you might rightly imagine, that this was something. The local volunteer fire department was summoned immediately. Now in a small town, it takes some time to pull all of the firemen away from their normally assigned tasking. Some might be at the barber shop, some might be fishing, some might be cutting a hog. There is just no telling what the day’s busy agenda has in store for these fellows. In my dad’s case, the day was not overwhelming busy for out brave lads so a quorom was rounded up in short order. Short order in our town meant that the firemen were able to arrive before the affected structure(s) had burned to the ground and the smoke had fully disapated
My brother had been on the way over to my dad’s house when all the excitement began, and it appears that he arrived in time to see my dad running about trying to decide how to keep the gas tank from turning into a bomb of large and destructive proportions. Mike handled this simply by shutting the valve from the tank off thus securing the fuel source. A garden hose applied to the eaves and two or three minutes of steady hosing, ensured that disaster was averted and my parents house would not be a future tourist site dubbed “the Hioshima of the South”.
Of course it was not that simple.
The fire department rolled up shortly there after and began flaking out hoses like there was no tomorrow. This was before they checked to see if the fire was actually still burning. Almost simultaneously the para-medics from the hospital in their ambulance and full kit of life-saving apparatus appeared and began checking everyone’s blood pressure and wrapping people up in blankets to prevent shock. This annoyed my mom a bit as it was still the better part of ninety degrees outside Add to this, both police cars from town (flashing lights fully employed), a couple of neighbors, the game warden, a man selling vacuum cleaners, the UPS delivery guy, and the preacher, and you begin to get the idea that either something had happened or a very odd family reunion was in process.
Now it should not be stated or even thought that this degree of unactivity was anything but highly appreciated. The fire hoses had fairly trashed my mom’s pansys, and the large number of vehicles did no favors for my dad’s yard, but you have to remember, this was yet another way in which the local citizens could display their hospitality and help a neighbor out. Also when thinking about the BP cuffs and the fire hoses all over the flower beds, you have to remember that these fellows did not get to practice all that much. Never waste an opportunity. That’s my motto. I beleive that most of these people shared that same philosophy.
Eventually, however, once it was determined that all life and property was secure for another day the circus began to dissapate. It was getting close to supper time and it has to be a disaster of biblical proportions for people in my town to miss that. People left after visiting for a bit and returned to their previous busy lives, maybe ducking in the IGA to get some milk on the way home, or stopping to fill up thus missing the crowded line the next morning. Mike and dad after an extensive damage assessement, determined that the only thing that would require further action would be a light coat of paint on the underside of the eaves to cover the smoke and the replacement of a gas line fitting that had apparently been damaged during the lightning strike.
Dad told mom he was going up town before the hardware store closed to see if he could get the fitting that needed replacing. It was his thinking that if all went well he could be back up and running before dark. Mike was still talking to the ambulance driver out in the front (who had not yet turned off his flashers) about an upcoming softball tournament, and mom hearing the phone ringing, went inside to see what that might be about
“Hello.”
“Ileen? Is that you? I was just driving by and saw an ambulance.” It was the deputy director of the WMU. A Mrs. Melda by name.
“Yes. It’s me. How are you today? We have just had an afternoon, I’ll tell you that. Poor Roy. All this excitement is no good for him. And all these people running around the back yard.....”
It would be germaine to the story here to point out that my dad has had a recent history of heart trouble, having surgery after one heart attack and having a couple of additional stints thrown in for good measure in order to prevent another one. People in my town worry about people. As the deputy director of the WMU it was a part of Mrs. Melda’s job description to worry and she took her job seriously. Needless to say the sight of an ambulance in the front yard set Mrs. Melda’s tragedy detector in to high range.
“Well how is Roy? The ambulance has me worried.”
“You want to speak to Roy? Well he’s gone up....”
My mom was unable to finish the sentence and was holding a dead phone line in her right hand.
Before my mother had craddled the phone, one of the miracles of small towns was already underway. Before she was back out the front door, the WMU disaster reposnse team members had all been contacted (with the exception of my mom- that would have been tacky) by speed dial. Instantaneously, eight casseroles, three pies, and the two congealed salads that would make up the first wave of tragedy relief, were summoned from their pre-positioning locations and were collated and dispatched to my parents homes. More relief would be forthcoming as soon as it could be determined what additonal assets might be needed or desired. It speaks volumes of the efficiency of this group, when I tell you that the first sqaush soufle, arrived at my parent’s front door before my dad made it back from the hardware store. There was a bit of confusion when one lady tried to hand my dad a pecan pie and a gallon of iced tea to take in when he pulled up.
It took a couple of phone calls, beginning with Mrs. Melda to get things cleared up, but it all turned out fine.
“When you said gone....well, I just assumed the worst.”
“It’s perfectly understandable Melda. I’ve done the same thing before myself. You just don’t think about it.”
“I am so sorry to cause y’all this trouble.”
“It is no trouble at all and it is good to know that people care about you. So don’t you spend another minute worrying about it.” Even though this was her job.
The second wave of relief was called off prior to delivery, but that first load of goodies never did go back. You simply cannot under any circumstances impede anyone’s ability to display their hospitality.
Dad got the gas line fixed, mom didn’t have to cook for about a week and she did stash a couple of those pies and one of the green bean casseroles back in the freezer for the next time.

 

 

Copyright © 2005 Mark A Stuart
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