“No, he’s not. He thinks it’s a great idea.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I went down to the store and showed him the letter.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Before you showed me?”
“Well, I wanted to see what he thought. And he said I should do it.”
“Oh, I see, so as usual you and he have decided—I’m just out of the loop, I don’t count.”
“Oh, Mother . . .”
“Well, it’s true. I don’t know why you bother to tell me anything. I might as well be a knob on the door for all you two care. Why did you bother to ask me? You’re going to do what your daddy says, you always do.”
“Mother, you know that’s not true. And if you’re so dead set against it, I won’t go.”
“Sure, and if you don’t go you’ll never let me live it down. I was just hoping you would be a little closer to home, that’s all, not too far away.”
Linda said, “So that’s what is really worrying you.”
“Why shouldn’t it? I’m a normal mother.”
“But you don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine.”
“Do you think I am going to let you go up to some big city full of gangs and white slavers and not worry?”
“Oh, Mother, there aren’t any white slavers in San Francisco.”
“You don’t know. I look at television and I see things. Barbara Walters just had a piece about some Russian girls that got mixed up with white slavers. It still goes on, don’t kid yourself.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “And here I thought you would be on some safe college campus for four years.”
“Mother.”
“I hope you carry a gun in your purse, that’s all I can say. People are getting knocked in the head right and left. I hope you know I won’t sleep for the next four years!”
An hour later Linda called Macky.
“Daddy, you’re going to have to talk to Mother—she’s having a fit about me getting knocked in the head or getting kidnapped by white slavers.”
Macky said, “I figured as much. Has she said anything about earthquakes yet?”
“No, not yet, but I’m sure as soon as she has time to think, it will be next.”
As expected, later that night Norma sat in the kitchen with Macky. “I just don’t know what’s wrong with those people at the telephone company. Expecting a young girl to go all the way to San Francisco all by herself.”
“She’s going to be with a whole bunch of people her age that will be in training with her.”
Norma’s eyes blinked wide open. “San Francisco! Oh my God, what about earthquakes!”
Macky got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. It was going to be a long night.
“I’m going to have a series of small strokes over this, I just know it.”
“Norma, I wish you would just stop worrying over every damn thing. You are going to drive yourself crazy.”
“I can’t help it, I’m a worrier. My mother was a worrier and so am I. I was nervous as a child. I was nervous as a teenager. I’ve always been nervous. You knew I was nervous when you married me. I told you I was nervous.”
“Yes, but I thought you would get over it after the first twenty years.”
“You have never been nervous a minute in your life, so you don’t know what it’s like, so don’t sit there and tell me to just get over it. You act as if it’s something I want to do. I guess you think I wake up every morning and say, Oh boy, I just can’t wait to be a nervous wreck all day and worry myself to death about everybody and just about jump out of my skin every time the phone rings, it’s such fun. Honestly, Macky, I wish you would try and understand. You and Aunt Elner are just alike; neither one of you has a nerve in your body. I wish I could be like that but I can’t. I guess it’s just part of nature. Some animals are nervous and some aren’t. I don’t know why, but I am sure the Good Lord had his reasons. You can’t change people’s nature. You can’t say to a bird, Be more like a cow.”
“All right, Norma, you’ve made your point.”
“Or a lion to be like a monkey.”
“O.K., Norma, all I was suggesting is that you might have more fun if you could relax more.”
“Don’t you think I know that? You think you’re telling me something I don’t know? I wish I could just let the house go to pot, let you and Aunt Elner and Linda do what you want. What if Linda wants to go off to a big city and live around killers and rapists, so what? You want to jump on and off roller coasters at your age, so what? Aunt Elner wants to leave her house wide open all night so anybody can come traipsing in and out and murder her in her bed, so what?”
“I know, but, Norma, you’re like Chicken Little, running around always thinking the sky’s falling. Do you think that your worrying can prevent anything from happening? Whatever happens is supposed to happen and whatever doesn’t, isn’t.”
Norma looked at him like she could kill him. “Well, thank you, Macky, that’s a big help. I’ll remember to tell you that the next time you are worried about something.”
After Linda had left for San Francisco, Aunt Elner called Norma and said, “Norma, do you know what’s the matter with you? You’re an empty nester.”
“What?”
“I read it in the Reader’s Digest and I think you’ve got empty-nest syndrome. I think that’s why you are so depressed and moping around. It says the symptoms are a feeling that your life is over, a feeling of uselessness. I see the signs as clear as day.”
“What signs?”
“You can’t fool me. Every time you come over here I know you’re just itching to clean my house. What you need is a hobby. Listen, the Reader’s Digest says, and I quote, are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“ ‘The antidote to empty-nest syndrome is the following or a combination thereof. . . . Get up out of the house and make new friends, get new hobbies, donate your time to some civic cause, go on a second honeymoon with your husband.’ ”
“A second honeymoon? We never had the first one. Now I’m due two. Go on, what else?”
“Go out to eat at least once a week or take a dance class.”
Norma had to admit that what Aunt Elner said was true. She had been feeling useless and she had been itching to clean Aunt Elner’s house from top to bottom. But she did not want to take a dance class, or eat out once a week. There was no place to go now that the cafeteria had closed except Howard Johnson, and just how many fried clams can one eat? And she knew Macky would never shut down the hardware store to go on a second honeymoon. She supposed her only recourse was to search for a cause, but finding a cause in Elmwood Springs would not be easy. Everybody seemed to have what they wanted.
Tin-Can Tourists, 1974
Aunt Elner had been out in the yard dealing with a dog that was chasing her cat and had missed most of Neighbor Dorothy’s show but she ran in and turned it on to try to catch the tail end of it anyway. This was Neighbor Dorothy’s last week on the air and she did not want to miss one second of it.
“We received another postcard from our tin-can tourists, Ada and Bess Goodnight. Bess says their travels are over; they have settled down and plan to stay there forever. Their new home is the Ollie Trout Trailer Camp, located on Biscayne Boulevard at 107th Street, one and a half miles north of the Miami city limits. The postcard has a lovely picture and describes Ollie’s as one of the finest automobile trailer tourist parks in the country, offering three hundred and fifty individual lots with a coconut palm on each corner. It sounds like heaven to me. The card is signed, ‘Whoopee, come and see us. Ada and Bess Goodnight.’
“It seems like they just left yesterday and they have been gone for over nine years now. Well, I’ve caught you up on all the news, so I thought I’d take this time to talk about something that’s been on my mind for a while. Last night Doc and I were sitting in the backyard watching the sun go down and the stars come out . . . and what a pretty sight . . . to see th
e first little star come twinkling on . . . the night was so warm and lovely and we sat there until they had all come out and I had a thought. I wondered how we would feel if we never had stars or the moon, just a dark sky and then, one night, they suddenly all appeared in the sky. We would all be in awe, I’m sure, and say, What a wondrous sight, but sometimes I get so busy I forget to look at the moon and the stars and appreciate how lucky we are to have them. We never appreciate the moon until he goes behind a dark cloud, do we? God gave us so many beautiful things to look at, and now that both my children are grown and gone, Doc and I spend a lot more time counting our blessings and we have had more than our share. I know that we were so lucky to have had Mother Smith with us for so many years. Both our children are happy and healthy and I have been blessed, too, with so many wonderful neighbors, my real neighbors and all my radio neighbors, who have been with me throughout the years. I often wonder what I did to deserve such a wonderful life. It’s going to be hard not to come to the microphone every morning for our visit but you and I know that, unfortunately, time marches on and waits for no man, as they say, or even woman. I am sure that the new folks coming along will have a lot of exciting things to offer. It’s been a long run . . . thirty-eight years of broadcasting is more than I could have ever hoped for.
“As most of you know, Doc is retiring this month and we are looking forward to doing some traveling and a lot of visiting. At the end of our lives we don’t have much money and are not rich in material things, but as I sit and reread the letters you have sent me throughout the years I am wealthy as a millionaire and I hope you will still write to me every once in a while. I have been asked to stop by the studio in Poplar Bluff and chat with you from time to time, so you won’t be rid of me altogether, but we still have a week to go, so I won’t say good-bye. I’ll just say until tomorrow, this is Neighbor Dorothy coming to you from 5348 First Avenue North in Elmwood Springs, Missouri. Where you are always welcome and have a nice day.”
Elner got up from the table, sighing and wondering what in the world life would be like without The Neighbor Dorothy Show. She was not the only one. In a kitchen twenty miles outside of town, a farm woman went into the left drawer by the sink and pulled out a writing tablet and, after testing about six, finally found a ballpoint pen that still had ink in it. She sat down and started a letter.
Dear Neighbor Dorothy,
Just thought I’d drop you a line and tell you how much I’ll miss hearing you on the radio every day. Listening to you was always such a comfort to me and I did not feel so alone way out here, so far from town. It would have been a lonely old life if it had not been for you and your family. At times I almost felt like Bobby and Anna Lee were mine as well. Lord, we have been through it all, haven’t we? You have truly been a good neighbor.
Your friend,
Mrs. Vernon Boshell
Route 3
The End of an Era
DOC HAD BEEN at the drugstore, training the young pharmacist who was taking his place, when the prescription was called in. The minute he saw who the heart medicine was for he went home. They never did travel. It was a warm autumn that year, so they spent some of the days sitting in the Sweetheart Swing out back and watching the sun go down.
On October 22, a tall, thin radio announcer walked into the booth, looked up at the clock, and waited. At exactly 9:30, instead of the Tops in Pops show, which usually aired after the news, a surprised listening audience heard: “Ladies and gentlemen, station WDOT is sad to report that a friend is dead. Last evening, Neighbor Dorothy passed away quietly in her home in Elmwood Springs. She is survived by her daughter, Anna Lee, and a son, Robert. We wish to extend our deepest sympathies to them and to the hundreds of radio listeners who came to know and love her over the years.
“The family requests that if you wish to remember her, in lieu of flowers, please send a donation to the Princess Mary Margaret Fund, in care of the Elmwood Springs Humane Society. In remembrance, we here at station WDOT will be off the air for one hour in silent tribute to a woman who will be missed by all.
“We would like to close with this thought. What is a life? The best and most noble life is one lived in such a way that it can be said of a person, as they pass on to the next life, that while she was here she brought love and joy and comfort to all she touched. Such was the life lived by the woman known to all simply as Neighbor Dorothy. Although her voice here on earth has been silenced, we would like to think that somewhere, in another place, people are just now turning on their radios and hearing her for the very first time. Good-bye, dear friend.”
THE EIGHTIES
A Scare
FOR ALL THE YEARS and hours that Norma had spent worrying over every little thing, the moment that something really terrible did happen she was the one who was calm and was able to keep a clear head. She had not said a word to Macky or Aunt Elner. All they knew is that she had gone in for her yearly checkup. She did not tell them anything until two weeks later. That night after dinner, after she put the dishes in the dishwasher and turned off the kitchen light, she sat down by Macky in the family room.
“Macky, I’m sure it’s nothing but they saw a little something on my mammogram that they didn’t like and Dr. Halling wants to do a biopsy.”
Macky felt the blood drain from his body. She went on.
“So, I’m going to go in on Wednesday. I should only be there for a day or so, but anyhow, I’m going to fix a few things and put them in the freezer for you so you can have them to eat while I’m gone.”
Macky finally got his voice. “Jesus Christ, when did this happen?”
“A few days ago.”
“A few days ago—why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because there was no point for you to worry. The only reason I’m telling you now is because they might keep me overnight, depending on what they find, and I didn’t want you to come home and wonder where I was.”
“Have you told Aunt Elner or Linda? Is she coming home?”
“No. Like I said, there is no point to telling anybody anything until we know what it is and it’s probably not anything at all.”
“Why would you keep something like this from me? What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing is the matter, honey, I just didn’t think you needed to worry, that’s all.”
“I’m your husband, for God’s sake, you don’t just say, Oh by the way, I think I might have cancer.”
The minute he said it he was sorry. But Norma got up and came over, pushed his hair back off his forehead, and patted his shoulder. “Oh, honey, I don’t have cancer.”
“But you could have.”
“The chances are rare, but even if I do, it’s not the end of the world. He said we caught it early.”
“Does he think it is?”
“No, he meant if, on the off chance that there is something, we caught it in time.”
After they went to bed he could not sleep and got up at about three in the morning and walked out in the backyard and tears ran down his cheeks. Not so much because he was scared to death but because it was her bravery that had always touched him more than he could tell her.
The next few days were pure hell. He realized that if he lost her he would never forgive himself. He wanted more years with her, so he could wake up every day and look at her and appreciate who she was, what she was. She was his wife, his lover, the mother of his child, but most of all she was his best friend. Without her he would be more lost than he already was.
He sat in the waiting room of the hospital and while they were doing the biopsy on Norma he thought about time, the one thing that could not be stopped. As a child, time had seemed like a windup toy. It had seemed so long on those days he sat in school waiting for the bell to ring and so short when he was having fun. So long from Christmas Eve night to Christmas morning. Now, in just a few seconds, the doctor would tell them the results. In those few seconds his life would never again be the same—or they would have another chance.
; Did the white-coated people in the lab know what they were looking at? Would they go to lunch and not know that whatever they found under the microscope would change lives forever? He wanted to yell at the entire hospital, That’s my wife, that’s my entire life, our entire future you’re looking at. Here was a man who could not stand to have anyone else drive, hated to fly because he was not comfortable unless he was at the controls, and now he was helpless. Totally dependent on the hospital staff, who looked to him to be no more than teenagers. What had happened to the older, gray-haired nurses and doctors he had remembered the last time she was in the hospital, having their daughter, thirty-one years ago, and what the hell are they so happy about? Didn’t they know how serious life and death was, for God’s sake? That poor sweetheart could wake up with her breast gone and be told that it had spread everywhere and that she was dying. Why in the hell hadn’t they found a cure for this thing yet?
What are we doing sending money all over the world, spending billions on the military budget and on making stupid movies and television shows? People are dying every day and we’re just throwing money away. Why aren’t they giving it to the scientists to find a cure? Something is wrong—cancer has been around too long; somebody must have a cure, they’re just not letting anybody know. He had worked himself into a murderous rage when the doctor came down the hall.
“Mr. Warren, we just got the report from the lab and it’s absolutely benign, so we’re gonna close her on up. She should be out of recovery in a few hours.” He spoke over his shoulder to another doctor that had just passed him in the hall. “Hey, Duke, can you get me two more tickets for the game tomorrow?”
Macky didn’t hear Duke’s response. He stood up and took a walk outside the hospital. Everything inside had been cold and sterile and now he was back out in the warm sunshine and he felt as if he could breathe again. He found himself smiling at the people he passed and at that moment he made a deal with himself. Anything that woman wants from now on, she gets.