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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
May 18, 2008
Previously unpublished fiction.
© 2008 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Old Folks, 1977
© 1977 by Bud Grossmann
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TRIVIA REPORT
From: David C. Fischer <d—@juno.com>
To: "Louise Ann Albertini" <l—@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 23:10:23 -0500
Subject: Trivia Report.
Lou Ann, you don't have to read this letter. It's somewhat unconcise, even though I left out the parts about suicide, cohabitation, and mechanical mayhem.
Good, long day. Up before six to make pie, not enough rhubarb, so I stretched it with a Fuji apple. Very good, everyone said tonight, at Mothers Day Two. I asked Roberta to take two small pieces to Maureen, though we don't know if M. works tonight. Did I tell you about my ten-cent Tupperware pie container?
Made about ten bread mixes, some with rye instead of whole wheat. Have I given you a report on early rye experiments? I have caraway seeds now.
Went to church, "Second Tuesday" service for frail folk, in Ninian with Mom and Dad, had lunch at church. Went in two cars so I could stay and see my lawyer.
Had a pleasant meeting with the lawyer, trying to figure out how best to bless my daughter with the curse of money when I die, trying to figure out how to leave a little something to some other beneficiaries without making them too overly pleased that I am dead, and how to leave them considerably more if my daughter predeceases me. Sought advice on remarriage. (Lawyer: "Hold on a sec, Dave. I thought you told me you were of sound mind.")
Stopped by the Ninian Woolen Mill, Inc., and found it has been shuttered and abandoned; I am so sorry, Lou. We'll have to find something else touristy to do when you visit.
Went to a hardware store to look at floor-related items. Bought four sheets of sandpaper—can you guess the cost? Less than how many dollars would you suppose?
Traveling back roads to the farm to pick up Mom, I went through Neshnabek. Directly across from the old folks home where my grandmother lived out the last years of her life, I saw a man smoking a pipe in his garden. I drove past him. Turned around and drove past him again. Turned around, parked and got out. Asked him if he is Carl Felton. (I published a story about him, you might recall.) Yes, the man confirmed, he is Carl Felton. I didn't recognize him, though I knew that was his house, and he didn't remember me till I told him I am David C. Fischer, grandson of Franklin and Ethel, son of David A.
Carl is age 82, a few months the elder of my dad. He was the father-in-law of one of my schoolmates who died something like ten years ago of Huntington's Disease. I apologized for never sending a sympathy note. I've thought about it many times; I know which card I meant to send. I've seen the widow, in Fjord, since I moved here, and apologized to her.
Carl and I talked and talked today. One story he told me went something like, "...I never saw a funeral like his. They put him in a flannel shirt, top two buttons undone, and overalls. That's how he wanted to be buried, they said. If that's what he wanted, makes no difference to me. Nobody's going to see him anyways oncet he's in the ground."
When I asked about a dog pen that isn't there anymore, Carl said, "I paid a hundred-and-eighty-one dollars to have that dog put to sleep and cremated. But that's all right. Next day the vet called me to come get the ashes. I brought them home, and, when the snow was gone, my son took them to where we used to hunt, and threw them around." Using his pipe and both hands, Carl showed me how someone would heave ashes into a breeze. I thought of Bridges of Madison County. I could have thought of something else—and something else again—but I didn't, till now.
"Ma and Pa was good friends with your grandparents," Carl said, repeating something he'd said the first time we ever met. "We used to go to Fischers' place, and they'd play cards, leave us kids to find something to do. Your grandma would put bread in the oven in the cookstove when we got there, and all the while Ma and Pa and them was playin' cards we'd smell that bread, and when it was baked and come out and cooled a little, they'd put the cards away, and we'd all eat fresh bread with butter and jam."
He told me about strawberries he planted this year, told me about radishes. When I said I better be going, to check on my mother, Carl asked me to wait while he went in the house to get a journal he has written—wanted me to take it with me and read it. "I trust you," he said. I declined, though, and told him how easily I lose things. I said I found, just yesterday in my car's glove compartment, a 1961 birth announcement I borrowed from my dad some months ago. Carl knew my relatives who sent it. I told him I'll see him again soon and look at his journal then.
A little way out of Neshnabek, in a stand of oaks and locusts, I saw great, wrinkled sheets of tin, many of them, that the recent tornado peeled from a farm building and set on end among the trees.
When I got to my parents' farm, I found Dad looking unwell, lying on the living room couch. Mom was in her recliner, sleeping peacefully. "I'm feeling kind of tired," said Dad. "Don't know why."
I woke Mom, took her into the bathroom. Waiting for her to pee, I shouted in her better ear, "I saw Carl Felton today. Do you know who that is?" I'm not aware of any reason why she should, except that Dad might have read my story to her, and she used to have what we might call an encyclopedic memory. "Yes, I do," she said. "He and his wife live across from—" She couldn't find the word she wanted. "Across from where, Mom? Describe it." "Across from the place people stay when they can't go home." This, from somebody who didn't know her eldest son's name last night when I asked her, and, as a matter of fact, sometimes didn't know me today, either.
A few minutes later, Mom did recall one of the former names of what's now designated Galloway Health Care Center. When I was a kid, we knew it as "The Manor." Today at church I introduced myself to an old woman who did not reply with her own name, but instead said, "I knew a Fischer that was an officer at The Manor." "That would have been," I said, "my grandpa, Franklin." "Yes. Franklin Fischer. I knew him."
I never heard anyone refer to Grandpa as an "officer" before. Powerhouse Engineer was his title, I believe. After farming all day, he earned steadier wages with the county at night, shoveling coal into boilers. He kept the fires going, took naps, and did some fishing—he put out poles for bullheads in Mallard Creek, a few steps from the powerhouse door. At that time, the early 1960's, The Manor was a mental institution, a home for retarded persons, an old folks' home, and a poorhouse.
Mom and I came to town, and I put her to bed and helped her do her neck exercises, started my bread machine going, and finished tidying the house, setting the table, organizing the kitchen, and finalizing the guest list. (Aunt Jeannette came back from Milwaukee with cousin Alyssa earlier than planned and wanted to withdraw her regrets and join us after all, she and Alyssa both; Aunt Francine said she might walk over for dessert; Charlene Breckenfelder was tempted but finally said, in Wisconsinese, without intending a risqué meaning, "I would like to say I can't come"; cousin Barry told me of a business meeting he was obliged to attend.) A little after five, Roberta called from her cell phone, a couple miles out, telling me she'd found asparagus beside the road, but was on her way, with Ethan. People arrived, people ate, I chased people away without letting them wash dishes.
I liked the pie; now I await Nurse Morrison's critique. This was our menu: Fjord Sausage Co. bratwurst and Dave's homemade whole wheat buns served with homemade mayonnaise, Heinz ketchup, Grey Poupon Dijon mustard, bread-&-butter pickles, chopped onion, but no sauerkraut; Bobbie's homemade potato salad; Bobbie's store-bought cucumber salad; Bobbie-and-Ethan's asparagus, some steamed in my new rice cooker (ten min.), some grilled on Dad's George Foreman grill; Aunt Jeannette's broccoli and carrots with Dave's store-bought creamy bacon salad dressing as a dip; homemade rhubarb-apple pie, sliver of homemade lemon pie (from Sunday's dinner) for diabetic Mama; ice water, orange juice, Pepsi, Corona, Pabst Blue Ribbon, non-organic 100% Columbian coffee with Bobbie's fat-free Half-and-Half.
10:03PM Time to do dishes, I think. Although I spent most of the supper hour helping Mom eat, and waiting on my guests (with lots of help from Bobbie, Alyssa, and Ethan), I found time to eat enough so my belly is uncomfortably full two hours later. Maybe I'll lie down like I did Sunday night, "just for a minute."
I was only kidding, Lou. You do have to read this e-mail. But you don't have to love love love it.
Love, Dave
♦
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