A few years ago, I had this idea to write a book. Aprill and I had already written our book on working together. But I wanted to write a fictional book – to “spin a yarn” about life in small town America.
I still want to write it. And probably still will. But for my tens of readers of this blog, I decided to give you the first chapter. I hope you enjoy it. With any luck, someday I’ll have the whole book!
Independence Day
It was the coolest July 9th anyone could remember, and Badger City’s Independence Day fireworks were the best they’d ever been.
No one seemed to notice they were 5 days late. If they noticed at all, they didn’t care. Life in Badger City moved at its own pace. And if that meant holding the annual Independence Day celebration five days late so the fireworks would be here, so be it. It wasn’t like it was the first time it had happened.
Three years ago, the town board of aldermen just plain forgot to place the fireworks order. So when June 30th rolled around and Mayor Pickens asked who’s garage they were stored in, he was answered by blank stares.
“Gilley was in charge of placing the order this year. Where are they Gilley?”
“I was not!” Gilley replied. “If you’ll think for a minute before you speak, you’ll remember that when I took over responsibility for hanging Christmas lights down Poplar Street, I handed off the responsibility for ordering fireworks, too. A man can only think about so many major holidays.”
“Well, who did you hand it off to?” asked Kim Womack (the only man named Kim who had ever lived in Badger City, or so anyone could recall).
“I don’t know,” he screamed. “Check the minutes – I just know that I said I needed to hand it off.”
No one knew where the minutes were, and the meeting was adjorned early so they could make a quick trip to a black market operation Gilley knew about in Chattanooga that promised (quietly!) authentic Chinese rockets and buzzers. (Everything went off like clockwork, and in the fall, Ed Pickens was elected to an unprecedented 5th term as mayor.)
That was nothing compared to the year that Earl Duncan ran off with the fireworks money – and Ginger, his best friend Ralph’s wife – the day before the celebration. That was a dark year. Instead of postponing the event until a decent store of fireworks could be found, they settled instead for Junior Fults’ turning his pick-up into the world’s largest Roman candle. Driving down Poplar Street with his son, Junior Jr. riding in the bed and lighting 245 candles duct taped to a makeshift scaffold, the billing had been a letdown, and the town left that year in poor spirits.
The highlight of the night had actually been when Junior Jr. lost his balance in front of the Canterbury Hotel and fell out of the back of the truck. He jumped back less than a block down the street, and showed great courage by waiting until every candle had been lit and all the smoke had cleared before going to get 14 stitches across the left side of his head (just above the ear).
This year was much less controversial. There was no one to blame – save some nameless dock foreman in Jefferson who had mistakenly shipped Badger City’s fireworks to Huntsville, Alabama along with five hundred gallons of peanut oil. If it hadn’t been for Huntsville’s popcorn festival drawing record crowds to crown the 50th anniversary Popcorn Queen (along with seeing a stuffed horse purported to be the carcass of Trigger himself), the fireworks would still be sitting on the truck.
But, as it were, the celebration was in full swing and all of the festivities had been welcomed with great excitement and embrace. The garment factory and the sock mill had closed for the day, giving most of the town an extra day off (and no reason not to attend). Most of the stores on Poplar Street stayed open, and the merchants looked forward to a day to make up for some of last year’s Christmas slump. It didn’t make Bonnie Johnson too happy that she’d miss most of the afternoon’s events. But she could use the extra money, and Frank Harvey (her boy du jour) had to spend most of his time at the Kiwanis Club dunking booth anyway.
By the time the fireworks rolled around, everyone was stuffed full of hot dogs, potato salad and ice cold lemonade. Harley Stevens had brought in what he called his diamond grill (two 55-gallon drums, welded together, with a section of chain-link fencing that left unique diamond-shaped marks on anything cooked on it). “You ain’t gonna find those marks on anything that ain’t cooked on my diamond grill,” Harley chirped. He even went so far as to ship in Reelfoot hot dogs from Union City (“imported,” Harley promoted). And everyone agreed – they were the best hot dogs they’d ever had at the Independence Day celebration.
As the rockets screamed into the cool July night, and the constant, buzzing sound of the cicada’s was drowned out (at least for a night) by the oohs and aahs of contented citizens, Mayor Pickens surveyed his town and thought, “what a splendid place – a splendid, little place.”
And two dogs chased a cat up the alley behind the Superior Cafe. But they didn’t catch it. They never did.
