by Fannie Flagg
Norma said you have to just swing with it and try not to let it bother you so much. He wished he could but somehow it seemed this new world was easier for the women to accept and adjust to. What bothered him and other men his age and older was that the things they had been willing to die for were no longer appreciated. Everything he had believed in was now the butt of jokes made by a bunch of smarty-assed late-night-TV so-called comedians making a salary you could support a small country with. All he heard was people saying how bad we were, how corrupt we had been, and how terrible white men were. He had not felt like a bad person. But just the fact that he was a white man of a certain age, a lot of people he did not know hated him. He had never knowingly been mean or unfair to another human being in his life. Now it seems he was the oppressor, responsible for every bad thing that had ever happened in the history of the world. War, slavery, racism, sexism—he was the enemy and all he had tried to do was live a good and decent life. History was being rewritten by the minute. All of his childhood heroes were now being viewed as villains, their lives judged in hindsight by the current fad of political correctness. Hell, now they were even taking Huckleberry Finn out of libraries, for God’s sake. It was all too confusing.
You never saw people anymore, everything was self-service, everybody behind glass windows. And you could not get a real person on the phone. Everywhere you called, a recorded message connected you to another recorded message and then hung up on you. And everybody was mad and screaming about something. He did not know which was worse, the radical right or the radical left. It seemed nobody was in the middle anymore. We used to be on the right track and then we took a wrong turn but he did not know where. Was it the dope or television? Was it having too much that did it? He had tried to read what the experts thought but they did not know any more than he did. All he knew for sure was that after the ’40s and ’50s, when he had been raised, the world had flipped over like a giant pancake and everything was backward. When he was a kid everyone had wanted to be Tarzan; now they all want to be the natives. People were sticking rings in their noses—even pretty little girls were running around with green hair, their bodies pierced everywhere.
And nobody answered a direct question anymore with a simple yes or no. Everything was answered with some kind of rhetoric. And he knew far more than he wanted to know about perfect strangers. Things people used to be ashamed to talk about now sold books and got them on television. Murderers were being asked for their autographs and turned into celebrities. Football, basketball, and baseball players could beat up their wives, take drugs, go to jail, and still stay on the team and make millions. It didn’t matter what kind of a person you were anymore. He remembered when a professional athlete was someone to look up to; now the sports page read more like a police blotter.
And never in a million years would he have dreamed that one day baseball players would be wearing earrings. Or that some girl would be singing on television in her brassiere. Life was all so different, with this one having two mommies and another one two daddies.
He did not know what to think anymore. The way it looked to him, the world was not getting better; it was getting worse. He sat there for about an hour and gazed out at the water, wondering where and when it was all going to end.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and stared down at the sandy ground, as if looking for an answer. After a few minutes he noticed a tiny ant that walked underneath him, struggling to carry what looked like a large piece of potato chip. It was much too big for him to eat, but he was headed somewhere with it anyhow. He watched the ant as it kept going and banged into another concrete bench, went around it, crawling over rocks and other obstacles, determined to get back home with his treasure. It was much too big for him to carry but he did not seem to know it.
Macky sat there and watched the ant struggle along until it was out of sight and he smiled for the first time in weeks. “Who knows?” he thought. “If he keeps on going, the little son of a bitch might just make it.”
Hey, Good Buddy
THE NEXT DAY Norma marched in the door and said, “I have made a decision. Since you won’t go to any of the groups, I have taken the bull by the horns. Come out to the car and help me bring it in.”
When they got to the car there it was, in a box that looked like the hide of a black-and-white cow. Norma had bought him a computer.
“Norma, I don’t know how to use that thing.”
“Neither do I but we are going to learn. I’ve signed us up for lessons over at Comp World. It can’t be hard; they say now that even first graders can do it. Besides, Linda said if we got one we could E-mail each other.”
“Norma, I’ll help you set it up but I’m not going to any classes over at Comp World. You go if you like.”
Five months later, after much cussing, he let Norma show him how to get on the Internet.
One day while she was gone, Macky was pleasantly surprised that after a few tries he was able to get into a chat room.
“Hey, any old guys out there remember the Hardy Boys?” Within two minutes Marvin from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, answered.
“Hey, good buddy, affirmative. I just found three old copies—The Tower Treasure, The Missing Chums, The Clue of the Broken Blade. Have two copies of Missing Chums would be happy to send on.”
The next thing Norma knew she could not get him off the Internet. He was all over the map. He was even able to locate fly-fishing experts on the thing. What they had to discuss about the mayfly was a mystery to her but he chatted for hours with someone in Wyoming. And they seemed to know what the other meant. As for Macky, after he got the hang of it, he announced to Norma, “This is just like ham radio, only better.”
Norma said, as usual, “See? I told you.”
Life started to perk up a little more for Macky. His little granddaughter, Apple, started coming down for visits and he was able to teach her all the fine points of baseball. One beautiful Sunday the two of them went to the Dodgers game over at Dodgertown, USA, and had a wonderful time. The little girl did not know it, but one day years from now she would look back on that day and remember how the sun felt and the smell of the grass . . . all the hot dogs and peanuts her granddaddy bought her, the feel of his hand holding hers as they walked home, and she would smile.
All’s Well That Ends Well
TAKE WHAT HAPPENED to Betty Raye, for instance. Although she had started out poor in life and had been deprived of her rightful place in the world, the universe sometimes has a way of righting things. Her two boys were lucky in business and made a killing in real estate. Her uncle Le Roy Oatman’s guilt over leaving the gospel group and joining a hillbilly band finally paid off in a big way. In 1989, while on a three-day bender in Del Rio, Texas, he wrote a song about how fortune and fame don’t mean a thing because, as the title says, “I Never Said Good-bye to Momma.” Country-and-western star Clint Black recorded it and it became an overnight hit and had grown men sobbing in their beers for years. When Le Roy passed on, he left Betty Raye, the only one in the family who had been nice to him, millions of dollars in royalties that just keep on rolling in.
Then there was money from Hamm’s life-insurance policy, which Vita helped her invest in several stocks. One was a pharmaceutical company that just happened to manufacture birth-control pills. When the sexual revolution hit in the seventies, she made $5 million on that one stock alone. But rich as she was, Betty Raye still lived happily in her red-brick house.
However, Le Roy was not the only Oatman to do well in the music world.
After a long dry period when southern gospel had been pushed into the background by a musical trend known as “contemporary Christian music,” in 1992, the Oatman family was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and, thanks to the Bill and Gloria Gaither Gospel Music television shows, they became more popular than ever. Minnie had diabetes, gout, emphysema, and two knee replacements and was on her fifth heart attack, but apparently nothing can kill her. The woman who just
can’t wait to get to heaven is going to have to wait a little longer. Right now she’s doing four shows a week.
As for Beatrice Woods, the old saying that love is blind is just a metaphor but in her case love really was blind, literally, and it was a good thing. Floyd Oatman was not the best-looking of men, but in his heart he was as romantic as the next. His problem was he had little courage and was terrified to talk to women, but Chester was a ladies’ man and had no fear. What poor Floyd was too shy to say to a woman, Chester, the Scripture-quoting dummy, said for him. He leered and whistled and flirted with every pretty woman he saw. But in 1969, with a little help from Beatrice, Floyd was finally able to find his own voice and speak for himself and to ask Beatrice to marry him without going through Chester.
Of course, Beatrice had no idea that he was not the most handsome man in America. He told her that he looked just like Clark Gable but having been blind from birth, she did not know what Clark Gable looked like, either. And later, with Beatrice’s love and encouragement, Floyd, in an incredible leap of faith, threw Chester the dummy over the side of a bridge into the Pea River outside Elba, Alabama. He was free of Chester at last and was finally able to stand alone.
However, unbeknownst to Floyd, Chester was to make one final solo appearance. During the big Pea River flood, Chester the dummy washed up and floated through the town on his back and scared everybody half to death. The three firemen that risked their lives jumping into the river to retrieve the body of the poor little drowned boy were in for a surprise and took quite a bit of ribbing from the other men when they pulled him out. Chester spent the rest of his days hanging on the wall at the firehouse, until it burned down. Being made of wood, poor Chester the dummy finally bit the dust for good.
Beatrice and Floyd had one son. They did not name him Chester.
To the Public at Large:
It’s Tot again, with a late update. Believe it or not, I have married again. I know it is a surprise; it was a surprise to me. He is a retiree from the poultry business with good benefits, a widower—i.e., no living wife or ex-wives, children, dog, or cat. Hoorah! He owns (totally paid for) a tan and brown Winnebago and he doesn’t drink. He drove through here and stopped at the cemetery to see the graves of some friends of his, Doc and Dorothy Smith. I was out there pulling weeds off of Momma’s grave and said, Who are you looking for? and the rest is history. I have sold my house and I gave the hair business to Darlene, lock, stock, and barrel. Dwayne Jr. is in the slammer again for selling drugs. Let the government have him. I never could do anything with him. My granddaughter, Tammie Louise, as predicted, has a baby on the way, which is one of the reasons we hit the road. I am not paying for raising any more kids. As I write this, Charlie and I are just outside Nashville headed on up to Minnesota to the Mall of America, where I plan to shop till I drop, then on down to Florida to Vero Beach, to visit Macky and Norma and Aunt Elner, where we may stay for good. The Goodnight sisters and Verbena and Merle have moved there and they say Bobby Smith and his wife, Lois, and Anna Lee and her husband come down and visit all the time, so it will be just like home only better. No Whootens. My health is still pretty good, considering what all I’ve had to put up with, and they say with all the advances in modern medicine that age sixty is now the new forty, so that makes me around fifty-one again!
Best wishes,
Mrs. Tot Whooten Fowler
P.S. I am happy for the first time in my life.
Epilogue
ROBERT SMITH, given the fact that he had traveled all around the world and back lecturing on the Old West, had been asked to write a piece for Aunt Elner’s favorite magazine, Reader’s Digest. He wandered around the house for days thinking about the kings and queens, African chieftains, prime ministers and presidents of countries he had met; it was amazing how many people were still fascinated by cowboys and Indians. He had met so many interesting people that it was hard to just pick one. Then one day he chose his subject. He sat down and started on:
The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met
by
Dr. Robert Smith
Her name was Dorothy and she happened to be my mother. I guess a good place to start would be in 1946 in my hometown of Elmwood Springs, Missouri, a little place you have probably never heard of. . . .
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the following people for their invaluable help with this book: Sam Vaughan and family, Wendy Weil, Bruce Hunter, Dennis Ambrose, Judy Sternlight, Carol Schneider, Todd Doughty, Sherry Huber, Lauren Krenzel, Trebbe Johnson, Bonnie Thompson, Susie Glickman, Joy Terry, Lois Scott, Cathy Calvert, and Sue Grafton for all her good advice. Special thanks to the Warren family of Birmingham, Alabama, and Jonni Hartman Rogers, my press agent and good friend for more years than either of us cares to admit.
PHOTO: © SUZE LANIER
FANNIE FLAGG began writing and producing television specials at age nineteen and went on to distinguish herself as an actress and writer in television, films, and the theater. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (which was produced by Universal Pictures as Fried Green Tomatoes), and Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! Ms. Flagg’s script for Fried Green Tomatoes was nominated for both the Academy and Writers Guild of America awards and won the highly regarded Scripters Award. Flagg lives in California and in Alabama.
ALSO BY FANNIE FLAGG
Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man
(originally published as Coming Attractions)
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Fannie Flagg’s Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
STANDING
IN THE RAINBOW
A Reader’s Guide
FANNIE FLAGG
A CONVERSATION WITH FANNIE FLAGG
Interviewer Sam Vaughan was publisher, president, and editor-in-chief at Doubleday, then senior vice president, and is now an independent editor-at-large for the Random House imprints, including Ballantine Books. In addition to Fannie Flagg, he is currently editing Margaret Truman, Dave Barry, Elizabeth Spencer, and William F. Buckley Jr., among others.
Sam Vaughan: There are continuities of characters and plot that link Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! with Standing in the Rainbow. Some of the people carry over, some grow up, some die. Did this come to you as inspiration or did it just seem the natural thing to do? Was there something of unfinished business at the end of Baby Girl? Or did you simply want to visit with some of those people once more?
Fannie Flagg: Well, as usual I seem to do things in a backward way. As it turns out, Standing in the Rainbow is the prequel to Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! It really should have been written first but I did not know it at the time. The character of Neighbor Dorothy was always meant to be my main character in the first book but the story line of Dena Nordstrom just took over the book and as you know, I tend to write too much rather than too little. Had I written it all at once, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! would have been 800 pages long. I had done so much research and still had so much more to tell about Neighbor Dorothy and her family that I decided to just introduce her in the first one and then write about her almost exclusively as I began the next.
SV: How did you come up with the character of Neighbor Dorothy? Was she a real person or just a figment of your imagination?
FF: Both. By that I mean I did make her up but she was based on the true lives of many different women who were real “Radio Homemakers.” Something I never knew existed. I first discovered them when, one day as I was browsing through the cookbook section of my hometown book store in Fairhope, Alabama, I picked up a small cookbook published by the University of Iowa Press, written by Evelyn Birkby, a Radio Homemaker in Shenandoah, Iowa. In the book were photographs and histories of some of the Radio Homemakers. I was fascinated to learn that since the 1920s scores of women had radio shows that were broadcast from their homes, offering recipe
s, homemaking tips, etc. I am always interested in history and as I read on, I realized that these gals were the real pioneer women in broadcasting. Long before Martha Stewart was born, they were offering housewives tips on cooking and entertaining. I called Evelyn Birkby in Iowa and to my surprise she picked up the phone. She is a delightful lady and we became fast friends. I told her I wanted to write about the Radio Homemakers in my next book and she was kind enough to help me with my research. I found out that the broadcasters were also known as “Radio Neighbors” because listeners considered their shows as a visit with a neighbor. From that research the character of Neighbor Dorothy was born.
SV: What about the rather colorful and lovely title, Standing in the Rainbow?
FF: The title did not come until after I finished the book. A friend told me of her true experience. It had happened to her and her family, how they wound up actually standing in a rainbow. I put the experience as it was told to me in the book as a letter to Dorothy from Mrs. Anne Carter (her real name). When I finished the book I realized that the time period I had been writing about was from 1946 to the early ’60s when we were, as a country certainly, standing in the rainbow. I suppose it is just another way of saying we were looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.