People came out of the woodwork to talk to me about this problem or that. They included Miss Barbara Beavers, dress shop owner and regular advertiser: “I do not like the way my ads look. They are smeared, and you can’t tell the difference between the house coats and the evening gowns.”
And Bud Dillon, “no relation to Matt, ma’am,” who wrote a folksy farming column. “We need more agriculture coverage. It's the backbone of our country. People depend on The News-Item for farm prices and new varieties of soy beans and such.”
Some people, like Bud, were friendly characters who made living in Green richer and worthwhile. Others, like Miss Barbara, could be mean-spirited and bossy.
In addition, I was soon called upon by a number of special-interest groups, the number and variety a surprise to me in such a small place. “Can you help us with our literacy fund-raiser?” “Can we count on your support for the Catfish Festival?” “Would you make a donation to the Friends of the Confederacy?”
Many meetings began with polite civility and deteriorated into my feeling evil and misunderstood. “We don’t think we are getting the coverage we might expect,” one club would say. “The newspaper's position is clearly biased,” another would complain.
From our position on zoning to litter control, we drew criticism. What distressed me was how many people seemed to think you were a bad person if you disagreed with them. “We can disagree without being disagreeable” became one of my least favorite phrases, since it generally preceded the newspaper getting blasted with both barrels.
Mercifully, these meetings were punctuated by the “social callers,” those who wanted to say hello and welcome me to town. They often brought a cake or produce or flowers from their yards. “We want you to know how happy we are to have you in Green.” “We’d love to have you speak to our garden club.” “This is the recipe that won first place at our Homemaker's Tea. We hope you enjoy it and our community.”
At first I tried to refuse the small gifts, citing the age-old newspaper conflict of interest issue. However, Iris Jo and Tammy intervened, telling me that refusing was seen as arrogant or “uppity”—Tammy's word.
“Just go ahead and accept them graciously and share them,” Tammy said. “I hardly think Gertrude Lindsey is trying to buy you with that batch of brownies.”
Some of these individuals became friends, mentors of sorts. They dropped by, or I would run into them on the street, heading into the library or at the grocery store. They would occasionally send me a handwritten note with a word of praise.
Lots of them invited me to church, but I put them off. “I’m still settling in,” I said.
In between all the community meetings, I decided to meet with every person on my payroll and see what we might do to make the newspaper better and maybe make the Green area a better place to live. I considered this Step Two in unloading the paper in a few months, following Step One of relocating to Green and Step Three of moving away from Green.
My first such meeting was with the news staff—all two of them, plus Tammy, who seemed to have a hand in every department. The part-time photographer didn’t show up. “He works for advertising,” Alex said.
We sat down with sandwiches and soft drinks, and Tom immediately spoke. “I’d like to write editorials,” he said, chewing noisily. “For every edition, the way we used to. I can sign up community columnists, too, to give their side of the story.”
Up until shortly before Ed bought the paper, The News-Item had used old-fashioned country correspondents, and we decided to bring those back, mostly older women who wrote about comings and goings in their tiny communities.
We roped Tammy into lining those up. She worked the phones like a telemarketer from a major corporation and collected a long list of citizens who produced local news for ten bucks a column. “Dr. and Mrs. Ricky Coffey welcomed out-of-town guest from Waco, Texas, over Easter weekend.” “Estelle Gardner celebrated her ninetieth birthday with five generations at her table.” “The Daisy Fellowship Garden Club invites you to its gumbo supper. All proceeds will go to maintain wildflower areas in the city.” They even helped us cover the all-important local sports, from city leagues to high school games.
Alex was not to be left out during the planning discussion. “I want to do more investigative projects. I’m telling you, something's up with zoning. I can’t quite pin it down, but I’m getting tips about Major Wilson and the McCullers and the projects they’re handling. Plus, I’m hearing a lot of buzz about the proposed route for the new interstate highway.”
Tammy interrupted. “I hear we’re getting a Red Lobster.”
“That's not true,” Tom said. “Green doesn’t have liquor by the drink, and they said they won’t come without a change in our liquor laws.”
“That's not what I hear,” Tammy said, with a sniff. And so our first planning meeting went.
One of my rising expenses was paying for public records, a luxury I had taken for granted in my former life. Sometimes I would see Alex's car in the parking lot at the paper late into the evening or find him sifting through official papers when I came in after a community function.
These community functions were mostly new to me. While I had gotten out some in Dayton, my primary role had been in the newsroom. The workflow and news cycle had often interfered with my attending events—and I had been proud of keeping an arm's length between newsmakers and me. Here it was different.
My phone rang steadily. “We’d like to invite you to our annual banquet, Miss Lois,” a club or business would say. “We’ll have a place for you at the head table.” The calls also came when I could not make it. “Dub and Chuck always found time to attend,” a civic club president said. “Our members will be so disappointed that you won’t be there.”
In between all of this, I was doing some digging of my own, still trying to get to the real story on the newspaper's finances.
I had learned in journalism school to follow the money to the heart of a story, and used this approach at work. I relentlessly analyzed spreadsheets and went to Iris Jo with questions.
Mostly Lee Roy, my money man, stayed out of my way, unless I trapped him in his office. Sometimes I thought he deliberately went the other way when he saw me coming.
“Oh, Lois, just heading out to make sales calls,” he often said. “Need to go check some racks” was another of his lines. I finally forced him to sit down with me and go over a list of advertisers and tried to chart a budget for the third and fourth quarters of the year, an exercise that seemed to displease Lee Roy on every level.
“We’ve been doing it the other way for years,” he said, with a sneer. “It works. Why go fooling around with it when it works?”
“Lee Roy, I have to know more about what is coming in.” I felt my face getting warm. “The last time I looked, my name was on the bank loan.”
For some reason during this conversation, Pastor Jean's sermon that first week in Green popped into my mind. She had said God gives us wisdom to do what we’re supposed to do. After Lee Roy stalked out, I dug around in a stack of papers on my desk and found the notes I jotted that day. “God guides you, no matter who you are. He surrounds you with love and mercy. He provides answers when the questions are hard.” I sure hoped so.
One of the questions I had on my mind was about the girl Katy, and I finally remembered to ask Iris Jo about her. Iris looked solemn and then slowly started talking, her voice quivering slightly.
“Katy's somewhat troubled.” She paused. “She's mad at her mother for remarrying after the death of her father a couple of years ago. Then she lost her boyfriend, Matt, in a bad car wreck out near the church.”
Iris Jo rummaged around on the top of her desk and pulled out the obituary, which was dated less than a year ago.
“He was a good boy,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “They said he was driving too fast, swerved, overcorrected, and hit a tree coming home from Katy's house. He went to church, was one of those boys you think is going to amount to so
mething. Katy quit coming to church for quite a while after that, and I notice her hanging around downtown smoking. That's a hard thing for a girl her age … and so soon after her Daddy.”
Iris Jo looked up at me as though sizing me up somehow.
“He was my son.”
Stunned, I did not know what to say, but I felt tears in my eyes and dabbed at them. I leaned over and hugged her. “Oh, Iris Jo, I am so, so sorry.”
“I don’t know why the Lord took him,” she said, the tears falling more steadily now, “but I know he's in a better place, and one of these days I’ll see him again.”
Frozen, I stood by her desk.
“You remember when you asked me one time why I wasn’t more bothered about the sale of the family paper?” she asked. “What I didn’t say is that I’ve learned that most of the stuff that bothers us just isn’t worth the energy.”
Right then the phone rang, and I had never been as happy to be interrupted in my life.
As I went into my office, I thought back over how Iris Jo was cheerful, but in a gentle, kind way. She was not an exuberant woman, and I saw now she was still trying to thaw from her unspeakable grief. How could I be near someone for hours on end and not realize how much hurt she held inside? I thought of Katy, too, and wondered if she hung around the paper because Iris Jo was there.
Going to Route 2 that night, my heart felt heavy. I cried when I drove by Iris's house.
Settling into the house in the country was tougher than I expected, harder than settling into the newspaper. I slowly unpacked my belongings and tried unsuccessfully to make it feel like home. Nearly two full weeks passed before I spent a night there, always coming up with excuses to stay at the Lakeside.
“I don’t have my phone yet,” I said to Iris Jo, “and you know how lousy the cell service is.” “Oh, I just like visiting with your mother at the motel,” I told Kevin. “It's convenient, and everything at home is such a mess,” I said to Tammy.
During my first week of staying at the house, members of the church began showing up—almost like they had been on a stakeout, waiting to see my car overnight in the driveway. The casserole brigade brought supper two or three nights that week, delicious homemade food delivered in Pyrex dishes with names written on masking tape on the bottom. An older man came over, volunteering to help break down the boxes piled on the screened front porch. Someone had cleaned up my yard, and Iris Jo told me it was Chris Craig.
“That name doesn’t ring a bell,” I said, puzzled over who would do something so nice.
“He's that good-looking catfish farmer down the road, a coach at the school,” she said. “He's a regular volunteer at Grace Community. His wife died of breast cancer three years ago. He took up catfish farming as a hobby of sorts—really super person.”
“Oh … I remember meeting him. The guy you were hugging at church. Do you two date?” I clearly knew little about Iris Jo's personal life.
“Good heavens, no!” she said, almost snorting. “He's more like a son or a brother to me. I wish he could find a good woman.”
Touched by everyone's help, I didn’t let on that I was afraid to stay way out in the country by myself. It was so alien from my city life, which I found myself yearning for on a regular basis. I longed for my condo. I missed the crazy busy newsroom and my comfort zone. I began to think of relocating when my year was up, to New York or Chicago, a big city with lots going on and fewer people nosing into my business.
Other than spending nights there, in the first few months I spent as little time as possible at the house, almost moving into my office, with a supply of microwavable food and some of my favorite pieces of art.
“Good grief, Miss Lois,” Tammy said. “How are Iris Jo and I supposed to look good with the new boss if we always get here after you do and leave before you?” She even devised a contest to see who could get me out of the building earlier, but after a few weeks gave up.
Long evening phone calls with Marti became my habit, helping me put off going home. One Friday night she finally challenged me on it.
“I’ve got a date with that new guy in marketing and have got to get off this phone,” she said. “You have to get a life.”
I pretended to be indignant, but I knew what she meant. That night I rolled up my sleeves and began to transform the country house into my home. I emptied boxes and placed books neatly on shelves, with the hope the Grace cardboard ministry guy would come back by to help me. I hung pictures and pulled out knick-knacks and lined up my antique pottery collection.
The next morning I cleaned and polished, appreciating how the light gave everything a kind of soft glow.
Coffee cup in hand, I walked around the yard and noticed how a few things were already beginning to bud. My mother and grandmother had taught me a lot about flowers, some of it by osmosis. A flowering quince was in bloom, as was a large, healthy forsythia. Several patches of what we called daffodils but local people were calling jonquils were in bloom.
My neighbor and his three mutts drove by in his beat-up pickup truck. He gave a short beep of the horn and waved.
For a moment, I felt settled.
11
“Please keep my aunt Johnnie Pruitt in your prayers
as she recovers from a four-wheeler accident last weekend.
Although I won’t publicize how old she is, Aunt Johnnie
admits she was born the year Huey Long was first elected
governor. She has never had a driver's license and
said it was high time she learned. ‘I wanted to take my
son's toy for a spin,’ she said. ‘I’m tired of sitting out here
in the country by myself”
—The Green News-Item
I am not sure what surprised me more about spring in North Louisiana—that it was so incredibly beautiful or that it passed so quickly. Over a period of just a couple of weeks, everything exploded in beauty and color, from dogwood trees that dotted the woods on my way to work to huge, heirloom azaleas that made old streets downtown look like tourist attractions.
For weeks now I had described Green to out of town friends and relatives as shabby without the chic. Suddenly the town looked groomed, planned—special. Even the forlorn Lakeside Annex neighborhood looked better, with big old bushes bursting out in bloom.
After my years of one plant on the patio, I discovered something new in my yard every time I turned around. The sturdy little tree in the front yard was a pink dogwood. The woods on the edge of my back yard were dotted with pinkish purplish trees called redbuds. It was like living in some sort of home and garden show.
As quickly as it came, it went.
Two days after we ran a photo layout of beautiful yards, complete with our first reader-submitted photos, we got a heavy rain and most of the blooms were knocked off the azaleas. The yellow pollen that had covered everything was washed away.
“That I do not miss,” I told Marti. “It freaked me out at first—my nose started itching, my eyes watering, and suddenly everything around town was covered with yellow dust. The car wash on the edge of town even gave pollen checks, instead of rain checks. Can you believe that?”
“Sounds like local color to me,” she said with a laugh. “Not your average boring town.”
“There could certainly be worse places to spend a year,” I said. “There's something about my house where I can relax and be myself. I’ve met so many nice people in the past few months, too. None of them are you, of course, but they’re good people.”
The spring weather had a softening effect on lots of people, as though they were coming out of hibernation. The winter had not been bad at all, certainly not by Midwest standards, but the days had often been gray and chilly. Downtown, always a bit frayed around the edges, perked up with springtime.
More people were “stirring around,” as local residents liked to say. The library, where I had become a regular customer, was busier, ranging from older people learning to use the Internet to school kids working on ter
m papers. The drug store put up a fascinating spring display of photographs of graduating seniors.
The Holey Moley Antique Mall even gained several new vendors. Over my first few months in Green, the owners, Rose Parker and Linda Murphy, the Linder who worked for Major, became two of my closest acquaintances. They pieced the business together around their busy lives and seemed pleased when they made a ten-dollar sale. I wondered sometimes how they paid the rent.
“God always provides,” Rose said on a regular basis. She was one of those people who believe things will turn out right, offsetting Linda's perpetual glumness. “I know the good Lord is looking out for us today. It's amazing how things come together.”
Rose had grown up in Green, was married to a farmer twenty years her senior, and was the hardest-working woman I had ever met. She was also the mail carrier out on Route 2. “I know who you’re getting love letters from and who you owe,” she said, with a smile.
“No love letters,” I said. “Only bills.”
Linda had joined the Holey Moley partnership with caution. She was a woman who did not expect things to turn out well, probably with good reason. She was miserable working at Major's office but needed the benefits. How she stuck with the job, I could not figure out, slowly learning how badly he behaved, barking orders, snapping at her and treating her like dirt.
“He's just mean as a snake,” Rose said. “Mean as a snake.”
Linda had been single for years, after marrying a “sloppy drunk” when she was just out of high school. The men she dated were invariably losers who hurt her in some way. Her latest boyfriend had broken a date with her on a Saturday, right after I first met her, and remarried his ex-wife the next Wednesday.
“I’m not white trash,” she told me once, “but I act like white trash.”
Linda's parents were in terrible physical health, and her mother had dementia. “Half the time she doesn’t know me any more,” Linda said. “And she's doing things like putting her bra on over her church dress and calling to ask if I’ve seen Boots. That cat died twenty years ago.”
Gone to Green (Green (Abingdon Press)) Page 9