Dear Aunt Myrna

by Kit Duncan

Leon drove Papa Wilhelm's pickup truck back to our house a couple of days later. The truck was so quiet we hardly heard Leon pull into the driveway.

  That afternoon Aunt Myrna asked me if I wanted to go on a little trip with her the next day.

  "Where to?" I asked, my voice very excited.

  "I thought we might go down to Larue County and see where Lincoln was born. You ever been there?"

  "Not that I can remember," I said. "How far is it?"

  "Your mom says it'll take us maybe an hour or so to get there. Think you can stand an hour in the truck?"

  "We're taking the truck?" I squealed with delight.

  "Or we could walk, but I think we'll make better time in the truck." She paused, thought a second, and added, "Yes, I'm pretty certain we'll get there quicker if we take the truck."

  It was barely getting light the next morning when we left the house. Mama woke me up so early I heard the Sealtest milk truck idling in the street. I had always hated milk, and I was sure I would hate the milkman if I ever saw him. I peeked through the living room drapes when I heard the truck just in time to see a man walking back toward the truck with the two empty bottles Mama had put in the little silver box on the front porch the night before. I could barely see him under the street light.

  "He doesn't look evil," I said, and Mama asked who I was talking about. "The milkman," I told her. "He's just a little bitty ol' fellow. I guess it's the milkman, anyhow. If not, someone is stealing our milk bottles."

  "Come eat your breakfast, Honey," Mama said.

  Mama packed us a bag lunch and gave me a quarter for a soda. That was a treat in itself. By the time I was seventeen years old I had not drank more than five sodas my whole life. This would be my second one.

  I had never been in Grandpa Wilhelm's old truck. I liked it immediately. The new cars Papa got every year always smelled new, and I loved the factory fresh smells. But this truck, this old, old truck, had its own fragrance, and I sniffed deeply over and over for the first ten minutes of our journey.

  "Are you getting a cold?" Aunt Myrna finally asked.

  "No. Why?"

  "You're sniffing."

  "I'm not sniffing. I'm smelling."

  "Well, I took a shower this morning," Aunt Myrna laughed.

  "Oh, I'm not smelling you," I told her. "I'm smelling the truck. It doesn't smell like Papa's cars."

  Aunt Myrna laughed again. "I should hope not! Your dad would have a conniption!"

  I sniffed a few more times, and Aunt Myrna sniffed a couple of times, too. "Ahhh," she sighed. "You're right. It does smell good."

  "What is that smell, Aunt Myrna?" I asked.

  Aunt Myrna inhaled another long, deep breath, smiled, and said, "It's quite a mix, I think."

  "Of what?"

  "Well, let's see. Dust from the farm, dust from a thousand miles between the farm and here, a little oil, some cattle feed, a whole lot of age, and I think, if I pay real close attention," she smelled again, "Yes, I'm sure of it. Just the faintest whiff of your grandpa's after shave." She smiled and her eyes seemed more moist than usual.

  "What was Grandpa Wilhelm like?" I asked.

  "Oh, he was a funny, funny fellow," Aunt Myrna said. "Not the kind of guy who meant to be funny, but there was just something very comical about him. He was inventive and creative, extremely clever and smart, but I'm afraid he was a little bit careless sometimes." She started chuckling.

  "What's so funny?"

  "I was thinking about that time when your grandpa was checking the fuel in his tractor. He had one of the first gas run tractors in Furnas County, you know."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. He got it a few years before I was born. It didn't have a gauge on it like tractors do now, and one night after he'd finished work he wanted to know how much gas he had left in the tank. Well, he crawled up on top of the hood, took the cap off, and peered inside, but it was so dark he couldn't see a thing. So he lit a match and held it near the hole. The match ignited the fumes from the gas tank and caught his upper lip on fire!" Aunt Myrna was laughing, and I laughed, too, but not as hard as Aunt Myrna.

  "And from that day on, until he died," Aunt Myrna said, "he always wore a mustache."

  "How come?

  "The fire scared his lip!" She giggled a little and said under her breath, "What a character!"

  "I guess he never messed with fire after that," I said after awhile.

  Aunt Myrna laughed again. "Oh, heavens, he was always going head to head with fire. He was a part-time blacksmith, you know. Let's see, oh yes. There was the time he took a break from the billow to smoke his pipe and he was sitting next to the petroleum tank. He didn't know there was a leak, and his overalls caught fire. He shot right out of them out of them and barreled outside, jumped into the stock tank in his under drawers!

  "But it wasn't just fire he had problems with," Aunt Myrna said. "Had a little problem with guns, too."

  "He had guns?"

  "Oh, he had quite a few of them. He was an avid hunter. Made guns, repaired them, modified them. He accidentally shot himself no less than four times, usually in the arm or the leg. Well, one day he was eating nuts while he was in the shop making bullets. He accidentally put a bullet in his mouth thinking it was a nut and when he clamped down on it with his teeth the bullet exploded. He couldn't talk for a week!

  "But my favorite story about Papa," she continued, "was the day your dad and his twin brother Lonnie were born. Dr Steiner walked out on the porch to tell Papa he had two more sons, and when he was finished giving Papa the good news he added, 'God has certainly smiled on you, Wilhelm.' Papa replied, "Methinks He laughed right out loud!"

  We drove silently for a little ways, and then I looked up at Aunt Myrna and said, "So is that how he died, then? He got shot? Or burned up maybe?"

  "No," Aunt Myrna said. "Pneumonia."

  CHAPTER 20