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1550 AM on the Radio Dial

The Home Folks Show

He put his mouth close to the microphone. “Goood mornnnin’, Valentine-ites! It’s ten-O-five once again in southwest Oklahoma, and time to take a break with Brother Winston and the home folks. That was the legendary Mis-ter Bill Monroe singin’ us in with ‘Bluegrass Stomp.’

“I played that tune for my neighbor Everett Northrupt. His wife, Doris, told me last night that she wants him to get some juice flowin’. So that one’s for you, Everett. If you can keep your feet still to that, you’re dead.”

In his tenth decade—his final decade, as he saw it—Winston Valentine found himself smack in a new career as a radio personality. He was happy as a dog with two tails.

“School’s finally out for the summer, and my little buddy is here with me again. Say hi to the folks, Mr. Willie Lee.” He swung the microphone lower for Willie Lee, who was a little short for his twelve years of age.

“Hel-lo, ev-er-y-bod-y. This is Wil-lie Lee and Mun-ro,” he said in his careful speech that did not come easy.

Munro, paws up on the desk, barked once, then hopped down and followed after the boy, who returned to sit in a nearby chair. Munro laid his chin on the boy’s untied tennis shoe.

Winston continued. “We are brought to you by…uh, Tinsley’s, your hometown IGA grocer, where they’re offerin’ a spectacular special of $3.95 a pound on top-choice Kansas City strip steaks. Great price, but seems a long ways to go just to get a steak.

“Oh, the boy here didn’t appreciate that one. He’s shakin’ his head.”

The boy was twenty-five-year-old Jim Rainwater, who worked the electronics across the room.

“Just so you out there can get the picture, this young man is as full-blood Chickasaw as they come nowadays, with long hair in a ponytail. Girls, he’s handsome and single. But he has a tongue ring, and I don’t know how that works out with kissin’.”

Winston grinned at the blush stealing over the young man’s high cheekbones.

“Let’s see…the weather…well, we got some. Sunny skies and headin’ for a high of ninety-five. Whoo-eee, that’s pretty hot for the end of May. There’s a chance of storms on Friday to cool things off.

“Now, our topic of discussion today is ‘Signs Around Town.’ I’m startin’ off with the sign at the railroad crossing on the north highway. Hasn’t anyone but me ever wondered about it? It says: No Stoppin’ on Tracks Due to Trains.”

He paused a moment. “I ask you—due to what else on a train track?”

Jim Rainwater cast him a grin. Winston was off and running.

“Who would think you are not supposed to stop on the tracks because a dog or a chicken or any-thing other than a train might come along? In fact, why would anyone stop on the track, if he could help it? Just to hang out while dead lice fall off ’im?

“The phone line is open to take your comments. And don’t forget, this is birthday celebration day. We’ll take calls while we listen to some music—big John Cash with the answer for the blues: ‘Get Rhythm!’”

The music started as Winston pushed aside the microphone and mopped his face with a handkerchief. Jim Rainwater gave him a worried eye.

“I’m not expirin’ yet, so relax,” Winston said and winked.

Willie Lee, who had disappeared around the corner, returned with a cold bottle of water and handed it to him.

“Thank you, Little Buddy.” He unscrewed the bottle cap with gnarled hands that he often felt surprised to see as being so aged and upturned the bottle in his mouth. His eye noted a missing tile in the old ceiling.

The low-wattage AM station was located in a small block building at the end of the dirt road behind the car wash. It had long sat abandoned until Tate Holloway, publisher of the Valentine Voice, had bought it last winter and put it back on the air from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. This endeavor had been financed by Holloway, hitting big bucks when his semi-autobiographical novel about a poor boy growing up in East Texas stayed in the top ten of the New York Times best-seller list for eight weeks. At one point the book reached number two, topped only by the ever-popular author Nora Roberts. The station was run by Jim Rainwater, the only paid employee, who oversaw a staff of volunteer disc jockeys putting forth an eclectic format, everything from classic jazz to automotive discussion to French lessons on Fridays.

Each mid-morning, all over town and within a twenty-five-mile radius, radios in kitchens and barns, shops and vehicles were tuned to Brother Winston’s Home Folks Show at 1550 AM on the radio dial. People loved Winston Valentine, and he loved them back.

Over at Blaine’s Drugstore, Vella Blaine was working behind the soda-fountain counter. She called to her niece’s boy, Arlo, who was entertaining three teenage-girl admirers by flexing his immense muscles as he served up ice-cream cones. “Break loose from those girls and turn up the radio,” Vella told him.

She wanted to hear the birthday announcements. Specifically, she wanted to see if Winston remembered that today was her birthday. He was her best friend, mostly by being her oldest friend. They had what could be called tenure, which she felt gave her every right to certain expectations.

It was silly at her age to want to hear a happy birthday on the radio. Sillier still not to tell anyone it was her birthday if she wanted birthday wishes. She thought of all this as she halved lemons for the fresh lemonade—the Wednesday summer special—and kept an ear tuned to the radio, unconsciously swaying her hips to the good old country-western music.

Her sultry hip movements were noticed by Jaydee Mayhall, who sat at the counter and happened to look up from his cup of latte. He blinked in surprise at the sight, and also at feeling a stirring of manly response. As he sipped from his cup, he did some calculating. He had to be younger than Vella by what…? Ten or twelve years, at least.

This thought brought Jaydee’s eyes to his image reflected in the mirrored wall behind the sundae dishes. Jaydee was fifty-six, but he didn’t look it. Everyone said so. He had used that Just For Men on his hair until the past few months, when he couldn’t seem to keep up with it. He wondered if he might be letting himself go.

He removed his glasses and dropped them inside his coat pocket.

Vella looked into the mirror, too. It was right in front of her face, as it had been for the better part of her life. Mature? Old. She closed her eyes. Her husband of nearly forty-eight years had finally died, and her boyfriend, who had seemed so promising, had gone off with another, younger, woman, something she was sad or glad about, depending on the moment. Right then, she experienced a slice of fury at the desertion and sent the knife in a swift chop through a lemon.

The next instant she had the clear imagination of Winston’s voice, announcing her true age out over the air waves.

She grabbed a towel and, wiping her hands, found the telephone number for the radio station on the card beneath the phone. It’s my birthday, Winston…just say happy birthday. I will never speak to you again if you say my age.

Buzz, buzz, buzz, came the busy signal.

Over the radio, Winston started in with the birthday announcements. Vella tried the phone number again.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Plunking down the phone, she returned to making the lemonade. With each of Winston’s celebratory announcements, she threw a half a lemon into the manual juicer and brought the handle down, hard.

At the very last, when she had thought Winston was finished and without mentioning her, and she was both disappointed and relieved, here he came out with, “There’s one more birthday that wasn’t called in, but I happen to know it. Ever’ body go by and wish my good friend and neighbor Miss Vella Blaine a happy birthday.”

Vella paused with her hand on the thick handle of the juicer.

“I have known Miss Vella all of her life, and I happen to know that she is sixty-five today. Happy birthday, Miss Vella!”

Oh, Winston, you dear old friend!

Vella, heart full and eyes misty, smiled while happy birthday wishes rang out all around the soda fountain. Vella found herself near tears. Jaydee Mayhall even lifted his cup and said gallantly that she was a fine-looking woman, for her age. He was a pompous ass, but she appreciated the backhanded compliment.

“I didn’t know today was your birthday, Aunt Vella,” Arlo said. “I woulda’ baked you a cake.”

“Oh, sugar, that’s sweet, but I don’t need any cake.” Vella was again rapidly punching numbers for the radio station into the phone. This time the call went right through, and when she got Winston on the line, she said in her most sultry voice, “Thank you for my birthday present.”

“You’re more than welcome, darlin’.”

When she hung up, she turned to see little old Minnie Oakes approaching from over at the pharmacy, her purse swinging on one arm, while her opposite hand swung a bottle of Milk of Magnesia. Minnie was a childhood girlfriend who was actually two years younger than Vella but had always seemed twenty years older.

Minnie came up to Vella and shook the blue bottle at her. “You are not no sixty-five years old!”

And Vella replied, “I know it’s hard to believe, sugar, but I am. You heard it on the radio.”

“That was Randy Travis, singin’ ‘Satisfied Mind’ right here at 1550.” Winston pressed the left earphone tight against his ear. His hearing, like other parts of his body, let him down on occasion. “We got Wynona Yardell on the line, to tell us about a right absurd sign. Go ahead, Miss Wynona.”

“Hi, ever’ body…I’m callin’ about the sign on the highway goin’ east. It says…” She started giggling. “…well, you may not think it is funny, but it seems funny to me. It says…Caution, Wet Pavement When It Rains.”

She went into gales of laughter, and everyone listening to the radio laughed as much at her laughter as at what she’d said.

Out on the highway heading into town, Belinda Blaine turned up the volume of the radio in her champagne-colored Cadillac, saying, “My word, one thing about Winston’s show—it is a never-ending source of entertainment.”

Receiving no comment from her passenger, Belinda glanced over at the woman. Emma had seemed distracted all morning. A little pale, actually, when usually Emma Berry was one of the most bright and shining women in town.

Then Winston drew Belinda’s attention again, with an advertisement for the Merry Male Maid Service, which was offering a special all month.

Belinda’s thoughts went from musing about hiring the Merry Males to the fact of her mother having six years shaved off her life right on the radio, which put Belinda back in her early thirties, and because it was on the radio, everyone was going to believe it.

“We can get you interviewed on Winston’s show,” Belinda said, the idea coming suddenly. “He loves to do that, and then we’ll be gettin’ advertising for free.”

Belinda and Emma Berry were on their way back from a gift shop up in Lawton, where Belinda had placed Emma’s greeting cards and framed calligraphy on consignment. Emma’s cards had sold so well at the drugstore that Belinda had decided to branch out. She was having energetic fantasies of a line of cards, calendars and framed prints, then on to tea towels and teacups and T-shirts. Marketing was the key, and that, Belinda knew, was her own specific and golden talent.

Her rapid thoughts caused her foot to press on the accelerator. She whipped around vehicles as she came to them. Basically, Belinda drove with the attitude that no one would dare challenge her.

“And there’s the Fire Department Auxiliary’s summer craft fair comin’ up. I’ll check the dates on that. We’ll have to stock up for it.”

Realizing Emma had still not said a word, Belinda glanced over to see her looking out the side window.

“Sugar, did you hear me?”

Emma’s head nodded. “I…”

Belinda glanced over again and saw that her friend had pressed a tissue to her face.

Crying? Was Emma crying?

As if in answer to the unasked question, the woman burst into sobs.

The next instant a siren sounded from behind.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Belinda knew even as she glanced in the rearview mirror that it was her husband, Deputy Lyle Midgett, f lashing his patrol car’s lights.

She might have ignored him, but he tended to get into such a sulk when she did that. He drove up right up beside her, indicating she needed to pull over. She shot him a warning look. He knew that she did not like to take her Cadillac off the pavement and expose it to more dust and dirt than absolutely necessary. She went on another quarter mile and turned onto a small paved road.

“Now, honey, how do you think it looks for you to always be speedin’, and me the first-deputy?” Lyle said right off, bending down to her window. He was tall. “I really, really wish you wouldn’t speed, darlin’. Oh, hello, Emma. How are you today?”

“Fine.”

“I don’t speed on purpose, Lyle. I don’t think, I’m gonna speed and make Lyle look bad. And no one thinks a thing when I speed, ’cause I have been drivin’ this way my whole life—every bit of those years we lived together—and you never felt it reflected on you. Now I’m stopped, and in fact, Emma and I are gonna sit here a minute and discuss some things, so you can go on. I want to put the window up. This wind is messin’ up my hair.”

“Okay, darlin’,” he said in his gentle tone. “But please don’t speed anymore. At least not anywhere near town.”

“I won’t, sugar,” she said, blowing him a kiss as the window slid up. “Until next time,” she whispered. Belinda knew herself well and without apology.

In her side-view mirror, she watched Lyle as he walked back to his patrol car, running her eyes from his broad shoulders downward over his lean hips. She had not married Lyle Midgett for his brains. It was for everything below his neck, all of which was quite large and strong, and that included his heart.

Then she turned her attention to Emma. In Belinda’s estimation, blue-eyed pale blondes were generally really high-strung, even if they were not natural blondes, which Belinda knew that Emma was not. Every six weeks, Emma came into the drugstore and bought L’Oreal No. 9.

“I’m all right. It’s nothin’…I was just…” Emma gave her a wan smile, then broke off, her gaze going to the radio. Her eyes widened, and then her face crumpled.

Belinda looked at the radio, which seemed innocent. Don William’s voice was singing out, “…another place, another time…”

She reached over and punched the Off button, then pulled tissues from a box in the backseat and shoved them at Emma, who was bent over and just boo-hooing her heart out.

A practical woman, Belinda checked her watch and waited. After a minute and a half, Emma was coming back to herself.

“You have mascara smears, sugar,” Belinda said. “Here’s some lotion. There’s a mirror over the sun visor.”

Emma repaired herself. “I’m sorry…it was hearin’ Don Williams. You see…John Cole…and I…went to see him in concert once for our…anniversary.”

Oh, dear, she might go again. Belinda handed over more tissues, and Emma took them but managed self-control, which Belinda both admired and appreciated. Displays of emotion wore on her nerves.

“John Cole and I have separated,” Emma said. “We’re gettin’ divorced.”

Belinda, who was rarely surprised about anything, was stunned. “Oh, honey… I’m so sorry to hear that.”

She shut up, not wanting to say anything to get Emma started again, and to calm her own emotions. Good Lord, if this could happen to Emma and John Cole, two simply lovely people who seemed like the perfect couple, what did that say about her own chances as a fairly new and somewhat reluctant married woman?

“Thirty-two years. We’ve been married thirty-two years.”

Emma’s voice was a hoarse whisper filled with so much sadness that Belinda felt struck to the core.

“Well, these things happen,” Belinda said at last, swallowing down a lump. “What is it? Another woman? Men just lose their minds when they get middle-aged.” She had seen it time and again, although she was quite certain her Lyle never would. It was the really intelligent ones who did. Women were so stupid about intelligent men.

“Oh, no! At least I don’t think so. John Cole isn’t like that.”

Belinda thought the wives were always the last to know.

Emma said, “It might be easier if it was another woman, because maybe I could fight that. It’s just that we don’t have anything in common anymore. We don’t talk. We don’t…relate.” She broke off and f lipped down the visor again to look in the mirror. “John Cole has decided to be married to his job, and I’ve decided I’ve had enough of being his cook and maid at home.”

Despite her good sense, Belinda felt depressed. The situation was exactly why she had resisted marrying Lyle for so long. She had feared that once they married, complacency and boredom would settle in. She had set herself not to let that happen, but maybe there was nothing she could do. Reality of life on earth was just too big.

Just then, Emma’s purse began ringing, startling them both. Emma dug for her cell phone. Immediately upon answering, her face brightened. “Hi, sweetie!”

A boyfriend? Belinda f lipped down the driver’s visor to check her own appearance and repair her lipstick, while keeping an ear tuned to the conversation. It wasn’t like she could help hearing. Everyone said she was nosy, but she wasn’t. All she did was pay attention to people.

She heard Emma tell whoever it was that she was heading home and would be there to meet “Honey,” whoever that was. She would make lunch for “us.” Belinda imagined a very handsome man, but then, as she f lipped her sun visor back up, her gaze went out the windshield to the main entry of the Valentine cemetery directly up ahead.

“That was Johnny,” Emma said. “He’s on his way. I have to get right home.”

Johnny was Emma’s son. Belinda was both relieved and let down at that mundane fact, but her attention was mainly on a sign to the right of the wrought-iron arched entry to the cemetery.

“Do you see that sign? I have never seen that before. I don’t think it was there when Daddy was buried.”

Emma looked in the direction Belinda pointed. “Well…my goodness.”

The two women looked at each other, and Emma laughed, her face just lighting up.

Belinda pulled out her own cell phone and called Winston.

“I have a sign for you, Winston. Out at the entrance to the Valentine cemetery, at the front. Yeah…it says…now, it’s right beside the entrance, and it says…All Donations Welcome.”

When Belinda let Emma off at her house, Emma said, “Belinda, please don’t tell anyone about me and John Cole.”

“I won’t, sugar.”

“I mean really. I don’t want a lot of talk to get back to Johnny until I have a chance to tell him myself.”

“Well, of course you don’t, and there’s no reason for me to say a thing to anyone.”

Belinda felt a little hurt that Emma would think even for a second that she would go and blab.

Many people considered Belinda a gossip, but she was not the one who blurted out anyone’s intimate secrets. Just as Emma had done, people were all the time telling her stuff. She didn’t know why. And she didn’t know why she would be called the gossip, when it was others who were the ones telling her everything.

Why, if she told even a fourth of what she knew, before nightfall there would be two marriages that would be broken up and several people losing their jobs and uncountable people fighting mad with each other.

Gracie rode in the passenger side of Johnny’s new Mustang convertible. Her left hand was captured in his, and she held her hair with the other. They came over a hill, and there was Johnny’s hometown. She looked ahead to read the town sign as they flew past: Valentine, OK, Small Town in a Great Big World.

Johnny pointed out the school he had attended—all grades in one group of connected buildings. Quite strange to Gracie, who had gone to enormous schools in Baltimore. And there, down a gravel lane, was the source of the program coming from the car radio. Gracie had never heard anything like it: jokes and people’s birthdays and really old-timey country music. And Johnny knew the lyrics to most of the songs.

He drove down Main Street and pointed out his family’s convenience store, reminding her that there were three stores, and that he and his father were planning to open a fourth next year.

Then right in the middle of Main Street, he stopped, jumped out and ran over to grab a bouquet from the bins of f lowers outside the florist shop. He did nothing more than call through the door to have it put on his bill, then returned to plunk the f lowers in Gracie’s hand. Traffic backed up behind the car, but no one honked. In fact, the guy driving a pickup truck that had to stop when Johnny ran in front of him waved and called hello.

Johnny drove on through town to the other side and down a road to show her an acreage they might consider buying to build a house. She liked it, and then she reminded him that his mother was waiting.

“Okay, just one more place,” he said, and drove her down a short road to see a sign.

“We got Mr. Johnny Berry of the Quick Shop on Main on the phone. I did a bit of a plug for you, young man. You have a sign you’d like to point out to us, Johnny?”

“Thank you…and yes, sir. There’s a sign that says Dead End, Thirty-five Miles an Hour.”

The man on the radio laughed and asked the location of the sign, which Johnny gave and went on to tell how Dead End was on the top, with the speed limit right below, both on the same post. As he spoke into the phone, he cast Gracie a grin, his teeth all even and white. Gracie loved his pretty teeth. She loved everything about Johnny Berry.

He snapped his cell phone closed and leaned over to kiss her. When they broke away, she saw his eyes searching hers.

She took his face in both hands. The ring he had placed on her left hand just that morning sparkled in the sunlight.

“I am the luckiest girl in the whole world to be marrying you, Johnny Ray Berry,” she said, looking deep into his blue eyes. “Now, let’s go tell your mother.”

“O-kay.” Shifting into gear, he pressed the accelerator and headed the flashy convertible back out on the open road and toward his family’s home, which was a sprawling ranch-style house in the middle of acres of grass and tall trees. Gracie’s heartbeat picked up tempo when she saw it. She wondered what his mother would think. She knew Johnny was certain of his mother’s reception but worried about his father’s. He hadn’t said this, but Gracie had learned to listen to things Johnny did not say. He had chosen a day when his father was out of town to tell his mother of their engagement and to show her the new car, of which his father had disapproved.

They had no sooner stopped at the end of the drive when a woman came flying out the back door to throw herself at Johnny. Standing there, Gracie watched him lift the woman clean off the ground and whirl her around. Gracie could hardly breathe. She actually felt a little jealous.

Then Johnny looked at Gracie. “Mom…I’ve brought Gracie.”

He had not told his mother about bringing her, Gracie realized hard and fast. But smooth as anything, Mrs. Berry said, “I see that,” and the next thing Gracie knew, she was being hugged.

Then, after releasing Gracie, his mother went all around the car and all but hugged it, too, saying over and over again how red it was, how sporty it was, how perfect it was for him.

Gracie saw Johnny get this really silly grin on his face, and on the way into the house he asked for a peanut butter and banana sandwich, which apparently was a lot more important than setting up an opportunity to tell his mother about being engaged.

As it turned out, Mrs. Berry already had her son’s favorite sandwich made, along with a plate of grapes and cold sweet tea. Then Mrs. Berry queried Gracie as to her favorites and was able to produce them—a turkey sandwich with romaine lettuce, and Keebler Pecan Sandies and a cup of hot Ceylon tea with lemon and sugar. It was as if the woman had some sort of magical pantry. And she seemed thrilled to please Gracie, who had the impression that if she had asked for a steak, Mrs. Berry would have produced one and cooked it right up for her. It was amazing.

Winston leaned close to the microphone.

“To close out the show, we have been notified of another rather curious sign. Our young caller, who did not give a name, brings our attention to the sign out near the juvenile detention center on the north highway. It says: Be Aware—Hitchhikers May Be Escaping Inmates. Nothin’ unusual about that, but, folks, this sign is shot up with so many bullet holes that you can hardly read it.”

He paused.

“On that note, we’ll close out today’s show with this favorite by Ray Stevens, ‘Everything is Beautiful,’ going out from Willie Lee to Gabby. Remember Isaiah 41:10, and God bless and keep you until tomorrow…and don’t go pickin’ up any of those hitchhikers out on the north highway, ’cause they’re obviously armed.”