The Rock Wall

Had a good visit with Adrian, Van and Snider.  She gave me a ride home last Monday evening. I went straight to my easy chair and to sleep. I awakened when Adrian came to see if I was alive. She couldn’t believe I could sleep through the Louisiana tornadoes she unleashed in the house.

• Little did I know when Jerry Burch and I exchanged pleasantries at the last Fair Haven community breakfast that it would be the last time I would see him alive. He was wearing a distinctive leather hat that looked like it would be warm on the chilly and windy late spring morning.

His wife, Jenise, came over to our table and talked about the events in El Dorado Springs they planned to attend this spring and summer. I always had a good time talking to her late mother, Mrs. Kennedy.

So I was shocked over the weekend when Kimball told me, “Jerry Burch died.” I was a  little surprised when his  obituary said he was 75. I thought maybe he was older than that.

I always liked Jerry. He told me how he missed a Burch family reunion and incurred the wrath of Elton Burch, an older family member, who sold the Civil War pistol Jerry thought he was going to inherit. Jerry spent quite a bit of time trying to find the chain of ownership so he could purchase the handgun but as far as I know was not successful.

-I’d like to know the identity of the thoughtful young lady who passed our stalled car out on Lake Hill Road Saturday afternoon, turned around, came back and gave us a case of bottled water so we could cool down the car engine and get home. Kimball offered to repay her or replace the water, but she would have none of it. Just one more reason to love our community. She said the water had been in her pickup a long time and was probably stale.

That brings to mind the lady who went to the MFA Station several years ago and asked them to let the air out of all her tires and re-inflate them with fresh air. She said the air had been in the tires a long time and must be stale. Herman Hertzberg and his crew fulfilled her request…but had a good laugh about it.

-As I was getting a shave Saturday morning, Martin the Bearded Barber asked who worked in Smitty’s barbershop with him. Kimball and I don’t remember. Do you?

I told Martin that as far back as I could remember, Smitty cut hair in that shop and always stood with his legs crossed. Martin said lots of people had told him that’s the way Smitty stood to cut hair.

I think our good neighbors out in the country, Pearl and Ruby Fowler, were related to Smitty. Ruby may have been a sister-in-law. Pearl was an artist with a road grader.  He could blade down two inches of hot mix or cold mix without ever measuring.

Ruby about scared her neighbor boy to death. On May Day one year I pulled some fresh flowers and took them to Ruby’s house. I knocked on the kitchen door but Ruby never answered my knock. The flowers were going to wilt so I opened the kitchen screen door (Nobody locked their doors back then) and quietly put the flowers on the kitchen table. I had just turned to leave when Ruby came out of the northwest bedroom, saw the intruder (me) and there was nothing quiet about her response. She screamed to high heaven.

Once she saw who it was, Ruby calmed down and probably gave me milk and cookies. That stopped me from delivering May Day flowers.

-In the last Larry’s County Diner I watched, Nadine, their version of Minnie Pearl, said, “I’m as worthless as the g in lasagna.” I know the feeling.             KL