After the visitation I went home and made two tomato sandwiches.
There seemed something life affirming about eating tomatoes from your own garden in the heat of summer.
Wayne Blankenship told a story out on the front steps of the funeral home, a transaction between him and A.J. Gladney, the biology teacher at Lee High. Seems Wayne had made a 65 on his exam and needed five points. Mr. Gladney needed a book returned to the library. They struck a deal and Wayne ended up with a 70.
That same day at lunch Frank Howell was talking about how Mack Egger took people water skiing on the Buttahatchie. Frank went on to tell how he and a friend, as teenagers, rescued a couple of kids who had wandered into deep water at Lawrence Bridge, the swimming hole at Caledonia. Frank rescued 10-year-old Olen Brock.
Who was the first person I met walking into Mack’s visitation? Olen Brock.
“Frank Howell mentioned you today at lunch,” I said, dumbfounded by the coincidence.
“Yeah, he saved my life,” said Olen, not for the first time. “If it hadn’t been for him I’d been a dead boy. I think about it every time I see him.”
After eating all the tomatoes I could, I suited up and headed out on a walk. The evening was cool, and with the clouds, it looked like there might be some color at sunset.
At Friendship Cemetery, I visited a friend on whose grave we planted a live oak at the time of his death. We were born the same year. Looking down at his marker I realized he’s been dead nine years, and for a moment I considered all the life that has happened in that time. Precious life. The tree is going to produce acorns this year for the first time.
Speaking of trees, the city of Melbourne, Australia, has created a map of its 70,000 trees and given each one an email address. The email address is so residents could alert the city about any problems afflicting the trees. And now people, locals and foreigners, are sending love letters to the trees. Figure that.
So I’m walking back toward home; it’s almost dark. Going up Eighth Street having just passed Mary Tuggle’s gardens at Palmer Home, I hear music coming from a block away. Not the usual thump, thump, thump of hip-hop; it’s something else, rhythm and blues. My pace quickens; it’s The Spinners singing “It’s a Shame,” a song I haven’t heard in years. Coming from a white Ford F-150 parked in a driveway on 10th Avenue about a half block from the late Esther Harrison’s house.
I stop at the edge of the street to listen. Someone calls out to me by name. A couple of guys are sitting on the tailgate parked across from the music. I walk over and we talk for a minute. They’re friendly; it’s a moment — fire in the western sky, a cool evening and the Spinners.
Back home I go to YouTube for another helping of the music. Then to a clip of Marvin Gaye’s performance at the 25th Anniversary of Motown, the 1983 television special. What a great show that was, with Michael Jackson moonwalking through “Billie Jean.” But Marvin … he sits at the piano and accompanies himself through this amazing narration about black music history. It’s beautiful. Then he gets up — white sports coat and looks about seven feet tall — and launches into “What’s Going On.” The whole thing has an ecstatic quality to it — it looks effortless for him — like he’s channeling a message coming from somewhere else:
Mother, mother, everybody thinks we’re wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply ’cause our hair is long
Oh, you know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today …
Watching him on the computer screen, I think to myself, you know, that’s it Marvin. Mother, mother, we’ve got to find a way … to do something about all this hate, rancor and resentment we seem to be drowning in. If only it were so easy. It isn’t; it wasn’t for Marvin, who would die a year later, shot to death by his father.
When he finishes, the audience starts applauding politely. Marvin waits, knowing. It’s takes them about 15 seconds to realize what they’ve just experienced, and then, as one, they’re on their feet roaring. He throws them kisses, then skips off stage.
And for me, too. Off to bed I go, with considerable less fanfare, but with no less gratitude. For one more shimmering day.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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