Since I am heading to the mountains today for a quick respite, I wanted to give the group my second column for the month so you can get a scoop on the regular paper edition readers. This column is about something that happens to all of us from time to time. WHEN LIFE THROWS A CURVEBALL When Tucker came through the doors of the coffee shop and made his way to the table for a recent meeting of our coffee club, I knew right away something was amiss; the expression on his face said it all. He tried to manage a smile but it was a weak one. As he pulled out his chair and slumped into it, he asked, no one particular, “Boys do you ever have “one of those kinds of days? Well mine has worked its way into a week.” We made appropriate comments everyone has days and sometimes weeks where it seems the harder we try to correct a problem, the worse it gets. Frances, our regular waitress, came over and tried to placate him, even giving him a peck on his stubbled cheek but even that didn’t seem to rouse him from his misery. Tucker, who hails from Savannah and still has a “passle of friends and relatives” down there, received some unsettling news a few weeks ago and has been working through it but he seems not to be able to move past it. He is 74 and still drives to his hometown when the urge hits him. We tried to get him to turn loose and tell us about his heartache but he is on tight-lipped man when it comes to keeping things locked securely inside. I told Tucker when bad things happened to me, I found solace by doing three things: reading, looking through my notebook of columns by the Atlanta papers “favorite grandmother”, the late longtime columnist, Celestine Sibley and pulling out letters from one of Monroe’s treasures, Nell Denton Mashburn, and reading her epistles to me from 1964 to 1980. Trying to brighten Tucker up a bit, I recanted how on Walton Street and Walton Circle, there was a dense thicket of woods behind the homes on the right side of the street and oh, what stories they could tell from all those years of guarding the neighbor’s properties. Those woods have been guarding the neighbor’s homes since the thirties and have been privy to many stories. During my youth I probably added a couple of stories to the list as the trees continued to look down and be privy to many scenes. The woods have been a shelter for some, others have hidden there to pause and catch their breath when life landed a blow or perhaps shielded various ones for a quick smoke, a “fast snoot” or possibly even a romantic interlude and then return to the business of life. My mother, when life would swirl around her with trials and tribulations she felt were overpowering, often made the comment, “I’d like to take a running start down through the woods and keep going!” When our longtime family friend and confidante, Ed Almand, was overwhelmed with life and its problems, he would find himself at the front door of 418 Walton Circle, a look of forlorn and despair on his face as he entered the living room with the declaration, “My dear friends, I am at “low ebb…..LOW EBB!” Thanks to the strong friendships between families and a few libations, Ed left feeling much better than when he arrived. Often times I was privy to conversations with Celestine Sibley either at her desk at the newspaper or on occasion in my home where she would describe some family debacle or other incident that would give her, as she loved to call it, “The Down Yonders”. When unhappiness knocked at her door, one of her favorite books to repair to was a tiny tome called “Lincoln’s Devotional”, a small book of Bible verses and thoughts to refresh the spirit. I had occasion to see her copy and I would have sworn it could have been the copy Lincoln used himself, so worn and tattered it was and filled with annotations from Celestine with her own thoughts and feelings. She said the little book was a constant companion in her pocketbook as she never knew from day to day when she might have need of it. Tucker talked about how his unhappiness landed him for a few days “inside a bottle of Jack Daniels where he visited a while.” A lot of time he slept and sometimes he cried. During his conversation I kept wondering just what could be so hurtful to make a 74-year old man cry. His coffee club friends seemed at a loss to help ease his misery. Each of us offered up various ways to shake off the ugliness life had smeared on him but I don’t think anything helped. How could we help when we didn’t know what the problem was? Always having books on my mind or at least close in thought, I told Tucker about a poem Nell Mashburn gave me shortly before leaving Monroe in 1964. It was written by Edgar A. Guest in 1926 and gave a whopping list of virtues books offer up in their silence as they sit upon a shelf. Nell gave me her original copy of the poem, clipped from the 1926 edition of The Atlanta Constitution. It is now framed and hangs in my study where I see it daily and continue to draw inspiration from it. I sent a copy to my friend in the hopes it would help wipe the cobwebs of despair from his mind and once again he would find his smile which has been absent for so long now. We all have those days. I always remember my father telling me when I was in high school no matter how much we wished it otherwise, life was not always fair. Something each of us knows on an intimate basis I am sure. Edgar Guest’s poem is just as timely today as it was back in 1926 and I think it bears repeating to help ward off any hurtles of misfortune that might be thrown at you. “BOOKS” I look at my shelves of books and say, Here are my friends for a rainy day. Always faithful and always true, No matter what I myself may do. Here they are ready and neat and trim, Always on hand for my slightest whim. Books won’t quarrel and books won’t sneer, Won’t borrow money and disappear. Won’t flatter to sell me some worthless thing, Set up a trap which they hope to spring. Books won’t vary with every mood, Or poison my life with ingratitude. Here are my books and they don’t get drunk, Don’t come to my room to rob my trunk. Don’t disappoint me by going wrong, Or playing false when my faith was strong. I always trust them for comfort when, I am sick and tired of the ways of men. Books are constant. Tho’ while I live, Courage and wisdom and strength they give. Laughter for glad times, faith for sad, Many an hour with them all I’ve had. And whether the world praise me Or blame, The books that I’ve cherished remain the same. …..Edgar A. Guest 1926
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 11:58:38 +0000