The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop

by Fannie Flagg

“A wattle! Look at my neck! I have a wattle under my chin. Right here…see?”

  He walked over and looked.

  “Do you see that?” she said, moving some skin under her chin back and forth. “I have a definite wattle!”

  He looked closer and was baffled. “I don’t see anything, honey, maybe a little loose skin.”

  “Bud, it’s not just loose skin. It’s a wattle! I know a wattle when I see one, and I have a wattle.”

  He could tell she had made up her mind, and he was in a no-win situation. If he agreed she had a wattle, she would be upset. If he didn’t, she would still be upset. She continued staring at herself in the mirror. “I can’t believe you never noticed it. Look,” she said, turning her head back and forth. “Oh, I’m not aging well.”

  “Honey, you look just fine to me. I don’t notice anything different. You still look like your beautiful self to me.”

  “That’s because you’re my husband, and you’re looking at me through the eyes of love. But trust me. Other people notice.”

  Bud could see that Peggy was really upset, and he tried his best to figure out some way to make her feel better. He finally said, “Hey, Red, how about I take you out to the Country Corner for lunch? A little fried okra? Black-eyed peas? Some good ole cornbread? That might cheer you up. What d’ya say?”

  “Oh sure, Bud. And have everyone there say, ‘Oh look, there’s Doctor Threadgoode having lunch with his mother.’ ”

  He laughed and went over and hugged her. “Oh, honey, come on,” he said. “It’s not that serious. Get dressed, and after lunch I’ll take you out to the shopping mall. How ’bout it?”

  Peggy did love the cornbread at the Country Corner and the shopping mall, and after a long moment she gave in.

  “Well, all right. But promise me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Promise me you won’t ever get glasses.”

  “I promise. You will always be just a beautiful blur.”

  Peggy hated getting older. But Bud didn’t care. He loved the way she looked, even her freckles that she hated. She’d look at herself and say, “I look just like Howdy Doody.”

  As Bud said later, “Women look in the mirror and think they look terrible. Men never look and think they look great. And most times both are wrong.”

  PINE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA

  November 28, 1993

  DOT WEEMS WAS right about time flying by. Ruthie’s seven-year-old daughter, Carolyn Lee, now had a four-year-old little brother named Richard.

  This Thanksgiving, Brooks and Ruthie had decided to take them to the Callaway Gardens resort in Pine Mountain, Georgia, for the week, and had rented one of the large cabins by the lake. Bud and Peggy had driven down from Maryland to spend Thanksgiving with them and had just left to go back home.

  Brooks and Ruthie were down at the lake watching the kids playing with a few other children. Brooks said, “You were right. I guess I needed a break more than I realized. Of course, Mother is still having a fit we didn’t spend Thanksgiving with her at the club. But it was so good to see your mom and dad.”

  Ruthie called out, “Carolyn, stop hitting your brother, and give him his hat back….Now, please.” Then she turned to Brooks and said, “It was good to see them. I know it was hard to say no to your mother, but I want the kids to know their other grandparents. They see your mother every day.”

  “You’re right.”

  Brooks sat back in his chair, kicked off his shoes, and put his feet in the sand. “You know, Ruthie, I sure do admire your dad. He told me that he’d always wanted to be a veterinarian, from the time he was a kid, and he didn’t let anything stop him.”

  “That’s Daddy. He always said you could be anything you wanted, if you tried hard enough.”

  Brooks looked a little wistful and said, “When I was growing up, I wanted to be—now don’t laugh—a forest ranger.”

  “Really? You never told me that.”

  “Yeah. I used to spend hours in the woods behind the house. I always wanted to live in a log cabin by a lake, away from the rat race…but that’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not? If that’s what you wanted to do, I’d be happy.”

  Brooks looked at her and smiled. “You would, too, wouldn’t you? God, I don’t know how I got so lucky to get you. You’re the best.”

  “Thank you, but, sweetheart, I mean it. I don’t need a big house or anything. I want you to do something you love.”

  “I know you do. But it was just a kid’s dream. Besides, Dad’s counting on me to step in and take over the business. When he was my age, he did the same for Granddaddy. And he’s the last person on earth I would want to let down. He depends on me. I promised him if anything ever happened to him I’d keep the business going and take care of Mother. And I know it’s hard, and you’re a good sport to hang in there with her. But it won’t be forever, I promise.” Brooks paused for a moment. “Here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. Ruthie, after the kids grow up, let’s you and me just up and sell the house, and buy ourselves a small place in the mountains somewhere and then take off and travel. I’d love to take you to Paris, and London, and Rome. Maybe buy a big motor home and then just drive around the country, seeing things.”

  Ruthie was surprised. “A motor home? Can you imagine the look on your mother’s face if we bought a motor home?”

  Brooks laughed. “No, frankly, I can’t. But how about it?”

  “Sweetheart, if that’s what you want, we’ll do it. Just promise me you’ll stop working so hard. The kids and I hardly ever see you anymore.”

  “I will, but this is just a particularly tough time right now. When Dad got sick, he left a lot of things that have to be taken care of, and, unfortunately, I’m the only one who can do it.”

  Just then Carolyn screamed from the edge of the lake. “Mother! Make Richard stop splashing me!”

  Richard yelled, “She splashed me first!”

  “I did not.”

  “Did, too.”

  Ruthie looked over at Brooks as the two kids continued to splash and scream at each other. “Remind me. Whose idea was it to have children?”

  Brooks laughed. “I can’t remember now.”

  SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

  2009

  ALTHOUGH HIS HAIR was now completely silver, Bud Threadgoode was still a tall, good-looking man. This morning he was sitting at his desk talking to his daughter on the phone, as he did every Sunday. And after he hung up, he had to smile. Sometimes Ruthie just tickled him to death. She was always coming up with the craziest things she wanted him to do. Get his hair styled, buy new glasses, get a brand-new prosthetic arm with all the bells and whistles, quit wearing his old worn-out wool plaid jacket from the fifties, take up golf. Never anything he wanted to do; however, after protesting as hard as he could, in the end, he always wound up doing what she wanted. Well, almost everything. He still wore his favorite old plaid jacket when she wasn’t around.

  Later that afternoon, when Peggy was sleeping, Bud figured he might as well get this one over with, so he sat down at his desk, pulled out a piece of plain white paper, and picked up his pen.

  For Ruthie, Carolyn, and Richard, and anyone else who might give a hoot about an old Alabama coot.

  I begin my life history, memoir, or whatever you may deem to call it, by confessing it is only being written because my daughter wants me to. I have no illusions of my life being so important that it needs to be set down on paper. However, Ruthie read an article saying that everyone should write out a life history for their family to have in the future. And they should do it while they still remember it. So here goes.

  ME IN A NUTSHELL: A BRIEF HISTORY

  My name is James Buddy Threadgoode, Jr., at present seventy-nine years of age. I was born at home on December 14, 1929, in the small railroad town
of Whistle Stop, Alabama. Upon my arrival into the world, everybody told me that I was the cutest baby they had ever seen, however, since then I have heard that very same sentiment expressed concerning other babies, including some not so cute.

  My mother was Ruth Anne Jamison, born in Valdosta, Georgia, in the year 1905. My father was Frank Corley Bennett, also of Valdosta. At the time of my birth, my parents were separated and my mother was living with friends in Alabama.

  Although I never knew my father, I have no complaints. I was legally adopted by the Threadgoode family and named for their son Buddy, who died before I was born. I can honestly say I had a very happy childhood. I was raised mostly by two women, my mother and her best friend, Idgie Threadgoode, with a lot of help from the entire town. I was really no different from most other children in Whistle Stop. I did lose half my arm in a stupid railroad accident when I was six, but as far as I can recall, I was happy most of the time, and was certainly the most well-fed kid in town. My mother and my Aunt Idgie owned and ran the town’s cafe. When you live in the back of a cafe, you can bet you never go hungry.

  Sadly, I lost my mother to cancer in 1947. After graduating from high school, due to some strong encouragement from my Aunt Idgie—in the form of a threat to kick me in the behind if I didn’t—I attended college at Georgia Tech, then transferred to Auburn University to study veterinary medicine. In 1954, I married the prettiest girl in Alabama, by the name of Peggy Ann Hadley, and never regretted it. I have had a sweetheart all my life. In the year 1966, after my stint in the U.S. Army, we moved to Silver Spring, Maryland. In 1964, my wife and I were blessed with our daughter, Ruthie, who has given me the grandest gift in the world, two grandchildren to spoil.

  Ruthie says to be sure and sprinkle in some history, and so I will add that when I was a child, the president was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and I remember listening to him over the radio. One of the great joys of my childhood was listening to the radio and going to the picture show once a week. I was raised during the Great Depression, although it did not affect me in any way that I can remember. Aunt Idgie grew her own vegetables in the lot in back of the cafe, and we always kept plenty of chickens and hogs. I would say the greatest day in history that I personally lived through was VJ Day, 1945. When the news came over the radio, everybody in Whistle Stop went running out into the streets yelling, and banging on pots and pans. And on every train that came through town that day, there were people hanging out of the windows, yelling at the top of their lungs, so happy the war was over and our boys were coming home. The second-best day was probably in July of 1969, seeing our guys land on the moon.

  I’ve made some money in my time, but all my life, I’ve had something that no amount of money could buy. I’ve had people who loved me and who I loved right back.

  I think that’s about it, unless something noteworthy happens to me in the next few years I have left, which I sincerely doubt, since at seventy-nine, I’m pretty much over the hill.

  And so in closing, as the kids say, I am sending a great big shout-out to all the great-grandkids yet to come down the line. It’s too bad you never got to meet me, because I have often been told that I am the cutest old man they ever met and a hell of a lot of fun. So goodbye for now, and here’s wishing you all the good luck you can handle.

  S.O.B. (aka Sweet Ol’ Bud)

  * * *

  —

  BUD HAD RETIRED from the army a full captain, and he used to joke that he was a vet who was a vet. When he’d first expressed his desire to become a veterinarian, a lot of people had their doubts, but not Peggy, and certainly not his Aunt Idgie. As usual, she had been behind him 100 percent. She’d just said, “You can do it.”

  But Bud wasn’t a fool. He knew being a doctor with one arm was not going to be a stroll in the park. Still, it was nothing compared to what others had to deal with. He’d seen it firsthand. In 1945, right after the war, boys had come home with half their faces blown off, or with both arms and legs missing. Some came back suffering from such severe shell shock, they couldn’t stop shaking.

  So, as far as he was concerned, missing an arm was sometimes “a pain in the ass” and inconvenient at best. But at least it hadn’t been his right arm, and it was pretty amazing what he could do with one good right arm and his new top-of-the-line artificial arm. When people asked Peggy how he did it, she would say it helped that he had a great sense of humor. Although he was very serious about his work, one of his most charming traits was that he never took himself very seriously. As he often said, “Half an arm is better than half a brain.”

  Although Bud couldn’t perform quite as well as other doctors physically, he excelled at diagnostics and treatment options. Consequently, after he left the army he was offered his own clinic in Silver Spring, Maryland. At first, he and Peggy weren’t happy about being so far away from Idgie, but it was a great opportunity. When he called and asked her what she thought, Idgie’d said, “Good for you, Buddy. Sounds like a great deal.” When he had expressed concern about living so far away from her, she just said, “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll always be right here. And who knows, one day I just might show up there and surprise you.” That was Aunt Idgie, all right. She had always been full of surprises.

  WHISTLE STOP, ALABAMA

  1936

  AS USUAL, AS soon as it was spring, six-year-old Buddy Threadgoode, Jr., was running around town barefooted, and this time he stepped on a nail and couldn’t get it out. When he hobbled into the cafe and showed it to his mother and Idgie, Idgie immediately picked him up, threw him over her shoulder, and walked him over to Dr. Hadley’s house. After the doctor had removed the nail, cleaned the wound, and bandaged his foot, Idgie took him home and put him in the back room. Buddy sat in bed with his foot up and read comic books for the rest of the morning, which was okay with him.

  Idgie ran back inside the cafe just in time to help with the last of the breakfast rush, and an anxious Ruth wanted to know how Buddy was. Idgie grinned and grabbed an apron. “Just fine. He didn’t even cry. Didn’t make a peep. Doc Hadley said he’d never seen such a brave boy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. He was fine, but I almost fainted when Doc was pulling that nail out. But Buddy did great. I would have yelled my head off.”

  Idgie was so proud of Buddy for being so brave that she decided she wanted to do something extra special for him as a reward. Later that afternoon, after the lunch dishes were done, Idgie went to the back room, picked up Buddy’s jacket and hat, and said, “Hey, little man, put these on. We’re going somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “Never you mind where. I have something I want to show you.”

  “What?”

  “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it? But you have to promise me one thing. You won’t tell your mother.”

  “I promise.”

  “Scout’s honor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Buddy jumped up. Wherever she was taking him, he knew it was going to be somewhere fun. They got in the car, and Idgie drove along the railroad tracks where he had never been.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see soon enough, my boy.” After a few minutes she turned onto a one-lane dirt road, and then stopped the car at the edge of a large green meadow out by Double Springs Lake and said, “This is it.”

  They got out and she led him over to a spot and said, “Buddy, sit down right here. And do not move. No matter what, don’t move. Promise me, or I can’t show you the surprise.”

  “I promise,” he said. It was then that Buddy noticed she had something in her left jacket pocket.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Ahh…that’s for me to know, and you to find out. You just stay right there and don’t ask no more questions. You are about to see my secret magic trick.�
� Buddy sat and watched as she walked over to a tree across the meadow. Idgie turned around and smiled at him, then pulled a glass jar out of her pocket and stuck her entire arm down inside a hole in the tree. Buddy could hardly believe what happened next. All of a sudden he heard a loud roar, and soon the tree and Idgie were covered with thousands of bees. He sat there with his mouth open as Idgie slowly pulled the jar—which was now full of honey—back out of the tree. She then turned and walked away with the bees still swarming all around her.

  When she reached him, all Buddy could say was, “Whoa…whoa…how did you do that, Aunt Idgie?”

  “I’m a natural-born bee charmer, that’s how.”

  “You are? Wow, what’s that?”

  “Somebody that the bees like, that they don’t sting.”

  Oh…wow. Does Momma know you’re a bee charmer?”

  Idgie made a face. “No! And you can’t tell her, either, all right?”

  “I won’t.”

  “So now we have a special secret that nobody else in the whole word knows about. Just us.”

  “Wow,” he said again.

  Of course, that was a bald-faced lie. Ruth knew about the bee tree. Idgie had brought her to that very same tree years ago. But Idgie wanted Buddy to feel special today, because he was to her. And he always would be.

  On their way home they stopped at his Aunt Ninny’s house and gave her the jar of honey. She was most grateful. Ninny Threadgoode dearly loved biscuits and honey for breakfast. When they got back to the cafe late that afternoon, Ruth opened the door and smiled. “Where have you two rascals been?”

  Idgie breezed right past her and said, “Oh, just out. Right, Buddy?”

  “Yes ma’am, just out,” said Buddy, trying not to laugh.

  * * *

  —

  LATER THAT NIGHT, after Buddy was in bed, Ruth looked at Idgie. “Well, Buddy sure seems in a good mood tonight. Where did you take him today?”