Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 - A Bit Awkward
Chapter 2 - A Penny Saved
Chapter 3 - I’ve Got That Eerie Feeling
Chapter 4 - A Nickel for Your Thoughts
Chapter 5 - Surprises Never Cease
End
Doppelganger Silent Romances
By:
Michelle Hunter
Copyright ©2012 Michelle Hunter
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written consent of the copyright owner and the publisher above.
Preface
Two high school sweethearts in the mid 1960’s lived married lives apart from each other and made their marriages with others. One ended in divorce and the other widowed.
Almost a half century later the small town high school romance that marked the beginning now had another chance of a beginning on the other end. How many remain bonded by a doppelganger silence romance that neither would ever imagine could be stirred up and in a seemingly orchestrated way that will astound readers.
This is a most light hearted awakening of not just their hearts but of a whole town being able to document the event of Grace Nicholson Penny’s return to Barnsborough where Daniel Filmore (yes, with one l) a retired teacher from the very same school system where it all began in 1964 needs to make sure she recognizes that he is still known in her hometown.
Chapter 1 - A Bit Awkward
When you are standing in your local public library and your trousers drop to the floor when reaching for a book and at a time when Girl Scout troop 184 is on a learning field trip escorted by two of your former students of more years ago than you can justify, what do you do?
For one, you realize you did not replace your under drawers when getting out of the shower this morning. After all it was just going to be a quick visit to pick up a book from the damned awkward top shelf of Barnsborough library in what difference does it make, USA.
I did hear muffled laughter, snickers and some oohs and ahhhs. Where did the oohs and ahhs come from? Scanning the room and letting the book fall while stooping over at the same time hoping my shirt tail would cover the anatomy of Danny Filmore, retired science teacher in Barnsborough. It must have been at that moment when I saw a flash.
The local weekly paper didn’t even ask permission to use that photo. They can’t just do that, can they? Recognition for a long teaching career just months before and now I’ve been stripped literally of any dignity by a photo and a ridiculous caption, something like, ‘Retired teacher still reaching for a higher learning confirms Newton’s Law of Gravity.
They can’t just go and do that, can they? Why would anyone in their right mind not use some common sense to realize what their humor story could do to a man’s dignity and professional career. To add much more insult to injury they had to take a close up of the book that began the avalanche. I’m sorry, I don’t see the humor in it at all, and Moby Dick is a classic and should be revered as such.
After staying indoors and out of the small town’s 2400 population mix and waiting for the phones, emails and notes taped to his mailbox, car, house door and even his replicated Outhouse (one hole style) to quiet down, Danny ventured down to the newspaper office to talk to the editors. He carried with him a small drawstring mesh bag with a few dozen letters. The paper boasted a 5000 weekly print and at least 1000 were mailed out to high school graduates who wanted to either stay in touch with hometown news or it was sent as an annual gift subscription by a family member.
Luck would have it, ole George; the retired editor was at his station with his old hat that he wore when type writing way back then. The younger assistant editor convinced him to go to computers a dozen or so years ago and they no longer print in town. An outside vendor does that, they just send them the copy layouts on Monday and the paper hits the local businesses on Wednesday with the official mailing out on Thursday and out of towners get them someday the following week.
Ole George stood up and greeted Danny, wondering what business he had that he made a personal visit to the office. George hasn’t seen Danny in the office since he placed an obituary for his still living wife almost 15 years ago. It would have been published if Danny’s wife didn’t call in to ask that her paper be forwarded to her new address three states away. She didn’t appreciate the humor of her soon to be ex-husband’s cruelty.
Danny let George have an earful about that photo and captions in his paper and how it ruined his life. “Awwwww,” George growled at Danny while he told him to get serious. “Putting an obituary in the paper for a living person or a little humor for the townspeople who are starving for something to laugh and gossip about Danny, What’s the difference? We grew up in the town Danny; you remember the pranks we used to pull as teens?”
Danny asked if George was serious. “We were never teens together, you were always four years older than me and today you look like you are 20 years older than me.” “Get a mirror Danny; take a good look at yourself at 66 years old.” The two of them went on for a bit until you could hear them laughing out on Center and Main Streets, walking down to the local Navy Dayroom restaurant.
When seated, Danny presented George with his tie string bag of mail he received from locals and some out of town readers too. Truthfully he told Danny, “I didn’t think we had that many readers.” Both of them laughed while Danny took the time to push a few opened letters under his tired weary proof reading eyes. “Oh my, oh my, my, my,” George muttered, “she wants to do what with you?” “Wait George, there is more.”
For the next half hour they browsed those letters and a few times even old George, older by 4 years, blushed. “Don’t you screen your readers before you allow them to subscribe,” laughed Danny? George did apologize to Danny and he picked up the check as a little consolation prize.
Danny didn’t figure that was enough payback for what he has been through. He wanted to know how he was going to be able to walk the streets with dignity after this. George explained he didn’t have to, “just walk the street with your drawers down around your ankles,” he laughed. “Everyone will know it’s you. They will leave you alone.”
George turned serious for a moment and asked if Danny remembered the day he returned from Vietnam. He was waiting in Summerville Diner waiting for a bus to bring him to town and he came in with that pretty little Grace hanging on his arm. George told Danny that even though he was older he had a thing for Grace and out of the blue Danny showed up with her.
Danny immediately went staring out into space and in a hushed voice said, “oh yes, Grace. She and I were something else, weren’t we?” Danny remembered that afternoon and night very well. The two of them Invited George and his duffle bag to ride back to their hometown, about 20 miles distance with them and save him the bus fare.
George lived near the cemetery in town and after they dropped him off, Danny and Grace went to a favorite parking spot in the cemetery. It was a beautiful night, a growing up night, just a week before their junior year of high school began in September 1964. Then Danny remarked so low that George needed to ask what he said and Danny said “it wasn’t anything, just mumbling.” What Danny did say was, “Gracie, I would give you a penny for your thoughts right now.”
Chapter 2 - A Penny Saved
“No, I’m fine, I haven’t been happier about a decision in my life than right now. I’m moving back to my home town. You know I’ve dreamed about that for the past two years and now it’s happening Georgia. I have a
lot more living to do and now that I’m retired I will enjoy the freedoms and it just makes me energized.”
“My guest room will always welcome your visits and I will visit you too. It will be good for you to experience my home town and leave all your stress behind for a few days. Got to run, the moving guys are here. I’ll catch up with you later.”
Grace Penny is so appreciative of her friends that she and her late husband Harold made in the suburbs of Chicago. Harold was such a kind and giving sole and made her life safe and secure in addition to his loving playful moods right up till the evening before he slipped into a coma from a fall from a rooftop while trying to gain access to a fire his company was fighting.
Rafters gave way and three of his buddies fell. In his mid 60’s Harold shouldn’t have been on the roof but as a past fire chief for many years he chose to bend the rules now and then. He had the strength and stamina of men in their 30’s. He never regained consciousness and died two days later.
While trying to assist them he lost his balance when a rope snapped. That was two years ago and she owes so much to her loving friends who gave grieving support each and every day those first few months. In Harold’s Will he left her yet another surprise. He knew her love for her hometown and he always kept in touch with Bill, one of her fellow classmates and the undertaker in the small town.
A few years ago during a Memorial Day weekend, Grace and Harold went back to enjoy her 45th high school class reunion. When talking to Bill he had some concerns and Bill helped ease his mind about those times ahead, should his services be required. Not for a funeral but for keeping an open eye for the properties in town and should Grace ever want to move back to her hometown, he could assist her with the choicest property available at the time. Bill gladly agreed, mostly in a gentlemen’s handshake, never thinking that he would actually be called upon to provide that service.
Bill kept his promise and there were four homes that were on the just listed list that were such values because of the challenged economy. Each home was listed for half their value should a more robust economy return to the nation. Email and photo’s from the local well known realtor made the selection so easy for Grace.
The decision was sealed mostly because she knew the property very well. Her mother and grandmother sat outside of her grandmother’s home on North Street and watched a big crane sandwich two big sections of a modular home onto its foundation. Grace and her grandmother often sat on her front porch swing and mentioned how the old run down house next door needed to be torn down one day before it fell down.
The demolition did come to pass and within another year or two the land had a new occupant on it. The home is just a block or two from the post office, café, library, churches and all the familiar places she grew up with. The town has its share of rundown properties and vacant store fronts but impressive improvements to deal with that blight have been made in the past three years.
The local merchants association has sprung up again. A bicycle trail has replaced one of the two railroads that ran through town and is becoming an important tourist attraction, boosting the local economy. Oh how she is looking forward to moving back. Barnsborough has never lost touch with her heart and those special memories of growing up in its protected environment without drugs and locked doors.
Her popularity in High School is well documented in the class of 1966 year book that she is holding in her hands. The moving company is outside closing their van doors. Head Majorette, school band clarinet, art awards, president of chorus, class play lead for two years along with her leading man Daniel Filmore. Danny, she began to lovingly laugh out loud with her voice echoing off the now empty house walls and its hardwood floors. The moving guys came in to investigate her laughter and to take one more look around. “All finished up here Grace, guess we will see you on the other end tomorrow.”
Grace thanked them and handed each of the four guys a well deserved tip and repeated, “Until tomorrow then, on the other end as you say.” Yes, there was her beginning and her middle and now her other end of life and she has such curiosity along with mixed feelings. Her attention returned to the year book in her hands and Danny. She has seen Danny on some of their return visits and at a few of their class reunions but other than a nod and a how have you been, the only background she knew about him was from her friends who have remained in town.
Then the last paper to arrive in her mailbox, oh that reminds her, she will have to alert the paper to send it to her new address in town or she could even walk down and pick one up from their office each Thursday morning. That last paper on the front page was her dear high school sweetheart Danny Filmore with his pants down. Each of the two class plays had him in his underwear and though the picture only revealed a long shirt tale, it was close enough to bring up her vivid memories of another image off stage. It happened just before their junior year began in September 1964.
She and Danny were dating for about two months. They took a drive to a diner in the next big town, just taking advantage of being together and having the opportunity to enjoy Danny’s first set of wheels, an old Studebaker. While at the diner they bumped into George Roadamer who just returned from Vietnam. They offered him a ride back to town. After they dropped him at his home she and Danny drove up the hill to their favorite parking spot about the time that the late August sun was expiring for that day.
It was a beautiful night and our feelings of intimacy really spiked with all the newness we shared with each other in the previous two months. Consenting adults hardly but consenting teens we were and in the dim glow of the old Studebaker dome light we nervously removed articles of clothing. Daniel was standing there in his underwear or boxers. The shimmering rising moon splintering through the branches of the huge maples gave the cemetery eeriness to the facade as I sat in my last two garments to be removed.
With romantic dignity he tried his best to retain balance while getting a leg up on his last garment and for whatever reason, balance was lost and the mood left. She remembers it as if it was only a few years ago, not almost 48. Laughter in the cemetery that night scared the eerie feelings away and the nervous romantic growing up interlude too.
That year and the following year class plays were very difficult to get through the parts where Danny was required to walk around on stage in his boxers for a scene that only lasted less than a minute….yes, both years those very same boxers from that night brought laughter from within but the professional actors that we were, we muffled in some sort of way or a cover up of ad lib our laughter. I’m not sure to this day if we ever told that tale to anyone, she reminisced.
Silence swept over her, the moving van was gone. Her car was waiting to take her from this home one last time. This home that so much love was shared with her Harold and two children who now live far away with her grandchildren. This moment was monumental, another era is passing. Will the birds be as happy each year as they were when the Penny’s lived here? Her annuals, would they still come up each year in search of her caring touch and kind words?
As Grace slowly and reluctantly moved to the door, the floor creaked. This was the very creak that alerted her that the children were coming in late as she marked their times from the wind up clock on her nightstand. Her tears were really flowing now. The door knob slipping in her hands from the wetted palms as she took hold of brass. She said out loud, “Dear home and all within your gentle walls never forget me as I will never forget you.” She reverently laid her only key on the floor just in case the new owners wouldn’t change the locks right away and could use it. It wouldn’t be right to keep it as a keepsake she thought.
She laid the key on a little sticky note that said ‘Welcome from the Penny’s.’ With that she glanced one more time around the room, refusing to give into her urge to visit each room one more time to absorb all the energy she could from them to take to her new home, on the other end. On the other end that was the beginning end.
Chapter 3 - I’ve Got That Eerie Feeling
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p; Every mile closer to her hometown, her old, new hometown arrival was slowly overcoming Grace with more anxiety than she could have imagined. It was for the unknown and yet the familiar. Leaving so much familiar behind and being positioned into familiar surroundings that have remained the same, yet changed in the sleepy town.
Good changes in some modernization but sad changes from those who will no longer be seen walking the streets, visiting the shops or seen at community picnics, the spring festival or fall county fair and churches that she draws from memory for the first 18 years of her life.
It’s time to exit the turnpike, just twenty miles to go. Grace pulls into a parking lot with the sign outside pleasing her taste buds and promises a good ‘ole’ country breakfast. Pancakes, locally produced maple syrup, eggs, crispy bacon and the best coffee in the USA. It was as advertised and stepping outside she could begin to smell her hometown just 20 miles south.
Her SUV was now adjusting to the cooler mountain air, getting used to the sweetness about it and letting the fuel injectors know that this will now be the altitudes of two to three thousand feet it will adjust to. Grace will soon turn sixty five and she doesn’t feel more than her mid thirties and today she will have a rare experience that very few get to know in their lifetimes.
Doppelganger Silent Romances Page 1
