A Drunk Never Lies

Dear Boo and Bubble,

In previous blogs, I’ve mentioned great granddaddy Schaefer’s best friend, Steve Stephenson.  Let me refresh a few details.  Schaefer and Steve met each other in high school during the Great Depression.  Steve’s father, Harry, became granddaddy’s surrogate father (See February blogpost “A Debt Paid Forward”), a relationship that lasted as such until Harry’s death.  The bond between the two boys grew strong enough to survive separation in college, law school and World War II.  Once the dust settled from the Great War, they returned to Greenville with their wives (See February blogpost “How I Met Your Mother”) and formed the law firm of Kendrick and Stephenson, a partnership that continued for over 40 years. 

They located their first office on the 13^th floor of the Woodside Building at 19 Main Street.  With 17 stories, the Woodside was Greenville’s tallest building and only “scraper” in the skyline.   I remember vividly the firm name on the crackle-glass window of the door to their suite….. and their tenacious secretary Miss Eunice …. and riding the elevator with granddaddy telling me to jump just as it approached their floor, giving me a momentary sensation of weightlessness followed by a great thud when my feet came back down.

Sometime in the 60’s, the firm moved to 408 N. Church Street, a strategic address on a main thoroughfare near the courthouse.  The building was poised on a knoll across from the massive Springwood Cemetery and right on the perimeter of an expanding downtown Greenville.  Granddaddy Schaefer loved the new space, especially his much enlarged office with built-in bookshelves and one entire wall that he covered with identical 11” X 14” wooden frames displaying pictures of our family.  No diplomas or honors, of which there were many.  Just pictures of him and Mamaw dressed up for a Cotillion; or Uncle Bryant rising high above a wide receiver to knock a pass from his grasp; or me in costume posed in an arabesque; or Uncle Gene in suit and tie as the president of the 8^th grade.

The new office also had a unique security alarm.  If someone opened the front door without deactivating it, a siren began to wail from the roof – very much like that of a patrol car.  The siren was loud enough that the drivers on N. Church Street could hear it and they automatically applied their brakes thinking that the police were coming.

Even though it drove Mamaw crazy, Bryant, Gene and I always begged Granddaddy to set off the alarm so we could watch the reaction on the street below.  He didn’t do it often, but when he did, we’d go into laughing fits while Mamaw had fits of a different kind.  Granddaddy always weaseled out by apologizing profusely and saying that he “thought he had already punched in the code.”

By this time, Kendrick and Stephenson had become one of the better known law firms in Greenville.  Their clients looked like a who’s who in banking and real estate and included many prominent businesses and individuals.  Among them was a renown family that owned and developed commercial property. They were in the process of building Greenville’s very first mall and Steve represented their interests in land acquisition, construction contracts and leasing agreements.

One of the family members, a female, had her own personal “renown.”  She was prone to drinking alcohol -  more than she should, especially late in the day.

One night, after the office had closed, Granddaddy Schaefer found himself alone trying to get some work completed.  He noticed a light blinking on his phone, indicating an incoming call.  Normally, the receptionist at the front desk would answer, but she had long gone.  The blinking persisted and Granddaddy, his concentration broken, pushed down the pestering button to answer.

“Kendrick and Stephenson,” he uttered automatically.

“Ish Shteve Shtephenson there?”  Heavy, belabored breathing came through the receiver.

Granddaddy immediately recognized her voice…..and her condition.  He neither wanted nor had the time to talk to her.

“Nope,” he said.

“Well…..ish Shhhaefer Kenderich there?”

“Nope,” he lied.

“Well…..who ish you?”

“Oh, I’m just the janitor.  I’m down here cleaning up the office.”  The lie grew.

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line as she received this information and her marinated brain tried to process it.

      

“Well, let me shay one shing,” she began.  “You may not be ash shmart as Shteve Shtepenson……but, you’re a damn site shmarter than that Shhhaefer Kenderich.”

Having totally disavowed his existence, Granddaddy had no response and couldn’t defend his good name.  His mouth remained slack.

“Click.”  The phone went dead.

He put the receiver back down in its cradle.  I don’t think Granddaddy ever worked late at the office again. 

Granddaddy Schaefer and "The Little Prince." Part 2

Continued from the previous post.....

Dear Boo and Bubble,

 

Granddaddy Schaefer had pretty good perceptions about people as well.  To his way of thinking, those who were too greedy, too vain, too preoccupied and too serious were going to fail sooner or later. I couldn’t help but think that some of that insight must have come directly from the Little Prince’s visits to Asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329 and 330.

              The first one was inhabited by a king.  Wearing purple and ermine, he was sitting on a simple yet majestic throne.

              “Ah! Here’s a subject!” the king exclaimed when he caught sight of the little prince. 

              And the little prince wondered, ‘How can he know who I am if he’s never seen me before?’  He didn’t realize that for kings, the world is extremely simplified:  All men are subjects.

……later in the same chapter

              “Exactly.  One must command from each what each can perform,” the king went on.  “Authority is based first of all upon reason.  If you command your subjects to jump in the ocean, there will be a revolution.  I am entitled to command obedience because my orders are reasonable.”

On Asteroid 326 -

              The second planet was inhabited by a very vain man.  “Ah! A visit from an admirer!” he exclaimed when he caught sight of the little prince, still at some distance.  To vain men, other people are admirers.   

              “Hello,” said the little prince.  “That’s a funny hat you’re wearing.”

              “It’s for answering acclamations,” the very vain man replied.  “Unfortunately, no one ever comes this way.”

              “Is that so?” said the little prince, who did not understand what the vain man was talking about.

              “Clap your hands,” directed the man.

              The little prince clapped his hands, and the very vain man tipped his hat in modest acknowledgment

And he continued clapping.  The very vain man continued tipping his hat in acknowledgment.  .

……later in the same chapter

              But the vain man did not hear him.  Vain men never hear anything but praise.

On Asteroid 327 –

              The next planet was inhabited by a drunkard. 

              “What are you doing there?” he asked the drunkard.

              “Drinking,” replied the drunkard, with a gloomy expression.

              “Why are you drinking?” the little prince asked.

              “To forget,” replied the drunkard.

              “To forget what?” inquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.

              “To forget that I’m ashamed,” confessed the drunkard, hanging his head.

              “What are you ashamed of?” inquired the little prince, who wanted to help.

              “Of drinking!” concluded the drunkard, withdrawing into silence for good.

Granddaddy had an amazing aura about him.  He was a magnet to people, young and old.  Like all of us, he had his shortcomings, but until the day he died, he truly sought to listen to and learn from others.  This was particularly so with his children and grandchildren.  It was as if a piece of his heart was planted in each of us.  He invested his time in us.

              And he went back to the fox.

              “Good-bye,” he said.

              “Good-bye,” said the fox.  “Here is my secret. It’s quite simple:  One sees clearly only with the heart.  Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” 

              “Anything essential is invisible to the eyes,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

              “It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.”

              “It’s the time I spent on my rose….,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

              “People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said.  “But you mustn’t forget it.  You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.  You’re responsible for your rose…”

              “I’m responsible for my rose….,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

When I think back on Granddaddy, my memory of him is so vivid it’s almost like he’s still alive.  I can hear him chuckling. I can remember the way he used to push his fingers together and press them against his mouth when he was thinking.  I can see his penetrating blue eyes looking over the half-frames of his glasses and I can hear the notes of “Turnip Greens” rolling off of the piano in our living room. Very much like the Little Prince, he dropped out of the sky and landed on the desert of my life to show me what matters.  His presence is still with me. 

              “At night, you’ll look up at the stars.  It’s too small, where I live, for me to show you where my star is.  It’s better that way.  My star will be …. one of the stars for you.  So you’ll like looking at all of them.  They’ll all be your friends.  And besides, I have a present for you.”  He laughed again.

              “Ah, little fellow, little fellow, I love hearing that laugh!”

              “That’ll be my present.  Just that…it’ll be the same as the water.”

              “What do you mean?”

              “People have stars, but they aren’t the same.  For travelers, the stars are guides.  For other people, they’re nothing but tiny lights.  And for still others, for scholars, they’re problems.  For my businessman, they are gold.  But all those stars are silent stars.  You, though, you’ll have stars like nobody else.”

              “What do you mean?”

              “When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing.  You’ll have stars that laugh.”

              And he laughed again.

              “And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me.  You’ll always be my friend.  You’ll feel like laughing with me.  And you’ll open your window sometimes just for the fun of it…And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing while you’re looking up at the sky.”

Yes, Granddaddy Schaefer, I know you’re up there, in the sky on a star. You and the little prince laughing forever together.   

Granddaddy Schaefer and "The Little Prince." Part I

Dear Boo and Bubble,

It’s uncanny sometimes how something can bring back a memory.  I’m talking about a memory buried so deeply for years in the recesses of the mind that only a powerful trigger can conjure it up. In late March or early April of 2004, I had such an incident. 

We were in Georgetown on Grand Exuma Island in the Bahamas.  Actually, we had been there for several weeks at the back end of a months-long cruise on our sailboat “Up Jinks.”   It had been enough time in one place to establish some of the routines that constancy initiates.  One of these routines was to go to Forbes Enterprises in the middle of town to get on the internet.  At least twice a week, we would bundle up our computer, carefully load it into the dinghy and ride over to the community dock on Lake Victoria.  From there, it was a short walk to Forbes. 

Inevitably, we’d have to wait for a hook-up.  Wintertime in Georgetown is always quite crowded with cruisers.  Just like us, they rely on the internet to communicate with family and friends back home.  Forbes was one of the few places you could go to get online.

This particular day, I was waiting my turn, sitting in a folding chair, chatting with some of the other people in the building.  For some reason, my eyes drifted over to a stack of books that rested on the sill of a window looking out onto Lake Victoria.  They were school texts for the most part, maybe those of one of the Forbes children who frequently came in and out during the day.  The one on top, however, was not a textbook.  It was definitely a storybook and, even though I hadn’t seen it or thought about it for more than forty years, I recognized it instantly.  There, in the window at Forbes, on the cover of this book, stood the Little Prince on Asteroid B-612.

I felt like Harry Potter transporting through a portal and reconstituting in the hallway at 3 Lakecrest.  That’s where the bookcase was, where resting on the third shelf from the bottom was our well worn copy of “The Little Prince.”

“The Little Prince,” Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s whimsical fable about understanding what’s truly important in life, was  great Granddaddy Schaefer's favorite book.   Probably before I could understand a single word he said, he was reading it to me.  As a child, I was captivated by its peculiar illustrations – the boa constrictor swallowing the elephant, the baobabs, the prince raking out his volcanoes.  It would be years before I could see beyond the pictures and the words to understand the message.               

Granddaddy has been gone almost twenty years now.  In all that time, I don’t think I’ve properly sorted through the stages of grief in losing him.  There are still boxes in storage filled with his writings, personal artifacts and memorabilia.  I haven’t had the heart to go through them.  But, I after that trip to the Bahamas, I did something that virtually brought him back to life for me – I reread “The Little Prince.”

I was struck with the parallels between the points of the story and what granddaddy believed important.  He always instilled in us that we should never judge others, especially on their physical appearance.   

              I have serious reasons to believe that the planet the little prince came from is Asteroid B-612.  This asteroid has been sighted only once by telescope, in 1909 by a Turkish astronomer, who had then made a formal demonstration of his discovery at an International Astronomical Congress.  But no one had believed him on account of the way he was dressed.  Grown-ups are like that.

              Fortunately for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator ordered his people, on pain of death, to wear European clothes.  The astronomer repeated his demonstration in 1920, wearing a very elegant suit.  And this time everyone believed him.    

We moved into the house at 3 Lakecrest when I was in the first grade.  Granddaddy took a special interest in landscaping the yard.  This was especially true of the azaleas.  He spent hours gathering cuttings, dipping them in Root-Tone and planting them in tin cans.  They stayed nestled beside the front porch steps, protected from the elements, until they were grown enough to transplant in the yard.  He would carefully dig out roots and then diligently turn the soil to make receptive beds for his new charges.  It was his contribution to environmentalism.

              And, in fact, on the little prince’s planet there were – as on all planets – good plants and bad plants.  The good plants come from good seeds, and the bad plants from bad seeds.  But the seeds are invisible.  They sleep in the secrecy of the ground until one of them decides to wake up.  Then it stretches and begins to sprout, quite timidly at first, a charming, harmless little twig reaching toward the sun.  If it’s a radish seed, or a rosebush seed, you can let it sprout all it likes.  But if it’s the seed of a bad plant, you must pull the plant up right away, as soon as you can recognize it.  As it happens, there were terrible seeds on the little prince’s planet….baobab seeds.  The planet’s soil was infested with them.  Now if you attend to a baobab too late, you can never get rid of it again.  It overgrows the whole planet.  Its roots pierce right through.  And if the planet is too small, and if there are too many baobabs, they make it burst into pieces.

              “It’s a question of discipline,” the little prince told me later on.  ‘When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet.  You must be sure you pull up the baobabs regularly, as soon as you can tell them apart from the rosebushes, which they closely resemble when they’re very young.  It’s very tedious work, but very easy.”

(To be continued.....)

Don't You Be Looking at Me Like That

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I’ve always believed that of all the senses available to us, the most important is a sense of humor.  It allows us to navigate every type of situation, particularly stressful ones.  The old saying goes (with apologies to Mary Michaels on the grammar) - “anything you can laugh at, you’re bigger than.” Your great, great, great grandmother Mamie Bryant lived such a creed.  I imagine the ability to find light-hearted perspective was essential for a widow left at age 40 with eight children to raise.

Granny Bryant’s health was never particularly good.  She suffered diabetes and in 1936, at the age of 72, had to have a kidney removed.  Nothing was more devastating to her, though, than the loss of her left eye to glaucoma.  Not only did she have to adjust to seeing with one eye, her sense of pride and appearance suffered because she had to wear a patch.

Her daughter Mittie and your great granddaddy Schaefer tried to persuade her to consider a glass eye.  At first, the thought repulsed her and she would have nothing to do with it.  Finally, they convinced her to at least go to the doctor and discuss an artificial eye with him.  She remained skeptical, but acquiesced. 

The doctor matched her good eye perfectly with a glass one.  He slipped it into the vacant socket and told her to look in the mirror.  She stared at her reflection, mesmerized.  From that day on, she was never without one.  Granny’s glass eye created quite a few comical moments in our family folklore, but she always enjoyed the joke as much as anyone, even when she might be the butt of it.

Glass eyes were just that….glass.  And occasionally, Granny would lose grip of hers and it would shatter on the floor. 

“Pst, pst…” she whispered clandestinely for your great, great Aunt Katherine, who was living with Granny at the time. “Here, Katherine.  Take this $10 and these broken pieces of my old eye and go down to the doctor’s office and find a match for me.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Katherine replied.

“Oh, and don’t say a word to anybody about this.  It’s just between you and me.”

“Okay,”

Katherine shuddered when she walked up to the tray of eyes, all glaring up at her like a big old fly’s head.  Finally she found the right one.  She paid the doctor and home she came, sneaking in with Granny’s eye, no one the wiser.

Granny always took her eye out at night and soaked it in a glass of water.  One weekend, her step-grandson William Kendrick came to visit.  In the middle of the night, he awoke and went into the bathroom for some water.  Not wanting to disturb anybody, he decided to leave off the light.  He tapped around the sink until he felt a glass and turned on the faucet to pour in some water.  After a couple of gulps, Granny’s eye rolled into his mouth.  He didn’t swallow it, but spit it into the sink where fortunately, it neither broke nor disappeared down the drain.

One Saturday morning, Granny was still in bed when she heard a knock on the back door.  She realized that it was probably the little black boy who came through the neighborhood to sell eggs every weekend.  She needed eggs.  Quickly, she got out of bed, grabbed her robe and went into the bathroom to retrieve her eye out of the water glass.  Granny popped the eye in the socket and hastened downstairs.

“I’m coming….hold on….don’t go anywhere,” she admonished him urgently.

She came to the back door and flung it open, smiling with familiarity.

The little boy gawked back at her in utter terror.  His eyes grew wide and his mouth gaped open.  He threw his entire carton of eggs high over his head and they crashed to the ground splattering all over.  The little waif scampered away as fast as his short legs could go.

Granny stood there stunned, not knowing what had just happened….until she went into the kitchen and caught sight of herself in a mirror.  In her haste, she had put her eye in backwards!   

She burst into such laughter, she could hardly stop. 

“Guess I’m going to have to find a new source for eggs.  I reckon I’ll never see the likes of him again.”