The Aura of Schaefer

Dear Boo and Bubble,

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we just had being together at your house with Aunt Bee, Uncle Cuckoo and Uncle Gene - a.k.a. - That Guy. Although we did take some time away from the rather constant family reverie to attend the Friday Fire Drill at the capitol to see your friend Ian Armitage (star of Young Sheldon) speak about the urgency of global warming, most of our time was spent enjoying each other’s company and creating new lifelong memories.

Whenever I find myself in such a comfortable and heartwarming family place, I can’t help but feel the presence of your great granddaddy Schaefer’s spirit. He would be so delighted to see us all around a table…just like the one in the kitchen at 3 Lakecrest…laughing with each other at the most inane thing or poking fun over some slip of the tongue that will be indelibly imprinted on the pages of our folklore...to be dredged up on a regular basis as time moves on.

Granddaddy had an aura about him and those of us privileged to be encircled by its perimeter can’t ever forget it. It emanated from an inner core of outward focus that dictated his actions—from the guileless conversation with a child to more impactful efforts on behalf of the community. For those who missed the opportunity to be in his physical presence, all we can do is try to pay the aura forward.

He created fun out of the simplest ingredients. Putting a moistened piece of paper napkin on his index finger, he mesmerized many a child (myself included) by laying the single finger on the table and commanding Jack to fly away. With a rise of his hand and sleight of changing fingers on the return to the table, Jack would be gone. “Now, say come back, Jack.” “Come back, Jack!” And…miraculously with another rise of the hand, Jack would reappear.

Many a time, our family would be stopped at a traffic light that seemed to take forever to change. “See if you can make the light change,” he’d say. And we kids would start yelling “Change light! Change light!” to no avail. He, of course, knew to watch for the caution light to kick in for the crossing traffic and as soon as it did, he yelled “Change light!” and…voilà…to our astonishment, the light changed from red to green. It happened every time.

Granddaddy had an aversion to buying new cars. He always scoured the parking lots of dealership for a “good deal” on a used model. One day, when I was in my early teens, he came home driving a 1954 maroon and black Chevrolet Bel Aire coupe. We all enthusiastically piled in for the maiden (to us) ride, the route of which took us out onto Wade Hampton Boulevard—a major four-lane road leading into downtown Greenville. We were in the righthand lane when another car pulled alongside, and we had to mutually stop for a red light. All of a sudden, a mysterious ring…ring…ring came out from under the hood of our car. Ring…ring…ring. Granddaddy started chuckling as he watched the perplexed people next to us try to figure out where the noise was coming from. Apparently…for whatever reason…someone had put a bell in this Chevy that was activated by a button on the floorboard. For Granddaddy, it was the selling feature for the car, and he loved driving around town, ringing that bell just to see the reaction.

I guess you could say he had a bit of prankster in him. One Christmas, he and his law partner Steve Stephenson came upon something that was advertised as a “Nothing Box.” It was literally a box with several lights on the face that, when plugged in, flashed in a sequence over and over again. That’s all it did. It had no useful function—it did nothing. Granddaddy and Steve decided the box would be the perfect device for playing a joke on Steve’s younger brother Bill who happened to live across the street from 3 Lakecrest. They concocted some instructions on how the box was supposed to be used in getting better television reception by putting it on top of the TV console. (This was way before the advent of cable and all of us had television antennas on the tops of our houses to catch the signals from the various commercial stations.) Tucking the instructions into the box, they wrapped it and made sure it found its way under Bill’s Christmas tree. For months after the holiday, Granddaddy would go over to visit Bill and, seeing the “Nothing Box” on top of the television, always ask, “How’s that working for you, Bill?” “Schaefer, I do believe it makes a big difference.”

One of my favorites, though, in this litany of examples about Granddaddy’s propensity for fun centers around 408 N. Church Street in Greenville. The two-story, triangular building currently situates right across the four lanes of Church Street from Springwood Cemetery, wedged precariously on a sliver of land somehow miraculously not consumed by the sprawling Bon Secours Arena complex behind it. Back in the late 1960’s and early 70’s, the law firm of Kendrick, Stephenson and Johnson occupied the top floor of this very building. In order to access the parking lot for the firm, you had to turn off Church Street and drive up a ramp to the second level. All the parking spaces faced the street from twenty feet above, having an unfettered view of the traffic below and the cemetery beyond.

Like many offices, the law firm had a security system in place with an alarm that triggered if the door was opened while the system was armed. One had merely to enter the code on the keypad by the door to keep this from happening. Whether by design or accidentally, the alarm for 408 N. Church was the sound of a siren. It would begin as a light wail…as if in the distance…and build to a full-blown howl the longer it stayed on. Even though the intention was to alert that a break-in had occurred, there was an unintended side effect. Hearing the siren, all of the cars below on Church Street would slow to a crawl in anticipation of a firetruck, ambulance or police cruiser roaring by. How do I know? On Sundays after church, we inevitably had to stop by the office on the way home for Granddaddy to fetch something. At the insistent begging of us kids…and to the total apoplexy of Mamaw Mary…Granddaddy would open the door without disarming the system. We stood on the edge of the parking lot, laughing gleefully as the siren screamed and the poor unsuspecting motorists below reacted accordingly.

Yes, boys, I definitely felt Granddaddy’s presence with us this Thanksgiving. I wish with all my heart that you could have known him in the flesh. But since that's not possible, I am determined to make sure that you will know him as well as you can without that benefit. I'm paying the aura forward.