T​HE INSPIRATION​

​

It was a kind of sense engraved invitation to awakening. As the rooster's call heralded the rise of morning, the aroma of the iron skillet frying bacon, soft butter on warm toast, and coffee percolating in the sunlit kitchen wafted like invisible warm and loving hands guiding me towards the new day. 

​

As I barefooted my way towards the music of that symphony of the senses, I walked past walls that held sepia inked photographs of bright eyed, wind worn faces and hands. A rotary dial large black telephone rested, heavily, on a tidy dark wooden desk...

​

It was "Arthur's stories" as Grandma Emma called my Granddad's tales that first inspired me to listen. I remember being a small child sitting at my Granddad's sizable lap, enraptured by the breadth, richness, and humor of those stories of his life while munching on peppermint sticks from a large bowl on the coffee table which he fondly called his "cigarettes" ever since he replaced them for smoking. 

Born in 1890, Arthur lived through both World, the Korean, and Vietnam Wars. He experienced the inventions of the car, the airplane, the computer, and everything in between. After he passed away, which he graciously called his "expiration date," I found out so much more... 

Had I been older, had I known what to ask... 

I would have inquired about his experience as a tree surgeon, planting an orchard, his work with the Forest Service, the WPA during the Depression, and the times he helped build the aircraft carrier my Dad was on during the Korean War. I would have asked about his weekly column in the Imboden Journal, his frequent correspondence with his State Senator, his short stories and nature poetry. I would have wanted to listen how he "rode the rails" to find work for his wife and family while he waited seven years for that orchard to grow, about how was referred to gently as "Mr. Arthur" due to his reputation for being a kind man by the black community in segregated rural Northeast Arkansas. 

Perhaps I would have written it down, perhaps in a book with other people's amazing life stories who are walking around this country of ours ... those ordinary heroes, our neighbors, our friends, the good people of our lives...the ones that do good in the world because it is natural and right, quietly, without expectation of of recognition or accolades...perhaps...