Turtlegrove

Turtlegrove

Small Town Life

         In Turlegrove, a small farming town in western-central Missouri, it had been said that there were no secrets amongst the locals. In fact, no new resident had moved there in years so it would be hard to miss any scandals or events amongst the residents of the area. The local paper, the Gazette was known to print tidbits such as drunken arrests and when someone had gone on a trip. Having such little news to report, even the smallest information, such as Sally Smitherton setting up a lemonade stand for the weekend would be enough to make the weekly edition community event section.
         Though winters typically set in hard in late December, the weather began to expose crisp cold mornings around the first of November. Halloween, October 31, typically produced enough colds from children running around without coats that the superintendent often considered calling off classes the day after, but he never did, always hoping parents would be smart enough to hold the actual trick-or-treating on a Friday night instead of a weekday or require their kids to wear warm clothing under their costumes. The question would often come up around this time of year at the monthly school board meeting.
         On this crisp November Saturday morning, David Sonders was up early and getting ready for the day. Normally he would sleep in until at least nine, but on this morning he was up by six, showering, brewing coffee, and going over a list of questions he wanted to ask Martha Berm, the oldest resident in town, as she approached her one-hundredth birthday.
         His mother and father were typically up by seven on Saturdays and when they discovered the coffee already brewed were a bit surprised. David’s mother, Joan, had a master’s degree in business administration but had only ever worked as a waitress when times were financially rough for the family. His father worked at the local saw mill as a shift supervisor, a modest paying job that took most of his life to obtain.
         Fortunately his mother was able to use her business acumen to manage the meager income and invest it wisely. According to her calculations David would be able to go to college debt free and if they continued to invest and save they would retire comfortably. But this did mean some sacrifices along the way, like keeping vehicles much past their expected lifespan and avoiding unnecessary debt and had an impact on their decision to have only one child instead of two.
         The weekend would normally find David’s father, David Sr. under the hood of the car, tweaking and adjusting and replacing worn parts. His mother, having spent most of Friday clipping coupons from the Thursday paper, would do her weekly shopping and spend time playing cards with her girlfriends in the neighborhood.
         The ladies would each take turns hosting in the afternoons. On occasion the husbands would join by having a bar-b-que with plenty of beer, lies, and a corn hole toss when they were drunk enough to brag about their aim. This was often followed by popping the hood on the host’s car or truck and talking about the various parts that were new and discussing the newer vehicles coming out soon.
         For David, the weekends consisted of chores in the late morning like mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow in the winter followed by time spent in the Gazette office proofreading with Tom and reading the submissions by the two reporters to get a feel for how the job is done. Evenings he would spend at home watching television, doing homework, or attending the neighborhood bar-b-ques if they were running into the late hours.
         For the last 2 years he had worked after school and on the weekends plus summers at the Gazette with hopes of growing into a budding journalist career or at least having a leg-up on his fellow classmates when he finally went off to college. His dream was to one day be one of the talking heads on the evening news like Mike Wallace or Water Cronkrite. For now, he was content with running errands and helping with proofreading articles and retyping letters-to-the-editor that had been sent in.
         Thomas Barnes, the editor-in-chief and owner of the weekly had hired David from a group of four students sent over by the high-school English teacher, Mrs. Jeeter. He was looking for an intern that would clean up around the office and print shop and help pack the bundles to be delivered to the various stores and boxes around town. Paper boys and girls would come by every Thursday to pick up their bundle to deliver to the customers in their neighborhood for a quarter each. Not much, but enough to pad their pockets considering delivery would typically take less than an hour each week.
         David was chosen because he lived closest to the paper office and would be able to stay a bit later before going home. This meant he was usually the last one to leave and would take out the trash and lock up.
         As a bonus, he was allowed to talk to the two part-time reporters and learn what he could from them. Mr. Barnes taught David to proofread and promoted him to part-time obituary and letter’s reporter. This consisted of typing up whatever the funeral home would call in when someone in the area had passed and re-type the letters sent in about various subjects ordinary citizens wanted printed in the paper through the letter-to-the-editor section.
         After two years of menial work, David had been commissioned to interview the oldest person in town to write a real story: 500 words of reflection on what the biggest changes had been in her life. Mrs. Berm was a nearly lifelong resident, having moved to the Turtlegrove area when she was three years old. In fact, she’d lived here longer than the town had actually been officially incorporated. Today was the day of the interview.
         David had planned on spending about 2 hours or less with Mrs. Berm asking her questions about her childhood and family background and then get her reflections on what changes she had found most interesting over her lifetime. This should be a simple and quick interview. She was turning 100 after all and most centurions were not known for having the sharpest of minds.
         By five a.m. Martha Berm was doing her morning stretches at the side of her bed. She set her alarm clock the night before, as always, though she typically woke up before it went off. Martha stuck to the same morning routine she had developed since her husband had passed nearly forty years earlier.
         First was a set of exercises designed to get the blood flowing and keep her joints from becoming stiff. She had two small weights stored under her night stand that she would use to keep her strength up. This would be followed by putting in her dentures and heading down to the kitchen to brew a fresh cup of English Breakfast tea with milk.
         While cooking eggs and toast with orange marmalade she would turn on her Emerson manual dial radio. It was more than fifty years old and going strong, though she could only pick up AM stations, which was fine for her mornings since the news was all she was interested in.
After breakfast she would spend time doing the dishes and then reading the newspaper. She always saved it for her Saturday mornings even though she received it on Fridays in the mail due to not being on a regular delivery route like the townsfolk. The crossword would always be saved for Sunday afternoons.
         Since agreeing to an interview with a young aspiring reporter from the Turtlegrove Gazette, Martha had spent time reflecting on her life and how much of it she wanted to share with the young man. For her entire existence she had lived a quiet and unassuming life of a farmer's wife and daughter of a farmer.
         Even though she had moved to the area at the age of three, she knew some secrets her family had kept her entire life. Secrets that would have been deadly if they were exposed before. Now, she had a chance to spill the secrets but wasn’t sure if she should.
         She could easily enjoy an uneventful interview with a young and naive reporter. Or, she could give him the story of his life, possibly exposing herself to danger even at her old age and most certainly causing a media storm if the young reporter would decide to print what he learned.
         Swerving back and forth between the decisions was unusual for Martha. In her family a strong and resolute style of decision making was always valued over anything else. Her father had always said, “Make a decision and stick with it. Don’t waiver or they’ll think you’re weak.”
But, this was a different type of decision that could have serious ramifications. And since she was a picture of health for someone half her age, she could live long enough to see those ramifications come to fruition intimately.

          In a small town people tend to gossip and talk. However, there are some secrets that are usually kept close to the vest. That is to say, only the bartender in town knows.

         David Sonders, a student reporter, had a bartender’s personality. Everyone felt comfortable talking to him and sharing their secrets. Though he came from a conservative and poorer family, he often found out where the high school parties were on the weekends because he had the unique ability to be a fly on the wall. Not only did people trust him with their secrets, he was able to be in a room and go unnoticed as people said things they normally wouldn’t tell outside their own personal circle.

         It was this incognito observability combined with an incredible memory that gave David the ability to remember conversations and things he’d seen or read with a near perfect recall. While he couldn’t swear he had a photographic memory, it was darn close.