So what if Winston Valentine is ninety-two years old? He
isn't dead yet! And he's out to prove it. His exuberant show
of life—coming to you live from radio dial 1550—revitalizes
Valentine, Oklahoma, for its centennial celebration. The
townsfolk are determined to make this an anniversary to
remember.
Except Belinda Blaine, who, at thirty-eight,
doesn't feel like celebrating. Suddenly she's carrying a
child—and the guilt of an earlier pregnancy nearly twenty
years ago. No one in her close-knit community knows of
either, including her sweet-mannered husband, Lyle. But
disclosing this pregnancy will mean revealing her past and
opening her heart. And Belinda's not quite ready for
that.
As Belinda struggles over what to do, she finds
comfort in unexpected places. After all, in Valentine,
neighbors are family and strangers are friends. And this
small town holds secrets and mysteries, and takes care of
its own.
Excerpt
Winston Wakes Up the World
In the early dark hour
just before dawn, a lone figure—a man in slacks and wool
sport coat, lapels pulled against the cold, carrying a
duffel bag—walked along the black-topped ribbon of highway
toward a town with a water tower lit up like a
beacon.
Just then a sound brought him looking around
behind him. Headlights approached.
The man hurried
into the tall weeds and brush of the ditch. Crouching, he
gazed at the darkness where his loafers were planted and
hoped he did not get bit by something. A delivery truck of
some sort went blowing past. As the red taillights grew
small, the man returned to the highway. He brushed himself
off and headed on toward the town.
Another fifteen
minutes of walking and he could make out writing on the
water tower: the word Valentine, with a bright red
heart. Farther along, he came to a welcome sign, all neatly
landscaped and also lit with lights. He stopped, staring at
the sign for some minutes.
Welcome to Valentine, a
Darn Good Place to Live!
Underneath this
was:
Flag Town, U.S.A., Population 5,510 Friendly
People and One Old Grump, 1995 Girls State Softball
Championship, and Home of Brother Winston's Home Folks
Show at 1550 on the Radio Dial
Looking ahead, the
man walked on with a bit of hope in his step.
The man
would not be disappointed. The welcome sign pretty much said
it all. Like a thousand other small towns across the
country, Valentine was a friendly town that was right proud
of itself and had reason to be. It was a place where the
red-white-and-blue flew on many a home all year through and
not just on the Fourth of July (as well as lots of
University of Oklahoma flags and Oklahoma State flags, the
Confederate flag, the Oklahoma flag and various seasonal
flags). Prayer continued to be offered up at the beginning
of rodeos, high-school football games and commencements, and
nobody had yet brought a lawsuit, nor feared one, either.
Mail could still be delivered with simply a name, city and
state on the envelope. It was a place where people knew one
another, many since birth, and everyone helped his neighbor.
Even most of those who might fuss and fight with one another
could be counted on in an emergency. The few poor souls who
could not be counted on eventually ended up moving away. It
was safe to say that most of the real crime was committed by
people passing through. This exempted crimes of passion,
which did happen on a more or less infrequent basis and
seemed connected with the hot-weather months.
In the
main, Valentine was the sort of small town about which a lot
of sentimental stories are written and about which a lot of
people who live in big cities dream, having the fantasy that
once you moved there, all of your problems disappeared. This
was not true, of course. As Winston Valentine, the
self-appointed town oracle, often said, the problems of
life—all the fear, greed, lust and jealousy, sickness and
poverty—are connected to people, and are part of life on
earth the world over.
It was true, however, that in a
place like Valentine getting through life's problems
often was a little easier.
In Valentine, a person
could walk most everywhere he needed to go, or find someone
willing to drive him, or have things come to him. The IGA
grocery, Blaine's Drugstore, the Pizza Hut, the Main Street
Café and even the Burger Barn provided delivery service, and
for free to seniors or anyone with impaired health. Feeling
blue could be counted as impaired health. When you needed to
leave your car at the Texaco to have the oil changed or new
tires put on, the manager, Larry Joe Darnell, or one of his
helpers, would drive you home, or to work, and would even
stop for you to pick up breakfast, lunch or your sister.
When Margaret Wyatt's husband ran off and left her the sole
support of her teenage son, people made certain to go to her
for alterations, whether they needed them or not, and for a
number of years every bride in town had Miss Margaret make
her wedding and bridesmaids' dresses. It was a normal course
of events in Valentine for neighbors to drop groceries on
the front steps of those on hard times, and for extra to go
into the church collection plates for certain families;
small-town people knew about tax deductions. Yards got
mowed, repairs made and overdue bills paid, often by that
fellow Anonymous.
And in Valentine, when an elderly
man no longer had legs strong enough to walk the sidewalk,
and got his driver's license revoked and his car taken away
because of impudent daughters and meddlesome friends, he
could still drive a riding lawn mower to get where he wanted
to go.
This good idea came to Winston Valentine after
a fitful night's sleep in which he had dreamed of his
long-dead wife, Coweta, and been left both yearning for her
and relieved that her presence had only been a dream. Their
marriage had been such a contrast, too.
Now in his
tenth decade, Winston was a man with enough experience to
understand that life itself was constant contrasts. He lay
with his head cradled in his hands on the pillow, studying
this matter as he stared at the faint pattern caused by the
shine of the streetlight on the wall, while from the other
side of it came muffled sounds—creak of the bed, a laugh and
then a moan.
In the next room, the couple with whom he
shared his house—Tate and Marilee Holloway—were doing what
Winston had once enjoyed with his Coweta early of a
morning.
Remembering, Winston's spirits did a
nosedive. He was long washed-up in that department. In fact,
he was just about washed-up, period, as Coweta had put forth
in the dream. He was ninety-two years old, and each morning
he was a little surprised to wake up. That was his entire
future: being surprised each morning to wake up.
It
was at that particular moment, when his spirits were so low
as to be in the bottom of the rut, an idea came upon him
with such delightful force that his eyes popped wide. A grin
swept his face.
"I'll show 'em. I ain't dead
yet."
His feet hit the cold floor with purpose.
Holding to the bedpost, he straightened and stepped out
quietly. Then, moving more quickly, he washed up and dressed
smartly, as was his habit, in starched jeans and shirt, and
an Irish sweater. Winston Valentine did not go around
dressed "old," as he called it.
After a minute's rest
in the chair beside the bedroom door, he picked up his
polished boots, stepped into the hall in sock feet and
soundlessly closed the door behind him.
He had
forgotten his cane but would not turn back.
The
hallway was dimly lit by a small light. The only bedroom
door open was that of Willie Lee. Winston automatically
glanced inside, saw that the boy had thrown off the
blankets.
The little dog who lay at the foot of the
bed lifted his head as Winston tiptoed into the room and
gently pulled the blankets over the child, who slept the
deep sleep of the pure in heart. When Winston left the room,
the dog jumped down and followed soundlessly.
Gnarled
hand holding tight to the handrail, Winston descended the
stairs, knowing where to step to avoid the worst creaks. He
located the small key that hung on the old rolltop desk in
the alcove.
Then he went to the bench in the hall and
tugged on his boots. Seeing the dog watching, he whispered,
"Go on back up."
The dog remained sitting, regarding
him with a definite air of disapproval.
"Mr. Munro,
you just keep your opinions to yourself." Winston slipped
into his coat and settled his felt Resistol on his
head.
The dog still sat looking at him.
Winston
went out into the crisp morning, closing the door on the
dog, who turned and raced back down the hall and up the
stairs, hopped onto the boy's bed and over to peer through
the window. His wet canine nose smeared fog on the glass.
The old man came into view on the walkway, then disappeared
through the small door of the garage.
Munro's amber
eyes remained fastened on the garage. His ears pricked at
the faint sound of an engine. The small collie who lived
next door came racing to the fence, barking his head off.
Munro regarded such stupid action with
disdain.
Moments later, a familiar green-and-yellow
lawn mower came into view on the street, with the old man in
the seat. Munro watched until machine and old man passed out
of sight behind the big cedar tree in the neighbor's yard.
The sound faded, the stupid collie lay down and Munro
reluctantly lay down on the bed. All was
quiet.
Winston headed the lawn tractor along the
street. The cold wind stung his nostrils, bit his bare
hands, but his spirits soared. He imagined people in the
houses hearing the mower engine and coming to their windows
to look out.
Halfway along the street, it came to him,
as he noted the limbs of a redbud tree that had just begun
to sprout, that only the calendar said spring. The morning
was yet cold and everyone's house shut up tight. No one was
going to hear him racing along the street.
Crossing
the intersection with Porter Street, he hit a bump and had
to grasp the steering wheel to keep from bouncing off the
seat. He saw the newspaper headlines: Elderly Man Ends
Life Plowing Mower into Telephone Pole.
But he was
not about to downshift like some old candy-ass.
He
kept his foot on the pedal and tightened his grip on the
steering wheel. He wished he had thought of gloves.
He
did slow when he came alongside the sheriff's office at the
corner of Church and Main streets. Maybe Sheriff Oakes was
in this morning.
No one came to the door,
though.
Driving down the middle of the empty highway,
he was forced to slow a little. His hands were growing weak
on the wheel, the old arthritis getting the best of him. He
turned onto graveled Radio Lane and bounced along until he
finally came to a stop outside the door of the
concrete-block building beside Jim Rainwater's black
lowrider Chevrolet.
He had made it. And in all the
distance traveled, nearly two miles, he had encountered no
other person or vehicle. It was a deep
disappointment.
He got himself off the mower, and was
glad to have no witnesses. He moved like the rusted-up Tin
Man...
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