Pontoon boats. That’s all he was thinking vabout as Chris fguided his vehicle north on Highway. T 4;;63. Pontoon boats. (7 She wants five fishing holders, not three like everyone else in the world but five. And a remotex.s control trolling motor /5555.and live well seating all aroun cd the perimeter with a fish finder.
Chris sighed to himself and glanced in the rearview mirror. The girls were quiet in the backseat, each with ear pods nestled into their ears. He shook his head and returned his focus on the road. It was only a half hour to Candlelight, so he hadn’t bothered to turn on the radio, but he did have the map on the display screen. He glanced at it and noticed he was coming up to Ashland knowing that he would soon be coming to the exit that takes him to Candlelight. He hadn’t made up his mind to go home first or straight to the gas station the postcard pointed them. He glanced at the time. 11:38. He better go straight there, or he might be late. He looked up in time to see the exit sign that read Ashland exit, ½ mile. Just five miles past that was the exit for Candlelight. He glanced up at the mirror and pressed down on the accelerator. Coming off the exit ramp, he paused, looked left and rolled through the stop sign.
“What’s the rush, Dad?” It was Jenny.
“Are we there yet?” That was Jill.
“No rush and not yet.”
“I can’t wait to get there,” Jill giggled. “Any ideas as to who sent that postcard?”
“I have been thinking about that and I have no clue.”
“Do you think the tree is still there?” Jenny asked.
“Where?”
“At the gas station we are going to? You know, the giant Christmas tree that is there with all the ornaments and crazy candles.”
“That tree,” Chris said. “Well, I have been told that an angel left it there.”
“You know the story, sister,” Jill said. “Of how, the town wasn’t so very nice and how a strange girl, an angel, came and straightened them out.”
“And left the tree there as a reminder,” Chris finished the story. “Look, girls, there is Dell’s farm and that means we are almost to Kerls’ place. Still want to go with me or to grandma’s?”
“With you! Jinx!” they laughed together.
Chris passed the turn to Fourth street across from the farm and then the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church on his left and the cemetery on his right. He slowed by the fire house on the right and the mortuary opposite. Next to the fire station is the big building of the Candlelight factory, the two story house of the factory owners, the Fullers. The road bent left onto Main Street and he saw it ahead on the right.
“The tree!” Jenny screamed.
He hardly noticed as he drove toward it that he had passed the hardware store, the grocery store, and the barber shop. He turned on his signal at city hall.
“That’s new,” Jill said.
“What?” he looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“The huge parking lot we just passed,” Jenny answered.
Chris looked over toward the gas station. They were right, a large parking lot scattered with cars was next to the station. He remembered it as a patch of trees there. He turned into parking lot near the pumps and up to the front of the store and turned the ignition key to off. The girls were busy unbuckling and giggling as he leaned back and looked to his left. A minivan parked next to him and around the front a ponytailed woman walked up the front door. He quickly opened his car door and stood up.
“Sammi!?”
The woman paused and looked over her shoulder, her ponytail swishing behind her.
—
David just went over a bridge that crossed the Missouri River and exited I-44, rolling to a slow stop at the end of the ramp. Directly opposite him was a small green sign asking him to choose from two towns listed, one on top of the other. The top one said, Candlelight, 15 miles with an arrow pointing right and the bottom said Hartsburg, 23 miles to the left. He drew a breath and turned right.
From the turn, there was nothing but farms to town, giving him time to think. Candlelight, that small little town he grew up in. Boy, he wanted to get away from it, too. Someone asked him why once and he told them that it was because no one understood him there. But that wasn’t entirely true. Everyone understood. Everyone treated him like a normal person, no, like a person. He sometimes wished he never left there. He reached over and turned on the radio. Nothing but static emerged. He glanced at the display screen and quickly tapped the search button. It scrambled to a station that came into the middle of a weather forecast and he tapped the search button again, setting that station as a favorite. He remembered it, too, KJMO Classic Rock Radio, 97.5 FM on the dial. He recognized the tune playing now, The Chain, by Fleetwood Mac, and he turned the volume up. He pressed a button on the door console and his window slowly slid down. The wind blew in and swirled the hamburger wrapper that was lying on the seat beside him up and into the back. He laughed as he slowly pushed his car forward as the music pushed him toward home.
He slowed when the farms gave way to a few more houses appearing along each side of the road and he knew he was getting close. A large billboard loomed toward him on his left. It read Candlelight Realty presents Hometown Homes from $150,000, Lots for Sale now. Wow, Candlelight is growing. He noticed a second sign, a more familiar one, Welcome to Candlelight. Now, the memories of his mind were beginning to take shape and hold. A series of mailboxes, stacked three on top of another three, appeared at the head of a road entrance just past the welcome sign. They were for the farms scattered down that old gravel road. But where a matching road should have been on the other side, there was nothing but flattened, brown dirt and three huge, yellow excavators sat alone. He smiled and said to himself, “Must be for the new neighborhood.” He slowed when he saw the 30 mile per hour sign and there it was on his right was, Farmer Dell’s Chicken and Vegetable Farm. The vegetable stand still stood in front. A memory came back to him then of working there from late spring through early autumn, doing whatever the Dell’s wanted for $1.50 an hour and all the food you wanted to take home. He pushed his turn signal down and turned left on the street opposite the farm and next to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
David slowly rolled by the very first house opposite the church and stared at it through the open window, the music still blaring but unnoticed. There it was. His old home on the corner. It looked the same to him. A small two-story house, brick, just like the others around it. Inside, he knew you walked into a small entryway, with the living room, a great room really, to the right, and the dining room was across from it. Straight ahead was the stairway to the three bedrooms and bath on the second floor. A half bathroom was beneath the stairs for use on the main floor. The kitchen was behind the dining room. A small hall led from there behind the living room to the laundry room and door to the small attached garage that stood to the right of the front door. He knew his parents would be home,, his Dd sitting in his easy chair with the Saturday paper open and being read cover to cover. His Mom would be in the kitchen or out in the backyard tending to her garden, on her knees pulling weeds. He accelerated slowly past, he would come back later, and turned right at the next street.
—
The drive down Highway 63 from Interstate 70 to Candlelight was always peaceful for Chuck. The busyness of life kind of faded away as he drove by farmland and trees. He cracked his window and heard the air rush in. He also felt it as wind tussled his hair, pushing toward the ceiling of the car. It surrounded him, the coolness he felt on his arms, and the freshness of it as he took in a deep breath and held it. The car has been quiet for a while. The kids were asleep in the back and Linda had her ear pods on listening to who knows what and staring out the window. At that moment, she looked at him, reached over and placed her hand on his thigh. He smiled at her. She took out the ear pods and said, “We are getting to my favorite part of the trip?”
“What’s your favorite part of the trip?”
“When the road is completely surrounded by trees and they reach toward the sky and you see the tips touching the clear, blue sky. They reach over the road and try to touch their neighbor on the other side, kind of creating a tunnel and then suddenly, they are gone and there is Candlelight. I always thought it was a cute little town. I could always see you when you were younger running all over it.”
“I did run all over it, with my bike. Me and David would meet up with Chris and Fred at the fields to see if anyone else was there to play a game or two of baseball. Sometimes the girls would come, too.”
“The girls, huh?” Linda teased.
too.”
“I am sure it was because you were there. I have seen picture were so cute back in the day.”
He looked at her and shook his head, “I believe your trees are up ahead.”
It was just as she described. The trees started to become thicker on each side of the road and gradually taller and, yes, tips of trees were almost touching giving that tunnel affect that she felt. Well, he always did, too. The road was leading him around a slight bend and as it straightened, the trees opened up to reveal Candlelight. Straight ahead he could see the Candle Factory appearing to be at the end of the road, but he knew it bent in front of it to the right and onto Jefferson City. The streetlamps were still lined up on both sides of the street toward the factory and the Christmas tree stood tall at the foot of the entrance to Kerls’ Gas Station and Mini-Mart. He turned there and eased up to a parking spot next to a minivan.
“Are we there yet?” came for the back seat.
“We are,” Chuck said as he turned off the ignition.
Fred and Charlie banged the rear doors shut before Chuck even opened his and he rose to stand next to his car. He looked down the row of cars next to his before returning his stare to the front of the Mini-mart.
“Is it as you remember it?” Linda asked as she waited for him at the front of his car.
“Maybe a little,” he smiled at her, put his arm around her and together they walked inside.
It was exactly as he remembered it as the door closed softly behind them. The soda fountain was directly in front of him, the aisles of food and candy choices to his right and the same counter to his left. The only difference was the man behind the counter looked like a younger version of Mr. Kerls. The man grinned at him. At the counter, a small group of people stared at him.
“Chuck?” the only woman of the group spoke first. “Oh my goodness guys, it is Chuck!”
And then he recognized them and rushed toward them, leaving Linda behind. “Sam? Sam, it is you.! And David! And Freddie! Chris! How are you guys!”
Now they clamored together in a noisy circle and Chuck asked, “What are you doing here?”
One by one, each one held a brown postcard and as Linda walked to stand beside Chuck, she held up his.
“Well, then,” a voice behind them spoke up. “Now, that you are all here?”
“How do you know we are all here?” Chris asked.
“My name is Mike. I know you are all here because I have five bags,” he said as he reached below the counter. He carefully placed five paper bags on top of it. Each were marked with each of their names. “I believe you were asked to bring a quarter?”
They each held one out to him and Mike smiled back at them.
“Before I hand them over to you, I have some additional instructions from the sender. The bar od of soap is a donation to our Thrift Store, the entrance of which is just on the other side of this aisles. See it there, in the back. Please take a look through it. Everything is for our needy neighbors. Next, take the ornament to the tree out front and, please, add to it. And lastly, open your bag only then. Now, ladies first.”
“Wait a minute,” David interrupted. “Who are you again? And who is behind this?”
“I told you, I’m Mike, and I can’t tell you who is behind this. I was asked not to, and it sounded like a lot of fun. A scavenger hunt!”
“You look just like Mr. Kerls, but younger,” Chuck interrupted now.
“Yes, thanks I guess. He was my Dad,” Mike said. “About the bags now? Sammi? Ah, nice to meet you? Chuck? David? Fred? And last but not least, Chris? Oh yeah, the quarters! Please place them in the donation cup to help cancer research here on the counter here and have a cup of coffee.”
They took their bags and huddled in front of the soda fountain.
“This sounds fun!” Linda said as she joined the huddle.
“Oh my, I forgot, guys,” Chuck stammered, “This is my wife, Linda. We brought our boys, too. They are somewhere around here.”
“I brought my girls, too, and they are somewhere around here,“ Chris chimed in.
“So it’s so nice to see you guys,” Sammi said as she started making the round of hugs and when she got to Linda she stopped and grinned, “I’m Sammi, Samantha, but I go by Sammi. It is so nice to meet you.”
Linda smiled and greeted her with a hug.
“The boys are always so rude. That’s Fred, David and Chris,” Sammi pointed them out as she named them.
“Wow, some things never change,” Fred smiled back at the two women standing beside Chuck.
“Well, yes, back to the task at hand. Who wants coffee?” Chris spoke up for the first time.
A short time later, ten people were gathered by a Christmas tree. Six adults were watching nine and ten year old boys and two, thirteen year old girls, place ornaments on the tree.
“That task is done. Let’s open up the goodie bag,” Chuck spoke up.
In front of them.
“On the count of three,” Linda excitedly proclaimed. “Open your bag. One…two…three.”
They reached inside and pulled out a blue denim shirt. A brown card fluttered from Fred’s bag and Charlie reached down to pick it up.
“We all got shirts,” Chris held his up before him.
“There’s a Milkshake Straw patch on them,” Sammi said and she ran her hand over it.
“Here’s another postcard,” Charlie handed it to Fred.
“Do we wear these things?” Chris asked.
“I have a postcard, too,” Chuck said as Linda peered over his shoulder.
“Looks like we all do,” Sammi pulled her card from her bag.
“What’s it say?” Jillian asked excitedly edging closer to her father.
“Well, it says,” Chris said, not only to his daughter but everyone. “Put on your blue shirt and head to the place it advertises but bring a candle, baseball dirt, and a church bulletin with you. See you later!”
“A candle, baseball dirt, and a church bulletin,” Fred laughed. “Is this weird or what?”
My First Stories 