Peter Newton

Effie

Frank's voice carries the sound of someone who inhaled every day of his double-digit years. It is the proud voice of an old man who believes in roots who never ventured far from the small town he was born in. His words are as close to the God's Truth as I am ever going to hear. Each time I see him outside the post office, I listen to what Old Frank has to say. I don't always know what he is talking about, but know, on the scale of What Matters, it does.

Most people nod when they pass him on his park bench. Maybe someone chimes in an amen for that and he's in Frank's good graces for another week.

That's the beauty part of small town life. You meet up at the post office, exchange pleasantries and off you go, flung back into the world with a handshake. Onto the next errand, job interview, walls of boredom, what have you. It's downright Mayberry all over again. A by-gone era. Right now, I plop myself down on one end of the bench just to hear Old Frank tell how much he loved his pickups. He had a string of them after the war and before getting married. All E's. Esther, Eve, Ethel, Evelyn. But his last. A '57. Oh dear, he says. A golden blonde and full of curves you couldn't help but give her a name. Hand-paint it on the driver's side door just beside where he always hooked his elbow.

day lilies
every last one
leans into dusk