Dealing With It-7 Where There's Smoke

                                          

Strauss Walker, John's cousin, lived in Los Angeles and rode a bus to Grants Pass to visit the Landers one summer.  In the course of their lives, he and John had developed an extremely close friendship.  At the end of his visit, John drove Strauss to the bus depot along with Eunice and Ella Maude.  There was much hugging and Strauss was tearing up a bit as he held Ella Maude and told her how he would miss her.  She too was shedding tears as she told him she also would miss him.  They all waved as the Greyhound pulled away and Ella Maude caught Eunice's sleeve and asked, "Who was that man?"

Our long term couch surfer had become a member of our family. Brought home like a stray cat by John, he seemed to fit our particular environment with his wit, his guitar playing of pub songs rendered with a nice "This ain't no good life, but it's my life" feeling. He had suffered infantile paralysis as a teen ager and it left him with a hump-back slonch-wise walk but after you knew Don and enjoyed his cheerful personality you never saw the disability. Don earned his keep by managing Ella Maude and he often said he marveled at how her mind worked. He would compliment her on her rock collection (Grandma picked up rocks from the fields around the house) which she kept in a corner of her room.  The rocks had no special features. They were just rocks.

One afternoon John was taking a walk and Don was reading on the couch when he thought he smelled smoke. When he investigated he found it was coming from Ella Maude's room but when he tried to open the door it wouldn't budge.  He put his shoulder to it and managed to get it open a few inches so he could look through the gap where he saw Ella Maude across the room with a maniacal look on her face. She had set fire to a wad of newspapers and it was a chest of drawers she had slid over to block the door.  Don was screaming at Ella Maude who selected one of her prize rocks and like Babe Ruth lobbing one in from deep center field, she drilled McDougal right between the eyes.  He dropped like a pole-axed ox but the day was saved by Eunice who had returned from the chicken house and with an adrenaline fueled lunge,  moved the door enough for her to get in and stomp out the fire.  

Don rallied and helped Eunice with Ella Maude while she cleaned up the mess.  The two of them removed the door from the middle bedroom. A close call.

Don moved on and a year or two later so did Ella Maude to the Granite Hill cemetery out River Road from Grants Pass. Many years later curiosity prompted me to visit the cemetery and I brushed the dirt and twigs from her stone marker.  I did notice the leaves on the tree overhanging her grave were kind of crinkled and strange looking. 

                                                              Roll the credits

                                                     Editor                      Jeffrey Landers

                                          Key Witness                       Bill Landers

                                                Catering                        Russellville Park

                                               Best Boy                         Methuselah

                William Tell Overture Music                       Lone Ranger

                                                   Drugs                         Grants Pass Pharmacy

                                                        

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