THE USUAL NOTE FROM LB: From the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2010, Gwen the Beautiful and I were the proud and often exhausted owners of a beautiful Ozarks property we called Cloud Creek Ranch.
In many ways, the ranch was paradise. But it was a paradise with a price that started going up before we even knew it existed. Here’s another Monday musing about our adventure and the lessons we learned.
Oh, and if y’all detect any irony, please believe me when I say it comes straight from the universe and not your kindly Uncle Larry B.
by Larry Brody
Gwen the Beautiful and I spent some time over at the Wayside Church last weekend.
It’s a beautiful place on a bluff alongside the Paradise River. “A kind of scenic overlook for God,” Calcy the Preacher, who also owns a towing service and an art gallery, likes to say.
He said it on that weekend at a special service none of us wanted to attend.
A funeral for one of the most popular and influential men in the county.
Uncle Ernie.
Back in Los Angeles, I had a friend who correctly referred to himself as “Star Maker.” Here in Paradise, Uncle Ernie just as rightly called himself, “Mayor Maker.”
Without his approval, no man, woman, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or just plain maverick, got on the ballot for any local or countywide office.
The man had power because people loved him, unlike so many who are loved because they have power. Uncle Ernie smiled, listened, approved. He laughed and hugged and made everyone feel good, a tall, imposing man who never used his size to intimidate. Only to coddle.
Uncle Ernie’s death from a massive heart attack took us all by surprise. The church was packed with mourning friends and community leaders.
The service was far from short. Speaker after speaker expressed genuine shock and sorrow and admitted to not having anywhere near the right words to console Uncle Ernie’s widow, Edda, for her loss.
In her place in the first row of pews, Edda sniffled and shrieked and rocked. How she rocked! Bobbing like a boat cast adrift. It was clear to all of us that she was just as lost.
Finally, about a hundred “close friends and family” adjourned to Uncle Ernie’s and Edda’s farm, and in those familiar surroundings Edda composed herself and said a few words of her own.
“Thank y’all for coming,” she said from the creaking front porch swing. (She was still rocking, and the swing felt the strain.) “Especially since there was nothing for any of y’all to gain. Ain’t no way Ernie can help anybody now.
“He was a great man,” Edda went on. “Took care of me and our children and this county. Said he was a ‘steward of the people,’ and stayed honest and true. That’s the part that’s most important to me as his wife. His honesty. And the love that came in a straight line from his heart to mine. A day didn’t go by Ernie didn’t show me how much he loved me. A day didn’t go by that he didn’t show me with real writing.”
I’d wondered what was in the big barrels on the porch. Edda reached into one and held up a handful of pieces of paper.
“These’re his letters to me,” she said. “A lifetime of love letters. I’d like y’all to see this side of the man. I hope you’ll read these and get to know him the way I did.”
That was as long as she could hold it together. Edda shrieked, and two of the strapping sons she and Uncle Ernie had had together carried her inside.
Those of us in attendance glanced around at each other. Jimmy Blue, Uncle Ernie’s best friend since they were toddlers, looked puzzled.
“He never told me about any love letters,” he said. He went up to the porch and brought back several of the pieces of paper to share with Gwen and me.
I started to read, then stopped. Uncle Ernie hadn’t intended for anyone but Edda to see these. I couldn’t get myself to intrude.
Gwen and Jimmy Blue chose to respect the living instead. They read on.
Stopping at about the same time. “Time for me to go,” Jimmy Blue said.
“Us too,” said Gwen.
Jimmy Blue started for his truck. Turned back to us. He spoke tightly. “Never did like that woman. Damn her to hell!”
He trudged away. I looked at Gwen. “What’s that all about?”
“The letters,” she said. “Every single one of them is Uncle Ernie apologizing for doing something that hurt Edda. Or for not doing something and hurting her that way. They don’t show Uncle Ernie as a great man. Far from it.”
“Edda wants us to see him as a bad husband?” I said. “As a jerk?”
“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “Maybe to her the fact that he apologized was the real sign of his love.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Exactly,” Gwen said.
