Standing in the Rainbow (16 page)

Norma’s aunt Elner, a regular listener who almost never missed Dorothy’s show, had a soft spot as well.

The following morning Mother Smith started off the show with a rousing rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” “That’s right, Mother, it is a happy day over here and I can start the show with good news. I have gone into my own personal voting booth and voted Elner Shimfissle for the Good Neighbor of the Year Award. After the show yesterday she called us and said that she would take the little cat and yesterday afternoon she and her husband, Will, came to pick him up. So our little orange orphan has a nice home on a farm. This is the fifth cat she has taken this year, so thank you, Elner. She said she didn’t have an orange one and has always wanted one. So it’s turned out fine for everybody . . . and she has named the cat Sonny. . . . So good luck to Sonny in his new home.

“People are just wonderful, aren’t they? And now, to celebrate our big day . . .” Mother Smith played a touch of “Happy Birthday” on the organ. “Yes . . . it’s our precious Princess Mary Margaret’s birthday . . . and she thanks all of you out there in her fan club for her birthday cards . . . and we’ll tell you more about that later. But first, I just want to remind you that each and every donation you are so kind to send in to the Princess Mary Margaret Fund goes to help pay for the care of our little animals that need our help. I am happy to report that last year we found loving homes for over five hundred little dogs and cats, plus a box of painted turtles that had been abandoned and three rabbits. Plus funding for a Seeing Eye dog for our own Beatrice Woods.

“The dog came last week and is a beautiful golden retriever named Honey, and if you could only see Beatrice and Honey walking up and down the streets, you would know what a wonderful cause your money went to. How can we ever thank you enough?

“I also wish you all could see Princess Mary Margaret in her basket with all of her new birthday toys. Our girl is twelve years old today. It’s so hard to believe that when Doc brought her to me she was no bigger than my hand . . . wasn’t she, Mother Smith? And now she’s as big and fat as I am. I guess that comes from both of us eating too much ice cream. Here’s a card I want to share with you . . . it says,

“Happy Birthday to Princess Mary Margaret.

I hope you have a happy day. Keep up the good work.

Mother, Bess, and Margaret send their best wishes.

President Harry S. Truman”

Mother Smith played “Hail to the Chief” on the organ. Neighbor Dorothy laughed and continued, “After the show Princess Mary Margaret is going to get her special birthday hot dog from Jimmy at the Trolley Car Diner, then she’s going to go across the street to the shoe hospital and visit with her friend Bottle Top. Poor Princess Mary Margaret, she gets so excited—she loves that cat. I don’t know why, he doesn’t care a thing in the world about her. But love is blind, as they say. . . .”

More Changes

T
he phone rang about two o’clock in the morning and Doc figured it was just another call from someone who needed something in the middle of the night. He often had to get up out of bed at all hours and go down and open up the drugstore for mothers who needed paregoric or cough medicine for sick children, or else it would be Tot Whooten on the phone calling to have Doc go find her mother, who had wandered off, or else help her get James off the lawn and into the house before the sun came up. But it was neither. It was Olla Warren telling him that his best friend, Glenn, who ran the hardware store, had just had a heart attack.

He hung up and was dressed and over at their house in less than five minutes and Dorothy was right behind him. When they arrived young Dr. Halling was already there and an ambulance was on the way. The next few days were touch-and-go but Glenn finally came home from the hospital with a warning to take it easy for the next few months. So his son, Macky, would have to run the hardware store for him until he got back on his feet. Bobby sort of hero-worshiped Macky, especially since he had pulled him out of the pool and saved his life. But he was someone all the younger boys looked up to. He was not only a movie usher but a top football and baseball player. Some said he was so good at shortstop he could play professional ball if he wanted. Bobby felt bad about Macky’s father being sick and Macky having to work all summer but he did not know what to do or say.

Several nights later Doc was sitting in the parlor reading the paper when Bobby came in. He went over and spun the world globe sitting on the desk a few times, picked up a pipe out of Doc’s pipe holder, looked at it and put it back, and then he said, “Daddy, I need to talk to you.” By the seriousness of his tone, Doc was prepared for the worst and wondered what trouble he had gotten himself into now.

“You know that baseball we got at the World Series?” Bobby said.

“Yes.”

“Well, I know you caught it and all but would you be mad at me if I was to loan it to Macky Warren for a while? I was over at the hardware store today. And I remembered he sure liked that ball when I showed it to him . . . I could tell by the way he looked at it. What do you think?”

“It’s your ball, son, and if that’s what you want to do, it’s fine with me.”

Bobby said, “I’ve been thinking about it—I’m not sure yet if I will or not. I just wanted to see if it would be all right if I did.”

“I see.”

Doc didn’t say anything more but he was secretly pleased. It looked as if despite all of Bobby’s antics and craziness, underneath it all he was turning out to be a really nice guy.

Although some things about Bobby changed for the better, some remained the same. This morning he was standing in the hall causing trouble as usual.

Neighbor Dorothy was on the air and informed her listening audience, “If you are wondering what that noise is, it’s not your receiver—it’s Bobby with that bat, the ball paddle . . . bat . . . bat . . . bat . . . he’s about to drive us all batty over here.

“Bobby, I want you out of this house with that thing right now!

“Would the person who invented that bat, the ball paddle, let me know who they are? Bat, bat, bat, night and day, just when he was getting over his yearly bubble-gum-blowing phase. So, if any of you out there don’t have a little boy and want one, call me. . . .”

Having been thrown out of his own home and tired of batting the ball, Bobby was bored and restless. So far, this had not been the best of summers. Besides almost drowning, he had just lost the Bazooka Bubble Gum Bubble Blowing Contest for the third year in a row, Monroe was out of town visiting his grandparents for a month, it was hot, and he had nothing to do. He went downtown and floated around, had a free lime freeze at the drugstore, read a few comic books, and went over and hung around the barbershop for a while until mean Old Man Henderson came in. Everyone knew he poisoned cats and hated children, so Bobby left in a hurry. Then he decided to go up and hang out with Snooky at the projection booth at the movie theater. It was a weekday, so the movie was not playing anything he wanted to see but he liked visiting with Snooky, who sometimes let him rewind the film. As soon as he walked through the glass doors and into the lobby he began to feel better. No matter how hot it was outside, inside the theater it was always cool and he loved the smell and the sounds of the huge glass popcorn machine grinding and popping all day. He went over and bought himself a large red-and-white-striped bag of buttered popcorn and a box of Milk Duds and a Coke for himself and one for Snooky. If you have money, why not spend it? Bobby had three jobs and his pockets were so full of change and new tubes of BBs that his pants kept slipping down. Other than working for his father, he had a paper route and cut grass but he longed for the day he would turn sixteen and be able to apply for the job of movie usher. He couldn’t wait to get his own brass-buttoned uniform with a cap and be assigned his very own long silver flashlight with the red plastic on the end. It was something to look forward to but that was years away. He needed something more immediate and Snooky gave it to him. His eyes lit up when Snooky said, “I hear some people from St. Louis are coming here and are fixing to open up a brand-new fancy restaurant.”

“Really?” Bobby ran out of the booth and ran up and down the street asking everybody all about it. It turned out to be true!

The A&P grocery store was moving across the street to a bigger space, where the Goodyear tire store used to be before they moved into the back of Western Auto. He was excited. The pending opening would be quite an event for Bobby. As far as he could remember, since the day he was born this would be the first time anything in town had ever changed.

Every day he went down and watched the grocery store being turned into a restaurant. He saw tables and chairs and all sorts of kitchen equipment and steam tables being moved in the back door. He watched them change the tan-and-white awning to a pink-and-white one and hung little half curtains in the windows. The whole town was dying to know what kind of a restaurant was coming but that was the big mystery. People guessed at what it might be, but they all had to wait for the night of the grand opening and what a surprise it turned out to be.

In the middle of the night workmen came in and attached a long sign, still covered in brown wrapping paper, to the front of the building. It was not to be taken off until the grand opening. Finally the big moment arrived. At exactly 8:30 the paper was removed, and everybody standing downtown that night waiting, including Bobby and the entire family, applauded when they saw the sign plugged in for the first time. A pink neon sign is something . . . but a pink neon sign the shape of a pig that runs in a circle and blinks on and off set everyone wild. Oh the wonder of it! The downright cuteness of it! A little fat pink pig with that little curly tail that circled around and around over a sign that read

Three Little Pigs Cafeteria
Good Food in a Hurry

was a sight that caused people to practically knock the door down trying to get in. Even if there had been no pink neon pig, just the word
cafeteria
was enough to stir up everyone for miles around. They had all heard of a café, a diner, even a sandwich shop but an eating establishment called a cafeteria sounded so modern, so up to date and fashionable . . . urbane even. Bobby thought the whole idea of sliding your own brown plastic tray down a long line of clear glass cases filled with every kind of food you could think of, and all you had to do was point at what you wanted, was paradise. They had
ever
y
thing: Jell-O squares with shredded carrots and green grapes inside, vegetables, meat, fish, rolls, corn sticks, and any kind of beverage or dessert you could want. They even offered foreign food, Italian spaghetti and Chinese chicken chow mein. What next, everyone wondered?

Several women in town, after seeing all the varieties of food available, vowed they would never fix dinner at home again and three or four didn’t.

Ida Jenkins, Norma’s mother, was so impressed that she dropped the word
cafeteria
in every sentence she could.

Of course, it took a while for people to get used to it and realize that they had to watch what the kids chose. The first night Bobby picked out three desserts and two bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy. And when Poor Tot took her mother up there for dinner, her mother put sixteen corn sticks and four iced teas on her tray. Tot tried to put a few back but her mother kicked and yelled so, she had to take her home.

But other than that and a few people dropping their trays before they got to their tables, it was a very welcome addition to the town. Inside and out. Now added to the orange-and-white neon sign that ran around the marquee of the movie theater, the bright green neon of the Victor the Florist sign, and the blue-and-white neon of the Blue Ribbon Cleaners and the Rexall drugstore was the big-pink-neon-pig-running-in-a-circle sign.

Main Street was suddenly ablaze with color. Looking at it from the Smiths’ front porch was wonderful. The whole street glowed in the night and looked as bright and as cheerful as a Ferris wheel.

September Again?