An Old Friend

The drive down Douglas was very emotional. Tears welled in my eyes as I knew Ruth was piloting the car. I just had my hands on the wheel.

I didn’t know why she brought me to Plainwell, but I knew she did. I drove past Fred’s, long since gone. Ruth and her family ate dinner there hundreds of times. It was their “go to” spot. She took me there for French fries covered in brown gravy.

Jensen’s clothing store was across the street from Fred’s, but it’s gone too. I bought a sport coat there while I worked in Plainwell. It was a brown plaid jacket that I wore for several years.

Campbell’s Drug Store is still going strong but it’s Campbell’s Pharmacy now.

I wondered when I turned left onto M-89 if I was supposed to stop at the gazebo her dad built. It sits smack dab in the center of town. We’d stopped there a couple years ago when the city took the forty-foot tree that used to sit in her front yard on Benhoy Avenue. The city sets up a tree each year for the Christmas season in the park near the gazebo. Ruth was proud that the city selected her parents’ tree even though her parents had been gone for decades. We took pictures that day of the tree, the gazebo, and the photo that featured her dad working on the project. It’s a piece of local history that’s been sitting there for over forty-five-years.

But that wasn’t it. After a couple more blocks, I knew I was supposed to stop to see Evie Sell. Evie and her husband, Jim, lived next door to Ruth and her family. They were in their thirties when Ruth graduated from high school. Ruth sat with their three girls when they were young. Years later, Ruth and I watched the girls, Nancy, Jan, and Susan when the Sells went away on business. I had Nancy and Jan in my eighth grade English classes. I had taken the job in Addison by the time Susan hit middle school.

I pulled into Evie’s driveway not knowing if she was home. The last time I was there I was with Ruth, and we went unannounced. Ruth was prone to that. Stop in to see old friends hoping they’d be there. I rang the doorbell, waited a minute or so, and she came to the door. As she looked through the window I asked, “Remember me?”

“Yes, of course, you never change.”

I walked in and hugged my ninety-year-old friend. We had a moment. I still have them when I see someone I haven’t seen since Ruth’s death. Popcorn memories explode in my mind, and when we hugged, I had a popper full.

I walked through a house that looked just the same as when Ruth and I cared for the girls. Jim was a dentist and a “Michigan Man”. Michigan is everywhere and I like that.

Evie brought me up to date on her three girls and their families, and I did the same. After the initial chit chat, I said, “Ruth brought me to see you.” And she said, “I’m not surprised.”

I told Evie that I felt Ruth was keeping in touch with me and the kids. I spoke of the smoke alarm on the night she died, and smoke alarm tweets that the kids and I have experienced since then. I shared the story about our Florida lamp that Ruth took over when my friend, Gary, visited. I told her about the dozens of days that Ruth peeked into my current life, including BZ’s experience with the ghost perfume, and the psychic I met on a plane a month ago.

She wasn’t surprised by any of it. She knows, too, because as she said, “Jim’s still here”. And then she rattled off examples of her own.

I’ve known Evie for fifty-four years. Except for a few wrinkles, she looks the same. She has the same haircut, the same eyes, and most assuredly, the same demeanor. She’s full of life and ready to share.

Ruth brought me to see Evie because she couldn’t make the trip. Ruth’s parents died over forty years ago. One of the few times we visited their graves in Plainwell was when her sister, Shirley, died. That was ten years ago. We’d been in the area dozens of times when David and his family moved to Hamilton. Sometimes we drove right by the cemetery, and each time we passed, I asked Ruth if she wanted to stop. She always declined. I didn’t know why until now.

TBC