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Authors: Ed Lynskey
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wiggling under the sod.”
Blue snickered behind his gnarled, liver-spotted hand while Isabel failed to see much hilarity in Ossie’s latest ridiculous speculation. Kicking around Ray Burl’s murder amounted to the monumental waste of time as she’d predicted it would be. She cleared her throat extra loud while checking her wristwatch, and Alma knew their meeting was finished.
She said their good mornings and thanks to the Three Musketeers. She refused to acknowledge Isabel’s smug I-told-you-so expression as they strolled away over the sidewalk, leaving the bench and its three occupants whispering all at the same time. The sun was shining, they had a new topic to chew on, and life was never any more peachy keen, as Willie liked to put it.
Chapter 9
I sabel missed the simple pleasures of using her own porch, front or back, since their brick rambler on Church Street lacked for one. Whenever she and Alma rode down the block, she had porch envy while observing the older homes offering their lucky dwellers the amenity. Their sturdy clapboard of a farmhouse on the outskirts of Quiet Anchorage had been blessed with a wraparound porch. Their mother, Gwendolyn, had referred to it as the “verandah,” giving it an eloquent sound.
You could loll on the verandah with plenty of room to spare and sip your mint juleps, or in their case, Mason jar glasses of iced tea. All the girls learned Southern ladies sipped their iced tea while the boys guzzled their beer. The heartthrobs and heartbreaks of boys had lurked further on the horizon for the Trumbo sisters.
Isabel’s most memorable boyfriend was The Indigo Kid, so called because he played a blue guitar. His dreams of stardom far outstripped his musical talents, what she had told him during their stormy breakup. Much later, he made his fortune by playing the stock market. So it went.
The ideal hours to savor their porch sitting fell during twilight when darkness took its sweet, old time to drape its deep purple shawl over the farm. Mark Twain, relaxing dressed in his signature white linen suit while puffing on a stogie, was an avid porch sitter. If it was good enough for the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, then it had to be good enough for everybody else in America.
Listening to their herd of dairy cows munching on the succulent pasture grass, she’d sway to and fro in the bentwood willow rocker. The sisters sat and gabbed, their deft fingers shelling the lima beans and black-eyed peas they’d picked from the vegetable garden in the early morning cool. They collected the shelled lima beans and black-eyed peas in galvanized tin colanders for later washing, cooking, and canning. The filled Mason jars of lima beans and black-eyed peas stayed on shelves in the root cellar throughout the winter months.
Television was still the futuristic stuff of the Dick Tracy comic strips, and air conditioning was a ways off for the Trumbos. Electricity had arrived via the REA’s copper wires strung from the poles, and the Trumbos had interior lights. They banned the electric lights’ harsh glare from emblazing the porch and ruining its homespun tableau. Sometime right along there, Isabel had aided Watson and Holmes in tracking down the Baskervilles’ devil hound terrifying the Scottish moors. From then on, she was hooked for life as a reader. Later, Dame Agatha taught Isabel the ladies could also be detectives, something she passed on to Alma.
There was more awesome porchside diversions for the sisters. They often played popular card games like Hearts and Old Maid or board games like Monopoly and Mahjong. Scrabble came later after it’d been trademarked in 1948 and licensed to the Selchow & Righter Company. Isabel knew the manufacturer’s information printed inside the box lid since they still played using the same old game board.
Over the night insects’ loopy jazz, Isabel could discern the nearby Coronet River gurgling over its sandbars and rocks with its bright musical notes.
Blue snickered behind his gnarled, liver-spotted hand while Isabel failed to see much hilarity in Ossie’s latest ridiculous speculation. Kicking around Ray Burl’s murder amounted to the monumental waste of time as she’d predicted it would be. She cleared her throat extra loud while checking her wristwatch, and Alma knew their meeting was finished.
She said their good mornings and thanks to the Three Musketeers. She refused to acknowledge Isabel’s smug I-told-you-so expression as they strolled away over the sidewalk, leaving the bench and its three occupants whispering all at the same time. The sun was shining, they had a new topic to chew on, and life was never any more peachy keen, as Willie liked to put it.
Chapter 9
I sabel missed the simple pleasures of using her own porch, front or back, since their brick rambler on Church Street lacked for one. Whenever she and Alma rode down the block, she had porch envy while observing the older homes offering their lucky dwellers the amenity. Their sturdy clapboard of a farmhouse on the outskirts of Quiet Anchorage had been blessed with a wraparound porch. Their mother, Gwendolyn, had referred to it as the “verandah,” giving it an eloquent sound.
You could loll on the verandah with plenty of room to spare and sip your mint juleps, or in their case, Mason jar glasses of iced tea. All the girls learned Southern ladies sipped their iced tea while the boys guzzled their beer. The heartthrobs and heartbreaks of boys had lurked further on the horizon for the Trumbo sisters.
Isabel’s most memorable boyfriend was The Indigo Kid, so called because he played a blue guitar. His dreams of stardom far outstripped his musical talents, what she had told him during their stormy breakup. Much later, he made his fortune by playing the stock market. So it went.
The ideal hours to savor their porch sitting fell during twilight when darkness took its sweet, old time to drape its deep purple shawl over the farm. Mark Twain, relaxing dressed in his signature white linen suit while puffing on a stogie, was an avid porch sitter. If it was good enough for the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, then it had to be good enough for everybody else in America.
Listening to their herd of dairy cows munching on the succulent pasture grass, she’d sway to and fro in the bentwood willow rocker. The sisters sat and gabbed, their deft fingers shelling the lima beans and black-eyed peas they’d picked from the vegetable garden in the early morning cool. They collected the shelled lima beans and black-eyed peas in galvanized tin colanders for later washing, cooking, and canning. The filled Mason jars of lima beans and black-eyed peas stayed on shelves in the root cellar throughout the winter months.
Television was still the futuristic stuff of the Dick Tracy comic strips, and air conditioning was a ways off for the Trumbos. Electricity had arrived via the REA’s copper wires strung from the poles, and the Trumbos had interior lights. They banned the electric lights’ harsh glare from emblazing the porch and ruining its homespun tableau. Sometime right along there, Isabel had aided Watson and Holmes in tracking down the Baskervilles’ devil hound terrifying the Scottish moors. From then on, she was hooked for life as a reader. Later, Dame Agatha taught Isabel the ladies could also be detectives, something she passed on to Alma.
There was more awesome porchside diversions for the sisters. They often played popular card games like Hearts and Old Maid or board games like Monopoly and Mahjong. Scrabble came later after it’d been trademarked in 1948 and licensed to the Selchow & Righter Company. Isabel knew the manufacturer’s information printed inside the box lid since they still played using the same old game board.
Over the night insects’ loopy jazz, Isabel could discern the nearby Coronet River gurgling over its sandbars and rocks with its bright musical notes.
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