Read Online Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories by Jean Shepherd - Free Book Online

SPEED!”
    The crowd hunched forward with expectancy. Even the kids were quiet. The thunder of the motorcycles had reached the point where no more sound could be endured. The whole structure—the floor, the guy wires, the back teeth, everything—vibrated to the scream of the Harleys. Down in the pit, there was a quick shuffling of bodies and it was done.
    â€œFer Chrissake, how d’y like that! I wouldna’ believed it!” said the oldman to no one in particular. The minister, his black hat hanging at a rakish angle, applauded frantically.
    Once again we were out on the midway, 50 cents poorer but infinitely richer in worldly experience.
    My mother, who was eating a piece of watermelon, said plaintively, “I haven t seen the quilts yet
    â€œI wanna go on the Ferris wheel,” whined my brother for the 298th time.
    â€œI thought you were gonna see em when we went to the races,” said the old man, ignoring him for the 298th time.
    â€œWe went to the cookie tasting instead.”
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œThe cookie tasting. Over by where they were having the artistic flower arranging.”
    The old man said nothing and headed for a three-story-high orange face that laughed madly under a sign that read FUN HOUSE. He hoped that by not answering, she would forget the quilts.
    â€œMrs. Wimple has a quilt in this year,” she persisted. “Bernice Wimple, from the club.”
    My mother belonged to a dart-ball club that staged mysterious contests in the church basement every Thursday. Bernice Wimple played for the La Porte, Indiana, Bearcats, a legendary dart-ball team.
    It’s a Thomas Jefferson quilt,” she continued, wiping a watermelon seed off her chin with a paper napkin that said HAVE FUN in blue letters over an American flag.
    My father, realizing he’d have to say
something,
stalled for time: “What the hell kinda quilt is that?”
    â€œWell, it’s a patriotic quilt that has the face of Thomas Jefferson on it, done in cross-stitch.”
    â€œOh, well!
That
I gotta see!” said my father sarcastically.
    After a ten-minute search, we finally found the tent with the quilt exhibit, under strings of yellow light bulbs. The quilts were tacked up all around, stretched tight, so that their designs could be admired respectfully from behind a rope by the motley throng of art lovers. Mrs. Wimple’s entry was among them. We stood before the portrait
    â€œHe looks a little cross-eyed to me,” the old man observed accurately.
    â€œI think it’s very pretty. Mrs. Wimple worked seven years on it.”
    We peered at the third-place ribbon it sported and moved on to look at the others. The winning quilt had a stand to itself. It bore a spectacular portrait of Old Faithful on a yellow background framed by purple mountains and surrounded by a herd of animals: a moose, an elk,two bighorn sheep, a bunny with pink eyes and what appeared to be a hippopotamus. Above this scene in Old English-style red, white and blue letters was the following profundity:
    The Beauty of Our Glorious Land Is Surpassed Only by God’s Blessed Handiwork.
    -Roswell T. Blount, L.L.D.
    â€œNow, that’s what I call pretty,” said my father solemnly, reading the inscription. We all agreed that it was pretty.
    Most of the quilts ran heavily to such patriotic themes, except for one that had a ribbon for UNUSUAL SUBJECT-HONORABLE MENTION. It was a full-color portrait done on a background of grass green. The eyes of the subject, staring beadily out from under his familiar cap, stopped the old man dead in his tracks.
    â€œWell, I’ll be damned. I’ll be a son of a bitch!”
    We stood in awe before this transcendent work of art
    â€œI never thought I’d see Luke Appling on a quilt!” Sure enough, it was a ruddy likeness of old Luke himself, the foul-ball king of the American League. My father, a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan, was visibly moved.