3. The orchards of Baxter apples that you and I pick from every fall and make apple butter or have somebody make for us is now owned by Mayor Gregory who is carrying on the tradition of letting townspeople pick there for free. But once again: PICK UP YOUR TRASH!!!! And thank you Mayor Gregory!!

4. Thirteen rooms at Childrens Hospital in Wesley were given by Miss Sadie who said it was one for each apostle plus One room in honor of her dear lifelong friend Louella Baxter Marshall a resident at our own beautiful Hope House. Have you ever been to Hope House? You should go and take the children and sing hymns and kiss the elderly (though not in flu season)—they would LOVE it and so would YOU!!!!

5. The slate roof on the historic Lord’s Chapel (her father gave the whole church in nineteen hundred and something—Mr. Hogan w eigh in on the exact date pls)

The plaque will be written by Fr Timothy Kavanagh her dear friend and priest who will say all the wonderful things on the plaque that you and I don’t know how to say.

So I hope you will get behind this and go see the plaque at our Town Museum any time after November 1, admission to students and senior citizens $2. $4 to everybody else opposite the monument. Be sure and play the jukebox, all proceeds go to the new Guttering Project.

P. S. We did receive 14 votes for Father Tim as Leading Citizen 7 for Winnie Ivey who gives bakery goods to the needy –4 for Wanda Basinger who has given us such a great place to have a nice lunch (a big YUM on the fries)—2 for Coot Hendrik who is a town fixture and 1 for me, I am so HONORED to be included—thank you!!

•   •   •

AT ELEVEN-THIRTY, he had $32.67 in the till.

J.C. swung in with his briefcase, deposited it on the sales counter. ‘So what do you think of today’s lead?’

‘Very good, excellent. It’s about time we recognized all she did for us. I agree one hundred percent. Why didn’t somebody tell me I’m writing the plaque?’

‘You didn’t ask,’ said J.C.

‘Buy a book.’

‘I don’t have time to read.’

‘Buy a book anyway. We need the money.’

‘What should I buy?’

‘Something by Churchill. Or David McCullough. Or a book of poetry—that would give you a good worming.’

Or, he wanted to say, how about a book on whacking the exclamation mark, getting to know the comma, giving the quote mark a try?

‘I’ll pop your briefcase under the counter and you can have at it. Free coffee to your left.’

‘I’m in,’ said J.C.

•   •   •

‘DON’T TRY TO SELL ME A BOOK, Father, I’m not here to buy a book, I’m here to read my needlepoint magazine in peace and drink somebody else’s coffee and try to get my nerves settled. Think “freeload” when you see me comin’.’

Winnie Kendall had a frazzled look.

‘We have never had such a run on fig newtons, I don’t understand it, hardly anybody eats fig newtons anymore, but sixteen dozen down th’ hatch since Monday, we think it’s somethin’ goin’ on at th’ college in Wesley. An’ th’ OMC, oh, my Lord, it is sailin’ out of there by th’ slice an’ whole, ’cause everybody wants to see if I got it right, an’ some don’t mind tellin’ me I didn’t even though I go exactly by the recipe. So Thomas said, “For th’ Lord’s sake, Winnie, go up to th’ bookstore for a while and I’ll handle things down here.”

‘God love ’er, Hope has let me do this little trick for three years—it is a lifesaver.’

‘Make yourself at home,’ he said. ‘Take a chair, any chair.’

‘I like th’ one in th’ Poetry section. Hardly anybody ever wanders back there.’

‘Ah, but there’s a poetry renaissance coming, I hear. A slender volume recently hit the Times’ bestseller list. A first!’

‘Oh, boy,’ said Winnie, giving him a wink. ‘That’ll run me over to Ancient Greek History for sure.’

•   •   •

HE WAS READING the Muse when the best-looking woman in town stopped by.

‘Listen to this,’ he said. ‘“Make your magnolia leaves shine! Just rub on any cooking oil and voila! Dry, dusty leaves in indoor arrangements look brand-new.” Did you know this?’

His wife handed over a box of raisins. ‘We don’t have any magnolia leaves in indoor arrangements.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘in case we ever do.’

•   •   •

HE RANG JEB ADDERHOLT.

‘Better let me get it back to you, Father. Wouldn’t want you on th’ road in it.’

‘But you shouldn’t be driving it, either.’

‘Nossir, we’ll tow it over.’

‘Put it in the garage next to my wife’s car,’ he said. ‘Back it in for me, if you would.’

Red Mustang turns into white elephant.

No customers were around when the mayor came in, just Winnie reading the bedraggled Sunday Times in her hideout.

Andrew sat on the stool in front of the sales counter. ‘This is confidential, Father. Anyone about?’

‘Someone’s in the Poetry section,’ he said. ‘You might keep your voice down.’

He had never admitted to anyone, including Cynthia, that there had been talk of Tim Kavanagh running for mayor. Esther and Andrew had both suggested it in years past and J.C. and Mule had supported the notion.

But all that time and tribulation and weighing of issues—and no vote? The mayor was but a ceremonial head. As for the pay—last time he heard, it was $200 a month, which was probably commensurate with the weight of the issues involved.

The toughest call the council had faced in the last couple of years was whether to allow dogs in Baxter Park. Why, dogs had visited Baxter Park for as long as he could remember—and now they could enjoy it legally, always a good thing.

Even if he could get elected, it wasn’t as if it were a lifetime commitment. Two years and you were done, unless, of course, you ran and were elected again. He could do two years. Maybe he could make a difference, though things around town seemed perfectly fine to him. As for the notion of increasing tourism, it was unquestionably a nonpolluting way of improving the economy, and most tourists were harmless, anyway. All they wanted was to get out of the heat, have a nice lunch, take up the parking spaces, and go home until the following summer.

‘Esther Cunningham was in to see me,’ said the mayor.

‘Wanting her old job back!’ he said.

‘How did you know?’

‘I was kidding. But you’re serious?’

‘Not entirely. It’s more like she wants to give me input on how to handle the job in general and hammer the merchants in particular. A kind of Mafia arrangement in which she’s the godfather, and I’m the capo who dunks ’em in concrete and drops ’em in the river.’

‘Esther, Esther,’ he said.

‘She’s legendary, of course, and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she runs again. How old is she, anyway?’

‘Seventysomething is my guess. Maybe more.’

‘If she tosses in her hat,’ said Andrew, ‘she’ll have no opposition from me. I will not run against Hannibal and his elephants.’

‘Good thinking.’

‘But that’s not why I stepped over to see you. I’d like to ask you to do something important.’

So much for the mayor business; this would probably be the town council pitch. Which meant spending money out of pocket, giving talks, shaking hands, kissing babies, and trying to wither the opponents, if there were any. He was glad he’d worn his best jacket; this was serious stuff.

‘This is a big one,’ said Andrew. ‘We like to work well in advance on this one.’

The mayor was beaming. ‘I’m asking you to be grand marshal of the Independence Day parade next July. You’d be driving Miss Sadie’s ’58 Plymouth Belvedere. It looks like it just rolled off the showroom floor.’

There was something outright consoling about the especially vigorous handshake.

•   •   •

‘M’ NAME’S IN TODAY’S PAPER.’

At one-thirty, the ravenous bookstore clerk was eating his sandwich and Coot Hendrik was wearing a grin that Uncle Billy would have said ‘like to busted his face open.’