Doing a little research for my next book project -- the one to come after the spring release of a book I wrote by working for 18 months during the first 1.5 years of the pandemic -- I came upon something I wrote about an older gentleman in Nashville. Well, actually I wrote about him plenty. And spent even more idle hours with him on the porch on the front of the house he and his wife have occupied for 69 years. Probably 90 percent of the people I wrote about during my long and eventually ill-fated newspaper career have died, as will I, of course, eventually. And I worry about this gentleman. He doesn't want to be bothered for stories and such any more."Done that with you. No need to do more." Besides that, with COVID in the air, he still stays inside, all the time. But it cheers him (and this old man) up when I check in on him now and then. "I'm 105 and-a-half now, so I must be doing pretty good," he said, with the laugh that lifts my heart when I called him Friday. The young woman he took as his wife long ago is 99 and was cooking and cleaning the house when I called. "She's doin' pretty good," he said, happily. "Gunsmoke" or some cowpoke drama was playing on the television behind our conversation.
This nice home in a bustling part of the city is a property that developers lust after so they can plant three or four of those shitty tall-skinnies. The young white people have come in and landlords and greedy developers have chased most of his neighbors away.
My friend is not attracted to the streams of cash offers left on his front doorstep and mailbox. "If I sold this, I couldn't afford anyplace else," he said. "And we like it here. I can't remember how long ago it was I paid my last note."He asked me to call back, which I'll do. And he doesn't answer every call. "I just thought it must be you when the phone rang."
My time long ago ran out at the local newspapers. They didn't want my stories about regular people, particularly minorities, in their pages. Not the demographic they were after, I was told.
It was my demographic, though. Still is.
So, I sit here in my office and try to remember to check in on my old friends, who began as story subjects. The dead ones don't answer their phones, although some have answering machines I talk to.
Friday I got lucky to be cheered up by this old friend. Nope, not making money doing this, but, fuck, as my old pal Ricky Nelson said one day, "you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself."
If COVID ever goes away, I have a standing invitation to rejoin my old friend on the porch. And maybe his wife will have a pot of greens. My favorite food.
