Small town neighborhoods always hold a multitude of memories to reflect on when we grow older and start reminiscing. Such is the case with me growing up on College Ave. This street was not where the financially affluent chose to live. Nor were there new homes ever being constructed on this street that I witnessed. It, however, was a very friendly street for those residing there. It always seemed like everyone living there always new about their neighbors. We all knew what our neighbors’ interests were, who they were related to, if anyone was sick in the family, if anyone needed anything and if so, what. I guess this was way before anyone ever thought about “Hippa”! When someone in the neighborhood died, somebody would always go around, door to door and collect for flowers, yes back then, flowers at the funeral home were always a big deal! We all depended on each other to get through life as best we could. Front porches were always a very desired part of the house, even though very few of us had one. Most people’s cars were left parked on the street at night because, so few people had a garage, and not many even a driveway. The keys were always left in the car, even at night, at least in our household anyway.
Quite often as kids we would get on our bikes in the morning and not come home until mealtime or even dark or later. There were always yards to mow which would give us a little spending money or the real ambitious would pick up soft drink bottles and redeem them at the neighborhood grocery stores for three cents each. Thank goodness it was not until later that littering the highways and streets became a crime. It did not take long at scavenging the local ditches to come up with enough empty bottles to buy a coke and candy bar!
As different as life was back then compared to now, there were still always some folks who had tragedy in their life, which took all the fun out of their life. So was the case with our friends and neighbors, “Shorty and Elta”. They lived two or three houses down from us on the opposite side of the road in what we call now a shotgun house. You know the ones built on narrow lots that where one room built straight in front of the other, and so on. In their case, a narrow little path, (probably grass) led off the street and through a white picket fence toward the house. You then would step up onto a small porch that was the width of the house. It was adorned with a front porch swing that got much use including every evening before bedtime which is where Shorty and Elta would sit and talk about the day’s happenings. By the time I came along neither Shorty nor Elta worked a public job. I’m not sure how they made their living when they were younger... At my young age then, I did not care what they did, I just knew they were both good to me. Shorty had a little workshop behind the house and as best I can remember was always tinkering in that shop. What kind of tinkering you might ask; I don't really know. Elta was always doing woman things in the house.
I always noticed in the evenings after supper when the two of them had been sitting in the porch swing talking, they would get up and Elta would go inside, but Shorty would always slowly make his way down the walkway to the street where he would stop and slowly turn his gaze to the south for a while and then back to the north. He would stand with his head reared back as though he was trying to get a better view though his very thick glasses. After a few moments of this he would turn and walk back to the house, across the porch, thru the living room, thru the kitchen, through the bathroom, into the bedroom where the two of them would go to bed. As a young boy I watched this take place night after night for years but at my young age, it did not puzzle me much. As I got older and my curiosity started to increase, I would watch this same routine unfold every night until finally my curiosity overwhelmed me and as my dad and I sat on our front porch and watched Shorty walk to the street and look back and forth both ways a few times, I finally asked my dad,, what is he doing? My dad looked at me, folded up the newspaper and said to me, “he is looking for his son.” I said, “I did not know he had a son”. My dad said, He and Elta had one child, a son, who was killed in a car wreck! Every night he walks to the street and looks down the street hoping to see his son, his only child coming down the street on his way home.” I was a young boy and did not have much knowledge of this kind of thing, but I can still remember how it made me feel. Here is an elderly man and woman, who as far as I know had no other family around here. They lived a near life of poverty even though both were very good neighbors and would do anything for anyone who needed something. They witnessed very few if any special things in life. Neither drove, so they had no car. It was easy for me to understand that their lives would have evolved around a single child whose life was quickly removed from them. As I recall my dad told me later that their son was driving their car and maybe involved in some type of speed contest, lost control, left the road and died because of his injuries. As I said before, I was young but even at a young age, when I considered how their life had been turned upside down in an instant, it made me nauseous. What would they cling to in this time of tragedy in their lives other that Jesus Christ, but I had never heard or saw anything to make me believe of them having faith in Christ other than by the way they treated their neighbors!
Every time I saw that old Melvin “Shorty” Fleenor walk down that path to the street I had to wonder, how much worse can it be than this for him? That's when I found out that it could be worse, much worse, because shortly after this shocking revolution, his loving and faithful partner in life, the woman who shared his victories and his tragedies, passed away and left him all alone to deal with his sorrows alone. Can you imagine the sorrow you would feel? How alone you would be in this world? One day my dad walked out of our house down the street to Shorty's house, knocked on the door and asked Shorty if he would like to attend Sunday church services with us. My Dad was elated when Shorty said, “Yes, Paul, I would like that”. So, Sunday morning when we all headed to church, we stopped at Shorty's house and Shorty came out of the house wearing a navy blue suit, as I recollect, a navy blue three piece suit. We did this every Sunday for years and he always sat in the front passenger seat of our car on the way to church and rarely said a word as we traveled nearly10 miles out a curvy old country road to church.
My dad and Shorty had been friends for some time but after starting to go to church together they seemed to be even better friends. Shorty was man of few words and when he did talk, he had a course, cutting growl of a voice that I think came from too many years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes. He had very poor eyesight and bad dental work and said very little, but he surprised me one Sunday morning at church when announcements were completed and the person doing the announcements asked, “is there anything we have missed?” Shorty Fleenor slowly stood up cleared his throat and thanked the entire church for treating him so nicely. You could have heard a pin drop because most of the people there did not even know that he could speak. When I look back on it now, I have the same thought as I did then, “how genuine a man this is”.
Shorty lived another six years after his wife passed. I often wonder what part of his death grief played. It's been 48 years since he walked down the walkway to the street expecting to see his son coming to meet him. Unlike The Prodigal Son, Shorty's son did not make it home before tragedy struck. I really hope the three of them are sitting at
base of a big tree in heaven today, just doing what loved ones do together in heaven. I really feel like it was a God thing when my father asked Shorty to attend church with us and I hope he found peace in his final days by being in the house of God on those Sundays with us!
