Scene 5: The B&B, Gone With the Wind, on 1st Avenue
Proprietor: Welcome to our Bed and Breakfast. I’m Cathy Wilkinson. [meeting in the circular driveway carport] I want to make your stay in Clearfield just as rich as it can be.
Grandpa: Cathy, I’m Frank and this is my only grand-daughter Leah. And she is not the least bit spoiled.
All: How do you do? Welcome, thank you, etc.
Leah: My grandpa is a joker, Ms. Wilkinson. I’m a little spoiled.
Cathy: Mine was too, and I treasure his jokes. Please call me Cathy. You were the only girl?
Leah: Yes, Ma’am, I mean Cathy. I was the only girl and the first born.
Cathy: I was the only girl and the baby, so there’s that…. Uh, As you can see our home is decorated in Civil War themes. Your room is the Lee room, Frank. Leah, yours is the Tara suite experience. You know the movie?
Grandpa: I actually read the book decades ago. Movie, sure. Honey, did you ever see the movie?
Leah: Uh, no. I’ve heard of it. It’s all about the South in the Civil War, right? Rhett Butler? Scarlett O’hara? Uhum, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!” That’s all I know.
Cathy: Oh, you must see it. I have it on DVD if you’d like to watch it while you are here.
Leah: That would be wonderful, Grandpa, don’t you think?
Grandpa: It’s a long one, Honey. We’ll see if we have time to sit that long.
Cathy: Well, I’ll just leave the disc on the cabinet under the television if you choose to watch it.
Leah: Thank you. I think we want to just wash up and rest before dinner.
Cathy: Of course, Honey. There’s a Jacuzzi in your suite.
Leah: Whoo hoo!! [Leah skips up the oak staircase.]
Cathy: She is dear.
Grandpa: Yep, she’s a good one, if you love lemons, which I do. [Rubbing his lower back.] The road to Philadelphia doesn’t get any shorter, no matter who’s driving.
Cathy: Do you mind if I ask what you are planning to do in Clearfield. Maybe I can make some suggestions.
Grandpa: That won’t be necessary, Cathy. I’ve been coming to Clearfield for as long as I can remember. Used to spend the summers here with my Uncle Phil Cameron over on Euclid Avenue.
Cathy: Phil Cameron? Oh my, my parents knew him and his wife Cassie quite well, from church and the town band, and you know, the grocery store, and Sears. What a nice man he was.
Grandpa: Yep, he was all that and a lot more. Big Army guy in World War II. A real patriot.
Cathy: I believe his picture is on one of the Hometown Heroes flags on Main Street.
Grandpa: So I’ve heard. It should be too. He loved this country and fought in Europe valiantly. Heard they put his flag in front of what was the old Sears store. You know he managed that store forever.
Cathy: Yes, I remember it well. It’s a shame that the company went bankrupt. It was the original department store, I think, going back to the catalog days. Remember when their Christmas catalog would come in the mail? I’d fight over it with my big brothers to look at the new clothes. They wanted to look at hunting stuff and baseball gloves.
Grandpa: Oh yeah, we’d turn down the pages when we found what we wanted for Christmas. Didn’t always get it, but that wasn’t the catalog’s fault.
Cathy: I know. Those days were slower and poorer for sure, but we appreciated the things we did get. Didn’t we? [Quiet nod. Pause. ] Frank, what career did you follow in Philadelphia?
Grandpa: Well, I did a lot of things at first—worked as an editor for a short while. Hated that. Worked in construction for a while longer until my wife told me I should be a teacher. So that’s what I did until I got into social work later on.
Cathy: Hmmm, so you went to college?
Grandpa: Yeah, a lot of college. I started at Penn State but finished up at Temple. I could commute to Temple from Yardley on the bus.
Cathy: So, I’m guessing you would have graduated in 1970 or so?
Grandpa: 1968, just in time for Vietnam.
Cathy: Oh, I’m sure that was tough.
Grandpa: Not for me. I got a deferment because of college and asthma, but my buddies went. Most folks have no idea, and the ones who do have an idea don’t want to talk about it like the imaginary soldiers do. Most of my peers are dying off anyway, so all the ugliness of that era can be swept away with their ashes, I suppose. [ Silent pause. Sigh.] You know, folks who’ve never been in war like to pull the levers to send young men to die. Easiest thing in the world to start a war. So it is. Like a bar fight. Damn near impossible to end one. I’m trying to cleanse my granddaughter’s mind of the myths of war. Sorry, I’ll get off my soap box by dinner.
Cathy: I see. She’s so sweet and pretty. You’re lucky to have such a grandchild.
Grandpa: Uh huh, just don’t cross her. Her younger brothers are still afraid of her, and they’re both big guys now. It’s funny to see them tippy toe around her. They can both bench press her with one arm, but she’s large and in charge, the substitute mother hen.
Cathy: I’m sure it will all level out as they grow into their adult lives. I adored my brothers, but they were both much older than I was.
Grandpa: I hope so. They’re really good kids. I’ve been living with them since my wife died.
Cathy: I’m sorry, Frank. When did she pass?
Grandpa: Let’s see, three years ago in September. Stomach cancer. 75 years young. [ Silence for a full minute] Huh, she was a local girl, you know?
Cathy: What was her maiden name?
Grandpa: Accordino, Hope Accordino.
Cathy: I went to school with the Accordinos! Umm, one of them worked at the high school.
Grandpa: That was Aunt Marge. She got me enrolled there for a week in 1967.
Cathy: What? You went to school at Dacio?
Grandpa: Yep, best week of my life
Cathy: Wait… you went to Dacio High School for a week in 1967? How? There’s got to be a great story in there.
Grandpa: Yes Ma’am, you got that right. I don’t want to tell it twice, so when my grand daughter is around and it feels right, I’ll share my story with you. How about that?
Cathy: I can’t wait to hear it!!
Grandpa: And what was your maiden name, if you don’t mind?
Cathy: Stone, yep we lived on—
Grandpa: [ interrupts her ] Everett Avenue, second house on the right after it crosses over Mullen, right?
Cathy (wide eyed in astonishment): You, um, how did you know that?
Grandpa: Your brother Sam was a close friend of mine back before ‘Nam. You look just like him, but I guess you were in diapers then.
Cathy: Maybe first grade. Well, that’s a story no one wants to hear, huh?
Grandpa: The wages of war, Cathy. Nobody wins.
Cathy: But not everybody lost like Sam did.
Grandpa: War is the final refuge of the incompetent, Cathy. You know that saying? Sam was a good friend to me. I tell him that every time I visit his grave. The rest doesn’t matter.
Cathy: His kids are a mess. It breaks my heart.
Grandpa: War does that on a grand scale, I’m afraid… it’s, it’s just legalized murder dressed up in a uniform.
Upstairs in the jacuzzi Leah listens to Sam Stone on her phone while bathing.
Sam Stone came home
To his wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas
And the time that he served
Had shattered all his nerves
And left a little shrapnel in his knees
But the morphine eased the pain
And the grass grew round his brain
And gave him all the confidence he lacked
With a purple heart and a monkey on his back
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose
Little pitchers have big ears
Don’t stop to count the years
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios
Sam Stone’s welcome home
Didn’t last too long
He went to work when he’d spent his last dime
And Sam, he took to stealing
When he got that empty feeling
For a hundred dollar habit without overtime
And the gold roared through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains
And eased his mind in the hours that he chose
While the kids ran around wearin’ other peoples’ clothes
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose
Little pitchers have big ears
Don’t stop to count the years
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios
Sam Stone was alone
When he popped his last balloon
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair
Well, he played his last request
While the room smelled just like death
With an overdose hovering in the air
But life had lost its fun
There was nothing to be done
But trade his house that he bought on the GI bill
For a flag-draped casket on a local hero’s hill
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose
Little pitchers have big ears
Don’t stop to count the years
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios
Leah’s face contorts in sorrow. It’s all too deeply sad for words.
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