Can't Wait to Get to Heaven

The Newspaper Woman

8:50 AM

The moment Cathy Calvert heard the loud siren of the ambulance as it sped past her downtown office, she knew she would have a story to write. Cathy, a tall thin woman in her early forties, with dark brown hair, was the owner-editor of the small weekly newspaper. She did most of the reporting herself, and from past experience, whenever an emergency vehicle was called to Elmwood Springs, it was either an accident or a serious mishap of some kind. She walked outside to see if it was a fire engine or an ambulance, but missed seeing it, and was surprised to hear the screaming siren cut off so close to town. Usually when an ambulance or a fire engine had been called, it was headed on out to the new four-lane traffic stop, where people were always crashing into each other, or else it was headed on out to the mall. Since Weight Watchers had moved next to the Pottery Barn, people trying to walk off those few pounds before they weighed in had sometimes overdone it and fallen out with heart attacks.

She went back into the office and grabbed her camera and her pad, and ran over to the spot where she thought the siren had stopped. As she came around First Avenue North, she saw that it was an ambulance, and it was parked right in front of Elner Shimfissle’s house. “Oh no,” she thought, “don’t tell me she’s fallen off the ladder again.” When Cathy reached the scene, Tot was standing on the sidewalk looking very distressed, and ran up to her. “She’s done it this time. She fell clean off the ladder and knocked herself out, and Norma is going to have a fit. Macky just called her to come over.”

Cathy suddenly forgot about writing her story and became just another concerned friend of Elner’s standing around feeling helpless. After a while, when so many neighbors had gathered and there was nothing she could do to help, she suddenly felt funny about being there with a camera. She didn’t want anyone to think she was there as a reporter, so she asked Tot to call her and keep her posted about Mrs. Shimfissle’s condition, and walked back up to the office. Although she was concerned, she was not overly concerned, because Elner Shimfissle was a pretty hearty old gal, who had fallen off things before and lived to tell the tale. Cathy knew firsthand Elner was a tough old bird in more ways than one.

Some years ago, after Cathy had graduated from college, she had taught a class in oral history at the community college, and Elner Shimfissle had attended with her friend Irene Goodnight. Both had been excellent students with interesting histories. Cathy had learned from that class that looks could be deceiving. For instance, at first glance, you never would have suspected that Irene Goodnight, a plain-looking, quiet grandmother of six, had at one time been known as “Goodnight Irene,” and with teammate “Tot the terrible, left-handed bowler from hell” had won the Missouri State Champion Lady Bowlers title three times in a row. And if a stranger were to meet Elner for the first time, they never would have guessed that underneath that old lady façade she was still as strong as an ox.

In exploring Elner’s history with her, Cathy had learned that during the Great Depression, when her husband, Will, had been bedridden with tuberculosis for over two years, Elner had risen at four every morning and with nothing but a mule and a plow had single-handedly kept their farm going. She had somehow managed to survive one of the worst floods in Missouri history, plus three tornadoes, had taken care of her husband, and had grown a crop large enough to feed them and half their neighbors. The most amazing thing about it to Cathy was that it had never occurred to Mrs. Shimfissle that it had been anything extraordinary. “Somebody had to do it,” she said.

Before she had taught oral history, Cathy had always wanted to be a writer, even dreamed of one day writing the great American novel, but after a few semesters she ditched the idea completely and went into journalism. Her new philosophy was “Why write fiction? Why read fiction?” Scratch any person over sixty, and you have a novel so much better, certainly more interesting than any fiction writer could ever make up. So why try?