October 15, 2018 – Writing class assignment for October.

Objective:  We passed around two slips of paper at last month’s class in answer to the following two prompts:

1.      Name a character and two traits.

2.      Describe an inciting incidence.

Prompts I received were:  Janet Miller, retired, passionate organic farmer and incident: She gets taken home by Mr. Pons who loves her a lot and makes pancakes for her. She ends up living with him and causing him to be happier than he has been in years.

This is total fiction

Drawing only on writing what I know – I know about old trucks,

and old charming men.

Titled:

The Matchmaking old pickup truck

         After most of the mourners left, his daughter looped her arm around my waist.

         “You made him so happy these last dozen years.  You made all the difference in the world. How did he happen to marry you anyway?”

         “Organic raspberries,” I sniffed and wiped away the last of my tears.

         “I thought it was pancakes.”

         “Those too.”

        

         During the ride back to the after-funeral gathering, his daughter asked,

         “Tell me - tell me how you two really meet.”

         I smiled softly as I paused a moment to pull the memory back into focus and began.

         One morning I was taking my produce to market in my old pickup truck.

         The red dust that had kicked up from the farm road slowly started to settle as the old pickup truck hesitated at the crest of the hill. The truck paused its forward motion and started to roll backward down the steep hill.

         “Now what?” I yelled.  The engine fell silent, and feeling the increasing momentum of the truck rolling back, I yanked the hand brake at the same time I opened the door and stepped down out of the truck.

         “Take that you fix-or-repair-it-daily damn truck,” I remember I foolishly took it out on the truck by kicking at the front rusted hubcap. Bonk was the answer.

         I looked to the east to assess the brightening dawn. The heat would come fast and my fresh picked organic raspberries would be ruined if I didn’t get them to the market within two hours.  I yanked out my cellphone and confirmed, – no cell phone connection – that was no surprise.

         I climbed into the bed of the truck and hoisted myself onto the roof of the cab.  Carefully I stood and reached to the sky with my cell phone and slowly turned in increments rotating like a radar station – no tower within range, either

         I heard, “Hey, pretty lady. Worshipping the morning sun or broke down?” It was your Dad jogging near the downhill side of the farm road that meets the state highway.

         At that time, I knew your Dad only as Old Man Pons.  I’d moved into the area about five years earlier when I retired and bought the organic farm. He was in his early 80s then and I watched him puff his way up the dirt road and stand there with a big grin on his face.

         “Miss Janet Miller, I see the beast is dead again.”  He walked around the truck, his hands on his hips in a resting walk and he lifted the tarp to see what I was taking to market.

         “Raspberries,” he said. I remember his blue eyes twinkling in the early morning dawn. I didn’t know until that day they were his favorite. 

         There I was, sitting on the roof of the cab looking down at him and I realized, this is my knight in shining armor.  As usual, he was charming.  He was a charmer until the very end. 

         He said, “I’ll tell you what – come to my house, we’ll call Travis and have him come out and tow you.  By the time he brings his roll-back out and gets you under tow – I’ll have my famous pancakes already stacked up on your plate.”

         He gallantly took my hand assisting me out of the truck bed onto the bumper and I jumped down.

         “A handful of fresh raspberries in the pancake batter would be mighty fine,” he suggested with a wink.

         I pulled an eight-pint flat of raspberries out from under the tarp and we walked to his house.  He made me his famous pancakes and a few weeks later, he asked me to marry him. 

         I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to marry me, and I asked him.

         He said, “Steady supply of organic raspberries.”