Dateline Smileyville. Markus Jr. Pell
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mayor was not mean or nasty to Lotta. Quite the contrary. Although he did not visit the home of his daughter and her husband, he was always glad to see her when she came to visit him, was always kind and gentle toward her, and was even polite to Quiet, on the few occasions when he accompanied Lotta on her visits to the home where she'd grown up. But none of it was any good, and by the time Quiet and Lotta were celebrating their first anniversary, the truth was clear to everyone in Smileyville: Mayor George Wilburforce Smiley V was a broken man, and Lotta's mom was showing the strain as well. And Lotta Riott found herself as worried and heartsick as a loving daughter can be. She had not set out to destroy her parents. She just loved Quentin 'Quiet' Riott, was all. But there you go, and there it was.
Just a couple weeks after their first anniversary, Lotta and Quiet announced to family and friends that they were expecting their first child. Naturally, during the months of her pregnancy, the number one topic in Smileyville was the question of how Mayor Smiley would react to his daughter giving birth to a Riott, to his becoming the (insert gasp of horror here) grandfather of a Riott. No one was encouraged by the fact that the mayor betrayed no particular reaction to his daughter's pregnancy and the impending birth of his first grandchild. He'd just spent the past year as the human equivalent of a lump, and Mayor Smiley continued to lump away during the months of Lotta's pregnancy. And while everyone involved tried to remain hopeful that, once his grandchild was born, the mayor would snap out of his long, long funk, no one really believed it would make any difference.
It happened that Mayor Smiley was up for reelection as mayor during the autumn when Stuart A. Riott was up for being born. The mayor almost didn't run; he filed his papers ten minutes before the filing deadline, and then failed to do any campaigning whatsoever - with a month to go before the election, he had not put out so much as a single yard sign, that staple of village and township political advertising. And then, a month before the election, Stuart A. Riott was born. Quiet and Lotta had not known the sex of their child beforehand, having decided that they wanted to be surprised. Assorted Riotts and Smileys were at the hospital awaiting the birth, including Lotta's mother, but the mayor was not in attendance. The baby was born, cleaned up, checked over - baby fine, mom fine - and then was placed on display for his relatives to see. At first there was silence; then a giggle, and then several giggles. And then Pat Riott, staring at his newborn grandson, exclaimed "Great God in Heaven!" and everyone burst into full blown laughter, including Uncle Pat.
Lotta's mom returned home from the hospital and told her husband he needed to come see his first grandchild. When the mayor feigned disinterest, she informed him, feigning nothing, that he would either get up and go with her to welcome his grandson into the world, or she would divorce him. Mayor Smiley went to the hospital. A nurse held Stuart up to the nursery window so his grandfather could see him. Mayor Smiley stood passive for a moment, and then smiled his first genuine smile in nearly two years. And then, just as Stuart's paternal grandfather had done, the maternal grandfather burst out laughing. And Mayor Smiley said precisely the same thing Pat Riott had said: "Great God in Heaven!" But then the mayor added to his own exclamation the following: "He looks just like me! He's beautiful!"
Mayor Smiley then visited his daughter for a few minutes. And, if nearly two years of heartache can be obliterated by two minutes of sublime and perfect joy - and I for one, Americans, believe that on occasion it can be - then in those couple of minutes the mayor accomplished that wonderful thing for his daughter, and for himself.
The next morning, Mayor Smiley was up and out early, putting up yard signs and campaigning for the mayoralty of the village of Smileyville, before heading to work at the building where, once a week, The Smileyville Grimace is put to bed. What's that? The election? Why, he won the election in a landslide. Heck, Americans, even I'd have voted for him that year - if I'd thought he needed my vote to win. But he didn't. Heh.
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Americans, I feel this would be an opportune moment to interrupt the interruption of my story about Devlin Twins Music, just long enough to explain a thing or two. I know you think I don't hear you out there, but I think I do. Many of you, for example, are wondering why each of these 'chapters' starts out like this:
DATELINE SMILEYVILLE - As if these were not chapters at all, but newspaper columns.
The short answer is that these are not chapters. These are columns, just not newspaper columns. I did not graduate from college, you Americans, and that is perhaps unfortunate, but no one could fairly say that I received no education at Middle Mitten University, in the good ol' hometown of Greening. I received, as far as I'm concerned, a truly marvelous education there. I could not have asked for a better, to be honest, and I imagine this 'Ojibwa' would have graduated Magna Cum Laude, if only I could have majored in organization-building and minored in newspaper column writing. Organization-building is something we'll save for another day. As for the writing of newspaper columns, I had a notable one on the college paper - notable indeed, heh - and another one, many years later, on the local tri-county daily, where I was hired by a nice fellow about whom it may fairly be said that he did not, perhaps, quite realize what he was getting. Double heh. And that newspaper column was known as DATELINE SMILEYVILLE.
This ebook shares that same title, and is being written by me in the form of columns because it is a form with which I am comfortable, and also because it is a form I consider to be particularly conducive to the dissemination of information and opinion. So I guess you could say these are 'ebook columns' and I am conducting my 2012 presidential campaign by means of two 'collections' of ebook columns. Of course, it may be that there is no difference whatsoever between an ebook 'column' and an ebook 'chapter,' except in my head. Or maybe I have an ulterior motive and desire to keep the book title in your head so you cannot stop thinking about it. The one thing I do know for certain is that writing these columns or chapters here, Americans, in this ebook, gives me something I never had for a moment during the years I spent writing those old newspaper columns.
Here, Americans, I have freedom.
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There's another thing I hear quite a few of you yammering about, and how should I put it? Oh yes, let's put it like this: you believe I am already totally messing up my presidential campaign. Not enough meat and potatoes. Too much meandering, too much personal anecdote. Too much... freedom.
Well, we've talked it over, the esteemed members of my kitchen cabinet and I. We don't think I have it all wrong. We think I have it all right. Cool, Americans? Still with me, you young pups? Good, good. I'm still with you, too. Let's proceed.
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Before Stuart was born, on those evenings when our euchre game was at Quiet and Lotta's house, we played at the kitchen table. After Stuart came along, Lotta relegated us to the basement. Even then, she admonished us to keep our "mayhem to a minimum" and to keep the music down. On the plus side, she continued to keep us well-supplied with munchies both delightful and delectable, just as she'd done when we'd played cards in the kitchen.
We'd been playing for a couple hours or so that night, and Jim's country music station had been on the entire time. The music, combined with the fact that it was one of those rare evenings when Quiet and I had been steadily beating JimJerry at euchre, had put Jerry in a particularly sour disposition. Next thing you know, JimJerry is bickering back and forth across the table about the music.
"Can we puh-leeeeze change the radio station?" asked Jerry. "I know these songs seem to hold meaning for you, Jim, but it's hard for me to get excited about a fellow who leaves his wife for his Ford pickup and the basset hound named Cliff that his daddy (may he rest in peace) gave him when he was just a boy, a dog who is old and on his last stubby legs and the wife doesn't understand but the girlfriend does, and he and the basset stray but in the end he remembers that he is a dad himself because the picture of little Susie in his wallet, that fell out when he was searching for the phone number of Cliff's veterinarian, wrinkled and creased though it may be, reminds him of his daddyhood, and meanwhile the wife has been remembering some things, too, such as that the grass is always greener right at home even if Cliff does yellow it on occasion and in the end they are all back together again except for Cliff, who has gone to that Great Doghouse in the Sky, while the new basset puppy, Little Cliff, licks Susie's tears away... this