SMALL TOWN SECRETS

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Friends should always show up for their friend’s events, and if they are writers, be a sport and buy their book!

A frequent Criminal Brief comment provider, Alisa Dollar, is one of my former students. Although the classes with Alisa were online and we have met in person at conferences, we definitely became friends via the Internet. When Alisa shared the news she would be writing a weekly column for a newspaper in East Texas, I immediately asked, “How do I get a subscription?”

Yes, I could read Alisa’s column online, but there is something about seeing your (or your friend’s) work in print. I enjoy seeing my students, colleagues and friend’s words on paper. Perhaps it’s because computer screens command so much of my workday that reading anything for entertainment is necessarily something I can hold in my hands and not be required to scroll down, except with my eyes. I’m clearly what my son calls Old School, but that’s okay with me.

The Frankston Citizen is a weekly newspaper I receive sporadically at my post office box. There’s something magical about the days it arrives. It’s like having a Secret Pal providing me with a treat now and then.

Alisa’s column, A Dollar’s Worth is pure, unadulterated Alisa. She has a wicked sense of humor (as you can tell by her comments on Criminal Brief.) I’ve told her she is Texas’ Erma Bombeck. She writes about taking belly dancing lessons when she already had the belly, her harrowing experiments with wiggly false eyelashes and during the CB craze of the 1970’s when she didn’t know how to talk to the convoy of truckers, but did anyway.

On a long road trip, it seems she listened as the truckers discussed the dumb blonde who drove down the highway with her blinker lights flashing. She couldn’t remember the codes, so she tentatively pressed the button and asked, “Excuse me, but how do you know that woman is dumb?” She paused for a moment and added, “Breaker one whatever.”

Finally, a voice bellowed, “Do you drive a blue Ford?”

Alisa had been told truckers were friendly, but this once sounded gruff. “Yes, sir,” she answered.

“Do you have your blinker on?”

“Uh, well, as a matter of fact, I do. Thank you. Over. Out. Goodbye. Have a safe trip wherever.” Alisa said it would have been nice if they hadn’t laughed, but it was a long stretch of highway and you take entertainment where you can find it.

Like Bombeck, Alisa’s life isn’t always fun and games. Occasionally, she gets serious, like when she wrote about her true love for Elvis, her unabashed admiration for America’s veterans, and her husband’s diagnosis of cancer and recovery.

Alisa’s column has brought me to laughter, to tears and back again, but mostly she brought attention to Frankston, Texas, and this great little newspaper.

I have fallen in love with this town, living vicariously through the pages of the shared lives and experiences of the townspeople. The editor told Alisa the citizens could get their world news anywhere, but only in his newspaper will they find what’s happening in their own backyard.

I know that the city secretary with a half a decade tenure will become the new business manager of the school district. A fourth grade teacher thought her husband needed something to get him out of the house after he sold his business, so he decided (with her prompting I suppose) to begin a new subdivision in town. Just so you know, forty-eight houses are proposed for the new neighborhood sitting on one to one and a half acre plots. I read one of my cyber-buddies John Foxjohn’s announcement of a speaking engagement to the local writing group about his newest mystery novel.

As a mystery writer, my favorite column (besides Alisa’s!) has to be the Police Blotter.

Everything that involves the police department is reported in this column – or at least it seems to be. On September 19, a theft case at the Exxon involved an attempted robbery. The woman was caught stealing tampons and deodorant.

The police investigate calls concerning prowlers, students who stole a school bus for a joy ride and my personal favorite, complaints about dogs digging underneath a neighbor’s fence.

The paper shows these people in action, living their lives just like the rest of us do, but perhaps at a slower pace. I revel in the comradery of a gathering to celebrate the 80th anniversary of a couple who have lived in the same home for 78 years, the Baptist church congregation’s home renovations for a sixth grader whose bathroom doorway was too small for his wheelchair, and the chili cook-off being postponed due to the conflict with the football team’s district play-off.

Every writer gathers tidbits of life from people we meet everywhere we go and that includes the ones we read about in newspapers and magazines. This small town will probably show up in one of my stories somewhere down the line. I can’t wait to reveal some mythical small town secrets.