I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up a few things and found my friend Bob Havershold and his daughter, Cheriee, out front enjoying the pleasant weather. Bob was sitting on one of the two long wooden benches that frame the front door to Charlie’s. Cheriee was over in the grass that fills in the space between the store and the railroad tracks that run to the west of the building. Time was, years ago when the Soagie Post Office was part of the store, trains would slow down and leave a bag of mail on a hook rigged beside the tracks. At the same time, the bag of out going mail old Mister Charlie Biggers hung on another hook would be picked up as the train rumbled past. This routine happened every day of the week except Sunday. Come a Sunday, everyone was expected to be in church and not need any mail. Hermann Spencer was sitting on the other bench beside the front door along with Hurshel Ledbedder. I parked beside the store next to the old shed where Mister Biggers had a makeshift auto garage back before automobiles got so all fired complicated you need a computer and an engineering degree just to open the hood and look inside. Came down to about all Jake could do with a car was to change oil and fix flats. The changing oil came to an end when it was decided just dumping the old oil out was not safe for the environment and Jake would need to pay someone to come by and haul off the drained oil. Jake still fixes flats, but you can never tell when there may be some new directive from the government that will put Jake out of the flat fixing business. Now the old shed is used mostly for storage and the doors mostly stay shut.

As I walked over, Cheriee was coming back toward her father with something she had found in the grass. Bob jumped up and stuck out his hand toward me and I responded in kind. Cheriee piped a “Hello,” and showed me what she had discovered. It was a small fuzzy caterpillar known about as a Wooly Bear. The little creature was all curled in a ball in the palm of her hand. Bob suggested she show it to Hurshel Ledbedder. Hurshel is our resident Wooly Bear expert. To hear Hurshel tell it, a Wooly Bear is the meteorological marvel of the natural world, able to forecast for those with the perception to understand their markings the severity of the coming winter months with unerring accuracy. Not everyone in Soagie is as convinced of the reliability of the Wooly Bear predictions as is Hurshel, but we mostly have to admit those who side with the Wooly Bear generally come up with a better percentage than does the Weather Channel. Hurshel was explaining to Cheriee the reason the Wooly Bear was all balled up in her palm was that Wooly Bears are extraordinarily shy and they are embarrassed to have their feet seen. Of consequence, whenever they are disturbed, they roll themselves into a ball so as to hide their feet.

“Hurshel!” came the voice of Dolly, Hurshel’s wife. We had not noticed her at the door looking out. “Don’t you go filling that poor child’s head with your nonsense. If you’re not careful, she might believe something you tell her!” Dolly, so it appeared, was inside gathering up groceries for the week and she had come to ask if Hurshel needed a new supply of food for his dog. Hurshel responded with the brand he preferred, then went back to explaining about Wooly Bears soon as Dolly had turned away. “Infidel,” he insisted. “Poor woman just refuses to believe the truths of nature.” Then Hurshel went on to explain you can tell about the severity of the coming winter by the coloring on the Wooly Bear’s body. A dark color indicated a cold winter. The darker the color, the colder you can expect winter to be. Lighter colors suggest milder temperatures. This particular specimen in Cheriee’s palm was mostly dark, though it ran lighter toward its head. Hurshel explained this was a sign the coming winter would start off mild, then turn really nasty come sometime in January. Cheriee shivered in alarm. She said she doesn’t much like cold weather. Hurshel then gave her an ominous look and said she had best pull out her warmest clothes and be prepared.

Jake was coming out the door followed by Dolly. They were both burdened down with bags of household items. Dolly gave Hurshel a hard look and suggested it was time they were heading home before Hurshel destroyed six years of school education with backwoods folklore. Hurshel climbed to his feet warning Cheriee to remember the signs of the Wooly Bear as the coming winter progressed to see how true conditions ran. The Ledbedders drove off in Dolly’s car and Cheriee set her Wooly Bear down carefully in the grass. She looked up at her father and asked if what Mister Hurshel had said was true. “Guess we will just have to wait for winter and see,” Bob said diplomatically. “In any case, it’s about time we started home if you want to watch any of your new DVD movie before time for dance class.”

“I’m ready,” she said, watching the Wooly Bear crawl away in the grass. Then she turned on me to ask if I had seen the Serenity movie at the Corinth Cinema. It was based on a television series titled Firefly from a couple years back. Bob is the sci-fi nut in the Havershold family and it was he who insisted on going to the movie. He had gone with both Cheriee and his wife, Gracie. Bob was a fan of the show as it ran on television, but Cheriee had not been interested at the time. The movie had made a convert of her, insisting she and her father go back and see it again the following weekend. With Cheriee enjoying the movie so much and Bob a fan from the original broadcasts, he decided purchasing the DVD Firefly collection of the complete series was a worthwhile investment. Cheriee was pulling the DVD box set from the car and showing it off, saying it was the coolest show ever. Bob slid behind the wheel and reminded Cheriee they would have less than two hours to watch the first show before time for dance class, and off they went. I wonder how that child has time to fit so many things into her life. Aside from school where Bob brags she makes good grades, she has dance class twice per week, she takes piano lessons and passes many an evening helping with the community theatre. She is a big Harry Potter enthusiast and is planning to get into the Firefly fan community. I wonder did I have that much energy at her age.

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