WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Five

Julia McCulloch smiled to herself as she heard the front door shut and then Sam's footsteps on the porch stairs. She felt that her husband was as strong and as sturdy as their home. As with their house through its many years, their marriage had weathered and prevailed over the elements that both mother nature and human nature had unexpectedly hurled at them: the snags, disagreements, obstacles, setbacks, and tensions. Sam and Julia, like their home, were now in a place of ease and comfort in their mutual life together; their marriage seemingly only requiring routine maintenance since the major renovations and construction were completed, allowing them to make time to enjoy the rewards of compromise, sacrifice, creation and struggle.

But everything was not as perfect as it may have appeared to others. Despite their good fortune, they knew there were still on-going challenges in their lives and those of their family.

Julia picked up her calligraphy pen then stopped herself. She saw what she had written so far: Scott.

Through the front window, she saw Sam grasp the rake that was leaning against a porch hedge to start clearing leaves off the walkway. She pondered the place card again and thought how her husband and her first born were both so stubborn and bull-headed. There was bound to have been all that conflict.

When Scott dropped out of Madison College, Sam couldn't argue with him: Sam had basically done the same thing by not even going to college in the first place. Sam's thoughts on schooling were that it would interrupt his education; he'd learn more from doing it himself and reading on his own than listening to a professor in a lecture hall or getting hoarse from yelling through a college football game. Sam's father, Peter McCulloch, had told Sam that he could either move out of the house and support himself somehow or he could continue to still live at home and work at the printing plant. After his mother pleaded with him, Sam stayed home and worked his way up from the loading dock to running the company. He also read Sartre, Tolstoy, Homer, Aristotle, Melville, Faulkner, Chaucer, Neruda, Twain, Conrad, and Mishima before he was twenty-four. Sam had offered Scott the same deal: go out on his own or work at the plant.

Scott had said that he'd like to think about it. He had saved some money, wanted to travel a bit and then would give his father an answer within two months. Sam agreed. Four months later after driving and drinking his way through Canada, down the West Coast, into Mexico and then across Texas and the South, he drove north up the East Coast and returned home. He had run out of money and ambition, so he agreed to his father's terms. In the meantime, Julia found him a studio apartment in town over an auto repair shop in Castlebury so he could have some independence away from the printing plant – and away from Sam. Of all their four kids, Sam and Julia both knew that Scott was the one most like his father; nevertheless, Scott rejected that comparison and would have to discover any genetic connection on his own.

Sam had seen Scott's determination and motivation in high school in three places: the gridiron, the hockey rink and the baseball diamond. He had also excelled in his academics until sophomore year; however, once he made varsity, those abilities did not necessarily remain in the classroom. He was too popular for his own good and, like Sam, Scott eventually achieved Bs and Cs in high school. In his case, Sam felt as though he didn't have to perform in courses that didn't matter to him since he knew he would be taking over the printing company as soon as his father retired. Sam's younger brother Tom had always loved foreign cars and wanted to own several dealerships, which he did in Florida. Tom had gone to a small college in central Florida and stayed there. The printing plant was Sam's if he wanted it – and he did. Sam felt that he had given himself no other choice, so he resigned himself to his destiny. There were worse fates out there. His mother had told him, "You bloom where you are planted. Even if you bloom in a printing plant."

While Sam's life passion may not have been in his formal studies, it was with his family. If working at the printing plant provided a secure home for Julia and the kids, then it did what it was supposed to do. He shone at his duties despite himself. It also made Sam prominent in Castlebury where he volunteered actively within the Chamber of Commerce, library board and historical society, as well as in an appointed position on the town planning commission. Sam got things done in town not by telling people what to do, but by having an ability to inspire them to want to do what was suggested to them. That deference was what also made Sam so successful in business. Sam rarely asked for anything for himself. His purpose was always to help others. He loathed arrogance, selfishness and narcissism in anyone. They were the only traits in human nature that made him intolerant.

Being the eldest, Scott was aware of his duties and responsibilities to the family and to the company, with or without a college degree. He had ideas to adapt the plant to the computer and digital era; however, he liked to create, not manage. Routine maintenance of the company was not his preference. When his brother Drew started working there during his summers off from Madison College, Scott knew that Drew had the desire and enthusiasm to innovate the plant operations and to use his engineering education to dynamically transform the company in order to accommodate the technological age. Scott would listen as Drew discussed ways to improve the efficiency of the plant while controlling costs. Drew had that same persuasive ability as Sam. He would try to cajole Scott to get excited about possibilities and then ask him how they could then convince their father that what they proposed would benefit the future of the company.

But Scott couldn't get excited about any of it. He knew that all of those dreams and plans were not for him. He knew he wanted to do something else. He didn't know yet what it was, but he'd know it when he found it. Or it found him. He thought he'd find it when he went on the road in his black Corvette after he dropped out of college, imagining he was some romantic character from a novel or a television show. Whatever that "it" was he was seeking, "it" became elusive. Maybe he was purposely letting the booze blind him to what that "it" was. Maybe he wasn't ready yet to grow up.

Julia shifted the place card in front of her and finished writing Scott McCulloch.