WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Seventeen

Julia McCulloch tied an apron around her waist to prepare for the pie making, but then remembered that she should complete her first chore before tackling the next. She massaged her fingers as she returned to the living room. Through a white lace curtain panel hanging in the front window, she saw Sam's red-and-black checked jacket outside past the front bushes. She moved closer to see him raking the pile of leaves to the right of the front walkway.

She smiled to herself as she looked at him, thinking, Is this the rainbow? She tapped on the window and waved to him.

From the front yard, Sam saw Julia in the window and he tipped his hat to her before she returned to her desk. For their first Thanksgiving in this home, he had seen her in the same window, holding Scott in her arms, the two of them waving to Sam as he raked up the front and swept the porch stairs before the rest of family arrived for the holiday meal.

Sam laughed to himself as he continued to rake. He was remembering his father's conversation at the dining table that first Thanksgiving, when Peter McCulloch digressed to those assembled about an example of courtesy and thoughtfulness. It had to do with clipping one's nose hairs before going to the dentist. It wasn't enough to brush and floss one's teeth, he explained. He suggested that while one was prostrate on one's back in the dentist's chair, the dentist had a direct view of the contents in one's nostrils while one's dental needs were being attended to. Therefore, according to Sam's father, one should ascertain that the nasal passages be clear of any type of hardened sinus obstructions or extended cilia since one didn't want to distract the dentist unnecessarily, especially when the dentist had a drill at the ready. Julia commented later about her father-in-law's dissertation on courtesy, "Your father can cuss out you and your brother with worse vocabulary than a drunken teamster, but God forbid, he says booger for fear of offending your mother's delicate sensibilities."

Sam remembered looking at his mother as she admonished his father for mentioning the subject to begin with, to which he responded, "Would you have rather have me discuss the pope's nose on the turkey?"

Sam started laughing to himself as he raked. He remembered how his mother somehow hadn't heard his father correctly and retorted, "There will be no discussion of religion or politics at the table, Peter. And I don't care if it is a pope based in Rome or Istanbul or Salt Lake City."

He was still laughing to himself. Sam missed his family. All of them were gone now, those he loved in the family he'd been born into: his grandparents, his parents, and his brother. The only one he had to share those memories with was himself.

He went back to raking the leaf pile. When he finished this chore, he could return to his digital camera and try to figure out its timer.

Julia stepped back from the front window and then crossed the living room to sit at her desk to finish the last four place cards. She picked up her calligraphy pen in her right hand and positioned a blank place card with her left. She again smiled as she wrote Ben McCulloch.