the newspaper owner's wife

the newspaper owner's wife

fiction
edward w pritchard

The newspaper owners wife was very wealthy, had a good heart and liked to keep busy. Her charity work expanded as her fortune multiplied following her husband's death and to separate her time in her gardens and with her dogs from the day to day business of her charities and foundations she bought a building to house her charitable offices and staffs in. Being a good local booster she bought a white elephant style building that had been listed a long time and wouldn't sell. It was on campus but even the university wouldn't buy it with endowment funds. It was an old building previously owned by a 19th century fraternal civic group, who were a little eccentric in their time, and the building was now said to be haunted; at least that is what the listing agents said who couldn't sell it for so so long. If it was haunted it was the pipes and the electrical wiring for they were in sorry shape. The building did have it's amenities and one was a stage on the third floor previously used for initiation ceremonies by the fraternal organization.

In time spirits began to read newspaper clippings to the foundation founder as she watched the stage from the comfortable seats in the audience. Each ghost of the dead members of the long gone fraternal organization would enthusiastically but soto voce recite the news of one day from the long life of the founder, as she sat comfortably in the audience. Since she was nearly seventy there were a variety of newspaper clippings to hear and the actors on the stage although long dead, would each day give a spirited performance. Despite her attachment to her gardens and her dogs at home the wealthy woman enjoyed going to work every day and was sad when the readings from the stage ended for the day for the troupe of dead members of the fraternal organization were strict followers of the rules of the actors guild and only gave one performance per day.
end part 1

Just Another Celebrity

Just Another Celebrity

fiction
edward w pritchard

She was a movie star, a media star, and a great beauty, but had been at it long enough to want nothing more than her privacy.

Her half-sister and her brother in law were using her condo in Florida, and she was driving from Cleveland, Ohio to the their house in Akron, ostensibly to check on the cat and the plants, but really to have a few hours to herself.

Things hadn't started well once she hit Akron, near where she had grown up, and they had gotten worse from there. She had drove past the Grade School, near her sisters house and there was one of her old boyfriends, from high school, who when she saw him helping a little girl with one of those heavy yellow raincoats, she instantly remembered her Aunt telling her several times at holiday's, playing the town crier, that her ex-boyfriend was an assistant principal at the old school. She remembered the mean things she had said to him near here, years ago, about his lack of ambition for himself, but she was unable to not watch him now, as he bent down and put his knee on the ground, to help the little girl button the coat, and she of course knew it was his best suit, and the knee of the pants would be ruined, and his wife would be unable to fix it, but the wife would only pretend to be mad, and he would apologize to her a couple of extra times, but looking at him, although he was heavier, he was still tall and awkward in a good way, but gentle too, and the gentleness was something long gone in her life and she drove off feeling sad.

Later, she had went to a local convenience store, where she was sure the Arabic owner there didn't recognize her , or care who she was, but she couldn't find anything to buy, because of a very limited inventory, and even though she was cold and hungry and wet from an all day rain, she couldn't find anything she wanted here, and eventually she bought and old fashioned chicken pot pie, but not a name brand.

Finally she parked the rental car in the drive of the old family house where they had lived as children, that her half sister took over when their Mother died, and sat in the drive a few minutes and listened to the rain, knowing if anyone saw her they would think it her sister, who looked like her, only prettier, and she thought in a private joke against the world, for she had been named one of the twenty prettiest women of all time, but she always felt her half sister to be the prettier one, as did everyone about their own sister probably. Eventually she went in the house and went through the kitchen and living room which were still neat and homey and went to the old family room in the basement.

There was an old couch from when they were kids that had never been thrown away, but should have been, and her grandmother's, who was part Cherokee, old Indian blanket, which she wrapped up in, and she mashed up and ate the pot pie, and watched the cable, wishing she had an old fashioned TV guide rather than the onscreen version. As she finished her dinner, holding the cat, she dozed off into a deep sleep for the first time in a long time.

The local Celebrities 90th birthday

The Local Celebrity

fiction
edward w pritchard

Mr. X was very rich and everyone hung on his every word and wanted to be near him because he was desperately trying to give his money away faster than it came in after a long life of skillful business ventures. He was no longer just a business man he was now a local celebrity.

At this, his 90th birthday party, he received hundreds of gifts and cards, some gifts were extravagant, like the yellow BMW, but most were modest because he cajoled and begged that he had no more room for more things and his health didn't allow the expensive cigars, cognacs and cheeses that he often received. Additionally, creative and capable people often brought books and posters on his past hobbies and he had a large stack of such things that he wanted to look at but didn't seem to be able to get to.

Sitting near him at the head table, the single representative for the various charities he represented was worried and nervous. The representative's job was a good one, as it was his sole job to guide Mr. X through these type of dinners, and the 90th Birthday party was no exception. Mr X was distracted and wasn't following the normal protocol.

Mr. X just kept looking at and reading the card over and over. Apparently, the card was from his great grand niece, and she had wrote the old guy a short story based on a piece of family lore that she had heard about Mr. X, from her Mother, that occurred when Mr X was 10 years old. The story was inside of a card from the young girl and was only three paragraphs long and went:

A young boy of ten and his friend hiked across the Cuyahoga River and on a hot July day in the woods, and they found an old half buried stump, and while they were digging it out, in the the buried center of the stump, they found permafrost, that still existed in the middle of the July summer day.
Pooling their limited funds the two boys walked a couple miles to an old tavern and bought two soft drinks and some snack food. They returned to the stump and put the items into the bottom and then went for a long walk along the River.
Returning to the stump hours later, they enjoyed the very cold pop, and food and shared conversation until nearly dark before their long walk back home.

Mr. X normally enjoyed the conversations with the Charity representative, who he nick-named his arranger, but today despite their friendship he remained preoccupied. He knew this drill well but was today unable to focus on the nuances involved. The arranger who recognized he needed help went to find the Local Celebrities Son, to see if the Son could repossess the Grandniece's birthday card.