January Snow

By Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III

“Damn! Damn! What is this world coming too. Hazel come here for a moment and look at what is going on in this country.” Hazel poked her head out of the kitchen.
“George you know that I am busy with your dinner. Why can’t you watch the news without my help. Sometimes I wonder if you are able to sit in a room by yourself without supervision by me.” Shouted back Hazel Whitmore from the kitchen doorway. Hazel was busy in the kitchen preparing her husband’s favorite meal, Meatloaf surprise with mashed potatoes, Cream Corn, and Mushroom gravy. George was persistent and called his wife again.
“Hazel, you must see this. I think it is someone you know on the news. Really, I am not joking with you. Please come in here and see for yourself.” By now Hazel knew George was just about ready to come and drag her from the kitchen. Hazel put down her mixing bowl, wiped the cracker meal from her fingers, and rushed into the living room.
“George, this had better not be a joke. I have dinner to put on the stove, and you know how cranky you get if I am late with your dinner.” Hazel sat down next to her husband and looked at the TV set in the corner. What Hazel saw on the TV was photograph of a women and a man being shown to the viewers by a national reporter. Hazel gave a small sign and watched has her Husband’s excitement mounted.
“Well, I will be a Warty Toad, Hazel isn’t that a younger picture of you they are showing with this January guy sitting next to you?” George pointed to the dark- haired man to the right in the picture. The photograph was old, but George saw the resemblance to the women in the picture to his wife Hazel. The photo disappeared and the dark-haired man in the photo was being interviewed by a blonde reporter banishing a microphone in the front of his face. Hazel reached over to the set to turn up the volume.
“Mr. January, is it true you are being asked by the police not to leave town until they check out your alibi on the night your wife disappeared?”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005981235

Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III

I am a Award winning Poet, Writer, Artist, Sculptor, Pop Sociologist, an Inductee into the National Deans List, a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. I have been active in Community Service: Past Board Member of the Vine Neighborhood Association (3 terms), Membership Chair, Fund Raising Committee, Board secretary and interim Board Treasurer. Past member of the Recipient Rights Committee, County Mental Health Board. KVCC Public Museum Volunteer for 20 years. Involved in Community Theater for 50 years off and on most recent with the Kalamazoo Civic Theater since 1985. I have been apart of a Disaster Relief team for Hurricane Andrew in Florida helping feed 5000 people a day. I have be a home missionary worker with a local church administrating a shelter program for the homeless, Minister of the food Ministry, cook, and procurement of emergency food pantry items 1991-1992, I am a graduate of Kalamazoo Valley Community College 1998, Studies at Western Michigan University, Studies at Lansing Community College 1975, Graduate of Davenport College of Business 1974. Graduated Portland High School at age 21 in 1970. I was born in 1951 premature Twin with developmental issues, Learnings disabilities, and hearing impaired.

Book preview

January Snow

By

Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III

Copyright 02/22/2021

Smashword Edition

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Introduction

George and Hazel might seem like your ordinary married couple. There is nothing ordinary about this couple. One of them has a deadly secret and goes a haunting to get revenge. I guess you will have to read this short story and find out for yourself who done it.

Chapter 1

Meat Loaf Surprise

George Whitmore what is that thing? His wife yelled at him from the backdoor.

"Now Hazel don’t get your panties up in a pinch. This is want you call a CAT, short for Caterpillar. It is a midsize earth mover I brought from the warehouse. I use it to clear snow from the parking lot and sidewalks. It also moves earth and digs holes. That back bucket there does the digging, while the front scoop can left or push dirt around. It is going to make my job easier in widening up that streambed to create a larger retention pond for the seasonal snowmelts and rainy runoffs from hills into stream that runs through the on our back acreage outback. Now I have cleared it with the Conservation and Natural Water resource people. They okayed my plans to create this retention pond there by widening the stream that runs through our property outback. If I had known when I bought this land, it was a seasonal flood zone from the run off from hills upstream, I wouldn’t have build the house as close as I did to the stream. Historically they tell me that, that stream has been known to rise some 5 feet and flood this whole area right up to the road. You have seen it swell over its banks and nearly reach the house. This retention pond will control that overflow. Now I had plans drawn up and approved on how I am to achieve this. It is a very simple procedure. I will be moving earth away from the stream bank without touching the stream at first. I will push that earth up toward the house and create a 4-foot-high berm shoulder of dirt some 25 feet from the stream on this side. That berm will be some 60 feet long in a crescent shape connecting each end of the berm upstream and downstream. On the opposite side of the streambank. I will do the same though that side of the stream has a natural rise to it which is why the runoff runs toward the low side, and the house. On that side I will be leveling off that rise and pushing that earth back some 20 feet or more. That rise starts 40 feet back from the streambank. It will create a shallow soup like bowl in the middle of that stream A pond about 65 feet in diameter.

The plans call for a retainer wall of boulders on this side of the stream up against the berm, all the way back to the streambed. And the same on the other side. This will prevent the berm and the opposite banks from washing out. I will be planting some varies natural plants, cattail, and other aquatic riverbank plants all around the pond whose root systems will reinforce the banks from being eroded as well. At the downstream end of the pond will be a small flood gate. Which will during the dry season keep the pond at a certain level while allowing water to continue to flow downstream, and during the spring runoff from the snowmelt and rainy season, the pond will contain the rising waters, and still allow a controlled flow of the rising waters downstream. Our downstream neighbors will benefit from all this work as well. With the opposite bank being the lower side, any flooding that would endanger the house will naturally flow over the banks on that side and spread out into the wooded area. Which is a good thing as that as always been a traditional wetlands during the wet seasons. We will be restoring the wetlands and adding a habitat for waterfowl in the pond".

"Now, Hazel understand that is just the gist of the project. Moving the earth around will be the easy part. There will be adding gavel to the base of the bowl and then moving the boulders in, relocating them , and landscaping the pond. While all this is being done, the stream bank will always remain uncut and flowing down its natural streambed. When both side are done. We add the flood gate downstream. The gate will have 3 stops to it. Planks that slide out or in to control the rise of water or let more water flow out. Once the pond reaches the desired level for this time of the year, we allow a steady flow downstream at all times. I have been assured that by the historical records, we may face a serious high-water situation eventually, or we may not. You seen yourself how the rainy season can swell that stream in hours. The pond will never be kept at high level, at most it will be 2 feet deep giving us up to a 4-foot