The Bench

By Tom Reed

Communities are built on the shoulders of humble giants who quietly answered the nations call to fight wars, then came home and built businesses and families and communities prospered because of their efforts. Two old men sit on a bench around court square and remember their lives and observe the changes in the community they helped build. Lifes tales, tragedies and lessons come from discussions on the Bench. Community and personal values, dating back to Biblical times are discussed at the Bench.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512785166

Tom Reed

Tom Reed lives and writes on a small farm with his wife, Judy, in rural West Tennessee, shared with an abundance of critters. Prior to writing, he retired from a career in health care management and was active in community organizations. This is his tenth book. [Use photo from previous two books published by you.]

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Copyright © 2017 Tom Reed.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-8516-6 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/21/2017

Contents

Prologue

Begin

Follow

The Great Commission

Patience

Present

Prologue

Dotted all over our great country are courthouses found in towns, small, sometimes designated as the county seats. Within the courthouses are official offices where the citizens pay taxes, record real estate deeds, receive vehicle license plates, and lawyers plead cases in criminal and civil courts. Courthouses are busy places.

Many are located in the center of the city; the metropolis grew and swallowed the land around it. In smaller communities the courthouses are protected by a court square full of trees, grass, and simple benches. The square is a memory of what the city was before concrete, steel and glass took over. It is a calm within the bustling storm.

Here, in this calm, of most small communities, the court benches have been occupied for decades. Women and children pass by the seats on their daily chores and leave them vacant for the retired, old men.

Old warhorses who answered the nation’s call, and fought in every war. Some warhorses built businesses, employing the citizens, and multiplying a dollar earned through all the merchants in town. They started the Community Chest, which became the United Way, and they started many other community charities. They were pillars in the Boy Scouts and Little League. They were the coaches or cheering in all sports. They started or served schools, and found ways to improve education at all levels. They were or remain leaders within their churches.

They served on multiple Boards of Directors and went to hours and hours of meetings for no pay. They led and were part of fundraisers for every good cause.

Some have shiny plaques and trophies engraved with their names gathering dust in their attics because they are too humble to display them on the living room walls.

These warhorses are the unsung, and often unseen heroes of every community. When they retire, they often retire to sit, remember, and rest on a bench on court square near the courthouse. They become invisible and forgotten. Most communities rest on the humble shoulders of these giants, and this book is dedicated to them.

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Begin

They had all been replaced around 1938, but the original benches placed around the courtyard had been there since the new courthouse grew out of the charred rubble of the one before. There had been a few courthouses since 1818.

The benches served a community service for its citizens and those folks passing through this small southern town of Petal, TN. It was supposed to be named after a flower, but the first settlers couldn’t agree on one flower so they compromised on Petal. It could have been named worse.

Petal, TN did not flourish, but it did survive. It survived the great ‘Conflict Between the States’ mainly because there wasn’t much in Petal to pilfer nor was it in a strategic location in which to argue. No great roads, rivers or railroads came through this fine town. In fact, none come today decades later. That explains why industrial development and non-farming jobs are 95 miles west in Memphis.

The people of Petal do remain vigilant. Like many other Southern court squares, there is a tall Confederate soldier standing, armed, ready, facing north day and night. Since the mid 1860’s and Lee’s surrender not one militant Yankee has been spotted by the granite soldier. However the local pigeons do like him, and the Boy Scouts scrub the statue at least once a year. The Girl Scouts also do the chore one more time during the year. He is perched on a pedestal, so his view is from about forty feet high.

There is a bench next to our motionless soldier with a particularly good view of court square, the courthouse, and the world of Petal. A homeless bum, once housed in a mental institution thirty miles southwest, slept on this specific bench during good weather because a big oak tree blocked the streetlight. He gave up his bed and bench when he hung himself in an alleyway a few years ago.

The massive oak tree provided shade from the annoying street light at night as well as much needed shade and cool during the sweltering Southern summer days.

The bench, under this massive tree, provides a good view of the courthouse green square. The bench is long enough to seat two adults comfortably and just wide enough to accommodate a good slouch. It is made of wooden slats on the seat and back and sturdy iron on the ends that hold it all together and form the legs to make it stable. The paint is weathered past the wood. The last paint was a forest dark green, but now is a darkened oak with only a hint of the old green paint. The county stopped painting them many years ago because of budget restraints. The seat and back have scars from past occupants and a few whittlers.

The county decided that attention and money could be better spent elsewhere than upkeep on court square benches. As these old wooden benches became a hazard to the citizens, they were first replaced with colorful fiberglass benches that were unpopular. Later those were replaced with concrete, indestructible, non-maintenance ones. These newest ones were hot in the summer, very cold in other times of the year, and too hard all the time to sit comfortably upon.

Clayton and Raybon felt privileged to have laid claim to one of the few remaining old, useable wood benches, and especially the one under the big oak tree next to the vigilant, solid, soldier. It was comfortable to them.

Clayton and Raybon have been friends for many years. They each worked hard jobs, volunteered in community projects, raised families, and suffered everyone’s tragedies and joys. Neither man was born and raised in Petal, but both had put in their years in the community and knew its people and quirks. The men were retired now, they were lazy or smart enough not to have any productive hobbies so they met at The Bench every day to drink coffee, feed squirrels, and pigeons and talk about other people and their own lives. It passed the time, got them out of the house and away from the television. They enjoyed each other’s company. They experimented with a few retiree coffee clubs around town, but preferred