Red State Hero

First Epistle - Chapter 14: COUNTRY CLUB MANOR

   Daniel received eleven letters and one telegram from his family over a period of fifty years. He referred to them as Epistles.

FIRST EPISTLE

Daniel Autrey
We Jon Boo, Korea
April 10, 1956

Dear Dan,
I heard about you getting shot up in the DMZ. Hope you're all right. I heard you were being transferred to the band after you get out of the hospital. Guess you'll get to play your horn. I have enclosed a Longine Whittnauer watch. It's a good one.
Glenn

P.S. Your mom was too upset to write.
_________________________________________________________________
Chapter 14

COUNTRY CLUB MANOR

With Daniel gone, the Reeves' family settled into a routine. If, a routine is a pattern of living that moves along predictably with ease then this would be the first routine of their lives. There were no big concerns. Glenn worked and shacked up with his secretary and Dorothy organized church events and re-shuffled her furniture. Every month or so she bought something new and gave something away. "Where did that table go?" Glenn would ask.

"We didn't have room for it," she retorted and so the matter was dropped.

They only argued about mundane things. "If I'm out on the rig day and night," he would shout, "why can't you water the lawn, it's getting brown spots out there."

They had their Friday evenings together, often at the drive-in theatre, other times at the Golden Fountain Chinese Restaurant.

Lois, the English professor's wife next door, babysat Derrick offering him drawing lessons and occasional caresses which made his eyes as big as eggs.

Glenn loved waking up to the sound of the sprinklers on the ninth-hole of the golf course. Country Club Manor was heaven, he thought. As for the future, the English Professor's wife seemed to Glenn to be a "plum for the picking". Sooner or later he would slip into her pocket of wetness.

This tranquillity went on year after year.