Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [180]
Hamm Jr., who was sitting behind her at the time, turned beet red, but she did receive 78 percent of the Clark County vote.
On the morning after the special election, Neighbor Dorothy did her show as usual and at the end, before she signed off, she said, without fanfare, “Well, congratulations to our brand-new governor. We always feel sorry for the other fellow that loses but, as they say, may the best man win. Only from now on we might have to change that old saying to ‘May the best person win.’ This is Neighbor Dorothy with Mother Smith on the organ saying have a nice day and remember . . . you make our days so happy, so do come back and see us again, won’t you?”
THE SEVENTIES
A New Decade
IN 1970, after a long illness, the Smith family lost Mother Smith. That same year, Bobby and Lois had another boy. The world in general had changed very little except that a man had walked on the moon and everyone in Elmwood Springs was elated that America had done it first. Aunt Elner had been the only one over at Macky and Norma’s house that night at the moonwalk party who felt sad about it. When Linda asked her why she was not as excited as everybody else she said, “Oh, but I am. It’s just that I can’t help but feel sorry for that poor Neil Armstrong.”
“Why would you feel sorry for him, Aunt Elner?”
“Because, honey,” she said, “after you’ve been to the moon, where else is there to go?”
She had a point.
Linda Warren, Macky and Norma’s daughter, was a pretty girl with reddish-blond hair and although Norma had tried to be different, she wound up saying and doing all the annoying things to Linda that her mother had when she had been a teenager. Her favorite complaint, when Linda did not do what she wanted, was “You’re just like your daddy.” However, there was some truth to the statement. Linda, a real daddy’s girl, was much more like her father in likes and temperament. She loved baseball and fishing and was great at sports.
And despite all the nagging and pleading by Norma, she had refused to take the course in domestic science in school and much to her mother’s horror, had taken shop instead. Linda told her mother that she would much rather learn how to make a birdhouse than bake a cake and, as usual, Macky agreed with her. “I don’t know how you expect to raise a child and take care of a husband if you can’t even boil an egg or make a bed!” said Norma.
When Betty Raye had been elected for her second term as governor, the first thing she had done was to appoint Vita Green as the state’s first female lieutenant governor. So, unbeknownst to most people, Hamm’s wife and mistress wound up pretty much running the state. They had the help of Peter Wheeler and other smart people who were brought into the administration. Betty Raye also named her old friend the former short-order cook to an office she had created, as adviser to the governor on disabled veterans’ affairs. After the Trolley Car Diner closed, Jimmy moved to Jefferson City and did a good job helping her out with many things. Alberta Peets, what with the murder and all, could not serve officially but she did get an early pardon and stayed on as Betty Raye’s private secretary. Earl Finley said he would not live to see the end of the Hamm Sparks era and he was right. He had a stroke in 1969.
But Betty Raye was not the only Oatman doing well. In 1970, the State Department put together a goodwill tour featuring a tribute to American music and the Oatman Family Gospel Singers were chosen to represent southern gospel. They traveled to sixteen countries and had a wonderful time, especially the night of the performance in London at the Royal Albert Hall.
Minnie was so excited to meet the Queen Mother that after she did the curtsy they had taught her, which on a three-hundred-pound woman was more of a dip, she clapped her hands in delight at the very sight of her. “Well, if you are not just the cutest thing in your little crown. I know we are not supposed