Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [55]
Several women in town, after seeing all the varieties of food available, vowed they would never fix dinner at home again and three or four didn’t.
Ida Jenkins, Norma’s mother, was so impressed that she dropped the word cafeteria in every sentence she could.
Of course, it took a while for people to get used to it and realize that they had to watch what the kids chose. The first night Bobby picked out three desserts and two bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy. And when Poor Tot took her mother up there for dinner, her mother put sixteen corn sticks and four iced teas on her tray. Tot tried to put a few back but her mother kicked and yelled so, she had to take her home.
But other than that and a few people dropping their trays before they got to their tables, it was a very welcome addition to the town. Inside and out. Now added to the orange-and-white neon sign that ran around the marquee of the movie theater, the bright green neon of the Victor the Florist sign, and the blue-and-white neon of the Blue Ribbon Cleaners and the Rexall drugstore was the big-pink-neon-pig-running-in-a-circle sign.
Main Street was suddenly ablaze with color. Looking at it from the Smiths’ front porch was wonderful. The whole street glowed in the night and looked as bright and as cheerful as a Ferris wheel.
September Again?
Monroe had been home from his grandparents’ for only a week when, much to Bobby’s regret, September came rolling around again and, as it must, school started. But for his sister, this year was a completely different story. Anna Lee was now a senior in high school, with all the rights and privileges the name implies. Seniors were a special breed apart. Unlike the rest of the students, who were still having to slug through the long boring days, every minute of their school year was filled with football games, excitement, pep rallies, dances, romances, and anticipation. They don’t know it yet but for many it would be the happiest year of their lives.
But Bobby was still in sixth grade. Right now all he had to look forward to was Halloween and scaring mean Old Man Henderson.
Several weeks into October, Dorothy opened her Monday morning broadcast with “Good morning, everybody. Oh, did you all see that beautiful harvest moon last night? I just love it this time of year, when, as Mr. James Whitcomb Riley says, the frost is on the pumpkin . . . and I have some good news this morning. Elmwood Springs finally won a football game, thanks to young Mr. Macky Warren kicking the ball and saving the day. In fact, making the day. So hooray for us. Anna Lee and her crowd are having their own wiener and marshmallow roast out at the lake this Friday and Doc and I are chaperones, so if I can get through this month without gaining twenty pounds I’ll be lucky. Later on, Beatrice, our Little Blind Songbird, will be singing ‘In the Shadow of the Whispering Pines’ for you, but meanwhile a seasonal message from Dr. Orr, our dentist here in Elmwood Springs. He writes, ‘October is the month for candied apples, taffy apples, and parties where bobbing for apples is often featured. I strongly advise denture wearers to abstain from these foods and activities.’ Thank you, Dr. Orr, for that reminder. Of course, we all remember last year when Poor Tot Whooten lost a perfectly good front tooth eating a candied apple at the state fair. Personally I would just as soon take a bite out of the dining room table than to eat one of those things. And what else do I have?
“Oh, here it is. Doc said to remind you that all the money collected at the Lions Club Haunted House this year is going to the Crippled Children’s hospital, so be sure to come by. But he says all the people with bad hearts should stay home, so it sounds like it’s going to be another scary one. You can be sure I won’t be going in. I’ll just give my nickel at the