A Successful Voyage

CHAPTER 17

A SUCCESSFUL VOYAGE

“It is not the going out but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.”
Henry Ward Beecher

“The Richmond World Fair of 1953 had been opened three months. Viola Leftwich, who lived in the capital city as private secretary to a state senator, was entertaining some guest with a day at the fair. One of the guests was Margaret Witt, on vacation from Lewis-Gale hospital in Roanoke where she was superintendent of nurses.
Another guest was Marie Martin, the famous traveler and writer who was commissioned to write an article for the National Geographic magazine on scenes at the fair. Other guests were Mr. And Mrs. Everett Dowdy and Dr. Harold Martin. Mrs. Dowdy was the former Margaret Citty. Mr. Dowdy was mail clerk on a Norfolk and Western steamliner. Their home was in Roanoke. Dr. Martin was having his vacation from the University of Virginia where he was professor of Latin.
They arrived at the fair early and saw the scientific exhibits. They were especially interested in the colored glass house shown by the famous contractor, Marvin Tate. He had delayed his building career until The Great War was over.
Going by the dancing pavilion, Viola said, “Listen! If that isn’t Clark Graves at the piano, I’ll eat Harold’s hat.” She didn’t have to do that, because, in the middle of a large dance floor, crowded with his admiring fans, Clark was taking a bow and presenting his band and his Porto Rican (sic) songsross (sic) with a popular song he had written. Someone said he was going to marry the lovely singer.
In another building Stephen Witt was playing his fiddle. He was called the successor of Bob Burns and his Bozooka (sic).
While visiting the farm exhibits, they came upon William Fariss and Clayton Witt in one of their old-time friendly quarrels over whose pigs and corn would get first prize. They had big and joining farms between Huddleston and Bedford. Clayton still has his buggy because cars required the use of his hands which he wanted free for____. Well, those two were the most eligible bachelors of Route 4.
The visitors rode all the loops, wheels, scooters, dips, etc. at the fair, and then wanting a little rest, wandered into a gypsy’s tent to have their fortunes told. When the dark- eyed woman asked them if they had any questions, Margaret said, “Well, we’ve seen so many of our class mates today, let’s see if the fortune-teller can tell what the others are doing.”
The gypsy looked into her crystal ball and saw a Japanese mission, where Mabel Layne and her preacher husband were teaching little Japs to be good boys and girls.

Next, she said she saw a girls flying school and its manager was Frances Fariss. They all remember Frances as the only girl in aeronautics class at H.H.S. and a very good executive as class president.
“Now I see a man pursued by several very determined girls and-and-there-he is up in a plane. He took the air to avoid his admirers.” “Yes, yes that must be Marcus Woodford,” the visitors cried. “We heard he was the new manager of Eastern Airlines.”
In succession, the gypsy showed them Floyd Daniel still convencing (sic) people - this time as a politician; Kyle Kirby back at high school trying to get the janitors job so he could look after some junior girls; Ruth Ashwell, wife of a rich man, with a maid to fix her hair and a chauffeur to keep her car from wrecking; Rachel Johnson with a streamlined Buick and a man to go with it: Lucille Howell happily instructing Latin at the University of Virginia; Bevie Wilkes and her husband, Mayhew; Kitty Wilkes living in a beautiful home in Bedford; Wilber Maxey growing oranges in Florida.
“Oh,” sighed Marie, coming out of her trance, “It’s wonderful to find out what all our friends are doing, but listen: it’s impossible for this gypsy girl to know or see all this.”
“Of course it is,” said professor Harold, walking up to the situation. “Wait, look at her hands.”
All eyes focused on the hands holding the crystal ball, and saw there a Huddleston High ring of ‘43. The “gypsy” raised her dark eyes, and throwing off the bright scarf , which had covered her head and shoulders, and became Mary Fariss. Questions were showered on her, but Mary finally got them quiet enough to tell how she had seen them about to enter the tent, and had bribed the real gypsy to let her tell their fortunes.
“Okay,” she called, “come on out” and Florence Plymale stepped from behind a screen, laughing at their surprise. “Yes,” she added, “we came up the fair from Newport News where we are working. We have an apartment together. Come to see us.
They paid the old gypsy woman well for their fun, and strolled out of the tent still chatting about “the old times.”

Class Prophecy of 1943, The Mirror, Volume IV, Huddleston High School


During the summer of 1998, I accompanied my father to his 55th high school reunion at the Huddleston Rescue Squad building in Huddleston. For the past several years, the class of ‘43 had been meeting annually because their number had been steadily dwindling over the past decade, and the former students were determined to meet and enjoy fellowship with one another while they were still in good health.

My father had looked forward to this event for weeks and had even mentioned the upcoming affair to most of the customers in the butcher shop the Saturday of the big event. With tongue in cheek, he would ask his shoppers if he looked old enough for such a milestone event, and he drew a considerable amount of interest and many good-hearted laughs.
Every Saturday during the summer tourist season, I traveled from Roanoke to work with my grandmother and father. We sold retail cuts of meat from our business, Martins’s Meat Processing on White House Road. On the day of the reunion, my father was near-ecstatic because I had agreed to accompany him. However, as this Saturday progressed, my father’s energy waned. At first, I paid little attention to his slower pace, because at the age of 72 and with a bad heart condition, this was not to be unexpected. By late afternoon, though, he was becoming unsteady on his feet and I suggested that we stay home. He, though, was determined to go. When we arrived later that evening at the event, I feared that my father was seriously ill.
After we parked our car and got out to walk inside, my father staggered several times. Concerned, I told him that we had better leave, but he continued to shrug off my concern. He was pale and weak, and I sensed that by tomorrow, perhaps even later that evening, he would be in the hospital. He should not have spent the day in the butcher shop, I said to myself as we walked toward the building’s front door, but he had looked forward to this gathering for weeks and I would be almost as disappointed as he would be if he had to miss it. (The next day, he was admitted to the hospital; he had suffered another heart attack).
“This is the last one that I will get to go to,” he said. I made no reply but I silently agreed. He had endured a bypass surgery in 1985; suffered several subsequent heart attacks; had an angioplasty and coronary stent implants. His cardiologist had already told me that he could not endure much more. He had not minced words when he said there was no more he could do for my father; he told me to expect him to die in his sleep.
“I’d better try to see this thing through, my father said.” He sounded grim, yet determined.

How could I disagree? What will be, will be, I said to myself, recalling the philosophy my father had drilled into me for years. We must accept what comes our way and ask God for strength. There are some things in life that cannot be changed but merely accepted. Besides, I thought, if he does have a heart attack, what better place to have one than inside the rescue squad building?
We walked in and sat down. Slowly, my father seemed to gather energy as he talked with old acquaintances. My father introduced me to everyone and bragged on my accomplishments. After spending about hour socializing, we took our seats. My father and I headed for at a table in the rear of the banquet room and sat down. But the class president, who noticed the faux paus, came back to our table and reminded my father that he had been a class officer, class treasurer, and he needed to be at the head table. I was not only honored to see my father move, but that his modesty required that he be asked to do it. I kept my place.
The fare was the simple but good food on which these country boys and girls had been raised: fried chicken, country ham, boiled potatoes, baked apples, green beans and biscuits. Every family in the room had prepared the same meal in their own homes countless times. As youngsters, they had all raised chickens and hogs, planted and harvested potatoes and vegetables, and picked fruit from their own trees. The class of 1943 had lived an agrarian life in a simpler time but had witnessed the rise of massive frozen food sections in behemoth grocery stores. They had all walked at least a mile to a general store to listen to a radio and now they all now owned televisions and VCRs. Some of them could even operate a computer. Here, at these reunions, they could all see how progress had shaped their lives. They could see, too, how well they had managed the passing of their years. As my father would have said, life had “thrown them all many curves,” but here, over a simple but good meal, they could once again remember the simpler times and the simpler places of their unworried youth.

After the meal, the class president made a few remarks, followed by the secretary, who first reminded the audience that the red roses at each table were in memory of a deceased classmate. A rose for each departed classmate, I repeated to myself. I tried hard not to think that next year, at about this time, there would probably be a flower placed on one of these tables for my father. I fought hard against the lump gathering in my throat.
Next, the students each took a few moments to share with the audience some of their accomplishments over the past four decades. World War II veterans (my father was exempted for family reasons), homemakers, a music teacher, an engineer and a few farmers took their turns as I half-listened, waiting for my father. I knew what he would soon say about his life. I could have spoken the words for him.
When it was his turn, my father replied, “Well, not much really, I guess.” Then for a few moments, he said that he had farmed all of his life. He had milked cattle for quite a few years, then worked on construction jobs with his father-in-law, and then opened the meat-packing business in the mid 1970's. When he finished, several people remarked that being both a farm owner and an business owner sounded like a lot to them. My father sat up straighter when he heard this. Imagine his classmates thinking that his life had really been a success, even though he hadn’t become a professor of Latin, as had been foretold.
My father’s 55th class reunion, was, indeed, his last one. I do not recall receiving any information about the next reunion, but I have often thought about his rose on one of those tables. As we left the reunion that evening, he was thinking about that rose, too. Perhaps, some of his high school chums were thinking of their own rose that evening. Undoubtedly, they all wondered how so much time could have passed and how it was possible that they were all now living in their retirement years.
If the class of 1943 could have really peered into a gypsy’s imaginary crystal ball to glimpse their future, would they have been pleased with what they would have seen? My father would have been dismayed that day at the Richmond Fair. Some of his friends would have been, too. Thank goodness we cannot see into the future because many of us would just give up on the present. Sometimes what we think will bring us happiness brings no joy at all. Sometimes, danger lurks when we get that for which we ask.

My father attended his 55th class reunion to remember when his life’s journey began. In 1943, he and his fellow travelers were young, energetic, optimistic, hopeful and confident. Now well on their voyage, coming back to port, they all had wanted to feel that youthful, carefree joy one last time. My father had received an extra joy: in a review of his life at the end of his life, he needed assurance from his peers that he had, after all, lived well and journeyed well.
My father died almost a year after his last class reunion. As he left his former classmates for the last time, he left knowing that he had been a good husband, land owner, farmer, business owner, church leader, and father of a college graduate. These accomplishments had made him feel complete. For him, looking back had brought a joy that looking forward into a crystal ball could not compare.