Bookemdanosports: The Loner: Chapters 1 and 2 with photos by Amelia

Chapters 1 and 2 of The Loner

It’s only fitting. I’m pushing seventy and all alone. The fact is, I brought it all on myself. Married to the same job for forty-nine years.

Don’t get me wrong. I said the vows in a church in front of God and everybody, a total of three times, make that four. The last nuptials were a repeat performance.

My intentions were good. I’m not that hard to get along with. My problem was availability. I was never home.

After all, being a TV sports anchor doesn’t allow for a lot of home time, especially during the fall and winter months. Sixteen weeks of football, add four exhibition games, two or three playoff games, and maybe if the stars are aligned right — a Super Bowl.

Then there’s the off-season. Three or four celebrity golf tournaments, a half a dozen ad spots for some shaving cream company — a product, of course, I never used, and to top it off, the powers-to-be pencil me in for a handful of sports cruises, my job there, of course, is to spread goodwill and bring more fame to yours truly and the Network.

Ratings. It’s always about the ratings.

So, here I am, on the road again. Believe me, there’s no Willie Nelson to listen to as I head east with the Arizona sunset behind me and nothing but darkness ahead of me.

Two days ago, I signed on the dotted line, not for a new career, mind you, but for my resignation letter.

To Brad Jolly, Chief Executive Officer of the CBC Sports Network:

“To whom it may concern: I quit. Done…no more. Finished.”

Yours truly,

Royce Reirdon

The rumor was I was through, anyway. Some upstart twenty-five-year-old, fresh out of UCLA, handsome, but with a set of eyebrows that would make Groucho Marx turn over in his grave, was already filling in nicely for me during my three-month absence.

Yes, maybe I’m a little jealous. I wish the young man the best. I know of the journey ahead of him. The ups, the downs…the daily routine to prepare for…to dress for…the makeup…keep your collar clean…the stress he’ll be under to transform himself into a personality likable to millions of TV viewers. The Network had found its new man — newly acquired Bruin, Jimmy Johnstone.

To be honest, I wasn’t fired, and the letter to my old buddy Jolly was more of a prank. But I am leaving, retiring, departing the premises — disappearing into darkness, heading for Abilene and a night’s stay at the Hilton Inn.

Three months ago, I walked into the University Medical Center, complaining about what I thought was another case of indigestion, but fourteen hours later, I was being prepped for a quadruple bypass.

Heart attack! My God! How could that be? I’m sixty-nine years old. I just shot a 1-over-par 73 at Tucson National. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. Whoops, better take that back. I love those Margaritas and a cool one now and then with my co-workers.

It just didn’t make any sense. I run three miles a day, three days a week, and broke four hours at the Boston Marathon, three times in my life — once as a spry thirty-year-old, once at forty, and once on the day I turned fifty.

Alright, so I haven’t been exercising lately.

Last spring, I played in a men’s over-sixty baseball league and tore up my knee. I limped around for a good four months and carried my crutches into the announcer’s booth for most of the winter. A painful reminder to stay off the baseball diamond and stay out of harm’s way.

I was getting back into shape, batted .340, and played a mean third base, until one night I tried to stretch a double into a triple and heard a pop in the right knee. And that was that.

But it was the heart attack that changed my way of thinking. I’m not a young man anymore. Can’t do the things I used to do, and I certainly can’t handle the stress in the booth, and the constant three and four-day stays in a hotel room, with snow pounding on a hotel rooftop in some city I could care less about.

Yes, it was time to end it. Time to slow down and time to focus on the family for a change. The mother of my two boys — men now, Jake, forty-six, and Josh, forty-nine — had passed away two days ago. The service was in three days in Jacksonville, Arkansas, my hometown, twelve miles northeast of Little Rock, and the Arkansas River.

Maggie was my first love…maybe my only love. It was kinda downhill from there. Think executive secretaries and a crazy woman who was trying desperately to latch on to a pro football player and mistook me for a high-flying running back — and that’s just for starters.

It was sweet Maggie that got my attention in college. We met in Fayetteville, our freshman year — she, ironically, was a journalism major and I was a jock, the third right-handed starter for the Arkansas Razorbacks. It was a football school, so I got off on the wrong side of things, signing on with a full ride to play baseball.

I wasn’t too bad. I led the Jacksonville High School Red Devils with an 8-2 record my junior year and a mediocre 7-5 record my senior season. I wasn’t a major league prospect, but with a little luck, I might have spent fifteen long years in the minor leagues.

My college career included three seasons with the Razorbacks. Nothing to write home about. Won eight games and lost sixteen. Dropped out of baseball my senior year and focused on a broadcasting career.

Someone liked the sound of my voice and said I had a pleasant smile and reminded them of Jack Nicholson. One thing led to another, a break here, a break there, and with a college degree in hand, I landed a job with KATV, Channel 7, in Little Rock.

Probably the best time of my life — aside from those unforgettable days when both of my boys were born. I guess it was just the excitement of getting started…learning the ropes, making mistakes, but better yet, nailing a 30-second spot and coming through with flying colors. It was all a giant rush. I was hooked right from the beginning.

Maggie and I did well. Two healthy boys, and they both grew up to be of service to society — Josh, a battalion chief for the North Little Rock Fire Department, and Jake, an educator and currently the principal at a high school in Conway, Arkansas.

A total of six grandchildren… and they’ll all be there at the Jacksonville Heritage Funeral Home, to pay their respects to Maggie Haggerty…Maggie Reirdon…Maggie Haggerty Williamson. Yes, Maggie remarried and married the pastor of the First Baptist Church in West Jacksonville.

“What’s with all these snowflakes?” It hadn’t rained in Arizona in four months, and what snow the state had received came from a couple of flurries north of Show Low and in Flagstaff. A dry country. A dry heat. And no rain, especially in Tucson, my home for the past ten years.

With my headlights on high, I left Arizona and entered New Mexico. A half-hour later, I noticed civilization again. The last hundred miles had been pure darkness. Don’t get me wrong. I love traveling at night. The scorching daytime heat in southwest Arizona during the summer can be unbearable. Of course, it was the first day of December, but I’m a creature of habit.

Nightmares were a norm for me, and I hated one in particular, which included being stuck on the side of an Arizona highway at high noon with no water and nothing but the desert floor to stare at for a hundred miles in every direction.

The sign ahead. Lordsburg, City Limits.

The billboard is off to the right. Double T Truck Stop, good food, hot coffee.

The last time I was in Lordsburg was in ’67. I was on my way to El Paso to interview Coach Don Haskins. His basketball team, which included an all-black starting five, had won the NCAA title in ’66, dumping legendary coach Adolph Rupp and the Kentucky Wildcats.

The sports world was interested in how the now legendary Haskins was doing, and a good year had passed since his Texas Western Miners had been on top of the world. I was working the Phoenix market at the time and doing a piece entitled: ‘Haskins and The Championship Run.’

“What can I get you, sweetie?”

“Just some hot coffee, thank you.”

Etta Mae, at least that’s what is scrolled on her name tag, had a friendly smile, and she gave me that “I’ve seen you somewhere” smile. Chances are, her husband of thirty years had his nose glued to the television on a Sunday afternoon during November.

She placed a beer on the coffee table for him, shook her head once or twice, and curled up on the couch with a romantic novel in the palm of her hand. Her hubby’s eyes had never left the screen, but he’d made an incredible move with his right hand and cuffed the neck of the beer bottle without missing the offensive play…or my expert analysis at the time.

Little did she know a million years later she’d be serving coffee at a diner in Lordsburg to the cocky announcer she had heard on television who, at that moment, was berating a defensive lineman for a late hit on a defenseless quarterback.

It happened to me all the time. Everybody seemed to know me, but couldn’t put a handle on where they had seen me or when.

And now, as I enter those “golden years,”— I’m just another face in the crowd — and an old face at that. The “young world” is passing me by, and it just seems like it was yesterday when I was a member of the “young guns” and had the world by the tail.

It was a fast-moving train ride for four, maybe five decades, and now, it is more like a train wreck, and my chances of getting back on track are not a wager I’d be willing to make.

I left plenty of money for my coffee and Etta Mae. As I left, I heard her comment to a co-worker, “I can’t place him, but he’s a big tipper,” as she flashed a ten-dollar bill in the face of a very unhappy waitress. “Etta Mae, you are so lucky with those tips.”

I pulled into a Chevron station on the eastern edge of Lordsburg, filled up, grabbed another cup of coffee, and was back on the road — back on schedule. I’d arrive late in the afternoon in Abilene, check into the hotel, grab a bite to eat, shower and shave, and find an old Western to watch. I’d be dead to the world before John Wayne would catch up to the bad guys in the black hats.

I’m way ahead of myself here. I’ve got another six hundred miles of blacktop to deal with first. A lot of lonely roads and a lot of time to think.

My early childhood was spent in the small town of Jacksonville or at my grandparents’ farm in Benton. As I look back now, I realize what an exciting time it had been. When you’re little, it doesn’t occur to you what you have or what you don’t have. It’s decades later before you begin to carry around that burden.

As far as life on my grandparents’ farm in Benton, I remember the cows, the pigs, and the pigeons cooing in the rafters of the old red barn. I remember battling the wasps in the outhouse — also known as the privy or the earth closet. It wasn’t until I was five or six that my grandparents upgraded to indoor plumbing. Until then, I outran my share of creatures.

Hunting and fishing with my father in Jacksonville was a monthly occurrence, maybe once a week if he could get away from the dealership. My Grandpa Reirdon, on the other hand, joined us when he was able, but he passed away at sixty-one. My grandmother died a year later. We had our time together — albeit not nearly enough.

My first gun was a nickel-plated, twenty-eight-gauge shotgun. My goodness, you could see me coming from a mile away. I doubt I surprised or outfoxed any four-legged animal — except the poor little squirrel, I must have nicked with the shot from my trusty weapon during an early Saturday morning outing with my father.

A brilliant hunter. We were heading home when the poor squirrel fell out of the tree. It must have taken a good ten minutes before it made its plunge to the ground.

It’s crazy what I remember. I recall the railroad track, not more than three miles from the front door of our house in downtown Jacksonville. I walked on that old track many times as a young boy. It seemed like it took an hour to reach the outskirts of town. I wasn’t alone then. I had my mother or father at my side.

If my father made the journey, we’d end up at the local hardware store. I’d grab a couple of sugar cookies from the canister, under the watchful eye of the proprietor, of course, and then I’d sit on a bench outside the store and listen to three or four old men discuss the price of soybeans.

My God! What happened to that little boy?

The simple answer is — I grew up.

The sun was coming up. I was no longer alone on I-20. I passed a yellow school bus, a couple of semi trucks, and a John Deere tractor with a family of four onboard heading for the cotton field up ahead.

I turned the radio dial to a local station in Odessa. I spent a long two weeks in the area, back in the late 1980s. High school football is as big, if not bigger, in West Texas than it is in many high-profile college towns, drawing crowds upwards of 20,000 people for a game under the lights on a Friday night.

Sixteen years after I set foot in Odessa, Texas, television cameras were there, documenting the phenomenon, and a few years later, a movie called “Friday Night Lights” would fill the silver screen, focusing on the 1988 Permian High Panthers in their quest for a Texas state football title. Actor Billy Bob Thornton portrayed the stressed-to-the-hilt coach, Gary Grimes.

I turned off the radio station and inserted a Waylon Jennings CD, still upset with myself for misplacing my Willie Nelson disc. Waylon was still a good choice, and it seemed like the appropriate thing to do as I floored the gas pedal on my 2012 Lexus. I proceeded to count the oil rigs on both sides of the road. It did pass the time.

Texas is such an enormous state. Texas is so big that you can go through fifteen climate changes before you reach the next state.

As for I-20, it is a monster. The lengthy path extends from the far edge of West Texas to South Carolina — over 1,500 miles, 636 miles alone in the great state of Texas.

You certainly have time to relive your life, if you’re so inclined.

Abilene, city limits.

I’d had enough for one day.

There’s an old ad on television that sticks in the back of my mind — on many occasions, I’d take a break in the “booth,” and I’d catch a glimpse of the thirty-second spot, while I continually sift through copy, familiarizing myself with my next story.

The television ad is relaying information to the viewer about where he or she could get a restful night’s sleep. It may work for some, but not in my case. At home in my bungalow, deep in the Catalina Foothills on the far north side of Tucson, I average maybe four to five hours of sleep — something to do with old age, I guess.

On the road, you can divide in half the number of hours of shut-eye I can accumulate. It makes no difference whether I’m curled up in bed at a Hilton or a Motel 6, as I said before, the John Wayne flick will get me a few hours, but chances are it won’t be long before I’m awake, staring across the room at some picture on the wall — an image, of course, which has nothing to do with me or my life.

The Abilene Hilton was no exception.

Supposedly, lack of sleep is not something a “heart patient” should be dealing with. I’ve tried all sorts of medications — some of which have turned me into a zombie — kinda like the character in the old 2002 Al Pacino movie where he plays a homicide detective in Alaska. Nighttime never comes, and there are not enough toothpicks in town to keep Detective Will Dormers’ eyelids from closing.

The title of the movie, Insomnia. I made the mistake of waking up at midnight in yet another hotel room in 2004 and hit the wrong button on the remote. I was charged $5.95 for the movie and spent two hours glued to a 28-inch screen as Pacino did his best to keep me wide awake.

It’s pretty much out in the open now. I guess I should fess up and let the rest of the world know I have a mental illness. Depression. I’ve dealt with it, without help, for most of my adult life, but over the last few years or so, I have asked for help. One positive note when it comes to my treatments is the fact that I’m dating my clinical psychologist, Harriet Mayweather.

Heck, it worked for Kevin Costner in Tin Cup. He seemed to come out alright with Renee Russo, but in my case, I’m taking it real slow, and so is my shrink. She’s skating on thin ice, and she knows it.

If you can tell by now, I love movies. The movies are my outlet, and I can somehow enter into the mind of the character on the screen, and for the better part of two hours, live someone’s agony and forget my own.

One comforting fact about depression. I’m not alone.

I read in a publication somewhere that 121 million people around the world suffer from some kind of depression. So, that leaves me feeling comfy. What’s crazy about it all, eighty percent of those people who get up every morning in a depressed state don’t do anything about it.

First of all, it’s not easy, especially in my case, to sit across from Harriet Mayweather and spill my guts out. To top it off, after all the sessions I’ve had with her, I’m asking myself, does she have any answers to my dilemma? I’ve known the lady for two years now, and she lives alone, for goodness' sake, just five miles from me.

The lady has helped. I should cut her some slack. She says I certainly have all the symptoms of being a depressed soul — the classic signs like lack of sleep, guilt, problems with relationships, hiding my feelings, fatigue…well the list goes on and on…not to mention my age and coming to terms with the fact I may not have too many years left to worry about whether I’m depressed or not.

Mayweather says I still have a sense of humor. So, I guess that’s a plus, although many times I have no trouble keeping that hidden as well.

The sun rose early in Abilene. I was getting a late start. I had breakfast at Howard Johnson’s, topped off the fuel gauge, and headed for Dallas. It wouldn’t be long before I’d escape the grasp of I-20, pick up I-30, and head for the Arkansas border.

I’d arrive in Jacksonville by mid-afternoon. I would eventually need to take a couple of deep breaths, get a hold of my senses, and prepare to meet Pastor Williamson and my family.

Maggie, oh Maggie. What a combination. A twenty-year marriage to a self-absorbed jock, who spent his life in front of a camera, and a happy, I assume, twelve-year marriage to a down-home preacher, whose fiery sermons can make the steeple of the church shake and its congregation inside do the same. Maggie, what were you thinking? About the jock, of course.

There I go again. Time to give my shrink a call…and I know full well Mayweather hates me to use the word “shrink” when describing her profession.

Maggie loved Arkansas, and so did I, for that matter. We had a lovely home in Little Rock. It was in a cul-de-sac with an acre of densely populated, tall old oak trees, located just beyond our back gate. We could sit on the redwood patio, sip on a glass of wine…and listen to the sounds coming from the forest.

We were both driven at the time. Maggie was a feature editor for the Arkansas Gazette, and I was making headway as a sports reporter at the station. I had my foot in the door, and for a few hours a week, my smiling face had found its way to all the television outlets from Little Rock to Texarkana.

Five years later, Maggie took a leave of absence. Josh was five, and Jake was two. Maggie never returned to the newspaper. She was forced to jump on the bandwagon — my career engulfed us all.

That’s when it all fell apart. We led different lives for the next fifteen years. Maggie was a good-hearted soul, but the absence of her husband — and father to her children- was just too much for her to bear. If she wanted to see her husband, all she had to do was tune into the TV Networks in Memphis, Louisville, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, San Francisco, or Los Angeles. My goodness, I lived ALONE in all those places at one time or another.

My journey kept me away from the boys. I’d see them once in April, maybe twice in May…maybe three times in August, but never on the holidays…never on Thanksgiving or Christmas…and especially on New Year’s Day. Too much football. Too many projects to complete. Just too much, all the way around.

I signed the divorce papers, ending the marriage. We both had just turned forty.

As I said before. It was downhill from there. I married a fiery redhead, a news anchor from another network in Chicago. We lasted two years. We divorced and tried it again. The second time around totaled thirteen months.

Then there was the crazy groupie. Oh, how she loved football players. The deterrent there, I couldn’t catch a football or throw one…I was a baseball player for goodness sake.

She said, “I like your style.” My style didn’t take me too far, and at the age of forty-nine, I signed my final divorce papers.

Looking back on it now, I have no words for my actions. I got on the Ferris wheel…and for half a century the wheel wouldn’t stop spinning…and just maybe, for a good portion of those years, I just wasn’t ready to get off.

I learned the hard way. I slowed down. Reconciled somewhat with my boys and with Maggie. The last few years have been pleasant. Even found my way to Arkansas on Thanksgiving and Christmas, at least to the point my grandchildren not only recognized me on television but in person as well.

It’s still an uphill battle. Maggie’s cancer had changed things. The sadness I feel now is for the loss of Maggie. She was the ANCHOR in our relationship. I was just an ANCHORMAN.

Arkansas State Line.

I was getting closer.

The next two hours flew by as I made my way to the central part of the state. I sailed through Hope and Arkadelphia. I noticed gray clouds to the east as I sped by the Benton City Limits sign.

The streets were wet when I reached downtown Benton, my grandparents’ hometown. The fast-moving thunderstorm had come and gone, leaving a fresh air smell — something eight months out of the year you would yearn for if you were an Arizona resident.

Benton was a college town — a good forty-five minutes east of Little Rock. The Reirdon name was big in Benton. My grandfather was the original owner of Benton Motors, and my grandmother was his accountant for more than thirty years.

My father, Robert Reirdon, was the only child of Emily and Rock Reirdon. The man was a handsome devil, a cross between Clark Gable and Robert Mitchum. He served his country for three years, stationed in Puerto Rico and California, but returned to Benton in the spring of 1941 with forty percent hearing loss in his right ear. He always agonized over the fact that he wasn’t physically fit and available for action when the U.S. declared war on Japan.

Times were tough back then, but my father worked at the family dealership during the day, went to school at night, and eventually graduated with a business degree from Benton College. Grandpa was getting too big for his britches and decided to expand the business and open a Ford dealership in Jacksonville. He sent his son to run the business.

It wasn’t long before Robert Reirdon began courting my mother, the Jacksonville High School Homecoming queen from the class of 1943. Cassie Holloway, a farm girl and the only daughter of Claire and Chester Holloway, was all of nineteen years old when she met my father.

They were married in June 1944. A year later, their only son was born…and here I am, buzzing through Benton, less than two hours — traffic permitting — away from home.

My folks are gone now. My father died of a heart attack at seventy-one, and my mother passed on a year later, at the age of sixty-eight, unable to fight off a bout with pneumonia. Bless her heart, she battled breathing problems most of her life. She was the best. As for Pop, he was a little tough to deal with at times, but he provided a good life for us all.

As for me, I loved the early 1960s. After all, we owned a nice home in Jacksonville and a Ford dealership, and I had the luxury of buzzing around town in a late-model automobile. I was a bit spoiled.

Little Rock City Limits.

Little Rock wasn’t little anymore. Maybe back in the 60s, it had that hometown flavor, but now it looked more like a little Chicago or maybe a carbon copy of Omaha. I’ve spent time in all three, and as I make the turn and head north to Jacksonville, the buildings just don’t end. Back when I motored around in my hot rod, there were wide open spaces between North Little Rock and Jacksonville. Now it was tough to tell which city limits you were in…and it was a sure bet drag racing was no longer tolerated…

Jacksonville exit, 1 mile.

Chapter 2

Jacksonville had changed, doubled in population. The Air Force Base had a lot to do with that. Constructed in 1955, the base had made its mark, and except for the old railroad track — dissecting the center of town, it was difficult for me to find a recognizable landmark.

My hometown was far from a resort town. Instead, it was like so many towns in the Midwest — full of hard-working people, doing their best to make a better life for themselves and their families.

The town is named after landowner Nicolas Jackson, who deeded the land for a railroad right-of-way and a depot followed, putting Jacksonville on the map. By 1941, the town had been incorporated, followed soon after by the construction of the Arkansas Ordnance Plant, which served as a facility for the development of fuses and detonators for World War II.

A neighbor of ours worked at the plant as a night watchman, and as a little boy, I remember sneaking in to work with him. I used to sit outside the building and watch hundreds of frogs, leaping into the night. It was a sight I never forgot.

As I drove down Main Street, all those memories surfaced. I felt like a little boy again.

As I pulled to the curb on the north side of Main Street, I noticed a coffee shop advertising homemade pies. I parked in front of Alice’s Restaurant and walked into the establishment. There were three people in a booth off to the right, and two elderly gentlemen sitting at the counter.

I didn’t feel like I was home. I felt like a stranger in a strange town. Of course, that’s the way I felt most of the time…wherever I bedded down for the night. I could hardly consider Tucson my home, even though I’d been there for close to a decade.

My little place in the Catalina Foothills served as a stopping-off point as I hustled to games in Chicago, Phoenix, or Los Angeles.

I found a seat at the far end of the counter, at least four stools down from the two men, and ordered the special of the day — a chicken-fried steak, not exactly the right choice for my heart.

The two men mumbled to each other, and Alice, I presume, yelled to the cook in the kitchen, “Number three, light on the potatoes.”

Understanding my illness takes some getting used to. A simple walk-through at a diner will make me cringe at times. This is coming from a guy who spent most of his life in front of a camera.

It’s complicated.

Mayweather certainly has a better understanding of it all.

Listening to her analysis of my problem helps. At least someone can grasp the situation and put a face on it. I, on the other hand, leave her office after an hourly therapy session and slowly return to my bubble.

Exhausting is a good word for it all.

I stared at the pictures on the wall of the diner, probably of Jacksonville in the 1920s and 1930s. There was a chance that if I looked closely at one of the photographs, I might see my mother as a young girl, standing there with her school friends…smiling…with her whole life in front of her.

There were pictures of older men on the far side of the diner. I had no clue who they were. I only knew of three men who were from Jacksonville and had become newsworthy in the sports world — and all three were professional football players —Dan Hampton, Clinton McDonald, and Robert Lee Thomas.

Hampton was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002 after playing twelve years with the Chicago Bears, McDonald was a member of the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks in 2013, and Thomas was a backup fullback and a lead blocker for the Dallas Cowboys, behind Emmitt Smith in the year 2000.

I looked at my cell phone. Checked the time of day. It was time. Time to see my family. I always counted on Maggie to run interference for me. Today I was on my own.

I paid the tab, waved to Alice, and smiled at the two gentlemen sitting at the counter. I walked down the sidewalk and headed for the Lexus. I took in a deep breath and got acquainted with the strange but refreshing aroma of my hometown.

Maggie’s parents, Charles and Catherine Haggerty, both in their late eighties, resided in a long-term care complex west of town, and Maggie and the Pastor’s modest home was on the east side of Jacksonville, located a half a mile from the church.

In just a few minutes, I’ll pull into Maggie’s place…the Williamson home…my entire family will be there…and I’ll be all alone.

Mayweather was good at her profession. She better be. I pay her enough. Our first meeting was an eye-opening experience. I’d been carrying around my ailment for a good twenty years. I was a lonely soul, hidden deep in my illness, using my love for sports as an outlet, which allowed me to draw a curtain and cover up my true feelings.

The last two days were relaxing. Why? Because I was alone, driving solo through four states. Oh, I had plenty to talk about. Believe me. I didn’t have an imaginary friend in the passenger seat to communicate with — I hadn’t quite made that transition yet. But, in my head, it’s like having an entire football team with each player rattling off advice and instructions on how to be a better human being.

I pulled into the driveway of the Williamson home. My family greeted me. I inhaled one last breath and quickly exhaled. Eight-year-old Samantha Reirdon was the first one in my arms.

Everyone should have Pastor Walker Williamson in their life. The fact that he’s the husband of my ex-wife and the fact that I revere the man may seem a bit odd to everyone, especially to members of his congregation.

Life has a way of throwing a left hook at you at certain times while you bounce around from place to place during your brief stay on this earth. Of course, when you start the merry-go-round, divorce the love of your life, and take off on a journey far, far from home, you need to expect things out of the ordinary to happen.

Being friends with Reverend Walker, well, that’s an unexpected twist in my life. Of course, Mayweather has always put those situations in perspective for me.

“Royce, you set this all in motion. You’re going to need to learn to deal with some strange relationships as you move forward on this earth.”

She was right about that. At least Walker saw to it that our transition toward a friendship was an easy one. As for my two boys and my grandchildren, the path to “forgiveness” would take some time…a lot of time.

Walker spoke eloquently as he described Maggie to a tee. His words effortlessly flowed from the pulpit. If I could use his voice, have his talent, maybe my life would’ve been much easier. My words for so many years were handed to me, and it was up to me to deliver them on key. The job was half done before I picked up the press release.

Things would have to change, and I would somehow, some way need to unblock those buried feelings and get them out in the open…out to where my loved ones could see them for what they are.

The first row was filled with all of Maggie’s loved ones. Her parents, Charles and Catherine Haggerty, sat on the outside of the aisle. The wheelchairs were locked in place. Jake and his wife, Joan, sat next to me, and the three girls — Tammy, Elizabeth, and Samantha — were next to them. At the end of the right aisle sat Josh and his wife, Bonnie, along with the three boys, just to the right of them — Randy, Rance, and Robby.

Walker’s two boys, Charles and Christopher — both no longer boys, but young men and business majors at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro — sat across the aisle. Walker lost his first wife, Evelyn, to an unknown virus back in ’87. I’m not entitled to know the entire background of the Williamson family, but Maggie had filled me in on the boys. They were adopted at an early age. Evelyn is unable to bear children.

There is certainly more to the story, but there’s only so much I can handle at one time. Certainly, Walker can do fine without my expert analysis.

The service was short — maybe forty-five minutes at the most. Josh and Jake held it together — both of them talked for a good ten minutes each, struggling at times for the words as Maggie’s photos — with family members at her side, flashed on the screen behind the pulpit.

And then it was my turn. I could hear voices in the back of the church as I made my way to the podium.

On this day, I didn’t have a press release in front of me, and I tried to push aside the feeling I had inside — the same feeling I had when I walked into Alice’s Restaurant upon my arrival in Jacksonville. I caught a glimpse of my granddaughter, Samantha. Mayweather had said. “Pick out the sweetest face in the audience and go from there.”

So I did.

No photos were flashing on the screen behind me. What was Walker’s office secretary supposed to do? Set up scenes of the loving couple, back in the 1960s.

The anchorman was on his own. My knees are shaking. No cue cards to read in front of me. By the time I was through, the townspeople of Jacksonville, who had filled the church pews, were well aware of the love the man standing at the podium had for the former Maggie Reirdon.

I returned to my seat and glanced at my two boys. Their eyes are glazed. Walker returned to the pulpit. “Let us pray.”

The Jacksonville East Lawn Cemetery is located four miles north of town. Maggie’s grandparents are buried there. Shortly, Charles and Catherine Haggerty will join Maggie. My parents are there, too. One hundred steps to the northern corner of the cemetery. My grandparents, on the other hand, never ventured far from Benton. Their final resting place is only three miles from the old dealership.

With a slight breeze at my back and the early morning sun reflecting off my face, I looked south across the valley. Back in the early 1950s, you could locate, in a fraction of a second, the house I grew up in.

Not anymore. New homes now filled the valley, all the way to the forest line. I stood next to Maggie’s gravesite and looked south, following the tree line to the old railroad track — the stretch of track I hopped and skipped my way to town on as a young boy.

Some say you can never go back. I think that might be a true statement, although I do not have a clue who initiated such a claim.

I remember hunting and fishing. I remember the yellow school bus I took to school. The old high school basketball gym and those awful, prehistoric, oversized leather balls we used to play with. I remember cruising up and down Main Street and pulling into the drive-up hamburger joint and ordering just about everything on the menu at one time or another.

Life was so simple then, long before I boarded that runaway train and never returned.

And Maggie. Sweet Maggie.

The day I left for college. What a day that was. I had the world by the tail as I waved to my folks and headed for Fayetteville. I hadn’t been there a week, and I met the coed I’d share my life with — at least for the next twenty years — the prime time of our young lives.

Now I stood at the top of the hill on a breezy December morning, overlooking the town I was born in. My family, sitting in the front row as Maggie was lowered into her final resting place. More than one hundred onlookers gathered around behind me as Walker, reverently and with conviction, recited the Lord’s Prayer.

As the crowd began to disperse, I slowly made my way to the Reirdon gravesite. I stood there for just a moment and thought just how precious our short time on earth is.

I wanted so desperately to have my roots back, to be anchored in this little town. Instead, I had spent most of my life a loner, on the run, with a handful of addresses in my portfolio — temporary assignments to one place or another — covering, and following the lives of some sports figures, I hardly knew, making them all bigger than life.

I slowly let the days, the months, and the years roll by — paying little attention to what was important in life.

It was all right here. Right on top of this hill — in this valley. The little voice in my head, echoing, “You can’t go back, you can’t go back.”

Cassie Holloway Reirdon, born May 14, 1922, died June 14, 1990. Robert Reirdon, born December 4, 1918, died June 28, 1989.

Their life stories didn’t reach CNN, wouldn’t be idolized for six days straight…wouldn’t be shown on primetime television for the world to see.

They should be idolized. If not by the world, at least by me. My father served his country, bettered himself, studied to all hours of the morning to gain a degree, and ended up running a successful business through the good times and the bad — hanging tough through the “depression era” — raising a family along the way.

My mother, bless her heart, is by my father’s side, despite her health struggles. Her number one goal in life was to see to it that I had everything I needed. She saw to it that I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, wore the right clothes, and got to school on time. She made sure I tried the arts — played the clarinet, learned to dance, read the classics, and discovered, with a little help from my father, the “birds and the bees” — you name it, she was there for me — every hour, every day…every moment.

I felt a small hand in the palm of my left hand. I looked down.

“It’s time to go, Grandpa.”