I had just gone for my second cup of coffee when I glanced out the kitchen window to see if anything was going on down the street. If it is, I want to see it raw and up close. Well, yep, something was going on. Mildred Manning was in her car and was going in and out of her driveway like a woman possessed. She had a very stern look on her face. Perhaps, I thought, I am looking at this thing from the wrong angle. Something is amiss.
I walked to the front door, coffee cup in hand, and scrooched my nose against the cold, hard glass. She drove the car in; she backed the car out. She got out of the car, walked around the front bumper, looked down, shook her head. Got back in, drove the car forward; backed the car out. I had seen her, at one time or another, come out in her bare feet (winter time), get in her car, back the car out, drive to her mail-newspaper boxes 50 feet away, stop the car, roll down the window, retrieve the mail-papers (with effort) and scoot back into the house.
“For good reasons!” she told me later. She didn’t tell me to mind my own business, but I can still read between the lines.
Mildred Manning is the Rose-garden Lady of Covenant Village. She has the prettiest roses in Gastonia. Each one looks as if it has been put where it is by the hand of God. Even the C-minus also-rans are perky enough to be considered fit for the no-brain contest.
I have no idea where she got her leaning toward raising roses, and other flowers. It might have been from Mutt, her late longtime All-American footballer, who starred at Georgia Tech. “He was a flower,” she said, but didn’t elaborate.
She finally parked her car and went back inside. I thought the episode was over. It wasn’t.
Twenty minutes later, Mildred’s daughter, Julie, drove up. The car already knew its assignment. It was to do what Mildred’s car had been doing — drive in, drive out, drive in, drive out.
I found out later that frozen ice on driveways can be as stubborn as a frozen lock. That’s what they were doing, breaking the ice. Pushing its nose into the concrete. The ladies conquered the ice but I think the hot engines had a lot to do with it.
Anyhow, when the activity died down, all the ice was melted. And the driveway was clean enough for the next storm, which rolled in right on schedule.
Bill Williams is a former editor of The Gazette who has contributed to its pages for more than 60 years. This is a rewritten column of one published before.