I was sitting in my favorite bar the other night, watching my wife line dance and nursing my second beer like she says I have to do anymore, when the DJ played the song. A half-dozen or so young girls who couldn't possibly have been born when Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded it got up and started dancing together. Their dancing was obviously for the guys standing around the dance floor holding their longnecks and watching. All the hip gyrating and titty rubbing was a not so subtle preview of what the guys would experience if they managed to get one of them in the sack.
About a minute into the song, another woman stepped a little uncertainly onto the dance floor. She was old enough to be a mother for most the young bunch, and when she closed her eyes and began to dance, her age showed she knew a lot more about pleasing men than all those young girls put together. Instead of showing the guys just how hard she'd fuck them if she had the chance, her dance was sensuous and erotic, the hint of two bodies entwined and taking each other slowly to the height of release.
The woman wasn't young and slender with a tight ass like the young girls dancing together. Her breasts weren't crammed into a trick bra that forced them up into the open expanse of a low-cut tank top either. She wore what some would call "mom jeans", and a loose, unbuttoned plaid shirt over a T-shirt that pretty much hid any figure she had. I supposed she thought being over forty meant she shouldn't be showing her curves to anybody but her husband and bathroom mirror, just like my wife thinks.
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It's amazing how one old Southern Rock song and one woman in loose clothes can take you back. Ten seconds after the woman began dancing, I was twenty- two again, single with my own apartment, anxious to choose my path in life, and looking for a hot girl to date while I did. I needed to do some choosing on my own back then.
I'd just done two years for Uncle Sam that weren't of my choosing. I also had a scar I hadn't chosen to get on my ass courtesy of some little bastard in black pajamas with an AK. I didn't really choose the job of assistant manager for a hardware store, but it seemed like a good way to start life while I figured out my next step. As it turned out, I didn't really choose that next step either, although I was pretty happy with what happened.
The pay at my job wasn't all that great, especially since assistant manager really meant running the place when the actual manager played golf. That was most afternoons if the weather was decent. I was OK with that, though, because Dad had earned the time off, and I was learning about Dobson & Son Hardware, the business he'd pass to me in a few years. The title also looked really neat on my nametag.
Those were the days before the big-box stores, and the days when customers were still the most important part of any business. Dad favorite saying was, "If we keep the customers happy, they'd keep us in beer and pot roast". Keeping customers happy sometimes meant helping them with a problem at home, and the helper was usually me. Dad said it was good experience.
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She came in the store one afternoon in May to buy some flower seeds. I didn't give her much thought, really. She was an older woman, well, older to me anyway, and the big straw hat she wore made her look pretty frumpy. So did the baggy pants and oversize sweatshirt she had on.
I checked her out because Judy, our register girl, was taking a break. After she paid me, the woman asked if I knew anything about rose bushes.
"I've never had roses before I moved here. I read in a magazine that they need fertilizer but I lost the magazine in the move and I don't remember what kind. Do you know?"
"Yes, Ma'am, we sell special fertilizer for roses, but it'll be a while before you need it. You don't want to fertilize until they've bloomed, or you'll get really small flowers. Come back after they've bloomed, and I'll be more than happy to help you get what you need."
I saw her in the store again two weeks later when she came in for some tomato plants. A couple weeks after that, I sold her a new lawn mower. She was happy with the price, but needed some help putting it together. I said I'd be glad to bring it out and put it together for her after I got off at five.
She lived in the old Jackson place about two miles outside of town. Herb had died the year before, and his daughter had the two acres sitting on the edge of a cornfield up for sale, but as far as I knew, she hadn't found a buyer. I figured she'd rented the house to this woman.
When I drove up, she was sitting in the porch swing waiting for me, still in the big floppy straw hat. She walked over to my truck as I was getting the mower and my toolbox out of the back.
"I really appreciate you doing this for me, Mr....you know, I don't even know your name."
I held up my nametag.
"I'm Jeff, Jeff Dobson, and Mr. Dobson is my dad."
She held out her hand and smiled.
"OK, Jeff. I'm Marion Summers. Like I was saying, I'm so glad you could do this. You can see, I really need to start mowing. There's a mower in the barn, but it's one of those antique push things with the wheel thing that spins. It works as long as I mow every couple of days, but I'm getting tired of pushing it."
I put the mower together, added the quart of oil I'd brought, and asked if she had any gas. Marion grinned and said yes, she'd remembered to buy some. She walked to the garage, and came back with a red gallon can.
The mower sputtered to life on the second pull and I mowed up and down the yard a couple of times to make sure everything was working like it should. It was, so back at her house, I shut it off, and explained to Marion how to start it again.
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May flowered into June, and June started pre-heating the oven for the July and August roasting we always get. Marion came into the store about every two weeks for a new hoe or some insect dust, or something else she needed for her garden. She always wore the big floppy hat, some kind of oversize shirt, and baggy pants.
It was kind of fun helping her with her selections. Marion didn't seem to know much about gardening, but she really wanted to learn. Mom always had a huge garden, so I knew quite a bit about making vegetables grow. After the first couple of times I helped Marion, she started bypassing the regular clerks and came looking for me.
It was the day before the Fourth of July when she came in and asked me if I could come out and look at her water system.
"I got up this morning and didn't have any water. When I went outside and checked the pump, it was running, but it didn't sound like it usually does. I just can't be without water. Is there any way you could come out and look at it? I can pay you for your time."
Well, Dad never charged for something like that. His idea was if we helped a person, that person would buy something from us. I said I'd be out right after lunch, and it wouldn't cost her anything unless I had to replace something.
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The pump was in a pit over the well about twenty feet from the house. When I lifted the door, things smelled hot. The pump had evidently been running for quite a while without any water going through it. I shut it off at the switch on the wall of the pit, and looked up at Marion.
"Either the pump's bad or your well is dry. Let's give it an hour to cool down and fill the well back up and we'll see what it looks like then."
"If we're going to wait that long, would you like something to drink? I made some iced tea yesterday. I have some cookies too, if you'd want some."
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In that hour, I learned a lot about Marion, because Marion liked to talk, and I don't think she'd talked to much of anybody in a while. She didn't have any close neighbors out there, and the only time I saw her in town was when she came in the store.
