I met Herb Parker when I was working as a soda jerk in the soda fountain in my hometown. He was the delivery man for 7-up. He came to town every week and stopped at the gas station, the restaurant and at the soda fountain. I think he saved the soda fountain as the last stop so he could have a soft drink and tease the soda jerks that were working.
When we moved to Macksville I discovered Herb lived there, and his wife ran the soda fountain. Lucy and I became friends right away because of our love of the soda fountain. She also loved the fact that I could keep up with Herbs teasing.
Herb and his wife lived north of the soda fountain on Main Street. They had a huge front yard with one tree in the middle. They never had a good looking yard, and I never understood why until I stopped one night to visit Lucy.
Herb asked me to come into the kitchen to see his latest batch. I wondered on the way to the kitchen, a batch of what; cookies maybe? When I walked into the kitchen there were bottles everywhere and I discovered he made his own wine.
That night it was rhubarb wine, but he also made dandelion wine. So now I understood the yard full of little yellow flowers. The rhubarb wine felt like fire going down my throat. It hit the bottom of my stomach and came back up my throat to burn its way down again.
I reluctantly tried the dandelion wine. It felt like it was eating the lining of my throat as it went down, and hit my stomach like a ball of fire. A couple sips of his wine hit me like a sledge hammer, and I was glad it was only a few blocks home.
Herb and Lucy had a Pomeranian named Rusty. He was a cute red ball of fluff. They’d tie him to the tree in the front yard in the evenings so he could watch the cars. One night, while riding around in my convertible with a friend I drove up main and there was Rusty sitting by the tree.
I stopped the car and ran up to Rusty. He was excited to see me and was leaping as high as he could. I finally caught him in mid jump, removed his collar and dropped it and ran. All the way to the car I had my hands full of a wiggling ball of fluff, who was so excited he didn’t know what to do.
When I got back to the car I tossed Rusty to my friend and slid onto the seat closing the door gently, then pulled away as quietly as I could. (My convertible had glass packs so being quiet was impossible.) Once we were down the street she allowed Rusty to look over the side of the car and enjoy the ride.
He had been with us 15 minutes, when we met Herb on Main in his car. I pushed Rusty down on the floor and held him there between my feet as Herb flagged us down. Once we were side by side I asked him what was going on. He said that Rusty had gotten out of his collar and was loose. He wanted to know if we had seen him.
Rusty could hear his voice and was squirming, but I managed to keep him down and fairly quiet. I told Herb we hadn’t seen him but would look for him. We headed on down the street and I let Rusty loose. We met Herb 4 more times. Each time I would shove Rusty to the floor and hold him there when Herb passed by and I would shake my head and tell him we hadn’t seen him.
About 45 minutes later we met Herb on Main Street again. I had Rusty down on the floor again, but he started to bark and wiggle around and I couldn’t keep him down. He came bounding up into my lap and put his paws on the window ledge and barked at Herb.
Neither my friend nor I could contain our laughter. It only took a few seconds for Herb to realize we had taken Rusty and had him all that time. He called us a few choice names, swore revenge and started to laugh as he got out of the car and took Rusty back.
A few weeks later, I left work to go home and my car was not sitting out front where I’d left it. (You never took the keys out of your car in that small town.) I went straight to the soda fountain and started to yell at Herb. He wouldn’t admit to taking it so I had to start looking for it on foot.
I found it parked in the alley behind Herb’s house. When I arrived back at the soda fountain, I put it in park and then revved it up to make the glass packs roar before shutting it off. When I walked in the door Herb was almost rolling on the floor because he’d gotten even with me.
Over the next 2 months, even though we tried several times, we only managed to steal Rusty once. But that time when I got back in the car I really stepped on the gas and the glass packs really roared.
Awhile later we met Herb on Main Street and we stopped to talk to him. He said he knew we had Rusty so I let the red ball of fluff back up on my lap to look over at Herb. After a few threats Herb got out of his car and took his dog back. We had fun that summer stealing Rusty. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
