There was a time in my childhood when I believed, with all the certainty a ten-year-old can muster, that the good Lord made two kinds of people in Alabama. Those who took offense like it was a precious heirloom and polished it twice a day, and those who couldn’t stay mad even if you stuck a rattlesnake in their mailbox.

My next-door neighbor, Mr Horace Claybrooks, belonged squarely in the second category.

Horace was one of those men who carried sunshine inside his chest and leaked it out everywhere he went. He smiled so much his cheeks looked permanently surprised. Folks claimed he didn’t have a mean bone in his body, and that if you looked inside his head, you would find a pone of cornbread floatin’ in warm molasses instead of actual brains.

But bless his heart, Horace always believed he ought to be the sort of man who stayed good and mad when the occasion called for it. Trouble was, he couldn’t hold onto anger any longer than a mayfly could hold onto life.

One morning, Horace decided he was fed up with Ol’ Man Harkins from across the street. Nobody knew exactly why. It began when Horace marched out into his yard wearing his church britches and a face he must have practiced in the mirror. His eyebrows slanted downward in what he surely believed was a fierce and righteous thunderbolt of expression. Unfortunately, his eyebrows were so pale and thin they looked like two cooked noodles someone had laid across his forehead.

He strode right up to Harkins, fists at his sides, jaw set, and announced, in a voice that trembled halfway between ferocity and apology, “I am good an’ mad at you.”

Old Man Harkins blinked. “What for?”

Horace’s face went blank. It seemed he’d forgotten to prepare that part.

“Well,” he said, shaking one fist uncertainly, “for whatever you did. The thing you did last week. Or yesterday. Or whenever it was.”

Harkins leaned back in his lawn chair and said, “Horace, I been sittin’ here for three days straight. The only thing I’ve done wrong is forgettin’ to bring in my mail.”

Horace hesitated. You could see his anger slippin’ through the cracks like water from a leaky bucket.

“Well, you did somethin’. I know it. And I aim to stay mad about it.”

Harkins took a long sip of sweet tea.

“Well, all right then. You go ahead.”

Now, this should have been Horace’s moment of victory. A chance to unleash a mighty tirade. Maybe even stomp around a little. But that man’s heart could not hold a grudge any better than a hen could hold her breath.

After about seven seconds, his face softened. His ears turned red. Then, with a sigh that sounded like air leaking from a worn-out bicycle tire, he muttered, “You want some tomatoes?”

Harkins nodded. “I surely do.”

And just like that, the feud ended.

But the crowning glory of Horace’s inability to stay mad came the day Jimmy Matthew and I accidentally knocked down his prized birdbath while re-enacting a Civil War skirmish. Jimmy Matthew insisted he was General Sherman. I insisted he was out of his mind.

We hit the birdbath just right and toppled it clean over. Water splashed, ceramic shattered, and one confused blue jay flew off with the indignation of a man whose house payment had just bounced.

Horace came running out of his house, eyes wide, arms flapping, looking for all the world like he meant to deliver a biblical wrath.

But as soon as he saw us standing there, two guilty boys with mud on our knees and terror in our eyes, his righteous fury deflated. Completely. Instantly. Like someone had stuck a knitting needle into his temper.

“Well now,” he said softly, bending to examine the fallen birdbath. “This is a crying shame.”
He poked a broken piece with his toe.
“I really liked this one.”

I braced myself for a scolding. Jimmy Matthew braced himself for a funeral.

But Horace stood up, brushed off his hands, and said, “Boys, y’all hungry? I made banana pudding.”

And that settled that.

Horace Claybrooks was simply not built for sustained outrage. His temper was like a match dropped in a puddle. It sparked, fizzed, and disappeared before it ever had a chance to do any real damage.

Folks loved him for it. They teased him about it. And to this day, I think the world needs more people like Horace, whose anger was so flimsy and transparent that it blew away in the first good breeze.

Because a man who can’t stay mad is a man who lets you be human.

And in a world full of folks who hold onto grudges tighter than they hold onto their wallets, Horace Claybrooks was a breath of fresh Alabama air.

*****

New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.