A Piedmont Porchlight Story

Every little town collects a mystery or two. Most of ’em aren’t worth solvin’. This one never was. It started one rainy Thursday mornin’ at the Coffee Cup. You know the kind. The windows were fogged up. The coffee tasted just a little better than usual. And everybody had settled in to solve the world’s problems before breakfast.

Curtis Pope looked out the window and said, “How long’s Fred Abernathy lived here?” Nobody answered right away. Finally, Earl Simmons shrugged. “Long time.”

Curtis nodded. “Yeah, but when’d he move here?”

Silence.

Mrs. Landry frowned. “I… don’t rightly know.” Sheriff Booker stirred his coffee. “I can’t remember, either.”

Now, in a town the size of Piedmont, that ought to be impossible. We remember who bought the old Wilson place in 1978. We remember when the hardware store painted the front door green. We remember who hit the courthouse flagpole with a borrowed pickup back in ’86.

But somehow, nobody remembered Mr. Abernathy arrivin’. That set the whole town to thinkin’. Miss Hattie insisted he’d always been around. Earl claimed he remembered meetin’ him at a high school football game sometime in the seventies. Mrs. Landry was certain she’d first seen him in church. Booker believed he’d shown up after the tornado.

Nobody agreed on anything except one fact. Mr. Abernathy belonged in Piedmont. Addison Lee smelled a newspaper story. By lunchtime he’d interviewed half the town. By suppertime he’d discovered exactly nothin’.

Mr. Abernathy himself didn’t seem much interested in the mystery. When Addison finally asked him when he’d moved to Piedmont, the old gentleman smiled over the rim of his coffee cup. “Oh, a good while back.”

“How long?”

He scratched his chin. “Long enough.” That wasn’t much help. The mystery rolled along for another week.

Then one afternoon I wandered over to Magnolia Mortuary to look through some old records. Habit, I suppose. Undertakers save everything. Tucked inside a dusty ledger was an obituary from thirty-six years earlier.

There, listed among the honorary pallbearers was Mr. Abernathy. Well. That settled one thing. He’d been here at least thirty-six years. I carried the clipping over to the Coffee Cup like I’d found buried treasure. Everybody gathered around. Curtis adjusted his glasses. Mrs. Landry smiled. Booker nodded.

Earl said, “I told y’all he’d been here forever.”

“You said the seventies.”

“Close enough.”

A few days later I happened to find Mr. Abernathy sittin’ on a bench outside the depot. I showed him the obituary. He chuckled. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“So, when did you actually move here?” He looked down the railroad tracks before answerin’. “My wife and I came because the cotton mill offered me a job.”

I waited.

“We figured we’d stay about six months.” I laughed. “That was thirty-six years ago.” He smiled. “I know.” Then he said something I’ll never forget.

“One day somebody at church asked me to help repair a widow’s porch. The next week somebody invited us to Sunday dinner. A month later Hattie knew how I liked my eggs.”

He looked around town. “I guess somewhere in there, Piedmont quit bein’ the place I lived. It became home.”

We sat there a while listenin’ to a freight train work its way through town. Finally, I asked him why he thought nobody remembered him movin’ here. He smiled that quiet smile old men earn. “Because they finally stopped thinkin’ of me as the new fellow.”

That was it. No mystery. No secret. No dramatic story. Just thirty-six years of wavin’ at neighbors. Helpin’ folks move furniture. Teachin’ Sunday school. Servin’ on committees nobody wanted. Buyin’ Girl Scout cookies. Attendin’ funerals. Celebratin’ births. Showin’ up. Over and over again. Until nobody could remember a time before you were there.

I’ve thought about that conversation more than once. We’re always in such a hurry to make an impression. To be noticed. To be remembered. Maybe we’ve got it backwards.

Maybe the finest compliment a town can pay you is forgettin’ the day you arrived. Because that means you’ve become part of the place itself. Not a visitor. Not an outsider. Just one of us. And if you ever find yourself wonderin’ whether you’ve truly found home, here’s a little test.

Walk into your favorite diner. If the waitress starts pourin’ your coffee before you sit down…

You probably ain’t the new fellow anymore.