Virginia

It happens every year about the same time in the autumn air, a bunch of school children start knocking on Alice’s door asking her to tell them something about the good old days. They wanted to know about the days of her youth, times their parents were too young to remember. She imagined, a book report for extra credit just wouldn’t do, it had to be a story from the past, told to them from the oldest person they could find. Alice was proud to say she was one of the oldest people in this town. Not too many women would admit to this honor, but she didn’t have pride or dignity to lose. Respect comes with age and she had both. She almost looked forward to the children knocking on her door. Seeing youth and yearning anew in the eyes of these teenage children gave Alice something fresh to look for each fall, but it also meant the end of summer, and the end of watching sunsets from the old porch swing. Every year it was the same old story, the tenth grade English teacher gave an extra credit assignment about learning something from the elderly. The child who came in with the extra credit story was almost always given a full letter grade higher. All of this amounted to incentive for some students, and a necessity for others who would otherwise fail. Each year Alice had to sweep children, like leaves, off her front porch in the fall. Alice believed it became a kind of contest within the English department, if any student got Alice Lenora Cameron to give them a story they would definitely receive an A. Most of these children left her front porch with a gentle soft no, but one boy kept asking why. He was smart, maybe too smart for living in such a small backwater Iowa town. Alice knew that if she told anyone her story it would be to this boy.