Willow Leaves January 3
Willow Mills Slides Joyously Into the New Millenium
Starting with the first broadcast from Kiribati on Friday morning and throughout the day and night, Willow Mills celebrated the turning of the calendar and “Partied Like It Was 1999.” Whether you attended an organized party at a friend’s home or organization, joined in the well-orchestrated celebration on Fountain Square, or just marked the passing in the quiet of your own bed, this was a day and night that few in this community will ever forget.
We thought that the best way to review the event would be to interview some of our long-time residents about their feelings and impressions of the changing millennium.
Agnes Leland (age 77)
When I was a little girl my grandpa told me about what it was like when they crossed from 1899 to 1900. It was a party the likes of which Indiana had never seen before or since. Of course, times were simpler then. I don’t suppose they broadcast the changing of the year on television or in the center square. (You know there was no fountain there yet, don’t you?) But there was a parade. It’s too bad we didn’t have a parade this weekend. I love parades, you know. My grandpa took me to a parade in South Bend once when I was little. Oh, it was such a glorious time. There were floats of every description. Do you have to leave so soon?
Ogden Filmore (age 101)
I (hack, cough) made it!
Angus Fergusson (age 52)
I’m happy to have been here in Willow Mills for this event. It was a pleasure to contribute in the small ways that I could, with the Milk Wagon and the bagpipes. My family has been here for many years, and I hope my son will feel confident in the future of Willow Mills and return here to start a future generation in this new millennium.
Tom Fergusson (age 19)
This was like the coolest year to graduate high school and then start college. It’s like such a rush to start a new phase of your life as the world turns another century older. I’m like really, you know?
Bessie Stackhouse (age 58)
We’ve lived through the worst that the world has to offer in the past century. We’ve seen two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. We saw the unleashing of the atomic bomb. And I think we’ve learned from this experience. I look at the next hundred years with a feeling of great hope and excitement to a world in which there is no more war. It will be a world of peace and prosperity.
Alan White (age 57)
It’s pretty groovy.
Mary Pat White (age 57)
I married my high school sweetheart 39 years ago. It was a wonderful 39 years. So now I’m looking forward to being with my high school sweetheart for the next 39 years, too. And with my children and grandchildren as well, of course.
Elizabeth Harmon (age 69)
Oh yes. My, my. That was some party. Was that just yesterday? I remember how we danced. Did you see Emil? He is such a dashing young man. Don’t tell anyone, but I think we’ll get married. I’d like to be married before I’m a spinster, don’t you know. Oh, Emil would be quite a catch. That was surely some party.
Jackie Stoneburner (age 49)
I’m going to spend the first few days of the new year sleeping! But it was all worth it.
Wayne Thompson (age 53)
It’s all rather arbitrary. A line in the sand. We cross over it and then we draw another line just to mark the time out. It is not the beginning of the third millennium to the Jews, or to the Chinese. It is just another mark on the great calendar of time. Perhaps someday we will learn to treat every day with the feeling of importance we had with this one day in the long march of time.
Althea Thompson (age 44)
Well, I’m looking forward to what the future holds in store. I’ve had my kids and one is married and out of the house already. The others are growing up every day. And every day I look around me and ask if we’re leaving our kids a better place to live, or if we’re just postponing paying up our debts for their inheritance. I hope and pray that our children will thank us for the legacy we leave them here. That they will see something in our community of value that is worth maintaining and building on. God bless the children.
Janice (Thompson) Townsend (age 18)
You know, I found out that the world is a really big place this year. Spending the Fall in Paris has been a real eye-opener. We’re so... little. But when it comes down to it, I don’t want to live in Paris forever. I want to raise my children, when I have them, here. That’s why Whisper and I are coming back next summer: To start laying the foundation for what we’re going to have in the future.
Whisper Townsend (age 20)
Janice pretty well said it all. Paris is fun, but it’s no Willow Mills.
John Townsend (age 59)
When I came to Willow Mills in the ’60s, I never imagined that I would still be here to see the turn of the new Millennium. But I found more than a hippie commune here. I found a home and a family and a career. It was like growing up and discovering that my childhood dream of becoming a fireman had become a reality. I can’t thank the people of Willow Mills enough for accepting us and making us a part of the community.
Billy Peoples (age 12—almost 13)
I got to stay up all night. It was pretty hard after midnight, but having the display downtown was really cool. I loved the stuff from Los Angeles at 3. Then it got pretty quiet and it was really hard to stay awake for the rest of it. We went home and played Monopoly for the rest of the night.
Bob Howard (age 33)
We’ve got a really good economic forecast for the coming Millennium. The stock market is strong, the dollar is strong against other currencies. It’s a great time to travel and see the world. And it’s a great time to buy a new car. We’ve got some great deals over at Faulkner Ford. Stop by.
Eldon Hayes (age 69)
Well, at my age you really stop counting the birthdays and the new years. But this one is one for the books. There’s something about turning over a new year that has all zeroes in it, like when the odometer of your car turns 100,000 miles. Yeah. I guess we’re out of warranty now.
Dick Johnson (age 70)
Eldon’s just a kid. When you get to be my age, you look forward to every birthday. It means you’re still alive. I guess that’s the way it is with the world today. We had a birthday. It means we’re still alive.
Laura Jennings (age 62)
With Denis so sick this fall it’s been hard to look forward to anything or plan anything. I hope we’ll see another year together. He’s fighting back strong now.
Roy Johnson (age 42)
It’s been a privilege to serve as Town Manager through this period of great celebrations. We had the Sesquicentennial celebration in September, and now this Y2K celebration this week. It’s been a year we’ll all remember. But just because the big date has passed (and none of our computers have crashed yet) doesn’t mean there isn’t still work to be done here in Willow Mills. We need to look forward to improving our community a little bit at a time, just like we care for our homes and our businesses. I’m looking forward to continuing to serve as your Town Manager as long as the people of Willow Mills see fit to have me.
Ted Anderson (age 63)
I came here to Willow Mills to get away from it all. I guess I brought a lot of it with me. But no matter how I get ribbed about the beach, I still like it here, and I think the next hundred years will see Willow Mills really come into its own. It’s a little town that time forgot, but that doesn’t forget its place in time.
Rev. “Brother Andrew” Wilson (age 39)
We have to look at this passing of the 1900s as the beginning of the end-times. The Bible has told us what to expect. There will be wars. There will be famine. There will be abominations that we have no words for in our vocabularies today. We will see acts so ghastly that we won’t believe anyone could imagine them. And I don’t mean in movie theaters. We’ll see the end-times played out on our streets and then we will know that the Lord, He is God.
Suze Wilson (age 38)
I see God’s loving hand in everything we do. I don’t believe he will abandon us to our enemies if we remain faithful to Him.
Brian Greene (age 53)
I was a long-haired, pot-smoking hippie when I came to Willow Mills. It’s funny that now I’m a middle-aged dad trying to teach my kids how to make good decisions. When I protested against the war in Vietnam, I was told America Love It or Leave It. My version of leaving it was to come to Willow Mills. What I discovered was the America I could love. It’s not about politics or wars or money. It’s about acceptance and working together in spite of our differences. That’s why I’m looking forward to the new Millennium. I can’t wait to find out what we’re going to find to do for each other tomorrow.
Sally Greene (age 54)
I’m just “lighting a candle” for the future.
Carl Miller (age 53)
Gee. Wow!
John Davies (Age 51)
I can’t believe that we made it this far! The world gets older every day but we only measure it in millennia. It’s more than the turning of a calendar page, it’s the day we celebrate the world’s birthday. Happy birthday earth. May you have many more.
Johnny Grover (age 38)
I think we should plant grass all along Main Street and Market Street to celebrate the new century. I’d keep it mowed nice and neat.
Bill Rasmussen (age 33)
I’d like to thank all the volunteers who helped to make this Millennial Celebration such a wonderful success. If we continue to work together in the way that we’ve worked together this year, Willow Mills will see the turn of another century, maybe even another millennium. It was really great to work with all these fine people. Thank you to the members of the committee, the town council, the fire department, and all the businesses of Willow Mills that made this event possible.
Robin Greenwald (age 64)
To think I was “bullied” into living here! That first memorable night that Jackie and I spent on the banks of the Eel River planted a seed in us that this was the kind of place that we’d like to settle. It wasn’t what we’d imagined when we graduated from college, but it was what spoke to us deep in our hearts. I don’t see that spirit changing in the new millennium.
Jackie Greenwald (age 64)
I’m looking forward to retirement and having just the two of us able to travel again. Maybe we’ll camp along some other rivers in the new Millennium. But I’ll always know that this little river and this little town is home. (I’m looking forward to a second honeymoon in which he lets us stay in hotels instead of tents!)
Penny Parker (age 44)
Life just keeps getting better and better. It’s going to get better next year. And better the year after that.
Timmy Stackhouse (age 37)
I tried living in the city. I like it simpler. All I need to stay happy in the new millennium is food and a place to cook it and people to feed it to.
Steven Stackhouse (age 18)
I don’t really remember too much of the night right now. It’s cool though. Man.
Frank Lapinski (age 66)
They say that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. But what it is, is that there are always two opposing forces, two teams that want the ball. That’s what keeps us sharp and in shape for the future, knowing that there’s another team that wants our ball. We’ve got to train and be aggressive, because somebody out there wants our little village, our little lives, our little homes. We’ve always got to be ready to play the big game.
Robert Biehl (age 58)
I thought the fireworks at midnight were a fitting tribute to this new age. I was proud to be a contributor in this way. I had a concept to light up a path right down Main Street, but the council felt there would be too many people in the way. Maybe we can do that one for the Fourth of July.
Robert Stoneburner (age 60)
I’m just sick about what happened out here in String Town this week. What kind of neighbors are we that we didn’t see what was going on right next door? We’ve prided ourselves out there in being independent, no matter what the world or the folks in town might think. But gosh! We just have to pay more attention. We can’t let our concern stop at the railroad tracks, or at the property line. I just hope we can do better in this century.
Darrell Long (age 28)
When you cross-pollinate a flower, you don’t always know in advance what is going to result. Oh, you can make predictions on the color or shape, but you never really know until a generation has passed. I guess we’ve been pollinating a lot of flowers this century. The next generation will be able to tell us what blooms.
Delbert Jones (age 57)
I see great hominy in this town. It is a well-bounced synphony.
Lynn Powers (age 50)
I think little towns like Willow Mills are going to become very popular in the future. We should make a good plan regarding how we will zone and control the growth that is bound to come. We should expand the city limits to cover the entire township, then assess where development could be successfully sustained and where it will just create a bunch of scattered eye-sores. Then we should act to protect profitable farmlands while still making the profit from land development sustainable.
Alli Cameron (age 16)
I hardly saw any of the last millennium. I’ll live most of my life in the new one. I kept thinking as I saw the celebrations starting in the East, and it was New Year’s Day in Paris, then in London, and so on, I kept thinking what’s it like in the future? Somebody call me up from over there and tell me what the year 2000 is like. Then it was here and it was cool. And I wanted to call somebody in LA and just say, “Don’t worry. 2000 is cool.”
Al Bailey, Jr. (age 53)
I see bright sunny beaches in my future, and they aren’t on Ted Johnson’s sinkhole. I think I’ll start looking at cruise lines and tropical islands. It’s time to take long vacations and have short work weeks. Get your haircut now, it may be a month before I get back.
Betty Daniels (age 53)
I see more in the new millennium than blue rinse. I’m going to spend more time with the people I love.
Robyn Ayers (age 53)
I’m looking for a buyer or a partner. Life is too short to spend all of it watching other parts of the world on a big screen TV. The new millennium has new places for me to go.
Donna Askins (age 53)
I’ll just keep doing what I need to do to be happy. I’ve got to work on my health a bit, then I can join the others on their Caribbean Island.
Donna Jones (age 49)
It’s all part of the cycle. Birth—Death. Summer—Winter. Male—Female. We don’t try to break the cycle; we try to make it flourish. A new millennium is one way to look at a larger cycle we break down into centuries, decades, years, seasons, days. Whether we wait for the next cycle or pursue it, ultimately, we are a part of the great wheel and it turns ever on and on.
Leslie Springer (age 18)
I just... I’m like hopeful, you know? I don’t know how to say it. I’ve never been hopeful before. I’m just so thankful for Donna and what she is doing for me. I’ve felt so alone for so long. I just... thank you.
Arnold Lambert (age 71)
Waalll, this hotel has been here over a century now and seems to be fit to go on another century. I doubt I’ll see the turn of the next century, though, unless someone installs one of those cryogenic tanks in town. I’d try that if I were given the opportunity. Just quick-freeze me and wake me when they’ve got a cure for what ails me. I’d like to see if this old place is still standing when we turn to 2100. I think it could last, even without freezing.
Alice Lambert (age 75)
I’m too young to have seen the last century turn and too old to see the next one. It happened to be my particular fate to see the turn of this century and this millennium. As choices go, I’d say I should enter the lottery now while my luck is good.
Uncle Chuck Allred (age 84)
I just love to watch the kids these days. They have so much ingenuity. Look at all the games and contraptions they have. But when they come into the hobby shop, they are all just as wide-eyed looking at the trains as I was when I was their age. That should tell you something about our future in this millennium. If we did a good job (and I think we got above 50% anyway) then they will do a good job, too. You only have to make one more good decision than bad decision to be successful in life.
Audrey Allred (age 79)
I don’t know how much of this millennium I’ll see, but as long as I’m seeing it with Chuck, I’ll be happy.
Betts Frost (age 52)
There is only one way to find out what will happen in this century: Saddle up and ride into it.
Dottie Devlin (age 63)
I just think how happy Johnny Appleseed would be to see this day. And I know exactly what he’d say: “The Lord’s been good to me.”
Howard Bailey (Age 50)
It’s all about communicating. You see the pictures broadcast on the big screens on Friday and you have to think, “Hey! We can communicate with everyone in the world!” We need to reach out and talk to people. We need to communicate. Then we’ll turn the whole world into a village no bigger than Willow Mills. It will be a global village. That’s not my word, someone else invented it. We just have to be there to make it happen.
John Neidig (age 27)
Having a baby gives you a different perspective on all this New Year/New Millennium celebration. We’re celebrating new life with a baby that’s less than a month old. How can we have anything but hope for the new millennium. Hope is what we build our futures on.
Kay Neidig (age 25)
Jonah emerged from a blackout into a world of light. Maybe this New Year’s Eve was like us being born into a new world.
Albert Bailey (age 84)
Well, today is a lot like yesterday, isn’t it? It’s a little colder today. But that don’t mean the world is going into another ice age. In the greater scheme of things, we generally do what we have to do and enjoy it as much as we can. I expect that if the old bull got loose today, we’d still chase it down the river and all over town. Because we’re neighbors, friends, family. We’d still come to the aid of each other just like we did before.
So, What Did Happen
to Albert Bailey’s Prize Bull?
WELL, LIKE ALL STORIES, this one is about more than a bull that ran loose for a morning back in 1958. It’s about how a town that had lost its soul found it again. It happens that in this story, the instrument of salvation was a thousand-pound yearling bull.
After World War II we discovered that the world was a smaller and more frightening place than we had thought. A single bomb had destroyed an entire city. We had fought in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific—all at the same time. Boyfriends, brothers, sons, and buddies left one day and some never returned. Then it was over. And we replaced it with refrigerators and washing machines and TV sets.
And bomb shelters. Let’s not forget that.
Khrushchev swore he would bury us and our children would live under communism. We went to work with McCarthy to be sure none of those commies infiltrated our neighborhoods. It was a time of suspicion and fear.
I’m not saying there was a witch hunt in Willow Mills. The closest we got to actually having someone called a communist here in town was when Coach Lapinski called Bobby Biehl a draft dodger. That, by the way, was the real root of their animosity toward each other. And there were a lot of questions raised about the town’s preference for erecting a milk can in the middle of town instead of a war memorial.
Everywhere you looked someone was suspicious of everyone else. We were especially suspicious of all the newcomers camping out in String Town.
Even Albert Bailey had problems with his neighbor Bill Rasmussen Sr. He felt that tinkering with the genetics of cows to breed more Charolais was something of a crime against nature. If what he heard had happened in Germany during the war was true, then maybe this breeding program was even Nazi.
Of course, Albert thought Bill’s attitude was a little left wing for this Midwestern town. They hadn’t spoken to each other in nearly two years.
Then there were the Hart Cousins. Their dads, Nathan and Samuel, had built businesses across Main Street for each other. Oh, the businesses didn’t complete with each other. They just each felt that using the family name for a meat locker on one side of the street and a funeral home on the other side did neither business any good. But neither were willing to write it off. Drew and Hayden Fergusson were at each other’s throats over whether they should keep the dairy operation or switch to beef production.
And the town began to die.
There was so much in this little village that could go wrong that something almost had to go wrong eventually. Half the kids who came home from the war left for the city. Local businesses were closing up shop as supermarkets and department stores opened in the city. Who could compete, and why try? The answer to the problem of small farms was big corporate farms, and we began to see family farms go into foreclosure or be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
So, when Al Jr. turned the clippers on Mayfield the bull that early morning in August of 1958, it was like lighting a fuse—and Willow Mills was a powder keg.
When Mayfield took off running, with Benny and Betts galloping behind and Albert running down the drive as fast as he could go, Liz Bailey saw her husband from the kitchen window and assessed the situation immediately. She picked up the phone and dialed the Sheriff’s office to ask for help. Say what you like about the speed of modern communication, nothing is faster than a three-party phone line. Within fifteen minutes the better part of Willow Mills knew something was happening. They could hear the siren wailing up from the direction of North Manchester. The fire volunteers were already heading for the firehouse. People were coming out their doors with everything from brooms to shotguns. Few knew exactly what was happening but Willow Mills was mobilizing for action.
Bill Rasmussen Sr. was pulling his hay mower behind a John Deere to get the east section cut. He saw Albert’s bull head east on South River Road and moved to intercept it. He let out the throttle on the old John Deere and popped the clutch. He might not agree with Albert’s breeding program, but you didn’t let a man’s valuable livestock run loose where it or others could be hurt or killed. He got the tractor and hay mower cross-wise of South River Road just east of the little roadside rest area that the kids used for camp-outs. The bull came charging down the road, saw the tractor and veered to the left down toward the river.
Benny and Betts came galloping by next. Albert came puffing up and paused just long enough to say, “Thank you Bill. I should have him trapped between here and the water now.
At that time, the sheriff’s car came squealing up, almost broad-siding the tractor from the other side. He veered into the campsite and was almost on top of the campers before he got the big Studebaker stopped. He saw the bull, Albert, and the donkey in the water headed down-stream. He radioed into the fire department to get a ladder truck as close as they could to the dam, it looked like a rescue was going to be needed.
At that time, Al Jr. got there with the front-end loader and almost collided with a black Pontiac sliding in from town. Al was standing behind the wheel looking over the scoop when he saw the campers in front of him and veered down the river bank. What he saw next, though scared him stiff. His dad was splashing out after the bull, which was already at mid-stream and headed down-river with Benny right behind. But there was no sign of Betts on the little donkey. Then he saw her surface out in the current. He knew 11-year-old Betts didn’t know how to swim, so with the tractor still rolling toward the dam, he dove off into the river and swam toward her, yelling encouragement.
This was duly recorded by the newspaper photographer who had been hot-footing it out from town and had caught a picture of the Sheriff, the tentless campers, and Al Jr. diving into the water. Keeping his head about him when he saw the girl struggling in the water and the run-away tractor, he yelled for the Sheriff to get a rope as he ran after the tractor and brought it to a stop just at the edge of the dam.
The Sheriff grabbed a rope from his car and ran out to the tractor. He tied one end quickly to the wagon hitch and began a careful walk out along the top of the dam with water running over his shoes to where Al Jr. and Betts had come to a struggling halt pinned against the stonework. He managed get a loop around the two kids and dragged them back with him to the water’s edge where they lay gasping like two fish on the shore.
Wayne Thompson was delivering papers at the north end of the route when he saw the excitement out at the Bailey’s and started pedaling like mad to find out what was going on. By the time he reached the campsite, however, the excitement had moved farther downstream and he decided to head back to the bridge by way of the road instead of the river bank. On his way out he told Bill Rasmussen, who was maneuvering his tractor and hay mower out of the road what had happened down by the dam. Bill quickly plotted what he thought might be the most likely place to leave the river and came up with the sandy beach at the oxbow. (This was before there was a Baptist Church out there.) He wound the gears up on the John Deere and headed west on South River Road determined to block the bull’s path into the farmlands west of the beach.
When the fire truck reached the iron bridge, they were already too late as the action had moved west to the dam. There was no possible way to get turned around anyplace nearer than the abandoned farmhouse half a mile farther north. But from the vantage of the bridge they could see a new chapter unfolding. As the bull got to the millrace on the far side of the river, he got purchase on the bank and lurched up out of the water and charged toward the Methodist Church. The volunteer in the driver’s seat of the fire truck was none other than Lee Jenkins, the Methodist minister. He slammed the truck into gear and with siren wailing raced the bull to the church to block the entry which stood open as he had left it when he answered the fire call. The bull veered again and headed west into the woods.
Albert didn’t fare as well at the millrace because he encountered Benny the donkey there. After a brief confusion of feet and hooves, first Albert then Benny went over the millrace and slid into the fast current at the foot of the dam. It was fast, but also shallow by comparison to the deeper slow water of the mill-pond. Albert scrambled to his feet, and thinking that the donkey was still hot to chase the bull, pulled himself onto Benny’s back and gave him a good kick. Benny, however, had had enough of this and refused absolutely to move another inch. He planted his feet among the rocks and, no matter how Albert kicked, refused to budge.
Albert could just see over the embankment below the dam from his vantage point on Benny’s back and saw his bull head into the woods west of the church. He scrambled off Benny and sloshed his way along the shore struggling to find a place where he could get up out of the river. Just then, about fifty yards farther down the river, the bull came out of the mouth of Willow Creek where it dumps into the Eel and continued heading downstream in the water. Albert slid back down the embankment he was struggling up and started sloshing after the Bull. But seeing his charge in front of him again stirred Benny into action and he bolted after Mayfield, knocking Albert flat in the current again.
Now the campers, whose morning drowse had been interrupted by the bull charging through their camp, had finally dragged themselves out of their sleeping bag and followed the chase downstream in their pajamas and bare feet. They saw Albert go down under Benny’s charge, took one look at each other and ran into the river to help the stunned man. As soon as they had his face out of the water, Albert spluttered, looked around and escaped from their rescuing grip to continue the chase. The two startled people took off chasing Albert, afraid that he would fall and hurt himself.
Now Al Jr. had recovered enough that he could see that his father was headed for the sandy beach. The only way for him to get there was to back the tractor up to the campsite and head back by way of the road. He fired up the engine and with Betts, the Sheriff and the photographer hanging onto the fenders and hitch, he headed back upstream. They could tell before they got to the campsite that the sheriff’s car had sunk into the mud and would be going no place until they got it pulled free. But the sheriff waved Al Jr. past the vehicle yelling “Let’s pick it up later.” Unwilling to be separated from the action, the photographer eschewed his vehicle as well and the four hung on for dear life as Al Jr. opened the throttle all the way on the front-loader and headed back along River Road.
He got to the break where the sandy beach jutted out into the oxbow and could see Bill Rasmussen waving him down from his vantage on the other side of the break. It was an ideal trap. Between the two tractors, the bull would have no place to go as there was a six foot hedge-row on the other side of the road.
They had only a minute to wait as the muddy white bull rose from the river and charged across the sand toward River Road, Benny braying behind him, Albert running behind Benny, and the two campers trying to catch up with Albert. The bull turned west and found the same tractor that had been his nemesis when he started this run. He turned and headed east, but could see that he was cut off there as well. The donkey and man were coming up hard behind him. So, Mayfield did the only thing that he could do. He charged straight ahead through the hedgerow with a tremendous bellow that shook apples off the trees on the other side. He zig-zagged side to side through the orchard clipping the porch of the house at the end of the orchard with his stubby horn and shocking the suddenly awakened Dottie Devlin from her Cider induced haze.
Right behind the bull came Benny, Albert, the two campers, and not to be left behind, the Sheriff, reporter, Al Jr., Betts, and Bill Rasmussen.
The Devlin orchard backed up to River Road with the main entrance on Maple Avenue in Willow Mills proper. By this time Preacher Jenkins had gotten the fire truck out of the church lot and was headed back into town on Grissom Mill Road which turns into Maple Avenue when it turns at the school. He was trying to raise the sheriff on the radio for further instructions on where he was needed when he looked up and saw the muddy white bull charging straight at him. He swerved to the right at Main Street and jackknifed the rig blocking both Main Street northbound and Maple eastbound. So, the poor bull had no choice but to head right down the biggest broadest avenue in Willow Mills, right between Hart Funeral Chapel and Hart’s Pure Beef Meat Locker.
It happened that the Hart cousins had encountered each other that morning and were faced off in the middle of that street with each suggesting that the other find a different town for their business. But when faced with a charging bull, Chas Hart, the butcher, grabbed hold of Nate, the mortician, and threw him like a side of beef up on the roof of his car to safety. But there wasn’t time for Chas to take care of himself and he was hit fairly and directly by Mayfield in the middle of Main Street. Chas landed in a heap as Mayfield continued past. Nate was off the car in a flash and tending to his cousin protecting him with his own body from the rushing horde of Benny, Albert, Robin and Jackie, Al Jr., Sheriff Rogers, Noble Vining the photographer, Betts, Bill, Preacher Jenkins, and Dottie Devlin.
Frank Lapinski had just been in the Post Office to check the early mail and was walking in front of the fountain toward Josephine’s looking at a Sports Illustrated magazine. When he looked up and saw a bull charging at him, he started to run, but slipped on the wet pavement in front of the fountain and fell. It looked certain that the charging bull would trample him, but at the last minute, Bobby Biehl came barreling off the curb screaming like a banshee and waving his arms at the bull. The bull careened off to the right, slipping on the pavement. Bobby pulled Frank to his feet and they moved to the side.
In front of Mayfield was the fountain. Behind him were a horde of people who had chased him over two miles. And then from around the fountain on either side came Drew and Angus Fergusson, each leading two enormous Belgian draft horses, any one of which would make two of a yearling bull like Mayfield. A sudden peace came over Mayfield. He stomped a bit. Snorted. Then went forward and dipped his head in the fountain for a long drink.
In the process of his rampage, Mayfield had brought together some of the town’s fiercest opponents. He’d inspired three daring rescues. He’d been a vision to a woman in need, and an embodiment of the devil himself to a preacher who needed inspiration. He’d healed wounds even as he created some. And in just an hour and a half he’d given this little town a new life and a symbol to carry it forward.
That’s how our little town of Willow Mills entered the 21st century. We’re glad to be here.
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