Random Thoughts of a Bus Driver “Listen”

     Walk into any rural, small town cafe or restaurant and you'll find it in the corner, front or back it doesn't matter but it will be there.  It can be long and rectangular or it may be round but regardless of its shape or location it often is referred to by the same name "The Liar's Table".  Seated around it you will find a variety men ranging in age but for the most part they are older men that are either retired, close to retiring or those who will never retire regardless of their age.  They share jokes with one another often the joke has been told a number of times due to the fact that the teller has forgotten that he has already told it on a previous occasions.  Most of the time that’s ok because the listeners don't remember hearing it and those that do, laugh like it was the first time they have heard it.  Sometimes you will find a jar of homemade jelly that has been provided by one of the regulars.  As the men come and go, for they are never all there at the same time, they talk and share stories.  Some of the stories as you can imagine should not be repeated, in polite company.  As they tell their stories they reveal the paths that they have walked.  Though their backgrounds are varied they have two common threads, laughter and hard work.  Too many it would seem like these two things do not go together.  Surely joy and laughter can only be found in avoiding hard work.  Yet if you listen carefully, it is the hard work in their lives that has let them enjoy the little things that happen along the way all that much more.  They know what it is to rise before the sun and come home after sunset.  They have come home covered from head to toe with dirt and smelling of sweat, only to collapsed in exhaustion and then to rise again and start all over.  Many of those jobs offered no pay, they were for friends and relatives and they were raised in a generation where relationships were more important than pay.  Now as time has passed they look back and find humor in those times of stress and worry.  As they tell their often exaggerated stories you also realize they are the community historians because they talk of “remember when”.  They often argue about dates but they remember the big snow, the flood, the tornado that devastated the community and where you could go to buy local moonshine.  They remember when the Smith farm was the Johnson farm and before that it was the Jones farm or how an old man that everybody called Uncle John would always give you a ride in his wagon if you needed it.  They give direction not only by road names but by landmarks like that big old oak tree, that old two story house they tore down, Steger’s curve, or over on the creek at Hump.  They are the history of the community, for they have grown up here, worked here, and buried loved ones in the family plots in the local cemeteries.  As our society continues to change what will become of the liar’s table.  We have become so mobile that few live where they were born and even fewer know the bone tiring labor that was common place for another generation.  There are not many relationships that go back more than a few years.  We don’t know who lives next door much less the history of that old house down on the corner.  I often wonder what will happen when no one else remembers where the best pear tree in the county is or what will happen when we lose men of character who would not increase the size of their field, because it would mean cutting down that pear tree.  These men are not only found around this table.  They are at our own table during family get-togethers and holidays, they are sitting on the pew next to you at church, they are on the porch of the house across the street. Take time to listen, because one day where there was history and character, there will be silence.