Bud #11: The Sun’s Gonna Shine

I was just sitting at home, so I called Bud to see how he was doing. He answered and told me that the bar was closed, but take out was thriving. I was surprised to hear that because there had been no food service at Bud’s since Emma (Bud’s wife and cook) passed away. That was years ago.

Randy and Amanda decided to change that. Right away they began cleaning up the commercial kitchen in the back of Bud’s. They got Ricky the Afghanistan vet and mechanical genius to help. Within a couple of days Ricky had the stoves, freezer, and cooler up and running. Bud called his supplier and got food and carryout containers. So far it was just burgers and fries, but Amanda had a great recipe for beef stew. The problem was they had no way to package it for carry out. Bud called around to some different suppliers. One guy said he had a couple of pallets of the boxes used at Chinese restaurants for carryout. He said that they should work for beef stew. They did work fine, but it was a little strange to put beef stew in those little wire handled boxes with the pagoda on the side and the message that said ‘enjoy.’

Bud rigged up his own version of a drive up cash register. He took a 5- gallon plastic bucket that still had a lid. He cut a slot in the top to put in the money. Then he got a big piece of cardboard. He used a magic marker and wrote ‘MENU’ in big letters. Then he listed the items. Hamburger $ ?, fries $ ?, Stew $ ?

Underneath that he wrote “You know what they are worth. You decide.”

The next day they scaled up a bit. After remembering that lots of folks near Geauga Corners had a hard time getting around, they decided on home delivery. Gary made some deliveries with his dump truck. Harold had a field day teasing Gary with ‘meals on wheels’ jokes and the slogan “Let us dump your dinner.” The whole thing went really well.

At the end of the day they all sat apart on lawn chairs around a fire ring that Bud had set up in the side yard of ‘Bud’s Geauga  Corners’. The fire was burning bright and hot.  It was a relaxing finish to a busy and successful day. They were sitting listening to the fire crackle when B.L. Jefferson drove up. He brought his guitar over and opened up the case. He said “I’m gonna sing a different song.  I learned this one from a bluegrass banjo player name of Dave Evans.”  When he sang they all knew it was the last part of the chorus he wanted everyone to hear.

That part of the chorus went like this:

…The sun’s gonna shine in my back door some day

Yes, the sun’s gonna shine in my back door some day

Warm winds gonna blow our blues all away.

B.L. Jefferson finished the song. Everyone was silent

The fire crackled. They all stared into the flames with the same thoughts.

We will get through this together.

Writer’s note:

For nearly 3 months I have been writing (or maybe attempting to write) fictional parodies and satire entitled Bud’s Geauga Corners . The newspaper treated the stories as advertising and charged me accordingly. I paid for the space.

It’s important that we understand that in America we have a wonderful freedom, freedom of the press. A Free Press, however doesn’t mean a free newspaper. Newspapers sustain themselves first and foremost with advertising and secondly through subscriptions.

So maybe it’s time that you bought a small ad that wished a friend or loved one happy birthday, or shared the location of your secret fishing hole, tell people where to get the best take out fish fry and maybe place an ad reminding your wife how much you love her. (Maybe that ad should be a little bigger.)  I could go on but you get the point. When this is all over we will still want know what’s happening in Geauga County and I hope this paper will be there to tell us.

Last, this is my final episode of Bud’s Geauga Corners. Now it’s up to you to create your own stories. There are lots of things to write about both fiction and nonfiction. In the coming weeks I hope you will think of Bud and his friends and just like the folks at Geauga Corners we will need to be together as a sharing community.  If we can do that then the “sun will shine in our back door someday.”

The opinions expressed are solely those of Dave Partington and of course Bud, Randy, Harold, Larry and the rest of the guys sitting at the bar at Bud’s. Bud’s Geauga Corners is a work of fiction. Bud’s Geauga Corners is paid for solely by Dave Partington.