Beneath the Wrinkles

The chilly mist of the morning threatened my mother’s permed curls, as she rode her yellow, banana seat bicycle. The streets were still dim but the rising sun only reminded her
of how late she had started her paper route. With a newspaper satchel swinging
around her shoulder, she tossed papers to the doorsteps of the sleepy citizens
of Spearfish.

Under normal circumstances, my mother would work through her
newspaper route at a comfortable pace, all while daydreaming about interesting
adventures; but, not this morning. She was already running behind, having woken
up a half hour late, and to add to that, she still had to finish an essay that
was due later that day. She was pedaling frantically, not caring to look if the
newspapers had landed on their “welcome” mats. Thoughts of what to write about
for the rest of her essay where slow coming, like escaping trickles of water
from a damned river. Her frustration only made her pedal harder, and she
accidentally hit Mr. McGregor in the head with his fresh newspaper.

“Hey, watch it!” the old man yelled as he shuffled back
inside.

“Sorry…” my mother said timidly, but by that time she was
far ahead of him.

The sky was growing lighter by the minute, sending her into a
new level of panic. For goodness sakes, what will I write about! she thought
with horror. Mr. Gragen, her teacher, had assigned 3 full pages simply about the
aspects and peculiarities of your community. But right now, all she could think
about her community was that they were out of their minds for the making the
houses so far apart!

After a few more minutes of hurried pedaling and creaky
complaints from her old bike, she came to her last stop: a gloomy apartment
complex occupied by smelly old folks. She stopped for
a brief moment and looked at the dark buildings before abandoning her bike on
the sidewalk. Speed walking through the dark hallways she threw newspapers at
nearly every door in the complex. “Old folks sure like their news…” She
thought.

Looking at her paper of newspaper customers, she saw one final person
left: Mrs. Jenkins. This was Mrs. Jenkins’ subscription renewal day, so my
mother had to collect the subscription money from the older lady. My mother
grimaced as she walked up to apartment 19; Mrs. Jenkins never really talked to
anyone and reminded my mother of the scary “KISS” poster in the basement back
at home. Warily knocking on the door, my mother hoped that Mrs. Jenkins wouldn’t
answer. A minute passed by and nobody answered the door. I guess nobody’s home was my mother’s reaction to the unresponsive door. Right as she turned to run back to her bike, the door creaked open.

My mother bit her lip and turned around. There stood Mrs. Jenkins, as scary as she
remembered her: excessive amounts of makeup, tangled hair, and those horrid
slippers she wore that looked as dirty as they were old. “Um, hello, Mrs.
Jenkins…..I, uh…” I got lost in staring at the many colors of her slippers. A
cough from Mrs. Jenkins brought my mother back to herself and she resumed, “It
shows here on my paper that your subscription renewal is due today.”

“Ah yes, I thought it was about up. Child, you don’t need
to worry about me, I don’t need to read any more of that depressing writing. My
husband recently passed away and I don’t need to add to my sad state.” Mrs.
Jenkins said as she gave my mother a melancholy smile. My mother said nothing
as she felt horrible for how she had judged Mrs. Jenkins; no wonder she was in a disarray!
“You know, you remind me of my daughter, when she was a child, of course. She
was so sweet and her eyes were the same color as yours, but she has moved to
Washington since then,” Mrs. Jenkins said to my mother. My mother stood there
in disbelief, appreciating the elderly and just how much life they had lived and what incredible people they are. You just need to get to know them a little bit.

“Thank you, you have a good morning know Mrs. Jenkins!”
mother said to her. Mrs. Jenkins closed the door but not without a warm smile.

My mother ran back to her bike and thought to herself, that maybe, sometime
soon, she would visit Mrs. Jenkins again; but instead of coming to collect the
subscription fee, she would come to provide herself as a friend.

This revelation about the elderly in the community finally gave my mother the spark that she needed for her essay. The elderly were the hidden treasure in the community: wisdom and an honest friend awaited those who discovered them. A smile was spread wide across my mother’s face as she raced home to finish the essay.