Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review
Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review
Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review
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Page 46 <strong>Lake</strong> <strong>Chapala</strong> <strong>Review</strong><br />
<strong>February</strong> <strong>2008</strong><br />
The Diamond Shamrock Goddess<br />
by James Tipton<br />
At age 65, Edna Schneibel felt like she was not only<br />
going to survive but that she was really ready to blossom.<br />
Her husband, Wayne, had passed away five years earlier,<br />
dying on his John Deere tractor, slumping over the steering<br />
wheel as if he were falling asleep while Edna watched<br />
helplessly from her kitchen window. He left her with no<br />
children, a large mortgage and a little insurance that was<br />
now exhausted--circumstances that forced Edna to look for<br />
work.<br />
Edna dyed her hair dark, dabbed some line-lightener on<br />
her country skin, took a deep breath, stood tall before the<br />
mirror and wished herself luck. Then she applied, during<br />
the course of five exhausting weeks, at over three-dozen<br />
places in her little community in western Colorado, a town<br />
that seemed almost unfamiliar to her now, so different from<br />
the town she and Wayne had done business in for more<br />
than four decades.<br />
Finally the manager at the Diamond Shamrock service<br />
station at her edge of town told Edna he would be “happy<br />
to have her on board.” She grinned broadly and said, “Well<br />
thanks, Captain, it’s nice to be on board.” She and Wayne,<br />
although they had their own gas tank on the farm, had been<br />
here quite a few times over the years. She knew the type of<br />
people who stopped here--mostly rural, older, although on<br />
weekends there were lots of teenagers as well. She would<br />
be working the 4:00 pm to midnight shift.<br />
On those plastic cards the teenagers handed her, she<br />
realized most of those nice young women now had names<br />
like Jessica, Brittany, Ashley, Megan, and Stephanie and the<br />
young men names like Joshua, Justin, Tyler, and Brandon.<br />
But many of the young men, and most of the old, had names<br />
that had been around forever, like Jim, David, Bill, John,<br />
Tom, and Bob. She couldn’t remember whether a customer<br />
had ever handed her a card with the name Edna. The name<br />
Edna always seemed a bit quaint to her, but so had been the<br />
beloved Welsh grandmother after whom Edna was named.<br />
Edna loved names. She liked saying them out loud. She<br />
liked to thank each customer by name. As in most rural<br />
communities, many of her customers were middle-aged or<br />
older men, and many were regulars who came in at least<br />
once a week. She liked to call them both by their first and<br />
last names, but more and more she noticed she preferred<br />
to call them by their last names. As they came through<br />
the door, Edna found she liked to stand up straight and<br />
almost curtsey, and then greet them, “Good evening, Mr.<br />
Elliott,” “Good evening, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” “Good evening,<br />
Mr. Samsel.”<br />
When she first began doing this, she would make a little<br />
mental note, some little detail to help her remember each<br />
name. Tom Elliott, who always walked in wearing a worn