Michael Malone - Weebly

home and out of the hands of the godly.
Whenever Rich sang, Beanie would think of her
father and of those singers standing together on the
Dingley Green in the cold night of that Christmas, 1941,
when America with its snug and warm, silly heart joined
a world at war for what it promised was the last time.
In celebration of the town's rescue from fire, song
and laughter kept local bartenders busy everywhere
except at the Dingley Club, where only a few people
played bridge. But at the Prim Minster, a piano and a
banjo came free with drinks. At reopened Mama
Marco's, pizzas spun in the air and beer whizzed into
jugs, while on the record player Mel Torme sang as
loudly as he could. Noisiest of all was Fred's Fries,
where the Grabaski cousins fought each other, and a
local rock band, with Tony Treeca on drums and Jimmy
MacDermott on lead guitar, fought hard against
conversation. Most of the attempted talk was about the
fire, and about Cecil Hedgerow's valor. Some
Madderites went so far as to say they'd like to see
Hedgerow running the town, making something useful of