The story below is a preview from our September/October 2017 issue. For the full story Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
A look at a different kind of “marriage.”
At first glance, she appears much older than she really is. We’ve been together for a decade and although my family members have taken it upon themselves to feel embarrassed for me—being with her at her age and weathered body—I stay. They tell me this has gone on long enough, that it’s time, but I’m just not ready to say goodbye. At this point in her life, there’s significant leakage—so much that she must sleep on an absorbent bed. Family members point out her flawed body and odor as reasons enough for change. But we’ve been through so much together—it’s just not that simple, leaving her for a younger model.
The Subaru Forester’s initial purpose was that of transporter: an engine, some tires, seats— a set-up capable of taking me, now college graduate, as far from Roanoke as possible. Claude Piche, who played hockey for the Roanoke Valley Rebels in the ‘70s, found the all-wheel drive wagon, a white 1999 model that I’d be with day in and day out for the next 10 years of my life. She handled New Mexico’s high desert terrain with ease, much more effectively than I did. She took me to Asheville for a year to enjoy the eclectic restaurants and the breweries. Soon after our return to Roanoke, we met my future wife, Dana. She had also just recently returned to Roanoke after bolting the city after high school for Colorado and then northern California for six years.
And Dana showed not the least jealousy. She quickly put my wagon’s hauling potential to use and soon I was driving back along Hardy Road toward our apartment in Old Southwest with a back seat full of bees. One afternoon not long after that delivery, I went out to check the hive for honey. The lid was stuck, sealed shut from the bee’s propolis, the glue-like substance they produce to apparently keep novice beekeepers out of their home. After a few more tugs, the lid popped off, which sent the bees into a rage, their wrath delivered in penetrating stings—seven of them—along my forearm and wrist. So we sold the hive to a man from Franklin County, and thankfully he picked the hive up in his truck, sparing the Subaru.
… for the rest of this story and more from our September/October 2017 issue, Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
