Ghosts of Arizona's Tonto National Forest by James Wharton

Author:James Wharton [Wharton, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-12-17T07:00:00+00:00

The Raven

“Welcome to Strawberry, Arizona,” the sign said. I was just passing through but, the little town looked friendly so I decided to stop for the night. It was 1931 and I hadn’t taken a vacation for four years. This was supposed to be a well-deserved rest.

My name is Edgar Allan and I’m from Peoria, Illinois. You’ve probably heard of Allan’s Hardware and Sundries in Peoria. Truthfully, I can’t say we stock a lot of sundries as they’re too hard to keep track of but, we do have a passel of hardware. “Passel,” by the way, is a literarial word I saw in a 1927 issue of the New York Literature Gazetteer that was mistakenly mailed to Ike’s Tonsorial Palace in Peoria.

Winifred Thepu’s Strawberry Lodge looked exactly like an idyllic little hotel, and besides, it was the only accommodation in town. Strawberry wasn’t really a town, however. It’s what the Census Bureau calls a CDP, or Census Designated Place. In plain English, CDP means a concentration of population. Of course, that would describe just about anyplace where there were more than two people gathered.

A tall, large boned blond woman and two giddy male desk clerks who were identical twins greeted me when I walked into the small lobby of the log cabin-like building. “Good afternoon,” I said.

“Welcome to our little hotel,” she smiled. “I’m Winifred Thepu. Everyone calls me Winnie.”

One would think Winifred Thepu’s last name was French and would likely be pronounced “they-pugh” with a long “u.” Or, possibly it was Hungarian and would then be snappily pronounced “thap u,” again with a long “u.”

But, no, things could not be so simple. Instead, it was pronounced “the poo.”

Your last name is pronounced like “the poo” in “Winnie the Poo?” I cleverly, but mistakenly questioned.

She glared at me and, with a forced and insincere smile answered, “Yes, it is,” clearly signaling she had heard that awkward attempt at humor before. She wasn’t amused.

“These are my sons Billie and Bob,” she said. “My husband and I always loved the name Billie-Bob and we couldn’t wait until our son was born so we could name him exactly that. But then,” she added in disappointment, “I unexpectedly had twins. That ruined everything. We had to name one Billie and the other Bob. That ruined our lives. We wanted a son named Billie-Bob more than anything else in the whole wide world. So what happens? We get these two. We had to split the name Billie-Bob between the likes of them,” she concluded, with a disgusted shrug.

The two sons, looking blatantly guilty of name theft, shifted uncomfortably and looked downward. “She tells everyone that,” Billie blurted defensively. I never wanted to be named Billie. I’m definitely a Thaddeus, don’t you think Mister?” he asked, hoping to pull me into their unsolvable, and evidently, eternal family argument.

I didn’t take his bait, instead saying “Thank you,” as I took my key and walked down the porch to room # 3.

I fetched my one suitcase from the car and brought it into the spacious room.

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