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It has often been said that people are about as wise as they truly wish to
be. I've thought a lot about that saying lately, and I'm beginning to
suspect there may some truth in those words.
Not so long ago, a man lived just east of town here, some seven miles
beyond those grassy hills. If you drive that way, and look south from the
road, just past the last big stand of tall pines, you can still see the
old house. I believe it remains empty to this day. The man's name was
Panteblonius. Arnold Panteblonius. He lived alone in that house for
another forty years after his wife died.
Now when I was a boy, none of us children could pronounce the old man's
name. So we got as close as we could, calling him, "Mr. Patterbones." And
we told each other stories about how the old man would fly about in the
night sky. We had ourselves convinced that old Mr. Patterbones could fly
high above the ground. Especially during the harvest moon, around
Halloween, we always expected to see the old man's shadow sailing across
that great yellow orb.
The fact is, no one in the county was ever kinder or more helpful to
friend and stranger alike than Arnold Panteblonius. He never charged
anything when he bought something. He always paid cash. But he kept an
open account at the supermarket, the gas station, and at the small grocery
down by the highway. Anyone passing through, in need of gas or food, was
allowed to charge it to Mr. Panteblonius' tab. He had set it up that way.
And he always paid the tab in full every month.
Sometimes one of the locals would also use the tab, if things got really
bad for them. Mr. Panteblonius said that was fine, too. He didn't want to
see anyone go without. You've met Earl Henry. Well, he used the account a
couple of times, when he broke his leg at the mill, and couldn't work for
a while. After he got better, Earl went out to pay Mr. Panteblonius back,
but the old man refused to take any money. "You've been out of work,
Earl," the old man said, shaking his head. "You need your money to take
care of that family of yours." So Earl decided to do some work around the
old place, patching a couple of holes in the roof and repairing the fence
out back.
That's what happened with my dad, too. He had to use the account, he says,
when I was still in diapers. But Mr. Panteblonius wouldn't allow him to
pay back the money. So he hauled in some gravel to fill potholes in the
old man's long driveway, and replaced some broken glass in an upstairs
window.
As I grew up, I heard other stories. For example, lots of the local kids
have been able to go off to college, or to get other special training,
with help from Mr. Panteblonius.
When he was younger and stronger, Arnold Panteblonius was always helping
people to move, or to add on to their house, or to get the crops in, or to
do most any kind of big job that needed to be done. He was a help to just
about everyone in this town. I doubt there's a family in the county that
hasn't been helped out in some way by Mr. Panteblonius.
About twenty years ago, Arnold Panteblonius finally lay down on his bed to
die. I think he was nearly ninety. He called for his lawyer, for the
mayor, and for the town clerk. And before he passed away, Mr. Panteblonius
set up a community fund for the people of the town. It helps folks when
they need to build a house, when they have a baby, or when they're
struggling with some illness or injury. It does the same kinds of things
that Mr. Panteblonius always did when he was alive.
And then he died. The town's people had a wake for him, right in the
living room of his old house. That was more common in those days, since we
didn't really have a funeral parlor or anything like that.
The ladies of the town fussed around the old house for two days, cleaning
and polishing and sorting things out. That's when they came upon Mr.
Panteblonius' journals. He had stacks of them. Seems he wrote a little in
his journal every day. But he didn't write about any of the kind and
generous things he did. No record could ever be found of those gifts and
deeds. He always wrote about what he had read in the Bible that day, and
about the things that God would "tell him", as he put it. He also wrote
about the "wonderful heavenly walks" he would take, alone with the Lord in
the early mornings or late at night. He sometimes mentioned how hard it
was to end those walks and come back home.
Needless to say, people were talking about these journals and their
mysterious contents all during the wake and at the gathering for dinner
after the funeral. Everyone had known, of course, that Mr. Panteblonius
was a spiritual man. After all, he had been a member of the Valley River
Methodist church all his life. But still, people were surprised to learn
that the old man thought he was hearing from God.
Had Mr. Panteblonius not been such a good and helpful man all those years,
many of us would've said out loud what we were all wondering to ourselves:
had the poor old man been loony? But as it was, we carefully avoided
saying such things, even to our closest friends and family.
But that's not the strangest thing that happened when Mr. Panteblonius
passed away.
I remember that he died sometime in the early days of October. It was a
rainy Wednesday afternoon. Word spread swiftly around the whole county
when Doc Shaffer pronounced Arnold Panteblonius dead. Hearing of his death
troubled us all. And almost everyone went to church services that night.
Even the people who never paid any attention to religion went to church
that night. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. And so just about
the whole town and half the county beyond spent a couple hours singing
hymns and sharing wonderful stories of all the good things Mr.
Panteblonius had done. All three churches in town were packed.
After the service, people still lingered outside the churches, talking.
The weather was mild, the rain had stopped, and a big harvest moon was
hanging in the autumn sky, huge and round and yellow. The talking was
neighborly and warm, tinged with sadness, but not overcome with grief. No
one was eager to go home.
It must have been nearly ten o'clock when Ben Henderson started yelling
for everyone to look up. We all looked up to see what Ben was pointing at.
The clearing night sky was bright with moonlight, the air still a little
hazy from a day of steady rain. We could see bright stars shining through
the twilight haze.
At first, I didn't see anything strange. That didn't surprise me because
everyone knew that Ben Henderson loved nothing better than to tease and
joke. He was a little slow in the head. He was every bit of thirty-five at
the time, but still had the mind of an adolescent. Don't misunderstand me,
Ben was a good man. If not always dependable, he was still a decent
neighbor, a hard worker, and friends with everyone. But he was simple and
childlike. He always loved to tell the silly jokes he had learned in
childhood. And he would pull his little pranks on just about anyone,
always in good fun. He loved to hear people laugh, even when he knew they
were laughing at him. I only saw him without a smile once in my whole
life, and that was when his old dog had died. On that day, Ben Henderson
sobbed like a baby. So we all went with him to help bury the dog. Then all
of us guys pitched in and bought him a new puppy. Ben had a special place
in everyone's heart, I think.
So I was in the middle of groaning loudly and saying, "Ben! There ain't
nothin' in the sky but the ol' yellow moon..." when I suddenly saw it.
Rising slowly up in the sky, right over where old Mr. Panteblonius' house
would be, was something small and white or gray in the moonlight, like the
figure of a man walking. Clouds were moving across the sky, and the
moonlight made it hard to see clearly. But I saw it.
I was afraid to look away, sure that I'd never find it again. So I just
kept watching. The figure rose up higher and higher, like a man walking up
steps or going up a hill. And as I watched, sure enough, the figure went
right across the face of that big yellow moon. Only as it passed in front
of the moon, I could see that it wasn't just one man, but two figures. One
was smaller and could easily pass for Mr. Panteblonius. But the other was
bigger, taller, walking side by side with the first figure.
I never blinked, I don't think, until they had finally passed up and out
of sight, too far away to see anymore in the twilight of the moonlit sky.
Then I looked down again. Just about everyone else still had their eyes
fixed on the sky. I knew they had seen it, too. But as we all started to
bring our gazes and thoughts back to earth, no one said much about what
they had just seen. After all, what was there to say? The whole thing was
impossible. Whatever we had really seen in the sky, it didn't fit in with
anything that we could explain or understand. It was one of those
mysteries that you see and remember for life, but almost never say much
about.
I found out later that Arnold Panteblonius had never had much schooling.
He had grown up in the days before the big schools were built. His parent
were poor dirt farmers, and he had quit school in about the third or
fourth grade so he could help out with the work. His folks had continued
to struggle along with the farm until they both died. Then Mr.
Panteblonius had done it all on his own for a few years.
But then things changed. He married a young lady who had come down to do
some government research work for the farmers. Soon after that, he left
town for a few years, going off to the big city to work with his
father-in-law's factory in Chicago. While in Chicago, he invented several
little parts for automobile engines and things. Some of the inventions he
gave to his father-in-law to use in his business. And some of them had
made Arnold Panteblonius and his wife rich. At Least he had become very
rich by our standards.
They could have lived out their years in the big city, partying and doing
all that socializing stuff. But they decided to come back to live on the
old farm. Instead of building a big, fancy house to show off their money,
or driving around in a limousine, Mr. and Mrs. Panteblonius did some
necessary repairs to the old place and settled into a simple lifestyle.
They used their money to help others. They wanted everyone else to have
the same opportunity they had enjoyed. But they didn't build monuments to
their own names. Instead, they started quietly helping the local kids,
assisting families whenever trouble came, and just trying to be good
neighbors.
The kind of wisdom Mr. Panteblonius had was not the flashy kind that
publishes lots of books on how to do this or that. He didn't take over the
local papers or run for any public office. He didn't buy off senators or
try to get on TV or radio. He just lived his life, doing whatever he could
do to help ease some of the pain others might feel, from time to time. He
liked people. He believed in people just about as much as he believed in
God. His journals showed that he prayed for just about everyone he ever
knew. And he also prayed for strangers. But then he also did whatever he
could do to give hands and feet to those prayers.
I suppose some of us think we might've done something better with the
wealth Mr. Panteblonius had been given. But I've come to believe that he
made the very best investments. He invested in people's lives. Better yet,
he invested in the lives of his own neighbors, and in the lives of others
who happened to wander through. He seemed to believe that his own life was
made rich by encouraging the dreams of others.
Lots of our local boys have gone on to get a good education. Many of them
might not have been able to do that without a little help from Mr.
Panteblonius. Some of them have now become leaders in their field of study
and work. Others came back home to help keep and build a strong and
growing community. Even Dr. Nestor, Doc Shaffer's younger partner at the
clinic, went through medical school with help from Mr. Panteblonius.
These days, whenever I happen to see a full moon, I always think of Mr.
Panteblonius. I think of the night everyone in town saw him going up the
staircase of heaven, taking one of those long "heavenly walks" with the
Lord. I try to imagine how he must have felt when he figured out that he
didn't have to stop and go back home. And I think of how he lived his life
among us, as a good neighbor and friend. I think of all the good he did
and all the people he helped along the way.
And then I always decide all over again that I want to be that same kind
of good neighbor and friend. That's the kind of wisdom I want to have, the
kind of life I want to live.
©2005 Jim Sutton
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