Mayor Smith and the Jubilee Committee ask us to remind everybody that the Fourth of July is just four days away. The final organizational meeting will take place in the public room at the library tomorrow at seven p.m., and will be broadcast live on OP-TV, channel 12. The official schedule is available online at www.ogilviejubilee.org, at any of the stores on Main Street, the Piggy Wiggly, and the library. Entry forms for the 5K walk/run, the chili cook-off, baking contests and parade floats must be turned in by noon tomorrow at the library. The editorial staff of the Bugle reminds y’all that Miss Annie doesn’t look kindly on lollygaggers.

The flight from Atlanta to Savannah was one John had taken so many times that it made no more impression than getting in the car to drive to the store for milk. An hour in the air was just long enough to gather his thoughts and give himself another talking-to.

He was good at making plans and sticking to them, but like so many other things in his life this summer, a simple plane trip was turning into something else, and quite abruptly. Within five minutes in the air, the weather had turned from threatening to bad, and the man in the seat next to him—a dignified, calm grandfatherly type in a three-piece summer-weight suit—had gone the color of his shirt. Trembling, he asked John in an embarrassed whisper if he could hold his hand.

“I’m about to shake myself right to death,” said the old man, who introduced himself as Bob Beales. “Even if this plane doesn’t go down. I am that scared.”

John was trying to think of something comforting to say when a flash of lightning lit up the small cabin and the plane lurched. He held out his hand in a fist and the old man grabbed it, his fingers slightly swollen and red at the knuckle. The hands of a man who had worked hard all his life, who did not ask for help lightly. John was not reminded, not in the least, of his own father or of the one grandfather he had known.

“Don’t tell me how safe it is to fly,” said Bob Beales.

As John’s own father had died in a small plane, he wasn’t likely to say any such thing. He said, “I’m too worried about losing my lunch all over your suit to do much talking.”

The old man let out a squawk of a laugh and then yelped with the next lurch. His grip on John’s hand tightened.

“Tell me why you’re going to Savannah,” John said. “Maybe that will distract us both.”

“I’m going to Savannah,” said Bob Beales, “because my wife of forty-six years is there visiting her brother, and I couldn’t stand not having her in my bed even one more day.”