Wesley and Saskia and the girls drove down for Thanksgiving. Wesley gave the family blessing. The two granddaughters set the table. The pot roast was Hazel’s standard Sunday recipe. After dinner, Wesley walked me out to the workshop. He stood at the door and looked at the welder and the lathe and the rack of fabricated steel parts I keep ready for incoming custom orders. He said, “Dad, I want you to know something. I was nineteen the day you taught me at this workbench that physics always wins. I have used that sentence at the Ohio Department of Transportation twelve times in the past three years to defend safety-installation specifications against budget cuts. I have not lost a single budget fight when I have used your sentence. The state of Ohio’s roadside guardrails are safer because of you. I do not think I have ever told you that. I should have. I am telling you now.” I had not been able to speak. Wesley had nodded slowly. He had walked back to the house. The girls were in the kitchen with Hazel, rolling out pie dough.
Hazel started writing a children’s book about the bollard in December. The working title is The Strongest Trash Can on Township Road 167. The book follows a small wooden figure named Rumpus who learns about the importance of standing firm against repeat offenders. Hazel finished the manuscript in March. A small regional Mennonite publishing house in Berlin, Ohio, agreed to publish the book in October. The book will release at the Holmes County Antique Festival next year. Hazel has invited me to read aloud from the book at the festival’s children’s tent. I have agreed. I have practiced reading from the manuscript at the kitchen table. Hazel keeps correcting my pacing. She tells me I read like a welding instructor. I tell her I am one. She laughs every time.
The Wooster Daily Record reporter who wrote the original feature article in June, a thirty-three-year-old reporter named Greta Linkletter, drove out to the property a second time in November to write a follow-up piece on the bollard’s first anniversary. Greta had become, across the months between the original article and the follow-up, a small fixture in our porch life. She had attended Hazel’s church reading in May. She had brought her own children to meet our grandkids on Halloween. The follow-up article ran one thousand eight hundred words. The article was titled, simply, in Greta’s quiet style, One Year Later on Township Road 167. The article was syndicated by the Cleveland Plain Dealer the following Sunday. The article quoted Eldrid Witford, the Killbuck Mennonite pastor. Magnus Witford, the new HOA president. No relation, just a coincidence of regional Witford families. Anakah Brewster, the prosecutor. Holly Brewster, the retired deputy. And Wesley, as the registered professional engineer. The article also quoted Hazel for the first time on the record. Hazel had spoken to Greta for forty minutes at the kitchen table. Hazel had said, in the article’s closing paragraph, “Quinn taught two thousand eight hundred young people how to weld across his career. He taught them carefully. He taught them that good work has to last. The bollard at the road is the smallest piece of work he has ever made. The bollard is also the most public. The bollard tells the truth about what he taught for thirty years. We are very proud.” I had read the article on the porch with my morning coffee. I had cried for almost a minute. Hazel had come out with a fresh cup. She had said, “Quinn, I meant every word. I do not say sentimental things lightly. The sentence is in writing now. It will be in writing forever.” I had told her I knew. I had told her thank you. We had finished our coffee on the porch. The cardinals had come back to the dogwood.