Lawrence graduated from a country high school in Oklahoma. Not long after he graduated the school closed and the community it served disappeared clear off the map. You wont see a mention of it anywhere. But there were still class reunions. Lawrence never went. He'd moved to the west coast and married. His wife inherited a small farm and it became his life.
Lawrence did not think often of that small community that blew away in the dust bowl. He had children and work that never let him alone. His life was good. But nothing stays the same.
A country cross roads near his home became the nucleus of an expanding suburban town. The bland faced new homes crept ever closer, destroying the old homes and orchards as they came. By now Lawrence was old. His kids had no interest in farming so he leased his fields for grazing. The farm had been there a long time. The lilacs and rose bushes were ancient. The barn had corners filled with mysterious farm machinery that even Lawrence did not recognize. Everything had settled comfortably close to the earth, but Lawrence knew it would soon all be cleared to anonymity. Once he had fought to save a row of trees by the new junior college, and he thought he had an agreement that the trees would be spared, but they were cut down very quickly, and all his protests couldn't bring them back.
He put a ``For Sale'' sign outside his house, but he didn't pursue it. Then his wife died. He sold the place and moved into assisted living. He still got reunion notices. The last one said there were only four left of his class, and for some reason he decided to go to Oklahoma and meet up with the others.
It was quite a trip for Lawrence. A long drive for an eighty-five year old, but he didn't care to fly.
They met in a hotel restaurant. A married couple and Lawrence and a spry looking woman with a gleam in her eye who Lawrence could only remember as Olive Oil. It was embarrassing. He didn't remember her name. He didn't remember the other two at all but that didn't bother him.
It was a good reunion.
Lawrence went home. In the next few months his phone bill was so high that he decided to buy Olive Oil a computer, and pay to have it installed for her so they could communicate by e-mail. In less than a year they decided to marry. Olive Oil, whose real name was Yvette, moved out west and made a new home for both of them.
New friends, a new life in a little new town house on a street full of little new town houses. Only Lawrence knew that under his new home were bits of old harness and the rusted remains of pieces of farm equipment whose use he'd never known.