Looking out my Backdoor: I am a plaid flannel shirt

My friend Jerry wrote me this week. Skipping the personal stuff, he asked, “Is it possible for you to create a 501 3C to raise money in U.S. to help people in need in Etzatlan?”

Once I picked myself off the floor still hooting, I wrote back something like the following.

A 501 3C? Oh, Jerry, I thought you knew me better than that! You ask me to do a suit job. I am not a suit. I am a well-worn flannel shirt. I am a lot of things, my friend. I am an artist, an inventor, a mechanic, a poet, a farmer, a dreamer, a leader. I am a friend. But I am not a suit. I am not even one sleeve of a suit. Oh, how I wish I were. My life would be so different.

Let me interject that I’ve known Jerry since school days. Jerry helped me with Algebra and I wrote his term papers to his specifications. He’d say, “Give me a C+ this time. I think Mrs. Hunter was suspicious of that last B.”

Jerry is a suit. We both went to school in little Harlem, Montana. Jerry got further away than most of us, not geographically, but in other directions. Jerry is still one of us. He just cleans up really, really well. Jerry knows which fork to use. Jerry is a financial investor for a major bank.

When I sold my house in Harlem, and compared to housing values throughout the country, we don’t even ping the scale, I asked Jerry if he would invest my wee landfall for me. Jerry kindly explained the smallest investment he handles, and he named an amount that I cannot even count that high. I was mortified, humiliated, wanted to crawl into a cave. I survived. We are friends.

Jerry and his wife visited me when I’d lived here in Etzatlan only a couple years. And they returned every year until the pandemic. I don’t know if he fell in love with Etzatlan but he definitely has an affinity for our town. Every year he sends me a generous amount of money for the old-people’s home which is run totally on donations and always in need. Leo and I scurry around town and buy food supplies and personal items for the people. The store owners always generously adjust the costs downward when they learn where our purchases are going.

So you can understand why Jerry thought I’d want to help. I had to decline the job. I said, Jerry, I have neither the experience nor the expertise to do such a job. Numbers and money are beyond my ken. (Sigh.)

In my former life, I was leader of a group that built a theater, from nothing, after paying off a huge debt left by the former administration. One of our first priorities was to obtain a 501 3C. It took a lot of doing and would have been impossible without Kathleen. And without Al, our bean counter and the man who made sure our feet stayed on the ground, and without David who described himself as general dog’s body but we couldn’t have done without him and without the handful of other volunteers, all extremely important, all adding their bits of experience and passion.

Emphasis on “group.” We were a small, emphasis on small, handful of volunteers and from a near ten thousand dollar debt, we emerged and built a one-hundred seat black box theatre. We did what couldn’t be done. We.

When our theater became successful enough to fill the seats every weekend, I was smart enough to step down and seek someone with suit skills to carry it forward. I am very proud to say that the Jewel Box still puts on plays, still serves the community and is thriving.

I blathered on to Jerry a good bit about my own personal stuff and ended my missive with “much love from the plaid flannel shirt.”

This morning I had coffee in town with a friend and told her about Jerry’s request and how I had had to turn him down. Her eyes lit up. “Let me think about this. I do know how to go about obtaining a 501 3C and this sounds right up my alley.”

I wrote Jerry back and told him that his idea did not die on my vine. We need to get together. I envision much dialogue. Who knows but the impossible might be possible, not with me, but with we.

——

Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].