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Ten Stories Tall

Thomas Elson

    He commanded a room. Webster stood five feet five inches, or six feet three depending on who was talking, with a high waist, long legs, and a torso built to absorb a middle weight’s blows and return them in an instant. He was seen only in dark blue slacks with a white shirt, a suit coat and hand-painted tie added depending on the occasion. His face was set, as determined as was the rest of him - a force of nature.
    An orphan whose father, Simon, was drowned in a shallow creek by his own employees in the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. His mother quickly and mysteriously remarried then moved to the southern edge of Minnesota.
    Within ten years he was off into the world. First, and unusual for the times, to the University of Minnesota for two years, then he taught for in various rural settlements, and after supervising the construction of a schoolhouse, he called himself an engineer and broadened into general contracting, then hotel construction.
    In newspaper advertisements his six story hotels became eight, and eight stories became ten. He knew the intricacies of photography and added height without revealing crack or crevasse. On his fourth hotel, the principal defaulted, and he took control.
    His marriage was short, his parenting skills minimal, but as a grandfather he was world class.
    He sent his grandsons on trips to New York, Chicago, Valley Forge, through the south. Excursions with his grandsons in his late model Cadillac – California, Texas, Wisconsin, Colorado. Upon arrival he was greeted by young women wearing hip huggers and white shirts tied well above their bare waists, and each time he would smile and say to his grandsons, “Here are the keys to the car, behave yourselves. I’ll see you on Friday.”

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