True North Story® Original Podcast Series

It’s the 1970’s and for some, this decade generates less than glamorous memories – a country mired in conflict in Vietnam, skyrocketing inflation and gas prices, Watergate and of course platform shoes and bellbottoms. But for me, there are plenty of sweet memories of childhood – Tinkertoys, my Schwinn bicycle, Little House on the Prairie, and my friends and neighbors in Stonegate, especially the Messeralls!
For a young girl who would eventually live out her childhood traversing across four states and attending six different schools before the ninth grade, those precious years outside of Chicago hold the deepest and strongest ties to anything I might remotely grasp as the “best years” of my preadolescent life. The meat-and-potatoes years, I call them. The years when you are old enough to remember, and form bonds that outlast sleepovers and birthday parties. It was during these fleeting, but impressionable years that I met my True North Story® co-host, John Hudson Messerall.
John and his family were already a stalwart part of the community when we moved in. John, his sister, Jenni, and their parents had been living in Stonegate for half a decade by the time our wood paneled Ford LTD station wagon pulled into our driveway. John’s father, Hudson, took daily walks around the neighborhood. A junior high principal, he walked as he lived – with purpose, authority, and nearly always with a hat – seasonal of course, but very Mad Men and dashing nonetheless. Somehow, Hudson and my father began a dialogue, and as men who were both learned in education (my father had a PhD in phys ed) and lovers of sport and the Bible, they began a friendship that took them out of the neighborhood on weekends to enjoy a morning coffee and conversation at a local restaurant.
Jane, John’s mother, was a bubbly blonde with big dimples and a contagious laugh. Her daughter Jenni, who was my age, was blonde like her mother, and fun yet stubborn. I adored Jenni – she had gumption that I shied away from. Whenever I could, I’d ride my bike the couple of blocks over to Jenni’s house. Invariably, her father Hudson was cutting the grass, or caring for the yard. To him, a well kept yard was just like everything else in his life, a sign of hard work and good discipline. Hudson commanded a healthy respect, in my childish opinion, and I was bound and determined to listen and mind him. Once in a while, an approving smile would spread across that middle school principal’s face. And let me tell you, if you saw it, you know you’d earned it. It was a sincere and heartfelt smile. And oh, it made you feel warm inside to know you’d made him happy.
John, on the other hand, was a busy little person. Nearly always moving, he was either pushing toy cars, trucks, and trains on the ground, or he was on his Big Wheel or tricycle, motoring up and down his driveway, within earshot of his dad.  Husky is the word I’d use to describe John in those days. All boy, with a full face, husky sized body, and a voice that sounded like his tonsils would probably be coming out one day (and indeed, they did).  Johnny, as we called him, was the age of my younger twin sisters.
 They found him a bit too annoying to give him much attention. He didn’t say much when he was around us, but I thought he was interesting. Not long after we moved into the neighborhood, something terrible happened. John’s father, Hudson, suffered a massive heart attack. I remember my mother letting us know. I felt horrible. How could that happen to a daddy? Someone I knew? The man who walked laps around the block, who was always working outside. How could this happen?