Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. On this episode, Anne and I discuss Richard Ford’s short story, “Rock Springs.” Anne, you went to Rock Springs, Wyoming with Earl, Edna, Cheryl, and Little Duke. What did you think?

Torg Stories Discussion Richard Ford’s story “Rock Springs”

Things could always be worse. You could go to the electric chair tomorrow. -Edna in “Rock Springs”

Plot points:

Earl tells Enda, Let’s go to Tampa. Where are they? Where are they going? Earl lives with Edna but they aren’t married and don’t have kids together. Earl’s daughter is Cheryl. Edna doesn’t have custody of her kids. Earl’s in trouble for writing bad checks. Cheryl’s ex is coming by her place trying to steal her stuff. Earl suggests they take off for Tampa. I looked it up and it would be a 39 hour drive from Kalispell, Montana to Tampa.

Steal a Cadillac and drive to Rock Springs. The oil pressure light comes on.
Hide the car and Earl goes to the trailers.
Check in to the Ramada Inn.
Edna decides to leave Earl.

Earl is checking out stealing another car.
I like the questions at the end that we can answer together.

Two Questions Before Golden Lines:

What do you think of this couple?
What do you make of Earl’s parenting?

Golden Lines from Richard Ford’s “Rock Springs”:

(observation about love) I don’t know what was between Edna and me, just beached by the same tides when you got down to it. Though love has been built on frailer ground than that, as I well know. P. 2
(sunset description and point of view) The sunset that day I remember as being the prettiest I’d ever seen. Just as it touched the rim of the horizon, it all at once fired the air into jewels and red sequins the precise likes of which I had never seen before and haven’t seen since. P. 5. (The POV is interesting; it’s a looking back story)
(Earl’s reaction to that terrible monkey story) Sometimes that’s all you can do, and you can’t worry about what somebody else thinks. P. 9
Edna about and to Earl: You don’t think right, did you know that, Earl? You think the world’s stupid and you’re smart.
Also Edna: Things could always be worse. You could go to the electric chair tomorrow.
It got to feeling very Flannery O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find” with the driving, the car broke down by the road, and the unsavoriness. Earl tells us, “The truth is meant to serve you if you’ll let it, and I wanted it to serve me.”
Good writing about trailers: I’ve lived in trailers, but they were just snailbacks with one room and no toilet, and they always felt cramped and unhappy though I’ve thought maybe it might’ve been me that was unhappy in them.” p. 14

Writing taking you to realizations, got me thinking about how what space I’m in seems more important than it used to.

Earl is very negative about Rock Springs: She was good nature’s picture, and I was glad she could be, with her little brain-damaged boy, living in a place where no one in his right mind would want to live a minute.” p. 15
Tough one from the black lady in the trailer: Children bring you grief the same way they bring you joy. P. 16
A philosophy from the black woman in the trailer: Saving people is what we were all put on earth to do. P. 17
Edna on her leaving: I’m thirty-two and I’m going to have to give up on motes. I can’t keep the fantasy going anymore. … And I’ve learned I need to give up on motels before some bad thing happens to me.

What a terrible story about the death of the monkey.

Probably not fair, but because of what I think I remember about Ford collecting newspaper articles and using them in stories I tend to make a little less of it.

Other discussion questions:

Edna says they are a couple of fools. If Edna tells you she doesn’t know what to do with her life, what do you tell her? If Earl says he’d like to meet someone to help him take care of Cheryl, what do you tell him?
Holiday Inns and Travelodges are named as nice hotels the police won’t search. What’s a nice hotel to you? Marriott, Westin. OR, what are you looking for in a hotel? Location, self park…
What car trouble stories do you have? Going to Indiana game as kids, car breakdown on the way to Olivet, zero degrees on the Merritt Parkway driving to Queens at 5:30 in the morning, signed our loan documents in our along the side of 421

What are the rewards for reading this story?

The look at Earl and Edna and their relationship.
The bleakness of the terrain, the town, and the character’s lives.
The narrator’s observations and the lines of dialogue that say something that rings true and thought provoking about life.
Thought provoking in this way: we are a bad luck event or a few away from really having a much less joyful life. I do believe that there aren’t any guarantees that things work out fine. Edna and Earl aren’t currently increasing their odds in a good way.

What details make this Rock Springs and not LA, Winamac, or Boone?

Coal followed by a gold mine.
The prostitution coming in after the money from the gold mine.

We get a good look at that trailer. Can you think of a fav and/or least fav place you lived?

My current home for the following reasons: sweeping view of a valley and the mountains beyond. Good office space. Place to workout. Like two creeks running close.
What we called Ruth’s house in CT: stone walls surrounding the property with a big view of rolling hills and trees
New Cannan in town rental: walk to the library, walk to the park

Click here to read an entry about Rock Springs, Wyoming from a Wyoming history website.

Thanks for checking out this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast!