Take twenty minutes.

I don't know about you, but I rarely think to take twenty minutes for something fun or pointless. A detour, if you will. Once in a while, I do take time for pointless detours, and a Wednesday last June was such a day.

It was exactly two weeks to the day since TWA Flight 800 went down off Long Island. I was visiting with Jim Gardner in his futon store, Gardner's Futons & Waterbedzz in Lancaster, PA. I was there to sell him futons. Jim mentioned that he sold Bob Fireman's "Fiantaca" futon frame. I asked Jim if he knew how Bob had come up with that unusual name. No, said Jim, he didn't.

Fiantaca was a guy, I told him, and I knew him. A lot of people in the futon business knew him. Charlie Fiantaca was feisty, energetic, creative, and he had a legendary temper. He could blow up and yell at you, really go nuts, then put his arm around you and say "forget about it". Charlie owned American Futon, and they manufactured futon frames in ash and maple. It looked as if Charlie and his company were onto something. At my store we carried two of his futon frames, "Andover" and "Bristol". Both hot.

Then, sadly, it all came completely apart in 1994. Charlie was killed in the USAir plane crash near Pittsburgh. Before long, the American Futon company was gone. Here's the ironic part, I told Jim. Charlie Fiantaca was from Montoursville, the same little Pennsylvania town that had just lost sixteen kids in the TWA crash. Jim told me that two of the crash victims were from his own hometown, York. We sat there nodding at one another. Yup, it sure makes you think. Yup.

I said goodbye to Jim and headed off. I was eager to get back home and I wanted to get going. Funny thing, though. Halfway there, I decided to take a pointless detour. I went to Montoursville.

In the six months since I'd started selling futons on the road, I'd been past Montoursville many times. More than once, I'd thought about stopping there. Until today, though, it never seemed important enough to spend the time, only twenty minutes, even though there was something here I wanted to see.

Today, I told myself, is the day. Yes, I'm anxious to get home, but I'm taking a few minutes for a pointless detour. I exited the expressway, drove past Wal-Mart, through town, into Indian Park, and up to the playground. there it was. Clean, white, and tidy. A gazebo. and on front of the gazebo was a brass plaque, saying it was built in Charlie's memory by his friends in the futon industry.

It had been a year and a half since Buzz Farlow and I had raised the money for this gazebo, passing the hat among Charlie's customers, colleagues, and competitors. On the phone I'd discussed the details with Charlie's neighbor, the former mayor of Montoursville. Afterwards, Fran Fiantaca wrote me a nice thank you note. And now, finally, I found a few minutes to stop and see it. I took a few pictures.

I sat down in the gazebo. It was almost dusk and nobody else was there. I thought about Charlie, about American Futon, about those sixteen kids, and about myself. I was struggling to get a new start after going out of business. things have been tough for me, I thought, but at least I haven't earned a gazebo yet. Compared to them, I have a lot to be thankful for.

As I drove back through town, every storefront had a sign speaking to the recent tragedy. At the Exxon station, "We remember". At Taco Bell, "Our prayers are with you". And on and on, all through town.

Stopping here was sad, truly sad. But I'm glad that I stopped. Sometimes you get a better sense of where you are by taking the detour.

FL