My mother’s been gone for twenty-five years, and I’m now eighty-one… a great-grandfather almost a dozen times over. So… let me get this off my chest. I once sorta-kinda, lied to my dear mother. OK, it was a genuine lie.
I was in the seventh grade at the time, Enochs Junior High. That’s the time when boys really begin to think of girls as both exciting and desirable. But there are two types of girls: first the ones who are ‘just friends,’ usually the ones you’ve know for many tears… and then there are fresh acquaintances who turn your head for the first time. The girl of this story was a neighborhood girl, one who’d been a school mate for years… Winnie Holston. Winnie lived one street over, on Silas Brown. And Winnie was really gorgeous, which I somehow failed to notice at the time!
We were about to have a sock-hop at Enochs. It was to be my first school dance. But I didn’t know how to dance! I mentioned this to Winnie, and she suggested that I come over to her house after school, and she’s teach me a few dance moves. Great! Problem solved!
Now this was 1953, back during ‘old fashioned’ times. And yet, even ‘back then,’ I considered my mother as ‘old fashioned.’ She had a belief young men didn’t visit young women ALONE in the house… and Winnie was alone in her home after school! So… I didn’t tell my mother of my plans to learn how to dance.
My childhood pal Buddy Gorday lived at the end of our street. To get to Winnie’s, Buddy’s was along the way. So I told mother that I was going to Buddy’s. But instead I made two additional rights and went to Winnie’s and learned to dance! (Would you say that in this case, two rights made a wrong?)
Winnie and I played no other parts than that of dance instructor and student. I may not have become a Patrick Swayze, but at least I didn’t embarrass myself and my dance partners on the gym floor! Looking back, I’ve often wondered why! Like I said, she was a real beauty. I suppose that being friends, I was simply too close to the forest to see the beautiful tree in front of me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pen In Hand 