It is often said that in the repressed and carefree 1950s that kids didn’t know about sex. That’s not exactly true. We didn’t know what lovemaking was or how a baby was born, but we certainly had a primitive knowledge of sex appeal.

Little girls knew they liked boys who were “cute,” and try as we may to think of girls as “icky,” we boys knew we wanted to be near the pretty ones.

If a girl was pretty and also able to run and catch and kick like a boy too, then she was even more desirable to be around.

I had always liked girls. They were my playmates. First LuLu, then Ruthie and after Kindergarden, Nancy and Patsy and Lora. I played high/low water with my girl cousins, so I was surrounded by women as I grew up. It was when you were around boys that you learned that liking and playing with girls was yucky and being a sissy. Didn’t matter to me; I liked girls.

I lacked the knowledge of how to tell someone I liked them. What did you say? What did you do?

On a brilliant summer day at the lake I thought I found out.

I liked Joyce Hoefers. I mean I REALLY LIKED Joyce. We had been classmates since Kindergarden and I worshiped her from afar. She was one of those pretty girls who could play like one of the boys, and I always wanted to be in her company. I just did not know how to tell her.

I noticed that boys were splashing and teasing girls they liked. Sometimes a boy would grab the girl he liked and duck her under the water, a flirtatious gesture designed to show her how much he cared. Often the girl would come up for air protesting and slapping, but then the two of them would run away together laughing about the matter.

“That was it!”, I realized. I had to show Joyce that I liked her by being the tough guy. I would grab her and throw her under the water in a manly display of admiration, and then she would laugh about it knowing she had captured my heart.

I approached her in the shallows at the edge of the beach and grabbed her from behind, preparing to push her under.

Everything after that is a blur….

Just as I went to push Joyce under, she pulled free, yelled “No you don’t!”, and in seconds I was being dunked not once, not twice, but three times over. As I came up for air I could see her walking away hurling even more anger in my direction.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen! She was supposed to give in to me and laugh it all off and she would know that I truly liked her! I was humiliated. I was destroyed.

I looked around expecting to see everyone on the beach pointing their fingers at me and laughing at my sorry self. The weird thing was, it seemed like no one had even noticed, like it all happened in another dimension; “The Embarrassment Zone.”
I picked myself up and went up to the top of the wall to sit and ponder.

How could this have happened? A girl did this to me. A girl!

But this was not just any girl and I should have known better.

I should have been myself and not have been afraid. I should have been smart enough to walk up to her and say : “I like you Joyce.” I didn’t and I got my butt kicked.

I learned my lesson that day and from then on I held a profound respect for all women.

I still liked Joyce.

I still admired her from afar.

I mean REALLY afar.

www.maddoxcorner.blogspot.com
I hope you enjoy it.
Jim Maddox

I was a young college student living with my ex-boyfriend in the back of a small antique shop when I had my closest encounter with a homeless person.  True, I was about as homeless as I have ever felt in my life given we weren’t supposed to be living in this space meant for our business, but I easily blended in with the rest of the bathed society and chose to identify myself with them.  It was during this time that I became a regular plasma donor.  I received fifteen dollars for my first successful donation and forty-five dollars for the second – potentially a nice supplemental income for a college student.

I took off one evening, upset at my ex-boyfriend, with no intention of returning.  I planned to donate plasma the next day and receive forty-five dollars.  Being anemic, I had to stock up on high protein foods the night before to boost my hermaticrit level.  Without a high enough red blood cell count, they would turn you away instead of risk leaving you without enough energy.  I didn’t have enough money for bus fare much less a can of red beans when I wandered out that night.  I came near a church where someone had set up some blankets for a shelter, but it seemed to be unoccupied.  I had no idea where I was going to sleep that night, so I decided to poke around this shack and hope for a place to lay my head.  I’m not sure how I got to a point where sleeping on some dirty blankets next to a church somewhere in downtown was acceptable, but I didn’t twice about it at the time.

To my surprise, I was invading the privacy of a homeless man lying on a mattress watching t.v. from his battery-operated set.  I don’t remember what he was watching – I don’t even totally remember what he looked like – only that he was probably in his thirties and wore a cap, glasses, and an unshaven beard.  I apologized and intended to move on, but the man insisted that I stay, offering me the spot on his mattress while he slept elsewhere.  Somehow that wasn’t enough for me, and I proceeded to explain my need for a can of beans.  Who would have thought this homeless man had more cash with him than someone as respectable as me, but it wasn’t long after my story that we were walking out of the local food mart with a can of Van de Camp beans that he had purchased for me.  He opened it, of course, with a knife he carried with him.  I was overwhelmed by this man’s kindness and never once felt threatened by him, nor did I ever get the sense that he ever expected anything back from me.  I told myself that I would return the next day with my forty-five dollars and dole out a portion to him.

After a successful plasma donation the next morning (thanks to the can of beans), I headed back to my friend’s shelter, excited to share with him the fruit of his kindness.  To my disappointment, there was no shelter left standing – only the church gardener belting out the loud noise of a hedger.  It was as if the makeshift shelter and the friend I had met there never even existed.  I considered stashing the cash somewhere that he would find it, perhaps in a nearby tree with a note.  But what if he never came back?  And wouldn’t it be pointless if he did, in reality, never exist and that the whole encounter was just a gesture from God to restore my hope?  I’ll never remember what I spent the forty-five dollars in my pocket on, but I can’t help but remember nearly ten years later that kindness can come from the most unexpected people and places.

Deborah Wilson