Cassanova Rides Again

This is probably overplay, but my mind is stuck back in the early 1960s right now, so please forgive me. The picture at the right is of Mickey and me in the spring of 1957. I'm in red coveralls. More pictures at the bottom of this post.

Yesterday I wrote about Cheryl, and how we were married at a very young age only to be separated and divorced by virtue of lunch. Reconciliation was not possible because I move away and we never saw each other again.


That fall I began first grade. For whatever reason I did not attend the grade school just a mile down the road. Instead, I rode the bus ten miles to go to school. It was the only year I did this and I have never learned why. But it resulted in another love affair gone bad.

I must have been cute or something when I was young. There aren't many pictures of me from then left now. Most of my parents' photographs were destroyed in the fire, and whoever inherited my grandmothers' and Aunt Cile's pictures tossed them. But there are a couple. Personally, I think I look like a dork. But Cheryl must have thought differently. So did Vicki. And Debbie.

Vicki and Debbie were two girls who shared first grade with me. They both liked me. I was fine with that. (Having been married I was now an experienced gentleman.) Unfortunately, Vicki and Debbie were not fine with each other, and they had a bit of a war going on about me. Lacking the wisdom of Solomon I was not able to successfully deal with this. Case in point.

I finished my lunch and went outside, as was required when the weather permitted. Before I could find my good friend, Terry, Debbie found me. She wanted to push me on the swing. (Yes, you read correctly. The girls would push me on the swing. It was their idea. Honest!) I said, "Okay."

Well, we had only been doing this for a little while when Vicki arrives. Vicki wanted me to leave Debbie and go play with her. Now the truth was, I liked Vicki a little more than Debbie. You see, Vicki didn't just fawn all over me like Debbie did (not that I minded that), but she would actually talk and play with me (six-year-old play). However, that being said, Debbie had asked first and to leave her to go play with someone else would hurt her feelings. (I know. People did that to me all the time. Right through my adult years.) So, taking the risk I told Vicki that Debbie had asked me first and I felt I should stay with her.

Vicki did not find the answer acceptable. She stepped forward and insisted. Debbie told her to "buzz off" using whatever language six-year-olds used back then. (I confess that I have forgotten. It may have been, "Beat it!") The two girls began to argue over me, and as they did, Vicki kept stepping closer and Debbie kept pushing me on the swing. (Do you see where this is going?) Suddenly, I realized that Vicki had placed herself directly in my path, and that when I came forward I was going to knock her down. Lacking imagination, it never occurred to me to just drop my feet and stop. Instead, I did the most stupid thing I could: I held out my hand like a traffic cop and told her, "No!"

My palm caught her square in the chest, and the force of my thirty or forty pounds knocked her off her feet and to her backside. I was off the swing in a moment and trying to help her up, but the damage was done. Vicki was crying. She got up and ran away from me. Then Debbie walked up and said it served Vicki right so I got mad at Debbie and Debbie left. But my real trouble had yet to begin.

It turns out Vicki had her own version of what had happened, and she had gone to Judayl and gave it to her. Judayl, thinking it was funny, came home and reported it to the family - including Daddy. And this is what Judayl told everyone.

"Bevie's little girlfriend came up to me today and said, 'Your brother hit me.'"

That's it. No details. Just, "Bevie hit me."

The first, and foremost, lesson Daddy ever taught me was: Don't hit girls! Ever. I was granted four exceptions: Lynahr, Judayl, Gayanne, and Helvie. (The reason for these exceptions was that all four of them used to beat the snot out of me and I never fought back. Well, maybe not Lynahr. But the other three certainly did.) So, why had I violated the Prime Directive?

I tried to explain, but unfortunately the first words I spoke were, "I didn't!" That made me a liar. Now I was doubly in trouble.

No supper. Not only that, but I had to stand next to Daddy's chair all night until I explained why I had taken it upon myself to hit a girl. (My second statement that it had been an accident fell on deaf ears. I was guilty, and there was no getting out of that. What I had to do was come up with a reason for doing it. Since I hadn't done it on purpuse I didn't have a reason. So I stood.)

Daddy had my siblings bring out a new blocks toy I had. The idea was to stack oddly shaped blocks. The one who stacked the most was the winner. I had to watch while they did this.

My legs would hurt and I would sneak a rest by sitting the arm of Daddy's chair. Then he would see me and make me stand again. Daddy got home around five. My last sibling went to bed around eight or nine. Shortly after that, when it was just Daddy and me. I started crying and said I had hit her because I didn't want her to push me on the swing. It was a lie. But I was allowed to go to bed.

That wasn't quite the end of it. Vicki wouldn't play with me anymore because I had hit her. Debbie wouldn't play with me anymore because I had stood up for Vicki. So, in trying to be pleasing to everyone, I wound up with nothing.

Told you I was a dork.

Okay. So I kind of dared myself (in an email to a good friend) to post pictures of myself on my blog. You'll have to settle for old pictures, because I'm old.

Six siblings: Helvie (4), Lynahr (13), Mickey (15), Judayl (10), Gayanne (7), Bevie baggypants(5). Ranlen was up north. I believe this was an Easter picture, the year of my wedding. I didn't wear that suit.

Gayanne and me at grandma's goldfish pond. This was how I usually looked. No shoes. Unbuttoned shirt (because the buttons had all been lost). I was around six. The year Vicki and Debbie fought over me. Oh, and the goldfish were only in the pond that day. The following evening the cat discovered the goldfish pond. When we got up the next morning the goldfish had all disappeared.

Me around age six or seven. This was another common summertime pose for us at Grandma's House. It was cool up there. (Literally) The wind through the pines made it sound like there was a constant crowd watching everything we did.

Mr. Tough. It was raining, which is probably why I'm wearing a nice winter coat. I was five, and this was the first day with my new coat. I'm on my way to kindergarten. I'm wearing my name tag. However, on the way home that day I was laughing on the bus and the driver stopped, came back and beat the snot out of me, tearing my coat in the process. When Mother saw my coat had been torn I got slapped for it. When I told her the bus driver did it I got slapped for torking him off. Life was hard for a little boy in the 60s. Married. Divorced. Dumped by three different girls in the span of less than a year. Talk about not having what it takes. Whew!

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