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Coming of Age in America
Part 29 |
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Some months after sitting up with my friend’s father my grandmother’s sister passed away at the ripe old age of 96 and I was asked to be a pallbearer for the first time. I began to wonder if people were beginning to associate me with the dead or dying. Aunt Sallie’s funeral was held at Flower Ridge, a rural church, south of town on a very wet, stormy day. While sitting on the front row with the other pallbearers we could hear the thunder and rain pounding outside. It was a bad day for a funeral. But is there really ever a good one? Just as the service ended, the rain let up. We carried her down the front steps, across the parking lot and into the fenced-in graveyard on the south side of the church. It looked as if the bottom was about to fall out again at any moment when the funeral director decided it best to take a shortcut to the awaiting canopy on the opposite side of the graveyard. In doing so he led us directly over a new grave. As soon as my foot hit the plot I began to sink. One leg had disappeared to below my knee and everyone had stop while I pulled myself up. SCAPUCK! There was a giant sucking sound as the grave gave up my muddy leg and shoeless foot. Again, there was a pause while I rolled up my sleeve, reached down and groped around down there for my shoe. With a muddy leg, shoe and matching arm we continued on our way, marching ever onward to the gravesite pretending nothing had ever happened. Again in my senior year there was another cute girl that was brave enough to go out with me. We became steadies. I really liked her and fell in love with her family. After we had dated several weeks one of her girlfriends cornered me in the hall and wanted to know what was wrong. Was I ever going to kiss her goodnight? I was at a loss for words, so I said, “I’m working up to it.” I panicked. I didn’t know how to kiss a girl. Not that I didn’t want to, I did. I really, really did, but I had no clue how to go about it. What a loser I was. I was a senior and had never been kissed. My father had drilled it into my head to treat all girls like ladies, or like my mother. But I would never date my mother! Something was terribly off with his logic. Over and over in my head I ran all the different scenarios. What to do, how to go about it, when to do it. I didn’t want to kiss her goodnight on her front porch. Her porch light was always on and her neighbors across the street were members of my church. What if they saw me? What would they think? Would they tell my folks? The car. It had to be done it the car. I was afraid if I didn’t kiss her, she would break up with me and I didn’t want that. So there it was. If she wanted to kiss, I’d have to kiss her in the car. On our next night out we were riding around and the whole time I was trying to figure out how and when to go about it. Suddenly I saw headlights behind me. Dang. I figured some of my buddies were following us, so I tried to lose-’em. A quick turn here, a near stop there. Another turn, then I sped up and turned onto Ivy Avenue. I just couldn’t get whoever it was off my tail, so I turned into the school’s driveway. It was a huge horseshoe shaped boulevard and I knew after I made the loop I would be able to look across and see whoever it was that was me. It was a police car. After turning off the radio I could hear the siren. Then I noticed the lights behind the grill of his car. I hadn’t noticed them before because he’d been tailing me so close. I pulled over. My window was down by the time he walked up. He took one look at us trembling in the front seat. “Boy, what in the world are you doing? “I have you speeding, failing to come to a stop before turning right on red. Not stopping at a four way stop, evading an officer…I could go on and on. What were you thinking?” I knew I was going to jail. “Sir, you’re probably not going to believe this, but I thought you were a buddy of mine tailing us while we were riding around on our date. “I’m ashamed to say I was trying to lose you. Sorry.” “Sorry? You’re sorry?” “Yes, sir. I really am.” “Boy, I could throw the book at you!” After standing there looking at us for a moment he shook his head and said, “Just go on and get outa’ here. “And don’t break any more laws or I WILL throw the book a’cha.” After riding around a bit longer I pulled over on and obscure road, turned off the car and faced her. Look out world, here I am. My mind was racing when she asked, “Why’d you stop the car? What are we doing way out here?” I was at a loss for words. Evidently she wasn’t a mind reader like my mother. Mother knew every evil little thought I had. Was kissing evil? “Ummm… I thought… ummm. “Hmmm. I don’t know.” Suddenly I wasn’t feeling so well. I started the car and took her home. It was weeks before I had the nerve to ask her out again. Her friends were asking me what was going on and I had no answers for them. We were officially not steadies any longer. The summer before my senior year when Armstrong stepped foot on the moon there had been a mass gathering on a farm outside Woodstock, New York. It was the birth of a counterculture and hippie era where over 30 of the most prominent musicians of the day gathered on a farm for several days of concerts, love-ins and who knows what else. Woodstock soon became a household name, but in our sheltered corner of the world it took a while before we heard about it. We were still focused on the moon landing and other things that went up in the air. Like The Wizard of Oz. That was our senior play. We had a great cast and a wealth of talent in our graduating class. My cousin, Cathy Bennett, played the part of Dorothy and did a fantastic job. I ended up with a small roll. A very small roll. I was mayor of Munchkin Land. I had one line, “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” I know it was a lot to remember, but someone had to do it. Looking back there were many great takeaways from that senior play. We learned about courage when facing adversity, we were taught to use our hearts and care about those around us. And we were taught to think for ourselves. One more thing. Have a plan and stay on track. Except when you come to a fork in the road. Then do like Yogi Berra. Take it. You never know where He will lead you. For years after that I was tempted to list, former mayor of a small community, on my resumes. I wonder how my life would have turned out had I done that. Near the end of the school year, our class sponsor gathered all the seniors into the auditorium to prepare us for graduation night. She was my former typing instructor and I was still living with a cloud over my head from the typewriter carriage mishap. As we were all sitting there she told us that under no circumstance were we to speak unless spoken to. She was in charge of making certain all went according to script on our special night. She said, “Now I am going to read off the names of the graduates beginning with the honor students who will sit on the front row. Some of you will be giving speeches, so you need to be near the podium. “Then I will call everyone else up in alphabetical order. As I do, take your place on the stage. If you have any questions, I will address them later.” One by one she called out the honor students and placed them where she wanted them to sit. After that she read down her list alphabetically. I was sitting beside one of my buddies as she started calling out names. My name should have been the second one called. It wasn’t. I felt flushed. Then I felt faint. She kept going down the list. Had I not made it? Had I flunked out and was I going to have to repeat the twelfth grade? Most of the other kids were well aware she had not called my name. Her back was to us and no one dared to utter a word. I saw kids go up on the stage that I knew hadn’t made any better grades than I had. Yet I still had doubts. After-all, I was a borderline student. I honestly felt nauseous. She had finished calling all the names, was still facing the stage, and there I sat all by myself, alone, in the auditorium. I could have crawled under the chairs and slithered away I felt so low. It was all I could do to keep tears from running down my face. For some unknown reason she happened to glance back and saw me sitting there. “Mr. Algood, why are you still sitting there? Why didn’t you go up on the stage when I called your name?” Very meekly, I said, “You never called my name.” “I most certainly did! Are you trying to get smart with me?” I was thinking, ‘Get smart? It’s too late for that. Besides, that’d be a miracle!’ But instead, I replied, “No, mam’. You didn’t call out my name. I thought… “ “I most certainly did call out your name.” To which a few students spoke up in my defense, “No. You never said his name.” “Why didn’t you say anything at the time?” “You told us not to say anything.” “Just for being so smart, go take a seat on the back row with the Ws and Ys.” No one dared say another word. It was evident she had made up her mind. Plus, in the back of my mind I was thinking that this was payback for what that other boy had done the year before in her typing class. As I stumbled onto the stage and started walking toward the back row I instantly knew everything was going to be alright. There sitting in the very last seat was the homecoming queen. One of the prettiest girls in our class. The homecoming queen. I glanced up towards the heavens and mumbled, “Oh, thank you, God.” So on graduation night I was the very last student to walk onto the stage. I took my seat beside the prettiest girl in the class and loved every minute of it. After the speeches were given and it was time to go forth and receive our diplomas. The principal motioned for one row at a time to rise and file by him as he read their names aloud. The queen, my buddy and I had been playing black jack on the back row throughout it all, but when the kids started standing and going forward we put the cards away. It was down to two rows in front of us when my buddy had the bright idea to get some kids in front to pass us back a couple of chairs, which we hid behind the curtain we were sitting in front of. When that row returned and was given the signal from the principal to be seated, two kids had to sit in the floor until the row behind them marched forward. Then they snatched up their chairs. When that row returned, two of them found themselves chair-less and hit the floor. Finally, it was the last row’s turn to go up and receive our diplomas. Upon our return the homecoming queen and I had to take a seat in the floor until we managed to drag out the chairs we had hidden behind the curtain. As we marched out of the auditorium that night I had to pass by the typing instructor seated on the front row. As I did, I mouthed two words to her, “Thank you.”
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