THE DAY I KISSED LUCY JANE

"In those simpler times of 1942, no one meant any harm,
or had....."intent"

To this day I don't know what got into me,

that long ago time in the spring of '42 when

I had just turned eight, and was in the third

grade at old La Casita School in Clovis.

Pearl Harbor had just been bombed several

months earlier and I picked that spring to

fall in love for the very first time.

I think what happened is my hormones kicked

in a little early....and there was little sweet,

cute, nice  Lucy Jane, sitting right across

from me by the wall radiators, along under 

the  windows.

Okay, she may have been a bit pudgy, but

she had rosy cheeks and lips--she was

appropriately aloof to the whole world---

("hard to get,")...and she could SPELL!

(I have ever been fascinated by wimmin' who

can spell.)

Somehow I started dreaming about kissing

Lucy and couldn't get the thought out of my

head. No, I wasn't thinking one of those silly

movie-type kisses---just a sweet little run-

of-the-mill-kiss-on-the-cheek! That was it.

You know.

Why I cared about her at all I don't know. For

she was an expert already at wimmin's stuff---

haughty, distant, ignoring, and she didn't even know I existed.

(In later years, pondering earlier events in my

life, I realized that she was merely...shy...

bashful-shy. And she wasn't much interested

in boys.)

Anyway, as time went along, I ignored a very

important rule laid down early from my mama:

An old West Texas farm saying-- "Don't never

tell your guts."

Badly needing some sympathy and advice, I

told my guts to two "pals." Rule One broken,

and they blabbed, all over the playground.

Little eight year old Mil, was losing face, as 

a ladies' man, and fast! Why, they dared me!

I went over there by that rock fence on the

L.C. School playground, and sort of grabbed

little unsuspecting Lucy, and gave her a big

old SMACK right on the cheek. 

It was really just a plain old run-of-the-mill-

kiss-on-the-cheek...I had absolutely no

experience with that kind of stuff.

She didn't do like in the movies and smack-

back-big. And she didn't do cartwheels!

NO! She bawled...and big time! I never saw

anything like it in my whole life! This wasn't

sposed to happen. And I had no "Wimmin's

Manual" to consult...

A Crying Woman...why it scared me to death,

I almost went "on the lam."

In truth and mercifully, the years have wiped

the consequences and ramifications of my 

deed out of my mind, as if to protect my 

sanity.

It seems I was called in after school to meet 

with the teacher and chewed out good and 

proper. She never phoned my parents.

The upshot of the whole experience was that 

I swore in my eight-year-old mind--off wimmin'  for life! No more kissin' or messin' around with that bunch---they're trouble!

Fooey on 'em. My resolve held until the teen-age years.

Had this event happened in this extreme

day and time, I would be  sent up for 

harassment.

(Lucy Jane must have moved away from 

Clovis at some point, for she did not 

graduate with CHS '51.  Over time, in my

mind, I have thought of her, and wished her

a good life.)

*************

MIL

30 JUNE 17

  A TRUE STORY

(Can someone find Mil a photo of

     dear old  La Casita School?)