Grandpa and Girls

I always liked to catch snakes. I would put them in the garbage cans which impressed my mother to no end. I usually caught “bull” or “blow snakes.” They were usually quite large but more docile than other types of snakes. Boys being boys we were always tormenting the girls. One activity we enjoyed doing was to let the snakes loose on the slippery slides right behind the girl going down the slide. It was always great to hear the girls scream. How brave we appeared to be…to catch, land, and handle the snakes in front of the girls.

I well remember the day that my friend picked me up and threw me into a bed of thorny roses. Fighting among young boys is not unusual but fighting for a worthless cause really doesn’t make sense. My friend, Dale, and I both were madly in love with a girl who periodically came to visit her aunt. Dale and I argued over this attractive young girl. I said she was my girl and Dale insisted that she only belonged to him. The truth of the matter was that the girl probably could care less about either of us (even if she knew we existed) and both Dale and I were too bashful to even let her know that we were in love with her. Dale and I like two bull moose butting horns got into a heated argument and then fight over our “one and only.” Dale was a year older than me and much larger and stronger. Never-the-less I ignored the fact that I couldn’t win a fight with Dale and challenged him for the girl of our dreams. Yes, I lost the fight but Dale and I remained friends. Long after the girl was forgotten I remembered the thorny rosebushes and the day that Dale threw me into the middle of them. You can say “it stuck in my mind.”

Have I told you about the time my neighbor gave me marriage counseling? We were standing outside in the yard and she turned to me and said, ‘Mel, I know you tell Trudy that you love her, but that’s not enough.’ And I had thought that that was enough, and I always made a point to tell her that I loved her! But she told me that, no, I needed to tell her “I love you because….” Just saying I love you doesn’t always mean something. And that made a lot of sense to me. So since then I try to tell her, ‘I love you because….’