What A Special Heart!

Jane Hall grew up two farms over from us. She had a funny middle name which I can't reveal to you. She knows my first name. And we made a pact when we were six years old never to "rat" on each other!

She beat me up right regularly until we were ten or so. She probably still could have whipped me after that....but I think she took it easy on me those last couple of years in elementary school out of pity. She pretty much left me alone unless Ricky Gene or Buddy made some wise crack at recess about her liking me. Then, of course, she'd have to trounce me thoroughly to disprove that silly notion!

I don't want to imply here that she was a big girl. Nor was she extra mean. Actually, it was just the opposite. Jane was the happiest kid in our whole neighborhood. She lived life like God intended. She didn't tolerate any turn down days! Heck, she didn't even get upset when Old Yeller died.....

We were near 'bout best friends when she wasn't beating up on me!

She was always up at our house. Or you could find us in that big ditch down behind George Sexton's barn. Or we'd go swimming in Sugar Creek. She was pretty good at marbles and mumbly peg. She couldn't spit worth a darn. But she could climb to the very top limb on Miss Boaz's walnut tree-- and let me tell you, a lot of the guys couldn't make it up there!

Jane was the best girl baseball player I ever saw. Some of the guys wouldn't want her to play and they were pretty vocal about it -- right in front of her! Listen, she could throw better than Buddy, run faster than anyone on the field except maybe Spider Hitchcock and, the Lord knows, she could hit circles around Larry, Randall and Yogi.

Jane Hall would work too! Her father made her cut okra, clean fence rows, plant corn, shovel feed down into those slanted troughs....just like everyone else in our little rural section of the universe. We hauled hay side by side from sun-up 'til sun-down. We chased cows every time they'd break through the fence down by the big wash-out. We picked cotton until she'd get two or three rows over and lob dirt clods down on my head.....then the fight would break out!

Our families would get together at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Boy, how she loved this time of year! She would actually glow with excitement. And she was the first person I ever knew that actually got more joy out of giving.....than receiving!

Jane and I went to the same church. We came down with the measles and the whooping cough at the same time. You had to walk right past the Hall farm going to town. If she could rustle up the required fifteen cents she'd come along to the Saturday matinee with us.

I had two brothers. And no sisters. I didn't know nothing about girls. Mothers, of course, don't count as girls! Jane and I would sit down behind the barn, watching the clouds turn from a elephant without a trunk to an old man with a long beard, and discuss the intricacies of life.

We pondered why the city guys never seemed to work. And tried to reason why watermelons were encumbered with so many seeds. We wondered why Moon Pies taste better on the front porch of Woodrow Kennon's Store than they did in your own kitchen. And why some folks were nice to young people and others seemed to be oblivious to their very existence. We talked tractors and Elvis, Mickey Mantle, junior high football and Halloween carnivals. And the difference between boys and girls.

I never will forget the ninth grade Valentine dance. Mother suggested fairly strongly that I take Jane. "Mother, I can't take Jane. She's not a girl..... she's just.... she's, well.... she's just Jane!"

It wasn't that she'd grown up ugly. Quite the contrary. She was extra good looking in her country sort of way! She didn't pile on the make up like Elizabeth Pendleton or frizz her hair up everyday like Betty Ann Creighton. She didn't have to!

You just don't date your best friend.

Mothers don't give up. By our sophomore year Mom was urging me to take Jane to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Shoot, I'd spent most of the last six months spilling my heart out to her about how much I loved Mary Hadley Hayden. I'd sworn Jane to secrecy. And I knew she would die before she would betray my trust....but you can also see why she would be the last person I could ever take to a dance-- SHE knew too much!

At different times Ricky Gene or Buddy or Jim Ed would come to me and want me to "carefully, so she won't know I talked to you" put in a "good word" for him with "your good buddy, Jane." They didn't want her to play baseball with us ten years ago but now it was a different story! I, of course, would immediately report the whole thing to her and we'd get a big laugh over it.

In the spring of our senior year Mary Hadley announced her engagement to Charles Hinshaw. I was coming out of John T. Moseley's Seed and Produce Company when Jane caught up with me. We walked down to Woodrow Kennon's front porch and she explained to me how narrow Mary Hadley's eyes were as she poured some peanuts in a coke. She allowed the whole thing "was over Charlie's money". My disappointed heart began to howl with laughter as Jane "demonstrated" Mary's semi-cross eyed look. She raised her chin just so and mimicked perfectly Mary's high pitched voice. By the time we finished the drink we were a million miles over one lost love.

Graduation and life kinda sent us in different directions. I heard she married a marine biologist and moved to San Antonio, Texas. But isn't it wonderful how time and space can't erase a real friendship!

I'll tell you this.....if someone today in San Antonio mentions Mickey Mantle or covers their Christmas dressing with cranberries ....Jane will smile and remember a creek, free falling out of the hay loft and a boy with an unusual first name.

And I never come to this holiday season without a nod and a salute to the girl who taught me life was a lot more precious than silver and gold.....and receiving that gift is good for the eye....but giving lights up the soul!

I Think I Could Whip Her Now,

Kes