I Wonder What Pam Said?

I was a little suspicious of the whole Valentine charade as far back as the first grade. Miss Carolyn Blades insisted we buy each student in the class a Valentine card. It wasn’t the money. Shucks, you could buy a cellophane sack full of them up at Mr. James Williams’ Ben Franklin Store for fifty cents. I just felt a little uneasy handing Bob Edwards and Buddy Wiggleton a red shaped heart that said “Be Mine Forever”!

We repeated this scene in Miss Dorothy Booth’s second grade class. Miss Belle Alexander in the third grade was just as excited as her predecessors over this “exchange of cards” phenomenon. A blind man could see a pattern developing here. And I was beginning to take on a healthy dislike for the middle of February. Vicki Fields could out run me in elementary school. She’d chase me down and beat on me at recess. And then, with the sweetest smile, she’d lay that “You’re My Valentine” card on my desk. We should have been reading Sigmund Freud instead of jumping mud puddles with Dick, Jane and Spot!

By junior high I was beginning to see a little promise in this holiday that pushed love and devotion to the forefront. We had discovered that candy could be substituted for cards. I wish someone had told Miss Carolyn that! We experienced the amazing goodness of a “box of chocolates” years before Forrest Gump came along. And, of course, by this time in my development, when I looked over my shoulder and saw Vicki closing in, I slowed down just a little bit.

I wish you guys could have seen Jane Hill our sophomore year in high school. What a knockout! She had the prettiest smile and the darkest eyes and the best looking hair and the neatest walk…… It was rather strange. We had been going to school together for ten years. I don’t know what all of a sudden changed her! She sure didn’t look like this in Miss Belle’s class, I guarantee you that!

That little fat guy with the wings and bow and arrow had shot me right in the heart! Problem was, he had apparently missed Jane.

I spent Christmas vacation shooting basketballs up at the gym with Deake Bradley and David Paschall and devising a plan to get Jane to notice me. I couldn’t just walk right up to her and tell her how I felt. Oh man, she’d laugh for sure!

Leon could give me some good advice but I was too embarrassed to broach the subject with him. Same with my parents. Jane’s locker was just down the hall from mine……but I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say to her. Why didn’t I write a special note on those Valentine Cards I kept laying on her desk for all those many years! She stopped me at lunch one day to ask about a math assignment, I gave her the page numbers and tried to seize the moment but my mouth quit working. I stuttered and floundered and stared at the cafeteria tile. What a klutz!

We both played basketball. On the out of town games the boys and girls team would ride the same bus. It was very quiet and the coaches kept us separated on the ride over but if both teams won we could mix and mingle on the ride back. I would seek Jane out but she’d be sitting with Betsy Dinwiddie or Ann Carol MaCaleb—she didn’t even know that I existed! I’m telling you, finding the right Valentine wasn’t as easy as them cards down at the Ben Franklin Store made it seem!

I took a job at Jane’s father’s DX Service Station hoping to impress her. I pumped gas, changed oil, pulled those big tractor tires off by hand, burned holes in my shirt gluing hot Camel patches on inner tubes and wiped enough wind shields to qualify for the Windex Hall of Fame…..and Jane never showed up one time! If I could have gotten my hands on that little winged fat guy I would have drowned him in the water trough out back we used to find holes in deflated tubes!  

Pam Collins was Jane’s best friend. They lived practically next door to each other over on Paris Avenue. Ricky Hale was Pam’s first cousin. A plan was beginning to form. I wanted to ask Jane to the Valentine’s dinner at the church. But I needed to know what she was going to say BEFORE I approached her. “Rick, I’m kinda, thinking, maybe…..uh, uh…..of taking Jane to the Valentine party.  Would you ask Pam to talk to Jane and see what she would think of me asking her out?”

Ricky didn’t look surprised or startled at all. “Jane’s too skinny. Why would you want to go with her?”

It was the first fight Ricky and I had had since those pillow “free-for-alls” back in kindergarten. I had him in a headlock and was trying to twist his neck around backwards when he agreed to talk to Pam. I have no idea what Pam said to Jane. I could only imagine. I saw Jane first thing Monday morning beside her locker and I turned eight shades of red. I bolted down to English class without a word to anyone. There wasn’t enough cards, candy or flowers in the world to straighten this mess out. I was right about Valentine’s Day back in the first grade! The whole thing is a sham! I wish this floor would just open up and swallow me. I’ve made a fool out of myself over a silly gi—

“Good morning, Kes,” Jane accented the greeting with a slight pat on my shoulder as she headed toward her seat.

You know, I could be wrong about this Valentine gig…….

Respectfully,

Kes