THE 2002 CHS REUNION CONTINUED—17th excerpt from Ch. 52 of LITTLE IDIOT: October 12th: I hadn’t planned on attending the dinner and dance scheduled for Saturday in Casa Grande but the previous evening Jo-Ann had given me the ticket she had bought for her husband, explaining that he didn’t want to go, so I went in his place, but by myself because Star had to work on Sunday which meant she had to go to bed early. The Property, where the dinner and dance were held, was actually a little ways outside Casa Grande. I sat with Jo-Ann and Roberta and while we were waiting to eat I said to Jo-Ann, “I’ve never told you this before but I’m going to tell you now.” She gave me a curious look and said, “Okay.” “When we were in high school I thought the three prettiest girls were Shari England, Mary Ellen Heep, and . . . you.” That brought a smile to her face. What I wanted to add but didn’t was that I would have liked being her boyfriend. I liked everything about Jo-Ann. Including her warm, wonderful laugh. As we continued to converse, I described to both Jo-Ann and Roberta a dream I had the day before, the dream coming no doubt as a result of Roberta’s having told me about her daughter Sandra who was living in Coolidge in the house on Walton Avenue where she and Jo-Ann had grown up. Sandra was in very poor health, suffering from frequent seizures. In my dream Sandra was only three of four years old. I was driving somewhere and Sandra was sitting on my lap. “You look happy,” I said. She agreed that she was. “Why?” I asked. “Because,” she said, “I know you love me.” I said, “You’re right, I do.” I don’t know if Roberta was moved by the dream, but I was. After dinner, group photographs were taken, starting with the graduates of 1950 and proceeding from there until my class was up. I went up on a platform with Jim Stokes, who was living in Coolidge, Lee’O Hill, who had driven in with his wife from Phoenix, and Bill Quinn. Down below us on the floor were Tommy Henry, who lived just east of Coolidge, Joan Cooper, who had recently remarried and was living in Florence, Phoebe Dow, whose home was in Yuma, Carolyn Pate and Irene Murietta. I leaned over and told Tommy, “Hey, you can’t be down there with all those girls when we’re up here.” He looked up and said, “Sure I can.” I turned to Lee’O Hill and quipped, “He’s smarter than I thought.” Later I thought I probably shouldn’t have said that even though I meant nothing by it, but Tommy could have taken it as an insult, which it was not meant to be. I was simply in a good mood and enjoying myself. By the way, notice that with Tommy down on the floor while there were four of us boys on the platform, once again there was this pattern of four together with one being separate. After the photo was taken Lee’O invited me to come over to his table to meet his wife. She appeared to be about 30, half our age, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for her or Lee’O and so it wasn’t a problem for me. She had a quick, broad smile and I immediately liked her. When Lee’O introduced me he said, “This is Jim Merrill. Remember, I told you about him.” I was of course curious to know what he had told his wife but I didn’t ask. His voice and attitude made it plain that whatever he had said had been positive. I shared one memory of Lee’O with his wife. “One day when we were at school I told Lee’O, you look like Elvis, you ought to have girls hanging all over you.” His wife had a good laugh at that. Lee’O said other people had told him the same thing but he couldn’t see the resemblance. “I think it was in the lips,” I remarked. After I left Lee’O and his wife I saw Doug Henry talking to Berle Deaton. I went over to the table where they were sitting and waited to talk to Berle but he and Doug never let up so I finally walked away without saying anything. Jo-Ann, Roberta and I stayed until almost everyone had left then we went out to the parking lot together. For some reason none of us said good-bye and I felt rather lonely driving home.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:28:22 +0000
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