Stories

Okay, Kiddies, you've been good lately so I'll tell you two stories today.

First, from Short Stories and Nightmares:

Frank and I were talking recently about the power of words, and how people can say cruel things to their friends and lovers that just live on and on.

On my 22nd birthday, way back in 1972, I took the day off of work and spent the day sewing for myself. I made the cutest little shorts set. (I weighed about 125 pounds at the time.) It was a sage green cotton knit with white 1" high anchors knit into the fabric, spaced about 2-3" apart. This memory is so strong I can still picture the fabric. The pattern was a sleeveless tunic top with a pointed sailor collar and round neck. The hem of the tunic top left about an inch of the shorts exposed. The shorts were very short, but cute, not revealing, not by any means indecent. I don't know how to do indecent — didn't then, don't now.

The following Saturday my husband of nine months and I were running errands I was proudly wearing my new outfit, and hopped out of the car at the Maitland post office to drop a letter in the slot. When I got back in the car, he said to me, "You look like a slut."

End of story, but I remember every moment of that incident 34.5 years ago, and remember how horribly hurt I was that this man to whom I had pledged my life could be so cruel to and judgmental of me.

As I told this story to Frank, he popped right back with, "Hey, do you still have that outfit. I wanna see you in it." Ah, I do love being around men who possess a sense of humor.
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And from Short Stories and Warm Memories:

This morning Marcello tucked himself in the small of my back as I was waking up, and in a flash I was back on Lamont Street and Irving Street in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC. John and I were together. He would get up at 5:00 on Saturday and Sunday mornings to go either to Andrews Air Force Base or Hidden Creek Country Club for his "oh-dark-thirty" tee time with Dicky or Dennis.

We always slept spooned together, John in back with his left arm wrapped around me. As he got up, he would take his down pillow, smoosh it up, and tuck it into the small of my back to replace his belly against my back. He knew that I could then go on sleeping while he went off to tackle eighteen holes.

Wonderful, warm memories of a man who knew how to live life with great gusto.