Jealousy

This must have occurred in the 10th or 11th grade high school. It came back to me today.
I had a small motorbike, an English James, that could barely hit 45 mph, and I loved it. Often would go out for rides just to enjoy the feeling.
And I was in Verian Chaney's drama group — which my mother had signed me up for because I was too shy to talk to girls. One day Ms. Chaney ordered spontaneous acting: we were divided into groups and given an assignment to act out. I was with Ed Turner and his then-girlfriend, and an older girl who was fulsomely built... stacked like an outhouse, as we almost said. She was a year older than me, but went along with the stunt with good humor.
Ed designed the skit: we were two couples in a car parked on a dirt road somewhere. I was in the "back seat" with, let's call her Patsy, she of the impressive build. Ed and his girl were in the "front seat". They pretended to be smooching. Patsy snuggled against me and put my arm around her shoulders.
Blushing, I stared at the ceiling of the auditorium and said, "Hey, there's the Big Dipper....and...and...the North Star," and grew increasingly embarrassed as Patsy snuggled more insistently and Ed and his girl made loud smooching noises.
When Ms. Chaney finally released us, I went outdoors to ride my 'cycle home and discovered it gone.
Patsy's boyfriend Charlie — also a year older and much larger — had taken it for a joyride.
My Dad drove me around until we found the 'cycle, abandoned in the middle of a suburban street, the motor smoking because I'd had it locked in first gear and he drove it til it froze up.
Dad insisted we go talk to Charlie's father. I resisted but he insisted. At the front door, the man said hello, didn't invite us in, and said we had no proof that his son was involved. We retreated.
It cost a few bucks to get the 'cycle repaired, and I made a point after that of not befriending girls who already had boyfriends.

Work or Something Like It, part four

My first job out of undergrad college was in the public relations department of Gulf Coast Utilities, Co. Located in Beaumont, Texas. I moved there and got a $75/month apartment, and soon added an air conditioner, which got 24/7 use in that humid climate.

At first my job involved writing press releases that the local newspapers had to run because of the importance of the utilities co. to their existence. After about a year, the guy who was editing the company monthly magazine (i.e. "house organ") left to edit a weekly newspaper out West--that was nearly every journalist's dream in the Forties/Fifties, not mine, though. So I became editor. I had 32 pages to play with every month! Sheer bliss.

I taught myself photography and drawing, and did cartoons and photographs and wrote meaningful editorials and still what came out was mostly crap because it was a "house organ". I doubt if many employees actually read it. But I was having fun.

And I had a deep crush on a girl who worked in the same office, but I won't talk about that right now, because she was married.

Anyway, after a few years I got the mad idea that perhaps, because I was a photographer and a writer (I had sold a short story to a science fiction magazine and finished a novel and started another one), I should go to work in NYC for LOOk or LIFE magazine.

Work or Something Like It, part three

I'm working again, after years of carefree, free-lance life. And I'm actually working in journalism, having made that my degree pursuit, both in undergrad and post-grad work.

I'm copy editor at the Martha's Vineyard Times, a tabloid-sized weekly on Martha's Vineyard. It's the second weekly, the first being the venerable Gazette, which tried to follow in the tradition of Country Editor Henry Beetle Hough. A friend this last week characterized the Gazette as being for a different (higher) class of folks than the Times. The Times is delivered free to every post office box on the Vineyard, whereas the Gazette depends on subscriptions for its circulation.

It's interesting work and fun, although I'm drinking way too much coffee.

Last night, two friends-who-fish and their wives took me and my wife out on a picnic with fishing rods. Bill Moody loaned me a spinning rod 'n reel and a nice lure, and taught me how to cast my hopes out into the waves from South Beach. No bites from blues or bass, but it was fun nevertheless. Next step is probably to buy my own gear.