Exceptional Lloyd and Rose Mary Fifty Days of Friendship : First Friends by Bill Schott

When I began school as a five-year-old, my mother walked with me to the far side of our small town to attend kindergarten in the basement of Otter Lake Elementary school. I'm told that was the only time that happened. After that day I was simply sent there. I walked two blocks south, one block east, then south to the end of town to the vintage 1920 era, three-story brick school building. It was in this setting that I was assembled with the classmates with whom I would journey through the blessed years of elementary and high school education. By the third grade class there was Walter, my cousin; Lloyd, my cousin; Cheryl and Bobby, my cousins; Lorne, Buddy, Gina, Debbie, Vera, Suzy, Dale, Russell, who were not my cousins; and Rosemary. All of these kids I considered my friends as we played together and seemed to like each other. Rosemary liked me especially, it seemed, and always wanted to hold my hand when we walked home. This wasn't clear to me, of course, since a dense skull had always been one of my attributes. Even when both Suzy and Rosemary wanted to walk with me holding hands, it never occurred to me that they were doing more than trying to embarrass me. It had occurred to Lloyd, or Lloydy, as he was called, who was Rosemary's neighbor and, I guess, wanted her to hold his hand. He challenged me to a fist fight on the way home, which I immediately agreed to while not knowing two important things: Why we were fighting or how to box. Lloydy didn't have that problem and pummeled me. This poor showing must have awakened the girls from their infatuation with me as I was never again victimized by their attention. Throughout the rest of our school days I had little to do with most of the kids in town. We would play pick up baseball for a couple hours on Saturday, but we were never close. Lloyd went on to be the BMOC in high school and Rosemary achieved the status of 'Everybody's Next One". I was expelled.   Recognized Author Notes Image from Bing

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