After I recovered from my camp debacle, my Lay relatives, of whom there were many, decided to have a Lay reunion. My grandpa Lay, who died the year before I was born, had fathered five girls and six boys. After his wife died, he married my widowed grandmother who already had two children. Two more children were born to them, Uncle Newman who lived in Texas and my mother. All of them got married and had children and grandchildren. God had said be fruitful and multiply, and a large number of the Lays had taken that seriously. Many of my cousins, I would never meet. It was Henry, the oldest boy, who decided to get the Lays together. He had built a camp house on his large farm near a pond for that purpose. Since many of them had moved away, I didn’t feel that attached to any of them. Mom had to bribe me to get me to attend the reunion. It didn’t turn out as bad as I expected. I hadn’t been there long when I was introduced to my Uncle Bob’s granddaughters, Joy and Dorothy. Joy was just a little younger than me. Dorothy was about three years younger. I also met one of Aunt Sue’s many granddaughters, Gaye, who was around twelve. Joy, at fourteen, already knew how to drive. Her father owned a Mercury dealership in Forest, another town about twenty miles from Newton. Joy begged her mom for the car keys. She got them with the understanding she was to only drive on the country roads. Soon, Joy, Dorothy, Gaye and I were on a joy ride along the country dirt roads. Joy was adventurous and found roads I didn’t even know existed. Our ride lasted long enough that Joy was suddenly panicking. “Oh no! Mama’s going to kill me. We’re running out of gas. Didn’t we pass some kind of country station a little while ago? We’ve got to go back and get gas.” She looked in her purse and said, “I only have a quarter and a dime. Does anyone have any money?” We all dug around in our purses, and added together, we had 68 cents. When we got back to the station, Joy showed the teenage boy managing the pumps the money. He got a good chuckle, and drawled, “Y’all girls going or a long trip and need a road map?” Luckily, gasoline was only about 20 cents a gallon back then. It got us back to the reunion. By the end of the day, Joy and I discovered we had a lot in common. We were both taking the same commercial art course that our folks had to buy, after we sent our renderings of the ‘Draw Me' girl in to the magazine. Joy begged her mom to let her spend the week with me. Her mom agreed. She took her home to pack a bag and brought her back.” So it was, I had a new friend and cousin. Since my mom was a half-sister to her grandfather, I’m not sure of our relationship status. I think Ancestry has us listed as second to third cousins. Joy brought her art pads and colored pencils and we spent the next week doing art, planning our future, catching tadpoles, watching a cow give birth and getting to be really close friends. When her mother came to pick her up at the end of the week, she begged to stay longer. Instead, I packed and went to her house for the following week. They had a very nice house in Forest. Her younger sister, Dorothy, had to give up her bed for the week since the girls shared a room with twin beds. Her family had a television, so this was a rare treat for me. She had a record player and we listened, over and over, to Tennessee Ford singing ‘Sixteen Tons’. We played some card games, but we spent most of our time drawing. Joy was interested in designing clothes, so we drew dresses and outfits. During the week, we made a trip to Roosevelt State Park in the next town over and to Jackson where Joy got some new pedal pushers. They were very popular at the time. We also shelled beans and shucked corn to help her mom with canning. I was impressed with city living, and Joy declared there were more fun things to do in the country. Since school was about to start for the fall semester, we agreed to write letters until we could get together again. It didn’t take me long to learn that although Joy had many talents, writing wasn’t one of them. I could write a couple of pages, and she would send me back a paragraph on a post card. In August of 1952, school started back for both of us. Joy was a few months younger than I was, so she would be a freshman. Unlike me, she had lived in Pensacola, Florida for the last few years and wasn’t as well acquainted with her classmates as I was with mine. After the beginning of my sophomore year, I turned 15. I was always excited about being back in school with new classes, and getting to know new students that sometimes joined us. Clarke College in Newton was a Baptist college and they had a worldwide recruitment program, which meant students from other countries would be attending. Some were older men, who felt called to the ministry. The small college was an inexpensive step in that direction. If they were older and had families, their children would be joining the Newton school. Jerry Moore was a nerdy teacher’s kid from Clarke, who was in my Chemistry class. A tall freckled face red head named Betty was a new student, also from Clarke. Betty got on the basketball team, but her father wouldn't let her wear shorts. She had to play in a skirt. That must have been embarrassing for her, but it didn't stop her from joining the team. There were a couple of kids attending classes, who had already gotten married. Back then people tended to marry at an earlier age than today. We were beginning to feel like adults and actually thinking we knew more than our parents did. A lot of kids had after school and weekend jobs. I was taking bookkeeping, which I found to be easy and fun. Many of the girls were taking shorthand, but I decided it wasn’t something that appealed to me. The geometry class was required, and once again, I had to endure the coach math teacher, who would have preferred being on the ball field rather than in class.  I still had my little office where I made library posters, compliments of the librarian. A ball game was coming up, and I was told they needed posters quickly to advertise the ball game. I protested I didn’t have enough time and needed help. There was another boy in the junior class, who was extremely skilled using the black markers to do lettering, so they sent him in to help me. We each had a poster we were working on. I thought he was cute and fun to be around. I enjoyed talking to him as we worked. He was about half finished with his poster when he said, “Look, I’m on the football team and I have to be at practice right now. You’re going to have to finish this.” “No, don’t you dare leave me! I can’t do lettering like yours. You have to stay and finish it.” “Nope, sorry Babe, I’ve got to go.” With those words he bent forward and planted a kiss on my lips. In shock, my hand automatically came up and slapped him across the face. He turned and walked out the door, and never came back. I could have kicked myself for having slapped him. I must have seen that gesture in some movie. If I’d played my cards right, this might have had a much better ending. Recognized Author Notes A chapter in the book "Growing Up in Mississippi" I'm 14 and have just returned from a camping trip in which I came close to dying.

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