THE ZIT

     Looking through the hundreds of photos I found in every cranny from my mom's house which was just sold. (She had 28 photo albums of mainly the same shots over again - as the years flowed by.  Me by the Christmas Tree. Me building a snowman.  Me going back to school...me a life in Kodachrome.)
     And then I saw it - the most embarrassing photo of my whole life (even worse than that New Year's Eve party in '76 when "streaking" was in fashion) My 7th grade R.M. Bacon traditional school picture, and 8x10 in faded sepia.
     Each year every kid would bring home an announcement that heralded the big day when all would dress up and look their best.   And each year my mom bought the "deluxe package deal": An 8x10; 2 5x7's; a class shot and the 20 wallet size close up of my face.  Preparations for this torture began a Saturday before when I was required to get a haircut and mom started to plan my wardrobe for the ordeal of smiling on command before the massive camera of the always grumpy photographer (he obviously had dreamed of shooting gallery-hanging art prints - but was relegated to a life of shooting fidgeting kids who all seemed to have wooden faces.)
    Photo day mom made sure my Sunday School shirt was pressed.  My dad helpped me tie a tie because even though I had had dozens of tie tying lessons I still ended up with the wide end shorter than the narrow one.  Each year I was glad I wasn't a parochial school kid who did this ever day.
      And then it happened!
     As I was brushing my teeth I looked in the mirror - Oh no...! A giant, red and beaming pimple had appeared overnight on my forehead front and center.  I never had had a pimple even though my teenage hormones were moaning all over my body.  A blemish, the dreaded malady that struck some of my friends and now me.  Would there be more?  How could I literally face anyone in my class.  I would hear the comment, "What's that on your face?" (Giggle - misery loves company).  Being thirteen was hard enough without this.  As every kid my age, we thought the world was constantly noticing us = judging how we fit in the tribal dance of growing up.
      I came to the kitchen table for my mandatory breakfast.  My mother insisted I eat eggs in a daily changing variety of form.  Just the thought of a runny yolk now makes me gag.  As I sat she asked, "What that on your forehead...oh no not on picture day!"  She was a master of turn on my self-conscious valve.  I immediately thought I could feel the thing throbbing like a pulse.  She continued, "Now don't pick at it...you'll just make it worse!"  I could fathom how it could get any worse but I knew that digging at it would just make glow more.  
      As I force fed myself the heated chicken embryo she left and came back with her some of her make up.  "Now sit still I'll fix it."
After the procedure she gave the compact with the mirror.  She fixed it alright - now instead of a red blemish it looked like I had a wad of brown dirt on my forehead.  Next, I tried to work up a good excuse for staying home.  I generated a good cough but before I could say I didn't feel well mom barked - "You can't miss today, it's picture day...if you are absent you will ruin my memory of your 7th grade year."  So I gave up my fake cold and got my books together for the walk to school.  
      As I did every day I met a series of other students that one by one made our way the 10 blocks to our school. (In those days kids actually walked places, even in the wind and rain and especially without fear of being kidnapped or worse.)  I walked with my baseball cap pulled down as far as I could over the bump, so far that I could only see the feet of Warren walking in front of me.  I trusted that he looked both ways when we crossed the streets on our photo-day pilgrimage. 
      All morning we all waited to be called for our visit to the nurse's room now turned into the photographer's studio for the day complete with background drape taped to the walk and two very large ligts focused on a tall stool.  We waited outside in a line in the hall with Mrs. R. reminding us to be quiet; it's a mandate that school hallways must be quiet while students cram their craniums.
One at a time my classmates entered the room, mostly all with a look of trepidation - they all knew that they had to produce a smile that their mother's would deem appropriate for a young scholar.  Mother's awaited the school picture with anticipation much like they felt dreaded delivery of the report card every quarter of the term. 
     My turn came.  I sat and Mr. PhotoMan fixed my tie, turned me a bit on the stool and then said, "Oh my that's a big one on your forehead...let me change the light some, so it doesn't cast such a big shadow".  And then for the next few minutes he moved me, the stool, the camera up and down.  And said that he did the best he could all things considered.  "Don't worry," he said, "Your Mother will look it anyway."  He crouched behind his camera and said smile...Smile...SMILE  I tried but my mouth would do it. Finally, he said that this will have to do.  "I have 200 other kids to shoot today. And click and complete mortification ended.
     But it wasn't over. because for the next 20 years every time mom took a picture of me - graduation, marriage, holiday visits she would say, "Nice picture  - and you don't have a zit on you face."

SOMETIMES...

Sometimes it’s a song I hear –

“Memories light the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories of the way we were

Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another for the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line…”

Millville Memories flow "like rivers in my mind"

...and for no reason at all…Like this memory of a day at Lake Nummy floats into my mind – I guess because it's summer again?

I feel its dark cold “cedar water” which always tinted my bathing suit orange and mom saying, “Don’t worry it won’t hurt you, it washes out!  And I wondered if she meant my trunks or out of me? 

This “lake” wasn’t really a lake – it was a spring fed pond of freezing water…all summer long and the best place to be when it was near hundred degrees in our house without air conditioning.  Central air?  Only in Sears and the movies, when it was working.

Then this stream of consciousness jumps to another summer long ago…

I’m riding my bike around the block pretending I am a Vineland Speedway stock-car driver…I’m Lou Mood in my baby blue ‘47 Ford…good old number lazy 8 on the car door sideways!…all re-painted and de-dented after a crash on the first turn last weekend.  

I’m, of course, in the lead but being hotly pursued by the infamous “Sliding Lou” Taznatti in his ominous black and red ’49 Chevy…but I’m holding the lead on our newly oiled road through the woods.  Replaying last Friday’s race.

Many Fridays we all would go to the Vineland track and sit for the 4 heats and then the big final…and I would wave the checked flag from the souvenir shop as the winner crossed the line.  The roar of these “soaped up” cars without mufflers rattled us in the stands…and each week on the way home we would stop at the drive-in for a black cow ice cream sodas.  I feel the sweet fizz…

And then another memory of a hot evening at the Legion Marti-Gra comes on the screen of my mind…the night my grandfather was asked to stop tossing the softballs into the peach baskets…I couldn’t hold any more stuff animals…I hear the Legionnaire beg, “Come on Herb leave some for the other kids…Pop had long arms and just about dropped those balls in the basket…I smell the popped corn…the sweetness of blue or pink cotton candy…hot dogs, a delicacy, better than Beluga caviar for a nine year old!

If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, would we… You betcha!

THE DRIVE-IN

I saw  a posting on Facebook about the only drive-in movie left in NJ – where drive-ins were invented and memories of the “Delsea Drive-in” popped on my mental screen...the infamous “flickering passion-pit” that we called it in high school…

Ah yes..The drive-in.   A smoocher mecca. But not for me until I could drive.  But when I finally got my license I had no more excuses.  However, it was against the code of cool kids to just ask a girl to go to the drive-in on a first date.  So, I needed to have a first date with someone soon, very soon – but with whom…?  The hard part for me was the asking;  the fear of every teenage boy that she would say no?  What if the whole school finds out, Calvin struck out?  

I had my lustful eye on Sue D. who was a lofty senior and I imagined, light years of experience ahead of me.  She was the most famous “kisser” in her class and I was convinced that I needed to go out with “an older woman to learn the ropes” as they say.  Whoever “they” are.   

And then it happened without me even trying.  Sue’s locker was only a few yards down the hall in the land of Seniors and I passed her everyday as she chatted with her bevy of admiring girlfriends – I assumed to be giggling away at some romantic encounter.  As I walked by staring at her she turned and ran right into me, our notebooks flying.  She laughed and said, “Sorry Cal.”  Gads, she knew my name.  I astutely replied, “Duh, you know my name?”  And then regretted that lame statement immediately.  “Of course, everybody knows your name…you're a good football player.”  “Thanks,” was I all I could muster as my heart pounded faster than after running 10 wind-sprints.  “How come you have never asked me out?”  (For the first time in my life I now knew what it was like to faint – always wondered, but never experienced the sensation of seeing little pinwheels whirling before you)  To keep from falling over, I nonchalantly leaned on a locker the way I imagined  "Cary Grant" would lean against a locker.  And then I blurted out – “How about going to the movies Friday night?”

“Let’s go, I can break my date – he can wait a week! Let’s go to the Delsea, I like it there…”  As this sexy wild thing pranced off to class I was frozen in time.  Did she actually say the drive-in or in my current  state was I hallucinating?  The “late bell” rang me out of my stupor..  But being late didn't matter.  My best pal, Bub grabbed my arm and dragged me into our Spanish II class.  The rest of the week passed slowly as I replayed my Sue-chat in my head like a stuck record.  Bub let me borrow his ancient yellow car for the evening. He said it had a great back seat!  This made me feel faint again – fainting was becoming a regular event.

I worried about what was playing at the Delsea?  I hoped it was something romantic. And by serendipitous synchronicity or perhaps a favor from Aphrodite - “Splendor in the Grass” was the feature.  Just the sound of the title made my upper lip sweat. 

Date night arrived and Sue and I made our short drive to the outdoor picture playground.  The night was cool.  She was cool. My face was burning.  After paying my two bucks at the gate, I pulled into a parking spot in the farthest lane from the screen – this was Bub’s advice, he was a seasoned drive-in driver.  He informed me that no one could peer in our back window there  in case we needed some privacy - yikes I thought.  We walked to the snack bar in the glow of twilight and Sue picked the biggest tub of butter drenched popcorn; the large family box of  Good & Plenty – “fav movie candy.”   I had enough money left for a small soda and felt blessed she wasn’t thirty too.

Back at the car, as the distant screen came to life, Sue announced, “Let’s watch from the back seat, Cal…it is much more comfortable…”  At that moment, after experiencing a near fainting spell earlier in the week, I was sure I may be  having a cardiac episode as TV Dr. Ben Casey would call it.  We got into the living room size couch that Bub’s “51 Buick RoadMaster offered and Sue started to munch her moving watching snacks.  During the first ten minutes of the opening cartoon, Sue ate all the popcorn herself and started on those hard pink and white candies.  The feature began with its great theme music (which plays in my head to this day).

We both settled down low in our seats as I plotted just how I would make “the move”…how would Cary do this?

…Two hours later a car horn woke us both – we had fallen asleep and snoozed away the entire movie!  “Got to go Cal”…Sue purred.  I started the car and remembered, just in time, to put  back the speaker on its roost and wondered how many had to be repaired each week.  We drove home without a word said.   Sue just yawned every minute or two.  At her driveway Sue quickly jumped out of the car.  “It was great…thanks… see ya!”

We never went out again. My turn with her was wasted in dreamland but I learned a couple of important lessons.  One, don’t believe everything you hear about “Great Kissers”.  And two,  expectations when it comes to romance -  usually far exceed life’s realities.

THE BOUQUET

            I was reminded of Mother’s Day and a special one always comes to mind…And then I’m back in Mrs. Russell’s third grade classroom at the Bacon School so many years ago…

Two weeks before Mother’s Day “Mis Russell” (as teachers were called in those days – married or not) announced, “How would you all  like to make a Mother’s Day gift?”  Of course, there was  a unanimous agreement with this because we knew this project would get us out of arithmetic for at least a couple of days.

       When we began the next day Mis Russell didn’t tell us what we are making,  but after a couple of days ,we discovered we were making a bunch of paper flowers on white and green “lace doilies”.  The final step was done on the Friday before Sunday.  Mis Russell spayed each bunch of paper flowers with a fragrant cologne from the Woolworth’s 5&10,

I hid my gift in my bedroom until after Sunday School on mom’s special day and presented it to as if it were $100 bucks worth of roses.  With a tear in here eye, she said, “This is the best Mother’s Day gift ever!”

         And for 50 or so years after, its color and scent long faded away - she kept my bouquet on the side of her bureau.  When I was gown and working, I had a real bouquet delivered to her home every year which became our tradition.  She would keep those blooms, as long as possible. 

       But for her, the flowers I made in third grade never withered and died.

THE BLIND DATE

I was watching the movie “Blind Date”; a very funny movie…but not as much fun as the one Rob got me into…

“Cal, it’s Rob I need to ask a special favor! It’s important so please help me out!”  I am supposed to take Pam X (last name redacted to protect the innocent) bowling tonight, but I fore got I already had another date (much hotter)…please take Pam bowling and I promise I’ll pay you back…Pam is my sister’s best friend and she’s not bad looking, not bad at all…you’ll like her …Vickie will kill me if I don’t show up.”

“Rob, I don’t do blind dates,” I replied.  Rob paid no attention and went from “explaining” to “begging”.

“Ok, ok, but you’ve got to call her and tell her I am coming!” I caved and threw caution to the winds, “What time do I have to pick her up; I vaguely knew Pam from school, so I didn’t ask for any other details’?  And so, the die was cast for the most memorable date in my young life.

That evening, with my crew cut waxed, doused with Old Spice and dressed in my favorite madras shirt, chinos with matching madras belt, I drove courtesy of my dad, to Pam’s house  on third street. I knocked at the front door and her dad, answered.  
Can I help you…?"  (I always hated talking to fathers) 
“I’m here to take Pam bowling,” I replied in my most respectful voice. Giving me that look all dads did when a boy calls for a daughter, he asked me to come in and called Pam.

As Pam came down the stairs, I thought, Wow she got a bit chunky over the summer…but of course I had never seen her outside of school with her hair in curlers and wearing a tee-shirt and cut-offs.  

“This a real surprise Cal,” she beamed.  “I’ve seen you in the halls at school but…” I cut in with my fingers crossed behind my back, “Rob knew you would enjoy going bowling with me…so…” My voice trailed off.

“Well, I’ve never been bowling before, but it sounds like fun.  Give me a minute,” she said. I guessed she wasn’t too upset about me pinch-hitting for Rob, the captain of our football team.  
We went to the small Millville Lanes (8 to be exact and were the only ones there, July wasn’t bowling season) The air conditioning was working hard and lowered the temperature to about 84.  The place reeked of cigarette smoke – most from the team of “pin boys” who were famous for their agility and teenage smoking and terminal acne.  Many had quit school to enter this hard and dangerous profession.

  I brought my own ball and shoes which I got for Christmas two years ago, but rarely used them – bowling wasn’t my game.              We spent what seemed like an hour for Pam to try every ball in the place – saying “Wow these things are really heavy!”  She finally picked a light baby blue one.  We bowled.  I was glad for two things - first that my friends couldn't see me and second, that I didn’t have money on the match as this novice bowler beat me all 3 games as she mowed down the pins like a pro.  She only made one bad toss when she almost took out a pin boy while he was setting up with an errant ball that jumped three lanes from ours! I knew I have been hustled when she said,  "Hey Cal let's do a couple more lines for a buck a game, what'ya say?"

I said I had to get home to study (my second lie of the evening) but added that we had time to stop at the Goody Shop for  ice cream sodas.  I had the soda and she had the Monster Maniac Five Flavor Goody Bonanza. Which decimated my week's allowance and this was only Friday.  Nick the owner was beside himself with joy as his own signature concoction was rarely ordered - it cost 3 bucks!  

On the Monday morning,  I cornered Rob at his locker (we were in the same homeroom).  “How was your date,” he asked with the smile of a conspirator on his face?  “Great if you like spending a week’s allowance on a bowl of ice cream and not getting to eat it,” I whined.  
Then it happened. A blinding moment that would live with me forever.  “Here comes Pam now,” Rob whispered. “Want me to set you up for an encore?”  
“Wait…What…that’s not Pam,” I countered. 

“It certainly is,” Rob said.  Pam wasn't Pam.  “You have to be kidding,” I took out the wrong Pam ?   

I realized then that my blind date was a double blind date - a “you can’t make this stuff up date.  By fate or just an unbelievable coincident I gone to the wrong address but still picked up a "Pam"!
 For the rest of the next school year I hid from the erzatz Pam when we passed in the halls…and I vowed never to go on another blind date again - until the next time... but that's another memory!

PEGGED PANTS

Every Saturday until I was a teenager with other stuff to do, I went with Mom on our weekly shopping pilgrimage to the high street’s shops and for our “order” of food at the ACK-E-ME as my mother called it – one week Mom surprised me when she said, “What would you like special for Valentine’s ?” (I believed this was a result of a very good report card and I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity!)  I replied immediately, “Wow… I “need” a pair of pegged-pant!” (For those who have forgotten or are too young to remember:

Pegged Pants: Trousers that are cut full (baggy) in the waist and thigh area and tapering to a cuff or tight gathering at the ankle are called “pegged”. This style was extremely popular in the 1950's. Very reminiscent of the earlier style pant that was part of the “Zoot Suit” of the early jitter-bug days of the 40’s.  Wikipedia

Her response wasn’t exactly good news, “Are you sure you want them…I still think they look awful silly.” (It has always amazed me how parents seemed to have a form of amnesia which causes them to forget all the “silly” things they wore at my age). 

However, I didn’t rebut, not wanting to nix the deal.  So, after she paid the weekly Freeman’s Shoe Club dues that she collected from “the girls” at the glass factory where she worked, we went to Frank’s Men & Boys.

After my mother stopped rolling her eyes Frank whispered so no other customers would hear, “I’ll make you a good deal since he likes all three – they sell for $7.98 each…for you Margaret I give you them all for $12 becuse you are a regular – but don’t tell anybody or you’ll ruin me.  I interrupted, “These are great, but they aren’t pegged.”  Frank replied, we can “shorten them at no charge, but pegging needs a tailor, the pantleg needs to be tapered…it’s a big job”.  Gads I thought this was a deal breaker – but to my surprise mom said wrap them up.  She was such a push-over.

We next went to the town Deluxe Dry-cleaning &Tailoring (done on the premises) shop around the corner.  I was fitted, pinned, chalked – this was a major alteration not a simple shortening of the foot of extra cloth designed to fit a guy seven feet tall.  My pegging would cost another $10 bucks.  At first Mom said no way – but I gave her the time test “I can chip in $5 bucks from my allowance” whine.  She gave me her “look” and then handed over a ten spot as she opined, “Calvin, your breaking me today!”  She said that every time.  Jack the tailor said as we left, “Be ready in a week…thanks Marge!”

I hoped my new pants would be done in time for next Saturday’s weekly Y dance.  Friday evening Angelo the tailor called and Mom and said the sewing was done. 

So, Saturday afternoon I rode my bike the couple of miles downtown to pick them up.  Angelo, the tailor, handed me a large clothes plastic bag with three hangers poking out of a hole at the top and said to be sure and thank your mom.  I put the hangers over my handlebars and gripped them with a tight fist holding them in place as I was off peddling at my top speed – I couldn’t wait to try them all on in front of my mom’s big mirror.  I hurdled up our driveway and leaped off my bike and with hangers in hand dashed in to try on my coolest-ever pegged pants.

“Look mom,” I am interrupting her from her never-ending battle against dirt.  I pulled up the plastic bag and…” Oh no…Oh…!” (And thought the mother of all curse words but fortunately didn’t blurt it.  THE HANGERS WERE EMPTY- my great pants had disappeared.

Mom immediately said, “Calvin you’ve lost your pants!” (I thought no s$%) but didn’t say that either.  “Get back on you bike and ride back the way you came and see if you can find them.  You better find them,” she added as I raced out the door.

I rode the 2 miles three times.  I looked in storm sewers. Under parked cars. Down alleys. Asked folks if they saw any pants in the road. NO PANTS. They were gone…gone forever.  I rode home the long way as I faded along with the daylight…each revolution my bike tires were taking me to face the fate of a scolding or more.  I heard in my mind what she would say, “How could you be so careless…Do you know how long I had to work to pay for those silly pants…You are going where your old pants now until the cows come home.” (She loved that metaphor)

And when I arrived, I heard the scolding but that was it.  Matter of fact, Mom looked very sorry for me – because I think she knew I was really upset.  I asked if I could be excused from dinner and went up to bed.  A rare thing for me to do – skip a meal.  I this was worse than getting socks for Christmas.  Those pants – so near but now so far from having.  As I was soaking my pillow with tears Mom came into my room carrying a sandwich and milk and cookies. “Honey it’s not good to go to bed hungry…I know you are very sad…and you weren’t really being careless, just excited…now eat something, go to sleep and forget about those silly pegged pants.

I eat my P&J sandwich. Cried in my milk and then went to sleep.

The next Saturday, as all Saturday’s of my young days we went shopping again.  But to my surprise, Mom took be by the hand and she walked me into Frank’s shop again.  “Frank Cal needs another pair of pants to peg – but just one pair, one pair is all he’s getting today.”

Over the years I can still see me in my Flag Flyer shoes with the square toes and those “silly” pants…a chubby kid trying to look cool… and never again did I carry clothes by the hanger.  Until this day, leaving the cleans, the plastic bag of clothes is folder over my right arm.

---

 [COI1]

 [COI2]

THE OTHER PATH

It seemed like the longest bus ride I had ever taken as we stopped every half mile to pick up or let off a passenger.  I knew I would have to take a very early bus to Philadelphia each day from now on or select later classes.  I was nervous.  I am a hick I admit it. I had never even walked the streets of Philly or any other big city alone before.  
The small towns on route 47 kept slipping by (this was decades before 6 lanes without traffic lights and without much to see either) As we came closer to the city the houses were closer; the traffic got heavier. 

Finally I arrived, and I made a fast walk from the bus station to The Philadelphia Museum School of Art which was housed in what looked like a “Greek Temple” with columns and tiers of marble steps leading up to massive doors.  After ogling the architecture like a tourist, I notice the students. They were totally different from my friends (except Marsha); they were “artsy” as mom would say.  Why one guy was actuallywearing a beret! 

Most of the males sitting on the steps were dressed in worn jeans (before they were the fashion) turtle necks and had (or tried to grow) goatees; most of the chatting gals were dressed in black with tons of bangles and bubbles and beads galore – this too was long before the days of multi-piercings and sleeves of tats). Gads these are really Beatniks I thought. 

This increased my worry to the boiling point.  I was dressed in madras – brand new buttoned down madras.  
A a madras belt with new chinos  and a useless little belt in the back at the waist for what - I could not figure?  The best first day of school clothes Jules Men and Boys had to offer.  And of all things, my penny loafers were standing out among the sandals around me.  To make things worse my shoes were squeaking shows and actually had a bright new penny (Mr. Freeman, at his shoe store stuck in them at the register). 

Comedian George Gobel once said on the Carson show, “Did ya ever feel like the world is a tuxedo and you’re a brown pair of shoes?”  I now knew that feeling…

I rushed into a massive foyer trying to avoid eye contact.  Perhaps if I wore some really old clothes tomorrow my peers wouldn’t remember the me of today?  I got in a line in front a long table with “normal” looking types sitting in a row behind cardboard tent cards.  I spied H to K and waited.  I had read about my courses and after much deliberation a month ago, quickly signed up for Life Drawing, Pottery, Studio 101 and a course called Humanities.  Now I had forms fill and lastly I presented my scholarship letter to clerk,  instead of a hefty check, which the others were doing. 
I joined a small group led by a student guide who showed us around with the warning to bring our classroom information tomorrow – “We don’t want to get lost…do we?” 

On our walk I realized that the building was much bigger than it looked and it was filled with student's paintings, mobiles, and some real wacky “sculpture” (one I saw was a pile of old truck tires with a day-glow orange human skull resting at the top of the heap).  

I really started to sweat; my "art” was traditional, representational line drawings and heavy handed paintings - I only knew used the primary pallet.  This work here was “far out man” as Maynard G. Krebs would say to Dobie on TV.

            I found many upper-class students alreadyworking in the studios – drawing, slapping wads of clay, chiseling away.  In one room there was someone playing bongo drums as others were making charcoal drawings of white plaster hands resting on a piece of black velvet.  The room smelled like oregano.  (I would learn a bit later what plant was burning, but this would not be today).

          After the tour it was lunchtime.  The cafeteria had the strangest menu I had ever seen.  What’s tofu? Lentils? I pondered  them but knew I couldn’t ask – I did know this wasn’t Jim’s Luncheonette. I ordered just a coffee but even that was different – it was very strong and served in a miniature cup.  As I sipped, my courage slipped away as I had realized a hard fact that was building inside me for months.

I left the lunchroom and looked for Dean’s office who had sent me my scholarship letter and soon found it.  Inviting me in, he was behind a desk covered with piles of papers and surrounded by stacks of paintings and drawings.  After the usual pleasantries, I utter one sentence that was very hard for me to utter and it would change my entire life from that moment on. 

“Sir I can’t do this…I can’t accept your scholarship…I can  never be an artist with a big “A”...the artist you teach here...I really don’t remember all of the rest of our talk as I think I was in shock.  I only recollect one statement that has haunted me.  The Dean said with a glare - “Don’t you realize that you were awarded our one national scholarship…we only give one…we gave it to the student  we think has the most promise…don’t you want to learn to be a great artist perhaps…maybe the next Picasso or Monet…

The bus ride home was very long.   I never returned.  I had finally realized that day I was not at all “artsy”.  

But now what was I going to do???  (To Be Continued)