It is amazing how my mind works! I lay in my little bed at night and think pretty thoughts and drift off to sleep. Mostly I think about Jesus and contemplate the day I will get to go see him. So why does my mind that is supposed to be asleep go other places and wake me up at 2:30 AM back at Hutch High? And why is Carol Mason alive in memory just as clear as the last time I seen her? Let me give you some back ground on my relationship with Carol.
I met her in her Senior year. I was in my Junior year. That was back in my "cool days." I think she was in my Stenography class. That is the one where we learned to take shorthand. Not sure that subject is still taught at all. Kind of like typing. And cooking and sewing. Those all used to be "life skills."
Carol lived with her Grandma on 9th Street (I think). She was of Indian descent. She had coal black hair and coal black eyes. Her eye teeth were prominent and in this day and age an Orthodontist would have been all over her, but back then it was just cool. Carol never got flustered. She never hurried. She never got flustered when boys looked her way. She was just so damn cool! She did not smoke and I never lit up near her.
She never walked fast. Her eyes never seemed to leave the ground in front of her wherever she was going. There was no world outside of her and I. Looking back I can see that she was an introvert. She never told me why she lived with her grandma, only that when she graduated she would go back to California. I wanted to go with her, but she was adamant that I stay in school and graduate and that when I was through with school she would send me a train ticket and I would join her in California. My life was planned. I think her dad was in the service out there.
As we grew closer I learned more about her. She had a boyfriend named Lee and they were to be married when she graduated and moved back to California. As the day grew closer she became more nervous about the wedding. One day she decided she should cook me a meal, much like the first meal she would serve to her soon to be new husband. Life was so simple back then!
I arrived at grandma's house on the appointed day of the "first meal after the wedding day." The table was set for two. No grandma in sight. Come to think of it, I only saw the grandma one time and that was just a fleeting moment.
I was served my meal. It quickly became apparent that Carol was not real domesticated in the kitchen department and that poor Lee was going to starve. I looked at the fare and knew I could not survive on this and it was not going to suffice for a full grown working man. It was a hot dog along side a spoonful of macaroni and cheese. I looked at that miserable fare and then at Carol's expectant face.
"Well, what do you think?"
I wanted to say something nice, but I was way to honest for that.
"That poor man is going to starve to death!" So we ate our humble fare amid bouts of laughter. There was not even a second hot dog and dessert was non-existent. But Carol was cool and I was sure Lee knew that.
She moved back to California after graduation. We kept in touch and she sent me pictures of the wedding. She still planned on buying me a train ticket for my graduation. We wrote back and forth. She got pregnant and gave birth to a still born baby boy. I dropped out of school. I married and had a daughter. My dreams of California died easily, but the memory of Carol Mason, not so much.
I still think of her now and then and can picture her in my mind. She was a loner. I was probably her closest and maybe only friend. I never knew why she was here, maybe to be company for grandma. I don't think she had any brothers or sisters. Who knows?
I saw her once when my youngest was about two months old. She came to town probably for her grandma's funeral. It was awkward since I had a living child and I knew she had lost her only baby. I never met Lee. I never went to California. Probably never will. Can not think why I would want to go there. When I think of Carol, she is 18 years old. I remember her voice as very soft. She never stood out, she just was. She was Carol Mason, my friend.
Some memories live forever. This is one of them.
