VALENTINE'S DAY AT CENTRAL JR HIGH, 1970

Seventh grade. I was hopelessly in love with the cute mousey straight-haired girl that lived across the street. Her friends called her Peanut, and she was a bit bucktoothed and her ears stuck out the sides of her hair. But as I think about it, she really wasn't bucktoothed exactly. As I see her in my minds eye, as I am sure you are doing now, she was "over-toothed"...that is to say, her two front teeth were a bit out of proportion, a bit larger than the rest of her teeth, giving her a kind of Lola Bunny look that drove me absolutely wild.

The day before Valentines Day 1970, at the age of 13 years old, I told my best friend Billy that I was going to ask her to "Go Steady" the next day. First thing the next morning I went to the Student Council stand to put down my $1 and send her a Valentines Telegram, a "Love-O-Gram", in which I intended to declare my undying love and devotion to her.
Anonymously, of course.
Peanut was in three of my classes that day and I watched her as she got the Love-O-Gram in Second Period. I saw her show it to her friend Vicki. Later, I watched as it was passed around to all her girl-pals at the lunch table. I was terrified beyond belief, making sure I did not watch too closely lest I be found out, and I was starting to understand what a wimp I truly was, and that in my wimpiness I had no business asking a girl to go steady just because she lived across the street and might need braces.
I am glad that I have no recollection of what was in my Love-O-Gram or I would be tempted to divulge what my Seventh Grade mind might have written.
She had no idea it was me—how could she know?-- or so I thought, because I was a real squirrel back then, carrying a trombone with me everywhere I went and forever talking about the Chess Club, model rockets and stuff. Several times that day I nearly summoned the courage to ask Peanut to go steady, but in the face of those ears and teeth I always chickened out. I could barely stand to look at her.

Living across the street from me, Peanut and I rode the same Bus #29 home every day, and we got out together every day, just the two of us. Having lacked the courage throughout the day, it was now my intention to pop the question after we got off the bus. Do or die. It was Hammer-time.
We were standing there at the curb as the bus pulled away.
She had a funny look on her face as I toed the ground and studied my shoe tops and cleared my throat.
But before I could speak I hear her say through the ringing in my ears:
"Steve, can I ask you something?'
"Sure Peanut"
"Billy Rucker told me you were going to ask me to go steady today. Is that true?"
I felt dizzy, sick, weak at the knees. The earth spun under my feet. The blood drained from my face and my heart was in my throat.
Of course I completely and categorically denied it. If Billy had not been twice my size, I'd have kicked his ass the next day.
We seldom talked after that, she and I. She lived across the street from me for another two years and moved away to Houston. But the fates brought us together in May of 1975, the night of Graduation. A random meeting on the street in front of our houses, in almost the exact spot from five years earlier when I had lacked the balls to ask her to go steady. She had come to town to see her best friend Cindy, who lived up the street, graduate. It was then I confessed to her that my intention that Valentines Day in 1970 had been to ask her to "Go Steady", and that, yes, it was me that had sent the Love-O-Gram.
"I know, and I still have it" she said and laughing, gave me a light kiss on the cheek.
She had gotten braces or else her face had caught up with her mouth. She no longer had that Lola Bunny look and her ears no longer showed through her once-thin-and-mousey, but now stylishly permed and frosted blonde hair.
That is to say… her charms were somewhat faded in my eyes.
But I'll never , ever, ever, forget that sweet little kiss.

THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS

Originally posted in 2013 without addendums...

I’m really lucky. I only have a 10 minute drive in to work. There is not really a lot that can happen to you in that 10 minutes.

Up ahead this morning there was a school bus stopped. It had the flashing yellow and red lights, and the STOP sign out. Traffic was stopped on both sides of the bus, and I was able to watch the bus driver do her business.

It seems this bus was equipped with a lift for a wheelchair, and at this particular stop, the woman driver was out and lowering it for a smiling young man in a wheelchair as his father looked on. Traffic was building on both sides of the bus as the lift slowly lowered. I watched the woman driver roll the young man onto the lift. The father handed him his lunchbox. I looked in the rear view mirror at the man behind me on his cell phone. I watched the oncoming cars, stopped now, motionless, except for the woman ahead absent-mindedly drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

It was like the whole wide world had stopped, and would stay stopped as the bus driver secured the chair to the lift with a strap; that time would stretch itself out while the lift slowly rose. That for just five minutes the earth had stopped its rotation and this child in the wheelchair was the center of the universe, the most important person in the world, and I sensed that no one in any of the stopped cars was in any kind of hurry, that no one felt put out, and it made me feel proud to live in a country that would take this kind of care for one single person. To live in a school district that is able to do this. Maybe not all of them can, I don't know. Seldom do I get to notice such a manifestation of my taxes doing such good work.

My heart swelled, it really did, and now the smiling driver rolled the chair from the lift into the bus, and I wondered how the kids in the bus felt about taking a moment this morning, taking a moment every morning, to get their pal loaded up. I wondered if anyone said “good morning”, or helped get him strapped safely into his spot on the bus. I wondered if he was a good student. The lift disappeared into the bus, and the driver smiled at the boy’s father, who smiled back, then looked up to see me.

Me, also smiling now, having witnessed this act of care play out. She smiled and gave me a happy little wave, got on the bus and after a long moment the lights stopped blinking and the STOP signs disappeared, traffic resumed and the world started back to its business again.

The whole world in His hands.

My moment of Zen.

Addendum: Since writing this I have had the privilege of sitting behind the bus on a number of occasions. One morning I had a Spiritual Awakening. This was about much more that my tax dollars at work, or living in a caring, nurturing country. It was about my Second Tradition. "For our Group Purpose there is but one Ultimate Authority; a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience". Indeed! And here I am, waiting on the bus and watching Him express Himself.

Addendum #2: I told someone who drives one of these buses my story. She told me that what I couldn't see was that there is a person on the bus that receives the kid, and gets him all strapped in and settled. Isn't it marvelous? The things going on that we cannot see?