Few dates, fewer lovers

Heavy classes like chemistry and my work in the health center allowed me very little time to date, and frankly very few boys asked me out. Alton Gray was a junior, and a veteran who asked me to movies several times right at the end of the year, He wanted to visit me in the summer. In reply to his letter asking directions to my house in Swansboro, I told him I lived in the fourth shack, and I was not home much of the time, which was true, because we were farming during the day about a mile away. Then I dreaded his coming anyway, but he didn't. I assumed he would be waiting for me to come back in the fall. The first day back I did see him - at the back door of the freshman dorm, with a tall dark beautiful freshman whom he married at the end of the year. It seemed to be a pattern.

In my "nineteen lives" bit earlier, I told about a near drowning accident with a boy named Paul Riggs.

We corresponded the summer after HS graduation and all through our freshman year. He was a student at a 2 yr religious college, Brevard. As soon as we got home for the summer we doubled with his cousin Sonne Odum and his girlfriend to a movie, after which they left Paul and me at my house where we sat in the swing on the front porch. We found very little to talk about. After a long period of silence he asked me, "How are your daddy's crops?" I heard a stifled laugh coming from inside the living room, just under the window next to the swing. Paul didn't stay long and walked home. He had a summer job delivering ice. Each week he put a block in our box on the back porch. It was a luxury we had until I was 22 and bought Mama an electric refrigerator and gas stove with the first money I earned at Duke.

My brothers had been evesdropping on our scintillating conversation in the swing. They had laughed about it all weekend. Miss Helen got a full report, and when Paul came to the back porch with the ice, Miss Helen, around the corner of the porch and with a high voice laughingly asked, "How are your crops?" Paul's face went as red as a beet. I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there in shock. He never called again, and at Christmas he came home from Brevard for good. Bill reported having seen him downtown. He gave Bill a message for me, that he had flunked out of college. Said he thought I would be glad to hear it!

I really wanted to explain to him that it was my brothers, but I didn't know how. I was too insecure. A summer romance down the drain.

Beginning my soph year I really didn't care if I had dates. Chris was still very popular, but Ellen never dated because she had a boyfriend at home, Earl, whom she married just before graduating. One of the girls asked if I would go on a blind date one night. I wasn't anxious to go, but she said he was a very nice boy, son of a minister. I was flattered that she thought it would be a plus in my eyes. I got a quick look at him as we left, thought he was cute, but it was sheer darkness the rest of the night, Within a few minutes the driver had gone down a lane in a pine woods, stopped and said he had blankets for all of us, and a big jug of purple stuff they called Purple Jesus (half grape juice and half vodka) and paper cups.

When my date got out of the car and I didn't, he got back in, wanting to know what was wrong.
I was pretty irritated, but in the nicest way I could, I told him I had never been on a date with
anyone in such a place. I told him I couldn't remember what he looked like, and I would prefer to get acquainted in the car. "I am a pretty good conversationalist"I said, "and if you want to talk, I think that would be fun." It was, and the time went fast. I didn't want to put him down, but I certainly did not want to go out with him again. I was surprised to have him call me the next day and apologize. He asked me to a movie, promising me he did know how to show a nice girl a good time. I declined in a very nice way. There was a voice telling me something I would never have thought of, that he might get me in a position where he would force me on that blanket.

A few days later my suspicions were confirmed. A guy on campus came up to me and said, "Hey, I hear you are a pretty hot number on a blanket at a PJ party!" So he had made fun of me, after all! I didn't even respond, not a look nor a word.

Not being popular definitely has its advantages sometimes.