What to do about JOE???

I was in a predicament, in real trouble because of a guy I didn't even like. It was not hard to convince my folks that I really didn't want to be with him. I explained the situation, omitting the part about the one date the night before. Joe did not have a car, so when I answered truthfully that I had not been in his car, but that it was the first time he had wanted to walk me home, and that he bought all the cafeteria tickets I couldn't use, I think they understood that I had a big problem remaining friends with Joe in church and only in church. Avoiding him after church was difficult I used the Jorgensen children as an excuse and helped Martha get them rounded up and home on Sundays.

I also got a lecture about our room. Ellen and Chris had gone to the Baptist Church, so there was nobody there. The door was unlocked, and they went in to look around. The beds were unmade and on the desk was a copy of God's Little Acre. I convinced them it wasn't mine. I wouldn't waste my money on trash. What was also true but unspoken - we had all read it and were about to take it back to the girls next door.

Joe's mom continued to pressure me. When I graduated he was still there finishing his masters. Two years later I was married and he was teaching in Pinehurst. His mother was still living with him and we all became good friends, because we comprised almost half the membership in the Rockingham Branch, and we got into the habit of picking them up every Sunday for church. Joe still didn't have a car.

Twenty years after we left Southern Pines we had a call from a BYU student who said she was Joe's daughter. She came to visit us, and when her parents came we had them all to dinner. I heard that her parents divorced. I wonder whatever happened to Debbie Sue.