A Day Like This

Wayne and I lived about three full blocks away from each other. That put us in different elementary schools--his John Muir, mine Washington.

His school was on a busy corner: Ocean Park and Lincoln Boulevards. The big blue Santa Monica bus came down the hill on Ocean Park boulevard many times every day. Wayne told me of seeing their teacher get hit by a bus one day. It was a fatal accident for her and frightened those children who saw it. They had been taught not to cross in the middle of the block. The teacher knew, too.

Thank goodness I saw no such accidents at my school, although the other bus company had a route along 4th Street. Washington School was on Ashland Avenue and 4th Street. Busy enough but safer, apparently.

I know Wayne walked to school, and so did I. I could go either of two ways--out my front door, down the two dozen steps, and straight on Ashland for two blocks, or out my back door and up the hill to Raymond, then left, make the jog at 5th where Raymond picked up again and walk the long block to the school. Raymond ended at my school. This was the back way and slightly longer, but there was a loquat tree in a yard along that way. I had a few loquats on those walks, sometimes picked up from the ground, occasionally right off the tree. That's called stealing, but they were very good.

That we went to different elementary schools was fine. We sort of knew each other at church in those days, but it wasn't until high school that we became friends.

I think of this now because today is the first day of Spring, 2009, here in Boise, and the weather has been pleasant, so that a person could walk to a friend's house.

Wayne walked to my house many times during our high school years. He would knock on the back screen door and come in through the kitchen. He might find my dad there or my mother or Lucile or even me. We might just stay in the kitchen and talk. I would sit on the counter while he leaned against it. Or we might sit in the den or out on the porch swing. We rarely took walks, don't know why. Weather was not a factor then as it is here. We grew up in Santa Monica, and it was generally pleasant, sometimes fog in the early morning coming in from the ocean and soon burning off in the sunshine.

When I had enough courage, I could walk to his house. Up to Raymond, right to Highland, left to where Hill Street cut into Highland, then right down the hill to his house. Such a visit took courage, because I was a long time becoming sure of Wayne's feelings for me. Not all my fault. Not all his. Just part of the story.