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Show Suumfilowsips j$ By Janet Wallis JC, One small bottle of cologne On Valentine's Day when I was in the second grade, Billy Overton gave me a small bottle of cologne with a gold heart on it. I was embarrassed. Billy Overton's father operated the drugstore and beer parlor in my hometown. It stayed open on Sunday! Therefore, Billy's father must be a thoroughly despicable person. And what did that make poor Billy? Underneath his carrot red hair, freckles and mischievous smile, I knew the soul of a renegade lurked. Honest, I didn't encourage him. When he teased me, I ignored him. And when he caught me in tag at recess and tried to kiss me, I made a dreadful fuss. Oh, why did Billy Overton pick on me? My girlfriends tittered and teased me. I was miserable. Inside I admit I felt a mixture of that "he-is-kinda-cute, I-hate-him" feeling. It was awful. I threw that bottle of cologne with the gold heart on it back at Billy and loudly, so the whole class would hear, told him never to speak to me again. He never did. But he stared at me all during school with those big sad brown eyes. Boys were terrible things. I crossed them off forever. When I was in the fourth grade my girl friends suffered heart palpitations over a new boy, Jared Heywood, I resisted. I found a photograph of a cute anonymous boy and wore it in rntu. locket all year. )Bf And I felt safe. While in seventh grade I had a crush on the school band teacher short, homely and dissipated Buth!"1 single. For that one redeeming half the girls in school thought then ' in love with him. He only stayed i a year. The principal fired him fofj mysterious reason. And then it happened. There he Dick ( I can't remember his last a real live teenage boy, and helibT and I liked him. I was "in love." I was estatic. But after a few weeks of bliss u the heart-breaker, invited my J friend, Mary Lou, to the Valentin? Sweetheart Ball. I wanted to die so I didn't have lo-to lo-to school and see them together !' It hurt. Oh, how it hurt. Billy Overton had long since away, but I began to empathize wife His sad stare haunted me, torturedia and finally comforted me. Somewben somebody out there loved me. And all through those turbulant lea years whenever I felt rejected frustrated by affairs of the heart, say to myself, "Remember, Biliy Overton Over-ton loves you." He was my sort of "Tb OK, you're OK" crutch. So on this Valentines Day, Billy Ova. ton, wherever you are, a belated thai you for a small bottle of colognemthi gold heart on it. |