This picture was taken a while back, but it is me, or was me.
This memory goes back 72 years ago. My home was across the street from a public school. Our neighborhood was majority Catholic, but we all hung out at the huge public school playgrounds across from my home.
There were 2 confectionaries down at the corner. One was run by a nice old woman. My mother gave me a quarter every day to go down the street and buy her a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes.
The other one was a confectionery/ small grocery. The people who owned it, their surname was Nabb. The mother and father ran the cash register and they both were miserable to any child that went into the store. A kid didn’t even have pocket change; so the Nabbs didn’t like kids and we kids didn’t like them. Any time I had a dime, I went there to buy a sodapop, hoping to see their daughter who was simply gorgeous! The parents kept her hidden.
I was allowed to be outside until dark and I had to be indoors before the sun went down. There was one exception; in winter I could go out and play in the snow after dark. There were usually other neighborhood kids and we had snowball fights.
On that night I was all alone and sad nobody was there; until that is, she showed up. Nabb’s daughter was here and we two were alone. She was a little older than me. My heart was pounding so hard she may have heard it. We threw a few snowballs and talked a little. I was standing at heaven’s gate.
It couldn’t have gotten better, until it did. She said:”Let’s go down to the store.” We walked down the hill and into the store. She walked over to the cooler and got us both a cold PepsiCola. She was so beautiful and older than me, but we were talking.
I’ve been halfway around the world, seen every shape, size and color there is, but none could match the girl I didn’t even know her name, or the one I married in 1964 and Joyce was her name.
I’ve lost both of them, but they are still in my mind and in my heart. GOD bless them both.
