(Editor’s note: Welcome to Living Eulogies. All recollections are accurate in the author’s mind only. Apologies in advance to everyone who has different recollection of the same events. Send all complaints to Vanilla Ice. Stop. Collaborate. Listen.)
The first indication I had that girls are complex came at the ripe old age of 6. I was this towheaded, sensitive boy who my female classmates seemed to like to be around.
Mrs. Winkler, my first-grade teacher at Pound Ridge Elementary School, moved the location of my desk twice, once away from Vicky Reineger, with whom I would graduate, and once from a girl by the name of Robin Deetcher, who, sadly, moved away – to Arizona, if I remember correctly – before the start of the next school year. Both times, the move was for excessive gabbing, which would become a common teacher complaint about me during my school years.
I’m not even sure “Deetcher” is how Robin’s last name was spelled. Even in this advanced age in which it’s quite easy to track someone over the Internet, especially if you’re willing to pay a few bucks, a search for “Robin Deetcher” or any close derivatives turns up nothing familiar. What I am sure of was that Robin loved me. I mean, really, really loved me as only a fellow first-grade girl could.
I remember getting in slight trouble with my parents when they found some quarters in my pocket after school one day. As a first-grader, I didn’t have much money, and I sure as heck didn’t have an outside-of-the-house income source. So where did those quarters come from?
“Robin gave them to me,” I replied, thinking nothing of giving an honest answer.
“She gave them to you?” my mother asked.
“Yeah. She gave them to me.”
“Well, that doesn’t make sense, John. No one just gives out money.”
“Robin does,” I said, matter-of-factly.
“Oh really? Why does Robin decide to give you money?”
“Because I let her play with my hair,” I said, again, matter-of-factly.
THE ORIGIN STORY
Welcome to Living Eulogies
When my classmate Sarah died late last year, I realized just how much she was a part of the fabric of my childhood. And that was interesting to me. I mean, were my life a movie, Sarah wouldn’t be anything close to the lead actress. She would probably be considered an extra in many ways,…
After all, it was the truth. Robin would give me a quarter if I would let her twist my unruly blond locks in her fingers. She’d also give me this rock-hard, tooth-destroying lunch-time snack we called “Indian Corn” but was really corn nuts if I would agree to be her best friend for the day.
I didn’t think much about this arrangement. I mean, Robin was nice. She was about my height with blue eyes and long blond hair that I remember her wearing in two ponytails tied with red ribbons, and she liked to talk a lot. I was just fine with listening to her talk. If she was going to give me money that I could then spin into packs of baseball cards the next time I went grocery shopping at the Scott’s Corners supermarket with my mother, well, that was just a bonus.
So I took her money without shame and proudly told anyone she wanted me to tell that I was her best friend and, when it was playtime or quiet reading time, I would let her twirl my hair and think nothing of it.
But based on my mother’s reaction, it was not nothing. It was something.
“John, you can’t let girls pay you to be their friend.”
“Why not? If she wants to and I want to, what’s wrong with that?”
“Well, because people either are friends or they aren’t friends. They don’t have to pay someone to be friends with them.”
Apparently Mom had never heard of fraternities and sororities.
“Can’t you do both?” I replied. “I mean, Robin and I are friends and she wants to give me quarters – and sometimes Indian Corn too.”
“John! You can’t take Robin’s money to be her friend. That’s … that’s…” and the word I’m sure we all would get to if we took things far enough is “prostitution.” I was essentially selling my companionship in the first grade. Not a good look.
It made no difference to me or Robin when I told her the next school day that our financial arrangement was done. We were content to go on being friends with or without quarters changing hands, though I still did accept packages of Indian Corn if she wanted to give them to me. The evidence of that transaction would be gone long before I arrived back home in the afternoon.
Robin moved away after first grade, as I’ve said, and I never heard from her again. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know how to spell her name. All I have is my memories and the first-grade class picture.
But Robin, if you’re out there, I owe you some quarters … plus interest … so why don’t we just meet for a beer. We’ll all raise a glass to you, the person who taught me my first lesson about crime and capitalism. Hear Hear!
Who should be the next Living Eulogy? Email me at johnagliata@gmail.com.
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