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Letter: 21

This Was Included In A Letter To Cheryl And My Grandchildren,

JULY 6, 1996. I guess I could entitle it:

      A COWARD DIES A THOUSAND DEATHS - By Arnold E. Howard

      It was about 1930.

      When four of us boys were old enough to notice the girls, we were talking on a Sunday afternoon and decided to ask four girls to go the movie with us the following Saturday night. Roy Tennyson was going to ask Marguerite Sedenberg. Bobby Tjomsland would take Laverne Combs and I was going to ask Fern Wiedeman. I have forgotten the fourth couple. I believe it was in another class in school.

      Before I go on let me explain what a date was with kids that young. It wasn't like anything you see on television or the movies now. We didn't put our arm around the girl or hold her hand or do anything as daring as kissing. The big thing was the notoriety of her being YOUR date, and she walked to the movie with YOU (in Blunt you could walk everywhere), and she sat beside YOU ... oh boy!

      By Monday or Tuesday the other boys had asked their dates and each boy mentioned to the girl he was asking that we would be four couples. Both the boys and girls were too bashful to go on a date as just one couple. I was too shy to ask Fern right away and by that time the other girls had told her that I was going to ask her to go with me. On Tuesday, Roy asked me, "Have you asked Fern yet?"I said, "Not yet but I will right away.”

      On Wednesday, Bobby Tjomsland said, "Hurry up and ask Fern."I said, "OK I will right away,' but still I procrastinated.

      By Thursday I was talking to myself: "You better hurry up and ask Fern."And then I would think "What if she turns me down? I think she likes Roy better than me anyway."

      It was in summer and we all had every day off and finally it was Friday. "I've got to ask Fern even if she does turn me down,"I said to myself. "Yeah but I don't want to go to the door and ask Mrs. Wiedeman if Fern is home."I was riding my bicycle and I saw her walking down the street. I wanted it to look like I just happened on to her so I rode around the block so that I could come toward her. When I got close to her I stopped and said "Fern, Some of us boys want to take some of you girls to the show tomorrow. Will you go with me?"

      She said "Oh sure, I'd like to."She acted kind of relieved that I had finally asked her. Not that she was so eager to go with me. She just didn't want to be left out after having been told about it.

      Now that's not the end of the story. We boys were really loaded with money that Saturday. We each had enough money for two movie tickets and two malts. In those days a malted milk was a nice treat at the soda fountain. After the show we told the girls we wanted to treat them to a sundae-malt at the drugstore. They refused to go. They would have liked to have the malts but they didn't want them at Charlie Hesse's drug store. He and Pinky Hanscomb, who worked part-time in the drug store, had the habit of teasing all the boys and girls if they noticed any of them paying attention to each other. They had marvelous, hilarious fun teasing and insinuating some hanky panky was going on. The dumbbells drove all the teenage trade away with that foolishness. Blunt wasn't much of a town and after Charlie lost the Postmastership the drugstore couldn't support him. He had to take a pharmacist's job in another town.

      This anecdote probably amuses me more than it does you. Remembering it makes me think of the adage, "A brave man has but one death but a coward dies a thousand times."My bashfulness made me suffer the pain for five days. If I had asked Fern on Monday, I'd have five days less pain. Makes me laugh like hell at myself now.

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