It has been rainy and cold outside for weeks and I’ve been feeling rather shut in lately. My hope was to find for a quiet place to work this afternoon somewhere other than my house. Right now I’m buzzing hard from the half pot of coffee I unwittingly consumed this morning, so I would prefer not to fork over $6+ to rent a seat at an espresso shop. While I meandered aimlessly down Court street in my car, trying to hash out an alternative, I came upon Woodland Public Library to my left. I thought to myself: “it’s quiet, it has Wi-Fi and I don’t need to pay to occupy a seat there…” Why not?
Well, I recal the last time I frequented the old WPL, and most of available seating then was in close proximity to folks of Woodland’s burgeoning homeless community. And hey, I can’t say I really blame them for keeping warm and enjoying the space that 99% of Woodland’s “respectable” population does not utilize at all. But today I do not want to be reminded of the dire situation that our good old American values, and “free market” economy has put us in. Please don’t judge me as too callous, I very much want to help solve homelessness; but today I’m just looking for a quiet place where I can work without distraction. Fast-forward: on entering I was surprised–and more than a bit concerned–to discover few homeless persons, if any, occupying space inside on this rainiest of days. Probably the result of some city mandate sponsored, and approved by, Woodland conservatives.
I pulled into the parking lot and maneuvered my vehicle into a space that faced the library’s side entrance; the access point through the newer appendage of the building that, in my elementary school days, was grafted onto the original Carnegie-funded structure. Right then, Kate K., a girl on whom I crushed hard in junior high school, forcefully manifested in my thoughts. I have not thought about her in years.
Kate sat in the seat in front of mine in 8th grade English class. She was part of the tribe of girls in our classes for “gifted” students whose socially-stunted male counterparts, like me, were just starting to notice. I remember Kate’s childlike facial features seemed too delicate to support her 90’s-style, big-lensed glasses framed with thin rims of bold red or green. We laughed together at random things: classmates, assignments, teachers, the ridiculousness that was PE class. This we did, as adolescents do, often in lieu of doing whatever the task be at hand: paying attention, reading, doing in-class writing assignments. Kate was so easy for me to talk to. Our conversations, for me, were often a temporary escape from my acute self-consciousness. As time passed and I got to know her, I wondered how she could be so honest and unpretentious, when most other pretty girls her age I could not seem to relate to very well at all. That is, on rare occasions when they actually were interested in talking to me.
Kate volunteered at the Woodland Public Library after school a couple days a week. Probably as a protracted commitment that grew from the compulsory volunteer work we had to do for school a couple months prior. On one unusual afternoon, while working on a school assignment at the library with my friend Nico S., Kate sat down at a table with us and engaged us in conversation for, what must have been, the rest of her shift. She seemed excited to see us and I recall us having a blast evidenced by the several times we were shushed by grown ups who came to the library with the same expectation of quiet that I do today as a crotchety middle-aged man. I got the inside scoop on several of our classmates whom she had known all through elementary school. One particularly scandalous piece of gossip she revealed that day: the only reason that one particular male classmate got attention from girls was because of well-circulated rumors that he was well-endowed. Looking back, I’m kind of mortified that she knew this about him at that age and that she so freely shared it with us sitting there at in the library within earshot of so many.
I could never figure out if Kate was ever interested in me as a potential boyfriend. It didn’t matter, I later learned that she was the target of many a male adolescent crush at the time. She was pursued by Deni C. who won her affections by drawing her portrait of her from behind, as she sat on a stool staring forward in her shop class. She showed me the picture one day in English; it was good drawing that captured Kate’s likeness well. I remember admiring Deni for his initiative. Of course, I was also disappointed. By the time I realized my feelings for Kate were starting to slant more toward the romantic, I also realized she had ascended out of my league. Such is life I suppose. She and Deni became the item in 8th and 9th grade. Kate and I still talked, but she had understandably become a bit less open, and perhaps less flirty, if that had actually been going on in the past.
Later, the summer before my junior year while getting the jump on the US history requirement in summer school, Kate told me that her friend from art class, Jen S., was interested in me. Now, the art tribe were the cool kids as far as I saw it, so I was definitely interested, if not also intimidated. Surprisingly I hadn’t recalled ever seeing Jen before; she was in the class ahead of ours, and senior girls I never considered to be even a remote possibility for me to date. I was further intimidated to find out that Jen too was quite pretty: she had long red hair and green eyes, dressed in trendy grunge sweaters, liked Weezer, and gave me Johnny Got His Gun to read. All this I learned after finally working up the courage to call Jen weeks after Kate gave me her number.
Now, truth be told, my courting of Jen was an absolute train wreck. When we talked on the phone I thought it would be cool if I played music in the background; it was not, and she was much annoyed. We discussed the M.C. Escher drawing of two hands–each hand drawing the other–and argued passionately about the symmetry. The term “dumbass” was used much to my regret. The only time Jen and I spent together in person occurred during an outing to The Beat record store in downtown Sacramento. On the drive there I missed the freeway entrance and had to do a U-turn; Jen was not impressed. Before we set out that day, Jen’s mother made a point to tell me that Jen had gone out with another fella with purple hair a few days before. Lastly, and arguably the real issue that doomed our relationship: Jen was Pentecostal with definite views about right and wrong. She did not like that, while I had been instructed in many of the Christian morals that she lived by, I was still very unsure if I actually accepted them. I was certainly not living them to her standards. Jen stated as much in a breakup letter that Kate handed me some time later into my junior year of high school. Honestly, I was not even sure if Jen and I had ever been sufficiently “official” in the first place to merit such a scathing communication.
After even more time had passed, I remember wondering if Jen’s “interest” was the product of Kate’s match-making. Looking back, Kate was there at the start, and Kate was there at the end of whatever had gone on between Jen and me. Perhaps Kate felt obliged to try and bring me, and probably Jen, some happiness by steering us together. It would not surprise me in the least, looking back. If so, it was very kind of Kate. By all outward appearances, Jen and I probably would have seemed to be a good match despite the outcome. Kate was always a very kind person when we were in school.
I hope Kate is well these days. Jen too.
