“Could I chew your gum for a while?” a voice behind me asked as I was getting a drink at the water fountain.

“What?” I replied. This was a new experience in my young life.

“Can I chew your gum?” It was Betty Jean. She had apparently seen my jaw moving as she had followed down the hall between classes.

“Sure, here go ahead and enjoy it. I’m just about done with it,” I said, taking the wad from my mouth and handing it to her. She popped it into her mouth.

“Thanks,” she said as she started toward her next class. “I’ll give it back to you later.”

“No need,” I said and went on to my next class.

Betty Jean was a half grade ahead of me in high school, so we didn’t have any classes together. Our school was organized such that children who were not quite six years old in the fall could start in the winter, half way through the school year. I was only casually acquainted with her. Betty Jean may have been only half a grade ahead of me in school, but she was two or three grades ahead in other ways. She chewed my gum on several other occasions and we had time to talk during the transactions. She was, in the modern tongue, coming on to me. Of course, like all teenagers I liked the attention.

One day, several years earlier, a buddy and I went to a lake near town to go swimming. The problem was that I couldn’t swim. We played around in the water near the shore for a while when I realized I was alone. All the other kids were on a platform perhaps forty yards from shore. I wanted to be with the gang and started wading out to join them. Of course the water became deeper as I went. I had no fear that the water was up to my chin. My feet were still on the bottom and the platform was in reach. I climbed the ladder and pulled myself aboard. I sat down to enjoy the warm sunshine with the other kids. After a while, having dried off I got up and moved around a bit. I stopped at the edge of the platform doing nothing in particular. The next thing I knew I received a gentle nudge and fell into the water. I was on the deep side where the bottom was further from the surface than my feet would reach. I flailed around but could not stay above the surface.

“That damn fool’s drownin’,” I heard Woody say. Then there was a splash in the water next to me. A hand grabbed my arm and guided me to a ladder. After a little coughing and sputtering I climbed back to the platform. Thanks to Woody’s quick action I hadn’t inhaled any water. Betty Jean apologized profoundly for pushing me in. She had been playing a boisterous game by seeing that no one stayed dry very long. I didn’t blame her at all. It was my own fault. I shouldn’t have been out there before I could swim. I made sure I learned to swim before the summer was over. This was the first encounter with Betty Jean that I can remember. 

“Why would she pay attention to me?” I wondered. “Hey, you’re on the football team: anything else? What the heck, that’s enough.” 

We met in the hall between classes and talked, chewing gum or not. Sometimes I walked her home from school. Sometimes we went to the soda shop about two blocks from school. Several kids gathered there after school to hang out and listen to the jukebox and maybe dance.

Some of my peers seemed to think I was running with the fast crowd, and I was warned not to be a sucker. Information I didn’t know about Betty Jean was offered. For example, she had been going with a fellow in the neighboring town of Middlesboro and that they had broken up. She would surely go back to him soon. None of this bothered me. I thought of Betty Jean as a lonely girl who needed a friend. I felt the need, too. So we continued to be chums together. We never had a real date.

In my senior year our football team was doing well and so was I until in a big game my teammate and I tackled the ball carrier simultaneously from opposite sides. Our momentum caused a secondary collision between teammates and my leg was broken. That ended my football career.

During my three-week hospital stay friends from school came to visit often. On one of her visits, Betty Jean brought me a beautifully illustrated little book, “The Story of Ferdinand”. It was a joy to read. I read it over and over until I memorized it. Each time I read it I saw something in an illustration I had missed before. Being confined at home for a long time, I didn’t see much of Betty Jean after that. She finished school in the winter. I was still there without her. So far as I know she and her friend in Middlesboro got back together.

Years later I took the Ferdinand book off the shelf to read to one of my small children. Inside the front cover was a signature, “B. J. Byrley”. It occurred to me for the first that the book had not been a gift, just a loan. 

“If I ever find out where she is I’ll get it back to her”, I said. Forty-nine years after we finished high school a reunion was being planned. 

“Ah, “ I thought, “I’ll give it to her at the reunion,”

Then a report came in the mail from the reunion committee listing the attendees. I looked for Betty Jean on the list. Her name was not there. Alas, I found her name in the deceased list. So I can’t deliver the book. I still have the book. It brings fond memories of Betty Jean.