Skirts

When I was in the third grade, I asked a girl to go to the Saturday afternoon movies with me.  I think I got a ride to her house from my parents or maybe rode a bike.  I don't remember the movie.  Many of the Saturday cowboy movies were quite similar.  A hero, Gene Autry or Hopalong Cassidy or Tim Holt, had to straighten out some bad guys.

When I was in the fifth grade, I purposely dropped something on the floor so I had an excuse to get under a group round table.  From there, I could look up the girls' dresses.  All I could see was white underpants.  Not very thrilling.

I knew I enjoyed trying to understand people and their feelings, fears, impulses, personal convictions and habits.  I discovered the local teachers' college was quite inexpensive so I went there.  Most of the other guys in my all-male high school looked for a high salary.  I had no salary at the time and put off thinking about money.  The teachers' college was about 80% girls, very different from an all-male school.  I dated a gorgeous girl who was intrigued by the books I carried and read.  In my junior year, I started dating the woman I have been married to for 65 years..

Some graduate courses later, after four years of teaching the fifth grade, I became a faculty member of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point.