Farm Girl Dating

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

We were playing football.

The full-on, tackle kind.

Oh, our grade six teacher thought she was teaching us ‘flag’ football.

We had the flags and everything.

But we were farm kids.

And flag football was for wussies.

Lloyd had the ball.

And was zipping toward our goal line.

Pretty fast.

The rest of my team had given up and fallen back.

I alone was still running.

I don’t give up easily.

I got him.

Perfect tackle.

At about the ten-yard line.

We both had the skinned elbows to prove it.

He was just as surprised as I was.

From then on, I was the star football player of our grade six P.E. class.

Fleeting glory, but glory just the same.

Moving ahead several years.

I was sitting, chatting with some of my school chums at our high school reunion.

I won’t tell you exactly how long my classmates and I have been out of school. Suffice it to say it’s been a tad more than 39 years.

Sooo . . . back to my reunion.

One man was talking about the dating scene during our high school years.

“I should have asked you out,” he told me. “We all wanted to ask you out.”

I stared at him. “What are you talking about?! You could have asked me out! Any of you could have asked me out!”

He smiled, sort of sheepishly. “No,” he said. “We couldn’t.”

“Umm . . . why?”

“Because we were all terrified of you!”

Oh.

Wait a minute! I’m a nice person!

Then I thought of the times during our younger school years when I outplayed, outran, or outlasted the boys in my class.

Like our football days.

I think he had a point.