<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Hey Folks,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Please find pasted below and attached as a word document, my submission for April. It’s another page from my memory book. Anxious to hear your feedback next week.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Dawn<o:p></o:p></p><div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0in'><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sunday, April 16, 2023<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>New York 2:38 PM<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When I was a kid, growing-up in Watchung, New Jersey, my best friend, Sharon Smith, lived in a big old Victorian farmhouse. It had three floors, with multiple bedrooms of varying sizes, including some that were clearly designated “servants’ quarters”. These rooms were small and easily accessed by means of a back staircase, off the large kitchen. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>By contrast, the main staircase was a grand affair. Wide, with an ornate wooden banister, it began in the big, front room of the house, turned to a landing, and proceeded to the second floor. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Most of the bedrooms were on the second floor, as was the only bathroom in the house. Sharon and her three brothers inhabited the second-floor bedrooms, while her parents had the third floor to themselves. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>There was also a basement, a side porch that was accessed by means of French doors off the first-floor parlor, and an enormous dining room. The large kitchen gave onto a small breakfast nook where the family took many of its meals. I imagine that the original occupants did not dine in this small room but that the servants would have eaten there. There was a set of swinging doors that opened onto the dining room. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The house sat far back from the road, thanks to a tremendously long front yard. No one ever entered through the front door. Folks always came up the long gravel driveway, whether by car, bike or on foot. Everyone entered this formidable structure by means of the meager back porch. Rarely did we kids play in the front yard, despite its impressive size. We spent a lot of time in the basement, exploring the mysterious third floor or mucking around in the barn.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I loved that old house. And, I loved being friends with Sharon. We met in Mrs. Harrison’s second grade classroom, and we remained best friends through seventh grade, when my family moved to North Plainfield. Even then, I would often ride my bike up the mountain to Sharon’s house. At that point, though, I had become closer to her brother Scott, who was a year or two younger than us.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Scott was really funny and fun. He liked to play pranks, which I dislike generally, but his pranks were innocent and fairly harmless most of the time. There was one not-so-harmless prank I remember vividly these 50 years later, and that is the one that backfired on him.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The three of us were hanging out in Sharon’s room, smoking cigarettes, watching Star Trek reruns on a little portable black and white TV. It was a winter evening and that old house was drafty. Scott offered to go downstairs and make us hot chocolate.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>At the first commercial break, he slipped down the back staircase to the kitchen. He returned, with three mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of butter cookies on a tray. I think there were mini-marshmallows melting in the chocolate. I don’t quite remember, largely because of what happened next. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The chocolate tasted wrong from the first sip. I still don’t know what the hell Scott put in my cup, but I leapt-up immediately and started heading for the door, feeling an overwhelming need to vomit.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Ever the prankster, Scott stood barring the doorway. I still remember what he was wearing: grey corduroy slacks and a light-colored fisherman’s knit sweater, along with a big, goofy grin. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I tried to hold back, but it was no use. I threw-up all over his sweater! Good-natured as he was, Scott just stepped back and laughed, amused by his own misfortune. I ran to the bathroom, and he went to change his shirt.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Scott and I remained good friends into our teenage years, even as Sharon and I grew apart. It turned out Scott, like me, was gay, though we knew it only unconsciously when we were kids. I lost touch with him after I went away to college.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Once when I was home from school for a weekend visit, my mom suggested we have lunch at a trendy little café that had recently opened downtown, knowing full-well what a happy surprise lay ahead. Lo and behold but our waiter was none other than my old friend, Scott! <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>By then, we were both out, but geography prevented us from pursuing our once strong friendship. I miss him, though, and his quirky sense of humor. How sweet it would be now to have a friend from those long-ago days growing up gay in suburban New Jersey, when no one talked openly about homosexuality except to poke fun at someone’s being a sissy or a “queer”, then an extremely derogatory term. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> I’ve often wondered with a heavy heart as to whether Scott survived the AIDS crisis that ravaged the gay male population in the early nineteen-eighties. So many friends contracted the illness and died before we ever even knew what it was. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br /><table style="border-top: 1px solid #D3D4DE;"><tr><td style="width: 55px; padding-top: 13px;"><a href="http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient" target="_blank"><img src="https://s-install.avcdn.net/ipm/preview/icons/icon-envelope-tick-green-avg-v1.png" alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;"/></a></td><td style="width: 470px; padding-top: 12px; color: #41424e; font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Virus-free.<a href="http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient" target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avg.com</a></td></tr></table><a href="#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"> </a></div></body></html>