NOTHING WRONG

Mary Frances Harmon was a year behind me in school but we were in the same Sunday School class. Her parents were sponsors for our church youth group. Kids know without being told, where they rank in the peer pecking order. Mary Frances was near the top and I was somewhere down the line. She used two names where the rest of us only needed one, her hand was the first to go up and her parents knew she would deliver exactly what they wanted to hear. Mr Harmon was tall and manly but Mrs Harmon did all the talking. She was short and thin with wire rim glasses, hair pulled back and a smile that was less than convincing. 

One evening we had to go outside for an activity. On either side of the double doors that opened to the sidewalk were two Redbud trees that arched over the doorway. I was first out the door and it was both easy and natural to swing up into the branches. My feet would be dangling from the over-hang when the rest of the class came out. But Mrs Harmon stopped them inside to organize and she missed me. “Where is LeRoy?” Nobody knew. When they came out, they couldn’t miss my feet. Ten year-olds will giggle at anything and that was all I wanted, approval, a simple affirmation. “What is wrong with you?” Her voice went up an octave with an angry edge, equal to her displeasure with me. She was serious. I was on the ugly end of her evil eye after that and she never let me forget, said she was going to tell my mother but she never did. Mr. Harmon couldn’t have cared less.

It was normal for men to light up their cigarettes as soon as church let out. On Sunday afternoon the sidewalk outside the chapel doors would be strewn with crushed cigarette butts. But women who smoked waited until they were in their cars. My mother didn’t smoke but said it was proper to wait. Mrs Harmon smoked outside before they reached their car but I didn’t care. I didn’t have any reason to not like her but neither was there anything to like. Why so angry - What is wrong with you! It wasn’t a question.  

My son and his family were over for a Sunday cookout recently. I told his girls that nobody had ever climbed my Sycamore tree. It was big enough, someone needed to do that. They have a Maple in their back yard that answers their climbing needs so I didn’t have to say more. They came back again just the other day. The younger one asked, “Does the Sycamore need more climbing?” I raised eyebrows and gave her a nod. By the time I caught up, she was laddering up through the middle branches. It occurred to me, in my wisdom, ‘There is nothing wrong with her.’ Her dad asked if it brought back any memories and I mumbled something. It made me think of Mrs. Harmon: what a narrow life she must have lived. It made me think of him, hanging by his knees, 20 feet up another Sycamore, another life-time. Next thing I know he was up there with his girls, limb to limb, peeling bark and testing hand holds. No, nothing wrong here.