Guys don't make passes......

Yesterday I spoke with an old, old friend from Detroit. It's been forty years since we last talked. We began our friendship as teenagers around the time of the "Beatles Invasion". I remember being in her home watching them on the Ed Sullivan Show. Her parents owned a cottage on one of the area lakes. My friends and I spent many, many summer days, and evenings there. She has had a very interesting life. It was very enjoyable catching up. I hope we can get together soon..

Yesterday, "The Big Sleep"  a 1946 film was on. In it Bogart plays the detective, Philip Marlowe. During a rain storm he stops in a book store and flirts with the lady clerk. As things heat up he asks if she needs to wear her glasses. She walks to a mirror removes her glasses and lets her hair down. Now, ready for action he offers her a drink.

In a matter of a minute or two a mousy looking librarian type became a beauty. Guys don't make passes at girls that wear glasses. This is an old and silly expression probably started by someone in the contact lens business. Girls that wore glasses were not good looking. Guys, like me, were smart.

It drove me nuts when I was young. Kids took my brains for granted. As if two pieces of glass a few screws and some plastic housed the secrets of the world. Good grades and correct answers were expected.  Adults always thought I hadn't applied myself if I didn't do something well.

Mom moved four or five times before I was in high school. Starting a new school in September was always the same. I wore glasses so I was smart and I stunk at sports. I was always picked last unless the class had a kid with asthma.

No wonder I'm so "different." I wonder if kids have these same issues today? Probably and then some.

As I get older I can feel myself getting slower. Lots of people my age take medications to help them function. Last night I remembered this "story " and thought I'd share it with you.

In past blogs I've mentioned some of the time I spent visiting family. Every couple of months at my Aunt Lee and Uncle Gil's. They lived on the east side of Detroit in a very nice brick home built in the late 1940's. I've always loved the place, Aunt Lee still lives there. The week end I am talking about was around 1960. Uncle Gil scared me when I was a kid. He valued privacy and peace and quiet. Their son, my cousin, was about 18 months my senior. It's hard to keep two rambunctious 12 year old kids quiet.

The big brick house had five bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs. I couldn't think of anything worse than waking my uncle in the middle of the night because I had to use the bathroom.

One Saturday night there I got up once, then again, and yet, again. Each time up was more frightening than the last. I don't know how many times I used the bathroom that night but each trip was terror. I would pee, close the lid, wrap myself around the tank and slowly push down on the handle. Hopefully, that would muffle any noise.

By morning I could hardly stand up. I needed help walking to the bathroom. I thought I must be ill and I was "coming down with something." I had been up for thirty minutes when my mother woke. She came into my room and I explained how I felt, I think she was worried.

The adults were talking about calling the doctor when I remembered the headache. It was an after thought, the headache. I told my mother that I took a couple of her aspirin. "What did they look like?" she asked as she handed me her purse.

I reached in her bag and removed the vial that contained the aspirin. What I was holding wasn't aspirin, it was Lasix. I had taken twice the adult dose of a pill designed to remove excess "water" from the body. Now I knew why I had been peeing all night.

They say when you are building something you should always measure twice and cut once. I should have been more careful that night. As it was, I took once and peed twenty times.

Don't get the wrong impression about my Uncle. He was a very nice and very generous man. He taught me many life lessons. He treated me like an adult when I was a goofy young kid. He introduced me to target and skeet shooting, golf, woodworking and photography. I was exposed to classical music because of him and his love for the same. He wasn't very affectionate and that's OK. He was part of my extended family and I am a better person for it.