about a mile away on what was once a horse farm but now was her father's electrical appliance repair shop surrounded by fenced in pasture and old, decaying outhouses. I remember our first kiss, smack on the lips, out in the schoolyard near the edge of the fence, standing on the bare dirt, with all the other kids far in the distance playing hop scotch and tetherball. It was a shy brush of the lips, but the warmth and strangeness of it I will never forget. That kiss changed everything for me in the way I regarded girls. I never hated them, and now I had even more of a reason not to.

Like so many of these early memories, I don't know what led up to this first kiss, how we actually met, and why we did this. I have only remembered scenes, such as meeting her parents. Her mother accepted me, and they had me over for dinner several times. I think it began to end when were caught necking several times, by my playmates next door, by her father, and even by Bob when Linda and I were behind the school library and he was out joyriding with his teenage buddies.

This too ended gently, with no tears or sorrow I can remember.  I often wonder if I had any actual emotions

back then, or just sensations of emotions. My earliest memories seem the foggiest and most episodic, but I clearly remember the influence of someone special who lived nearby whose influence I feel even today.

While he was alive, 80-year-old Paul Henshaw was like the grandfather I never knew. He would tell me stories I've long since forgotten, as we sat together on this rickety old bench under the trees that shaded the old house. He taught me how to read, using the labels from discarded dog food cans, and he would teach me these wonderful songs, none of which I remember. Oddly, I remember the smell of chewing tobacco from his stained brown teeth as he spoke, mixed with the odor of the surrounding bushes and trees.

If I had to describe Paul for you, I would ask you to envision Robert Frost in overalls and you would have an accurate picture. If you could imagine a frog reciting poetry, you would have his voice as well, deep and gravelly. He was my mentor for the short time that I made his acquaintance, and knowing someone so old at so young an age helped me understand how life cycles and recycles itself.

I remember clearly the day George Read came to our house with the news that his father-in-law had "passed