HALF A LOAF Chapter 4 Life After the Prom

The Girls were Making Fun of Me
courtesy free clip art

I had the next day off after the prom so later in the day I went to the market to pick up a few things. 

While I was there I saw a couple of the girls who were with the boys I had trouble with the night before.

They came over and started to talk to me which was unusual.  

They said, "You really showed the boys we were with, who was boss."  They went on with that line of talk until I stopped them.

“If the guys hadn’t been drunk they would have whipped me up one side of the street and down the other.”  Len is a lot bigger and much stronger than me and I was lucky to get the first lick in.”

The girls tried to ignore my comments, and said, “You must come over tonight and we will party.”

I said, “I don’t think so.  If I was seen at your house the guys would have two reasons to beat me up.  One reason was for hitting Len, and the second for trying to make a move on their girls.”

They looked at me somewhat askance so I said, “If you were seen with me everyone would put you down as being desperate and besides you aren’t really interested in me you are just funning.”

They said, “Since you went out with Sally your standing in the dating community has improved.”

I went on to say, “You girls are too classy for me and it would be a put down for you especially if it got out that Sally’s mother who knew me from the market found out I didn’t have a prom date so she ordered Sally to go with me.”

The idea that they were on a higher social plain than me, and that would be compromised if they were seen with me satisfied them, and they left with their nose in the air as usual.

I felt a relief for I didn’t want to have a fight over those particular girls.  They had already acquired the reputation of having loose morals and were the property of the guys I had the run in with.  I had too much on my plate at this time to get involved with something I wasn’t interested in.

I called Sally later that afternoon and she invited me over and I told her about meeting the girls at the market and how it played out.

She laughed at that and said, “You are lucky to get out of a no win situation.  If you had gone to the girl’s house, the guys would be after you and if you had offended the girls they wouldn’t have stopped until they got even in a way that you would have had difficult time getting over.”

One of the things Sally and I discussed on prom night was our plans for the future.

She had been accepted by Princeton and would be on the other side of the United States while I was still trying to get into Cal.  

For the last three years I had been working in my spare time and saving my money for college.  I was still short by a lot but hoped to get enough scholarship money to make up the difference.  

Sally told her dad about my situation and he called me into his large office and said he might be able to help me.  He dealt with several major corporations’ who had scholarship money and he knew all the right people to talk to.

About three weeks later I had more money pledged than I needed.  I was tempted to go out and buy a car but decided it would be an unnecessary expense for it was just two blocks to the bus stop and the bus ride was only twenty minutes each way.

I was soon to discover that being qualified and getting enrolled in the classes you needed were two different things.  I met up with a professor who shopped at the market I worked at, and we discussed some of the problems I was having. 

He gave me some wise advice about how to get by some of the roadblocks I was experiencing.  After the discussion with him I managed to get all the classes I wanted and was now a university student.

College Students?

Some how part of my elation was dampen by seeing how many of the male students were dressed to look like tramps with long hair and unkempt beards.

Also many of the females were approaching looking nasty.  Most were such a large number with an aversion to soap and water.  On hot days you could tell they were near without looking.

After adjusting to this new outward phenomenon I said to myself “welcome to Berkley.”  

To be Continued