Untotaled: Stepping 12 (February 14, 1965)–Valen-kind’s Day … May 3, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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(Transcript)

Her name was Jody. (Actually it still is.)

She sat in front of me during Social Studies.

No one liked Jody. She committed the three grave sins of early “teendom”: she was a little larger, she was very quiet and therefore assumed stupid, and she copped an attitude if you made fun of her.

And they did. Make fun of her, that is.

Rumors about Jody spread through our classroom daily with the proficiency of a team of reporters on the New York Times. One of the more repetitive and prevalent accusations was that Jody smelled bad. Matter of fact, one of the guys thought it was hilarious to put a can of air freshener on her desk before she arrived at school. When she knocked it off and threw it on the ground in anger, the whole classroom burst into laughter.

I never noticed that she smelled. Matter of fact, I’m pretty sure she didn’t.

When our teacher, during the “season of love,” thought it was clever or even cute, to encourage us to send a Valentine to one or more of our fellow-students as a throw-back to our childhood days, I objected. I thought it was beneath our status of being graduates of elementary school.

Yet I was out-shouted by the rest of the class so the plan was set in motion.

I decided that my way of rebelling against this childish practice would be to send a “Valen-kind” card to someone nobody else would think to include. Obviously, Jody came to mind.

So retrieving my construction paper, crayons and round-tipped scissors, I temporarily digressed to the mind-set of a third-grader and produced a card for Jody from me. It said the following:

“Happy Valen-Kind’s Day, Jody. I just wanted to let you know you’re not so bad and I don’t think you stink.”

I signed it and placed it on her desk on February 14th, as the teacher had requested. Unfortunately, my friends arrived before Jody did, found the card on her desk, read it and started to make fun of me incessantly.

When Jody arrived and she read the card, she came toward me to give me a hug, and being alarmed, I pulled back (I assume with a bit of revulsion). She was offended, but it didn’t keep her from following me around for the next week-and-a-half with gooey eyes, thinking that I had the hots for her.

(Even though I was just trying to be kind, I think I overdid it a little bit. I don’t know.)

Eventually, I had to sit her down and tell her that what I was trying to do was let her know that she was okay and just one of us–not that I was looking for a girlfriend.

She was a little disappointed, but I think, relieved.

By the way, the three main bozos who made fun of her ended up, after graduation, spending most of the time under the carriage of cars–changing mufflers.

• Jody went to college.
• She blossomed.
• She ran across people who didn’t know about her “body odor” and accepted her.
• She went on to become an anchor on the local news in our community.

It’s interesting how things work. Rarely are we able to maintain the status that we felt we possessed when we were in our teens.

Because there’s one thing for certain: Jody could clean up, take a bath and become a new person.

But unkindness sticks to you like mud.

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Untotaled: Stepping 9 — Goodnight, Sweet Prince (November 12th, 1965) … April 5, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog  

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(Transcript)

I was scared.

Normally, I was ecstatic to visit my grandpa’s house, because after a brief series of greetings and obligatory, slobbery kisses, I was allowed to go into the nearby living room where there was a large, brown horsehair couch–my favorite perch. I loved to rub my legs against the scratchy surface. It was a delicious brown–caramel, chocolate and orange soda, all “splurged” together.

But on November 12th, 1965, arriving at Grandpa’s home, it was a much different scene.

As always, I was greeted at the door by Queenie, his collie, who was overly zealous and friendly, and always smelled–well, pardon the cliché–like wet dog.

This time there was no greeting from Gramps. Instead, we found him in the living room, kneeling over Irma, whose breathing was laborious, was white as a sheet and had creamy drool dribbling out of the corners of her mouth.

Grandpa was crying.

My mother moved to his side to comfort him, and I stared at the suffering lady. I didn’t know much about Irma–she never talked. I mean literally, I had never heard her speak.

She was passed off by my Grandpa as his houseguest/friend/maid/cook. I heard relatives refer to her as “retarded, evil, a slut and a foreigner.” Absent understanding of what many of these words meant, my interpretation was to just stay away.

Irma seemed to have no problem with our distant relationship, so on this horrible day, when my beautiful, brown horsehair couch was turned into the deathbed of this strange woman, I heard my mother utter these words: “Jonathan, come over and say good-bye to Irma.”

Yes, this was a day and age when people actually died in their homes without heroic measures.

I thought to myself, “Say goodbye? I’ve never said hello.”

I eased over to her side and touched her forehead. It was clammy and cold. I jerked back and then was embarrassed by my revulsion.

“Goodbye, Irma,” I managed, and then shuffled out of the room.

Two weeks after Irma died, my mother went out to console Grandpa and spend the night, and they placed me on the brown couch to sleep. They turned off the light and I was left in the room with the memories of Irma and her demise.

I was so frightened.

Lying there on the couch, I thought I could smell her. It was horrible. Squeezing my pillow tightly, I prayed.

“God, I’m scared. Please take the scare away.”

I don’t remember anything after that. I went to sleep and woke in the morning without any signs of the previous night’s terror.

I was transformed–not just for that occasion. I can mark that night as the time when much of the childish apprehension, insecurity and trepidation departed from me, like a vapor, leaving a boiling pan of water.

I was stronger.

I would never, ever be that afraid again.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Click here to get info on the “Gospel According to Common Sense” Tour

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.