When I was 11 my big brother Russell, who was thirteen, gave me two marbles for Christmas. One was bright red and the other was bright blue. I know it was a sacrifice for him as he had won them from some rookie and knew I wanted them bad.

Russell was in love too. He also gave Bessie Hurst a forty-nine cent sewing machine. It actually sewed stuff. It had a needle in it and you put the thread in the hole in the needle and turned a big wheel on one end and the needle went up and down.

It was cool and we didn't even say "cool" back then.

Bessie was hard to please and never even said thanks. In an effort to win her heart, or possibly get revenge, Russell had this great idea. He put some water in a pop bottle. He added some salt and pepper and orange juice and crushed razzberries and some cough medicine and he had me go with him up to Bessie's house to give her this bottle of stuff.

She was upstairs looking out a window at us as we came into her yard. She opened the window and told us to go away.

Russell climbed up on a rain barrel and yelled to tell her he had a bottle of soda pop for her and urged her to come down and get it because it was so good.

She refused so he said, “Look, Bessie. Gerald is going to drink some and he thrust the concoction at me saying, "Here, take a drink of it and show her how good it is."

I wanted no part of the stuff or anything to do with his courtship but I knew he would twist my arm off so I took a slug of the awful tasting crud and pretended it was great. He was too smart to taste it himself.

Alas, she was foolproof so he poured it out on the grass and we went home, his love unrequited.

His 49 cents was gone too.