By McAvoy Layne…Jimmy asked me to teach him how to swim. He was maybe fifteen, and I was a lifeguard, not much older. He was also blind and liked to wrestle, so I wrestled him into some deep water, where he let go and learned how to swim. We became friends, and he taught me how to read Braille.
Jim confided to me that he had fallen in love at camp with a girl named “Cecelia.” And as Cecelia was also blind, well, both sets of loving parents preferred that their special teens would fall in love with sighted persons, and did not encourage Jimmy and Cecelia’s affections.
Jim sighed a deep sigh and lamented to me that he would probably never be near her again, at least not until he got his driver’s license, which would be in his next life…
There is nothing in this world quite so pathetic as a lovesick teenager, so I volunteered to take Jimmy and Cecelia to a drive-in movie, then excuse myself to the popcorn stand, and let them make out a little, maybe even steal a kiss…
Well, on the drive to pick up Cecelia, we passed a field of cotton, and I described the sight to Jim, who, in turn, asked if we could stop so he could feel the cotton. He ended up picking a bouquet to give to Cecilia, and though it was a fright to look at, it felt good, so off we went to pick up Cecelia…
I remember so well how she came to the door wearing a radiant smile, and when Jimmy handed her that cotton bouquet, well, her smile broadened into an appreciative sigh of gratitude and love. The sight of her touching that cotton and embracing it, moistened my eye, and I had to gather myself in order to meet her parents and assure them that we would be back home promptly following Lawrence of Arabia. They did not seem to be pleased about our little outing, but blessed it, begrudgingly.
Well, the two of them piled into the back seat and held hands, or so it seemed in my rearview mirror. We landed a good spot for the movie, and I took their orders. Then I warned them that I’d be back in twenty minutes and excused myself to the popcorn stand. Upon my return, I noticed the windows were fogged up, so I cleared my throat and opened the trunk before opening their door with an arm full of popcorn. Well, as Jimmy would tell me sometime later, “Lawrence of Arabia was as good a movie as ever there was.”
While attending separate colleges, Jimmy and Cecelia would both fall in love with sighted partners, and live happily ever after…
Meanwhile, that drive-in movie taught me a lesson that I call upon even today, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in the touch of the beholder, as was the case on that night of the cotton bouquet…
Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO
— For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”
