Several folks have asked me recently whether I’m writing a new book.

Yes, I am. It’s a book about women.

“What?” Annie chirped. “Are you nuts?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve lived with women for almost sixty years. Write what you know, they say.”

“But you don’t know a thing about women. Believe me. I know. I’m your wife.”

“That used to be the case,” I admitted. “But not any more. I had an estrogenous epiphany this morning while standing in the shower. I’ve got women all figured out now.”

“Fat chance,” Annie said. “You’re not writing about me are you?”

“Yep.”

“And our daughters, and your mother, and my mother, and my sister, and Gretchen…”

“Yep, all of them. It’s a book about all of the women who’ve graced my life.”

“And old girlfriends? You’re not writing about them are you? Surely you’re smarter than that.”

“Yep, my old girlfriends, too. Full disclosure, so to speak.”

“Lordy, Lordy, Lordy,” Annie said. “This is going to be a disaster. I can’t watch.”

That little exchange got me thinking that if a fellow is going to write about old girlfriends, he’d better do some careful and judicious thinking before putting pen to paper. Well, I did the careful part—but messed up on judicious—and remembered Candy Jenkins, the most beautiful girl in junior high.

I’d asked Candy—twice—to be my girlfriend. She never said no, but she never said yes, either. She looked at me occasionally and smiled as we passed in the hallway at school. She always whispered something to her girlfriends. She had a devoted entourage. They giggled and twittered and shook their heads.

That was as close as I got to Candy Jenkins, until one day in late September of my seventh grade year when she stopped me in the hall, sent her minions on to class, told me I should run for president of the seventh grade, win, and then she’d be my girlfriend. She offered to be my campaign manager. We’d be a team, she said.

She developed this slogan: GIVE A DARN!  VOTE FOR SAM!  SAM! SAM! SAM!

Pretty good, huh?

The day before the election I stood at the podium on the gymnasium stage and promised my classmates radical changes in the cafeteria-free butter brickle ice cream on Mondays, cheeseburgers every day, chocolate milk in pint-sized cartons. I promised shorter class times, an extra recess period, and half days on Fridays.

The next day I won the election in a landslide and Candy said yes, she’d be girlfriend. It was a good day.

Serving as president of my seventh grade class was a big responsibility.  My first stop after winning the election was Mr. Hicks’ office. He was the principal. I laid out the promises I’d made. We talked about leadership, personal freedoms, empowering young people to explore their passions, and ice cream. I made my demands.

“Those are some interesting changes you’re suggesting, Mr. McLeod. Let’s start with the ice cream. Am I to understand that you’ve promised your classmates free ice cream?”

“Yes, sir. Only on Mondays. Just butter brickle. Not vanilla or chocolate or strawberry. Butter brickle is my favorite.”

“And you’ve promised cheeseburgers, and chocolate milk, and shorter classes, and half days on Fridays?”

“Yes, sir. And an extra recess period.”

“What was it that led you to make those promises, Mr. McLeod?”

“I wanted to win the election, sir.”

“I see,” he said. ” Well, perhaps…”

“And Candy Jenkins.”

“What did Candy Jenkins have to do with this?”

“She thought up the promises and told me to make them. She said it was the only way to win.”

“Mr. McLeod, are you in the habit of doing whatever Miss Jenkins tells you to do?”

“She said she’d be my girlfriend.”

“She’d be your girlfriend if you made those promises?”

“No. She said she’d be my girlfriend if I won. But she was pretty sure I’d win if I made the promises.”

“Did it ever occur to you that you couldn’t deliver on those promises without getting my approval, Mr. McLeod?”

“Sure,” I said. “But Candy said not to worry about it. She said we’d figure that out later.”

Mr. Hicks smiled. “Well Mr. McLeod, I’m afraid we won’t be making any of those changes. You’ll have to face your constituents and tell them you made promises you couldn’t keep.”

“That’s what Candy said you’d say. But that’s okay, she says, because I’ve already won and she’s my girlfriend. She says folks will get over it.”

She was right. They did.

Annie’s really into the bread-baking these days. Take a look at this!

Annie’s dad died several years ago. We called him PaPa. Everybody loved PaPa, but like all of us, he had his quirks.

PaPa loved working on his boat—an old trawler that required constant attention. He kept it at “the river.” Folks in Richmond, Virginia, are always talking about “the river.”

“The river?” I said, shortly after I met Annie. “What river?”

“It’s just ‘the river’,” Annie said. “Nobody ever says which one.”

“Well then, how are outsiders like me supposed to know which river somebody’s talking about?”

“You’re not,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“Don’t fret about it. If I decide to keep you, we’ll go to my family’s place at the river one of these days. You’ll catch on.”

Well, Annie decided to keep me and we went to “the river” with her family pretty regularly. Their version of “the river” was actually a creek—Carter’s Creek. It flowed into the Rappahannock River.

While at “the river,” I spent a lot of time on PaPa’s boat—not going anywhere, just scrubbing it and helping him fix it.

“Sam, you need yourself a boat,” he said.

“I’d rather go to work,” I said.

After working on the boat all day, we’d sit on the deck at their cottage and watch boats tootling up and down the creek. Sometimes we’d drink a beer. One time I drank two.

“So who are your neighbors?” I asked one evening, pointing to the cottage just up the creek.

“That’s a sad story,” PaPa said. “Those folks live in Baltimore. They moved down here to retire a year or so ago. Hadn’t been here a month when the guy’s wife had a stroke. They had to move her back to Baltimore. I never see them anymore. Made me worry I might be due for a stroke.”

“I’m sure you’re fine,” I said.

“Don’t be so sure. Sometimes I feel little twitches in my brain.”

“We all feel those, PaPa.”

“Not like these. These are different.”

“So what about the folks who live in that house?” I asked, pointing to the house just down the creek.

“Another sad story,” he started. “That couple bought the place as a weekend getaway. I saw them here three or four times before I heard he’d had a bad heart attack. Haven’t seen them here in months. Makes me think I might be due for a heart attack.”

” I doubt that,” I said.

“Well, I don’t discount the possibility. I get pains sometimes in my chest. Mostly it’s gas, but who knows what’s really going on in there?”

“What about that house up on the hill?” I asked, trying to find a happier subject.

“That is a really sad story,” PaPa said. “That poor lady started having some pain in her elbow, so she went to the doctor. He said it was tennis elbow, but it wasn’t. Two week later she was dead from cancer.”

“Jeez, that is really sad,” I said.

“But that’s not the saddest part,” he said. “The saddest part is I’ve been having some pain in my elbow, too.”

“Do you think you might be suffering from hypochondria?” I asked.

“Maybe so,” he said. “I seem to have everything else.”

Several years later, PaPa did develop cancer. He knew he was going to die, but he was in surprisingly good spirits. “I can relax now. Don’t have to worry about getting something that’s going to kill me because I’ve already got it.”

I think he meant it.

I asked him if there was something he’d learned from living his seventy-plus years. “If you had to give a younger person one bit of advice, what would it be?” I asked.

“That’s a tough one,” he said. “I’ve got lots of advice to dole out. Let me think.” He looked out across the creek watching another trawler heading toward the river.

“I’d tell a younger person to pay more attention to family and close friends,” he said. “We tend to take them for granted, you know. We spend too much time trying to please folks that don’t play all that big a part in our lives-clients and customers and whatnot. I’d pay less attention to the bit players and pay more attention to the main characters.”

“Good advice,” I said.

“Hearing it is one thing,” he said. “Living it is another.”