The Coast Is Not Clear

By David Johnson

In a time before technology asserted its domination of society, two high school classmates have decided to make a go of it. A simple life, a pure love, and an unexpected event give the couple more than they ever thought two American teenagers could handle---but they go for it, nonetheless. Certain about their educational goals and content in their faith, Merle and Susan open a pathway to a fulfilling future by sticking together and doing the best they can. On track to college educations, they draw strength and inspiration from each other and from their virtuous upbringing. They share an unconditional devotion and belief God has a purpose for them. Their plans are changed when an uninvited visitor drops into their world and turns it upside down. How this "guest" becomes a significant element in their lives unfolds as the chapters roll by. The reader will want to join their journey and share their dilemma. Light years from Earth in a solar system similar to ours, a planet has begun to suffer atrophy as the sun it relies on for energy, hydrology, and photosynthesis deteriorates at a cataclysmic rate. The planet's natives possess great intelligence and design a global strategy of survival through adaptation and substitution of nutrition sources. Realizing their resources were dwindling faster than their ability to survive, they have no alternative but to explore the universe for a mass migration. Theo Rivelet, a visitor from the dying planet, found his new home on Earth. What better friends to find upon his arrival than Merle and Susan?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781681975290

David Johnson

Enter the Author Bio(s) here.

Book preview

Chapter One

The Lake Country

At five thirty in the morning, the sky was soft and gray in pre-dawn stillness. Becoming light ever so slightly, not cool but awaiting the warmth of the morning sun, the day was still an hour from emerging. Fumbling around in the woods behind the house with a shovel, flashlight, and coffee can, Merle turned over clumps of earth and searched for worms that would please the fish in about a half an hour. Mixing the perfect composition of moist soil, rotting leaves, a few sticks, and a few dozen earthworms and night crawlers, the search for bait was successful, as it always was. Time to wash up and get the pole, tackle box, stringer, and bucket ready.

Walking past the doghouse on the way to the house, Skipper poked his head out and noticed Merle with his hands full going over to the shed. He told Skipper to stay but the curious Beagle-mix moseyed out and walked as far as his chain allowed him to venture—which was about twenty feet—where he stopped, sat, and watched as the young fisherman gathered his implements together. Back, then, he lumbered into his doghouse to continue watching Merle from a sleepy flop. Now, all that was left to do before he left was fill a jar of ice water, use the bathroom, wash his hands, and give mom a kiss good-bye.

Merle told her, whispering, Mom, I’m going fishin’. Be back before noon.

She returned his kiss and said, Be careful, honey. Catch us some nice ones.

Merle’s dad rustled around a little on the other side of the bed but didn’t wake, which was Merle’s preference. After all, he just wanted to get out the door and head down to the lake before someone else grabbed his fishing spot on the pier. It was June, a Saturday, so all he needed to wear was what he had on from digging bait—his T-shirt and short-sleeved brown shirt, shorts, socks, and tennis shoes. Bam, out the door he went, carefully and quietly shutting the screen door without allowing it to crash loudly to a close.

In his bucket went the bait, jar of ice water, towel, and a baggie with six or seven Fig Newton cookies wrapped in a gym sock to keep clean. Tackle box and fishing pole in one hand, bucket handle in the other hand, and off he went, up the path behind the neighbors’ houses to the lake road, up the hill and down the steep hill Merle strode. There was always the slightly anxious moment as he reached the peak of the road when, heading then downhill, he could see if anyone was on his pier.

Thank God, he whispered, when he noticed the pier was empty and the lake as smooth as glass.

Although there was a slight breeze that morning, the lake was under it, speaking vertically, so not even the slightest bristle of waves were present that beautiful day in June 1965. The glad anticipation of a fine fishing experience filled Merle’s emotions like custard in a cream puff. He could barely contain himself he was so ready to start fishing.

The last stars of the previous night twinkled above him as the eastern sky began to glow. The sky behind him, back west toward the house, was still dark and Skipper was probably snoring out in his doghouse while his brothers, sister, and parents were still sound asleep in their beds. With just enough light to put a huge night-crawler on his hook, Merle set the bobber at about five feet and maybe a little more, and cast the rig out twenty-five or thirty feet onto the still, flat lake.

Splash! was followed by several concentric circles of wavelets radiating from the entry point and the bobber popped and bounced straight up and down, signaling the exact location of the bait not far below the surface.

OK. Time for some action, Merle whispered.

Merle realized that he needed a drink after lugging his fishing gear down the path, up the road, and down the hill to his prime spot, so he reached into the bucket for his jar. Glancing out to his bobber, he saw it wiggle, then bob, and then slowly begin to drift sideways as it gradually submerged.

Hmm, looks like a bass, he whispered and set the jar down while picking up his pole.

The bobber, barely visible now, signaled it was definitely time to yank and crank. Bam! He pulled his pole straight up and backward as the tug of the line transmitted the set hook into his hands. Then he felt the pull of the unidentified, hooked creature, who’d taken off toward deeper water.

Could be a catfish, he thought and reset the drag on the reel to prevent breaking the line off at the hook’s knot.

Then the fight was on. The drag worked, zinging and magically stretching, but not breaking, the four-pound test line Merle always replaced every spring. Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-n-g-g-g-g, howled the reel’s drag while Merle kept the line taught and began retrieving the prize. Sweat was beading on his forehead and temples, now, as the worry of losing this first-fish-of-the-day from a mistake or lapse of concentration overcame his imagination. Now, the caught victim was becoming less aggressive—even seeming to give up.

You’re mine now, he thought and hurriedly wound the crank of his reel to pull his prize to the pier.

Lacking a net, Merle carefully guided the fish closer and closer to him. Finally he saw it in the early morning light.

A bluegill! he quietly exclaimed. A huge bluegill!

He snatched his towel from the rim of his bucket and laid it across his left hand that swiftly scooped up his hefty reward with the hook completely swallowed.

Aw, jeez, I’ll never get that out, Merle thought. The fish was throbbing, gasping, and needed to get back into the water. I know, I’ll just cut the line and maybe he’ll live a little longer.

He pulled his knife out of his pocket and cut the fishing line an inch from the fish’s mouth and then, reaching into his bucket, grabbed the stringer. Feeding the lead-spear end of the stringer through the fish’s gill and out its mouth, Merle ran the spear through the ring at the other end of the thin green- and white-striped fish rope. He dropped the—probably two-pound—fish gently into the lake ten or so inches below the surface of the pier and tied the ring-end to a board.

Merle saw his large conquest darting to and fro near the lake bottom, appearing to have revived from its traumatic seconds out of water. It was so wide Merle could barely grip its girth from the underside to the top fins. Merle thought that it was, over and beyond, the largest bluegill that he had ever caught, let alone seen. He wondered how old it was.

Easily three years old, he mumbled as he got a new hook out of his tackle box and sat down on the pier to re-rig his line.

Six Fig Newtons, a bottle of water, and seven fish later, Merle headed back home. Noticing the sun had risen to halfway to the height at noon, he estimated it was 9:30 to 10:00. Feeling weary and out of worms, he headed back home with a nice stringer of fish to clean. Repacking the bucket and placing the hook into a ring halfway up his pole from the reel, he set out for home.

Walking up the steep hill from the lakeshore, he realized the rest of the family had probably already eaten breakfast and were getting their Saturday off to a good start. The brothers were probably watching cartoons on TV, Mom and Dad were most likely sitting and smoking at the table while drinking their coffee, and Skipper would be found sitting out on the ground on the middle hill of the yard, guarding against invasion by squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits.

Eyeballing and admiring his string of fish, Merle took inventory as he had done several times already out on the pier. Two perch, three bluegill, a crappie, and one good sized but immature bass.

Should’ve thrown him back, he thought.

But it was the longest catch of the morning, so he decided to make a meal out of the light green largemouth bass. He had, after all, thrown four or five smaller fish back to grow and be re-caught the next year or so. He’d made it to the path and turned right toward the house, now within sight. He planned to fill the bucket with cold water to keep the fish in while he cleaned up and ate some breakfast, first. No, they were no longer living, but wet fish are just easier to scale and gut than fish that were dry and sticky, Merle pondered.

Walking in the door, his mom was the first to see the smelly stringer of fish he was holding.

Oh, my, look at those, honey, she exclaimed.

You had a real good morning, didn’t you, Merle? his dad inquired.

Yep, I was lucky, I guess. The sunrise was awesome and the lake was flat as a pancake, so the odds were in my favor. I’ll clean ’em in a little bit, he stated, matter-of-factly, as he emptied his bucket and began to pour water into it from the spray hose on the kitchen sink.

His brother, Steph, walked into the kitchen and asked sarcastically, ’Didja leave any fish in the lake for other people to catch? He was smiling as he said it.

Ya, there’s 3,574 fish still swimming around down there. You goin’?

Nope, goin’ to the store with mom, he replied. When you gonna clean ’em? he asked as he dropped two pieces of bread into the toaster.

Merle told him that he was hungry and would clean them after he ate. With the bucket half full of water, Merle untied the stringer and pulled the line through all the fish, releasing them into the fresh, cold well water. Not surprising to him, Merle saw no movement by any fish who did not survive the walk from the lake. Later that morning, Merle put a plate full of nice fish covered with plastic wrap into the refrigerator. He would cook them later.

Merle Lindstrom was eleven the summer of ’65 and he was just doing things that country boys did during summer vacation from school. He played basketball out in the yard a lot, was an outfielder on a local baseball team, and read whenever he could get books from the bookmobile, which parked down at the church once every other week between May and September. He was willing to run errands, do chores, ride along with his mom or dad when they had somewhere to go and something to do, and took Skipper for long walks around the lake area where he’d been growing up since as long as he could remember.

The reason he read a lot, he thought, was because his dad bought the family a set of World Book encyclopedias from a traveling salesman when he was quite young, before first grade, and he engrossed himself in each and every volume in wonder and amazement of the pictures, diagrams, maps, and illustrations on their pages. His first book, Br’er Rabbit, was the opening to the world of wildlife and the life in the woods where the family lived near the lake that produced such a nice catch, time after time after time, for him.

Before he walked into the classroom on his first day of school, Merle had self-educated and taught himself to read with help from his parents sounding out words phonetically. He was also motivated to draw sketches and made maps of his yard, immediate neighborhood, and as he grew, of the lake area after walking in one direction, walking back, and mapping landmarks, roads, and landforms from memory. During the walks to study the area for mapping, young Merle also committed to memory plants, animals, footpaths, trees, and flowers, wild fruits like apples, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and pears.

Merle loved the outdoors and his imagination was aided by curiosity and desire to know as much as he could about the world in which he lived and played. He did not know it at the time of his childhood, but his attraction to the precious land would lead him, later, to be teacher of geography, history, and government. Fishing always restored the tranquility of childhood and the quiet peace of natural beauty.

Later that Saturday afternoon, Merle’s mom and brother, Steph, returned from the store with paper bags full of groceries that included frozen fish sticks and French fries. Along with Merle’s morning catch, the Lindstrom family enjoyed fish dinner. Many questions about the early morning exploits down at the lake were interspersed with other conversations on this, one of two weekend days that the family could relax together and enjoy stories.

Merle explained, in detail, how the first fish took the hook and worm on a slow, gradual stroll as he swallowed both before taking off and helping him set the hook in an impossibly fatal location halfway to his tail. The family laughed heartily as the oldest brother, Art, stabbed a couple fish sticks and a piece of Merle’s catch for his plate. Merle then added that he’d found the hidden hook while cleaning the bluegill and washed it off before putting it back in his tackle box to use on the fish’s granddaddy. Again, the family roared with approval.

Chapter Two

Youth and Adolescence

To a fourteen-year-old freshman, Merle realized that his life was chock full of changes and challenges. What was a sedate and serene country lifestyle through the earlier years of elementary and junior high school was gone. Now others—younger kids in the neighborhood—were running those miles and redoing that routine. Now, going to high school in town was like opening a huge door with newer, stranger, more fun, but also scarier situations than he had ever seen, but had heard about, here and there.

Four older brothers had been the main source of the city scene and a younger brother and sister were ties to the old ways. Merle was smart—the smartest of the family—and the most likely to succeed in school and cross the line into college someday. Now, though, was what encompassed his conscious awareness. High school had come to Merle as much as Merle was now going to high school, in town, seven miles, and a thirty minute bus ride each morning.

An avid reader as he always was, Merle pondered as he sat on the bus one morning as to whether anyone had ever written a book about How to Grow Up. He was smart, but not street smart. In the city, if you weren’t ready for trouble, it would find you. Sports. How do you tell high school coaches that you want to try out and be chosen on the basketball or baseball team?

He was always shy around girls growing up and only went to a movie once with a girl and that was a double date set up by the other couple. How and who do you ask to go out? What were some clever and witty ways to impress a girl that you liked so that there would be no way that she would tell you no when you built up the courage and fortitude to pop the question?

He thought about looking in the high school’s library for such a book when he got a chance. He then wondered about the category he would need to search through for a How to Grow Up and Act in the Big, Bad World of High School.

Shoot, he thought to himself, there is no such dang book! I’ll just have to watch others and pick up some clues and tricks of the trade.

Merle was hoping against hope and decided that he would not hold his breath waiting for a personal guide to coping with the teen years with detailed instructions.

Then it hit him—Dear Abby! If and when he really needed some valuable, important—heck, even critical advice, he’d just write to the newspaper columnist Dear Abby. But he wondered, silently, Would she know about boys, or just girl stuff? He’d check it out somehow, he thought, as the bus pulled up to the sidewalk at the high school.

OK, I’ll handle this, he thought as he grabbed his stack of books, binders, and folders. I always do.

Merle’s first class was called homeroom, which always made him think of home run and many times, he visualized a Billy Williams blast going dee-eeep into right field and out of the park onto Chicago’s Waveland Avenue. But, he’d always come back from his daydream and snap-to-it as homeroom was the place he and his classmates got organized for the day. Daily announcements would come on over the public address speaker as the teacher took attendance. It was only fifteen minutes long so it ended about the time things started to quiet down and out the door everyone went to their, actual, first period classes.

Merle headed to Algebra. What an eye-opener!, he often thought, as he walked into Mr. Hawkins’ classroom. He sat down and got his homework out from the night before. Mr. Hawkins welcomed the class back and added, as he always did, a humorous quip.

He thanked everyone for showing up because he’d have to go home and admit to his wife that his students hated him and refused to come to his classroom.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he claimed, "within minutes of arriving home, my wife would hand me a honey-do list and I’d be doing chores and running errands for her for ten hours straight! So, please keep returning, for my sake!"

Merle and his classmates laughed, even if his humor was about as cornball as it could get. Hopping into his little jump-stop move, Mr. Hawkins declared, All right, let’s see how smart you are!

After Algebra, Merle walked around to his World History class. It was his favorite and his teacher was a fantastic, effective, and experienced elderly woman named Miss Haat. She was an old maid, never married, no kids, and had served in the WACs during WWII. She was so kind, soft spoken, and was a walking encyclopedia of historical knowledge. In many ways, Merle often reflected, she was like him. Or, more correctly, he was very much like she was. They both could read themselves to sleep with a riveting history book open and flattened by their slumber on top of it. Each could write and write and write about historical topics that captured their interests and imagination. That is how history affected them. It took them by storm and wouldn’t let go until complete understanding loosened its grip on them. Merle got straight A’s from Ms. Haat and she got amazing results and essays from him.

Then, his third period class was an adventure into the world of Biology. Merle was, again, right at home in the class that explained how living things from plants to animals to Homo sapiens were born, lived, and affected the habitat in which they existed. Merle was quiet, as a rule, but his silence was absent in Biology. He loved the discussions with Miss Harrowe, who clearly loved to teach and welcomed inquisitive students’ questions and their classmates’ comments about how this or that phenomenon occurred and why.

He was curious and taken in by the rich treasure-trove of deep learning that was evident each and every day in Biology class. Merle could not earn less than an A if he tried. Other students noticed his enthusiasm and whispered behind his back that something was wrong with that country kid. Merle sensed that some foul comments were being bantered about but he wrote it off as jealousy. That’s right, some kids were just mad that they couldn’t understand and have the same success in school as smarter kids, so all they could do about it was make fun.

Too bad for them, Merle reflected. "They couldn’t pass a test if the teacher was blind," he joked to himself.

Merle’s school had lunch during fourth and fifth periods, so one either went to lunch during one and class during the other or vice versa. Merle went on to Gym class for fourth period and had lunch during fifth. Gym was like any and every gym class on planet Earth. After attendance, students did five minutes of calisthenics, laps, stretches, and progressed straight into some group physical activity the teacher had nicely planned and then managed the class through. Ten minutes before the end, the whistle blew and students had to get showered (or not), dress, and get to the last two classes after lunch period. Merle was somewhat athletic, not weak, but not bulging with muscles or impressive with physical skills. He just held his own. His B was fine with him and, apparently, with his teacher who admired his effort every day.

He hustled all the way across the building from gym to the cafeteria to eat. Most days, he’d stop and get his packed lunch at his locker on the way to eat it but on others, he just bought it if he had the money. He didn’t have much money because he had no job, unless it was football season and he and two brothers worked in a concessions stand at Notre Dame football games. His lunches from home were basic—usually a sandwich of some kind, a fruit, and chips or some kind of cookie. He bought milk in the lunch line and might pluck a dessert of some kind from that last section of the lunch cafeteria line, again, if he had some extra change—but not often.

The last two classes of the day at Thomas Jefferson High School for Merle were Language and Latin I. One supported the other, Merle would come to learn, as many new vocabulary words he encountered in Language had Latin origins. He selected Latin over rival languages, Spanish, French, and German because the idea of studying for the bar exam one day made Latin the only sensible choice for a foreign language.

Latin, Merle had learned, was the mother and vernacular of the law profession. Its role in the formation, with the not subtle force of Roman Empire, of European languages raised its stock, at least in Merle’s eyes, in the final weeks of eighth grade when decisions were made to design one’s freshman class schedule. Mrs. Janowski made sure Merle and his fellow Latin scholars stayed on track and turned their choice into an advantage, from an academic point of view.

Another unanticipated reward of taking Latin was how much easier Language class became. Latin’s complexity was the English language’s simplicity. Language class included literature and writing as one without the other was just about as sensible as peanut butter without jelly. Ending his day with Language and Latin helped Merle open his imagination after earlier classes had boxed it in and worn it out. The bright and wistful glee he found in Language class was transformed into the surety, stability, and structure of Roman culture and civilization as described by Latin nouns, verbs, and declensions. Words and images combining to inspire his opened mind was all Merle could ask for during his ever-so-crucial first year of high school. A well-rounded education grounded in literacy served Merle well every day from then on.

Without even realizing it, Merle was stretching out mentally as well as physically. His relatively slender, rounded frame was becoming elongated as his legs sprouted out over the summer after eighth grade like two weeds in the soybean field. His brain also underwent cerebral expansion that fall of ’67, like never before. Merle’s assumptions were multiplying and his conclusions forming new underpinnings to his general understanding of life and people.

The classes at Jefferson High School were far more demanding and challenging than in junior high, but that was not a great surprise to him. Merle not only understood the knowledge he was now gaining, he knew how his thinking was changing in a necessary adaptive adjustment to his elementary, country-cooked way of thinking. He now loved poetry and Shakespeare. Where that came from didn’t matter to him. He just knew it was cool.

Then, along came Susan. Like his intellect, Merle’s feelings began a whirlwind rollercoaster ride through a maze of confusion and intrigue. She quietly and smoothly strolled into Latin class the first day with her hands clutching binders and books as she looked around the room at the posters, messages, and artwork Mrs. Janowski had painstakingly placed on the walls, chalkboards, and bulletin boards.

Susan said soft hellos to a few of her new classmates, sat down, and organized her desktop. Merle consciously took his eyes off of her but kept stealing quick, stealthy glances whenever he sensed that she was looking ahead or the opposite direction. He thought that her smile was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen anywhere, anytime. Her more-than-shoulder-length blonde hair was perfect, he thought, and it became so hard to keep his eyes off of her. But he knew he must or risk being caught ogling at the lovely girl on the first day of school.

Oh, goodness, Merle. Get a hold of yourself, his inner voice demanded of him. This is Latin class, you moron! Talk to her later. Right now, get out your spiral notebook and act like you know what’cherdoin’. Wonder what her name is.

It was Susan. When Mrs. Janowski was taking attendance, it was easy for Merle to wait until she said, Here, to figure out her name. But she didn’t respond as Merle expected.

Susan Grayson? was Mrs. Janowski’s attendance inquiry as she read down her list of first year Latin students.

Yes, ma’am, I am Susan, she replied, raising her hand and smiling to her new teacher. Mrs. Janowski acknowledged her with a smile of her own and continued reading.

Matthew Hale?

Here, Matt replied.

As she made her way to his letter in the alphabet, Merle wondered how he should answer. In a rare impulsive moment, he answered.

Um, yes, ma’am. I am Merle Lindstrom, mimicking Susan’s very polite reply style.

Mrs. Janowski also acknowledged his courteous answer with a glance and a smile. Merle’s heart was thumping inside his chest cavity and his fingertips were tapping his desk over and over again. He concealed his peak, but shot a quick glance over to Susan’s desk where he noticed her looking at him, then smiling when their eyes briefly met. Merle returned the smile and lifted up his right hand in a semi wave hello. She widened her pursed-lips slightly and turned her attention back to Mrs. Janowski.

Merle was filled with a calm, warm relief, as if he’d been given a medication to relax before heading into some kind of surgery. His fingers stopped tapping the desk, his heartbeat slowed and decreased in intensity. He was just noticed by the prettiest girl he had ever seen in the world. Staring at a dot on his desk for some unknown amount of seconds, he replayed his attendance answer, his glance at Susan, her smile, his wave, her better smile over and over until something Mrs. Janowski said broke his replay and restored his attention and learning mode that his new acquaintance had derailed a minute earlier.

Let’s go over this class syllabus together, his teacher said. And feel free to raise your hand with questions if there is something that you don’t understand.

Raise your hand, Merle thought. She wants us to raise our hand if we don’t understand something. Cool, I did that already, huh?

His inner voice was repeating the words of his teacher as he’d done for as long as he could remember in every class he’d ever wandered into. He was cool with that and would do it if the need arose, he decided that day. Time just shot by, then, and the school day came to an end. Merle headed for the bus-ride home thinking a million things all at once. He was going to like high school, he decided.

There was no homework that first day, except for students who didn’t have all of their supplies to go get them as soon as they could.

How could you do school work without pencils, pens, paper, or notebooks? he wondered. Merle had everything already, as his family had gone to K-Mart the weekend before and bought everybody’s new school supplies, and some shirts, pants, and light jackets. It was an annual tradition in the Lindstrom household when Back to School sales drew them out of their countrified, lake area, little crowded home to obtain the materials of learning and looking good doing it.

On Tuesday of the second week of school, Merle headed for lunch after an invigorating gym class. His chest was still burning slightly from running around the track. Now, after a shower and stopping by his locker to pick up his sack lunch, he walked, single file, into the cafeteria line. With a buck in his pocket and a half-mile in his legs, he’d decided pie sounded pretty darned good.

Getting in line about halfway back from the entrance to the kitchen lines, he turned around and saw Susan walk in and join everyone else getting into line. He estimated that she was six people back, divided by two because there were two lines at the doorway to the kitchen, times fifteen seconds per student, she would walk out about forty-five seconds to a minute after him. The question was, which door would she exit from and then steer her to one side of the cafeteria or the other. He knew it would be completely 50/50 chance that she’d exit on the side he did.

He picked out his piece of cherry pie among three choices, including apple and key lime. After paying his fifty cents, he turned to look which line Susan had chosen and it wasn’t his.

No problem, he thought. I’ll head across and sit over on the other side to be nearby her.

He crossed through the remaining line to the kitchen and took a seat at a table by himself like he always did. Merle was shy and preferred to eat quietly and even read sometimes while he ate. Close to his earlier calculation, Susan appeared from the food line exit and wandered past three tables and took a seat at Merle’s, across from him, and two seats over from his.

He looked up and said, Hi, Susan, as she placed her tray down and returned his greeting.

Well, hi, Murrow. How are you today?

Merle was enchanted that she remembered his name from being in the same Latin class and she said it wonderfully, in his opinion. It sounded more like Murrow to him, but hey, that was fine and dandy as far as he was concerned.

Oh, actually, I’m still catching my breath from running a half mile in gym last hour. I’m tired—but I also feel very invigorated, you know? I think this lunch is going to disappear pretty fast, today. How about you? Everything going good, I hope?

Very well, thank you for asking, she stated matter-of-factly and broke into a short, quiet and shy laugh. "I know what you mean about distance running. It’s different than with just short, little jaunts. When a person puts their body through an extended workout, like you did, he or she can actually feel better, rather than worse than before they started. It’s strange, Murrow."

He smiled and nodded in agreement while analyzing with his inner voice as to whether she really understood his name was Merle, pronounced quickly, like Earl, or if she thought he was actually named Murrow. He quickly decided not to correct her and let it go for some other time or to count on her realizing her mistake on her own once she might see his named spelled, somehow or other. The main thing this minute, he reflected, was that they were talking and that she sat by him, not the other way around.

Yes! he mused. It turned out to be the beginning of a mutually enjoyed relationship.

Merle and Susan worked together when they had the option in Latin, started standing by each other in the hallway for brief conversations between classes, and sat by each other from time to time during lunch. It would be months before he finally popped the question as to whether she would agree