Walking and Reading

Although I never was part of the hippie crowd, I didn't really hang out with the good kids, either.  I had acquaintances, girls I talked to in class and church, but no really close friends during those years.  It seemed to me that all these girls had their own best friends and I was just the hanger on the outside; everyone seemed to like me but I wasn't any one's best friend.  I was OK with that, I never wanted a best friend, but it made lunch time kind of lonely.  Sometimes I hung around with 'the group', but mostly I just quickly ate my sack lunch and then excused myself.  I had discovered the school library, and it was my hangout.  I could go in there, find a table all to myself, and read!  That I liked. 

I loved reading.  When I was young it was the Nancy Drew Mysteries or the Little House on the Prairie series and classics like Heidi and The Secret Garden.  As I grew older I started reading books mom liked and soon found myself hooked on Agatha Christie murder mysteries.  Oh, those were fun!  Once I got into a good book I hated to put it down until I'd found out who done it, so I'd read on my way to school, all through my lunch hour, and as I walked home after school.  I got pretty good at walking and reading at the same time, developing a sixth sense for curbs and driveways and crossing streets.  It's a good thing most of the walk from our house to the junior high was on residential back roads, and I only had to cross one main street.

Still, once in a while reading while walking got me into trouble.  There was this one day, during lunch hour, when I had finished eating and was heading to the library.  I was in the middle of a particularly intense murder mystery, but I decided I would stop and go to the bathroom before I went to the library so I wouldn't have to stop reading until the bell rang for my next class.  I started across the middle of the big hall, reading while I walked.  The bathrooms were just before the library, first the girls, then the boys.  Spellbound, I walked across the hall, turned a page, blindly grabbed the bathroom door handle, tugged it open, and walked in, focusing on the mystery in my book.  Once in the bathroom I lowered my book, looked up, and to my horror realized I was not in the girl’s bathroom.  It was the boys!  Thank goodness there were no boys inside, but that didn't alleviate my horror, or the embarrassment of having to turn around and walk out of that room.  Actually, I think I ran, hoping against hope that no one would be looking and see me come out.  I guess no one did, at least no one said anything, thank goodness.  It didn't cure me of walking and reading, but it did make me look up more often.