26th
4ever.
A group of young people was just paraded past my desk on a tour of our offices. They are winners of an innovation competition and we’re hosting them at a series of events culminating in a forum. And they all get little trophies.
It all reminded me a bit of Rushmore. But going further back, I had a flash of me sitting on a corner wall one sunny afternoon late in the elementary school year, waiting patiently for a young woman to pass, a young woman who passed me every day as I walked home from school and she walked to her shift as a nurse.
It had been our annual “Field Day” at school and I had kicked ass at all the running and jumping events, and I had ALL THESE RIBBONS. I just sat there with the ribbons, looking at them lazily, noncommittally, waiting for this woman I didn’t know to see me with them. And she did, and she smiled and congratulated me, and I just smiled, and after that I forgot all about the ribbons because she had dark eyes and dark hair and white stockings and I didn’t understand it at the time but I was completely head over heels in love with her.
