Page 169 - WhyAsInY

sons (anD Mostly DauGHters) of tHe Blue anD WHite
• I’ve already mentioned Linda Lee a number of times and referred to her as one of the most wonderful people I’d ever met, and I men- tioned Marcia, Linda’s best friend, as well. Marcia was also one of the most wonderful people whom I’ve ever met. If an autobiography has anything to do with what was important to the author and what has made a difference in the author’s life, I must speak a little about Linda and Marcia: Linda was truly an anomaly at Midwood. In a school the population of which was predominately Jewish and, if not Jewish, then Roman Catholic, Linda was a beautiful, blue-eyed, very fair and very slender, almost fragile, blond Protestant, one of the few Protestants whom I’d ever met. In a school where many of the fami- lies were “well off ” and very often professional, Linda’s family was blue collar. Marcia, for her part, was the daughter of religious Jews from Eastern Europe. She was a very dark, very striking, brown- eyed, very slender brunette, who was virtually Linda’s age and size. Her father was a tailor.
• Marcia and Linda were very close, and they both became very close to me. Both had siblings, but, for some reason, they in effect added me to their families, from sophomore year on. I guess that I might have been unusual for a boy in that I had a “sensitive side” and had no problem speaking about my feelings, especially to girls. They were both willing to listen and respond, and they would both speak to me about their feelings. Whether it was on the phone or in per- son, two of us or all three, we talked, we laughed, we dealt with the tribulations of the present, and we thought about the future. There were sometimes tears, and there was comforting. As I mentioned, I did have a girlfriend through high school, Lesley. But in a real sense, Linda and Marcia were more important to me. They were not my girlfriends; they were my girl friends. And they were my sisters. As I write this, I am still in touch with Marcia, not often but certainly on every birthday. I am in touch with Linda in spirit alone, however, and I often think about her, always with a tear welling up. She was not happy as a young adult. Marcia called me one evening in October
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