Johnny

When I was in the sixth grade, I had a crush on Johnny Lobel. Johnny was the new boy and he was tall which was more than could be said for all the other boys. Not only was he new and tall but he came from a family of seven children and they had been home schooled previously. How exotic!

His mom was the school librarian and a group of us girls would help her out on Thursdays at lunch reshelving the books. Again, we found this exotic. We were somewhere besides the lunch room during lunch and we were reshelving books! With Johnny Lobel's mom!

I think he reached the hotness quotient with his short story, "The Cyclops." Johnny was the first student ever of Mr. Till's to receive a perfect grade on a writing assignment.

Mr. Till told us the story of the grading process how he read it over and over again and then how he had his wife, Sharon, read it twice. He had a grading rubric and Johnny had accomplished everything required. And he had accomplished in exceptionally.

The funny thing is, I never referenced those grading rubrics ever. My guess is no one did, otherwise there would probably be more perfect scores. Johnny knew what he was doing.

Johnny was the first guy I thought I might have a chance with; we were friends. He left at the end of sixth grade, to travel somewhere new with his large exotic family. Charlotte kept in touch with him (I was never good at writing letters) and in eighth grade we found out he had a girlfriend.

As with all old memories, I wondered where he was. Maybe he is wondering about me. Maybe he lives down the street. I must know.

So I looked him up on the internet and I found a picture of him, probably another 6 inches taller than when I knew him, embracing a very beautiful girl. And the picture was not outdated.

Here's to you, home-taught Johnny. I hope you're happy.