My Fear of Girls on a Higher Level of Life

as you look at the photos on this essay, you will recognize both photos. The one (below) this note is The University of Alabama--Crimson Tide cheerleader squad. The photo at the bottom is the lovely Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. My assigning the photos in their positions was not a political decision, but a decision made by common sense.

My logic was the greatest possibility of the girls shown on this essay reading this piece and possibly contacting me would of course be The Crimson Tide cheer leading squad, not Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge--that is of course I have a follower who resides in England who would tramp to Buckingham Palace and upon making an appointment with Queen Elizabeth, is able to show this hub to Kate Middleton.

But there again, I am somewhat of a big dreamer.

(Kenneth)

I've wasted, for desperate lack of an upper-class operative word, hours upon hours of time wondering why I have this cold, nameless fear of certain females. Not as much a fear of their physical prowess and abilities to beat my butt twenty ways to Sunday. No. A fear that over the course of my life on earth, I have given it (out of fright) a home inside my spirit--I assume that this fear and its family have enjoyed all of the free rent that I have given them for years. One more time. For years.

This simpleton essay should have had the natural expertise of the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's typewriter all over it for if it did, the gasps, ooo's and aaaahhh's, would be deafening. Really. More decibels in the cries of joy and amazement that when Lou Gehrig gave his farewell address in Yankee Stadium. That is another type of loudness on its own decibel count and possibly its own zip code.

Now to get in high gear. Alas (what a sophisticated word) I am no Dr. Thompson and no one will ever be that "Prince of The Printed Word," and "The Father of Gonzo Journalism," ever again while our earth slowly turns and burns away. (that sentence came fearfully close to a lyric by the late guitarist guru, Alvin Lee, leader of Ten Years After--and their song, "As The Sun Still Burns Away" you should listen to this vinyl masterpiece from their album Cricklewood Green).

I get side-tracked easily. But you already know that from how I ended the above paragraph. I still miss Alvin to this day. Back to me fearing a certain breed of female and why? Did you like that introduction to another series of my hidden thoughts that I am not afraid to bare to the thousands who are members of HubPages (free plug) and why should I? If I were a degenerate gambler and had $45,000.00 cash in my front left trouser pocket, I would be it all, "bet the farm" as Las Vegas high rollers say while intoxicated on adrenaline and booze. I would bet every penny of my loot knowing that my wife would be hungry, but I would take home over $150,000.00 cash in now both of my front trouser pockets that even after you read this unraveling of feelings, be able to tell me why I fear the likes of Kate Middleton; Britney Spears; Jessica Alba; Gracie Slick and oh yes, Ann-Margaret.

Why should I fear the angelic Ann-Margaret anyhow? With just a wink from her steamy eyes, an entire crew of cement workers on a high-rise steel structure in downtown Manhattan would run like apes and chimpanzees to jump on elevators, steel girders and what ropes they could find just to make their way to her presence. Men, am I telling one or not?

At my present age, I may be stretching it a bit, but when Ann-Margaret is being thought of or written about, no, sir. I am afraid that one of her close friends who as luck or fate might have it planned to peruse stories on HubPages on a certain day and there they would read this piece and just seeing my mention of the most gorgeous female to ever be born in Sweden, just might pay me a visit that is filled with tension and stress.

On second thought, I would put Agnetha Fältskog, blond vocalist for 80’s rock band from Sweden, Abba, ahead of Margaret but only by a horse’s nose. There I go with that degenerate Las Vegas gambler lingo.

I can, without the assistance of modern-day therapists with names like “J. John Wilmington,” trace my fear of high-level girls and women all the way back to when I was forced to ride a yellow school bus (manufactured by Blue Bird, who made all of the school buses in 1962) by myself due to my dad being atop a Ford Harvester tractor tilling the land that he was share cropping just so I had clothes and shoes to attend school and my mom, rest her soul, was disabled for four months thanks to my sister accidentally knocking a dishpan of scalding water from our wood stove onto her left leg. In short, I had to meet the yellow school bus and attend my first day of regular school alone. All alone. And it was drizzling rain to boot.

I was scared inside and out. Of what? Meeting new folks, rules for school kids and for the riding of the yellow school bus. I sure hope that songster, Dan Seals is not reading this for he just might have another hit song on his hands named “Yellow School Bus,” to match his sad-toned “My Old Yellow Car.”

I walked up the three steps to the inside of the bus. The bus driver, Mr. Linlon (pronounced Lenn-YON) Cox, smacked his chewing gum, smiled at me and I knew that I was going to be fine.

Truth be told, I had much rather (have) stood on my first ride on a yellow school bus, but I heard the melodious voice of a very pretty blond named Peggy (her real name) say, “you can sit with me,” and man, I thought that at age seven I was about to head through the open Pearly Gates.

Peggy was wearing a pretty blue skirt and it was not that short either, but yes, I did look at her legs which would have sold a few thousand or so of Gillette razors. I did not make any inappropriate moves for at age seven, I did not know any. No male figure in my family or even the naredewells that came in and out of our neighborhood bothered to educate me on how a seven-year-old guy can “make a move” on an older girl and not have his butt paddled or whipped with his dad’s leather belt. No one cared to tell me the things to say or do with girls of my age or in Peggy’s case, an older female.

With any study, personal or public, after an accepted length of time, there should be findings, proof pro or con, and conclusive points about the subject that was being studied.

The one main thing that I did find out about why I fear girls and women who live on a higher level of life is that females are dangerous. And I mean dangerous, boy. Compared to lighting the fuse to a keg of black powder used to move rocks and earth in a gold mine, I had rather sit and watch the fuse burn slowly away until the very last second and then run, than be enclosed in a steel shipping container like those you see on the docks in New Jersey, Miami and other blue collar places with one of these females.

I would even settle for an angry wolverine as opposed to an upper level female trying her best to bring my blood to my skin with her perfect slaps. I am telling you young men reading this, high level women are dangerous. Now I am not implying that the “dangerous” I am using is to be in the same category as diving from the top floor of The Empire State building without a parachute and on a drunken dare, but close. Very close.

At age seven, males do not yet know the value of their ego and its low thresh hold for humiliation. That will come little by little as males grow from boys to men. The battles are many, but the growth is priceless.

Personally speaking, I can recall from a chronological standpoint, each humiiliating moment a cast of dangerous females dealt me from age seven and a few when became a man with a tattered mind and self-image. The worst humiliation came one morning around 10 a.m. and on that particular day, the rest of the class just had to all be present--not absent like most regular-minded, absent-minded students. No, this was a sold-out performance.

I, along with the cast of twenty or so students were working slothfully-as-possible (most students do this) on some irrelevant (old) Math test. The classroom was almost silent except for a few coughs, whispers unheard by our elderly teacher, and some scuffs of a few pairs of shoes on the authentic hardwood floor. Just another day in this drudgerous existence.

And just as I was about to tell walk up to the front of my elderly teacher’s desk to tell her a colorful, clever lie about having to visit the boys’ room to empty my stomach due to a violent virus that I had contracted on the bus that morning, pretty Deborah Broome, a stylish young lady with a background of perfect manners (I thought) tip-toe’d past my desk in a pace that was faster than her manners had allowed in past days.

Before I share how she damaged my young self-image, imagine for a moment, the film that shows the mushroom cloud rising over Hiroshima after the U.S. dropped “Fat Boy,” the first working atomic bomb made in the desert of New Mexico under the obvious shroud of The Manhattan Project. What a day for America that was.

Now that you have that horrific image of the mushroom cloud planted securely in your mortal mind, here is what pretty, mannerly Deborah Broome did that brought the entire classroom to an open gasp. Plus a few stares in disbelief.

I was innocent of what I done believe me. Most boys at age seven are innocent without swearing an oath. All I clearly remember doing was saying to Broome as she went by me, “hey, where are you going?”

The atomic make-up and sub-structures of the air in our classroom began to collide. Books hit the floor for no reason. Our elderly teacher woke up as Broome instantly turned from a young, manner-designed, pretty girl into a ghoulish-looking and sounding demon from the lowest Hell and replied as loudly as any P.A. speaker of that time could produce, “to the girls’ bathroom. Do you want to go with me?” Her pretty fangs, errr, teeth, I swear to you, ground against each other as those harsh, humiliating words rolled from her pouty lips that were now similar to the snout of a rogue alligator never caught in the Everglades for taking the lives of four different tourists from Roanoke, Virginia, who were only taking in the sights.

My head, without me having to think, hit the top of my wooden desk with the impact of those test vehicles that reliable auto insurance companies use to see which American-made automobile can take the hardest crash. I saw a handful of yellow stars mingled with a beautiful chorus singing, “Oh, Mine Papa,” in perfect Italian. I was almost sad to come back to reality as the beautiful singing began to fade. I was left to guess that the perfectly-trained chorus had been invited to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I even heard Ed with that, “ . . .and now,” as he and his stiff neck peered into this packed audience. But the words “and now” was only our elderly teacher who was managing to form the words, “now, now,” the perfect vocal deterrent against classroom violence leading to youthful anarchy.

Broome was so steeped in her growing anger that she was still standing glaring at me with that demonic face--as I mumbled and fumbled with words of apologetic nature, as sweat rolled from my forehead--our elderly teacher, a cold natured old woman, made absolutely sure that the steam radiator in our room was always turned up to the “wide open” position the year around. I did learn that the human being is capable to adapting to the most abstract and uncomfortable environment.

I could also smell that hellish, deathly aroma being emitted from Broome’s once-feminine body that had grown into the disgusting, nauseating shape of an ancient troll, the child born of the union between a demon and a stray dog eaten up with mange. Words cannot aptly describe just how awful this “being” was who had taken Barbara Broome’s place in front of my desk. It looked so awful that not even Boris Korloff or Vincent Price, both legendary actors of those classic black and white films of old Hollywood would dare to even read for this role.

Speaking of Ed Sullivan, this is the perfect link to the ending of this one humiliating event that helped to wreck my young life. Do you recall the many comedians who got their start on Sullivan’s show? Do you also recall the few comedians who not only started on his show, but made a lucrative career of making people laugh?

Take Shecky Greene for instance. He started out as a nervous, anxious, comedian with bad timing to his one-liners and ended up in a few films and other return visits to the Sullivan Show. But I can testify to the fact that when he was “on” there was not a serious look or thought in the theater. Greene was absolutely funny as a well-versed drunk in any bar on a Friday night after a long day of panhandling.

“Barbara, I am sure that Kenneth did not mean to be ugly,” our elderly teacher said with obvious fear in her voice.

Barbara, errr, the ugly satanic troll turned her glare from me to the elderly teacher--I could even detect the labored breathing from the demon’s lungs. It sounded like a dull handsaw being forced (by a cheap carpenter) to cut a seasoned piece of lumber that he was going to use in building a customer’s doghouse.

The “Barb Troll,” as I mentally nick-named her, breathed a labored breath and turned slowly toward me. Our elderly teacher, scared for how she began stuttering like (some) attending a tent meeting revival in the early 1950’s.

“I’m sorry! I wish that I would die!” I remember screaming directly into the gaping, awful smelling mouth of that terrible beast who was obviously dumb and without any understanding to perceive that I was not feeling well about my foolish question.”

Then our elderly school teacher found a few ounces of bravery as she took the “Barb Troll” by her left hand and slowly began walking toward the classroom door whispering reinforcement to the beast who almost took my very life just by the aroma of that breath that smelled similar to an animal corpse laying open in the forest.

I was half relieved and half worried that our elderly teacher had already sided with “Barb Troll,” to get our elderly woman principal, a stern Mrs. Lucille Mixon, who was every bit as evil and looking as “Barb.” Could be that Mixon would lose her temper and growl at “Barb Troll” banishing her from existence--no more a member of the human race.

Then like in a cheap magic show, a map hanging over the huge blackboard fell like a stone onto the hardwood floor causing the girl students to scream in fright as some of the male students jumped underneath their desks for safety.

The steam radiator at the back of the room suddenly stopped and with one last gasp of steam, it quivered as it shut down. (I am not a warlock, so do not create such evil in your thoughts).
Outside on the playground a harsh gust of wind blew the swings to and fro with the sun shining. We were surely experiencing the end of time. Well at least I won’t be dealing with the “Barb Troll” anymore, I thought.

You know something. When you are young or old, and “that” scariest of moments is facing you, your senses become so much sharper and you suddenly feel a sudden euphoric burst of peace. That is what happened to me as all of this witchery in the swings, map, and radiator was happening.

I heard heavy footsteps outside in the hallway. Footsteps that could only be made by an adult man, not an adult woman for women, as I learned later, walk softer than ape-like adult men. This fact has been documented and proven.

In slow motion, the door to our classroom opened and in stepped “Barb Troll” glaring at what members of the class that she could see and then to me as I had feared. She was followed by our elderly school teacher who was still mumbling something that I always thought were prayers.

This was it. I was going to die at age seven inside a smelly classroom at the hands of a shape-shifting, feminine, well-behaved girl by the deceptive name of Barbara Broome. What an epitaph this would make. Oh, what if I had been warned eons earlier in an earlier life? Why did I not heed to what was told to me by the faceless man who wore a green cloak?

“Here lies our son, Kenny, who was eaten by a mysterious beast.” Even the mortician didn’t want to offend “Barb Troll” for how he changed “terrible,”to “mysterious.”

When the beast finally dragged its lazy, lumbering feet to stand in front of my desk, I froze. I was sitting with my eyes shut tightly as any seven-year-old would do under the same circumstances. I knew that the next bus that I would ride would be the “Grim Reaper Express,” but what if . . .”Barb Troll” had been the Grim Reaper all of this time? Yeah. That was the answer. I smiled as if I had been adopted by the parents of the Hardy Boys for my young detective skills.

Slowly and methodically, “Barb Troll,” changed back into this pretty, soft spoken young lady who had visited Japan with her parents in the fall before starting class in this school.

“It’s okay,” she softly said. And walked away. The elderly teacher fell asleep on her desk once again.

And neither of the two bothered to offer me an apology.