A Coming Of Age Story — Non Fiction

From my memoirs

Certain memories no matter how minor sometimes stay with us. One of my favorites is of a young woman that I met in the Catskill Mountain town of Monticello.

I must have been about 13 years old, and she must have been about 17 or 18. I met her in the penny arcade on East Broadway. She had wonderfully wavy hair, hair out of a Clairol commercial.

Her muscular arms were covered in a rolled-up red flannel shirt. She wore tight jeans and well-worn cowboy boots. She smelled like horses.

We started a conversation and we took to each other immediately. She said she was a nomad and that she worked at racetracks training horses, and shoveling horseshit.

She said she was from Kentucky, and I can remember her deep southern drawl. I loved the way she pronounced the word Creek — “Crick”. I invited her over to my house. I knew my sister and my mother were there cooking. She gladly walked with me wrapping her arm and mine, and occasionally draping her arm over my shoulder. Like a caring friend might. We laughed all the way to our destination.

When we got home my sister and mother welcomed her and made Southern Fried Chicken. We all ate joyously. I knew she was lying when she said it was the best Southern Fried Chicken she had ever had. We learned…