Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes

One of my Facebook friends asked a question tonight: "what was the quirkiest/most interesting thing about your childhood, and how did it shape the adult you became?" Ever since I read that question I have been trying to think of things in my childhood that made lasting impressions on me. If you are a regular reader of Tug's Life then you know my childhood was filled with interesting and quirky things. I've got a pretty good memory (some say it's selective) and I can sit for hours just pulling things out of my head from the past. Every now and then I'll remember something that I had not thought of since it happened, but there are always those memories that are with my almost constant.

One memory that I think about every now and then is one that happened to me back around 1973 or '74. It was during the summer months during school break. My dad was a Knox Co. School teacher and he got paid on the 25th of every month. We used to sit on the couch and stare out the window waiting for the mail man to deliver the check. Sometimes in a move of desperate anticipation, mom would drive down the road to see where the mail man was. We won't even talk about that terrible day that the mail man didn't stop!

So, it was pay day and the Chesney family was out on the town. We all had our allowance and we got to choose where we would spend it. We ALWAYS went to the K-mart, if for no other reason than because they had air conditioning there. We never had AC in our house and when we would feel that blast of cold air hit us as we walked into the front doors of the K-mart, we thought we were in Heaven. Well, right up the hill from K-mart was Kay's Ice Cream, and that's where my memory comes from tonight....read on....

My sister Pam, and I, had been craving something cold and sweet. My favorite was a chocolate malt. Pam usually got a chocolate shake or a double scoop of chocolate ice cream. We sauntered up to the counter and straddled the round, swivel stools. I did a couple of spins around on mine while Pam laughed and gazed at the large vats of ice cream behind the counter. I knew that I wanted a chocolate malt, a large one at that! I had enough money to buy it. The lady walked up to the counter and said, "what can I get you all?" I stopped spinning on my stool and looked up at the lady. She stared at me and with a huge smile and said, "Oh, you have the most beautiful brown eyes I have ever seen in my life!" I probably turned 3 shades of red and didn't know what to say. The lady then turned to another lady that was working there and said, "I want you to look at this young man's eyes, ain't they the purtiest you've ever seen?" The other lady looked at me and nodded her head in agreement. "Yep, those are some pretty brown eyes alright." I looked over at Pam and she looked at me and rolled her eyes.

We gave our order, got our stuff, paid and turned to walk away. The lady behind the counter shouted out at me, "you come back again... brown eyes!" It was a wonder I was able to fit my head through the door as I made my way back out to the parking lot. Pam laughed at me and said something about my "girlfriend." I was embarrassed and slipped into the back seat of dad's car and wondered about just how pretty my eyes must have been. As soon as we got home that night I went and looked into the mirror. My eyes didn't look any different than any other brown eyes I had ever seen. But, what did I know? I reckon the lady at Kay's Ice Cream knows more about eyes than I did.

Isn't it funny how something small like that would stick around inside of my memory all of these years? I guess it's because it was something personal and it came from someone other than an immediate family member. I suppose the lesson from this is that we should go out of our way to notice people and say a nice word. You never know what it might mean to them.