Larry B.

 

In 1961 I was in the ninth grade at Edgewood high school.  In Miss Hidecker’s civics class, we were studying various countries of the world.  She had us pick a country, look up the address of the embassy in Washington, D.C., and write to it about free information about their country.  My country was China, and I requested the information.  In about a month, I received a long, cardboard tube in the mail.  The return address was the Chinese embassy.  I excitedly opened the tube to find a full color map of China.  All of the names of the cities, states, mountains, and rivers were written in Chinese.  I brought the map to school the next day and was showing it off to some friends before Mr. Archer’s science class.  Larry B. asked to see it.  I handed it to Larry, he took it, and quickly twisted it up tearing it in the middle.  I was stunned!  Larry just looked at me and laughed.  But no one else was laughing, they were looking at Larry with disgust.  But he didn’t care.  That was Larry.  In a moment, I hated Larry.  He had done a despicable deed for no reason at all.  I felt like smashing his face, but I didn’t.  My dad had taught me self-restraint, and I’m glad that he had, because at that moment, I needed self-restraint.  I have never Larry’s indifference nor my feeling of pain, anger, and bitterness.  Hey, that’s been sixty years ago!  But Larry probably never gave it a second thought.  Larry was just like that.  Mean and careless.  And everyone knew it.  Solomon said in Proverbs 12:8, “… he that is of a perverse heart shall be despised.”  Well, that’s Larry.  I wonder which prison Larry is in right now?  I’ll have to write to him.  Not.