Love--Is Anybody Game for That?

Love--Is Anybody game for that?

I am back to my old self, using the first person singular pronoun and talking about myself and singing about love, something I often do when having nothing to occupy my mind.

A young girl of 16, imagine that, only 16, sweet little sixteen, called me up this afternoon, interrupted my nap, and told me she loved me. Not just some Platonic love, but apparently romantic kind. Her words jerked me wide awake. I sat straight up, asked her to repeat herself because it sounded too good to be true, since you see, I am 66 years old, though still virile and looking at least 15 years younger, I am old enough to be her grandpa. At first, I thought she played a joke on me or someone put her to it, like a dare or something. But, heavens no, she sounded damn serious, and got all pissed off and cried when I kept asking her " Are you sure?".

Her grandpa and I are old (pun intended) buddies. We went to high school and college together. At first, we didn't really like each other much. But one day, Harry, her grandpa, didn't do his homework on world history class in our sophomore year in high school, and since I was known to be a whiz on the subject (I often challenged and talked back to Mr. Zimmerman, our dull, drooling, curmudgeon, close-to-retirement, history teacher who reluctantly admitted from time to time that I could be right. Nobody knew that I had been interested in history of the world since I was six and read almost nothing else), he shyly asked me if he could "borrow" my homework. To his relief, I quickly said yes. Ever since that day, he and I became close friends. It also helped that he lived in a much bigger house than I did. He often invited me for a snack of cookies and ice cream and a game of pool after school. We often played until 5 pm, before his Dad came home from work.

(cont.)