highline56 Vignettes

Sonny and I were close friends through high school and college. How close? He introduced me to grits. Not just grits, but how to eat them, mixed with crumpled bacon and chopped up fried eggs. That close. Sonny was always concerned with what people thought of him, adults in particular, and teachers especially. So it probably says more about me than it does about him that the day I most remember was when he got caught doing something really stupid and infantile, in front of a teacher no less.

We sat next to each other in Lydia Palmer's Latin class. When she was out of the room, I discovered it was hilarious to rapidly slide my chair back and forth, banging the attached desk on the back of the chair of the girl ahead. It was even funnier to make car roaring noises along with the banging. Sonny could always do things better than I could, so he took up the banging and roaring, with improvements. You kind of had to bow your head to bang and roar at the same time, so he didn't notice Ms. Palmer reenter the room and look for the source of the strange sounds. I did, and sat back to defer to Sonny's efforts. I debated whether to alert Sonny as she came down the aisle. He didn't notice her standing there and the banging and roaring continued. Everybody in the room was holding their breath, and finally she interrupted with "why Sonny, I am surprised at you". As he crumpled, she gave me a look like she had it figured, but was having a hard time keeping from laughing herself. Anyway, he hit me later. I made the car roaring noise, so he hit me again.