The Boy with the Crew Cut

It was autumn in Iowa, 1963. I was fourteen and about to begin eighth grade. My mother remarried--for the sixth time--and we moved from my hometown of Muscatine to a farm just outside the rural community of Atalissa. This was the nineteenth move for me since my dad died in 1953. I was four back then.

I remember the first morning of school, standing next to the white metal mailbox at the end of the gravel driveway--in my new blue dress from Montgomery Ward-watching the yellow school bus approach. Other than field trips, this was my first experience riding a bus to and from school. It was my first experience living on a farm.

The bus stopped. The door opened. I took a deep breath, focused my eyes straight ahead and climbed the steps. I could do this. I did it many times before...new friends, new school, new teachers. I looked down the aisle. There were two other students on the bus--teenage boys, one older than the other, seated separately near the back--both were cute, both were sporting crew cuts. They resembled one another; probably brothers. I sat a few rows in front of them. The driver continued picking up students along the five-mile route until we arrived at West Liberty High School more than an hour later.

I spent the first month of those bus rides sitting in the same seat, looking out the window or reading a book. I didn't talk to anyone and no one talked to me. One afternoon as I walked down the center aisle, all that changed. The younger brother sitting in back scooted over next to the window and asked,
"Wanna sit with me?"

Yes, I did.

His name was Leo Samuelson, his brother's name was Dennis. They lived about a mile up the road from me and from that day on, we sat together and chatted about everything teenagers chat about...school, homework, music, family and friends. I drove my go-kart to his house sometimes in the evenings or on the weekend to visit. Through Leo I met others on the bus--Connie, Sandra and Patty--and joined the local Wapsie Cedar Pals 4-H Club with them. When the West Liberty Belles women's basketball team made the State play-offs in Des Moines, several of us rode the pep bus together. By the end of the school year, Leo and I held hands a couple of times on the way home. He was my first real crush.

That school year I made a friend in Leo Samuelson. He was kind and made an effort to reach out to me. He had no way of knowing how lonely and isolated I was on the farm or how much his friendship meant to me. At the end of the school year, my mother's marriage ended in divorce and we moved away. I never saw Leo again. I never got the chance to tell him good-bye or to thank him for being kind and for being my friend.

This summer I returned to Muscatine for my 45-year class reunion and spent three lovely weeks renewing past friendships. One afternoon--toward the end of my stay--my sister Martha and I were returning from shopping. As we drove along she pointed to a farm house on the left side of the road. "That's where my friend Mary and her husband Leo live. We used to work together."

I looked and replied, "I used to know a boy in 8th grade named Leo...Leo Samuelson."

My sister immediately applied the brakes, turned the car around and drove back to the farm. She parked the car, looked at me and said, "Leo Samuelson is Mary's husband."

I had no words, no comeback. I was amazed at the opportunity unfolding before me. Amazed at how a season in my life so long ago was about to come full circle.

She called Mary on her cell phone and asked if she and Leo would meet us outside. A few minutes later all four of us were standing together near the back door, smiling, looking at one another and waiting for introductions.

My sister began. "I have someone I want you to meet. This is my sister, Cheryl."

I said, "It's nice too meet you, Mary," as I took her hand. And then turned to her husband and said, "Leo, I don't know if you remember me, but I lived down the road from you and we rode the bus together during 8th grade. My name was Cheryl Gillmore back then."

I saw the recognition in his smile as I said my name. He remembered me.

We hugged and talked and looked at one another in amazement. He told me about his family, his grandchildren, his life. I told him about mine, that I was an author now. We walked to the car and I gave him copies of my books, my business card.

As we stood by the car, both knowing this moment in time was about to end, I said the words to him I never got to say all those years ago. "Leo, I want to thank you for asking me to sit with you that afternoon on the bus...for being kind...for being my friend."

I think my words embarrassed him a little, and took him by surprise. He came back with these words, "You know, I never knew what happened to you. One day you were there and the next day you were gone."

I thought about his statement, how true it was, how well it summed up my life back then.

Leo and I hugged once more and this time said our good-byes...the ones we missed saying so long ago.

As my sister and I drove home, I looked out my window onto the surrounding farmlands of Iowa and remembered the young man with the crew cut who reached out to me in friendship and kindness. The young man I sat next to on the bus one fall afternoon, forty-nine years ago. I remembered Leo Samuelson.

Cheryl Gillmore

Read more from CL Gillmore at www.clgillmore.com