Monthly Essays

One of My Many Humiliating Moments or Is Honesty the Best Policy?

Decades ago, when I was in college, campus organizations from clubs to residence halls to Greek houses selected a young woman for the honor of representing them as a football homecoming queen candidate.

I had no business being one of the five coeds interviewed by a men’s residence hall to be their candidate. On the night my presence was requested at their dorm, the guys assembled in the lobby. They sat on couches and chairs, leaned against the walls, and sprawled on the floor. We five gals, probably all except me nominated by boyfriends, gave short bios. The guys voted, and I was so thrilled they elected me as their candidate. It was a fun evening and pretty stress free.

But a week later when all the candidates representing the living groups and clubs, probably 25 of us, were sequestered in one room, I was sweating bullets. We awaited our time to be called for an interview in front of a panel of students and faculty who would choose the queen and her three attendants.

We would all be asked two questions. One would be specifically tailored for the candidate, and the second one would be the same question for everyone.

I was third to be called into the giant interview room, a.k.a. the Student Union ballroom. Seven judges sat at long white tables. Seated behind them was a large audience of interested students, mostly members of sororities and fraternities ready to whoop it up for their candidate.

I stepped to the microphone. A student senator read from a 3×5 card, “Do you consider your height a detriment or an asset?” I’m four-foot-eight, so you can see why that was my personal question. I said something about not having to worry about dates being shorter than me, and that got a chuckle.

But the second question! “What was your reaction last week upon hearing about the theft of the statue of our college mascot?”

The statue was on The Oval, where wide sidewalks connected main campus buildings in an oval shape. The four-by-five-foot statue, a modern art impression of a sitting gorilla, was affixed on a four-foot-high concrete platform. I didn’t know how it was attached or what the statue was made of, but it had to be heavy.

Obviously, my reaction was curiosity, and I voiced my questions. How did they do it? It had to take several people, and I assumed they were males. I figured they needed a pickup to haul it. What was their motive? Where was campus security? Didn’t they hear a vehicle on The Oval?

I must have read too many Sherlock Holmes stories for that to be the first notion that popped into my mind. When I finished giving my totally honest reaction to the theft, there was a spattering of applause. Then I took my seat with the two candidates who had already been interviewed. We now could witness how the others were received.

The next coed gave an answer 180 degrees from mine.

“I was heartbroken to learn that our beloved mascot had been taken,” she said in a breathy voice. She held her hand over her heart for emphasis. “It’s just terrible. I’m devastated.” Her voice caught as if she was on the verge of tears. “The gorilla represents our pride in our school. We’re so fortunate to attend this fine college to further our educations.” Yada, yada, yada.

I felt my face flush. My humiliation grew as each candidate answered in a comparable vein to thunderous applause.

Every one of the other candidates gave a similar response.

I was not chosen queen nor selected for her court.

The statue was later found in the college lake.

No one was charged with the theft.

And I still have unanswered questions about the crime.

Before the big game, all the candidates, even the one with the worst of all answers, paraded around the field in decorated cars. Only this picture reminds me of riding in the convertible decked out by the men of Shirk Hall, but I know exactly where I was sitting in that ballroom while I listened to those other interviews. That humiliating memory is stronger. One thing I believe: every moment, every memory, good or bad, make us who we are today.

Fourteen years have passed, but we will always remember That Sunday Afternoon.

Mike is playing ball at Ryan’s house when he gets a phone call from his mom, who’s at friends’ house, telling him to head home because of an impending thunderstorm. Normally he would have asked to wait the storm out at Ryan’s, but he still has homework and it’s already after five on Sunday afternoon. He rides his bike to his house and goes inside when the tornado sirens start screaming. He checks the local weather on TV and sees a giant funnel cloud on the TV tower cam before the electricity goes off. He and his sister run for the basement. Then everything changes. Although this novel is by definition fiction, the events of the F-5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri, are very real. Get your copy today!

Travel back to small town life in 1954 to meet the people who live on the Corner of Pearl & Moffet.

Before 33-year-old Josie Jameson takes the seat reserved for the widow, she glances around the old graveyard. Over three hundred people have gathered to pay their respects to her late husband. That is nearly the population of Ducane, Arkansas.

She had married Orville nine years earlier. That he was 43 years her senior hadn’t really troubled her, but there had been plenty of talk. She was a farm girl when she married and moved to the big white house on the corner of Pearl and Moffet. She didn’t fit the mold of housewife to the richest man in town. Now that he’s dead, she owns the Ducane Savings and Loan, The Station that makes more money from liquor sales than gasoline, his private ledger books with unofficial loans and repayment schedules, and the little brown books written in his tight scrawl that hold the town’s secrets.

When tragedy strikes, the good people of Ducane, who share each other’s joys and sorrows, who celebrate others’ accomplishments with pride, who take food to the bereaved and do chores for those who are sick, these same good people whisper, “This is Josie’s fault!”

Corner of Pearl & Moffet is a gripping tale of one woman’s struggle through sorrow and challenges to find her own life. Download your copy today.

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