Page 19 - Life's Outtakes 8

How the West Was to One

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I was a sophomore in high school, and it was the
first day of the school year. There was a new boy, Skip,
who was in my athletic training class. He was big,
muscular, and showed a lot of athletic ability. But I had
never seen anyone that seemed so timid. In fact, it was
more than timidity; he was just plain strange.
We started out the class by lifting weights. Skip
watched the weight room door nervously. If it ever
started to open, he would dash around behind the
weight machine and peer cautiously out from behind it.
Once the person who had opened the door had entered
the room, he would slowly come out and go back to
lifting weights.
The first time seemed like a coincidence, but after
this had happened a few times, everyone realized it
wasn’t. Finally, after a half dozen episodes of this,
curiosity got the better of Lenny, and he walked over to
Skip.
“Hey, you new here or what?” Lenny asked.
Skip nodded. “Just moved here yesterday from
the East coast.”

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