New Age Lifestyle

    I recall one time when I was around 10 or 11 years old, my friend Billy and I were horsing around with a football in their side yard. Soon we were joined by his sister, who was one year older than Billy and me, and another girl from our school, much to our annoyance. His sister''s friend,a girl named Mary,
was a very pretty brunette. There was the usual petty back and forth between the four of us, and somehow, push came to shove - between me and Mary, that is, and she was definitely getting the better of it. She had some finely muscled legs, which  at the time I was too immature to appreciate. I kept saying "No girl is going to get the best of me", more to convince myself than anything, yet every time, I was the one shoved to the turf. "No girl is going to gewt the best of me!" I kept repeating in vain, whereupon Mary would calmly reply "I've already gotten the best of you". This only infuriated me more, and to be honest, I was getting more and more embarrassed by my total lack of skill. Finally, Billy tackled Mary and held her down, telling me to go ahead and slap her face. But I couldn't. I didn't want him fighting my battle for me, and I refused to hit Mary. What I'd rather done at the time was go home and stew in my embarrassment of being beaten by a  girl. It just goes to show how boys in the Patriarchy were conditioned to think about half of the human race.

         Oh, and my humiliation did not stop there. A while later, I encountered Mary on the playground ar school, and she indicated ne to her friends, saying "I beat that kids up once". Talk about embarrassing!!!
                                                                     -H.H.