Who's gonna mow your grass?

Buck Owens passed away the other day. It's quite sad that another underrated and under appreciated country singer died.

Maybe he should've grown his hair long and toured with a short kid.

Earlier today I remembered something from one of my history classes. Not necessarily anything from the class, but the interaction between two students. Being a fellow student at the time, I tried to pay attention to how the other students interacted just as an observer.

So there was a guy in the class who probably wasn't all there. Now, I say that not to be demeaning towards him, or to make light of his situation. He was a nice enough guy, but just one of those overly eager students, who doesn't seem to grasp that college isn't middle school sometimes. He would buddy buddy up to the professor, and not in the manner that I would. Where I would offer to give the teacher historically relavent material I had access to.

Anyways, so there's this guy. He'd always sit in the front row of the class (stadium style seating). If it was raining, he'd wear a rain-suit. He'd bring his lunch to class, and eat it in the 10 minutes between the last class and our class. And if he was talking to anyone near him, the whole class could hear him. Of course, this drew the ire of some of the younger males in the class who seem to think they were being accoustically accosted by this.

Usually sitting next to him was a young lady, who probably was about as insecure as someone in college can be. Doesn't have a great deal of self confidence about her body (which wasn't too shabby) but I think she was just overly nice. Now, I'm not saying she was "normal" and he wasn't. They were both in the same classification of "nerd").

So over the course of two terms, I had noticed that he started to fancy her. He'd offer her pop, or say flattering things to her. I don't know what she felt about him, but she didn't overtly reject them. By the 2nd term, the group of "older" women around me (one who was married and returning to college in her mid 40's, the other early 30's and divorced) started to notice the same thing.

Then it was valentines day (friday). I get to class early because we were having a big lecture that day and (god forbid) I enjoyed history. I hear my "student neighbors" talking about how the guy seems to fancy her. They had noticed it for the last week or so (he had become ever increasingly obvious in his comments to her).

But that day, we notice that he's not in the room yet and class is about to start. There wasn't a lot of students in the class, as it's friday and everyone knows thats the 2nd most popular day in the week to miss class. So maybe he skipped a class. A few minutes later, in walks the guy dressed to the nines (even with his out-dated glasses from 1990). And he's holding 1 single rose. The ladies next to me all start going "oooooh!" and are about to melt.

The girl? She didn't notice him. Then when she did he handed her the rose and took her hand and kissed it and wished her a happy valentines day. He then sat down next to her and started to talk to her. The women around me where impressed by his deeds. I was impressed by the stones the guy had.

The girl however, wasn't as impressed. The following monday, she came into class later than normal and once she entered the room, she surveyed the room to find the guy. One would think with the rose being a message she might sit next to him. But she didn't. She sat completely away from him. And for the rest of the term, she never sat near him and he reluctantly got the hint, and stopped trying to talk to her.

The women around me all commented on how sorry they felt for the guy, and how it was almost like they had been rejected.

I'm not sure why I remembered this.