The Half-Way Mark

When I walked 96-year-old Sylvia in last night after Fine Arts Club, she wondered if she would have to walk me back out to the car.  This could go on all night.

It reminded me of the “half-way mark” Georgia and I used during out school days. She lived on one side of town by the cemetery and I lived pretty much in the center of town, a little further west. We didn’t have telephones so we had to set up meeting places ahead of time. We always met and parted at the “half-way mark.” We had stepped off the distance between our homes and established a crack in the sidewalk in front of Aunt Nell Hoyt’s home that was exactly half way.  After we had been to mutual, a movie, play, dance, or school, we would walk together to the “half-way mark” and part. We often visited for hours before parting at the “half-way mark”. When it was late at night, as we parted we would run for home as fast as we could go. She had to cross the bridge over the creek and I had to pass by Heaton’s Garage with who-knew-who was lurking behind it. Gypsies, perhaps, or drunks or wanderers. I didn’t stop until I got into my house and up the stairs to my bedroom. We never locked our doors but I felt safe inside. Georgia would have arrived home at exactly the same time.