The Spit   

By Tracy Farr
Editor, The Daily Spittoon

There was only one thing that I really looked forward to in school, and that was lunch. Not because of the fabulous crispy "mortar-filled" burritos or the combination pizza & corn plate (which they still serve today, I hear), but because of Kenny Hooper.

Kenny Hooper was the funniest kid in fourth grade. Everybody wanted to be like him, everybody wanted to be friends with him, and everybody wanted to sit with him at lunch.  Lunch time was when Kenny was the funniest.

Kenny loved to shake his bowl of Jell-O and make it wiggle like you've never seen.  It doesn't sound funny now, but in fourth grade, we laughed so hard milk would shoot out of our noses. Seeing your friends snorting out milk just made us laugh even harder.  Needless to say, our table was always the wettest.

For awhile, even though I was painfully shy and not at all funny, Kenny and I were friends. I'd go over to his house and he'd make me laugh until I thought my liver would jump out and wiggle around on the floor like the Jell-O at lunch.

Kenny had a way of making you feel good about yourself.

Kenny is the one who introduced me to Cynthia Ennis.

Fourth grader Cynthia Ennis was tall and beautiful with long, straight, jet black hair that went down almost to her waist. And she liked me.

So, we talked, I walked her home one day, carried her books, and we soon exchanged ID bracelets.  But our love was not meant to be.

Being the fourth-grade guy that I was, and not having any experience on how the brains of a girl worked, I ignored her.  I thought that would make her like me more. Boy, was I wrong. She punted me like a football, broke my little fourth-grade heart, and to this day I prefer blondes.

Sometimes I think about Cynthia and what she would look like today.  I think it would be funny to run across her in Wal-Mart or at a football game, but she probably wouldn't remember me. More than likely she would remember Kenny Hooper.

And speaking of Kenny, I'm positive he was the one who invented flicking pats of butter up to the ceiling.  I watched him do it so many times. Kenny's easier to find than Cynthia. I just look up at restaurant ceilings, find the pats of butter, and know that Kenny had been there -- and that I probably just missed him.