DAY 172: GUS SMITH
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 11:39PM 
Gus Smith was our across-the-street neighbor for most of my growing up years. He was married to Margie, and loved her dearly. She died several years before he did, and for a man who absolutely loved his wife and was so close to her, this time without her was, for him, a particularly painful turn of events. He simply had a very hard time getting along without Margie. He truly missed her every minute of every day for the rest of his life.
I guess he was in his mid or late seventies when we became good friends. His favorite thing to eat in the whole world was a green tomato pie, and I was a pretty good pie maker but had never made one of those. He schooled me on how to make a green tomato pie just the way he liked it, and I must have made at least fifty of them for him---maybe closer to a hundred, really. Sitting here tonight, I find it hard to believe that I never once sampled any of the pies I made for him! Green Tomato Pie just did not interest me in the least then, except to please Gus. I do wish now that I had at least tasted one. Hindsight is 20/20.
I'd usually walk over to Gus' house in the early evening. Sometimes I would just show up at his door; at other times he would call me and ask me to come over, saying he needed a green tomato pie. He would always have some coffee brewing. We had a lot of fun conversations as I made those pies for him. He had a deep, scratchy voice - probably from a lifetime of too many cigarettes.
I feel okay telling what I am about to say because Gus has been dead for a long time now and I have learned a whole lot since then about people and age and just life in general.
Gus called me one day and asked me to drive him to the St. Francis Picnic. Thinking back on it, I should have thought that was unusual as he was still able to drive short distances. But I agreed to take him to the picnic because he had requested it, and drove him there in his car. It was an older model light gray kind of car of some kind. It had a great big steering wheel. I am not a car person. Fairlane???
Anyway, the picnic was great and we were laughing about things on the way back home. I pulled into his driveway and just as I came to a stop, Gus lunged over to me AND KISSED ME RIGHT IN THE MOUTH! Gus didn't have any teeth in. I was 20 something and he was 70 something. I was totally mortified.
Long story short, I was so upset that I didn't go back to see Gus for at least a month.
But I did go back.
We never discussed what happened, but he never ever crossed the boundary of our friendship again.
Looking back on all that today, I am just sad for Gus. The gross out factor of a toothless man kissing me in the mouth when I was a nubile twenty year old is no longer even the main point of the last of the story.
As we get older, we do things that might be unexpected. That's just the way it is.
Though I was devastated at the time, after a month passed I was okay with Gus again.
I just hope if I am seventysomething and surprise someone with some action that is out of character that my Gus points can be cashed in and I will be forgiven.
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