Joplin Memories

In those male cat days of early manhood you'll follow the scent wherever it takes you. Sometimes it leads you straight into trouble.

I found an Oklahoma orphan living in the care of the Ursuline nuns in Paola, KS. Her parents died in an accident when she was 12. She was unhappily passed around among relatives for a year or two in places like Bartlesville, OK, Coffeeville, KS and Ponca City, OK. When she reached high school age it was off to the nuns at the Ursuline Academy in Paola. I met her through the girlfried of a school mate. She had been banished to Paola for bad behavior. The Ursuline Academy was kind of a military school for dubious girls, replace the word 'military' with 'religion'.

Her name was Becky and because of a rare skin condition she did not have any body hair. She had hair on her head; eyebrows, eyelashes and scalp. She had to be naked to appreciate her condition and as I soon learned Becky liked getting naked.

During the final months of my senior year Becky would visit Kansas City as often as possible. I agreed to attend her prom in Paola but already had a date for my prom promised.

The next year she attended SW Missouri State at the Joplin campus and I Rockhurst College in Kansas City. We kept in touch by mail and shared a few visits.

During my sophmore year I drew a lucky lottery number (131) and escaped the perils of Vietnam. Dad also informed me all help with tuition was at an end as my ass was now safe from war. I called Becky and asked how would she like it if I finished college at SW Missouri State and lived with her? She thought it a grand idea. Mom and Dad not so much. They denied me the use of the old station wagon so I packed up a duffel bag and hopped the bus to Joplin.

Becky had a small decrepit apartment on Pearl St. in downtown Joplin. Becky lived on a small death annuity from Social Security that she would keep as long as she attended school. The place smelled of dry rot but it seemed a heaven to me. She shared the little place with a girlfriend from the Academy who was attending classes at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, KS. She was only there on weekends in order to work a good waitress job in Joplin. That was enough to get me in trouble. When she was in attendance I had to sleep on the ratty couch. Other than that we had a lot of fun. I liked the petite blonde girl and she had a good car so Becky and I could get things done while she was at work.

One night while we were partying in Pittsburg, taking speed and drinking beer in a dance club the little blonde kissed me on the dance floor and put her dainty hand down my pants. "I'm gonna work things out with Becky." She said.

Turns out they were not only friends but lovers from the old Ursuline days. While I was tossing around the ratty dry rot couch on the weekends they were happily rolling around the Murphy bed in the next room.

Thanks to the little blonde I soon was # 3 in the Murphy bed. Hard work but nothing any 20 year old boy couldn't handle.

Becky had some cosmetology training and took a part time job at a hair salon. That left me alone with the little blonde most mornings on the weekends. Not a good idea. How was I to know that sexual jealousies would get so complicated? Blondie resented that I had Becky all to my self all week, Becky called my morning dalliances cheating and they both thought I was ruining their special friendship. So they put me on the bus back to Kansas City.

When I got back I got a job, enrolled at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, moved out of the parental home and took a bachelor pad in Hyde Park with my friend T-Bone. Becky visited once. She spent the night on my waterbed but told me in the morning, "I know what you are doing here."

"All I'm doing," I said. "Is being a young man."