You have led me from my bondage and set me free by all those roads, by all those loving means that lay within your Power and Charity.

—Canto XXXI, The Paradiso

When I was at Western Carolina Teacher’s College (now WCU) back in the ’50s, I developed an irrational affection for a beautiful mountain girl named Beatrice. Just like Dante, the Italian poet who also loved a Beatrice, I yearned to immortalize my sweet Bea in sonnets and epics. I actually did write a few smaltzy poems for her that dwelled on her inspirational attributes.

But, there was a difference. Dante loved Beatrice of Florence (who was nine years old) and I pined for Beatrice of Zirconia (that is over near Flat Rock). Dante’s maiden was pale and ethereal, while mine was freckled, red-headed, robust and 18. Dante’s love was platonic and spiritual while mine was a bit earthy (by 1950’s standards), irrational and obsessive. In other words, it was a typical seizure of “first love.” Well, except for one unique aspect.

The object of my affections had a singular, exotic characteristic that drove me bonkers. She didn’t shave her legs. Who can explain the reasons for manic passion? In a world where most college girls plucked, shaved and scorched themselves until their arms, legs and arm-pits resembled shellacked furniture, my Bea was unabashedly fuzzy! Her legs had a fine copper down that grew in little swirls and her arm-pits had marvelous little red tassels that made my heartbeat quicken and my vision blur. Maybe I had a ... fetish .... a fixation and simply wasn’t sophisticated enough to realize it. If so, I am forever thankful that I was never treated for it or had it defined for me by a psychiatrist.

I think Bea’s aversion to razors and cosmetics had something to do with religion, but I'm not sure. She was a little vague about it, sometimes talking about allergies and sometimes quoting Old Testament text. In future years, I would meet girls from Bob Jones who were fur-bearing and beautiful and they all explained why it was unnatural to pluck and paint. They were also deeply moral. However, Bea of Zirconia was my first hirsute honey. I wanted to marry her, settle down in nuptial bliss and spend the rest of my life memorizing and immortalizing each tawny follicle on her lovely little Sasquatch-cum-Hobbit body.

Now, if by chance you think that I am chronicling an affair of steamy, unbridled lust, let me hasten to say, no, no. This was the ’50’s. I was a backward lad and Beatrice had scruples, so we held hands in the hall, did a bit of furtive smooching in the bushes outside Moore dorm and sat in the student union staring into the depths of each other’s brain. We were both in the Little Theatre productions where I watched my downy Bea dance and glide through stuff like “Sabrina” and “My Three Angels.” She did Viola in “Twelfth Night” and wore adorable little pantaloons that gave me sleepless nights. (I was Andrew Aguecheek who simpered and wore stockings. I also sported little slippers with rosettes on the toes, and a huge blonde wig. Thank God there are no pictures.) I yearned for graduation, a job teaching English and a little cottage in Shangri-La where I would come home each night to cuddle on the couch with my fuzzy little yeti, grade papers and watch Lucille Ball on TV. I even dared to imagine a host of little copper-headed babies.

It was not meant to be.

I lost my robust, freckled Bea on a single afternoon. In a matter of one hour, my dreams of domestic bliss were shattered by one of my favorite teachers - Dr. Crum (We called her “Mabel T”) - who had watched our courtship with growing alarm, and had finally decided to meddle. She saw us sitting in the hall of the Killian building, staring fixedly at each other like mesmerized zombies and she called Bea into her office. One hour later, a different Bea emerged. She was distracted and withdrawn and needed to “go study.” She avoided me for over a week, and then I began to see her being squired about by ... a business major! I was stunned and devastated. Not only had I lost her, I had lost her to the enemy - one of those guys with the button-down shirts and sports coat. I considered joining the army or throwing myself from the Tuckaseigee bridge. Instead, I took a job teaching 9th grade civics in Waynesville. It was akin to the Seventh Circle of Dante’s Hell.

Forty years later, while I sat on the porch reading on a summer afternoon, a tasteful blue Accord repeatedly cruised by and finally comes to rest in my driveway. Out steps my wonderful Bea - red hair streaked with gray, but the same freckles and green eyes. “Just happened to be in Sylva,” she said, and then she came to sit on my porch surrounded by stacks of books. She talked a long time. I learned that the business major manages a successful savings and loan and that life has been good to Bea - a ranch-style house north of Asheville, two sons (successful businessmen), a station-wagon (as well as the Accord), a part-time job (just a little something to keep her busy!) and a little cabin on the lake. She had been to Europe twice. How have you been, she asks. “Twice divorced,” I said. “Yes, I know,” she answered. I listed my major misadventures: Fired a few times. Bad health and near-deaf (although I heard every word that Bea said), diabetes and a mortgaged home.

We came, finally, to that day in 1958 when Dr. Crum had called Bea into her office. “She spent a lot of time talking about what a nice boy you were.”

“But ....” I said.

Bea sighed and nodded.

“She said that you were ... unusual. Unlike any student she had ever taught. She said that you ... read too much.”

“Is that possible?”

“She said that it was. She said that we would not be happy if we married. She said that she was genuinely concerned about me, and that I would be making a terrible mistake if I married you.”

“None of that was any of her business.”

“For what it is worth, I think she was more worried about you than she was about me.”

“Well, as best as I remember, you were the most important thing in my life.”

Bea shook her head.

“No, books were the most important thing.” Bea laughed. “You were always reading, Gary. Always, even in the chow line.” She pointed at the stacks of books on the deck. “Dr. Crum gave me an example of what she meant.”

Bea hesitated.

“OK, let’s hear it.”

“She said that if a time came when there were no groceries in the house and we maybe only had $20, you would probably buy a book.”

Well, I guess she had me. I could recall a half-dozen times when I had actually done something close to that.

“Still, sometimes, I wonder if I did the right thing ... abandoning you the way I did. Maybe Mabel T was wrong.”

Then, she asked me about Dante.

“I was never a reader,” she said, but I remember something that you used to quote ... something about another Beatrice and that Italian poet who loved her. He became lost in a dark wood ....”

I quoted for her.

“In the midway of this, our mortal life I found me in a gloomy wood, astray Gone from the path, direct ...”

“Yes, that is it. You said that Dante discovered that he had lived over half of his life and then found that perhaps he had taken the wrong path.”

“I know how he felt,” I said, pointing to my surroundings - an old farm house, a sway-backed barn and a weed-choked yard. “I seem to have missed the boat.”

“I’m not talking about you,” she said. “I’m talking about me.”

“Well, you weren't supposed to get lost, Bea.”

“Why?”

“You were supposed to keep others from getting lost. Beatrice led Dante to Paradise.” I was half-kidding her, but she wasn’t amused.

Well, I stared long at sweet Bea. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at her legs. Sheer nylons and pale flesh and nary a hint of copper fuzz.

“You used to ....”

Bea blushed. “Not shave my legs? I remember how you used to say the most embarrassing things about it! Honestly!”

She laughed. Those wonderful fuzzy legs ... now shorn and sleek as suede.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I said.

“Gary, be serious!” Bea was becoming flustered. “For heaven’s sake! Relationships, affection, love can’t be affected by ... well, things like shaved or unshaved legs!”

She straightened her dress hem.

“Besides, Bill didn’t approve.” After a while, she added, “You have to ... compromise, if you want to get along.”

“I guess so,” I said.

Bea pointed at the book in my lap.

“Still reading, I see.”

“Yeah, I guess some things don’t change.”

“I’ll bet the house is full of books!”

“You’re right, including the attic and the barn.”

We talked a bit about old friends. There were lots of divorces, a generous number of successes, a few deaths and suicides. Bill was thinking of taking early retirement, spending more time at the cabin ...

I followed beautiful Bea back to her sleek Accord, and bent to give her a prim kiss.

“I suspect that you made the right choice,” I said. “I turned out pretty weird.”

She smiled uncertainly and backed out of my driveway. The Accord purred over the hill. Then, the afternoon seemed to be filled with pollen and a thousand dandelion seeds drifting in the spring sky. I closed my eyes, thinking about copper fuzz in the sunlight.

(Gary Carden is a storyteller and writer who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com)

 

Back to Top
The Smoky Mountain News