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Hi everyone ,

 today I’m writing a story that involves an old school friend of mine , that somehow accidentally by us both spending a random day together at her place back then , how it changed my outlook on love a bit and perhaps the outcome even delayed those type of feelings developing again in me afterwards for a while , 

So here is the scene. 

The time frame it was set in was in the period that I was in grade five or six at St Joseph’s primary school in Wonthaggi. 

So roughly I was around the age of 12 . 

I had never had an interest in girls before except as mates . 

By the time that I had reached this point in time things at my school had changed a lot and the reign of the angry nuns and their cruel sadistic treatment of us kids was actually now completely over . 

Some things had obviously changed then for the better , like for example , at recess and lunch time periods that girls and boys were no longer segregated apart and allowed only to be in complete opposite ends of the school yard , and we were free now , to mingle together socially and interact together normally at school with each other. 

So as I have previously stated in earlier stories that my dad ran the local transport company in town and he did most of the truck requiring jobs all around the district , he had got a call and booked in a job from a local farmer to go and pick up some store bales of wool I believe. 

I remember going out to that farm in our truck it was in the red Mercedes Benz semi trailer one day with dad to go and do that job. 

It was a big local sheep farm and possibly was one of the biggest  wool growers in the district, the farm was owned by a local family from the McRae clan being in Donny and Peggie McRae , and it was located in a prominent position on the Bass Hwy near Dalyston and in fact now all of the newly developed housing properties adjacent to the Hwy in Dalyston have been built on land that was cut off and subdivided off that original family farm . 

Nearly every farm in the district has a name and this property’s name was Coverdale , 

Donnie and Peggie had lots of children I think around maybe 7 or 8 and mostly I think that besides Steve that they were all girls , but a younger Jacinta was my age and she was also in my class at school and had been ever since kindergarten I believe so by now we were pretty good friends.

So when we get to the farm , for a bit of homegrown fun the girls introduced me to something totally new , it was the sport of riding sheep bareback , 

In the stockyards was a small pen of sheep so we all climbed up over the wooden railing and we all got in the yard along with those sheep that were by now bunched up and hiding in the corner and the girls then taught me how to catch and mount a sheep and then ride them for as long as you can ,

it was I guess a sort of a mini sheep rodeo , the girls made it look easy but to me but it proved to be quite difficult and a real challenge to stay aboard a feisty sheep like they all could. 

I think I lasted for about only two seconds at my first attempt. 

It was such fun and we all stayed at the stockyards riding the sheep for the afternoon .

By then I had improved quite a bit for a novice .

Also my dad had loaded the truck and bound it down tight on the truck and we then went up  to the house for a bit of a bbq which I completely by guess now  ,

I would think it was of lamb chops . Lol 

It was probably then that I first had the thought in my mind that Jacinta was a really cool girl , and I liked her a lot and that I had really enjoyed hanging out with her for the day . 

So we eventually took the semi home and everything continued  on just as normal. 

So the next time that I went to school I sat next to Jacinta at lunch time and we just chatted and it had by then completely slipped my mind that she actually had a boyfriend at the time . 

Her boyfriend was the coolest dude in the school , his name was Joel Rhodes ,   he was a surfer boy from Inverloch  so he was besides really tall he was also super fit. 

Some of the popular girls at school had boyfriends, 

I didn’t have a girlfriend at that time . 

So casually on and off I chatted to Jacinta  randomly at lunch times for about two weeks , and I really  found strangely that I liked her quite a lot , 

I guess to the point of thinking about her sometimes so the next and stranger thing that happened actually kinda proved that , 

I was at the school fete or a local market or such at some stage and I was looking at a few stalls when something caught my eye . It was a round like ten cent piece size set of gold coloured peace symbol , hoop earrings, and I instantly thought that I could buy them for Jacinta as a gift . 

To me it was pretty crazy as I had never spent money on anyone else ever before but I for some reason I just really wanted to , so I went ahead and brought them for her .

I think that the lady also wrapped them for me and l walked away and l was feeling quite pleased with myself. 

Like I don’t think that it was even Jacinta’s birthday or anything like that at the time , but I also didn’t even know if she even had her ears pierced . 

So it was a bit risky . 

But i thought it was a smashing plan and I just wanted to make her smile. 

So I can’t exactly remember how I managed  to summon up the courage to actually give them to her , 

but I believe that I just handed her a little wrapped up package while we chatted one lunchtime and then I ran away before she could even say anything to me as fast as I could . 

I guess back then even at primary school there was a bit of a roomer mill  thing and days later I heard on the grapevine that Jacinta loved the earrings , 

so I thought that it was now completely safe to return to chatting with her again now at lunch times . 

Unfortunately I was completely wrong about that , as while I sat there that day in the sun with her , 

her boyfriend Joel came up to me and with out a single word layed a massive punch to my eye and then he turned away and left . 

I guess that’s jealousy for you and he must have heard about the earrings on the grapevine also. 

Oops , 

it was that hard a blow that instantly my eye was stuck shut , a short time later I was sitting on a chair in the first aid room with a cold face washer on my eye and by then l already had developed the most massive black boxers eye , it was already now  completely shut tight , so the school then contacted my mum who came to pick me up and take me home . 

When my dad came home after work that night , he took one look at me and all he said about everything was did you loose? 

Well I guess technically I didn’t as we didn’t really even have a fight . 

The fantastic part of this situation was that I got a few days off school while my eye slowly reopened. 

But when I returned things weren’t quite the same between me and Jacinta we were still friends but no longer hanging out together . 

 So I learnt a few tough lessons in life with that experience , 

don’t mess with your mates girl as it may just  happen to cause your eye to go black . 

Even at a young age Love  hurts . 

Women cost money , 

And to never ride a sheep with slippery pants . 

So still after all those years Jacinta and I are still friends and she actually follows my stories that I post , 

So I hope that she likes this story as much as the earrings . 

it will be interesting now to learn if by chance she still has those earrings , we spoke about it many years ago and had a laugh , but I was so surprised back then that at that stage and that all those years later that she still had them safely in her possession. 

Ps I do run into Joel every now and then , he is a mate and we sometimes might even have a beer together so all good . 

Growing up back in those days as a kid you had to be tough to survive . 

Luckily 

Most of us did . 

Cheers 

Curlyg