It is the largest club in the city, and its chief hatred is the conservative Union Club, which all sound members of the Athletic call "a rotten, snobbish, dull, expensive old hole—not one Good Mixer in the place—you couldn't hire me to join." Statistics show that no member of the Athletic has ever refused election to the Union, and of those who are elected, sixty-seven per cent. resign from the Athletic and are thereafter heard to say, in the drowsy sanctity of the Union lounge, "The Athletic would be a pretty good hotel, if it were more exclusive."   -- Babbitt; Sinclair Lewis

I saw only a squib of Mean Girls, the scene in which the new cutie from Africa who had initially joined the outcast nerd grouping was attached by the Queen Bees. This is a fairly common dynamic; it is how energy is released by the jumping of orbits by electrons. The pledge is honored with an invite and must of social necessity desert her earlier associations, same as old Abe left off rail-splitting when he took to the law.

I saw her first as she descended the west staircase from the second floor. Her gaze was fixed on the middle distance, or the window above the transom and out onto the lawn. Or else she was posing and her look was only a look. She seemed to know she was generally observed.

She did not enter my consciousness then. I remember seeing her that first time now only because of the sensation she stirred up later.

Miss Etheleen spoke of her in Spanish II. "Her eyes are green and her hair is dark and her skin is pale. A rare combination."

So I began to consider new girl Betty Ann.

At noon as a matter of course we sorted ourselves by class and her's was just off the pace, originally. She rode with Myra and them, of course not ready for the primal scene, not yet. 

Some others had noticed the new girl, and some noticed the noticing, so that the motive or force, one, developed a character of its own and began to walk about the grounds; a mob action evolved. We moved as a unit now, laughing, calling out, each of us trying for position, a school of nervous guppies. There is an element of self-satire in group action, from rallies to city council meetings.

It is helpful to know what the philosopher, brother Reloj, meant when he defined Truth as cognition in accordance with its object.

"It is true as the philosopher defines Truth as 'cognition in accord with its object,' but the subject is something else."
- Reloj Bowden

Hormones were raging in the direction of Betty Ann, but each of the boys were intent less on her, who none of us dreamed he'd ever be close to, than in simply radiating virility one to the other. That was the object, and Betty Ann was merely the subject.

When almost anyone says, this I believe, what he means is, I want to be identified with those others who proclaim this belief. That is how the concept of the Almighty takes on different natures strictly according to geography - Atlanta , Addis Abba, Amsterdam - and not individual contemplation.

(Had an interesting chat with an acquaintance in this era who may or may not have been in earnest about his older sister who was manifestly the star unmentioned in raptures untold throughout all her days when lugs dreamed in the arms of less provocative partners, for an increase in local population during the years she was among us was her province and power and honor and memory; the days and the ways she'd hurry to the cafeteria at noontime with gaping guys gazing, moaning - indeed it is said that in any long summer night with the windows open a stealthy shadow flitting through any and all neighborhoods might detect a subtle song on the wind which could be parsed to reveal in solemn hymn like cicadas in heat her name - but I won't. I asked him her brother if he'd like to do with her what any other straight male in town would, and he leered at me side-eyed, weighing conscience and consequence against macho swagger, growled, "No  sh.....")

There she was, moving up the east steps (back to Betty Ann), actually doing a B-movie incognito number, Ida Lupino of the dark void, pulling her coat up to hide her face like  - not Marilyn, but one who wanted to suggest Marilyn. She goes to the rec room with her coterie, Myra and Myra and them  (she never spoke to any of them after this noon hour, by all accounts) and Alton feigned a clumsy stumble in front of her so he backs into her, and she gives a double-take -  my word, whatever are you doing? And on it goes.

Soon she was in Ronnie's Tudor hardtop '55 Belair come noon, sitting tight beside; Ronnie was a handsome guy and I liked him but as we all knew no mere guy truly deserved the Betty Ann we had separately and together in nervous splendor and much grim painstaking stitching of stars recreated in mythical -

Now, wait just a second. Had Betty Ann in the flesh been among us down all the days, amidst Mary Lou the Beauty and Pat and Kay the preacher's chile and Patti with the laughing face, she would not have spawned a noontime riot, nor unusual notice, truth to tell; she may well have spent her time in school with Myrna and them after all. Luck's a chance but trouble's sure.

Some say it be nature we be governed by, others nurture, it's good parenting in early childhood, no, it's genes, your fate is laid on at conception, but, as the individual has no hand in either case our Self Determination is nothing but the sad longing of a bowling ball lumbering down the alley, it's just that Betty Ann rolled into that sweet spot between the number one and three pins due to sudden onset green eyes and pale complexion.

She danced with us for a time. She cuted quite nicely; she minced and pranced and glowed and charmed - and she didn't like Little Darlin', she in fact once at the Drive In ducked under a blanket to charade her distaste for The Diamonds. (And this too was not conscious musical choice but main chance; there would not have been an opportunity for preening in simply nodding along to the beat like the rest of us.) How she minced and moued irritation at Ronnie so close and them blocking the screen so they were the show for us in the back seat and quickly turned her pretty face as he sought a kiss, it was delightful!

Such a cute couple. And then along came the dread pinsetter.

One day they were no longer a couple, and another day she was gone. Back to Denison from whence she came, it was said.

But I saw her again. She came by the house with a girlfriend, years after. She had dyed her hair blonde, and so had her friend, and there might have been a sagging of luster as well, but perhaps it was just my mental cataracts. As I stepped into the back seat for a ride, I said, "Man, oh, man, I remember the riot when I first saw you that noon - "

And her friend said, "Betty, have you seen my brush?"

And Betty Ann said, "What about that noon, Tim?"

*****

Forty years later I went back for my first Bonhi reunion, and I tried to follow up with the saga of Betty Ann. But no one remembered her. Absolutely no one, apparently. It was reported online by one who had every Coushatta that there was no sign of her, even so far as a "gone fishing" marker, anywhere around the year of Betty Ann.

So Jack wrote in our chat group: "Tim, was Betty Ann a blow-up?"

Well, she did lose some air from her High Noon, that's for sure.