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“Peanut, You Want to Find A 15 Point Buck. Or Better.”
The summer I turned 14, my grandmother took it upon herself to start giving me rather peculiar advice about men and dating. She did this after a conversation she had with my dad. You see, he had expressed some dismay that my mother was disinclined to engage with me on such matters. He felt lost and out of his depth but didn’t want to leave me to flounder through it all on my own.
For some strange reason Grandma had a tendency toward hunting aphorisms when giving dating advice; hence the title of this piece.
I confess, being a teen during the late '80s, this advice was hard to hear as it didn’t land right with my tender GenX ears. After all, young girls of my age cohort were going to marry for love without being forced to consider marriage in terms of economy. We would secure our own income and not be dependent on a man to provide us a livelihood. We were going to have it all. As a result, when she said this, I couldn’t stuff my fingers in my ears and start humming Mary Had a Little Lamb fast or loud enough. Perhaps you can relate. Besides that, I wasn’t overly interested in boys at that point so there was also a case of too much too soon.
I'm older now, wiser; and I’ve come to realize Grandma was on to something. It’s not what I…
