by L. Shell Madden

Created on: June 10, 2008

Not Paul

I worked with a guy named Paul back in the early seventies. He was, bar none, the most gorgeous young man I had laid eyes on to that point in my life.
I was the eldest daughter of a man with no sons and a small but busy cartage and excavating business.
To Da's credit, he had me working for him, as a heavy equipment operator, in a time when the only women on construction sites were flag girls.

To my credit, I worked as hard or harder than anyone on his crews, kept my head down and won the respect of the people I worked with, and those we worked for.
Paul was a labourer on my crew; he was tall, wide-shouldered, narrow- hipped, well-muscled, with crystal-blue eyes, blonde hair to his waist, and he tended to wear shorts to show off his great legs to their best advantage.
With looks like that, Paul rarely lacked for female companionship. There was usually some sweet young thing doing his laundry and making his meals. Come lunchtime, while all the rest of us stretched out and opened our lunches, along would come Paul's Sweetie, with a picnic basket and a thermos of fresh lemonade.
Thing about Paul was, he was careless of the hearts and feelings of those sweet young things, so in any given summer there would be two or three times we'd see him brown-bagging his own sandwiches.
As the only woman in the crew, I often had advance notice of these changes in his domestic arrangement, because I'd encounter him in the local grocery store, pushing a cart and looking completely lost. When I did, I'd usually roll up next to him and say,
"Single again, are you?" I had no idea that was were he tended to troll for his next ex-girlfriends, but looking back on it, I see he was using his best bait I think I mentioned that man had the best legs in town

Jump forward about twenty years
I was in a different town. A different climate. I was even in a different country. I was working in one of the busiest hardware stores in the American Southwest, and on my way home after a particularly hectic day. I had company coming, so I stopped at the local grocery storegrabbed a cart and started down the produce aislewhen there in front of me was a man pushing another cart He was so familiar in his look. Long blonde hair, Wide shoulders. Great tan, and shorts to show off those fantastic legs. Sometimes your mind does stupid things. I never even registered the differences of time and place. I just stepped up my pace, swung past his shoulder and said,
"Hey cutie, you single again?"
The

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