In 1983, Mrs. Anderson had a wooden alligator in her classroom. It was green, as it should have been, with wooden wheels and a width across the shoulders that made for a perfect perch for a Kindergartner. I remember that alligator well, it’s worn top, the scratches on its sides, the wheels. I was so fond of that alligator that upon arrival each day I’d scan the room looking for it. Was it free? Or was someone already on it? Why was I always late for Kindergarten when my dad taught the fifth graders just down the hall? And why, on many or most days, was Joe Connelly there before me? Worse than being there before me, he would find the alligator before me too. And when I’d enter that door and see Joey on that alligator, the intense blinding light of jealousy was unbearable.
And later, in the third grade, when Katie Lindbloom was a cute girl and I had my eye on her, why did she vacillate so much? We were both Cubs fans, and she was so much a fan that she’d stay home from school on opening day just to watch the game on WGN. That was before Comcast, back when kids in Wisconsin could watch Cubs games on the Super Station. If she liked me mostly, but also liked Jeremiah Placido, possibly because he was far better at baseball than I was and he had those flip down sunglasses like Jerome Walton sometimes used, why did she always waiver? And why, one day at lunch, was she sitting with John Moore? When I walked down the stairs into that old lunchroom under the older gym, there it was again, the blinding light of burning jealousy.
During any summer month or day, you can pick which one, if I am driving in my car with some lovely buyers, I am happy to be doing so. But when I drive by the lake, or perhaps walk onto a solid white pier with these adorable buyers, I am more than aware of the summer revelers that are not working. I should be happy that I’m able to work in the way that I do. I should be happy for those water logged vacationers. I should know that no matter how much time they spend frolicking in deep clear waters, that I will likely end the summer with more time spent doing the same. If they spent every day from now until next Wednesday doing exactly what they are doing now, I’d still end up beating them out when the summer is over and the votes are tallied. But that doesn’t matter then. There on that white pier with precious buyers in tow and a constant prattling about this and that pouring from my lips, I am overwhelmed by those swimming revelers. My jealousy wins again.
And so it was yesterday, driving back from Oak Shores where I had a sign to stick in the ground, and then to the Abbey Villas where a lock box needed to be hung, I noticed something through the trees. The lake was calm, but it was not still. There was a slight nervousness to the water, a steady surface twitch provided by a wind that was blowing just a touch. The lake had achieved a color of blue that most lakes spend their whole lives trying to capture- the same color that Geneva boasts nearly every single day. The sun was setting, but it wasn’t yet set. The day was chilly but it was not cold, and there I was in my car, subjected to some guy off the shore of Buena Vista doing exactly what Joey Connelly did 29 years ago this fall- he beat me to the punch.
I pulled over to watch him. He was jigging for something, but for what? Was he actually catching something? Were there fish down there, in that relatively shallow nearly frozen water, right then when I was in my car and he was in his boat? Was he onto something that I didn’t even know about? Should I have raced home to grab my boat and furiously squeeze the rubber ball to force gasoline into its engine? Or was he just jigging excitedly because he knew I was watching, and he knew that he was doing what I wished I could. It was February and he was in a boat on open water with a fishing rod in his hand and a smug grin on his face. He had beaten me, and the searing white light of my building jealousy was almost more than I could bear.