Chapter 3

I suppose Sam must have been feeling alone as we sat in the coffee shop, my thoughts drifting back and forth through the years. It was time to get my feet in gear so I said, "We need to get outta here, let's go for a walk." It was a nice day outside, and it was a Saturday with nothing special planned. She smiled, nodded her head and followed me outside.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked.

I silently grabbed her hand, and headed in the direction of my favorite walking trail. We walked among the sycamore and eucalyptus trees in silence for awhile. Then, when we were away from traffic and other noises, I slowed down a little and directed her to a bench along the trail.

"Sam, there is a nagging question that I have been trying to figure out all afternoon. Part of it I want to tell you now and part of it a little later. Can you give me a little while to get it out without asking a bunch of questions and distracting my train of thought?"

She gave me a 250-watt smile (so I wouldn't fall over) and said, "Okay, but you gotta promise there will be a payoff for my silence." I nodded and we sat.

"Do you remember when you first told me about giving my best and trying my hardest? Well I've just been thinking a bit about that and I need to thank you. I don't think that I ever said thank you for doing that for me. In fact, I'm sure you think I forgot entirely about that, and what an impact you made on me with that little talk we had..."

I sputtered a second, luckily kept my head and bit my tongue as she continued.

"Do you think that you have given the proper time studying, and that you need to get good grades? I know you may think that I'm smart and maybe I am a little, but I really have to concentrate to complete my homework. I know that if I study and learn what I'm supposed to, in the long run it will get easier." She hesitated, then said, "Tom, has anyone ever talked to you about not giving your best effort? Do you know what the word potential means?"

I strained my brain for what I thought was the definition; "Something that hasn't happened yet?"

She pulled a dictionary from her pile of study materials and handed it to me. "Look it up. You're not far off but you need to see for yourself."

It took me a few seconds to leaf through the pages of a book that I was not very familiar with and finally came to 'potential'.

"Potential. An adjective: the first definition says, able to exist or happen, possible: capable of coming into being but not yet actual." Whew, I think I hit it close with that one. She looked at me and motioned to keep going. "Expressing possibility; specifically: of, relating to, or constituting a verb phrase expressing possibility, liberty, or power by the use of an auxiliary with the infinitive of the verb (as in "it may rain")." I looked up and started to speak, but Sam just smiled.

"Think about it for a bit, then we will talk."

I was nine, for crying out loud. Stop and think about the meaning of a word, when there was still daylight in which to play? Heaven forbid. Have I mentioned that Sam was determined? She just looked at me and waited. So my eyes went back to the dictionary and re-read the words, and tried to understand what she was getting at.

Development, actuality, possibility, liberty or power. What do all these things have in common? I had to take a couple of minutes, look up the meaning of a couple of those words and sit back and think for a few more minutes. Finally I came up for air, "Are you saying that if I worked harder toward the goal of what I could be, and took more time, and really tried to understand school, that I could become anything I wanted to be, or do anything I wanted to?"

She smiled and said, "What is it you want to be or what kind of person do you want to be?"

"They're the same thing, aren't they?" I said, getting curious as to where she was going with this line of questioning.

"Are they?" she said.

"Sam, did you know that from that day on I studied harder than I had ever done before? I kept a dictionary close when doing schoolwork, writing down new words that I wanted to remember; reading and trying to understand, not to just 'get finished'. It was like a whole new world had opened for me."

I moved closer to her on the bench and put my arms around her and just gave her a hug. She leaned into me a bit and relaxed. I think she thought I was going to drop some big, heavy subject on her, and when she realized the mood I was in it seemed to settle her. Hey, this hugging stuff is nice!

The rest of that school year Sam and I did a bunch of studying together, playing and talking. Talking! Did I tell you that girl could talk and draw me out like no one had ever done before? We would talk about why things are, and how some things are made. You name it we talked about it; everything was fair game for our chats.

Once, we were walking around the outskirts of our town and she started telling me about one of the girls from school. "Linda was talking to me the other day about Lori and how she was being so snotty and acting like she was everyone's boss."

I interrupted her (taking my life in my hands) and asked her why she was listening to gossip. "Has Lori ever acted that way around you? Did you just take Linda's word about what was said?" She glared at me and I continued, "I don't like people talking about me behind my back. You shouldn't be talking like that, especially since Lori is your friend. Did you defend her or did you just let Linda go on and tell you the story?"

Sam looked surprised and thought about it for a few minutes. "Was that really wrong?"