High Noon

Part of the email, "Restorative Justice," sent to Mr. Maron on Sept 13, 2022, 4:03 pm:

On my 18th birthday, I got to perform my first adult legal signature when I stood as a witness for my friend's wedding at a justice of the peace. I remember looking at her and her boyfriend and recalling her telling me about her "first time," which was his first time, too. I remembered the years of watching them and other couples date in high school. And for the first time, on that day I turned 18, I thought that if I had never experienced my childhood and teenage, there was probably a guy somewhere out there that I might have done the whole wedding thing with. I wrote this poem for that unknown guy, on my 18th birthday. I was thinking of my father a little, but mostly of the adventist principal, as the ones who owed the debt in the poem. That birthday was just the very tiny beginning of me starting to realize that if the principal had been a woman who cared about me, I might have started experiencing a better life. Of course, it was only when my kids hit high school that I really understood how important the first adults are who interact with broken teens like I was. One decent teacher can truly save those kids and change their lives. One man like the principal, and a life of hell is set in stone.

I may have written this poem for that unknown boy when I was 18, but when I found and reread this poem in my 40's, I realized it was also for me:

High Noon

by 

Judy S. Lentz

There is a man out there

To whom you owe a debt

If he knew all that he had lost

I know what you would get

You stole his high school sweetheart

You took their special dance

That kiss goodnight outside the house

He never had a chance

He never took her driving

They never shared the heat

Of teenage fumbling passion

In a fogged-up car's back seat

The gift of his engagement ring

Never made her smile

He never knew the joy of walking

Her down some church aisle

He never saw their children

Or shared their family

He never got the chance

To grow old and gray with me

Somewhere there is a man to whom

A lifetime's debt you owe

But he won't ever call you out

Because he'll never know