BUDDY'S GIFT

 Nothing to do with the cops. Just a story I like to remember at Christmas time.

 Buddy dreaded this time every year. Christmas time. Time for you to give a gift to the student in your class whose name you drew. It wasn't that he was cheap or didn't like Christmas. It was that Buddy was poor. So poor he wore clothes that, though impeccably clean, were patches upon patches. Wore shoes with the sole taped so it wouldn't flap.

 Most of us were hard up back then, the end of the depression, the war and all, but Buddy made us look like Hiltons.

 Buddy drew my name that year, in the third-grade class in Spring Hill, W.Va., and when gift time came he proudly placed a cigar box on my desk. It was not wrapped, festive paper being a luxury he could not afford. 
 I opened the box and was stunned. It was Buddy's collection of marbles. A collection he loved. The most beautiful aggies he'd won in the marble rings scratched in the playground dirt. And he'd given them to me.

 Even at that young age I knew I'd received a special gift. While the rest of us gave something, Buddy had given all.
 And, knowing their worth, they were a cherished possession. For about two weeks. The time it took for him to win them all back from me.