THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER

My dad was friends with an older man, probably in his 60's at the time, who owned a large ranch west of Willows where he had raised dry land barley and sheep.    He had a teenage daughter, by the name of Mary Ann that was 15 or 16 when I first met her, while visiting with my parents at their house in Willows.  She was a nice looking young blond girl.  Like me, we both were attending Catholic high schools, me in Sacramento and she in San Rafael.    We got to know each other during family visits either to our place or their home.   One evening at our place I walked her around the property we lived on showing her the field behind the house.  While walking along the fence line back toward the house as it was getting dark, we passed by a shed on the neighbor's property.   She asked if we could climb over the fence and go in the shed?   I informed her the shed was locked and thinking back on it that probably saved us from getting in trouble.   During the school year she wrote me some letters telling how she and some other girls would sneak out of their dormitory at night giving me the impression she was a wild young woman.   The next summer she asked me out to a dance at a relative's house in the town of Corning, about 30 miles north of Willows.   This would be my first real date.   Her mother drove us up to Corning and was probably acting as a chaperone in order to prevent any mishaps,  knowing her daughter.   Mary Ann was wearing a white strapless dress that would drive a young boy mad with all kinds of lusty thoughts.   We made it home without any trouble.  In the years that followed Mary Ann  got involved with a couple of boys in town that I knew.   Once when I was doing farm work one summer, I was informed by the foreman Mary Ann and another girl had driven out to this farm in search of me, but unable to find me.  The last time I saw her was when I was attending Chico State College in the Fall of 1964.