I know a little bit about that. I’m 54, grew up in the s, and was what they ed a "different kind of boy." In high school (I was 5-foot-2 and pounds) I was chased home, slammed into lockers and was beaten up more than once. When I got to college in the late s, I was determined to have a fresh start and formed the first. group on campus. Not out of some great ideal, but from loneliness. Where were other men like me? I count myself lucky to have come of age at a time of so much progress. She was not. Though we were just 15 years apart, our worlds were entirely different times. My host stared out the kitchen window. “It’s easy to hate people you don’t know,” he said. “But I did know her. I did. And she was wonderful. Most of her employees came to accept her. Surprisingly even some of the church people. She was that loved.” He reached into a kitchen cabinet for a box. “I didn’t understand much of it back then,” he said. “His life, I mean. But I so respected her. In the end you have to become the person who makes you happy.” Then, together, the two of us carefully placed a lifetime of buttons into an old shoe box. A ladies’ shoe box. Cerny is co-owner of the Broadway Antique Market in Chicago. This is adapted from his memoir in progress, “Selling Dead People’s Things.” http: //