When I was sixteen years old, Bradley Cramer nominated me for Queen of the Snowballs. I ran against Dorothy Shapiro whose daddy made gorgeous false teeth and even prettier daughters. The third contender was the rabbi's daughter, Paula Goldberg.

Bradley Cramer was one of my favorite friends but I think I was his only one. His mama supported him by working for her brother in his fish market because she didn't have a husband. Every single day, Sadie Cramer got up before dawn to clean her house and get Bradley dressed for school before she hurried off to sell fish at her brother's market until six at night. Instead of taking a lunch hour, she left the store at three o'clock to pick up her little boy after school and bring him back to the market where he wrapped the fish for their customers. At night, Sadie brought him home, cooked him a hot meal and put them both to bed.

It was very unusual in those days for single mothers to keep their children but Sadie Cramer refused to give her baby up. She adored him and devoted her whole life to make his a lot happier than hers had been. When she packed Bradley his very substantial lunch, she made at least four cold fish sandwiches, two different kinds of home made cookies and little treats like a penny for the gum ball machine or a pop up toy to make him laugh. By noon, you could smell Bradley the minute he walked into the cafeteria because those fish sandwiches had gotten very warm and aromatic in the cloakroom. The minute he walked through the door, all the school kids would giggle and whisper "Fish!"

When he sat down at a table, everyone picked up their lunches and moved away. His face would turn very red and his smile would fade into a terrible sadness that broke my heart. If I saw him in time, I always waved at him and called, "Cub sit here with be, Bradley! There's pleddy of roob!"

That lunch box was really very pungent, but I could stand anything if I could just make him not notice how cruel everyone was to him.

Bradley had a terrible time in school and I think it was because everyone made such fun of him that he couldn't concentrate. When I saw him in study hall laboriously trying to write down words he couldn't spell about things like the Russian Revolution or the crops they grew in Bombay, I could feel tears gather in my eyes. I sat next to him as often as I could and I helped him with his homework. I didn't want to embarrass him, so I just peered at his open book and pointed to the answer to the questions.

I thought it was very unfair that he should suffer just because he didn't know who his father was and his mother had to sell fish for a living. Everyone else had brothers and sisters who protected them and helped them through the painful storm of growing up. Sadie Cramer was too busy to stand up for Bradley and probably too tired. If one of the kids who made fun of Bradley flunked history, that person’s mother could afford private tutors to help him, but Sadie Cramer was a grade school drop out who never got past the sixth grade.

If one of Bradley’s tormentors didn't like the way his lunch smelled, he could throw it out and buy something else to eat. But Bradley Cramer always dressed in his cousin Ronnie's cast off clothes with the legs too short and the jackets too tight because he had no extra money to spend. His mama couldn't afford to buy him his own shirts much less give him an allowance.

When we were in high school, Bradley always came to the mixers at the Jewish Community Center or the dances at the high school, alone. No one would go out with him because he didn't have a car and couldn't afford fancy treats or corsages. When he walked into the room, all dressed up in Ronnie's frayed white shirt and a garish tie Sadie found on sale at Woolworth's, everyone would laugh and whisper "Fish!"

As soon as I smelled him, I excused myself and ran over to say hello, because he looked so desolate and all alone. Bradley loved to dance and so did I, so as soon as he saw me, his face brightened and he said, "Hey, Lynnie! How about a dance?"

Well, I want to tell you, that boy had magic in his feet! I just loved to fly around the floor in his arms. The big band music moved very fast and the beat was loud as thunder. My toes skimmed the floor when we sailed through "The Muskrat Ramble" and "Sing, Sing, Sing." and my eyes sparkled like blazing stars.

I had lots of dates during those four years. Some were handsome, some clever and there were even a few who thought they adored me. But I never had as much fun with any of them as I did with Bradley Cramer when our shoes sparkled like flint on stone as we whirled across that waxed floor at the Jewish Community Center gym.

Every January, we had a big competition at the Center for Queen of the Snowballs. In our junior year, Bradley told me he had put up my name and I was shocked. "How sweet!" I said to him because I was very flattered.

However, I knew very well that I was no beauty queen. I told a good joke, but I didn't make a very pretty picture. My competition was far superior to me. Paula was a gracious, lovely person with the support of the entire Conservative Jewish community. Dorothy Shapiro was really glamorous. She was the most popular girl in the Junior class. This was, after all a beauty contest and with that kind of competition, I knew I didn't stand a chance.

Snow Ball Queen nominees were supposed to invite their escorts instead of the other way around because he would be King of those Snowballs, if she won. I asked Paul Benjamin, a very handsome pharmacy student at Toledo University because drove a yellow convertible and could afford a decent corsage.

The dance was held in The Secor Hotel Ballroom and I wore a purple strapless gown I rounded out with bath powder mitts so it wouldn't fall down. When I saw Bradley walk into the room, I excused myself as I always did and hurried over to say hello. He flushed with pleasure and held out his arms. "May I?" he asked.

"Of course!" I said.

The band was super hot that night and the two of us really moved. The dance style then was to face your date, hold both his hands and move out and then back together to the beat. Every time our bodies slammed together as we galloped across the floor, little clouds of bath powder puffed up from my bodice and Bradley would smile and say, "Gee, Lynnie! You smell really GOOD!"

The band played "String of Pearls" and then swung into "A Shanty in Old Shanty Town" and Bradley sent me flying through the air in a flurry of tulle and bath powder. I was in heaven.

When the set was over, Bradley returned me to Paul Benjamin who was trying to come on to Dorothy Shapiro's sister, Rose Anne. "May I dance with you when you're the Queen?" asked Bradley and I blushed as purple as my dress.

Paul Benjamin was talking to Rose Anne Shapiro and didn't notice I had returned. Bradley tapped him on the shoulder. "You won't mind, will you?" he asked.

"Mind what?" asked Paul.

At midnight, everyone gathered at the bandstand and the president of B'nai Brith announced the winner. Dorothy Shapiro smoothed her make up and fluffed her pageboy bob. The rabbi's daughter looked down at her hands in a suitably modest manner and I tried to look like A Noble Loser.

"Our Queen," said Mr. Feldstein. "Is little Lynnie Miller!"

I could not believe what I'd heard. My face flushed and suddenly I felt very beautiful and very proud that I had beaten out the rabbi's daughter and glamorous Dorothy Shapiro even though I was flat-chested and wore braces. When all the clapping and the shouting died down, Bradley Cramer came up to me said. "Let's show them how to dance, Lynnie." and took me in his arms.

We left poor Paul Benjamin doing the best he could with Gloria Axelrod and we cut a spectacular rug. The powder puffed like mushroom clouds and we sailed across the floor in a perfumed aura of purple tulle and pounding feet. At the end of the dance I gasped, "Thank you so much Bradley. Dancing with you was even better than winning that contest."

He blushed very red and he said. "I knew you'd win, Lynnie."

"How on earth could you know a thing like that?" I asked.

He grinned. "I knew because I voted for you 538 times."

When I recall that night, I always feel terribly sad. The only one who learned something of real value was Dorothy Shapiro. She realized she could never trade on her beauty in life and that is a very good thing. The rabbi's daughter thought she wasn't popular enough for anyone to vote for her. And I? I still weep when I realize that Bradley Cramer was so grateful to me for no reason that I could see. All I had done was treat him with the common human decency every human being deserves.