I have always said it was love at first sight. She has always said it was the hormone driven lust of a fifteen year old. We haven’t agreed on much else since. We are living proof that opposites attract. It really doesn’t make any difference if we agree it will always work out, we will come to terms, strive for the common goal and support each other the best that we can with what we know to be a lifelong friendship and a love that goes much deeper than on the first day of school on a hot September day in 1961.
I was new to the school and having moved into the neighborhood only a month before school began I had only met a few people. As it turned out two of them were in my Biology class. The three of us arrived early and were in the classroom at least 10 minutes before the bell. Who knows if it was boredom or just stupid we began participating in what would soon be defined as horseplay. Not a term that I have ever really understood, there being no horses involved.
The rectangular classroom was set up with tables that would become the platform for the butchering of bugs, frogs and of all things leaves. All of the tables, 6’ across, and two abreast would face the teacher’s desk that sat facing all of the tables on an elevated platform. The rectangular shaped room had two means of entry and exit. When seated for class there was no view of the back entrance. We were seated facing the desk of dominance and having a rather vocal bout discussing who knows what, when above our noise rose the voice of the custodian of the elevated desk whose name was prominently displayed on the engraved plaque we all had taken notice of but didn’t pay much attention to. The voice, from the backdoor echoed through our marrow and we immediately, as if responding to a siren, yielded our boisterous activity.
Mrs. Wise, previously identified by the engraved plaque demanded,
“You three stop that horseplay right now and take your seats, quietly! Leslie, take the seat against the wall.” Her index finger was directed to a singular schoolhouse chair, the kind with its own desk top. It sat facing the opposing wall that contained both doors, was much too close to the elevated desk, right up against the platform. Not within arms’ reach, but close enough. It had never even passed my line of sight and its existence wasn’t even a thought until the finger demanded my attention in its direction. As I relocated myself the six or seven feet to the chair two things became evident. The back of the chair had been crudely carved with the identification of “hot seat” and Mrs. Wise knew my name. I don’t think there were 10 people in the school of nearly 3,000 that knew my name. Now I am freaked out. Silence had taken over my body, a chill I wouldn’t feel again until combat possessed my being and the realization that Mrs. God was not going to be a push over defined the remainder of my activities during my sophomore year of high school. I mean who knew who she told who I was. I would be sitting in the “hot seat” with a clear view of both doors as the other victims of Biology 101 would step into boundaries of the Walls of Wise.
With only a minute or two before the tardy bell would ring its penal warning a young girl of 15 would walk through the backdoor, a door I would have never seen, an entrance that would have gone unnoticed, an event that would have had no impact on my life, an event so distant it would have never had an effect on my day, let alone my high school career, my being and the rest of my life. She was as tan as could be from the wonderful summer sun that caused her skin to glisten like liquid gold against the white blouse that was so neatly tucked in to the black skirt that stopped just above the knee leaving more glowing skin and allowed the imagination to fill in any blanks. I think this is where she got the lust idea. I wasn’t filling in “centerfold” data; I was contemplating if what else was there was as good as the visual package. She was cute, was she fun, did she like to dance, did she play sports, and was she going with someone? What else was there to this really fabulous looking “woman?”
I leaned forward in my new found seat and whispered to my equestrian playing friends,
“I just saw the girl I am going to marry.” Directing them to the back of the room with a slight nod of the head so as not to get anyone else’s attention they would both slowly turn to look. One of the horse playing partners would slowly turn back, lean forward and identify the future Mrs. With the control I don’t think I have ever demonstrated since, with a calmness I have never known I replied,
“You know her?”
My new best friend, the one person outside of my family I would have died for confirmed he has known her for years, they have gone to school together as long as he could remember.
“Do you know where she lives?”
“Oh yea, she lives down the street from Burnett.”
I didn’t have a clue where Burnett was, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before that information became common knowledge. Later that day, the first day of the rest of my life, my newest best friend would take me by and I would be introduced to the girl that would change my purpose of life. Did I want to kiss her? Yes. Did I want to hold her? Yes. But more than all of those “lust” things that a 15 year old thinks about as the hormones race around and about with no specific direction or purpose more than all of that stuff, I wanted to know her. I’m still working on that.
It wouldn’t be until I returned from Vietnam that she would accept my proposal, the second happiest day of my life, the first was being directed to the “hot seat.” We had dated, off and on, graduated high school together, shared in dancing, dating and dining for just over six years before we were married. The list of days that were really happy days was getting longer, and every one of them included her…still do.
No comments:
Post a Comment