My First Date

Seventh grade.

Deborah had beautiful skin and bad eyes. For some unknown reason (unknown to me then), I thought that if I would walk home with her and carry her books (corny, but true!) she would be my girlfriend, and someday, perhaps, she would even kiss me. I was a little greaser (this was pre-Beatles- when a little dab of Brylcreem would do ya) and growing out of my clothes about every three weeks. She was kind enough to indulge me—we'd sit on the back porch and talk and until her mother would arrive home from work. After a couple of months of this (and it was getting too cold to sit outside) I suggested that we could go to a movie together. She had to ask her mother.

Her mother said yes. She lived about a half a mile from the cinema, so transportation was not a problem. The Great Escape, a Steve McQueen action thriller was playing, war movies were OK, Doris Day-Rock Hudson sex farces were not. We settled in to our seats, popcorn and candy and a "Bubble-Up" soft drink between us (two straws!), and began to watch. There was one little problem. The movie was too good! We were both mesmerized, she was from a sheltered family and I don't think she had see anything quite like it. We held hands, and she gripped mine tightly when Steve McQueen jumped the barbed wire fences on his stolen motorcycle (he did his own stunts.) I don't remember anything after the date, I would have remembered if we ever did kiss.

Soon after that, Deborah told me her mother didn't think we should see each other so much. I got the hint. Years later, in high school, when she asked me to the Sadie Hawkins (girl-asks-boy) dance I said no, and she cried. There were a lot of things that I didn't understand then.

I did see her at one of our class reunions, 20 years later. Still the same beautiful skin, although she now had contacts for her eyes. We were with our families (another mind blower) but we did get a chance to talk- nothing big, no hard feelings either way. Later, when we were all leaving the park, I saw her verbally chastising her husband, it looked like a routine. There but for the grace of God go I, etc.,

No kiss then, either.