I want to tell you about a boy’s memory of the girls that he went to school with.  The first thing you have to understand is in junior high school I was just becoming aware of the differences between the girls and me. That was a good thing!

So now you must know that I was a teenage boy with raging hormones and no clue what to do with girls or how to talk to them.  Let me tell you about the girls at the junior high school I went to.  I can’t remember any of them that I would’ve called homely or ugly. That’s right all of them were drop dead gorgeous.  I know most people only meet one or two girls in their lifetime that were pretty enough to be models. Not me and the other lucky boys that went to our junior high school.  We were overflowing with girls that, if they wanted to, could’ve been models.  It was like a boy had a smorgasbord with no knives, forks or spoons and he’s wearing mittens that he can’t pull off.  No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t get a handle on how to talk to the girls.  They didn’t seem to know or care anything about baseball.  Most of them hated comic books and wanted nothing to do with fishing.  So how in the world were you going to start a conversation?  And did you ever notice, as soon as you got up the courage to go over and say something to one of them, 20 of them huddled together and seemed to be looking and laughing at you. Great confidence builder, you know. 

The first time I ever got up the courage to go over to talk to a girl and ask her to the athletic banquet, Oh yes I remember it well, it was in the cafeteria and it was just before the bell was about to ring for us to go back to class and I was going to ask someone to the athletic banquet, so I strutted like John Wayne over to the table where she was at, because I knew girls would like that. I leaned over and quickly put my hand down on the table, which flipped a spoonful of mashed potatoes and gravy right into my face. Luckily, the bell rang and I rushed away to the boy’s room to wash my face and my shirt off before my next class.  I still had time. The banquet was still a couple weeks away and the school was full of girls that I liked but couldn’t talk to (I kind of felt like the Indian boy Raj on “The Big Bang Theory”). So this time I had a plan. I would call her on the telephone, whoever she was going to be.  Now how do you get a phone number if you can’t talk to them?  Eureka!  I now had a plan. There was a Rolodex on the secretary’s desk that had all the boys and girls numbers in it, so I would go into the office in the evening just after school and look up a phone number.  I stayed in the library until they made me leave. I knew the secretary had already gone by that time so I snuck into the office, going behind the counter and flipped open the Rolodex and there was Cindy ‘s Rolodex card and I did kind of like her.

Oh no, I heard someone coming so I ripped her card out of the Rolodex and carried it home with me.  It was just like any other Rolodex card but it had a small picture of the student in the upper left-hand corner and below it, all the vital statistics that were needed for emergency contact. It had both the father and mother’s name and their address. Seems she lived in the apartments that were behind the grocery store on Ketchem just before you got to Airways. I thought, Oh no, that’s a long way to ask a girl to walk in a party dress just to go have a meal and listen to the coaches give out the awards to somebody she probably didn’t even know.  I, in my adolescent mind, thought “problem solved”, I would get her to sit on the handlebars of my bike and I would ride her to the school to the banquet.  I could not build up the courage that night to call her, so I thought I’ll do it tomorrow and give her just enough time to get home.  So I ran home that next day and watched Dark Shadows or Hullabaloo or something like that on TV. That lasted about an hour and I then dialed the number. Cindy answered the phone and I said “Cindy, this is Keith” and she quickly replied, “my father doesn’t allow boys to call us at home. You must never call me at home again” and hung up.  I was devastated. I thought this was my last chance to get a girl to go to the banquet with me.  I walked to school very slowly the next day knowing that I would have to tell the coaches I wasn’t bringing a date, but as soon as I walked through the door, Cindy met me there and said “I’m so sorry but my father was listening on the phone and I could not talk to you. What did you want”. I said to her, “I guess he wouldn’t let you go to the banquet with me either would he?”  She hesitated and said “would you give me till tomorrow? I will talk to my mother. She will make it all right and, if she can, I will be happy to go to the banquet with you.”  So I said “OK, just let me know as soon as you can tomorrow”.  She met me again the next day at the door of our school and was rather sad. She said “the only way my father will let you take me to the banquet is if you come over to meet him and I know you won’t want to do that for me”.  This time I hesitated and thought which would be worse, going to meet a father or going to the banquet alone.  Which scenario would end my life sooner?  I knew I had to think quick. I had to give her an answer of some kind. I just wanted to disappear. This was just too much stress. How can my school do this to me and put me through the horror of trying to find a date and then the torture of having to meet her father.  She started to walk away and I couldn’t let her do that. I really wanted to take her to the banquet, so as I started to speak my voice broke into pieces of course, “I would be happy to, ah, meet your, ah, parents” avoiding saying father.  She quickly hugged me and ran away. Did that mean she was going or was I off the hook and didn’t have to meet her father and did I have to go to the banquet alone?  Girls, who can figure them out?  She found me in the cafeteria at lunchtime and told me that her father would see me that weekend.  Saturday if it was all right with me about 3:00 PM and “please be on time” she said.  Oh no, what had I gotten myself into, what was he going to ask me, what would he do to me if he didn’t like me?  I could just see him throw me off the fifth story balcony of the apartments they lived in.  I was in a cold sweat for the next three days before I had to meet her father.  I walked over there dressed as best I could and I had put on at least 10 layers of deodorant, it didn’t help.  I knocked on the door and, I swear, the Jolly Green Giant answered the door. He had to be at least 6 foot three and looked like he could take Bruce Lee in a fight.  I must have sounded like a little girl when I said “you must be Cindy’s father” and, at this point, I just wanted to leave, but I didn’t. I introduced myself and put out my hand for him to shake. He looked surprised and he shook my hand and I went in and sat down. He asked me questions like what did my father do, how old was I, had I ever murdered anybody, you know he didn’t ask that but I knew it was to be the next question after each question he asked me.  I guess I met with his approval. He told me I could take her to the banquet and he expected me to be back with her a minimum of one hour after the banquet ended.  My brother and his girlfriend took me to pick her up in my father’s car (no bicycle). We went to the banquet and, to be honest with you, I remember absolutely nothing about that banquet. I do remember how pretty she looked.  Somewhere that night I knew I was going to kiss her. I remember it because it was the first time I ever kissed a girl and I put every bit of emotion I had in me into that kiss

and she pushed me away and asked me if I was going to use my tongue. I did not know how to answer. Who came up with that rule, in what universe did you stick your tongue down a girls throat?  So I figured you were supposed to do it, so I said “I didn’t know if you really wanted me to” like I really knew what that was all about.  Thank god we pulled up in front of her apartment. I walked her to the door before I had to put my tongue in her mouth.  I kissed her on cheek and knocked on the door for her go in and her mother came to the door and I told her “thank you for letting Cindy go to the banquet with me”.   I don’t think Cindy and I ever went out again and, for short time, I was pretty happy with that idea but eventually I learned more about girls, how to talk to them and how to kiss them.  The wonderful thing about the girls that I knew was that they were sweet, loving and never tried to hurt you, even though young love is full of pain and pitfalls for both girls and boys.  But I have to say the pain was made much easier by the fact that all of you girls that went to Airways were so pretty.  I think, at the time, my head was coming unscrewed from walking down the hall and looking left, right, back and forth to see all the pretty girls hurrying to their next classes.  I hear some of you now saying that you were not popular and the boys didn’t like you. That’s absolutely not true. All of you were gorgeous. Everyone of us boys adored everyone of you but we were scared to death of you.  I remember one time, I walked a girl home and kissed her in front of her door. It was a screen door and her father was sitting on the couch. He grunted real loud and I ran all the way home as fast as I could.

It’s not that we didn’t want to make you feel beautiful and appreciated, you know you girls didn’t come with a handbook. They just threw us into classes with you and expected us to know what we were doing.  We had just learned how to walk a few short years ago.  I’m glad you girls finally gave us the time to grow up.  I can look back and laugh about those days now and I hope you can to.