My First Girlfriend

In the spring of sixth grade, young girls' fancies turned to thoughts of love. Mine turned to baseball.

Every morning the lucky kids who walked to school got to play outside before class began (bus riders were herded into the gym and made to stand in line. HA!). I was a walker so I ran (yes, I ran to school) and joined the regular game of kick the can (the reason I ran to school) already in progress; everything was normal.

I noticed we had more spectators (meaning girls) watching than usual. Only two girls were cool enough to play kick the can: Sue and Sibby. (Sibby's real name was Sylvia but her baby sister called her "Sibby" and it stuck.) Anyway, Mrs. Perkins came out to wrangle the walkers and I was grabbed by four girls. 

 Until I was 41 the answer was always maybe.

Karen (who would later become head cheerleader so you know her type) told me with a huge smile "Ian, you're going out with Gina." 

Cootie Catcher

And just like that, I had a girlfriend. I was nonplussed. I always checked "maybe" on the notes about my feelings for girls. (My fear of commitment started early.) Once I discovered the perils of Cootie Catchers assigning you a true love, I avoided them too. I had no idea how it happened but suddenly I was saddled with a girlfriend.

Looking back at pictures
 Buffy and I wondered why we
 weren't drowned to take us 
out of the gene pool.

Sixth-grade me was the epitome of 11-year-old awkwardness. Puberty was knocking on my door but all I had were stinky pits necessitating deodorant. My hair had mutated from blond to brown. The best was that my teeth were growing in at bizarre angles including an awesome gap between the front two big enough for a straw.  

In other words, I wasn't really much of a catch.

Wujik, my best friend that year, witnessed the whole thing. 

"You like Gina?" he asked.

"I guess."

I had no idea what having a girlfriend entailed. Evidently it meant exchanging notes with her. I don't remember what any of the notes said, I just remember the abject terror of being discovered and having Mr. Howell read the note aloud.

It also meant sitting with her at lunch, a situation I disliked because it seems she got to help herself to anything in my lunch bag. Seriously, what the fuck? I don't share food. Gina ate my cookies. Thank God for recess because I escaped to foursquare and she jumped rope. 

Remember these?

Before leaving school, Karen told me to call Gina when I got home. Okay, this was problematic for several reasons. Firstly, this was back when homes had two phones: one in the kitchen, one in the master bedroom which meant Mom would hear me. Secondly, I had to ask to use the phone and then I would be asked who I was calling. Thirdly, I had no idea what to say to this girl. None. Nada. 

I trudged home and asked to use the phone. 

"Who are you calling?" Mom asked, just like I knew she would.

"Nobody."

The answer was usually Wujik or Larsh or Dicola so mom was a little confused. 

"You're calling nobody?"

I scrambled for a noncommittal half-truth.

"I have to call Gina," hastily adding "for a project."

I dialed the number, praying Gina would answer so that I didn't have to talk to her mother. My mother was a manners nazi who insisted I say "hello, this is Ian, may I speak to so-and-so?" Seriously, no one talked like that. It was terrible.

I don't remember who answered. I just remember sitting in silence for 15 minutes before my mother mercifully came in and said she needed the phone.

Having a girlfriend wasn't fun.

The 70s were a cruel
fashion time for boys

The last straw for my romance was Field Day. I was a sprinter, the fastest kid in my class at the 50-yard dash. The kid from our class who was supposed to run the 600-yard dash (that's a dash? when you're 4'10" that's not a dash it's a fucking marathon) was absent and we needed a volunteer. Hell, no one wanted to run that, it's probably why Gregg was absent in the first place. Gina volunteered me, making Wujik fall over in giggles. Her girl gang cheered me for "volunteering."

I ran it, finished a humiliating last place and made my way over to Gina. 

"I break up with you," I wheezed and limped away. 

We had "gone out" for 4 whole days.

Racism and the First Grade Part 2

First graders in 1971 were a little different than they are now. We couldn't read much beyond "See Dick run. Run Dick run."

One morning we came into class and the blinds were shut and Mrs. Kuntz (the meanest first grade teacher ever) was standing in front of the class in her lime-green pantsuit (with royal blue flowers).

"We won't be going outside for recess today," she announced. "Some vandals have written naughty words on the building. The janitors are cleaning them off."

Ok, I had no idea what vandals were, but they'd stolen recess. That made them evil on par with The Penguin or The Joker. I also was at a loss as to why we couldn't go outside for recess. We couldn't read. Seriously, did someone really think that first graders would magically read on a KKK level if simply exposed to wall scrawls?

My normal childhood facial expression.

Oh, how did I know it was racist graffiti? On the bus ride home that afternoon Randy Johns, third grader and able reader, told us what it said.

Racism and the First Grade

I entered first grade in 1971 (yes honey, the year after you were born) just two years after my school district became legally desegregated. I was completely oblivious to this. Having just turned six the week before I was oblivious to most things. I had no idea of the tensions in the community (my father told me he was advised to buy a gun to protect his family from the inevitable black uprising. The neighbor who told him didn't use the word "black."). My yankee Catholic liberals my parents did a good job of shielding Buffy and I from overt racism. Then I went to school.

The difference of skin color crystallized in my mind one afternoon at recess. I was in line to go up the slide. Now this is 1971, the slides was made out of aluminum that was so shiny that when the sun hit it you went blind; it was so slick that that oil was jealous; and it would get so hot you could cook an egg faster than in a microwave. They were awesome.

Virgil was the kid ahead of me. I can very clearly recall the blue pants and black Keds he was wearing as I waited impatiently for him to go so I could fly down the slide into the big hole worn in the red clay. He clambered up the slick metal ladder and I hustled after him. The next thing I knew I was slipping backwards. There were no rubber mats back in those days: you fell, you hit the hard ground. Suddenly a hand was in my face, extended to help. In a moment vividly frozen in my mind I hesitated to touch him. Virgil's hand: his pale palm, black fingers and wrist were trying to catch me and I was afraid to touch him. He was different and I'd never even noticed before.

Sure I'd seen, but I'd never noticed. This moment lasted less than a second before I came to my senses and grabbed his hand. Felt like every other hand I'd touched. Nothing profound happened after that, other than I'd like to think that moment (along with my parents' vigilant efforts to shield us from racism) helped me be color blind.

Wherever you are, thanks, Virgil.

Elections, Women & Wheelchairs

Collars popped & Ray-Bans

The summer I turned 17 was fantastic. My first blow job, my first serious romance (completely unrelated and not over-lapping). When I started my senior year of high school I was a changed man.

My collar was popped with confidence. My Topsiders were the real deal and I had saved enough to buy five pairs of Levis to get me through the week. I was ready to make my mark on the school. That's right, I was running for student council president.

Don't snicker. Times were different; that was a position of power: I would have keys to the soda machine.

Bradley was cuter. And shorter.

I was a shoe-in. Everyone loved me. I was a friend to nerds and jocks, stoners and punks. I moved seamlessly through the high school social miasma. Can you feel my confidence? Admit it, you would vote for me.

Wednesday afternoon was nomination time. My best friend Joe was the guy to nominate me and three girls raced to second the nomination. For about 90 seconds it looked like I would run unopposed. Then came Bradley. Bradley was in the ninth grade, very bright, and very small. Very, very small. He was a midget. Not just a midget, a crippled midget in a wheelchair. He said he wanted to run but knew he couldn't nominate himself. The junior girls cooed over him and he was nominated and seconded in a flash.

I was a little taken aback, but hey, I was a senior. My hair was awesome. I had an actual Izod polo shirt. I could drive! The election would be the following week. No problem.

Problem. I completely underestimated the power of sympathy. I'm not knocking Bradley; he truly was (and I imagine still is) very smart. But he was a freshman, it was ridiculous to consider a freshman for president. However, his freckled little face and his plucky attitude were winning the hearts of the girls. The guys were cool, they understood the rules: seniors are the officers. Freshman are to be ignored, sophomores are tolerated, juniors could be mentored or tormented, but seniors ruled. Why didn't girls get that?

Teen-age girls are more mysterious than women quite frankly. Probably because they vacillate between the tormenting sisters they were at home and the women they wanted to be. And let's face it: teen-age girls are mean. They walked in flocks smelling of Love's Baby Soft and hairspray (remember the hair?) gibbering in high pitched voices. They could cut you down with a toss of the head or lift you up with a smile (which would quickly be followed by a toss of the head).

That's some big hair.

Girls were the reason we showered regularly and doused ourselves in Polo Ralph Lauren (that we pronounced "lau-REN" because that was somehow fancier); they were the reason we tried to kill each other in gym class (while they watched admiring our gladiatorial floor hockey skills); they're why we would spend $25 in quarters trying to knock down bottles at the spring fair to win a $3 stuffed animal. How, how could a midget in a wheelchair so easily win their favor?

The election came and Bradley and I were sent out of the room. He smirked at me. I was uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure this is when my fear of midgets began. Yes, I won (it wasn't a John Hughes movie) though I learned some valuable lessons. First and foremost was that women are far more mysterious than I had even guessed. The second was to never underestimate people in wheelchairs.

In the Beginning

My early childhood was spent in rural Tennessee where my best friend was Michael David Docherty. He was my best friend because we were the same age and lived next door. The truth was, we couldn't really stand each other.

Michael David was the type of kid who would dare you to jump off a roof. Sadly, I was the kind of kid who would jump off a roof to shut him up. Michael took up smoking at six. He began stealing my dad's beers a little after that (his parents were fundamentalist Southern Baptist so they had no beer in their fridge). He set ants on fire with magnifying glasses, tied strings to June Bug legs (okay, that was fun) and would corner the very few neighborhood girls and make them touch his "peepee." Essentially he showed every sign of being a sociopath and it was my sworn six-year-old duty to thwart him.

The Batmobile

We would play superheroes. He was Superman because he could ride a bike with no training wheels. I was Batman because I had the Batmobile. Unfortunately his Superman was evil. He would steal the Batmobile and tell me that Batman wasn't strong enough to take it back. Superman was unstoppable of course save for kryptonite. And a stick in the spokes. Sometimes a fist to the gut would make him give it up too.

Every summer morning Michael David, Myron, Alexi, Kim, David and Lisi and I would devise a game for the day (War, Cowboys & Indians, Cops & Robbers, or Superheroes; essentially any game that allowed us to shoot or otherwise pummel each other). Every summer afternoon Michael David and I would end up in a fist fight. It got to the point where my mother left a wash cloth in the freezer with an ice cube already tucked in it for my inevitable fat lip.

Summer nights were for baseball in the road under street lamps and observed by all the parents who sat on the stoops, sipping cocktails and smoking. Ahh, the Seventies. When the mosquitoes got too fierce (or the cocktails ran dry) it was time to come in for bed and get ready to do the whole thing all over again.