I’d like to say that I came up with some kind of well scripted, beautifully executed plan. Everyone wants to be the cool guy, to look like the hero and I was no exception. I spent untold hours considering how to make this happen. It felt to me like nothing of this magnitude had ever come into my life. This was a decision that could impact my life forever.
Now I chuckle at teenage naiveté because who the hell really knows anything at that age. I was an ignorant fool, but ignorance is bliss and that is where I was heading, towards endless bliss. It sounds crazy, it sounds stupid, but that is where I would find myself, but I am getting ahead of myself.
High school students are not known for being well heeled and where I came from there was no question about it, money was a commodity that I did not have a whole lot of. And as I was relatively nervous about what to do and where to go I decided to go with a very simple plan. I would take her to the zoo. I didn’t know what I was going to do there, not one clue for how it would work.
All I knew was that I desperately wanted to be her boyfriend, to end the misery of watching her and dreaming of the day when she would call me on the phone, walk through the halls holding my hand, wear my jacket and do all those things that I had seen other couples do.
I even had a goofy thought for how to kiss her.
As I look back now it makes me cringe to even think about it. Basically I hoped that some of the animals would engage in some kind of sexual behavior and that this would give me an opportunity to try and start something. From the perspective of time and distance it is easy to say that I was an idiot. What the hell was I thinking. It is not like I could count on the chimps to suddenly begin an orgy.
As it worked out I didn’t need the monkey’s help, my own nervousness did the trick. I kind of tripped over my own feet and knocked her into the wall. Fortunately I also fell into her causing an unexpected but altogether pleasant embrace. We shared our first kiss near the elephant’s habitat. Another thing that I realized later on was that she was as interested in me as I in her because that area of the zoo stunk. It smelled like the zookeepers had been feeding the elephants something putrid and rotten. I suspect that in other circumstances I would have gagged. But not that day.
Her lips brushed against mine and I could smell her gum and an amazing scent that I couldn’t describe now or then. But every so often I catch a hint of whatever combination of shampoo, perfume and her on the wind. It always catches me unaware and it always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. There is something sad in knowing that the greatest love of your life was the first and that now all it is a memory of a life that once was but is no more.
“But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more”
IN MY LIFE- The Beatles
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