photo by dusipuffi

Today we’re setting the Way-Back machine for March 1977. The place, the western suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, specifically, 139th street and Kingswood Drive. And more specifically still, the little sidewalk in front of Willa Cather Elementary.

The Google Maps satellite image of today just breaks my heart. The little elementary school I remember so well is bounded now by an enormous and ugly shopping mall, and miles and miles of continual sprawl. But when I was in the sixth grade, the view from the schoolyard resembled the photo I’ve included above. I remember setting the tips of my shoes to the edge of the playground blacktop, and slowly raising my eyes to the horizon. It felt like I was on the edge of the world.

I remember walking home from school one March day, and being caught up by the sight of the cumulus clouds rolling over my head. I stood facing west, my windbreaker smacking rapidly against my chest as the roar of the first warm spring winds rushed through my ears. The clouds seemed lined up like a regiment. You could pick one on the distant horizon, wait a few minutes and see it now over your head. A few minutes more and you would lose it as it raced to the opposite side of the sky.

These were happy days to be sure, punctuated by nothing. I was a twelve year old who lived four blocks from school. Walk to school, walk home. Walk to school, walk home. So of course my awakening imagination was seized by the majesty of the tumbling sky, what else was there to contemplate?

Well, in truth, there was something else to contemplate. And that took the form of a girl named Ann Michaels. And I don’t think I can adequately explain how it was that a girl who I had gone to school with for years suddenly stood apart from the pack. And I remember being honestly befuddled, wondering why no one else seemed to have noticed that this girl, with gold and brown straight shoulder length hair, had suddenly started radiating light.

I felt certain we were destined for each other because we shared the same birthday, February 6. And though we had different home rooms, I learned we were assigned the same lyric book in Music class when one of her papers slipped out of the book into my lap. What more evidence does a person need? As I write this, I can see her clearly walking in that long school hallway laughing with her friends.

Now at the time, my home life was pleasant, but somewhat stilted. My parents were not the kind to explain much, especially matters of the heart, crushes, and, gulp, girls. So I had only my own resources to draw upon in order to move this relationship along. In other words, I kept my distance and hoped for the best. Needless to say, this led only to bemused smiles when passing in the hall and countless afternoons spent biking in front of her house, (again!) hoping for a coincidental rendezvous. It never happened.

But fate delivered mercy at last. Sixth grade was the last grade of elementary school and in the spring there was a ceremony of sorts, a square dance. We had been learning the moves in gym class. Curiously, I remember there being a requirement that in order to go, you had to go as a couple! Good grief! As if being a kid wasn’t stressful enough! But it did give me the excuse I needed to approach Ann and be able to spend more than a few passing minutes together.

So at some point in the last weeks of the school year, I stood on the same street corner where the clouds had captivated me and took advantage of a crossing guard who held back the crowd. I motioned Ann to step aside and said, “You wouldn’t want to go to the square dance with me, would you?” Oh, God! Someone throw a blanket over me, but that is exactly what I said. The moment is frozen in my memory. She looked at me straight in the eyes and said, ”Okay.”

And so it went. A few evenings later we dosey-doed in the fully lit gymnasium with our classmates. I remember how amazing it felt to hold her hands as we circled in and out of our steps. And more, I remember her hands being clammy and wet, and how she kept wiping them on her clothes. And I remember not minding for a second, because I had learned earlier in the year that this was reliable, incontrovertible scientific proof that she liked me too.

I’d like to say it was the blossoming of a long lasting romance. But it wasn’t. It was a brief moment in the sun for a boy who was too shy and too uninformed to know what to do next. I never stopped liking her. Even the following year when I heard she liked a boy named Russ. I was hopeless in these matters and all I could do was swoon from a distance during our less frequent encounters in the larger and more crowded junior high school.

Our paths seemed to cross even less frequently in high school, but we did end up graduating together. And here, I have to regretfully add another moment of stupidity from my life. Because years later I attended our ten year reunion. Only days before I had fallen for someone who I went on to see for a long time. She was my date on the evening of the reunion and had my full attention. As we entered the banquet hall, another woman greeted me with a big smile. She asked me how I was and wanted to catch up, but I was too distracted by my own preoccupations. After I sat down at the table, someone leaned over to me and asked, “ What did Ann say to you?”

What? Ann? That was Ann? I didn’t even recognize her! What a dope. I wasn’t paying attention! I tried to find her later that evening but only got in a few minutes of conversation. She told me she was now living in Iowa. Married? I just don’t remember. Oh God, why did I drink so much that night?

I haven’t seen her since, though I have relived my gaff at the reunion countless times. I wish I could redo that moment so that my warm memories of her in my life could end on a nicer note. I have tried to find her online a few times. No luck. She has disappeared now, like the clouds over the horizon. I wish I could thank her for her part in waking this boy’s heart.

Today I’d like to ring the Depot Bell for Ann Michaels, a sweet goldenrod and a cherished memory. And, I’d like to ask my readers to pause for a moment and remember their first crush as well. When someone inexplicably started radiating light, and rattled our insides, showing us that we were very much alive and that there were things in life to look forward to.

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