Do You Remember Your First Date?

I do. And it’s not a pretty sight.

Denise Kendig wrote that music helps us travel through time.

So with Spotify’s help, I took a little journey. Back to 1966 and my first date.

Tom Jones' Green Green Grass of Home prompted these musings.

Thank you, Denise.

The Beginning

Wendell answered the door. Still in uniform.

He was Sharon’s father and my boss at Baskin- Robbins.

Scooping ice cream was my first job.

Wendell took scooping very seriously.

New dippers trained for four days to perfect the technique that would craft the perfect 3 oz spherical portion.

Not only that. We scooped from large tubs of ice cream and the circular surface had to be evenly lowered.

Even today, 56 years later, whenever I’m in an ice cream shop, I can’t help but look with disdain at the sloppy moon surface appearance of ice cream vats.

My scooping techniques passed inspection so Wendell hired me in the summer of 1965.

On my first day behind the counter, hat, and apron in place, Wendell peered at me with his head tilted upward and an impossible-to-read-smile and said:

“Paul, no matter where you are in the store, I can see you.”

An Interlude

Wendell invited me in.

It’s fall 1966 and he hasn’t fired me yet so I’ve passed muster on the ice cream front. But this was different. There was no four day training period.

After 15 months I see Wendell’s smile as shy and not enigmatic. There’s still that all-knowing gaze.

The house was split-level, popular in America in the 1950s & 60s. I stood in a little entryway, with stairs in front of me ascending to the living room, bedrooms, and kitchen. And stairs to the right descending to a TV room with a door to the garage.

In that TV room, on a couch, the following summer, 1967, a million years from this moment, Sharon and I would be safe from Wendell’s gaze.

And Beverly’s.

Beverly was Sharon’s mom who thought Sharon could do better.

I’d learn that, too, the following summer.

Pretty Sharon followed Beverly down the stairs. It looked to me like they had come from a bathroom, just off the kitchen. They came from on high. That’s what I felt.

Sharon was wearing a green dress with a fishnet pattern on top.

That’s where I was supposed to put the corsage. Somewhere on that mesh

Without pricking…

Somehow I got it attached.

Phew.

The Middle

“Have fun” said Beverly as we slipped into my parent’s car.

Like the out-of-sight TV room and couch, the car’s front bench seats without a center console would be a gift that kept giving, to Sharon and me the following summer.

On that night, the gap between us was the size of the Grand Canyon.

On the way to my high school’s Homecoming Dance, I decided to take side streets that paralleled Locust, a busy street.

Thank goodness.

I had just turned left off Jersey Ridge Road onto a quiet residential street and heard a pop followed by a bump-bump from the back right end of the car.

I eased the car to the side of the street, in front of another split level.

The tire was flat. One month with a Driver’s Permit, I had never opened the trunk let alone fix a flat.

Thankfully, I think now, I had no cell phone to call my dad.

I walked up to the plat-level, knocked on another door, and asked the guy who answered the for help. I didn't know him but four years later he would hire me to work on his yard-work crew.

15 minutes later we were on our way.

The End

Honestly, and I’ve tried, I have no memory of the dance.

Did we dance? A slow dance? Surely not.

But a clue to my teenage psyche that evening lingers.

On the way back to Sharon’s house, the gap between us on that front seat had narrowed not a whit.

I took busy Locust Street because I had just learned in Geomety the shortest distance between two points was a straight line.

Damn. I was on a roll, with green lights at all intersections until we got to Locust & Brady. One of the busiest intersections in Iowa, in 1966.

It is that moment I recall as if it is this moment.

Tom Jones's Green Green Grass was playing on the car radio.

I looked over at Sharon, at the alluring fishnet, with the corsage still hanging-in & on, and thought

I have no idea what I’m doing.

Final thought: If you need a dose of humility, relive your first date.

I’ve been on Medium for two months. Two authors that have helped me become a better storyteller are Sara Burdick and Art Bram. Sara and Art write from a position of vulnerability. Below I link to one of my favorite articles from each; first from Sara and then from Art.