The story below is primarily a fictional. Although I was at a roller rink in
California on New Year's Eve 1952, the rest of the story is created
from what I saw, what was shared with me by a friend,
and a helping of fantasy.
They met at a roller rink. It was New Year’s Eve 1952. He was 18 years old, a young airman just out
of Basic Training. She was only 14, a
high school freshman.
He came to the roller rink with
buddies from the nearby air base. She
was there
with family friends and friends of friends, all near her same age,
but none of whom she
knew very well.
After succumbing to their begging to “do something fun,” her father and
one of the other fathers drove the girls to the local rink to see in the New
Year while their
parents played Gin Rummy and chatted the evening away.
She sat on the benches reserved
for skaters just behind the railing that encircled the skate floor, observing
the large number of skaters, trying to get up enough nerve to test her
skill. It had been a couple of years
since she had been on skates and she was apprehensive.
She watched the group of airmen
playing tag with one another. They were
the reason she hesitated to go out on the floor, fearful of their fast skating,
weaving in and out of the crowd, although they did so with great agility.
When the tag game ended most of the
group headed for the concession stand, but the young airman, who was lagging at
the tail end of the group, exited the stile near where she was sitting,
stumbling over the feet of a skater sitting three seats to her left, he plopped
down, out of breath, on the bench next to her.
Her first inclination was to take this
opportunity to enter the floor while there were fewer skaters, but before she
could get to her feet, he said, “This is my first time here. How ‘bout you?” Her second inclination was to pretend she
didn’t hear him. She knew he had to be
several years older than she, and who knew what his intentions might be?
But, when she realized he was
apologizing for what he thought she might consider rudeness for his abrupt
appearance, she chose not to be rude in return.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope I
didn’t startle you when I came rolling over here at breakneck speed. I just needed to catch my breath, and didn’t
intend to be so clumsy in my exit.”
“That’s OK,” she said. “I am getting ready to go skate now anyway,”
and she started to make her exit.
“Oh, don’t go yet. Won’t you chat with me a minute or two?”
“Err…a…I guess so.” She couldn’t believe she was agreeing to talk
with this stranger. She knew with
absolute certainty her parents would disapprove, and she wondered what the
girls she came with (those friends and friends of friends) would think.
Their conversation wasn’t at all what
she expected from an airman. She had
heard stories of girls who had gotten involved with some of these guys, and she
had a preconceived notion that all airmen were alike. She hesitated to continue the conversation.
When the announcer called for a
Couple’s Skate, he asked if she would do him the honor. The song being played
on the organ was “You Belong To Me, a
popular song of the day, and one of her favorites. It took only a second or two for them to
synchronize their skating pattern and they seemed to float around the rink.
He sang the words of the song in her
ear, and she could feel goose bumps rise on her arms. She hoped he didn’t notice. How embarrassing! She didn’t really know this person, and yet
she felt a stirring unfamiliar to anything she had ever experienced.
He was quite unlike the guys in those
stories told to her by her friends. She
thought she needed to steer clear of anyone in the military until she was an
adult, but he seemed different. He had a
gentle easy way about him, and yet his strength of character showed through in
the usual get-acquainted questions he posed, never being too inquisitive, but
showing interest in who she was and curious how she ended up at this particular
skating rink on New Year’s Eve.
Without even thinking she spilled out
her homesick feelings, telling him she had only lived in the area for six
months, and although she had developed a strong friendship with two classmates,
she longed for the multitude of friends she had left behind in her
hometown. He commiserated, having just
received his first assignment, and he, too, missed not only his friends, but
his family, as well.
The two had so much in common. It was incredulous how fate had allowed these
two lonely young people to meet on this particular night. They continued to skate the rest of the
evening together.
A few minutes before midnight he
suggested they take a break to avoid the hoopla that was bound to ensue on the
skate floor. He ordered a Coke for each
of them and they sat back down on the bench where they started the evening together.
While sipping the coke and glancing
around the floor, she became aware of the romantic behavior amongst the couples
on the floor and she was very uneasy.
She wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment. She nervously looked around the rink trying
to find her friends. She saw two of the
three over at the snack bar eating popcorn and chatting with a boy she
recognized from school, and the third friend she located on the skate floor in
a Conga line doing the Hokey-Pokey.
She knew the three girls had
observed her spending almost the entire evening with this stranger, and worried
about what they were thinking. They
really did not know her that well, and she hoped they didn’t have the wrong
impression about her - that they didn’t think she was “fast.” How was she going to explain this to them?
When the 10-second countdown to
midnight began, he picked up her hands and held them tight as he nervously
asked, “May I kiss you.” She felt her
face flush, and she dropped head down, as she always did when shyness set in,
but she lifted her eyes long enough to look into his face, and there was no
question it was going to happen. All the
worries of the moment disappeared as she felt herself melting into his arms.
She always wondered what that first
kiss would be like. She always wondered
what love felt like. She always wondered
who would be the first boy to kiss her.
Now she knew the answer to those questions, but she also knew she would
never see him again.
A few minutes past midnight, the three
friends with whom she had come to the rink were yelling at her across the rink
to get her attention to change into her shoes to be ready when the fathers were
to arrive shortly after midnight to pick them up. The rink would stay open until 1 a.m.
“Stay longer,” he said.
Of course she could not. She impulsively gave him a quick kiss
good-bye and skated over to the other side where she had stashed her coat and
shoes. As soon as they exited the rink,
her three friends began to quiz her about the guy with whom she had spent the
entire evening, asking his name, where he was from, if she was going to see him
again, if she was serious about him; and then, what are your parents going to
say when they find out, won’t they be upset that you let a strange guy kiss you,
isn’t he too old for you, and on and on and on, until she yelled, “Just cut it
out, will you!”
She was not only angry about
all their dumb questions, but now, away from the situation, she was
confused. She knew the consequences If
her parents learned what had taken place.
They said she could not date until she was 16, and here she was at 14 ½,
letting someone almost four years older take advantage of her. But wait, she allowed it to happen. It was her fault. They might be angry with the young man, but
they would be even angrier with her. She
vowed her three friends to secrecy. They
must not breathe a word of this in front of her parents nor their own.
When the two fathers came to pick them
up at 12:15 a.m., the four girls had their coats on and were waiting at the
front door. The young airmen were
getting ready to board the bus taking them back to the base. As she climbed into the car, he came running
toward them yelling, “Wait, wait! I need to talk to you.”
Her father asked, “Is he calling to you?
“No,” she said, and they drove
off.
For years after, whenever she
saw a young man in an Air Force uniform, she thought about him. Whenever she met anyone who had been in the
Air Force she always inquired where he was from and if perchance he was ever stationed
at that particular air base.
She wondered if he ever thought
of her again; if that chance encounter meant as much to him as it did to her;
if that kiss was as special for him as it was for her.
Though their paths never
crossed, she knew he was her first love.
You never forget your first love.
(Word
Count 1587)
Karen McClelland
February 4, 2006
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