A Love Story

Today is my husband’s birthday so I am thinking of light and love.  We all remember the first person with whom we have sex.  Of course, not all of us remember that person, that evening, and that moment in connection with a dip, a trip and a trek.  However, I am getting ahead of myself.

            It was 1966.  I was a sophomore at Colorado State College in Greeley, Colorado, and I had decided that the man and the hour had finally arrived.  He was willing and I was eager (or was it the other way around?).  I had gotten those new and wonderful birth control pills, and was ready to join the sexual revolution.  On the romantic side, and with women there always has to be a romantic side, the Greek Ball was coming up.  My boyfriend was in a fraternity and this dance, held in the dead of the Colorado winter, was a grand event. 

            A wiser person would have seen the burlesque begin early that day with an unexpected meeting with my intended around noon.  I was walking across the quad from the library when I saw John coming from the gym.  He waved enthusiastically, and I decided to make this unexpected meeting a little more dramatic by adopting a flirtatious pose.  I flashed my best smile and leaned back against the large totem pole at the center of the quad.  Coyly I leaned my head against, “Totem Teddy” and cocked one foot back against the base of the pole.  The added weight on my right foot was all it needed to sink through the snow.  It reached the icy slush beneath and shot straight out from under me.  I slid straight down the totem pole, my head bouncing off every feature of the carvings.  There was no romantic greeting, just me being hoisted, grunting, to me feet.  I was mud from one end to the other.

Gentleman that he was, John walked me back to my apartment and I promised him I would look better the next time he saw me. 

Good as my word, that night I was dazzling.  I had decided on, “sweet” instead of, “sultry” for my look and was in a pink formal.  It had the popular empire waist with a wide satin sash tied in a large bow at the back.  The ends of the bow continued to the bottom of the floor length gown in two 6 inch wide, pink satin sashes.  Add a scoop neck and a push-up bra and you have the perfect picture of a girl on the brink of womanhood.

John and I went to dinner with two other couples before the ball.  At the end of the meal we ladies excused ourselves to head to the bathroom.   That is where the theater of the absurd continued.

Using a toilet in a formal gown is no easy task, but I knew the drill.  Hang your bag and gloves on the hook.  Fold the fabric of the dress up to your waist, pick up the layers of stiff net in a loose bunch, gather up the slip and sit.  I no more than felt the cool porcelain on my warm cheeks when I remembered those pink satin sashes!  They were floating in the toilet and taking on water like the Titanic.  My scream was heard at the front desk where the guys were settling up the bill. 

We spent fifteen minutes drying the sashes under the hand drier, but that water line on the satin wasn’t going away.  My friends, full of concern while we were in the bathroom, spilled into peals of laughter the minute they saw their dates.  John joined the merriment, but I was starting to see a hint of worry around the corner of his eye.  What else could go wrong?

He didn’t have to wait long for the next act in this on-going melodrama.  We got to the Greek Ball and I decided to be blithely unaffected by a high water mark on the back of my gown.  Taking the floor with more than my usual élan I caught the edge of a heel on the slick surface and headed for the floor.  I stumbled forward, losing the fight with gravity and sliding forward into the dancers, stopping in a prone position with my arms wrapped around the legs of Dr. Darryl Holmes, president of the college. I looked like I had just stolen a hotly contested second base. 

One look at John let me know that he was starting to weigh the night’s anticipated climax with all of the things that might go wrong during the exercise.  Clearly, I was a woman capable of serious damage. 

We drove to a secluded spot and made our way to the back seat of his ‘56 Mercury.  What followed probably looked like a combination of American Graffiti and The Marx Brothers, but it was exciting, satisfying and left me wanting more as soon as possible.  That is when we noticed there was no more music on the radio.

The car battery was dead.  It was midnight and we were stuck on a deserted farm road.  John decided to hike across the farmer’s sugar beet field to ask for help rather than take the road.  Staying in the car was an option, but I decided I was going with him.

The ruts of the field were a foot deep and covered in manure from the Monfort feedlot.  At one point I stumbled over a rut and went down on all fours.  With his last ounce of chivalry, John helped me up and asked if I was all right.  Putting my gloved hand to my forward I said, “Go on without me, Jacques.  The message has got to get through.”

That is where I lost John.  He got me home but I think we were doomed from then on.  Still, I can’t pass a sugar beet field without thinking of that first time.

Here’s to love and keeping the faith.