I am 70 years old these days. I'm not proud of it but I'm glad I made it this far. I am very sentimental. I'm sentimental at a world-class level. If sentimentality and nostalgia were Olympic events I'd win a Gold Medal. And to top it all off, I have a pretty good long-term memory. There is the groundwork for this blog entry.
Way back in the fall of 1967 when I was 16 years old, two high school pals and I picked up a three girls after a high school football game. It wasn't even our high school. It was actually a rival school. The girls were walking down the sidewalk and we asked them if they needed a ride. They were hesitant but apparently decided, correctly, that we looked innocent enough. The young ladies climbed in. Just to be perfectly clear, we were relatively naïve high school guys. We knew the fact of life, but none of us had come close to actually partaking in them. In fact, I'm not sure any of us had even kissed a girl, at least not in any sort of romantic way.Anyway, the six of us drove around a while with the girls giggling and sitting on one young male lap or another. After an hour or so one of the girls said she needed to go home. We obliged and took the girls to that girl's house. Before getting out of the car, we asked the names of the girls. The most attractive of the three was named Terry Laine. We jotted this information down on a piece of paper. Terry also volunteered her telephone number.
A few days later my friend called her. I know this because he called her from the telephone in my parent's bedroom when no one was around. He talked to her for about five minutes and then asked her if she, and one of her girlfriends, would want to go out with him and his friend. That friend would be me.
She was not interested. My friend said that he would be driving his father's Mustang fastback. Even that was not enough to sway her.
For some unknown reason many details of that evening remained in my memory these 53 years later. Obviously one of those details was the girl's name, Terry Laine. I also remember the address of the house where we dropped her and her friends.
Yesterday evening in a burst of nostalgia and curiosity, I looked up that house on the county's property data base website. Surprisingly, the house remained in the Laine name until 2009. From 1963 to 1998 it was in the name of Arthur Laine. From 1998 to 2009 it was in the name of Cynthia Laine. I did an internet search using the search words "Cynthia Laine obituary". Sure enough, I found it, the obituary.
The obituary informed me that Cynthia's daughter, Terry, preceded her in death. Her married name was Wyatt. I then found the obituary of Terry Laine Wyatt. It was very short. It stated that Terry was born in August 1954 and died in 2005. She was divorced and had two grown daughters.
I did some quick math and calculated that on that evening in 1967 Terry was 13 years old. It seems surreal that one and perhaps all of those girls were 13. It is a bit funny, but also a bit unsettling given we never figured them to be that young. And then there is the thought that yet another person from my past is gone, albeit a person who was not hugely consequential in my life. Still, she was a girl from high school days, or in her case, a single evening.
Anyhow, there it is, a small, bittersweet product of an older guy with a distant memory, too much time on his hands, and internet access.
A few days later my friend called her. I know this because he called her from the telephone in my parent's bedroom when no one was around. He talked to her for about five minutes and then asked her if she, and one of her girlfriends, would want to go out with him and his friend. That friend would be me.
She was not interested. My friend said that he would be driving his father's Mustang fastback. Even that was not enough to sway her.
For some unknown reason many details of that evening remained in my memory these 53 years later. Obviously one of those details was the girl's name, Terry Laine. I also remember the address of the house where we dropped her and her friends.
Yesterday evening in a burst of nostalgia and curiosity, I looked up that house on the county's property data base website. Surprisingly, the house remained in the Laine name until 2009. From 1963 to 1998 it was in the name of Arthur Laine. From 1998 to 2009 it was in the name of Cynthia Laine. I did an internet search using the search words "Cynthia Laine obituary". Sure enough, I found it, the obituary.
The obituary informed me that Cynthia's daughter, Terry, preceded her in death. Her married name was Wyatt. I then found the obituary of Terry Laine Wyatt. It was very short. It stated that Terry was born in August 1954 and died in 2005. She was divorced and had two grown daughters.
I did some quick math and calculated that on that evening in 1967 Terry was 13 years old. It seems surreal that one and perhaps all of those girls were 13. It is a bit funny, but also a bit unsettling given we never figured them to be that young. And then there is the thought that yet another person from my past is gone, albeit a person who was not hugely consequential in my life. Still, she was a girl from high school days, or in her case, a single evening.
Anyhow, there it is, a small, bittersweet product of an older guy with a distant memory, too much time on his hands, and internet access.
