A Lifetime of Romantic Crushes

I was victimized by my first romantic crush when I was six years old. The girl and I were classmates in kindergarten and the 1^st grade. I will not divulge her name, though I still remember it. She had shiny, curly, brown hair, and she wore pretty dresses. Several other boys had crushes on her too. I don’t specifically recall, but I’ll bet she had a row of six year-old guys asking to push her whenever she perched herself upon a playground swing.

A year or two later I attended a different school, and I had a crush on a different pretty girl. Just like when I had a crush on the first girl, I did not know psychologically why I had this crush. If I were to be asked at the time, I would have instantly reply that I did not like girls. Girls were yucky, I would proclaim. Yet at any given time I seemed to fall under the spell of one girl or another, even when the girl was oblivious to my crush; and she always was.

I am now over sixty and yes, I can still be seized by a crush. In fact, the crushes I experience at sixty are oddly similar to the crushes I experienced at six. The girls are older but the feelings are pretty much identical. Over the years I have tried to analyze these crushes and I have come to the conclusion that two ingredients are required. One ingredient is some level of physical attractiveness. The mere presence of the desired female has to be able to spark interest. The other ingredient is simple mystery. There cannot be an over-familiarity with the quarry because if too much is known, there is no mystery, and it is the mystery that drives the imagination, which in turn creates the crush.

I think I am like every other healthy heterosexual in that I can get a crush on a member of the opposite sex while in a long-term relationship with someone else. When I fall prey to a crush while also in a relationship, I have a desire to act upon the crush, but I do not want to act on the crush, consequently I do not. This does not hold true for every person all the time, a fact that can potentially ruin relationships, even marriages.

Even during the times when I have been unattached I have never had the opportunity to become even slightly intimate with a woman with whom I had a crush. The reasons range from lack of confidence on my part, to good sense on her part. Anyway, I'm not sure what the endeavor would be like. My guess is that it would begin with gut-wrenching anxiety, and end in disappointment, so maybe I'm better off without the experience. 

Through all my years of romantic crushes there exists about a dozen real-life women who I have known well enough for them to pique my imagination, but not so well as to deflate the mystery they created. Now at age sixty-one the reminiscence of these approximately twelve women creates the odd blend of remorse, and appreciation. Sorry, but I’ll have to get back to you on the exact proportions of that blend.        

An Overlooked Milepost In Life

I don’t like to encounter any of life’s mileposts, at least not the later ones. Turning eighteen met with my approval, and graduating from high school still ranks as one of my favorites, but I did not like turning fifty, and that was over ten years ago. When I turned fifty I started getting “old folks” mail, and it did not amuse me. I received something from AARP about two days after my fiftieth birthday. It was as though the organization was a shark waiting for me to fall into the water at age fifty. 

Many of the standard mileposts I did not get involved in. I’m speaking of fatherhood, divorce, grandfatherhood, etc. I’ve been a bachelor all my life. I do have a “significant other” and we recently passed our 25^th year together. I guess that’s kind of an unofficial milepost. I’ve been waiting for her to ask for my hand, but so far she has resisted. That would be a big milepost.

Anyway, I’m now going to get to the point of this long-winded blog entry, and that is; one of my previous girlfriends died recently. She died of natural causes. I consider the deaths of friends and family members, mileposts. I now consider the death of an ex-girlfriend a milepost too. It's kind of an overlooked milepost, and it’s a milepost that does not come along expectantly, like a birthday or an anniversary.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know quite how to take this particular milepost. I haven’t laid my eyes on her in thirty years, so I’m not about to cry. But it is a little unsettling. It wasn’t a “going steady” high school-like fling. We had a full “adult” relationship that lasted about eight months or so. We did some traveling, spent a Christmas together, etc. Over the years I’ve thought about her on occasion and wondered how things were going with her.

When I heard that she had passed away I did an internet search using her name. I found her obituary, of course. I also discovered that she had recently done a brief interview for a small, local newsletter. There was no real reason for the interview. It was kind of a “meet you neighbor” thing. Anyway, she mentioned her kids, her hobbies, and where she had worked. And she mentioned a long-ago camping trip when we slept in a tent in a state forest. Out of her sixty years of life, she mentions that one excursion, spent with me. 

Like I said; I don’t know quite how to take this milepost, and yeah, it’s a little unsettling. I guess that's why we notice them when they come.      

A Lucky Guy

Stupid stuff occasionally comes to mind, and a lot of the time I write about these wacky thoughts, many of which appear in this idiotic blog. This one particular thought has past through my mind many times over the last twenty or thirty years. In fact, I can’t believe I haven’t written about it yet. I thought I had, but as I glance through the entries in this goofball blog, I see no sign of it.

I’m a lucky guy. That’s it. That's the thought. As I said, this notion first came to me many years ago. I was probably in my 20s or early 30s. It dawned on me that I should appreciate the fact that I am a healthy American born in the 20^th Century. I could have been born a deformed infant in Ethiopia or Siberia four hundred years ago. But I wasn’t. I had the good fortune to miss out on all three of those possibilities.

I could have been born in France in 1830. Perhaps I would have lived to the age of 22 when appendicitis would have killed me. What if I had been born in China in 1560? I would have had a life-expectancy of 25 years. Twenty-five years of drudgery, working in rice patties. Who knows, maybe I would have gotten used to it. I’m glad I didn’t have to try.   

I don’t know when or how this idea first came into my mind, this idea concerning my good luck. It may have been about 1980. Perhaps I was playing golf on a sunny day, with a good friend. I may have looked around, taken it all in, and thought; I sure am lucky because life just doesn’t get any better than this.

Or it’s possible the year was 1982. I could have been sipping a red wine while dining on a perfectly-made helping of steamy lasagna. Across the table was a pretty woman, a lovely smile brightening her face. Out in the parking lot was my first brand-new automobile. Such a scenario certainly could have made me appreciate my life’s good fortune.

And my good luck just seems to continue on and on. I’ve never been struck by either lightning or a bus. For some reason, no one has felt compelled to shoot me. I’ve never had a catastrophic illness. I’ve been bitten by a dog only once, and I probably had that coming. Heck, I have retained all my teeth, except for the wisdoms. I have seen the world from the summit of Pike’s Peak, and trekked the salty floor of Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level. I have dined at the Eiffel Tower, and camped upon the White Cliffs of Dover. How does a guy get so lucky?

Is it possible that all the bad luck will hit me at once? It doesn’t seem likely, but who knows? Who would have thought I could’ve gotten this far unscathed. So maybe all the bad luck will descend upon me all at once. Heck, even if that happens, I’d be way ahead in the game.

A Brief Fling

This is the second time this has happened to me in the last five years or so. You would think it strange; forty years as an adult and it happens to me only twice, both times when I am over 55. The first experience was while I was sitting in a Worthington Kroger grocery store, just outside the pharmacy department. I was awaiting a prescription to be filled, and so was she. This most recent occurrence took place in a Clintonville dentist office waiting room. As with the first occasion, it was just the two of us there, isolated and by ourselves.

It was about ten minutes before 2 PM. I was early for my appointment with my dentist, Dr. Raisch. I sat down two seats to the left of the only other person in the waiting room, an attractive woman who I guessed was in her mid-30s, maybe 40 years old. Coincidentally, I had seen the same woman six months earlier in the same room. Apparently our six month check-ups were almost synchronized. I wanted to say hello but she appeared to be reluctant to so much as make eye contact. It seemed almost as though I were too imposing a figure for her eyes to behold. I was wearing one of my best shirts, and I was enjoying a good hair day, so the notion that I might be simply too astounding was something I accepted as a natural reaction from the captivating woman.

I made myself comfortable in a chair, and in a tough decision chose a Guns and Ammo Magazine over a Today’s Bride. I was in the process of pricing bullet-proof vests when the comely lady two seats to my right whispered, “I want to say, I find you very handsome. Very handsome.”

My reading ceased immediately, of course. Truth was; I was speechless. How can anyone instantly respond to such a statement? I certainly could not.

Still speaking in a hushed voice, she continued. “We haven’t seen each other very often, but we’ve seen each other often enough that I know that you are the one for me.”

I turned and gave her a glance, but when I did she spun away, as though her own words were adding to her timidity. I was about to speak, but before I could, she continued with her shy, whispered disclosure. “I want to see you this evening… no, I need to see you this evening. You could come by my place.”

“I am flattered," I stated uneasily, “but…”

“Don’t say no,” the attractive lady continued, her body still turned away in apparent bashfulness. “Please, don’t say no.”

“Well, see, the thing is, I have a significant other,” I pronounced. “I think you are an attractive woman, and if I were an available man I certainly would consider your proposal, but...”

Suddenly the woman turned towards me, she removed the miniscule cellphone headset from what had been her hidden right ear. “Excuse me,” she said to me, her voice suddenly strong and direct, “are you talking to me?”

“Ummm, no,” I managed to stammer, “I was just talking to myself. That’s all, just, you know, talking to myself.”   

Jim Grades God's Work

One of these days I just might die, and if that should happen, my life is going to be judged by God. That’s the story I’ve heard, anyway. Well for right now I’m still alive and on Earth, so I figured while I’m here I might as well judge God’s work. I mean, I’ve been alive for over 60 years and through those years I’ve been looking at stuff, stuff that’s supposedly God’s handiwork. So I figure I’m just as worthy to judge God’s doing as anyone else. So here it goes…

The Universe (excluding planet Earth); God really did a good job with the Universe, generally speaking. There is a fair amount of colors and shapes, and certainly no one can argue that the size is inadequate. Personally, I like all the open space, and the almost infinite distances between things. I think it captures the imagination. I mean, what’s out there? Are there other intelligent beings? See, I like the intrigue. On the other hand, if I had been born a thousand years ago, I would have found that same emptiness of space nothing more than confusing. It would go largely unappreciated. And in another thousand years, the human population of Earth might well wish that everything in space were closer together. As it is, mankind’s residence will likely always be on Earth, and in a thousand years the Earth might not be big enough. But for today, the present time, the Universe seems to be a fascinating place. I’m going to give God a B+ grade on it.

Planet Earth; I’m slightly disappointed with God when it comes to his work making this planet. I think he could have been more imaginative. For an example, I don’t like all the foliage to be green. I know that plants need green chlorophyll for photosynthesis, but I’m talking about God here, a guy who can do anything. I think chlorophyll should have come in an array of colors. Why didn’t He make the sycamore leaf violet and the oak leaf white? How about a deep blue maple? See? God just didn’t think it through. I don’t know, maybe he was in a hurry to get it done.

Most of God’s animals get a passing grade for design and for general environmental utility. But I don’t quite get what the thinking was behind the creation of the mouse or his big brother, the rat. I like God’s idea of fur, but scales don’t do a lot for me. There are huge swimming animals, such as the whale and some species of shark, but there aren’t any colossal birds. I think God missed the boat on that one. If I were God I would have made a couple of species of gigantic birds. Yeah, if I were God there would be a couple of varieties of bird the size of a 1958 Oldsmobile. Anyway, all told, I’m giving God a C+ grade when it comes to planet Earth.

Humans; Okay, according to some people, all of God’s work was done with humans in mind. So I’m going to put Human Beings, i.e., homo sapiens, into their own category. And as for humans, I like what God has done, generally. There is evidence of true cleverness in a number of places. He has made mankind almost perfectly imperfect, if such a thing is possible. For example; there’s something very calculating about a species that has the intellect to destroy all life on Earth, and the ignorance to possibly do it. I see some gloriously dark humor there. It’s almost devious. And who wouldn’t appreciate the scheming behind the concept of various colors and races within the human species? Us humans still haven’t figure out how to deal with that. Yet, when it comes right down to it, usually the act of one person is helpful to some other person, or at least it does him no harm. So mankind is basically a positive entity. But the answer to the supreme test will not be known for perhaps hundreds of years, and the test has one question; can man survive his own actions? Can mankind survive mankind?

As for the physical structure of the human species, God has done a good but not great job. He has given us the intelligence to develop medicines that allow us to survive far beyond the expiration date of our bodies. Personally, I think that was a miscalculation on God’s part. I mean, unlike the social puzzle that comes from man’s racial problems, old age just causes pain and debilitation to individuals. On a positive note, God did make sex a highly enjoyable experience, at least highly enjoyable most of the time. What if the act needed for the male’s half of reproduction was no more stimulating than spitting saliva, and the female half was like... ? Anyway, I’ve got to give God kudos for that little piece of genius. But overall, when it comes to God’s handiwork, and the human species, I’m giving him a B grade. Good, but not outstanding.

So taking all categories into account, I’m giving God an overall grade of B. That’s not bad. If I were God, I’d be happy with that. I mean, it was a big job. No one could have done it perfectly. Truth is; I hope when my day of judgment comes, He grades me as high. Heck, I'd settle for a C+.

I Finally Get It

I'm now 61 but I still remember when I was a kid there were a handful of parents who did not want me around their children. One summer evening, a parent visited our front door and angrily proclaimed that he did not want to see me around his son… ever again! I think the father’s son had come home for supper late and dusty. When I was in my youth, that is how I often traveled; late and dusty.

When I became a teenager, there were parents who forbid I keep company with their children. I remember a high school classmate, who will go nameless, informing me that his mother no longer wanted me to visit, and I should stay away. If memory serves me correctly, we had taken some photos of each other skillfully sliding our cars around on a dirty road. It wasn’t necessarily dangerous behavior, just out-of-bounds behavior in the eyes of most adults. Anyway, my friend’s mother got wind of the activity and I was banished from the property.

Many decades later I still do similar shenanigans. A few weeks ago I was in the bleachers at a sporting event. I decided I wanted some popcorn so I visited the vendor in the mezzanine. As I was returning to my seat, inching my way down the crowded row with my popcorn in my hand, I acted as though I were suddenly about to lose my balance and on the verge of toppling over the patrons in the lower rows. A few people gasped in fear while others reached out in a desperate effort to stabilize me. But of course there was never any need to fret. As if by magic, I suddenly regained my balance and continue unfazed down the row.

This is an old stunt of mine, but I still like to bring it out now and then. Needless to say, I was always in complete control and in absolutely no danger of losing my balance. But you couldn’t tell it by the clumsy –but controlled- wobble. This sort of behavior annoys Diana, my significant other. I usually get a dejected headshake and the question, “Why do you do that stuff?”

I usually grin, shrug, and reply, “For personal amusement.”

I bought a cellphone a year or so ago. Now and then I call out on it, but I’ve actually received only one or two calls. Anyway, I’ve recently discovered that it has a feature where a person can record sound, including voice. Not only can the cellphone record a voice, but the voice can be used as a ringtone. The possibilities for low-grade fun seemed endless. What I ended up doing was sitting in my car in a remote parking lot and in a screeching, obscenity-laden voice, told myself to answer the phone. It went something like, "Answer the phone, you &%#@&&%@% mudda%^#%#!" When that was completed, I then selected the shrieking to be used as my ringtone. With the work done, I then clicked an option where I could listen to my ringtone without actually being called. Yep, the cellphone suddenly came alive, blasting the collection of obscenities over and over until the phone was supposedly answered.

Keeping in mind that this is me saying this; it was funny. I couldn’t help but to chuckle at this obscenity-spewing cellphone. Splendid, if not slightly demented humor, I thought. Then, all at once, my laughter ceased and it hit me. Who does this stuff!? What goofball thinks about having a home-made, obscene ringtone for their cellphone, let alone actually putting in the effort to make such a ringtone? For perhaps the first time ever I was seeing myself from the perspective of some other adult. As I stared at my cellphone I suddenly realized why so many of those parents preferred that I be elsewhere, anywhere but with their child. Their sentiments suddenly made sense. I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong, but finally, at long last, I get it.

I’ll tell you, sometimes a personal revelation can be something of a bummer, especially one where you finally comprehend why you were something of an outcast. It’s not the first time I’ve had a moment of negative self-discovery, but this one might be the most stinging. Truth is, I could use a pick-me-up. Maybe someone will call to cheer me up. Heck, just hearing that ringtone would help.

My Pal Dave

I was talking with an old friend, Jeff, about one of our mutual buddies from back in the day, a guy named Dave Rubadue. Dave was a good-looking kid who had a unique kind of nutty streak in him. He could make funny but poignant observations concerning the entire world, other times he would make humorous yet often insightful comments aimed at some everyday minutia right in front of us. He had a gift for that kind of thing. I first started hanging out with Dave when we were both just starting the 11th grade, almost forty-five years ago. At that time Dave not only had his driver's license, but he also had his mother's car at his disposal. Among other activities, we cruised around Columbus's north side, stopping if we saw a pick-up basketball game, or a couple of pretty teenage girls on the stroll. On Friday nights we'd sometimes drive to other high schools' football games for purposes of picking-up girls. A few times we were actually successful. This was in the Midwest suburbs about a trillion years ago. So there wasn't any actual sex. About all we did was kiss and nuzzle. We might try to cop a feel, but we were risking a rebuff if we did. Still, after we took the girls to their homes we would compare notes and congratulate each other if we had any success, such as it was. Dave actually met his future wife on one of these escapades.

But make no mistake, Dave and I were true friends. Sometimes we'd talk about personal stuff. Romance, sex, religion on occasion, even our philosophies concerning life, all were discussed one time or another. Dave was a bright kid but a bit restless, whereas I was a lousy student constantly on the verge of a kind of frustrated boredom. Truth is, if it weren't for our friendship, Dave, I, or both of us may have gone down some wayward path. As it was, our chemistry together seemed to put limits on each other's behavior. One time we drove into a drive-in movie theater through the exit. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time. The cops showed up, took our names, and then threw us out of the theater. It was relatively harmless, juvenile behavior. Back in those days I was capable of a lot worse. Another time we stole beer out of some guy's garage. That time we escaped without capture. Again, I was capable of considerably more egregious behavior, and so was Dave, but when we were in action together, ironically, there seemed to be limits.

After graduating from high school, Dave went on to Ohio State, which was about five miles down the road from our high school. I never had either the grades or the academic aptitude to go on to college, so I began my career in low-paying menial labor jobs. When in college, Dave spent more time studying than he did when we were in high school, yet we still chummed around. Our stomping grounds merely moved down to the Ohio State campus, and surrounding neighborhoods. We'd play basketball on one of the many outdoors courts in that area, and then go to one of the bars for a postgame beer or two. Then about a year into his college career, Dave landed a part-time job and moved into a campus-area apartment. All we had to do was sit on the sidewalk outside his front door and in short order one college girl or another would wander by, ripe for the one-liner. Of course they usually would just smile and dismiss us, but that was okay, we were still entertaining ourselves. I don't know what I would have done with myself had I not spent those hours with Dave. I don't know what direction I might have gone.

About six months after Dave got his undergraduate degree, he got married to one of the girls we had met five or six years earlier while on one of our "patrols". When he told me he was getting married, I informed him that it would likely be the complete end of the buddy-ish life that we had known for the previous six-plus years. Dave denied it, but I knew better. Deep down, Dave probably knew better too.

I was an usher at his wedding. I saw him about a half dozen times after that. Though he lived within twenty miles, he never called, and when I called him, he was always busy. I eventually quit calling.

I've loosely kept track of him to this day. Dave went on to law school and took a job doing lawyer stuff for a big corporation. Soon thereafter he moved into a new, stylish suburban neighborhood and began raising a couple of kids. I haven't heard his voice or even seen a photo of him in well over three decades.

Anyway, as I said earlier, a few days ago Jeff and I got to talking about our old pal. Mostly we talked about some of the shenanigans that the three of us experienced together. But eventually we brought up Dave's sudden and absolute disappearance following his marriage. As I talked about my friend's departure, my thoughts on it, it all started to make sense. See, when Dave received his college diploma, he opened a new door and at the same time closed an old one. Beyond the new door were the wife, kids, and the suburban lifestyle. I did not have a place there, not even to visit. I couldn't sit in his living room and watch TV with his wife and kids. That wouldn't have been good for anyone. And Dave couldn't very well go out and play basketball, or go to see a porn flick, or even spend an evening fishing and drinking beer with his old chums. Those activities existed back behind the old door. End of an era.

Jeff said that he'd like to meet-up with Dave again just to see how he's doing. But I said that, as for myself, no way. The Dave Rubadue of 2012 might very well be a sixty year-old fuddy-duddy, and I certainly wouldn't want to see that. No, I want to remember the young Dave Rubadue, the friend who could spout out a zany one-liner, a zany one-line that often contained a dash of genuine perception. Yeah, that long-ago Dave who would occasionally get me in a little bit of trouble, and in so doing, quite possibly kept me out of a lot of trouble.