Wednesday, August 15, 2007

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR


Back in the dim distant past of my youth I had basically two girl friends. The first and the most prominent was Mary. She was a fun loving, outgoing girl of seventeen and the first day I walked her home from school there were eight guys waiting for her to come home. This will give you some idea of her popularity. She really was a neat young lady that I was enamoured of but never really in love with (Is that a dangling participle?) We went together for about two years until she fell in love with some other guy. (Can you imagine that?) Our last date was graduation night from High School and it was a wonderful night filled with great big band music, a terrific ballroom, and one in which I sang a couple of songs. But it was probaly the last night Mary and I were together. She was going away to school and I was job hunting. The next one was Marion and this was a diminutive little girl that made me feel larger than I really was and I had a definite superiority complex. However that didn't last very long and I found some reason to break up. The problem with both of these young ladies was that they lived on the opposite end of the world from my home. So I walked, walked and then walked some more because I was too cheap to spend the eight and one third cents to take a street car. Three times I walked to save me twenty five cents to spend on something frivolous. However, graduation night was a triple date with six of us in Moon Bauman's borrowed car. One of the girls was Louise ---my first knowledge of her. Later there was a number of us that worked in downtown Buffalo and every Monday as many as could would meet at Andy's, a spaghetti bar/restaurant, and dined on a large plate of spaghetti for ninety nine cents including bread and butter---a feast. Louise was usually one of the group meeting there. And now you know the rest of the story. We met and slowly became very good friends. I once told my Mother "She is going to make a great wife for someone". Little did I know. The kicker to this story is that Louise only lived a short block from me. The three miles I used to walk to save a few cents was now in the past and I should have known the love of my life was only a short distance away. She still is the love of my life and she still is only a short distance away.

3 comments:

QuiltingFitzy said...

Memories are forever!

Susan said...

And what a beauty Louise was, too! These are terrific memories to read, and I appreciate your sharing them. Thanks!

Gypsy Quilter said...

That is such a wonderful story. She obviously has very good taste too, and not only for spaghetti.