Sonja

Flash Forward from last week's entry... the year is now 1984. I am still overseas at an American base in Europe.

I met a young woman (well, we were all young in those days, weren't we?) named Sonja.

Sonja was a cook in the base dining facility... she was a sergeant and I was a corporal... She was a beautiful girl, and I was... well I was this studly young thing of nearly 21 years of age.

I would see her when I took my meals, and we would chat, and smile at each other. Either my friends were around or hers were, so we didn't get much opportunity to talk. Until that great summer afternoon when I was with my buddy, Dave, who said "I'm going to wait for you outside, man, you need to go talk to her alone!" She smiled and said that it was nice of my friend to give us a minute to talk... I agreed and wasted no time in asking her out.

We went to see some odd movie that I don't remember at all. After the movie, we went to her apartment and talked about music and then...

and then...

And then I went back to my own apartment around eleven o'clock! (Hey, if you were looking for the salacious, you'll have to wait, there was none of that with this girl)

We saw each other two days later, and went out for a drink, and laughed like there was no tomorrow. We had sparks. We had physical attraction (oh Lord was she built!), but there was something missing. She knew it too. We never dated again, but we remained friends for several year and assignments afterwards.

It was the weirdest thing ever. She was hot!

I was pretty hot back then, too!

I mean... there should have been something, right? I don't mean just sex... but something romantic, right?

Jeez.

Well, 23 years later, I don't know what happened that night, but it makes me smile anyway.

Fire and Desire

So... there I was: All of 17 years old, out of boot camp and at a training base. No more New Jersey. No more mom telling me what to do, and no Drill instructors making my life difficult. My days still belonged to Uncle Sam, but I was on my own after working hours.

I was 17. I didn't have a car. What I DID have, was a large military installation with a large Enlisted Club. Now this was back in the days when it didn't matter what the drinking age was in the state you were in... if you were on base, and old enough to get blown away in the name of Uncle Sam, you were old enough to knock back a few drinks at the club.

Guess what I did on most Friday nights?

One Friday night, my friends and I were about ready to head back to the barracks for the night when some song or another came on, and one of the guys HAD to go and have one more dance... we told him we'd wait in the lobby. While we waited, I met... HER, She was a beautiful girl... woman (as it turned out she was an older woman, all of twenty years old, my lifelong love of older women had begun).

Maria was pretty, friendly, chatty, and really really nice. After about twenty minutes of conversation (I told my friends they could bail without me), Rick James & Tina Marie's song; "Fire and Desire" came on. I asked Maria to dance and that sealed the deal. We were inseparable from that night on. (no, not that way, she was very serious about not doing the horizontal bop until she was married, which was cool with me)

Maria and I saw each other once a week, usually on Wednesday, and we would go to the movies or things like that, and then hang out together on Friday nights, and on Saturdays... I was in love. Flat -out. I had that stars in the eyes flip-flopping stomach, the whole shootin' match. After a couple of months, I met her parents, who seemed to like me well enough... I was the same age as Maria's younger brother, Henry.

Things were moving quite well, but since they were, Uncle Same decided that my service was needed in another country. ****!

When I was reassigned, I told Maria, and we shared some tears, but resolved to do something about it. I had turned 18 a few weeks after we met, and I was a man of the world! (or so I thought). I asked Maria to marry me, and she said that she would. I got on an airplane two days later, and as soon as I got where I was going, I wrote to Maria to reconnect. She was glad to hear from me... so she said.

For the first two months, our letters were frequent... and long. We wrote of love and devotion and all of that stuff. We were realistic enough to know that we should wait a while before the actual marriage, but alas, it was not to be.

Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it also make people lonely. I started getting fewer and fewer letters... and the next thing you know, I got THE letter. Oh, yeah... you know what that letter was, don't you. It was the dreaded "Dear John" letter. Apparently, she had met someone else, and she wanted to tell me right away ... blah, blah, "...sorry to hurt you" blah blah "I really think you are a great guy" blah blah

I was pretty angry, but I decided not to take it to my grave. I put all of the things that Maria had ever sent to me, in a box, and mailed them back to her without including a nasty letter.

I don't wonder where she is, and I don't ever wonder what we could have had together. I was 18... I had lot's of living to do.... but, even now, more than 20 years later, whenever I hear that Rick James - Tina Marie song, I smile. I smile. I smile because it is a memory of a very sweet and loving time, when I had certain feeling for the first time in my life.

Love should make you feel good. Shouldn't it?

Julie--The Final Chapter

Our story thus far,

Julie meets your correspondent in 1979, they date. She is his first "real girlfriend"

Julie and I have a significant moment (well, it was for me) on my sixteenth birthday.

I break up with Julie in the fall of 1980.

I leave town for military service in 1981.

I return home for the first time in 1985.

Julie hears that I am home. Attempts reunification. Is rebuffed like nobody's business.

I return to the Fleet.



All caught up? Good

Fast forward... no really forward. Beyond Star Trek, The Next Generation. Beyond the entire run of Seinfeld. Beyond Ronald Reagan's second term, George Bush's (1st) term, beyond both of Bill Clinton's termas, and the first term of Bush (2nd)....



The year: 2006

The Place: Well. where I live (thought I was going to cough that up, didn't you, SMID!)

I was checking my email one day, when I got an email. An email from one of those class reunion websites. I had registered at a couple of them a few years ago, just in case any old friends needed or wanted to find me. Well, this particular email was from someone that fit into that category.

Yes, it was Julie. She had found me, once again.

She told me that she lived in my area now... (nearly 300 miles from the town we grew up in), and had heard I was in this area (good Lord). She asked about my life etc... and asked if she could call me. Well, I should have known better, but I was sort of anxious to find out how she was doing and all of the, so we set a time to talk on the phone.

We had a fine conversation full of the usual "what have you been doing?" etc...

After about 20 minutes of catching up about my first marriage, my divorce, my career, her career and family... we move right into "so, are we going to see each other?" To which I replied and emphatic no! She asked me why and I told her plainly, that it would lead somewhere that it shouldn't. I told her that was inappropriate to meet with any woman that I had previously seen naked and fondly remembered it (TMI?).

She was irritated and proceeded to tell me how I shouldn't make those sorts of logical leaps... "I'm not after you!" etc..... I assumed the guilt of having said no and blamed it on the fact that I might still have the hots for this woman 21 years after the last time I laid eyes on her... but the truth is, I didn't. I didn't and don't have the hots for this woman. I didn't want to see her because I think she has potential for being a "crazed-stalker-who-boils-rabbits" kind of person, and God knows I don't need that.

Julies was only half-sane when we were in high school.

I wonder if she has been committed yet.

Julie and Me--An Interlude

Ready for the next chapter in the Julie story?

Our story thus far:

Julie and I er... got together in the fall of 1979. We broke up in the fall of 1980. I graduated from high school in June of 1981, and entered active duty in the Marines the following September.

During my first (of two) enlistment(s), I spent 90 percent of my time overseas. During my travels, which included a combat tour of duty in Beirut, Lebanon (forgot about that one, did you?).

After nearly four years away from home, I returned to my hometown, a seasoned old veteran of 21 years of age... I was going to be home for nearly a month, which gave me lots of time to see my old friends, which was not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be, because I had changed quite a bit.

Anyway, it was good to be home, and word got around rather quickly that I had come back to town.

One night, while I was watching TV, our front doorbell rang. Anyone care to guess who was there when I opened the door?

If you guessed "Julie" you would be correct.

She had heard that I was home... and wanted to see me.

Hm. Since my mother was hovering, Julie and I went for a ride... and talked.... No, really, we just talked. Julie let me know that she had missed me and wanted to get back together. She was rather, um.. forward about it... and was unamused when I told her, unequivocally "fat chance".

She drove me back to my mother's house in near silence.

That was in 1985.

Next week: Julie, thef inal chapter (or Julie and the time capsule)

Hosting SOS!

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How Not to Break Up WIth Your Girlfriend

(This is a continuation of this post.)

So... there I was in the fall of 1980, having been with Julie for nearly a year.

In her mind things were going swimmingly. We did things together, but because she lived on the other side of town, I rarely saw her on the weekend (neither of us had a car). Since my weekend were my own, I usually hung out with my friends. For us, hanging out meant scoring some beer and being teen aged boys. We weren't wild by any stretch, but we had fun, at times, that might make a parent raise their eyebrows.

On Monday mornings, I would get the third degree about what I did with my "hoodlum friends"... at first I laughed it off, I continued to laugh it off until the questioning became more than I was comfortable with. Eventually, I got really tired of it.

Julie had wanted to be a cheerleader, but didn't make the team. She wound up on that third (or fourth) tier of pep squad activities known as the color guard... you know white pom pom boots, weird looking hats and those spinning rifles? You get the picture. Well, I would go to some of our basketball games.... not because I liked basketball (I don't) but because the Color Guard would perform at half-time, and Julie and I could be together while the game was on.

Well, she knew that things were tense between us, and we had had a few ugly arguments, but what came next at this particular game was a spectacular example of stupidity on my part... and generally, I like to believe that I'm not stupid.

But...

Right after the halftime show one evening, while we were sitting a scant few feet from a whole knot of her friends, Julie flat out asked me what was going on, and I told her that I was tired of her nagging about my friends, and trying to control me. I further told her to give my class ring back, while I handed hers back to her (it was hanging on a chain around my neck).

Wham

Bam

That's it. We're done. No prolonged drama. A weight off of my shoulders.

Done... clean, with no muss, right?


Ha!
Julie started to cry. Not just weeping... not silent tears of hurt. No, this was full on bawling. Blubbering. Loud tears and just freakin' awful.

Everyone on the Home side of the bleachers was starting.

All of her friends immediately turned on me and loudly demanded to know what I had said to her.

I could see the rest of my high school romantic life evaporating before my eyes.

So what did I do? I'll tell you what I did... I collected myself, put my class ring back on my finger, put on my jacket, and walked out of the gym without a backward glance.

As it happens, Julie's friends weren't as horrified as they made out... one of her friends (and neighbor) was named Sissy... guess who my next girlfriend was?

A button! A button! We've got a button!

Here is the new, official SOS button!

My First Kiss

(Note from Brillig: This is the first time a man has played Soap Opera Sunday! Let's all give him a warm welcome!!!)


This post was written by Anonymous.


1t was 1979, I was a sophomore in high school, and her name was Julie.

She was in my homeroom class, as we both have last names that start with J. I talked to her a lot, because her seat was so close to mine. She was ok.

Julie and I shared another class, 3rd period chorus. We both liked to sing obviously, so it gave us something in common.

I was a bookworm in those days (well, I still am), and while not unpopular, I certainly wasn't the boy that all the girls were paying attention to (and I'm still not), I was extremely flattered. Well, one thing led to another and I started finding reasons to be where she was going to be.

Julie was older than me (I was 15... she was 16), and caught on, aster than I probably would have liked, to the fact that I "liked" her. So, one day, while she waited for the bus home (I waited with her, even though I walked to school), we had one of those quiet autumn moments on a crisp November day, and I moved in for the kill. I kissed that girl for all I was worth (which wasn't a whole lot, as I had never really kissed a girl before). don't know if she was swooning, or if it was just me, but I like to think I did a good job of it.

Julie was my first girlfriend. She gave me my first real kiss.

On my sixteenth birthday, the following month, she gave me something else that I had never had before.

Do you remember that song, "Babe", by Styx? Well, I remember it. Vividly.

I'm not bloody likely to forget it.

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