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?