She Blinded Me With Kindness

Once upon a time, when I was still in the armed forces, I was stationed in a large city on the east coast. I hadn't been stationed there for very long before I became acquainted with the city's nightlife, which was eclectic and abundant.

Being a single man, and something of a Jack-The-Lad in those days, I quickly found the best, ahem, hunting grounds that suited me. One such place was a dance club near a major, prestigious university, which was frequented by students and military personnel alike.

One Saturday night, I got to the club at about 9, and found it to be quite crowded already, so I ordered a drink and started to size up the action… it wasn't long before my eyes seized upon the pretty face of a young woman wearing a very nice blue dress, who was sitting with a group of three or four other young women. I waited for the next song to come on, which was a good one, as I recall, but I don't remember the name of it (hey, it ws the mid 80's, ok?). I walked up to this part of three women and asked the one in the blue dress to dance. She said that she'd love to, and said: "lead the way to the dance floor" and I was only happy to oblige. I turned and headed for the dance floor, figuring that she would be right behind me as I made a path for us through the crowd.

When I got to the dance floor, I found myself alone.

She wasn't there.

I guess it won't surprise you to hear that I was a little annoyed. Had I just been made sport of?

I went back to the bar, prepared to let it go, but decided that I wanted to know what that little prank was all about. When I approached the place where this young woman and her friends were sitting, they all got animated and their faces turned red. I walked up to little miss blue dress and said, "hey, what was that all about? Were you just messing with me, because if you didn't want to dance with me, my feelings wouldn't have been hurt if you had said no" She put her hand on my arm and smiled at me (she had a dazzling smile, and a verry bright and open face) and said, I'm sorry, but you were moving too fast for me to follow you… you have to hold my hand because I'm blind."

Oh Lord… She didn't just say she was blind, did she?

"Blind?" I managed to say… she laughed and said, "Yup, blind."

Concerned that I had just made a gigantic ass out of myself, and I attempted to sputter through an apology, but she stopped me with a laugh and told me not to worry about it. Her friends were mortified… whether it was because no one had told me, or because their friend had been left standing there, waiting for me to help her, I can't tell through the mists of time..

After all of the clarification, we had our dance, and a couple more before she and her friends left, but they didn't leave before I got her telephone umber. She was a really nice girl, and REALLY smart… she was doing an international law degree, all of which had to be read, studied, and tested either by audio or braille. We dated for a while, nothing serious, she had to spend three times as much time studying as many other students, so her free time was limited to a few hours once per week… we had fun together, and a few months later she was done with school and that was that.

No big love connection or anything like that, but together, the scorchingly hot summer of 1987 was very pleasant.

I wonder where she is now?