Young Love

 

     My first love turned out to be my second grade teacher, she was fresh out of college, blonde and beautiful and had the nicest smile. I think I was her favorite as she often let me operate the phonograph while the other kids slept on their pallets. She was my teacher for only one year then we moved to another school district and my third grade teacher turned out to be Mrs. Webb who by chance had been one of dad's teachers back in the late 1930's. From then until I hit my teenage years girls were more of a pain than anything else.

      About the time I was turning 13 I started noticing girls and it wasn't long till I was falling in love with girls on a frequent basis. I wasn't able to date, didn't have a car or money but none of that stopped me. I went "steady" with several girls in school even giving them my class ring to wear but it was a school day romance, all the same it didn't stop me from falling in love on a regular basis. It was called young love by some puppy love by others, whatever it was I had it.

     In 1960 I turned 13 and went to work part time in a grocery store where my dad was the butcher. It was about this time that we started spending a lot of family time at the lake on Sundays and quite often one or more of dad's friends would join us. There was this one couple George and Nancy that became regulars, they were in their 30's, the guy was a vendor dad dealt with at work, I knew him and got along with him alright but the day he and his wife came out to the lake was a day I fell in love with an older woman. Nancy walked up wearing a two piece bathing suit, she was beautiful, tall and slender with short dark hair and I couldn't keep my eyes off of her, to my 13 year old mind she was a goddess and all of the rest were just girls, of course she didn't pay any mind to me but that didn't stop me from doing stupid things to get her attention.

     As it happened, Nancy worked behind the lunch counter at Woolworths in Donelson Plaza about a half mile from where I worked. At least twice a week I would walk to Woolworths for lunch just to be near her and hope that she would be at the lake that weekend. I was infatuated but of course if she had any idea as to my feelings she never let on, she always greeted me with a smile and never lead me on.

     When summer was over and school started back I didn't see Nancy as often but my love life didn't suffered as there was no shortage of teenage girls to fall in love with. Meanwhile my affair with Nancy was put on the back burner as I only worked weekends through the school year but come summertime I was trekking back to Woolworths and waiting for the weekends. 

     My puppy love with the younger girls and infatuation for Nancy ran their course until I turned 18. Adult responsibilities overtook my teenage lifestyle, Uncle Sam was calling so I joined the Navy and left home for the next four years. It wasn't long after arriving at my first duty station in Florida that I met Linda, what started as young love soon turned into true love that lasted for 47 years.

     I'm into younger women now, Kay and I have been married for six years (Kay is eight years younger than me) and I love her very much. My infatuation with older women seems to have started and ended with Nancy, that young boy's infatuation with a beautiful older woman is a distant memory in an old man's mind as he struggles to hold on to his youth.