An Apple Core, a Toilet: Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood (3 page)

I'm no expert on parenting or fatherhood, but at 50, I know this:

When I open a bag of Snyder of Berlin potato chips, I am filled again with the security and happiness that I felt so long ago because my mother and father were putting my needs first.

Big Buddy Puppy Love

I still have no idea why Laura Lindsey chose to like me, but she did.

It happened during my sixth grade year in the late spring of 1974, shortly after she transferred to St. Germaine Catholic School.

The thick woods behind our school had blossomed to a luscious green — the birds singing happily as the sun shone and a sweet breeze passed through the leaves.

I’d already had plenty enough trouble keeping my head in my studies, but Laura’s arrival would really turn my noggin to mush.

She had short brown hair, big hazel eyes and a smile so compelling, the average 10-year- old would nearly pass out as she flashed it at him — Stevie Winn wet his pants once.

She carried herself with grace and style, you see — never a hair out of place, her school uniform always perfectly pressed — and was immediately embraced by the most popular girls.

She didn’t let it go to her head, though.

She was cheerful and friendly to everyone regardless of his or her status in the St. Germaine pecking order — even to the least popular boys in our class.

This led a fair number of lackeys — "B-" and "C-listers” who were kidding themselves to think they could ever win the affection of an "A-list” girl such as Laura.

I was among the lackeys.

It's not that I was a bad catch by sixth-grade standards. Sure, I had floppy ears and a shag haircut that was more Danny Bonaduce than David Cassidy, but neither was I like Michael Miskovich, whose Paul Newman blue eyes made him a real lady killer.

Still, it was a momentary bout of male hubris that led me to believe that I, too, could get a girl as classy as Laura Lindsey to like me
that
way.

But, as I said, she would.

***

I worked hard to win her attention. One day during recess in the church parking lot — we were still allowed to play "keep-away" then — I was intent on displaying my athletic prowess.

I got hold of the ball and, while the other kids chased me, I ran near the group of girls that surrounded Laura. She turned to look at me. For a moment our eyes aligned. For a moment I'd felt a connection I'd never known with another human being, let alone a girl.

She stoked something primitive in me. I felt an adrenalin surge — the same energy that causes two rams to bash horns while the female looks on — and was determined that nobody would get the ball out of my hands.

I cut hard left and right, tricking the others with my moves. When 10 kids finally had me surrounded and began grabbing for the ball, I held tight and twisted, ducked and turned, and was soon free from the mob, sprinting past Laura yet again.

I didn’t know it then, but thousands of years of DNA were at work — the same primitive energies that caused one caveman to slug another with a club as the cave-lady of his dreams looked on.

The awkward dance went on for days.

My hubris was frequently interrupted by tremendous doubt — who did I think I was, going after an "A-list" girl, in competition with every other boy in school — but the occasional look in her eye encouraged me to keep trying.

One day in science class, her look would change my life forever.

***

Our science classroom was on the back side of the school. We'd pull all the blinds up high so the large glass windows afforded a compelling view of the thick, green woods outside. We’d open the bottom windows, allowing the sweet scents and sounds of spring to waft through the classroom.

As fate would have it, our science teacher told us to rearrange our desks into groups. I was assigned to the same group as Laura. She was directly to my right.

As birds chirped and their wings fluttered — as bees hummed and crickets sang — I fell into a deep dreamy state. I could feel Laura's presence next to me — could feel this soft, gentle creature who laughed so easily and effortlessly — and I was smitten.

Then it happened. While pretending to look out the window, I snuck a glance at the fine female creature to my right. Her eyes turned to look into mine — I was caught, unable to look away.

I didn’t
want
to look away. I saw in her eyes something I’d never known I was thirsty for. I saw acceptance, affection, admiration. It was as though our spirits had united — as though the moon and the stars had aligned just for us.

Laura Lindsey liked me!

It was one of the greatest romantic experiences the human heart can know — the sense that someone likes you above everybody else. That out of the billions of people on the planet, you are the one she has selected — the one who makes her smile.

It seemed like our eyes were locked for 10 minutes, but it probably was just a moment before Laura looked back down to her schoolwork, her face flushed, her smile further evidence that she saw in me what I had just seen in her!

I floated through the rest of that day on a natural high that made spring smell sweeter, the sun shine brighter, the flowers blossom fuller, the grass grow greener — it was as though the whole world existed as a mere convenience for Laura and I to enliven each other's spirits.

I felt so good I wanted to do something to validate our connection. Now a man of romance, I wanted to give her a gift.

Which was a problem.

***

Everything I knew about romance, I had learned from my father. He, like most fathers of that time, wasn’t big on flowers, candy or perfume — gifts that lacked any utility. He was big on robes and towels and new sweeper fittings. He wasn’t as bad as some other dads he knew. One guy got his wife a washer for Christmas and a set of snow tires for Valentine’s Day.

What's worse, I was broke. All I had to my name was a dime — my entire life savings. I jumped on my bike and rode three blocks away to the Little Store (a mom-and-pop convenience store owned by an old man and his wife). I eyed up the penny candy as though I were a master jeweler looking for the finest cut of diamond.

I passed right over the Top Hats, Tootsie Rolls, baby peanut butter cups and waxed lips (I may have been broke, but I wasn't cheap). I surveyed the potpourri of the finest name-brand candies in the history of kid-dom: Mallow Cup, Hershey's Milk Chocolate, Nestle Crunch, Milk Duds, Good & Plenty, Almond Joy, $100,000 Bar, Milky Way and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

I nearly settled on the Mallow Cup, but figured I'd probably eat it before I had a chance to give it to her.

Finally, I decided to go with bubble gum. You could get a big stick of it — a gift of substance that she'd be able to enjoy for a week or more, thinking of me every time she blew a bubble.

But I had to choose between the two main varieties that were available at the time.

The Bubs Daddy was a finely extruded piece of gum that was a half-inch round and a foot long. It came in a variety of flavors, including regular bubble gum, cherry, grape, apple and watermelon, but one had to pay for this kind of quality. A Bubs Daddy cost an entire dime.

My other option was the Big Buddy, another foot-long stick of bubble gum, which only cost a nickel. Unlike the Bubs Daddy, which was round, the Big Buddy was flat and an inch wide. It had the sweeter, more acidic taste that the lower-quality gums had, but it was still gum. It occurred to me that Laura might not know the difference.

I had to harness every cell of brainpower to think through my decision.

Should I blow my whole dime on a Bubs Daddy for a girl I'd just met? Or should I apply reason and logic to keep my puppy-love emotions in check? If I went for the Big Buddy, I could buy two — one for Laura and one for myself.

I bought two Big Buddies.

I jumped on my bike and rode a mile to school. The building was hardly ever locked and I knew I could get inside easily. I soon found myself sitting in our sixth-grade classroom — sitting at Laura's desk.

I had a pen in my hand and was attempting to write a note right on the Big Buddy packaging. A man of romance should not only be a man of action, I surmised, but a man of eloquence and poetry. Here's what I came up with:

"To Laura, something sweet for somebody sweet. Tom."

As soon as I set the gum inside her desk and got up to leave, I was overcome with doubt. What was I doing? What was I thinking? What if I'd imagined the whole thing — what if Laura didn't really like me?

Worse, what if my rejection became public? I'd be the laughingstock of the school! Was I really prepared to unleash unstoppable forces whose consequences could crush me into oblivion?

I pulled the stick of gum out of her desk. I was about to leave when I changed my mind again.

I’d come all that way, after all. She really had looked in my eyes and I had been sure she was as smitten with me as I was with her.

I took out the piece of gum I’d not written on and wrote a new, less risky note: “To Laura. From Tom.”

I set it in her desk.

I thought I heard someone coming up the hall — the custodian or, worse, one of the nuns — and snuck quickly out the back door. I jumped on my bike and got home just before dark.

It proved to be a long night of tossing, turning, mad self-doubt. I was unable to sleep. I had half a mind to sneak out of my house and ride back to school, but knew it was too late to retrieve that gum.

The next morning I stumbled into homeroom and sat at my desk. For the first time in my school career, I spent that morning with my nose buried in my book. I talked to nobody — least of all Laura Lindsey.

But there would be no hiding during recess. And that was when I realized the giant miscalculation I had made. No, the popular girls were not mocking me as I had feared. My first romantic act was not met with ridicule, as I expected.

It was worse than that.

***

I had succeeded — beyond my wildest imaginings, in fact. I saw it in Laura's eyes on the playground that day. She was smitten for sure — beyond smitten! My actions, and understated skill with words, had thrust her beyond mere human affections — into a state of rapture!

My emotional state had gone from sweet puppy love to doubt and despair to pure instinct. I was suddenly overwhelmed by a need to flee, and I did, ripping the keep-away ball out of another kid’s hands and running to the perimeter of the school parking lot, as far away from Laura as I could get.

I was befuddled by what had occurred. All I’d wanted was a girl to call my own. I was woefully unprepared for the other, more cunning sex. And so it was that I’d chased Laura Lindsey — until she caught me.

I panicked at my future. Pickup football with the boys? No, I'd spend my weekends picking out paper plates at Murphy's Mart, attending formal events with Laura and her family — I'd probably never get to enjoy another Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with my own family.

The day before, I had been a romantic devil, a man of action, lost in the wistful dream world that only a female could provide. But today, I had become strategic and cunning in my own right. I had one more week of school to survive — by avoiding Laura Lindsey for that entire week.

It proved to be one of the most challenging weeks of my life.

***

In no time, word had got around about what I’d done. The other kids were having a field day with my new romance. After school, as we walked along the gravel path — thankfully, Laura lived in another neighborhood and walked a different path — the other kids chanted, "Tommy has a girlfriend, Tommy has a girlfriend …"

When I got home after school, my sisters and mother were waiting for me around the kitchen table. They knew EVERYTHING about my romance — the Big Buddy, my way with words, everything — and took turns mocking me, as only a mother and sisters can do, then nearly fell off their chairs laughing.

Even my father — somebody I thought I could rely on in such matters, since it was us against six females — could not help but razz me.

"There comes a time in a man's life when he needs to start thinking about a two-seated bicycle, Tommy," he said at dinner.

***

Yeah, that last week of school was a hard one, but I survived it. I didn't encounter Laura once — not even in science class. I never had to answer her queries about my gift, my intentions, my hopes and dreams about our future.

School finally let out. I had a whole summer to lay low. In a few weeks, the razzing had subsided. Pretty soon it was like I'd never been a romantic fool — like I'd never done, in the grip of amorous lunacy, something no sane boy would ever consider doing.

There was one close scrape three weeks after school got out, though. Laura and one of her friends decided to ride their bikes all the way from her neighborhood, a mile away, to mine.

Always observant and alert, thank goodness, I spotted her rolling down Maryilnn Drive. Before she saw me, however, I was able to sprint across the road and dive under Mr. Hrivnak's forsythia bushes. She rolled right by me, unaware how close she had come.