The Summer of '85 - Part II

To read The Summer of ‘85 - Part I, click HERE

Ain’t no use in complainin’, when you got a job to do. Spent my evenings down at the drive-in. Yeah, that’s when I met you…

School time was slow time. At the beginning of every scholastic year I walked into class heartened by the promise of learning new and exciting information and maybe picking up a couple of skills I could use in the real world. And every year that promise was beaten to death by mindless homework, rote memorization, and those goddamn Weekly Readers. The fall of 1984 was no exception. That said, something unexpected did happen. Something for which I was most certainly ill-prepared. Along with being both reasonably unpopular and empirically goofy-looking, I was viciously cursed. Cursed with the worst affliction that could ever hex an almost 12-year-old boy; I fell in love. At least, that’s what I assumed I was ‘in’ given everything I’d learned from listening to Top 40 radio. She was fair skinned, raven-haired, with the cutest little ski-jump nose, and distracting blue eyes. I didn’t have a type. I was 11. But I figured if I did, she’d be it. I weighed about 160lbs. She might have been pushing 90. I was an extravert who was constantly threatened with arcane, Catholic school punishments simply because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. She was an introvert who would have been escorted to the nurse’s office if she had ever said more than six words in a row. Seemed like destiny for a tween romantic who had no earthly idea what he was doing.

School being the relative snooze-fest that it was, a not insignificant portion of my attention predictably fell on her. For some reason, our desks were positioned close together for most of that year (Or maybe it just seemed like most of that year). Our interactions were usually fleeting and awkward. I’d kick her desk to get her attention then try to say something witty, often in three different vocal tones at once (again, yay puberty). She’d either ignore it, smile, giggle, or just stab me with her mechanical pencil. The last time she did that the graphite got stuck in the skin on side of my leg. In fact, it’s still there to this day. (It comforts me now, not because of nostalgia, but because I like to imagine the lead helps protect me from all that cell phone radiation). Once she suggested I ‘lose some weight’. I mean, who doesn’t love unsolicited advice like that, huh? Occasionally, though, she’d reply to my words in kind. And it was those moments that made showing up for the dumbest seven hours of my day worthwhile.

When you’re considered (generously) the third dopiest looking kid in your sixth grade class, you have but one tool in your belt. One go-to move that has any chance whatsoever of impressing another human being; humor. Sure, I was smart. And by smart I mean I could ace grade-school math and memorize the dates of dubious historical events. But I wasn’t particularly interesting, not even by middle school standards. Being funny was my only viable option. Not just any kind of funny, of course. No underarm fart jokes here. We’re talking impressions, British accents, situational humor, physical comedy. Real urbane shit, you know? It was a skill at which, to be fair, I wasn’t half bad. And it just so happened to make up about 84.6% of my total charm. So, at recess or after school or any time I thought I could get away with it, I tried to make her laugh. Sometimes it even worked.

A few of us boys decided, in all our sixth-grade wisdom, to write anonymous love letters to some of the girls in class. It was supposed to be a joke. Sadly, a very dumb joke. But it didn’t feel like a joke to me even though I pretended it did. When we picked a girl to write to, my choice was obvious. The rest of the guys wrote one or two letters then lost interest. I wrote at least three. Quite possibly more. It’s hard to recall the exact number since I’ve been trying to suppress that memory and my embarrassment for the better part of a lifetime (I really hope she’s not reading this). I typed my letters to ensure that no one - at least no one at Christ the King Catholic School - could identify the author. Which was great because not only did it improve my ‘hunt-and-peck’ typing skills but it also primed me for a career as a professional stalker. Moreover, I believe “Don’t handwrite your creepy notes” ranks as #3 on the “Tips for Novice Serial Killers” top-10 list. To be clear, the letters were mostly just flowery prose, more style than substance. A bit like Shakespeare if he’d suffered a traumatic brain injury. But certainly over the top. About once a week I would find an excuse to be the last to leave the classroom in the afternoon so I could drop each letter in her desk undetected. Our desks were halfway across the room from each other at this point (Our teacher had finally changed up the seating assignments). It probably made my clandestine activity easier. Not so simple to suspect the idiot sitting directly behind her that had been desperately trying to get her attention if that idiot was no longer there (Actually, reading that back to myself makes me think I probably would have fingered me first). I would steal a quick glance in her direction the morning after I’d delivered a letter, just to see her reaction as she opened that plane white envelope and read those words. Honestly, I don’t remember how she looked after the first letter, or the second. But I do remember her eyes after she opened the last one. They weren’t flashing wonder or excitement or curiosity. It looked more like embarrassment and, I’m ashamed to say, possibly fear. To this day, I still don’t quite know what I thought I was doing. But it ended then and there. And I’m happy to say I’ve never been a ‘secret’ admirer since.

Yeah, we were killin’ time, we were the young and restless, we needed to unwind. I guess nothing can last forever…

By late spring of ‘85, I’d gained two inches in height and lost 9 pounds. Not the boy I started the school year as but certainly not the man-boy I’d become. An interstitial separating the relative bliss of being a child from the stress and anxiety of young adulthood. Regardless, a decent haircut and the ability to complete more than a single pushup gave me a modicum of confidence. Enough that I attempted to play tennis at our end-of-the-year class picnic…with her. Imagine a pudgy, Andrei Agassi with only enough gross motor control to effectively operate two limbs at once. It was worth it, though, just for the that tiny stitch of alone time. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to physically embarrass myself any further, we called it a game. As we walked off the cracked, faded green court of Sunnyside Park, I could sense that it was now or never. Time to tell her how I felt. Take that first grand step into hardcore adolescence by presenting her with the most daring question a young heterosexual male could proffer a girl; would she like to ‘go’ with me? This was my shot. My grand opportunity to put up or shut up….and I punted. We walked off in different directions and that was that. Later that day I was talking to a guy from class who said she told him that she ‘used to’ really like me, which kind of confirmed for me that the moment had probably passed (Of course, the last time I saw that guy he was selling used cars so you’ll have to take whatever he said for what it’s worth). A week later it was summer vacation.

I can’t honestly say that I regret not asking her the big question. Probably because I’m not sure what I was more afraid of; her saying no and my heart being briefly dashed. Or her actually saying yes. What would we do then? We were 12. It would be almost two-and-a-half years before our first Homecoming Dance. Four years before either one of us could get a driver’s license. We didn’t live close to each other and I don’t mind telling you, the public transportation system in Kansas City during the 80s was for shit. As hopeless a romantic as I was, I couldn’t conceive of us growing up and getting married. That was crazy even for me. Given the fact that my parents didn’t want me dating until sometime after I registered for selective service, it would have taken Machiavellian-level scheming just to see each other during the summer anyway. So what was the point?

Instead that iconic summer came and eventually went. And nothing would ever be the same. When we all returned for 7th grade something had definitely changed. That preoccupation, that infatuation that had plagued me a few months earlier…just wasn’t there anymore. Thankfully. Sure there were inklings. I mean I still enjoyed talking to her and loved seeing that smile whenever it happened to flash, but that weird and inexplicable longing to be in her presence was gone. Maybe I just grew up a little. But then again, that doesn’t sound much like me.

And now the times are changing, look at everything that’s come and gone Sometimes when I play that old six-string, I think about you and what went wrong

By the summer of 1986, the land surrounding the creek I used to explore had been bought up and filled in by a manufacturing company that operated just a couple of hundred yards from our house (How’s that for zoning?) I began babysitting my 3-year-old nephew and started mowing lawns. Chores were more abundant in general, the summer movies were decent but not great, and music was quickly changing (not always for the better…Poison, I’m looking at you). Even my participation in the Boy Scouts was taking up more time. Life was coming on fast, and growing up was just around the corner.

My last two years at Christ the King were a blur and - if I’m candid - ultimately forgettable. Showing up to the same place, walking the same hallways, sitting in the same classrooms for the better part of a decade breeds no small amount of contempt. By spring of the 8th grade we all just wanted out. We weren’t children anymore. There were new expectations, new responsibilities. But not much in way of new freedoms. Not in the olive drab corridors of a traditional Catholic education.

By Spring of ‘87, I was 6 ft tall, considerably more lean, and had traded in my glasses for contact lenses. Still goofy-looking but now with real potential. In late April, or maybe it was May, we had our big 8th Grade Dance. There’s a group picture of us out there somewhere on Facebook, by the way. That night, I got to slow-dance with her to Bon Jovi’s “Never Say Goodbye”. I’m not saying something was rekindled. I’m not saying there was some sort of dormant magic that came through in the music or in that dance we shared. But none of the other girls I danced with that evening put there head on my chest and held me close the way she did. And I’d kind of like to think it was her way of saying “I know, me too”, even if just for a moment.

Well, it took a few decades but I’ve finally learned how to play the guitar, more or less. I even sing a little which feels like a bigger accomplishment after all my vocal puberty trauma. Now I’m sitting here with my wife and daughter streaming half a dozen genres of music on YouTube, checking email on my mobile phone, and typing the final lines of this story to be published to the world. All the while thinking about freeze tag at night, bomb pops from the ice cream man, and so many other things that have come and gone. Most of all, I’m wondering if I’ve learned all - or at least enough - of the lessons life has been trying to teach me since the 6th grade. That some dreams don’t fade away, they just need to simmer for a while. Or, if you think you’re doing something stupid, you probably are. Stop. And, perhaps most importantly, that nothing lasts forever.

Me and my baby in a ‘69

Okay. I would be remiss if I didn’t at least address this little gem.

It would be a few years (thank the gods) before I understood - and fully appreciated - this line. I didn’t even realize he was singing those words until I was an adult. In interviews, Adams claims he never meant to write a thoughtful, coming of age song. He literally just wanted to get away with writing a song about, well…

In fact, Adams didn’t buy his first guitar in 1969. He bought it in 1971 when he was 11 years old, the same age I was when I picked up that janky old Hohner. I suppose ‘Me and my baby in a ‘71’ doesn’t quite conjure up the same visuals. Besides, I find his line quite fitting. Hard to come up with a more ‘coming of age’ lyric than that.

Photo Credit: VHistory