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Anything Goes
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Straight Male / 51
Your first love never dies.
As a child I got a scholarship to attend the private school in our town. My father was a plumber with an eighth grade education and my mother was also a high school dropout who worked at a floral shop, in all there were two brothers and three sisters. The private school had all the nice white kids, there were no blacks or Asians or Indians in school at that time. I rode a bus that picked me up from my mother's job.
Across from me was a girl, her name is Maria. Maria was the daughter of a Doctor and her mother was the daughter of the family that owned the large works that had contracts with the Navy. Out of my league and my mother told me not to make friends. But we were in class together and the school was small and she chose to speak to me so we because friends, not the type of friends that ever saw each other out of school and certainly never got invited to her house for her birthday party, but friends at school.
We went through all the grades together, I had the brains but I did not have the drive to make top grades and on graduation I did not have a scholarship to go to college. The counselor told me to go into the Army, do my four years and use the GI bill to go to college. Maria went on to one of those all girl colleges for rich girls and we maybe spoke a couple of times during the four years I was in the Army. I got out and she graduated we caught up with each other and she agreed to go with me to get something to eat. I confessed to her that I was in love with her, I had always been in love with her and that during my four years in the Army I went to sleep thinking about her, missing her.
She laughed a little, she apologized and she brought her chair close to mine and told me that she went to sleep every night thinking about a girl, her name was Sofia and they had met in college. Sofia played the harp and she could sing like a nightingale. She told me that they had held hands and stolen a kiss and they had promised each other that they would find a way be together again. She touched my face and asked me never to tell anyone, in those days that was beyond taboo, but she gave me her secret and I went onto college in Indiana and then got a job for Boeing in California and she remained back east moving to Boston where she could be close to Sofia.
Our lives have taken different paths, I met my wife Cecille at work, she is an engineer or was until she stopped working to raise a family, I retired after 30 years and I am currently living with my wife in Arizona close to her sister. I went home a couple of years ago and Maria was there for her mother's birthday and she agreed to a dinner with me. The town has changed, the private school is still there but now has blacks and Asians and Indians, the little rich kids go to little rich kid colleges and the blacks and Asians and Indians on scholarship go to college wherever they get a scholarship. But Maria is the same as I remember her, and I told her that even after all these years when I go to sleep I think about her and she told me that every night she goes to sleep she thinks about Sofia, but life in that world wasn't kind to them and they had to take separate paths and only her love for Sofia remained.
As a child I got a scholarship to attend the private school in our town. My father was a plumber with an eighth grade education and my mother was also a high school dropout who worked at a floral shop, in all there were two brothers and three sisters. The private school had all the nice white kids, there were no blacks or Asians or Indians in school at that time. I rode a bus that picked me up from my mother's job.
Across from me was a girl, her name is Maria. Maria was the daughter of a Doctor and her mother was the daughter of the family that owned the large works that had contracts with the Navy. Out of my league and my mother told me not to make friends. But we were in class together and the school was small and she chose to speak to me so we because friends, not the type of friends that ever saw each other out of school and certainly never got invited to her house for her birthday party, but friends at school.
We went through all the grades together, I had the brains but I did not have the drive to make top grades and on graduation I did not have a scholarship to go to college. The counselor told me to go into the Army, do my four years and use the GI bill to go to college. Maria went on to one of those all girl colleges for rich girls and we maybe spoke a couple of times during the four years I was in the Army. I got out and she graduated we caught up with each other and she agreed to go with me to get something to eat. I confessed to her that I was in love with her, I had always been in love with her and that during my four years in the Army I went to sleep thinking about her, missing her.
She laughed a little, she apologized and she brought her chair close to mine and told me that she went to sleep every night thinking about a girl, her name was Sofia and they had met in college. Sofia played the harp and she could sing like a nightingale. She told me that they had held hands and stolen a kiss and they had promised each other that they would find a way be together again. She touched my face and asked me never to tell anyone, in those days that was beyond taboo, but she gave me her secret and I went onto college in Indiana and then got a job for Boeing in California and she remained back east moving to Boston where she could be close to Sofia.
Our lives have taken different paths, I met my wife Cecille at work, she is an engineer or was until she stopped working to raise a family, I retired after 30 years and I am currently living with my wife in Arizona close to her sister. I went home a couple of years ago and Maria was there for her mother's birthday and she agreed to a dinner with me. The town has changed, the private school is still there but now has blacks and Asians and Indians, the little rich kids go to little rich kid colleges and the blacks and Asians and Indians on scholarship go to college wherever they get a scholarship. But Maria is the same as I remember her, and I told her that even after all these years when I go to sleep I think about her and she told me that every night she goes to sleep she thinks about Sofia, but life in that world wasn't kind to them and they had to take separate paths and only her love for Sofia remained.
