August 11, 2005

  • Thursday, 11 August 2005


    7.15 p.m. NZ time


     


     


    MY FIRST GIRLFRIEND


     


    We had moved to East Los Angeles. My mom, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my aunties and me, were all still one big happy family. Just two houses over from us there lived another family, the Thayers, Alvin, Phoebe and their four children, Beverly, Adrian, Holly and Jimmie. Our two families bonded as friends and remained in close relationship for the rest of their lives.


     


    At the time I was seven, Holly was about nine months older than me and Jimmie was around a year younger than me, so we spent endless days in our backyards playing together, digging holes and filling them up with water, making tiny little mud bricks and building little mud brick houses and bridges with lakes and rivers and roads. When you’re seven and eight, there’s nothing like a world of make believe. And of course one of our favourite games was hide and seek, and we played it almost every day.


     


    It was during one of those hide and seek games that Holly and I wound up hiding together in the bushes along the side of the house. It took whoever was “IT” at the time, a very long time to find us; so while we were lying there side by side, waiting to be discovered, we kissed. I don’t think we really knew what we were doing; but we’d seen grownups doing it, so we thought we’d give it a try.


     


    As I think back on that first kiss, it was kinda like kissing the back of my own hand; but there must have been some mysterious something about it because it made me feel very nice, and I thought I’d like to try it again. And I guess Holly must have had a similar experience because the very next time we went out looking for a place to hide, we went together, and we did try it again, and again and again. From that day on, for the next five or six years, I had a deep crush on Holly Thayer. Even when our families moved to different parts of Southern California, whenever they would get together, I would always try to get Holly away somewhere so we could continue with my kissing lessons.


     


    As the years went by our lives went in different directions. Finally we lost all contact with each other. Then one day I heard she was married, and that she had a family of her own. I can only pray that her life turned out as wondrously fulfilling as mine.


     


    But I do know this for sure, a fella never forgets his first kiss, or his first crush.  Thankyou Holly, for the wonderful childhood memory, you were my first.


     


    that’s all for now………


     

    BMcG