DGS49
Diamond Member
The year was 1967. I was a senior in HS. I was insanely in love with a beautiful young lady, but she was not committed to me to the same extent that I was committed to her.
Because she was beauteous and very approachable, she was constantly being āhit onā by young men, and she would (apparently) tell some of them to buzz off, but there were one or two (that I knew of) whom she did not send away immediately, as I would have liked. We never actually spoke about it. It was the downside of dating a beautiful girl.
She was a junior in HS and I was a senior (my school was all boys and hers was all girls). We had a loose custom that a couple days a week I would swing by her school when it let out for the afternoon, we would ride around a bit in my car and I would take her home. It was not a big deal, and it was mostly spontaneous, but there had not been any times when I showed up and she was not there for me.
There came a day, when a previously unknown fellow was riding around her school - a good looking Italian fellow with a new, Red Mustang fastback. By contrast, I was (and remain) a plain looking fellow, driving the family sedan, a 4-year old Chevy, the cheapest of the cheap.
You have already guessed that the aforementioned āTonyā swung by the North entrance to the school and picked up my GF(!). They rode around for a while, with me discretely keeping the red Mustang in view. I was a predictable mix of hurt, angry, and so on. I wanted to express my strong emotions some way but couldnāt think of anything suitable.
After a little while, the red Mustang came to a stop in front of her house, and they were talking as you might expect. The street was an urban street, two-way, with cars parked on both sides. There was enough room for a car to pass on the right of the Mustang - barely enough.
I chose that moment to hit the gas and pass through that narrow opening at high speed (maybe 45 mph or so). In the back of my mind I considered that if she had opened the passenger door at just the ārightā moment, there could have been a spectacular crash - totally my fault and probably involving at least one fatality.
She never spoke of it later, one way or another, but she surely knew who was driving that black Chevy Biscayne. Did she consider that āone false moveā could have cost her her life? I never heard anything about the guy in the Mustang again, one way or another; maybe she told him she had a BF and to buzz off. I donāt know. Our relationship continued for another year or so, believe it or not, before we broke up the week before I went into the Army (for the record, a very bad move).
I cannot count the number of times I have gotten serious chills up my spine thinking about how different my life could have been if she had opened the car door at the wrong time. I āuseā that anxiety to remind myself how the choices āweā make as teenagers can have everlasting impacts, and a lot of it is just blind luck. āThere, but for the grace of God,...ā as the saying goes.
Because she was beauteous and very approachable, she was constantly being āhit onā by young men, and she would (apparently) tell some of them to buzz off, but there were one or two (that I knew of) whom she did not send away immediately, as I would have liked. We never actually spoke about it. It was the downside of dating a beautiful girl.
She was a junior in HS and I was a senior (my school was all boys and hers was all girls). We had a loose custom that a couple days a week I would swing by her school when it let out for the afternoon, we would ride around a bit in my car and I would take her home. It was not a big deal, and it was mostly spontaneous, but there had not been any times when I showed up and she was not there for me.
There came a day, when a previously unknown fellow was riding around her school - a good looking Italian fellow with a new, Red Mustang fastback. By contrast, I was (and remain) a plain looking fellow, driving the family sedan, a 4-year old Chevy, the cheapest of the cheap.
You have already guessed that the aforementioned āTonyā swung by the North entrance to the school and picked up my GF(!). They rode around for a while, with me discretely keeping the red Mustang in view. I was a predictable mix of hurt, angry, and so on. I wanted to express my strong emotions some way but couldnāt think of anything suitable.
After a little while, the red Mustang came to a stop in front of her house, and they were talking as you might expect. The street was an urban street, two-way, with cars parked on both sides. There was enough room for a car to pass on the right of the Mustang - barely enough.
I chose that moment to hit the gas and pass through that narrow opening at high speed (maybe 45 mph or so). In the back of my mind I considered that if she had opened the passenger door at just the ārightā moment, there could have been a spectacular crash - totally my fault and probably involving at least one fatality.
She never spoke of it later, one way or another, but she surely knew who was driving that black Chevy Biscayne. Did she consider that āone false moveā could have cost her her life? I never heard anything about the guy in the Mustang again, one way or another; maybe she told him she had a BF and to buzz off. I donāt know. Our relationship continued for another year or so, believe it or not, before we broke up the week before I went into the Army (for the record, a very bad move).
I cannot count the number of times I have gotten serious chills up my spine thinking about how different my life could have been if she had opened the car door at the wrong time. I āuseā that anxiety to remind myself how the choices āweā make as teenagers can have everlasting impacts, and a lot of it is just blind luck. āThere, but for the grace of God,...ā as the saying goes.
~S~
