This was an entry I wasn't expecting to make. It will be one of the few (outside of my YouTube postings) that will get published soon after I have written it. Friday's article about me learning how to square dance suprisingly brought back a lot of memories regarding one particular girl. This would be one of the girls who didn't want to dance with me. This was another crush with unusual circumstances surrounding her, as I will explain.
I'm not going to play the name game with her because I don't want anyone to think her name is one thing and it's actually another. She was a year younger than me. She had long dark hair and was very cute. I should explain that my family had to drive 20 miles to this small community to get to the square dance lessons. This girl was there every week, and I just assumed that she went to school in that small community.
I found out I was wrong when I saw her around Zia Intermediate school. We had been going to the same school for a couple of months and I had never noticed her before the square dancing lessons. One other thing I do know about her is that she was very smart as I always saw her name on the honor roll. Since the sixth and seventh graders were in mostly separate parts of the school, it was conceivable that I would not run into her very often.
I guess she somehow knew that I was into her. I know she had caught me looking at her several times. The only time during the lessons that we wound up together was during a partner switch. One move forced us to slightly hold hands. She scrunched and twisted my fingers and laughed about it a little. I said, "Ow!" but I was really enjoying the delicate torture.
After the square dance lessons were over, I rarely saw her at school. One day, my Mom's friend (the one from the Bible Stories and Radio Christmas story), who was also Zia's guidance counselor was telling her about this one girl at school she was working with. She didn't mention her name, but it was apparent to me who she was talking about when she said that she was one of the top students in the sixth grade. She said something to the effect that she had a messed-up family life at home and was really struggling to deal with both school and family.
I didn't know what to think of this. I remember her father was at all the square dance lessons, and he seemed like a normal person to me. I guess he worked at the refinery. I also think that her younger brother was at the lessons. I don't remember seeing the mother. Since the father brought his daughter and son to this kind of social setting, I never would have thought that there were problems at her home. At least, nothing any worse than what I was going through with my family.
I knew that I would not be seeing her the next year as I went to Park Junior High School, but I knew she would coming to the eighth grade there and I looked forward to seeing her again. In the summer of 1978 (before the ninth grade), I was riding my bicycle near Yucca Elementary. I thought I saw her outside one of the houses across the street from the school. I don't know if it was her, or even where she lived. It just looked like her.
Anyway, the start of the school year arrived and she wasn't there. I don't know what happened to her. I have not thought about her in more than 35 years. I have to wonder if she was able to get away from her home situation and make a success of her life. I'd certainly hate to think that she might have fallen into the Get Pregnant-Get Married Trap that a lot of girls in that situation were prone to.
I don't expect anyone who reads this blog to have the answer and I doubt I will ever find out. But the idea of wondering what happened to someone who actually had so little impact on my life will stay with me while she has likely completely forgotten about me.
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