Lobsters do Dance

My friend Karen Newton calls this my Bozo date! I had let it go from my memory but then on a paleontology dig in northern Minnesota one year we were talking about the worst dates we had ever been on! As people talked and things were getting hilarious I all of sudden recalled this! I am sure the girl in question also calls this her worst too! Ok, the details as I recall them! Dick Newton was going to go out with Karen on a nice date and asked me if I wanted to go along with them. I had no special girl at the time so I searched the yearbook for a likely candidate. It was something at which Rick Oliver and I had become quite proficient. We would look a girl up and then call cold and spend time getting to know them and before we hung up we got to the real reason for the call…a date for such and such. Since we were great at talking things up usually they agreed to go…but it was no big deal if we failed…the yearbook was full of girls and with a school population of 2500 people a little over half of which are girls with just one yearbook you have about 1250 or more to choose from. If all else failed we had three other high schools in our district too. I had settled on and asked out this very pretty (to me… I was extremely prejudiced) redhead, named Beverly Bonning. I think now that she must have been an alien or some other mutant species at the least. She went to another school in town, Estancia High School and I was pleasantly surprised by her acceptance of the date. I was always amazed that a girl would date a boy she had never met. I assume that she looked me up in her freshman year yearbook…. And saw that I at least looked normal (little did she know!!!!)

She was small 5’4” 115 pounds with lots of freckles (Freckles are an absolute aphrodisiac to me!) (Maybe I am the alien) and flaming bright red hair that was very unruly and very frizzy. Perfect for me I

thought.

We went to Disneyland for five or six hours and did the dancing and the rides and I tried to talk with her and she was having none of it. I realize I am a little over the top and goofy but she still could have at least told me to shut up now and then. She was as silent as the Sphinx … The mother ship must have ordered her to not reveal anything. Disneyland then was a favorite place to go for meaningful dates. It costs enough that the girl knew you liked her to spend all that loot and yet, in her defense maybe they felt the pressure of a boy spending a lot on her, so maybe he expected something in return… maybe that was the problem. Anyway she was as humorless as any date I have ever had. She was so freaking cute though…this had to work! Dick and Karen (On only their third date) are full of good humor and fun. They have always been fun people to me. (I am missing all my serious genes… from a serious childhood accident) So that she was being so flat and lifeless was getting truly depressing to me. After all this frivolity we left Disney and went to Sam’s Seafood, a very good restaurant in Seal Beach, California. It was made of old parts of piers and nets from ships of all sorts. It was on Coast Highway about 20 miles from Disneyland and it was almost always packed! It was the most expensive date that I had gone on up to that time. She was just bored to tears and very quiet. I am trying to recall if I ever spoke to her now. Maybe she communicated telepathically since I can’t recall any audible conversation. Well, as the evening wore on and on and on, I began to get bored with her as well, but I very much hoped that the dinner would be nice. We both had ordered Lobster Thermidor even though either of us had a clue what that was but it sounded good. I arrived at the table and I just couldn’t eat it at all. The un-assaulted part of the lobster was still ok. But I hated it and Bev hated it (Hey finally a common agreement of sorts! Marriages have been based on less) so we tried to eat what was there on the plate with as little thermidor as possible. Dick and his girl, Karen really wanted something good, so they actually were clever enough to order something palatable and were not noticing our problems. Bev is just sullen by now and I am fully puzzled by her and her attitude. I was probably saying things to her that she was ignoring and this made her more and more uncomfortable. I was also afraid of the steam pouring from her ears! This always sets my mind working in a better and more creative way though! So, I grabbed my lobster and then I glanced at her and she is sitting there pouting but still looking very lovely I must add…and I dearly want to kiss those lips…pouting lips drive me crazy! So I reached over, she lurched away from me fearing the worst, and I took her lobster too. With both lobsters in my hands now I dressed them up with parsley in each claw and a few sprigs jammed in their heads and began a song and dance routine with the lobsters by holding one in each hand and making them dance to my songs. I began with singing “Hello My Honey” a great song of the 1930’s or the depression era anyway. Fitting since I was depressed. I was well into the second chorus when Dick and Karen caught on and were laughing so hard that other tables were noticing. These wonderful crustaceans were even doing the can-can… a very difficult step for dead lobsters. People nearby were sensing stars being born and they all started watching the floor show and were laughing and applauding until the Maitre’d came over and asked me (not the alien… just me!) to leave the premises as quickly as feasible. I said I’d be happy to as soon as we had all finished eating in deference to Dick and Karen, but I did cancel the dance of the decapods. He didn’t move but stood there with the same alien face that Bev was wearing (hmmmmmm) so we hurried up and left to a round of applause and some cold hard stares from other mother shippers like the Maitre'd. Beverly sat through all this with the reddest face I have ever seen on a human being. She was redder than the lobsters ever could have been. On the way home, she sat in stony silence with little wisps of smoke still slowly escaping from her ears and nostrils. She was near bursting into flames I am sure! Spontaneous combustion was a definite possibility. Dick, Karen, and I totally enjoyed ourselves most of the time anyway and we tried to include our little alien friend. As soon as I walked Bev to her door she quickly went in and slammed the door. No good bye, no thank you for the entertainment, no kisses of any kind except maybe the big kiss off! Needless to say, she has never spoken to me since that day. I tried to call her a few times but she was always “unavailable” each time I got an answer from her family. Karen tagged her with the name Bozo from this date (it was the hair!!!!) and that was all she used to refer to her for many years. I now recall more and more of this each time I think of it and Bev never seems to get any better (Attitude wise… I still to this day love the way she looked then! I wonder now if we ever really spoke at all on the date! We never kissed much to my great and lasting regret…. And I completely assume to her great relief! Red hair and girls with red hair in green dresses have always been just too sexy for me to pass up. And since our high school had green and white for colors and we had a drill team for football season halftimes and red heads just looked so great in those tight green bodices and flared short skirts… I was in Nirvana most of my high school days. That was my worst date! I had so many bad ones but this one was the classic! I wonder if I am in many girls bad date lists! Maureen Mc…? I think it is McCorry says I am on her S--- list for introducing her to a guy she got dumped by for an 8th grader he liked! She adds me to her bad list for that faux pas. Heck Bill Richardson fell for this nubile young 8th grader ‘cuz she was just plain hot! I mean screaming hot! Maybe even alien hot! How can I help that! Maureen just never had a chance and Maureen was wonderful! She was a dancing partner of mine at the Rendezvous often! We never won any of the dance contests but we came close once or twice. Bill was on the track team with me and I never saw him after graduation day! I wonder what happened to him? He was planning on being a Marine! Was he taken to the mother ship to be with Miss Nubile? Another photo of little Miss Bonning.

I liked girls? Not too early!

When did I first find that I liked girls? Hmmm. When does any guy? I loved school and mainly high school because it was the first time I became a social being. I loved to go out with various girls and I usually double dated with one of my sports friends and their dates. We’d go to the Drive-in movies; we’d usually sneak a couple people in the trunk of the car and let them in the seats after we got in the theater area. Sometimes we’d all go to the beach for a nighttime bonfire and have food and listen to the radio and talk. We’d look out at the waves; sometimes they glowed with a greenish light from the foraminiferans in the water, or the moonlight would sparkle on the wave crests and water. It was just a special time in my life. Other than getting married way back then, it was the best of times. I’d fall in and out of love almost weekly, as did the girls I was dating. Some became special, some not, some were so much fun and in love with life, some were not, most were just really wonderful people. The ones that were, I still write to at Christmas time each year. Some friends are too good to lose. I can’t figure out how I got on to this topic to write about. I usually only recall the funny things that happened back then.

Funny in an odd way I guess but not humorous. The very first person (outside of

Mom, aunts, grandmothers and nurses) to kiss me was Joanie Valentine in second grade in Massachusetts. We were in the same class upstairs in Jonathan MaynardSchool, the middle three windows in this photo. Miss Greenwich was our teacher. It was one of those very old schools with a huge closet and bathroom for each classroom. Ours was to the right side of the class next to the corner I was facing often for my bad moves in class. Joanie was a bit smaller than me…heck it was Massachusetts, everyone as smaller than I was. I was a year older than any one else in class too as in Massachusetts we started first grade at age five…no kindergarten just full tilt into school. I had begun first grade when I was five but then we moved to Fort Leonard Wood and I had to wait until I was six, then mid year we were back in Massachusetts and I was a year behind my age group in that state. Joan was as I said smaller than I and very blonde and blue eyed…like me! We often shared a seat on the bus and we chattered away all the way home most days. She lived on Pleasant Street in Framingham Centre, which was not far from the school. I lived way out another mile from school on Millwood Street. We were on the bus going home and we were talking about school and just as she was getting ready to get off the bus, she very quickly leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, rose and dashed off the bus leaving me in a state of shock! (And awe!...where have I heard that?) I of course was still seated silent now, turning bright red and I didn’t look up at a soul as the bus was full of kids I knew. We moved to California that summer and I never saw Joanie again. It took years for anything like that to ever happen again!

I had a serious crush or two in fourth grade. One was

Carol Borrowdale, a nice little semi-sexy (in 4^th grade semi-sexy is more than fine, what did we know?) brunette with dazzling blue eyes, whom I walked home with very often. Here to the left. She played flute (?) in the orchestra and I played (caterwauled, screeched, mauled?) on the violin. I swear I could see the saw marks. She and I walked home after orchestra. She lived in a large fairly large home on one of the nicer streets in Pasadena. Her front yard was bigger than our whole lot. I swear I saw a few plane circling thinking it was an airport. She was the one that filled me in on the details on how to use your hands to squirt water out of the tub …very funny…but it gave me such visions of her in the tub doing this…yikes. And wow, now I have this vision of her as an adult doing the same thing. I also had a big crush on Linda Rees a statuesque (for fourth grade!!! What is that… 4’2” or something??) blue-eyed blonde.

To the right and left  in high school. She was a ballet dancer then and had won a bunch of awards. She even gave an in school presentation and wowed us all! I used to walk home the same way she did and one day her sister Lois asked me (right in front of my friends, Marshall and Doug and my brother Jeff) if I “liked” Linda. I was so freaking mortified to be asked a question like that in front of the guys. So, I said “Heck, No!” and walked away in a huff. (Calvin and Hobbes seems to be a close parallel… yep, that’s it…I walked away in a Calvin type huff!) I had to tell Linda many years later that I really did like her but Lois put me on the spot. Of course by then I knew she was happily married and very wealthy and way out of any problems for me… so I felt very safe and honest! Fifth, sixth and seventh grades were strange years. I had a big crush on Francis a tall (this time she really was tall… she was in 7^th grade!) redhead who lived next door. She was a year ahead of me in school but only 5 months in age and she was turning into a real beauty. When we all got together in the huge teepee that our neighbors had put up she used to tease the hell out of me by slowly lifting her skirt until the very edge of her bright yellow panties were showing and then ask me if I wanted to see more. I was very embarrassed but I would stammer out a yes and then she would laugh and drop her skirt and run off. I felt as foolish as Calvin often does then too! I had dreams of her for years. I suppose I still do now. The girl directly across the street from us was Norma. She had a thing for me and every time we’d play hide and seek, she’d hide with me and then start covering me with kisses. She had red hair too. I think this is when I came to think that redheaded girls were all I ever wanted. Norma even later between 6^th and 7^th grade had her family come and stay with us for a time. She and her siblings slept in the living room and once I got up early and went in to watch television, she was up already watching television and sitting on her sleeping bag or whatever they had for her. We began some small talk softly so as not to wake the others and as I looked at her I noticed that her pajama top was partially open …now a 7^th grader is no Jayne Mansfield but still. Wow! I was 12 years old and this was as close to that as I would get for many years. She noticed that I noticed and she just smiled and lowered her eyes very demurely and let things go on as they were. She kept the small conversation going with me and being the consummate gentleman I am, I continued to steal glances until we both began to redden a bit. Only then did she secure the loose buttons. Had she been more this way playing hide and seek I am sure I would have fallen for her back then! Ahhhhh, thank the gods for making redheads! Thus, my introduction to girls, and especially redheads, was fairly complete. I was no longer a member of the “He-Man Women Haters Club” (a reference to Spanky and Alfalfa in the Our Gang/ Little Rascals comedies.)

Jane Elizabeth Crawford

I made notice one day while I lived on Grant Street in Costa Mesa of a cute freckled redhead, who walked by my house every day on the

way to school. She walked with a fairly fast gait and with her eyes focused on what was before her neither looking to the side…that could be because she knew some freaky boy her age lived there but I wasn’t sure. She always dressed well and wore nice ribbons and bows in her hair. She was pale skinned of course and her red hair was dark cut in a nice medium halo around her face. She lived across the street and down on the next block…she lived midway in that block as I did on mine.

It is my junior year and I was just learning to be a social being. I had a close circle of friends from the same street and I had never noticed her before, so I assumed she was new to the area. So, after screwing up my courage one day I waited by the living room window until I saw her coming up the street. I walked out to the street on my side opposite her and when we crossed Baker Street…the busy one in our area she had to come to my side so I began to talk to her as I walked with her to school. I found out she was Jane Crawford and a sophomore at my school. She was very soft-spoken but didn’t seem to mind my walking with her. Meaning so far she hadn’t run off screaming or shrieked for help! And I also liked that she had failed to break into a full sprint when she saw me coming in the first place. She had told me that she was eventually going to a college in Missouri called Grace College…a religious based school… I was hoping that she would change to OCC after we got to know each other better.

I was on the chain gang at the home football games …the guys who marked the ten yards a team had to go for a first down…the remnants of my lame high school football career….I had quit the team just a week before, and the coach asked me to help out… and she was in the drill team.

The drill team was pretty hot stuff at my school….especially for a sophomore to have made the team. They wore white gloves, and short boots (mid-calf) with a green dress with white and black trim. It was very tightly fitted to the body on the upper half and the lower was flared out to enhance the twirling movements in their formations. It was all very sexy in an innocent way. Jane wasn’t big at 5’5” and about 115 pounds, and she looked great in the outfit…cripes…any redhead would! I am sure every redhead at school tried out for drill team based on those uniforms. The tryouts for drill team were in the late spring of the previous school year and then you had to attend meetings all summer so when school started they were ready for game performances right away with a modicum of retraining. Many girls were not willing to put in the time and many girls were not good at formation drilling so the cut list was huge.

Well, after walking with her for a couple days I asked her out and she thought it would be OK to go to the away football games together. Those were great …the first one being at a game with Orange High School. We sat with our student section at the game and it was played at Chapman College since they had the best stadium in the area. We talked the whole time and talked in the car on the way up and back…we were hitting it off very well I thought. The game itself wasn’t too good. We lost 14-0. We won one game in my junior year and no games in my senior year…and the one game we won was 7-6 over Newport Harbor. At home games she wore her uniform and had to sit with the drill team and I only got to watch her at half time. I was down on the field while they performed their routines with the band. As she would often come by me in one of their formations she would always smile but could give no other sign of recognition. After the second away game and our second date I walked her to the door and we were talking and I made the huge mistake of asking her for a goodnight kiss. I mean alarms were going off so loud in my head after I asked her I knew, just knew…I had blown the whole deal! I almost passed out from the tension…after a half hour of stunned silence she replied. Well maybe it was few seconds but my life flashed before my eyes at least seven times and it wasn’t that great a life, before I heard her speak! She simply said “I’m sorry, Barry, but I never kiss until the third date”. My head was woozy and I am sure I must have been wobbling in her presence. Somehow I was able to make some small talk with her and then she went in. I amazingly stumbled the block home without falling down. I was in agony…what do I do now? She had stopped me short and now I felt if I asked her for a third date I would be only saying I was asking just to see if she would deign to kiss me afterwards. Rather than find out if she would go for that third date with the question hanging over our heads I simply never called her or spoke to her again. It is the Barry way of solving hard questions at the time. I would go to school early or late and I would check to see if she was walking to school at the same time and I always adjusted my departure based on if I saw her or not. That way she wouldn’t get embarrassed again and I wouldn’t get shot down again. I will also never know if she would ever have gone out.

The next school year was my senior year and about 10 months after the second date fiasco and the gods felt that I needed more pain and suffering.

We wound up in the same freaking class… Yearbook, it is a full year class so there would be no avoiding her or I would have to do another year of high school. I only said hello to her a couple of times. I was too mortified to ever be friendly with her. It was even a class where everyone spoke to everyone else since we were putting together the various sections of the yearbook. I was the sports writer and the staff artist. She was a page editor for the junior class.

Life is so weird sometimes.

So that was my first real dating experience… it makes you wonder why I continued at all. I did lower my standards after that so I dated anyone at all who was willing… she didn’t need red hair or to be on the drill team ; - ) and I dated people from other schools too. At least then if I got shot down I just never had to see them or their school ever again.