Even now you cringe. 47 years later, remembering how you foisted yourself on a girl who told everybody you were a jerk still turns your stomach lining pale.
They have a name for you now – they didn’t have a name for you in 1978 aside from Creepy. You weren’t weird or strange or walked in circles.
But you WERE a jerk. You couldn’t help it – you were seventeen. You were convinced making a pain in the ass out of yourself was a surefire way straight into a woman’s heart. You were missing social skills, but you didn’t know it.
You had the world’s biggest crush on her and she was convinced without a shadow of a doubt that you were nuclear waste.
You tried but couldn’t convince her otherwise that you were nervous, shy and in your own weird way, in love. And you were that way only around her.
Looking back, stumbling over 1978, you wonder how you ever made it past High School, ever made it out into the real world. Ever actually un-dumbed yourself.
Water under the bridge – life went on – life changed – life got interesting. You forgot about all those dim-distant days and decades – tossing them in all in a room marked “Nostalgia” and throwing the key away.
Got married – got divorced – moved back to the Westside, put 1978 on the back-burner. Settled into a reasonably hassle-free life and pay your bills on time. Shop at Ralph’s three times a week because people watching is fun and you grew up in the neighborhood – even though most of it’s been bulldozed and replaced by grey boxes that no longer have names like Seaside Villa or Capri; just numbers and excuses.
There was this one woman you kept bumping into – you got to the market around the same time on those days. She looked hassled and familiar and somewhere in her thirties. She liked Cabernet and you would run into her pushing a cart down the aisles. Self-conscious smiles at first when you would both round a corner – and after a few weeks, feigned looks of surprise and a sideways glance attached to the grin. After a few more weeks, small conversation, mostly about food and seasons. A few more weeks after that and life in general and eventually invites for coffee and/or lunch.
You feel a little old for sparks but you look forward to seeing her and you get the feeling she feels the same way. The subject of age rears its head – you shave off a few years and latch on to 60 – she shaves a few years off and says she just turned 40. You catch each other etching looks of relief on your faces.
A few weeks go by and you don’t see her. Your customary rendezvous at Ralph’s has been interrupted. You start to get concerned, worried you might have said something really stupid.
But that fear evaporates when you spot her pushing her cart down the Packaged Cereal aisle.
Heart skips a few beats and you pick up your pace.
She’s with another woman. Looks a lot older. Maybe a relative and engaged in an animated conversation.
By the time you arrive, both women turn to look at you. The younger one is relieved to see you – the older one is perplexed.
The older one looks REALLY familiar.
It’s only after she’s introduced as her mom visiting from Santa Fe and tells you her name that you realize why she looks familiar.
This is the woman who considered you nuclear waste in 11th grade – this is the woman who couldn’t wait to get away from you in twelfth grade.
This is the woman you had the unrequited crush to end all crushes on – this is the woman who winds up being the mother of the woman you are dating.
You gasp – you feel light headed – you want to crawl under the linoleum.
With any luck she will never know you went to high school together and were the bane of her existence.
But you know and you can’t get it out of your head.
You’re one of the last people on the planet to have a cassette player in your car – so naturally you have J.J. Jackson at KLOS as you drive aimlessly around L.A., pondering the meaning of life as you find yourself embedded in January 12th 1978.
