Love in Dhahran, 1965....NEWS FLASH

Well, if you have to tell sad stories, they might as well be interesting and have a touch of humor.

SO, was my first love, a puppy love in the 9th grade sad. I was playing Football, GO BEARS, and saw that Dhahran clearly had the most beautiful cheerleaders. As a red-blooded boy I found one particularly interesting, the new girl in town. The one who was teaching some new cheers. Well, Steve Reed passed off the ball to Bill Cohea, who gave the damn thing to me. The RT Blue Devils were pressing hard and I thought that the best way to impress this beauty was to run the ball for a touchdown.

So, although the coach had told me to only block, I took off, like a real Bear over to one side of the field where the bleachers used to be, went through the cheerleaders, gave a big smile at the one I was impressing, and flying like the wind charged off to the other side of the field to avoid someone like D'Annunzio or such.  All the while I was looking over my shoulder at the beauty. We used to have Volkswagen Mini-buses in Dhahran, or maybe it was just a Volkswagen Van, but it had no widows and was parked out of bounds by a good ten feet.

Now for those of you who remember, we played flag football, with uniforms made so tight that it caused us to run funny. But, with great skill I was able to avoid the flag snatchers and was moving on when a couple of RT Devils decided that to stop me grabbing a flag wouldn't be enough. Seeing that they were getting ready to cream me, I looked over my shoulder for one last look at this beauty, turned left at a full run to dodge those animals, and hit the van at full speed. It knocked me plumb out and put a huge dent in the side of the van. To make matters worse I fumbled the ball, the Devils got it, and ran it back to win the game.

At the "victory" dance that night, amid great revelry in my exploits I met the lady. Our first song was " House of the Rising Sun" and I found my first true love in a sweet kiss that lasted fifteen years.

However, not being able to simply let a story go, I'll continue...She lived in a row house near the large playground, and I used to sneak over late at night and sneak her out. We would go sit on the merry go round for hours, or sit in her backyard ,away from prying eyes, cats mostly, and discover each other. This wasn't full blown sex, for all you anxious perverts, this was love.

In fact, had I listened to a very dear friend back then, the next fifteen years of my life would have been different. But I didn't and in fact caused her great grief in life, for which I still apologize, D.

We got caught by her parents once, half in and half out of her window, which was cause for much humor as I spent days replanting their window flower beds. Then along came Graduation, mine, and on that night I promised to marry her one day...and then we would consummate our relationship. Away I went away to school and we wrote practically daily.

Her father quit and they moved while I was gone. She stopped writing and my heart died. BUT not my belief in love, I just knew it would work. How could it not? It took fifteen years of searching, and finally I called a small town of 150 people that Earl Greaves had told me about that she had mentioned to him while he was at Kent State where she was. The phone rang and rang and turned out to be a public phone. Some guy answered and I asked if this lady lived there. He said "yes". I asked him if he could ask her to answer the telephone the next day, same time. I called and after fifteen years, heard my love's voice again.

She and I talked and I said I'd like to see her. She said that they were snowed in until for the next four months and I asked if there was a lake or flat area near. She told me there was as this town was a fishing resort, but it was frozen.  I told her I'd be there the next day, to look for me around 3:00 pm and to have a fire burning.

I flew to Denver and chartered a small plane, flew to the town and parachuted in. What I forgot was that the town was at 10,000 ft. and I had jumped at 25,000 ft. I damn near froze getting down. We stayed in her house that night and I slept on a futon against a wall. Didn't know much about the cold, but should have known this wasn't going to work because during the night my bare butt froze to the wall, and to my humiliation she had to use warm water to free me.

I did marry her, and unfortunately, after so many years, we were 180 degrees apart. She had been married three times, while I had been looking and waiting. She had two children who are wonderful adults.

We ended up divorced, although we now talk, and I still remember that most passionate moment of my life, our first kiss.
Not a lot of humor, but I did have to work off paying for the Volkswagen damage, and coach found many interesting exercises for me for the next few weeks of practice and games.
 

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 14:35:32 -0500
To: ARAMCO Brats
From: Mike Crocker