I know it is hard  to believe, especially if you knew what a spastic, hyperactive young man I was back then, just out of high school, but one girl actually decided to take a chance on me. She saw something in me, I guess, and allowed herself to be the first girl to try and teach me how to become a man. It took great courage on her part, and I will be forever grateful to her.

My experiences with girls in high school, up until that point, had been underwhelming. Girls in my high school were sometimes willing to be my friend, but they were uninterested in actually going out on a date. I was not really boyfriend material. I had been hyperactive all of my childhood, and had not yet grown completely out of it. I wasn’t handsome. Or physically fit like the football or basketball guys. Not that I wasn’t a good guy, I was just hard to take, except in small doses. I had casual friendships with some of the most beautiful and popular girls in my senior class. I didn’t understand it at the time, but girls like to have a boy who is just somebody of the opposite sex in whom they can confide, and tell their problems to, and hear the boys perspective on things.  There was no sexual tension there. A boy who was not boyfriend material. And I filled that bill for a few of them. I was a good listener, voluble, and I treasured the moments that I was allowed to spend with them. Most of all, I represented no threat at all to their boyfriends, the handsome, athletic, and popular boys that they mooned over, who would eventually break their hearts. It was a unique position to be in, and I enjoyed each one, up until I got carried away, and gathered my courage to ask them on a date, and they would shoot me down. One of them even said to me, “Sam, you are a nice guy, but just not boyfriend material.” 

Oh. Well then.

My sister was two years behind me in school, and though our paths rarely crossed in school, I was aware that she had a good friend named Arlette, who was really cute, and whose whole face would light up when she smiled. I had met her a couple times, in passing, but she was my sister’s friend and I didn’t really know her. There was one night that my sister asked me to pick up Arlette, and take them both to the football game. Being Sam, and wishing that I could have a date like other guys, I said that I would, but that Arlette would have to agree to act like it was a date. She agreed reluctantly, and we went, and I made her sit with me in the general public section, and not with the students. She had made confetti because she was ardent in her support of the home team, but when we threw it in the air, the people around us were not amused.

Then somehow a miracle came to pass, and I found myself actually dating this wonderful girl. It certainly had not been because I had pursued her. Pursuit, up to that point, had been the death knell for friendship with girls. It had happened enough times by then, that I had been reticent to actively pursue any girl, because it never worked. 

Arlette was a girl that dreams are made of. She was pretty, and funny, and really smart. Smarter than me. Which isn’t saying all that much, but it seemed to me to be a good thing. She had long blonde hair, and dreamy eyes. She was petite, and loved to laugh. When I was with her, I felt lighter than air. She was just perfect.

Her dad was a fireman. Her parents were first generation Germans, and often spoke German to each other at home. Arlette too, spoke German. In my freshman year, at a different high school, I had had the fortune of a great teacher, and a good method of study, and had gained a smattering of German, though not enough to actually converse with much facility in it. Unfortunately my family had moved after that year, and my new high school only offered Spanish or French (a useless language) , and I struggled through a couple years of Spanish, with a teacher who was bored by teaching, and I never gained much ability with it. But the German had stuck with me. I could understand enough of it, to be able to parse out what someone was saying if they were speaking it in conversation. But I didn’t let on about that.

I would go to pick up Arlette for a date, and while I was sitting nervously in the living room with her parents, waiting for her to finish getting ready for the date, (I am not even sure what that meant, but it was a part of every date)  they would speak to each other in German. Unaware that I could sort of understand what they were saying.

Dad: Well, here is the boy our Arlette is dating.

Mom: He doesn’t dress very well. Doesn’t he have better clothes?

Dad: He is not very handsome. And too skinny. His family must not feed him well.

Mom: He seems nervous.

Dad: It seems like she could do better, but maybe she sees something in him that we don’t.

Arlette and I would go to football games at the high school. Or go roller skating. Or to the drive-in movie. And go to Gino’s Pizza afterwards. I would put quarters in the jukebox, and play Cracklin’ Rosie by Neil Diamond, which eventually became “our song”. We would eat pizza and drink Cokes, and hold hands, and talk about things. Arlette knew a lot about things, and I loved our conversations. I didn’t know it at the time, but these conversations were my first lessons in how to become a man. I had certainly not gotten that from my parents.

I bought her dad’s 1959 Chevy station wagon. It had curtains around the back and side windows in the back end, and big fins along the outside. He only wanted $350 for it, though that was a lot of money for a guy just out of high school back then. It was a behemoth of a car, and so spongy in the suspension that it was like driving a boat. And it got horrible gas mileage. Gas was 39 cents a gallon back then, at the cut rate gas station that I went to. And they sold condoms in the mens bathroom. FIlling the tank would cost about 6 bucks. But I was working at McDonalds as a manager trainee, making a whopping $1.60 per hour, so I could afford to drive it. I had a buddy back then, who would always lament, “I could live on love alone, if it weren’t for the high price of gas.” Little did he know.

Arlette and I would go to the drive-in movies in the station wagon. I would back into the slot, where the back wheels were on top of the hump by the speakers, and the back end was pointed perfectly at the big screen.Then we would lift the rear window up, and drop the tailgate, and settle in, laying back on some pillows, and watch the movie. And of course. do some making out. But mostly we would talk about things. Arlette was a deeply thoughtful girl, and knew a lot about stuff. I think I loved the talking almost as much as I loved the making out. 

We would go with her family to Oktoberfest, where there were lots of German American people, wearing dirndl dresses and lederhosen, and eating sausage and speaking in German. And polka dancing. It was always great fun, even though I was, and still am, a horrible dancer. Arlette was forgiving about that, and though I tried, dancing was something that I don’t do well.

Arlette wanted to go to Nursing School when she graduated. I admired that she knew what she wanted to do. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. But she was determined, and I was kind of in awe of her. I thought I might try to study Pre-Law courses in college, but that was mostly my dad’s idea. When I got into college, and was taking courses in Pre-Law, I wasn’t very interested, and so I did poorly. But Love Story (the movie with Ali McGraw and Ryan O’neal) was showing then, and I wanted a romance like they were having. I sometimes imagined myself as a Lawyer, married to Arlette a nurse, and living an exciting and romantic life.
Arlette was my first lover. Like boys of that age, I knew practically nothing about sex. Our first attempts were clumsy and embarrassing, and I was pretty nervous. It is surprising that she didn’t cut me loose at that point. But she was calmly patient with me. Arlette taught me a lot about intimacy. As for me, I was in heaven. 

Eventually she went off to Nursing College, and we drifted apart. She went on to become a nurse, and I became a hippie. I lost touch with her for some years. When we finally reconnected, she had been a nurse, married and had some kids, and divorced her husband, and had gone on to become an administrator in a health care system. And found a second husband, a nice guy named Steve. 

When we talk, she always has that unique perspective of me before I became the man that I am today, that no other woman has. And I can’t pull the wool over her eyes about anything, even were I to try, which I don’t, because I quit that kind of behavior years ago. When I look into my heart, as I do sometimes, to keep an eye on who I am, I always see her there, gently reminding me of the lessons she taught me so many years ago. 

More than anything, other than maybe Boy Scouts and Peace Corps, I am a compendium of the wonderful women in my life, who had the lessons that I needed to learn. I firmly believe that it takes a woman, or women, to make a man rise to his best potential. The women in my life have always made me want to be the best me that I can be. Arlette got in there when I was but half formed, and steered me into the path that I have followed, and I love her for that.
Am I not a totally lucky boy?
Love you Arly.