I knew I shouldn’t cry.  10 year old boys don’t cry when their feelings get hurt.  So, I sucked up my hurt feelings and slowly pushed off the wall at the Round-A-Bout Skating rink as some late 80′s Glam Band sang a ballad.  I was holding hands with a girl that was more or less a last resort.  (Come to think of it if she knew she was a last resort her feelings would have been hurt, too.  I was 10 give me a break.)  But, that’s really the end of the story.  Let’s back up a bit.

Son of a Preacher Man

My dad is a preacher and there was this girl in my class at school whose dad was also a preacher.  In my little fourth grade head it was a no brainer that this beautiful girl was sent straight from God just for me.  It was puppy love at first sight.

I had a best friend that year…2 of them actually: Matt and Charlie and they knew all about my crush on the preacher’s daughter in our class.  I didn’t hide it as good as I thought I did because I think everyone knew.  (When I say “I think” I mean that everyone in the class saw the Valentine I brought her and how much bigger it was than the others.)

Someone in our class had a birthday party at the skating rink.  Having your party at the skating rink was a step in the right direction socially, but this was the Holy Grail of skating parties.  The parents of my classmate had rented out the ENTIRE RINK for the party.  There were 30 of us there and we had the whole place to ourselves.

My Big Chance

I thought for sure this was my big chance to score a couples skate with my big crush.  We skated all afternoon and I made sure she was near by when the DJ played The Ghostbuster’s theme song.  I am not sure what it is about that song, but when it comes on you just want to skate a little faster and you pull out your best crossover skate turns around the corners.  (The ultimate was if you could to do the backward skate/crossover turn/while bobbing up and down to the beat of the music move…I could not do it.)

I thought for sure the couples skate was a shoo-in after that performance.  I looked at the end of the rink and sign for “All Skate” was illuminated and I waited.  Just as the slow guitar intro started the “Couples Skate” sign was illuminated and the DJ said, “It’s time for a couples skate in the regular direction.”  I quickly scanned the rink to find my crush, I began to panic when I couldn’t see her.

Crushed

To my horror she was heading on to the rink surface holding hands with someone else: my good buddy, Matt.  My little 10 year old heart was crushed.  How could this be happening.  As I grabbed the hand of my last resort and moved onto the floor I vowed to skate this couples skate so well that my crush would see that she chose the wrong partner.

That was almost 20 years ago.  I think I have told that story about 1,000 times.  It was the first time my heart got broken.  At the time I couldn’t imagine anything worse happening in my life, but that’s what you think when you are 10.  I look back now and laugh.  The funniest part is that she probably had no idea how I felt.  I don’t think I ever got up the courage to tell her.  (No wonder she chose Matt.)

It’s amazing what you remember from your childhood.  I am sure somewhere along the way I broke some hearts, caused some hurts, and left some fences un-mended.  But, you never really forget the first time you feel like that.  It all came rushing back yesterday when my fourth grade crush friended me on Facebook…its funny what you remember.  Thanks for the memories, G!