A Kiss is Just a Kiss....

Do you remember your first kiss with your significant other?  If you’ve been married as long as my spouse and I have that experience may have faded into one of the darker corners of your mind.   I think my husband would rather I didn’t, but with his permission here is the story of our first kiss.

It was my fourteenth summer; I would be fifteen in the fall.  He was sixteen (drove a convertible) and his seventeenth birthday would be in the fall as well.  I wasn’t really allowed to date, but my Mom was wavering on that so I pushed the issue when my best friend’s cousin asked me to go for a root beer at the local drive in.  (He drove a convertible!)

And so it was that the totally inexperienced young couple ended up at the root beer stand.  My Mother had sternly told me to be home in an hour, and now we sat waiting for our car hop to break our uncomfortable silence.

Every time it crosses your mind how “difficult” it is to be a grown up, try to remember how gut wrenchingly hard it was to be a young teen.  Will he try to kiss me?   What if I bump his nose….Oh, my God I know I’m going to bump his nose!  It was really scary stuff.

Making small talk when you’re fourteen is difficult when you’ve had as little life experience as I’d had at that stage of my life.  An only child, I’d been born to a Mother who loved me with ‘industrial strength’ love.  She was strict in most ways and I was amazed that she had allowed me to go for root beer with this older man of sixteen.   Have I mentioned he drove a convertible?

Finally the car hop emerged from the side door with a tray that held two large root beers in frosty mugs.  I was relieved to have something to do; I expect Larry felt the same.  In excruciating shyness we drank our root beers and talked.  All too soon we had finished; he replaced our mugs on the red cloth that lined the silver tray attached to the car window.   

I sat cuddled close to him, his right arm around my shoulder.  Now….the moment of truth!  He leaned over and kissed me soundly; since neither nose was misplaced it went rather well as I remember.  And then, in a self-assured way, he fired up the convertible and swept out of the parking lot.   The macho squeal of tires was impressive as we sped off with the silver tray and two root beer mugs still attached to the car window.

The old adage, “Youth is wasted on the young”, isn’t really true.  The great thing about it is you can relive it over and over again in your mature years.  I remember my own quite clearly…..and I drive a convertible.

                                                                Life is Good