R and I attended grade school together at Mt. Pleasant, but I have no recollection of her or any of our interactions during that period, other than I thought she was beautiful, unique, and had more than a crush on her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do remember one interaction with her,\nour only one in fact, and it occurred a few years later in the fall\nof 1978. I was a ninth grader at Gardiner Junior High and and R was a\nninth grader at Ogden Junior High, another school in the Oregon City\ndistrict, the one where my father taught and coached. R must have\nmoved at some point and thus we didn’t attend the same junior high\nschool, a great blow to me. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the next couple of years, I would\nsee R when Gardiner traveled to Ogden for football and basketball\ngames. I don’t think she was a cheerleader. But she was in the stands\nand perhaps we even said hello. All I know now is that she transfixed\nme and I wanted to meet her again. There was something in her look\nthat was totally different than the look of the girls I was attracted\nto at Gardiner. I liked it and didn’t know why. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I got out the phone book and dialed\nevery number with her last name. It worked! We talked on the phone a\ncouple times and she agreed to come see one of my football games. We\nwere playing an afternoon game at Rex Putnam High School, not far\nfrom where she lived. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We massacred Rex Putnam and it turned\nout to be the best football game I ever played. I scored three\ntouchdowns, one receiving, one running, and one on a long\ninterception return. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
R saw it all, sitting alone half way up\nthe grandstands. On the sideline I waved to her and she waved back. I\nthink we talked briefly after the game before the bus took the team\nback to Gardiner. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We talked that evening on the phone.\nShe congratulated me on my performance and we set up a meeting at her\nhouse in Gladstone. She would be alone. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next Saturday, I rode Tri-Met bus\n#33 down McLoughlin Blvd. to Roethe Road, where Wendy’s stood. I may\nhave told my mother I was going to the library. I know I walked to\nthe bus stop. It was a nice day. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got off the bus and started walking\nup Roethe Road with the directions to her house. I really had no idea\nwhat was going to happen with R but wanted something to happen. It\nalready had because here I was walking to her house and she was\nalone. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The directions were sound. I knocked on\nthe front door. R opened it and I beheld a young woman with hair\nstraight her to her ass, wearing flared blue jeans and a white\nmacrame halter. She wore no makeup. She looked like an adult. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
R led me downstairs to some kind of\ncarpeted den full of trophies. She put on a 45 record, Dr Hook’s\n\u201cSharing the Night Together.\u201d I think it played on repeat for the\nnext half hour while we talked. What we talked about I no longer\nrecall. Her voice was raspy, husky. It was unlike any female voice I\nhad ever heard, then or now. It was a late night FM radio DJ voice\nand she 14. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She lit a cigarette. I’d never seen\nanyone smoke and I liked it. I think she offered me a drag but I\ndeclined. She smoked and we kissed. We made out and she took breaks\nto finish the cigarette. Then she lit another one. Dr Hook kept on\nplaying. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was more making out and some\ntouching over the clothes here and there. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then that was it. I said goodbye,\nwalked out to catch the bus, and rode it back to Oregon City. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nR and I never met again. I don’t think we even talked on the phone\nafter the encounter. I barely remember seeing her in high school the\nnext year. She might have dropped out. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n(Note to reader: It is my wish that the reader will support the idea\nthat Pioneer Pride<\/em> is a \u201cbook.\u201d It is also my wish that\nthe reader consider \u201cbuying\u201d the book as it rolls out in\ninstallments. A purchase supports an author and future literary\nendeavors by Nestucca Spit Press. To purchase, look to the right on\nthe blog to use Paypal or contact me to make other arrangements.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" R and I attended grade school together at Mt. Pleasant, but I have no recollection of her or any of our interactions during that period, other than I thought she was beautiful, unique, and had more than a crush on her. I do remember one interaction with her, our only one in fact, and it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,942],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-city","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5877"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5879,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877\/revisions\/5879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}