{"id":5949,"date":"2020-04-07T06:57:54","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T13:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=5949"},"modified":"2020-04-07T06:57:55","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T13:57:55","slug":"pioneer-pride-chapter-24-a-sophomore-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/pioneer-pride-chapter-24-a-sophomore-date\/","title":{"rendered":"Pioneer Pride: Chapter 24\u2014A Sophomore Date"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

As I search my mind for an interesting memory to wind down this memoir and perhaps give it (or at least me) an everlasting point for our unkind, digitized, distracted times, I return to one girl, let’s call her M, who transfixed me briefly during my sophomore year. It was truly remarkable how she danced into my consciousness as I was working on Pioneer Pride<\/em>. A writer can never explain why a certain person mysteriously emerges when writing about the past, but that’s often what happens. It’s one of the great delights of writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That M did emerge is something I take\nseriously and continue to consider. I am considering it now and offer\nmy thoughts about her for your consideration. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I no longer recall how we met or what\nprecipitated our first date. I must have asked her out, face to face,\nat school. I do remember it was my first car date, which of course\nwas a big deal, a landmark. I had absolutely no idea what to do on a\ncar date outside of seeing scenes on television or the movies.\nEveryone knows what those were about. AC-DC wrote a song about it,\nback seat rhythm<\/em> and all that. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was in the late spring, not long\nafter I earned my driver’s license. I picked M up in the Dasher. She\nlived out in the country. I don’t remember what she was wearing but I\nremember when she opened the door and I beheld a sprite, with\ngorgeous, heavily-lidded eyes so round and deep they seemed like tiny\nCrater Lakes. I dove in. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got in my car and I drove us to a\nmovie at the Southgate Theater. What we intended to see has escaped\nme. I was incredibly nervous with M. I had never been in a car alone\nwith a girl. What was protocol?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is what I do remember: she turned\nher head to me as I drove and asked slow, deliberate questions. We\nwere from two different camps at Oregon City High School. Let me\namend that. Two different countries. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No girl I had ever liked had asked\nquestions of me. And they weren’t banal ones. She looked me in the\neyes and Crater Lake wanted to know the answers. They mattered to\nher. I think she was a lot smarter than she let on. A lot of girls\nhad to disguise it with boys back then. Maybe that’s still true. I\nhope not. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As this memoir has shown, I was a\nquasi-angry, infrequently arrogant kid in high school who swam\nagainst the current, but I wasn’t that way with M in the Dasher. She\ndidn’t seem to know or care anything about that. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point in the drive to the\ntheater, I stopped at an intersection for a red light and stared at M\nas we talked. She looked at the light, hesitated a bit, and then\nsaid, \u201cMatt, the light’s green.\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it was! I have no recollection\nhow I responded to M. We probably laughed. I took my foot off the\nbrake, stepped on the gas, and away the Dasher sputtered. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may have made out at the movie. My\njournal from sophomore year records no mention of M. I think I didn’t\nknow how about to write honestly about my feelings for her so why not\nomit what you can’t explain. The Who sang a great song about that\nvery sentiment. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or maybe the date didn’t go well and we\ndidn’t kiss. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All I do know is that we agreed to\nanother date, a tennis lesson taught by me\u2014my first date on the\ntennis court! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M showed up in a crop top that she must\nhave scissored herself and terry cloth shorts. She wore Keds without\nsocks. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she took to the court, I watched her\nglide around before the lesson began. I struck me she was barely\nclothed. I had never seen anything like this before. M moved liked a\nballet dancer, light on the feet, lithe, graceful, twirling. Not\njerky tennis movements at all. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stood near each other and I showed\nher how to hit a forehand, turn the body, straight arm, follow\nthrough. She practiced the stroke a few times and all looked good.\nShe was smiling and asking questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I positioned M at the back line of the\ncourt and walked over to the other side of the net where I had a\nbucket of balls. I hit a soft arcing shot to her forehand. She swung\nand missed by a mile. I hit another one and she missed that one, too.\nShe fanned it again and again and kept apologizing. I came around the\nnet and went through the forehand again, this time holding her arm\nfrom behind and demonstrating the stroke deliberately. I could feel\nher heat against me and could barely concentrate on instruction. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A minute later I was on the other side\nof the net and hit her another soft ball to her forehand. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing. Another whiff. More whiffs. It\nseemed impossible for someone who moved so gracefully to miss the\nball. I mean she didn’t even nick it with the frame! The hand and eye\ncoordination simply wasn’t there and you can’t teach that. It should\nhave been funny to me but I think I got upset. I could teach anyone\ntennis! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not her. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I no longer recall how the lesson\nended, but we never went out again. That was my fault. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why end this memoir with M? I don’t\nreally know. Perhaps it’s because 40 years after that nervous car\ndate and ludicrous tennis lesson, her style of conversation with me\nnow feels almost totally unique and the type I want more of in my\nlife. Indeed, it might serve as a model for how people should\nconverse with each other, particularly in the days of text messaging\nand social media posts and whatever hasty communication platform\ncomes next, and we all know another one is coming. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I search my mind for an interesting memory to wind down this memoir and perhaps give it (or at least me) an everlasting point for our unkind, digitized, distracted times, I return to one girl, let’s call her M, who transfixed me briefly during my sophomore year. It was truly remarkable how she danced […]<\/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-5949","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\/5949","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=5949"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5951,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949\/revisions\/5951"}],"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=5949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}