Monday, June 19, 2006

27 Years Ago Today

A 17 year old boy arrived on the north side of Chicago, and got dragged by his parents to a parish carnival in Rogers Park. He was miserable. He'd just finished his junior year of high school, and right at the end of the year got transplanted halfway across the country--no friends, and the prospect of starting at a new school at the beginning of senior year. No more BMOC.

The carnival sucked. The games, the people, the crappy band doing covers of Styx, Rush and REO Speedwagon. All of it.

Anyway, he spotted this girl there. She didn't look like all the other girls--the ones with the black Loop tee shirts and the badly feathered hair and the blue eye shadow and the black suede shoes with the wavy bottoms...this girl had beautiful pale skin full unpainted lips and sparkling green eyes that were afraid to look right at you, and a mane of curly hair that fell down past her shoulders. He followed her around for nearly half an hour, reduced to indecision. Too scared to walk up and talk to her, too fascinated and lonely to walk away.

His decision was made when his kid brother walked up and announced that the family was leaving in a few minutes. The house was just a block away, but they were staying at a hotel until the movers brought their stuff later that week. The brother left, and the boy walked straight up to the girl and her friend as they got onto some tilt-a-whirl ride. He asked if he could get on the ride; the object of his desire turned pink and stared at her feet, her bubbly friend said yes.

The ride started up, slowly, and, desperate to make conversation in a way that he thought cool kids in Chicago did, he said

"So...do you girls party?"


The rest, as they say, is history.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aaaaaaaaaww!! That's so adorable! I'm so lucky to have parents that are in love :)
I love you!
~Hannah

Anonymous said...

This story makes me giggle.

Joe said...

Every chance I get baby!

Anonymous said...

You two are SO painfully adorable! AAWWWWW!!!

~nora