As I said at the time, the attempt to gain a clearer picture of my high school and college years took an interesting turn as I considered (let’s call her) AA, and an attraction that never went beyond a few words and our shared hours in Mrs. Hopkins’ horrid English class. AA was, I believe, the one who knew what a choral descant was, perhaps indicating she was Episcopalian. What I remember – and the yearbooks confirm – was that she was squeaky clean, of the pure skin and bright eyes variety. Even Ivory Soap spotless.

I would have also added “virginal,” though I could speculate there was a hidden passionate side – she was, after all, on the elite marching squad, and ambitious enough to hold several offices. Some of the portraits hint at some mischief or playfulness behind those serious eyes and smile. Yet she did not show up on the homecoming or prom courts. I seem to sense she may have already had a serious boyfriend.

Now I find, as AB, a nurse, possibly divorced and looking nothing like the girl I remember, she’s still in that locale and even contributed to a Republican Senate campaign. It’s amazing what you can discover online, if you find the right thread, even without coughing over any money.

This has me thinking again of the missed opportunities and how, maybe, they were essential to my eventual pathway.

I never spoke much to her or to BB or to CC because I felt they were way out of my league. Even DD, whom I did ask out a couple of times, to no avail – usually too late. Now I see how our youth pastor’s comments about another may have actually been an attempt to bridge something on her part, but again I felt all too incompetent and impoverished and minor-minor league constricted. (Yet, as a golden boy in my mother’s eyes, only beauty would do as my consort, at least in my own expectations.)

The swirl around EE, of course, was a situation in which one person finds himself or herself unwitting having a small but pivotal role in a much larger drama. I wonder what I’d say to her now. (That would be an interesting letter to compose: note to myself.) My mother’s values, my own ambitions, my conflicted religious situation, and the raging hormones all tangled.

Suppose I had somehow found myself going steady with any of them? (Much less the twins or FF or GG – which brings up the younger woman syndrome.) Would I have felt more content, to continue studies at Wright State, work at the Journal Herald, settle in Dayton forever? Would I have been Republican, Methodist, or … ? How small that all looks now!

On the other hand, the hippie movement was around the corner. HH (now there, along with JJ, were older women – a grade or two ahead – I could have gone for!) did move, according to the Web, in that direction.

At the time, I thought the girls all possessed a secret wisdom far beyond what we wretched guys – well, for the most part: a few seemed to be on a privileged inside track – could muster. As if they would only show mercy! As if that was what I was reading in their coy glances. Heavens!