MY “BEAVER CLEAVER” MOMENT
I first saw her in Miss Corbin’s 4th grade class, and fell head over heels in love! Diann Mayer! Of course, she being the prettiest girl, not only in the class but I suspect in the entire school, she never knew I was alive. However, she is responsible for one of the most embarrassing events of my life, though she never knew it.
It was Valentine’s Day (still 4th grade). Back then every kid gave Valentine’s Day cards to everyone in their class. I couldn’t get my card for Diann just right and I ended up using 3 or more cards to get it the way I wanted. So the next morning I got to class early to deliver my cards. We had desks that were a table top with an upper and lower compartment underneath and in the middle to store our books, pencils, yo-yo’s army men and other stuff. So……I not only put Diann’s card in her desk, I put all of the ones I thought weren’t quite right, too!!! Leaving 3 or 4 tokens of a 4th grader’s unending devotion!
Needless to say…..later when everyone got to class, Diann found all those cards. I’ll never forget to this day, she and her best friend Judy, gasping and turning to look at me. I wanted to shrink and crawl inside my desk to hide!
Hey, Wally!!!!!!!!!
THIS IS SURREAL!!
Ok, so now you know that Diann was my fantasy girl from 4th grade until I left Reagan. If I saw Diann walking in the school hallway between classes, in my mind’s eye, she would sachet in slow motion and in soft focus. A gentle breeze would be blowing her perfectly feathered hair just enough to lift it off her shoulders, and a soundtrack by Journey playing in the background! I’m talking a scene right out of an 80′s John Hughes movie.
Even though we never really spoke, much less socialized, I figured 9th grade would be the last time I’d ever see her, since I was moving to another high school. However, I did see her in college when she was part of a dance/pep squad for the 
basketball team, called the “Texas Love”. Man, did she ever grow up nice! Of course, that was no surprise.
Fast Forward 32 years!!! We’re having a class of ’77 party. I get to the party and head back to say hello to some old Reagan friends, and they go and pull Diann up to me to say hello. And of course, the only thing I say is, “Holy Crap! Diann!” That was minus 50 ‘Cool Points’, thank you very much. I might as well have been back in Miss Corbin’s 4th grade classroom!!
So anyway, I’m on Face Book, and I check and sure enough, she’s on Face Book, so I figure, “What the hell?” I send her a ‘friend request’, and lo and behold, she accepts. I’m still pretty sure she didn’t really remember me, and was just being nice. Well, she responds positively to some of my posts on Face Book, and I’m thinking, “Hmmm?” Don’t ask me why…..but one day, I do some more figuring to myself, and say again, “What the hell?” and send her a message asking if she’d like to meet for drinks after work sometime. I’m fully expecting a polite, “Hell no.” but, lo and behold again, she says, “Yes.” Now, knowing how when He gets bored, God loves to play little tricks on me, I’m not fully convinced this is going to really happen, but I have to run with it! Hey! We’re talking Diann Mayer, here!
THE FIRST DATE
We set up a day and time to meet. Oh, I forgot to tell you. She’s a Vegan. No, it’s not an evil cult religion, well?……… no, I guess it’s not. So I let her pick the place since I’m pretty much the “Anti-Vegan”! She picks a Friday night at Hyde Park Bar & Grill. Cool. As the day approaches, the weather was worsening. Yep. Gods little antics! We have to postpone the ‘date’. On the day of the rescheduled date, the weather was not ideal either, but it wasn’t bad enough to postpone again. Whew!
So I’m sitting in the bar at a table, and it’s just a classic scene. Here I am, having to tell the waiter I’m expecting someone, nursing my scotch and trying to NOT look at the door every time it opens. And of course, it feels like an hour, especially with the waiter coming over to ‘check’ on me several times. “Hello? God? Is that you?” “Bored again, are You?”
The wait did give me an opportunity to think up potential topics of conversation. What I came up with was zilch. Nada. A big fat nuttin’! I mean, I could have told her about my prepubescent fantasy of getting her to like me by various methods of ‘saving her life’. You know, the catch her falling from a ladder, or pull her from the path of an oncoming bus. Stuff like that. I’m thinking these are not good topics unless I want her calling security.
After what seems like a week, she arrives. Boy was it worth the wait. I was almost more relieved than anything. First, that she showed, and at least the waiter and bartender knew now I wasn’t stood up! She’s as pretty as ever, with a smile that immediately put me at ease. Conversation didn’t exactly flow like the Mississippi, but we have enough in common like, friends, school, the ‘old’ days, etc. that we got through it just fine. Well enough, as a matter of fact, that we made mention of a second date! Ta-duh!!!!
We’ve since gone out several times, and it looks like we will continue to do so. We’ve got some fun things planned already. No ladder catching or speeding bus has been required.
God? Thank you!
EPR – March 2010
