Who knows by then. maybe you will have found another girl to be crazy about.”- Kim Stone (Every guys dream girl and High School Cheerleader extraordinaire )
Jimmy Coleman and My Dad were best friends coming up through HS.
Jimmy went off to Vietnam for a couple of trips,
Dad couldn’t pass the physical (thankfully).
Jimmy came home and started dating Kathy.
Not long after, Dad met Momma.
A couple years later Jimmy and Kathy got married.
Then, Dad and Momma got married.
Jimmy and Kathy welcomed there daughter Katie into the world in the spring of 73.
I came along in the summer of 74.
Our families stayed close off and on throughout mine and Katie’s childhood.
We would visit each other from time to time. Katie and I would play and keep each other occupied while our parents visited.
As time went on, and careers and life took off… the visits became fewer and farther between, but our families stayed in touch.
A few months before my Junior Prom, my Mother and Kathy were talking on the phone. They were talking about how time had flown and how they couldn’t believe we were both in High School. Katie lived about 15 miles outside of my hometown, and went to a different school than I. I really don’t know how the conversation went, but somehow they began talking about the Prom. Kathy told Mom that Katie had just broken up with her boyfriend, and Mom told Kathy that I was a pathetic loser who couldn’t find a date if it killed me (just kidding, she really didn’t say I was a pathetic loser… She might have mentioned the lack of dating part though).
So after discussing our predicament, her Senior Prom and my Junior Prom coming up in a couple of months, they agreed that it would be a great idea if we went together.
I have to be honest when I tell you that I wasn’t really sold on the idea when I was first approached.
“Had my social life come to the point to where I had to get my Mother to find me a Prom Date?” I asked myself.
I then remembered the last time I had seen Katie (about a year or so before in passing), and recalled that she looked significantly more, how do I say?? “Mature”, than she did when we were children. Quite honestly, she had grown up to be a very attractive young lady. Plus, it wasn’t like the girls were beating down the door for me to take them to Prom either. So I swallowed my pride, and told Mom if Katie was cool with it, then so was I.
About a week later, Katie and I talked it over on the phone and she agreed to meet me at Belk (where I worked at the time) to help me pick out a tux that would match her Prom dress. When she arrived at work that evening, I was blown away at how pretty she was. Granted we were just going as “friends”, but I was buzzing with anticipation with the thought of taking such a pretty girl.
That was the first time that I thought about dating a girl from outside my high school. The dangerous thing about living your whole life in a small town, is after a while you tend to forget there are other people and places outside of the small circle you are surrounded by. The thought of dating someone other than a girl from my High School had never crossed my mind.
A few nights later she came by the house for us to talk about further plans for our big night(s). We talked about friends who were each going to meet, where we could eat beforehand, etc. After sitting on the couch discussing this and that, she suggested that we go outside to get some fresh air. We found ourselves in the swing in our backyard. Enjoying the crisp early spring air, the conversations we were having about Prom plans stopped, and we began discussing our childhood.
I mentioned how I always thought it was cool she always wanted to play “boy games” and not girlie things like dolls and stuff when my folks and I would visit her parent’s house. She told me about how she remembered playing hide and go seek in her backyard. She told me she would get scared that I wouldn’t find her.
I told her I would have never let that happen, I would never let her get lost..
It was then that she leaned in and kissed me for the first time. I heart fluttered like it never had before. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was the first kiss that made me feel that way. I tried to hide the fact that I was trembling and my head was spinning. I tried to play it cool. I am not sure if I succeeded, but if I didn’t… she didn’t let on. My Prom date was going to be more than just a “Friendly” date.
I was going to the Prom with the girl that would become what I consider my first ‘real’ girlfriend.
The first girl I could really say I fell in love with.
Eventually, she would be the girl that would give me my first real broken heart… but I was too blind to see any of that coming.
The next day, I passed Megan Alba Biel in the halls at school.
“Hey Megan” I said in passing.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so shy around her. I could actually muster up the courage to say hello. Less than twenty four hours since the kiss on the swing, and I was a changed man.
Megan Alba Biel didn’t seem so untouchable anymore.
My interests lied elsewhere. For the first time in almost three years, a girl OTHER than Megan Alba Biel had captured my attention.
This would be a great part of the story to tell you that it made her madly jealous, but to be honest… I wasn’t sure if she even knew my last name at that point.
That really didn’t matter to me though,
I was going to prom with Katie Coleman.
My entire world revolved around Katie Coleman.
** I changed some of the names in this post simply out of respect for everyone involved. The last thing I want to do in telling this story is be disrespectful to anyone, so please forgive me for using creative licensing
Love Y’all
d
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