To the best of my recollection the layout of Pattonville High School circa 1982 went something like this; facing the front of the school there was tiered parking and a long curved drive that ran past the front doors. This was before an added auditorium and swimming pool altered the landscape. Upon entering the front door you faced the administrative offices where hallways on either side would carry you back into the bowels of the school toward the trophy hall and the gymnasium. Continuing down the left corridor were the lockers of the freaks and thespians, down the right corridor were the jocks, cheerleaders, etc. To the right of the front entrance was a large kidney shaped parking lot sandwiched between the football field and the east wing of the high school itself. This was the lot which constituted student parking although I never actually parked a car there, as I never bothered to get my drivers license until the summer after I graduated and all my rides had dried up. Drivers Ed movies of mangled, mutilated corpses shot in grainy black and white and old putrid sixties color film stock of the type that renders blood the same sickening, sweet magenta that it tints flowers and drapery, were to blame for me surrendering my right to drive, plus the fact that I very much enjoyed walking. I walked to and from work on an almost daily basis and was in good shape with strong legs that could push long trains of grocery carts all over the seemingly endless acres of the Overland Dairy parking lot. One of the more welcome tasks of a courtesy clerk, gathering carts was usually a pleasant respite from the bustle inside the store. We would challenge each other to see who could push the most at one time. The weather variables of scorching heat, driving rain or deep snow only made the game more interesting. The trains of carts were an able outlet for an over abundance of testosterone fueled teenage energy. That and the girls of Pattonville Senior High. I’m not suggesting actual physical contact, only the thought of such. As a teenage boy I would calculate that somewhere between 80 to 90 percent of waking brain activity is devoted to thoughts of teenage girls. The remaining percentage is reserved for schoolwork, chores, sports, food, hygiene, friends, family, etc. To cope with the imbalance and alleviate the energy some guys went round the bases with girls and others pushed grocery carts. Push, push, push; man I pushed a lot of carts!

Not that I wasn’t determined to find a girlfriend, I was, but never very good at the process. I suppose I was shy, though full of heart and longing and good intent. I was certainly unpolished, unskilled and unnoticed when it came to interactions with girls. My ineptitude likely stemmed from a much broader people skills deficit. My approach ran the gamut as I tried to navigate my relationships, shifting from, loud, obnoxious and rude, to quiet and reserved, to brooding and aloof. In retrospect probably not that much different from most common teenage behavior. Along the way I managed to make a few friends and occasionally initiate a fleeting flirtatious encounter. Still, I always had the feeling I was a foreign exchange student in my own home town, I always felt an envoy from somewhere else, I never quite fit in. The guys I saw having success with the girls I was interested in were definitely more confident, generally more outgoing, often upperclassmen and occasionally, out-and-out douchebags. I could accept and reconcile my disadvantage in three of the instances but the fourth always left me scratching my head. Is she really going out with him?

And the girls? Well they were stunning. Coming out of Catholic grade school where the pickings were slim and any real crush was martyred on the vine, under the withering scrutiny of maleficent nuns and bitter priests who defiled and demonized every natural thought a teenage boy might muster, I was ill prepared for such a cornucopia of cuties. The ninth grade is often a testing ground where young people first get their feet wet in the dating pool but not for me. Regrettably my freshman year at Holman Junior High remains unaccounted for, as I spent way too much time at the back of the bus or behind Streetside Records blazing away all memory. I’m sure I had my heart broken a few times, a lovely blonde with Farrah Fawcett hair and a name like a prayer comes to mind but for the most part recollection of 1979 went, as they say, up in smoke.

High School however was a fresh start. Unfortunately they would take your picture for the yearbook on the day of registration, so my tenth grade yearbook photograph still reeks of the late summer stench of hand-me-down weed. But upon entering Pattonville I pretty much passed the dutchie ‘pon the left hand side and never looked back. I was determined to find my way through this expansive maze of hallways and people without encountering too much hassle or hullabaloo and without the stupefying haze of lingering smoke. An imprudent decision, prompted by my neighborhood friends who were one-year-older, helped steel me for any opposition I might encounter over the course of the next three years. They pulled some strings so I could be in their PE hour, which I thought was a good thing until the first day of school when I realized I was now in the weight room-centric gym class of the football team. That entire class was made up of hulking juniors and seniors with the exception of myself and one other sophomore named Woody, who looked like Dan Haggerty and may have actually been in his mid-thirties. As a non-member of the team and the only sophomore without a full beard, I was pretty much the go to target for on field torment and locker room hazing. I stood up to them the best I could and deflected some of the abuse by ingratiating myself with some key players who weren’t your average stereotypical jock assholes. Still, there were those too, I suppose every 80’s high school had to have a few O’Bannions sprinkled in the mix. I remember one asshole in particular (who shall go nameless as I wouldn’t want every asinine thing I ever said recounted) who told me how happy he was the morning after John Lennon was killed because “that hippy freak was dead.” That may have been the only time I let one of their comments get under my skin but it did get under and has resided there sallow and pestiferous ever since. Still, he can’t be blamed entirely since that attitude and culture was carefully cultivated by the head coach of the football team who was the most ridiculously typecast, grossly repressed, overly sanctified caricature to ever blow wasted oxygen through a whistle. If it sounds like I hated him, I’m pretty sure I did. He wanted me to try out for the football team and when I politely declined, citing no skills or knowledge of the game, he henceforth viewed me as a pariah in his ranks. One morning after arriving to class exhausted and bleary-eyed from working a shift till 3:00 a.m., organizing Floden’s Freezer back at Overland Dairy, he called me out as being high (I wasn’t) and admonished me loudly to never come to his class in that condition again. The irony and injustice of his assumption really burned me up. One year earlier he may have been right on the money but here I was, hard working a twelve-hour shift the night before and being shamed for the effort. A leader of men maybe, but not the kind of man I wanted to be.

Mr. Dick was more my speed, bright, funny, acerbic, a painter and a critical thinker without being critical. He was cool, like having Donald Sutherland or Kurt Vonnegut as a teacher. He didn’t just teach history, philosophy and economics, he taught life lessons, some of which I still refer to this day. I think it’s a safe bet he was a favorite of many. There were other good teachers and bad ones too and classmates you liked and those you didn’t. A big school is a fine preparation for the great big world. I managed to Walter Mitty my way through those years, slipping somewhat seamlessly and tolerated, if not openly embraced, through the various cliques that constituted the greater whole. That year at Holman had given me some street cred with the freaks and that gym class provided me some feeble rapport with the jocks. I had no shortage of exceedingly smart friends and coexisted comfortably with my fellow average peers. I glided occasionally in the cool kids slipstream without ever actually committing to their edge or fashion; I comported with the creative types and broke bread with the castaways. Mostly though I just disappeared into the middle ground and observed.

I remember much of my time at Pattonville clearly, if not always fondly, and in my minds eye I can still see the people and places. I remember that walk through the cafeteria after exiting the food line, windows to the left and through the crowded tables on a path that led out to the lobby, where I spent many a lunch period dining on ice cream sandwiches. I recall making that walk once with a sweet and pretty girl that I was deeply enamored with. As I remember it, she reached for my hand, something I would have never had the courage to initiate, and we walked through that crowded cafeteria hand in hand. I was so happy and proud that I felt as if I were walking on the moon. I remember later in the day a classmate coming up and asking me incredulously if we were dating. We weren’t and we didn’t, it was just one those moments in time that two people share, but it meant plenty to me.

In this same lobby I sat on a bench with my friend Susan, making snarky comments about passersby under our breath, for no other reason than to make each other laugh. Across the way I can still see the adorable little girl who lived down the lane, letting loose a belch so loud that it rattled the trophy cases and afterward smiling so demurely that it made her somehow even more attractive to me.This was where the upperclassmen used to name prank the kids dumb enough to wear their names stitched on their backs or drop cups of water from rigged doors onto other unlucky souls. If a kid stood out too much for some physical or behavioral anomaly they were saddled with a wildly creative descriptive moniker by an upperclassmen. What seemed then like relatively harmless behavior, would likely get a kid expelled for bullying in this day and age.

That lobby and the adjoining hallway seem to be ground zero for my high school memories, the classrooms not so much. Through those doors we poured in from the busses and the parking lot every morning, hoping to find a friend or lay eyes on your crush of the moment before they disappeared into the shuffle of the day. At lunch you could watch the gym classes either coming or going out to the track and fields. There were so many students that the lunch hours had to be staggered to accommodate the volume. In the spring and autumn the girls would be in shorts and tees, all taught and glistening and magnificent. In the winter you might enjoy a brief floorshow as someone held tight the door while a straggler in sweaty workout gear felt their clothes freezing to their skin all the while screaming and pleading for entrance. Here too was the setting for the most effectively convincing faux seizure ever to disrupt a high school blood drive as Mike B. gave an Oscar worthy performance that left at least two phlebotomists deeply grieving their career choice. Good times!

Down those hallways came a daily parade of Benatar eyes, Seagulls hair, Bananarama jumpers, Go-Go’s gear, Vee-Jay swagger, skinny ties, parachute pants, band buttons, batting helmets, Izod, Ocean Pacific, Members Only and Nike Cortez. God what glorious times! There’s Susan again, bounding down the hall, wearing a Mao cap, Canary in a Coalmine blaring from her boom box. There’s Dave B., friend to everyone and never not smiling, the constant diplomat, the ambassador of goodwill. There’s Mike W. wearing my missing Bob Marley pin on his hat, whether pilfered or found, I think I’ll let him keep it as I value my teeth more than I do that button. What a simple and at the time, unappreciated joy to walk down the hall and hear a friend call out Lorenzo or Larold, or Duffy or Larry, Larry, Larry Duffy. How great was it to have a simple nickname that made you feel a small part of something larger? You never fully realize how comforting and special that affection is until comes middle age and you’re once again reduced to being just Larry or Bob or Bill.

As pleasant as some of these high school memories are, it was the summers in between that really define those years for me. We were after all talking about girls, were we not? It was on those summer nights, away from the dreary every day routine of the school year that the best memories were born. What could be more fun than a summer party at 16, 17 or 18 years of age? The excitement of seeing who was in attendance and the disappointment of who was not. The fights, the tears, the hookups, the Little Kings Crème Ale and the vomiting made for endless fun and fresh opportunity. If the party was lame or you didn’t find who you were looking for than it was off to Lindbergh McDonalds or Engine House Pizza or Taco Bell on Dorsett, where that little woman with the gold tooth would take your order and you could while away the time talking bullshit and dropping dirty pennies in the hot sauce, pulling them out clean and shiny.

This might be a case of looking a gift horse in the mouth but being friends with some of the most popular girls in school was exceedingly frustrating for a young man. It is that ‘friends’ designation specifically that I’m talking about. While I sincerely appreciated their friendship and their nearness, a sixteen-year-old guy has a hell of a time coming to terms with remaining only friends with a sweet, attractive sixteen-year-old girl. There is so much lust and irrational raw emotion swirling throughout the teenage brain, a boy is bound to fall in love with each and every girl paying him any attention, no matter how far-reaching or preposterous his desire. Those teenage impressions die hard! To this day I still carry a torch for Jessica Lange after watching her cavort with a giant mechanical ape. I’m still smitten with Bailey Quarters and her sweaters and her glasses and her shy confidence. 35 years later, should War Games pop up on television, that little smoldering flame for Ally Sheedy is rekindled. These feelings don’t go away, it’s girls and boys, birds and bees; the stuff that makes the world go round.

I could review all the girls I had crushes on but to what end. They likely knew who they were at the time and if they do or didn’t doesn’t matter a lick, certainly not to them. It is the nature of the teenage heart to be fleeting and fickle in its adoration and as oddly gratifying as that heartbreak could be, I’d rather recall all those shared fun times; the go-carts, the waterslides, the bowling alleys, the putt-putt, the Beach Boys concert under the Screaming Eagle, the late nights at Denny’s, the sand plant party, the Belushi wake, the state wrestling tourneys and so on and so on. However, if I can offer one piece of advice to any teenage boy it would be the following; when faced with the reality that the girl you love is never going to leave the quarterback of the football team for your sorry cart-pushing ass, let it go at that. Do not fall back on my strategy of “If I can’t make her love me, I’ll at least make her nurse me”. Put simply, while consuming a giant bottle of Chablis Blanc and repeatedly belly-flopping off the deck (not into a pool but into the yard) at the party to garner her attention and elicit her sympathy, may seem like a good idea at the time, I assure you it is not. You are going to want to retain a shred of your dignity for future situations. Walk away with your head held high because you never know, happiness might be right around the corner.

I can still vividly picture that quiet corner where I first discovered my happiness. I had left my home economics class for a bathroom break and fate compelled me to wander downstairs to use the restroom outside of the gym. Somewhere along that path, in an otherwise empty hall, I came face to face with a lovely girl who I had never seen before. We may have been heading for the drinking fountain simultaneously, I’m not sure but I can see her framed by the entrance to the gym and behind her a flurry of noisy activity blurred and dissipating as she came fully into view. Our eyes met and I know we spoke but I don’t recall what was said, I was too dumbfounded. She was a vision, with the prettiest, kindest face I had ever seen; big beautiful brown eyes like would be drawn on a doe by Disney, a quick, pleasant and endearing smile, a thin veil of Lip Glow gloss covering the most kissable lips and chestnut hair cascading in long waves over her strong, thin frame and shoulders. She was dressed out for gym, wearing a pale purple sweatshirt, royal blue canvas shorts with a white stripe down each side and long shapely legs that gave her an appearance of being taller than she actually was. I was floored by her beautiful countenance and in that moment that our eyes first looked into each other, both time and memory froze long enough to sear an indelible imprint on my brain. If my life had not yet found direction at least it had now found purpose. Something… someone finally made sense.

I was cognizant enough to get her name and with it still ringing in my ears I floated back up the stairs to my classroom. This was my junior year and the home economics class was populated with quite a few seniors looking to knock out an easy elective. It was one of the most enjoyable classes of my high school experience and the teacher was a good and easy spirit who allowed us a fair measure of freedom as long as the work got done and we weren’t too disruptive. I proceeded to tell my friends in the class about this girl I had just met, Jenny Baldwin, and how amazing she was and how I was going to make her my girlfriend and they proceeded to tell me how I was nuts and how she was out of my league and how besides, she already had a boyfriend. None of which mattered whatsoever because I had never been so confidently sure about anything, as I was now sure we were meant to be together. In my telling of the tale, I imagine that I turned my back to them and dismissed them with a wave of my hand as I plotted my next move and dreamed of the next time I’d see her.

Certainly our meeting was a true love fairy tale moment but our early relationship was not without its interruptions. Our courtship was quick, our passion volatile and like every other idiot teenage boy who has ever existed, I tried my best to muck it up. Foolishly, I would break up with her over some perceived slight or more commonly because my weekend plans wanted to take a new direction. I always did so under the dubious guise of wanting to date other girls. It was comical how after a few days I would be crying by the phone and scrawling apologetic notes in an effort to reconcile, while she was actually off dating other guys. This on again, off again nonsense ran its course for the next year or two but I think we both always knew that in the end, it was our destiny be together.

It’s a funny thing how we put to use those high school years. Some of us come out brimming with knowledge, fortified for college, with bright futures on the horizon. Some of us come out with lifelong friendships that deepen with time, while others come out with scars and regrets. And every so often there are those of us who come out with the love of our life. Who can explain the girl with the dear heart and the pretty face who could have chosen anyone to partner with and lead a more secure and comfortable life, but instead cast her lot with a square peg dreamer with not enough sense to celebrate daily his good fortune? I know that girl as well as anyone and I still can’t explain her, but I thank God for her kind, and for her kindness.