While in the choir, I met a freshman girl that I hung around with a bit. She was funny and cute and generally a lot of fun to be around. Her house wasnt far at all from my parent's place and we even went to the Xmas dance that year together. We double dated since my parents werent going to allow me to drive in the snow since I hadnt had any experience doing that yet. I was extremely nervous as I knocked on her door in the snow to pick her up. I had never been to any type of formal dance before and to top it all off I dont dance very well. My dancing prowess has best been described as resembling a water buffalo in heat. I cant even manage a mental picture of that which is probably a good thing. In the back of my mind, all of the cheesy tv shows and movie scenes dealing with first dates kept playing through my head over and over again. There was no long stairway for her to descend into the lights, instead she came around the corner in a floor length pink dress with a wrap/shawl around her shoulders. After we arrived at the dance, we acknowleged the other people that we knew. My palms were sweaty awaiting the first slow dance of the evening with a mixture of eagerness and dread. When that time came, we both got up and went out on the dance floor, her hands on my shoulders and my hands on her waist. I was petrified of stepping on her foot, so we ended up going around in a circle so that it appeared that my left toes were nailed to the floor. Not exactly the smoothest, most debanoir way to dance I know. We talked lightly and laughed quietly over the music pumping out all around us. No matter how at ease I felt with her in and out of school prior to this evening, the newness of being out on a date around so many of my peers made it difficult for me to really relax and enjoy myself. After the dance was over, I walked her to her door and then told the guy who had driven us that I could walk home from there, which I did. I dont know why, but there just was no real 'chemistry' for me though and we eventually stopped doing things together outside of school. She's a great girl and has had some rough spots in her life since then, but still has her wonderful outgoing personality and laugh whenever I run into her during alumni functions. I continue to wish her all of the best life has to offer.
After the Xmas dance, we found out that the musical this year was going to be South Pacific. I for one, was excited and I knew exactly the part that I wanted to try out for. Even being a member of the choir I know the limitations of my voice and I didnt want the male lead of Emile because I knew that I would never be able to pull of "Some Enchanted Evening" or any of the other songs the part requires. No, I saw the part that I wanted during the previous summer on a PBS special saluting the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein. In that special, Larry Storch (of F-Troop fame) was shown in a coconut bra, grass skirt and wig while a woman danced around him in a sailor suit sing "Honey Bun". That character was named Luther Billis and was played by Ray Walston in the movie version. The more that I learned about the character, the more that I thought it would be a perfect role for me to play as there were many similarities between us, or at least as I envisioned the character. My Billis was a character who ruled by bluffing others into doing the work that kept him the top dog. He was a real wheeler dealer with a heart of solid gold whenever anyone truly needed anything. He bluffed and he strutted when his peers were around, but was as docile as a house cat when around his superiors. This was going to be fun. I'll go into the specifics of how it went in a following post.
During this time, I was also attending a youth group at my friend's church one night a week. One of the people that started going was a very attractive young lady who in some ways looked familiar to me, but I couldlnt quite remember from where. It turned out that she was the girl that sat behind me in my driver's ed / safety class during my sophomore year. We began to talk to each other and I started to learn quite a bit about her. I found that I could just loose myself looking into her eyes when she spoke. She was very intelligent and had a decent sense of humor about her. She had to in order to put up with me at times. Over time, we just seemed to graduate to a dating type of relationship with each other. One of the earliest 'dates' that we went on was following one of the youth group meetings when we went to see Disney's Robin Hood with the group. Sitting in the theatre, my hands were wet with sweat as I kept looking at her out of the corner of my eye, not knowing what to do or what she would expect from me. Finally, I decided to rest my cold, sweaty hand on top of hers on the arm rest. To my immense relief she didnt recoil or scream in terror. Thats all that was done during that entire movie. I couldnt even consider anything else with her at that point. I was too worried about scaring her away. Girls like her dont exactly fall for nitwits like me all of the time after all. We would exchange notes between classes once a day. It was during one of those note exchanges that I decided to ask her to the prom that year. I saw her coming down the stairs as I was headed up and we exchanged the notes, continuing on our ways. The next day's note of course was to say yes and that I had really made her bus ride home that day. Now I just had to figure out a way to pay for it. At that time, I had no job or source of income at all. I also thought in the back of my mind that I was such a nervous wreck at the Xmas dance earlier that year with someone else that I would end up being a complete and total basket case during the prom. Turns out I was half right, but that will be in the next entry as well.
As secure as I felt about myself as a person, I was terribly insecure around girls in any type of a date setting. I guess that part of me coudlnt understand why any of them would want to spend time with me when they could be doing anything else in the world. I am not vain and I dont consider myself to be good looking, I do have a strong sense of sarcasm and sense of humor. I can also be VERY stubborn on certain things. Not exactly the kind of description most girls look for in a guy. I wish that I wouldnt have been so worried about it back then. They obviously wanted to spend some time with me. It would have been nice to have been gracious enough to be myself and enjoy the time as well.