The most beautiful boy she'd ever seen


I’d been out of town when Betsy caught up with me.  The big news was Skip was home and he’d brought along the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen. 

I was 17.  That got my attention.  Back to town and worked a shift at a part-time job before going home, her words sparked just a little frizz of anticipation. 

Skip and Jim picked me up from work. Hot damn, Bets was right.  Ever meet a person you literally find breath-taking? So strikingly beautiful that you’re stunned into silence?  With whom you just might not be able to articulate an answer, let alone the answer that a very, very cool girl might say.  

 Oh dear. Thank heaven for Betsy. I might have swooned in a hormonal sea of lust without her warning. That would not have been good. I had a swagger to project.   

Ah, but there was this 16 year old Jim McConnell, dark curly hair, (long of course, it was the 60s,) well-proportioned body, sweet ass, a little taller than me.  An artist, articulate, bright, fun and funny, with perfect manners.  I’m a sucker for good manners to this day.  His were always far better than mine.  Thank you Muriel.

Turned out this wasn’t the first time we’d met. A year prior, I was hanging with Karen at her babysitting job when Jim and a buddy stopped by.  I have a murky recollection of two boys, but, gasp, younger boys, so it’s unlikely I related to them as real people.  I have a younger brother.  Enough said.  Keep in mind I was so, so, sophisticated.

Jim noticed my swagger. He came for me. To this day I don’t know how, at age 16, he convinced his normally strict parents to allow him a road-trip to Portland, some 300 miles across the state, to visit the Thompson family.  They knew Skip’s parents in passing, both families lived on Spring Street.  But they’d never met my parents.  

It was love at first, maybe second, possibly third sight. Pheromones took over, and here we are nearly 50 years later with one daughter and two toddler grandchildren, divorced some 20 years ago. 

We had us some fun along the way, boy howdy. 

I miss that fabulous boy I grew up with.

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