18 Again

The phrase “overwhelmed with emotional significance” pretty much sums up my relationships with my first two lovers. When you’re 18 and your girlfriends can legally purchase alcohol, well, that pretty much defines a significant relationship. Jackie was self-supporting. She worked as a beautician and rented her own house. She was far more mature then I could ever hope to be at that age, and she also liked jazz, --a mutually shared interest between us. She listened to a lot of Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson, two vocalists that I would come to appreciate very much! When I enrolled in Community College, our time together was cut short and we eventually went our separate ways. Jackie was more gregarious than I was and boyfriends, for her, were always around the corner. The song that cuts deepest into my memory of Jackie is on Jefferson Airplane’s first album with Grace Slick— Marty Balin’s ballad Comin’ Back To Me.

I met Janie at school. Our relationship lasted a couple years, and again there was no contest as to who was the more mature. The music that brought Janie and I together, the music that made it easy for Janie and I to bond, was mostly penned by Burt Bacharach and sung by Dionne Warwick. When I was with Janie I could only see the Look Of Love, however, when confronted with the next step—marriage, I could only hear Travelin’ Man by Ricky Nelson. Actually, I think I have a description of the tumultuous tear filled night that erupted when Janie and I called it quits. If I find the piece and it passes muster, I’ll include it here, if not, well, you can expect to see cut and pastes from my journals from here on out anyway—the purpose of which is to emphasize the significance of life’s most meaningful and emotional events.