A First Love Lost

A First Love Lost

I wanted it to be a surprise.  My only vision along the way was Maryann opening the door.  The look of shock.  Her arms wide open.  Maybe some tears of joy.

By John Sherman

Maryann Wilson was a cheerleader with a big “B” on her white sweater.  She would jump up and down with her pom-poms overhead.  A gold football on a gold chain would follow her moves.  Pleated skirts were cut much lower then. Bobby sox and saddle shoes completed her Saturday ensemble.

I was a bench rider, what they called players who sat waiting for their team to get 40 points ahead before they got in for a couple of plays.  So, I had a lot of time to size up our cheerleaders—who had no interest in sizing me up.  But I was in the team picture just before the season opened.  So, I looked like any of the stars.

Spring came and I enrolled in typing class, with one other guy.  Maryann Wilson was sitting next to an empty seat.  Grabbed it.  “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” was the start of a senior year romance.  Her Royal sounded like a machine gun; mine sounded like a game of ping pong.

She insisted that I meet her parents on our first date.  He was someone called a congressman.  I don’t remember his face, he seemed like a regular guy.

Sen. John F. Kennedy spoke at our graduation.  As voting age was 21, he talked directly to our parents about the state of the world.  We were just props. Who cared?  All we could think of in that hot gymnasium was shucking our gowns and heading for Ocean City---and getting smashed on Purple Passion.

Maryann and I weren’t quite the same as Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr rolling on the beach in “From Here to Eternity,” but we came pretty close. Between Johnny Mathis and breaking waves, we pledged our love for ever and ever.

It turns out her father represented the most southern district in California. So, much to my despair, Maryann moved back home for the summer.  About two weeks later I did my best with a love letter.  I got a short note back (Sealed with a Kiss) and a couple of XXs.  I sent another, missing her desperately.  Then nothing.

My best friend, Dave Lamb, and I had laid plans the year before to hitchhike across the country.  We had both been chucked out of boarding school and had no jobs for the summer.  We took off from Boston, stopped in New York (drinking age 18) for a drink at the Las Vegas Club where Dave was well known.  It was closed, but they let us in where Erol Flynn was making his last movie.  We made Philadelphia after dark—then headed down the Pennsylvania Turnpike for Los Angeles.

I didn’t write that we were setting out for the west coast.  I wanted it to be a surprise.  My only vision along the way was Maryann opening the door.  The look of shock.  Her arms wide open.  Maybe some tears of joy.

My only recollection of Los Angeles was gawking at an old man in Pershing Park who claimed to have the longest fingernails in the world.  We headed south to San Diego, one quick hike to Maryann’s door.  We spent the night on a park lawn.  By that time we had run out of money.  We found a joint that would exchange a full breakfast for skinning fifty pounds of potatoes and then cranking them into french fries.

The hitch down to Chula Vista took about an hour.  The last guy knew where the congressman lived and dropped us off.  I remember the driveway was uphill. Dave hung back as I knocked.  I’ve had some heart pounding in my life, but nothing like this.

The door opened.  It was an ape of a man, with no neck.

“Is Maryann there?” I asked in my pathetic teenage voice.

When she appeared, she gave a new definition to mortified.  She didn’t cry out, but it was evident there would be no embrace or tears. She had no choice but to ask us in (maybe for lemonade).  I thought I was about to be sick, when Congressman Bob Wilson appeared, somehow sized up the crisis, and ordered us into his red Cadillac convertible.  The ape— who turned out to be a navy pilot—was left behind.

We headed straight for Tiajuana, about a half hour away.  I sat in the front seat, still traumatized, as Big Bob chatted cheerfully about the dry summer and the prospects for the LA Rams.  The only proof I have of the afternoon is a black and white photo of the four of us smiling from a carreta with flowers wound around its wheels.

The two-timing, heartless Maryann was quiet throughout.  After all, it was my roiling fantasies that were to blame for the disaster—not her.  It was seeing her smile again—for the last time---that jabbed.

When we were about to leave, I gestured to Maryann.  We were broke.  Could she lend us twenty dollars?  It bought us a night at a flophouse.

Thirty years later, I was working in Congress.  I can’t recollect why I was walking down the fourth floor of the Rayburn House Office Building, but I was suddenly stopped by a sign: Bob Wilson (California). He was still a congressman.

Every old bull had an old crone on his staff who was assigned to his family. Covering scandal, reminding them that they too represented the Wilson name, getting tickets for the Four Seasons concert.

Sure enough, an old crone appeared.  I told her the story.  She laughed, and I wrote out a check for twenty bucks.