“Every event, every word, every sight, every sound –
each of them is stored somewhere in the
hard drives of our minds, or somewhere
in a 'cosmic cloud,’ ready to return
to consciousness at the most
unexpected moments.”
– Anonymous
Living in the hills of West Virginia as a boy was a wonder. In the winters, when the snow fell, it would sometimes come in huge flakes carpeting the ground in perfect whiteness, creating a silence as still as outer space itself. Walking anywhere on one of those nights was magical. In particular walking toward, under the light of, and away from the infrequent streetlights that adorned the quiet street where I lived.
Our home was across the road from Fairmont Senior High School. “Across the road…” meaning our street split with one-half going down a gentle slope to the high school, and the other half mildly uphill passing in front of our house. This made the distance from the school some fifty feet horizontally, and thirty feet vertically. The campus was so close that even my older sister Anne, could have hit the building with a snowball from our front yard.
Anne plays a central part in this brief remembrance…well partly so. Two years older than me, she had a small cadre of girlfriends, all of whom from a young boy's perspective were kind of cute. My crushes varied from girl to girl depending on which one of them paid me any attention or even gave me a smile.
In the winter of my eleventh year, Mykie W. was the momentary focus of my affections.
The high school grounds were built in the midst of a series of small rolling hills, just perfect for sled riding. Something we could do at the drop of a hat, because of the closeness of the campus. My sisters and I would sled double from time to time, but mostly it was with my younger sister Nancy. We rode top to bottom. Because I was the heavier of the two, I would take the bottom, and she would climb on top. It was just the way we did it. In retrospect, I think the girls liked it this way because I was the one who generally carried the sled back up the hill.
This brings me to one of my earliest and lasting humiliations. I shall remind the reader that Mykie was at the time, the object of my young heart’s affection.
I am uncertain how this happened, but a few of Anne’s girlfriends were at our home one winter’s eve and decided to go sled riding. As I passed through the living room, Mykie shot me a smile and asked if I would like to come along. BE STILL MY HEART. I casually said, "sure," and out we all went. I have little doubt the brightness of Rudolf's nose could not have matched the blushing color of my skin.
After a couple of rounds down the hill and trudging back up, Mykie asked if I would like to ride double – ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? From there, it was all downhill, which had nothing to do with the sleds. I said, with only my sisters' experience under my belt, "Do you want top or bottom?" As I recall, she said with the chill of that cold winter's air, "You sit up front; I’ll ride in the back.” We rode down that hill, and she rode out of my heart. As the writer, Brooks Landon once said, "Against the iceberg of her smile, I sailed the Titanic of my hope…."
If Mykie were asked about this event, I doubt she would have any remembrance. You see, it wasn't she who had the crush on me. She was just thoughtful toward her girlfriend's little brother. I, on the other hand, could have taken off my heavy winter coat, gloves, and scarf, and still been overheated by the embarrassment of realizing my level of sophistication was only outdone by youthful enthusiasm and ignorance.
I now live in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona amidst the wildlife and Saguaro (suh-war'-oh) Cacti. BUT as I sit in the darkness of my backyard on clear and brightly lit starry nights, I can close my eyes and feel the beauty of those cold, snowy West Virginia winters, and the warmth of Mykie W’s smile.
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