Remembering that very first kiss

A 6th grade Halloween Party is where the trouble started

There are moments in your life that always stay with you. Your First Communion. Graduation. Your first detention. Your first speeding ticket. That time the teacher called your house.

For most of us I suspect, the very first time you were able to plant your lips on someone else’s - or perhaps that someone actually laid one on yours - that’s something that stays with you, whether it went well or not.

In my case, well, it was an excellent example of foreshadowing all my future relationships with that wily opposite sex. Foreshadowing was something I certainly didn’t know a damn thing about in sixth grade. Or 12th for that matter. Or women, either.

Your correspondent and Ms. Kathy Shedd, 6th grade, Daniels Academy, Brookline, N.H.

As a sentimental, romantic sort of guy, now in my old age, every time Halloween rolls around, memories of that night linger like a low-hanging cloud, making me laugh and wonder if, since that awkward evening, I have inched ever closer to understanding, grasping, comprehending, ultimately respecting the inscrutably mysterious workings of the minds of those individuals who occupy the opposite gender.

While I may not be qualified to speak for all men, I think I can safely say that almost every man of my acquaintance is or was or continues to be at least somewhat puzzled by the ever-changing-without-warning thoughts, attitudes, behaviors, philosophy of almost every woman we have encountered. Which, of course, is part of the fun, if you accept that the majority of them are a Rubik’s Cube that you will never quite solve. (It is my experience that they delight in this, by the way.)

The moment of which I speak occurred up on Brookline’s scenic Russell Hill Road at the palatial home of my grade school friend, Gary Young. We had seen a lot together.

We had been friends since First Grade where we both suffered the irritating Helen Nutting (who was well-named), Second Grade with the bruising Mildred Montrone, (bigger arms than Mike Tyson and a similar educational approach), Third Grade with the elegant, gray-haired Edith Dunn (a sweet and gentle soul who told me once, trying to decipher my “hen scratching,” that I’d have a lot to say to the world “but I needed to get a typewriter!”), Fourth Grade with the kind, gently nudging teacher Peter Dolloff, a future Superintendent, then Fifth and Sixth Grade with the generally no-nonsense Ruth Varney, a teacher who liked the smart kids, not so much the dull ones. Understandable, we thought. Considering all these educational challenges, Gary and I seemed to be handling this growing-up process pretty well.

As you’ll note from the photo below, Gary, front row to the right, generally made an unofficial daily pitch to be Teacher’s Pet, not all his fault. Since he was quite a handsome, well-mannered young man — as you can see for yourself — quite naturally the older female teacher warmed to him as he, in turn, warmed to several members of the opposite gender, many of whom sat directly behind him. Probably not a coincidence.

That’s me to the left, hands folded. Gary is front row, arms folded next to Mrs. Ruth Varney.

At this stage, your correspondent — seated immediately to Gary’s left — was generally reluctant to engage with girls. Having an irritating younger sister (Is there any other kind?) perhaps clouded my judgment in these matters. But other than Diane “Snooky” Safford once writing on the page of a workbook that she loved me — then quickly asked me to erase it, which I dutifully did — there wasn’t a lot of male-female interplay or conversation in my world to that point.

This was why, when the invitation to Gary Young’s Halloween Extravaganza arrived at the house, I was surprised. Since Mr. Young was in tight with the high society female members of the class (Betty Ann Whitcomb, Debbie Michos, Snooky, Kathy Shedd ) clearly they had given him the nod for me to join the elite.

I don’t remember my costume was. What it should have been was ‘Guy Scared To Talk To Girls’, definitely the opposite stance of my host. And we all said hello to one another on a crisp Fall night, we bobbed for apples, and sort of looked around. As I remember, we then retired to the porch where they had a small record player and a generous assortment of singles (45’s). The idea was, while the music was playing, for the boys and girls to chat and get acquainted outside of the classroom.

Other than Gary, I don’t remember if there were more than one or two other guys there. Since the boys were outnumbered, I thought it would be a wise, strategic plan to retire to Mr. Quentin Young’s den where I noted Gary’s dad had an enormous collection of bound Reader’s Digests. I was more interested in them than the girls. Sad, huh?

Already an avid reader, I became even more avid when faced with the then-terrifying prospect of actually chatting with someone of the female persuasion. So I quietly spun off from the group, walked into the den, leaned against the wall and quickly buried my nose in a book. Then a figure approached.

“Whatcha doing?” I looked up and Kathy Shedd stood immediately before me, a little warm and friendly bounce in her voice. Sandy blond hair, mesmerizing blue eyes, an adorable pug nose and freckles delightfully sprinkled across her face, which, suddenly was directly in front of me. She was smiling.

A question? Hmm. How to respond? My mind raced, words were hard to find. I think I mumbled something nervously clever like “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Whereupon the lovely Ms. Shedd leaned in and planted the sweetest, warmest of first kisses that, I would wager, had ever been issued in the history of the town of Brookline, perhaps even including Russell Hill.

Kissed! I hadn’t planned on this. Clearly, it seemed she had given this some forethought. Why, I’m not certain. This extraordinary gesture required a response. What to do? Kiss her back? Smile and say “Well, thank you. Happy Halloween to you, too.”

Either choice would have been better than what I did. Panicked, I pretended to comically faint, dropping to the floor in a heap, the book tossed aside. Giggling, Ms. Shedd trotted away, her mission accomplished.

I don’t remember anything else from that night, including the ride home where this event was definitely not mentioned. Unlike what you’d see on the Hallmark Channel, nothing much came of that introductory smooch. Wasn’t mentioned in class. Or ever again.

Some time after that, there was one late afternoon where she suddenly showed up at Lake Potanipo, way on the other side of town from where she lived. Evidently, she had walked all the way there by herself, looking for me. Or so she hollered out to me from the shore.

I was out in the water, over my head — literally! So I had to keep kicking to stay afloat. What a metaphor! Clearly I did not take the hint or clue and simply waved back. She waited a few minutes for me to get out of the deep water. But I just kept swimming, waved once more. She left. Then she moved. Not my fault, I don’t think.

It was a couple of years later when, on a warm summer night, I was sitting on the top step at my house, wearing my gleaming white Riccardi-Hartshorn American Legion baseball uniform, waiting for my ride, when a red Mustang pulled up.

It was Kathy! She was back in town for the evening. As she got out of the car, I did a double take. She was a young woman now, smiling, tanned, lovely. And she was walking towards me. I didn’t know she even knew where I lived.

“So good to see you,” she said and we hugged. Here she was! With me in a baseball uniform. Women just didn’t drop in to see you in those days. It wasn’t quite like that scene in “Animal House” where the kid is reading a Playboy in his bedroom and a woman flies in through the window. “Thank you, God!” the kid says.

For Brookline, this was surprising, numbing. She looked all grown up. And she was coming to see ME.

We chatted for a minute and she said she was hoping maybe we could get a pizza or something and you know, catch up. I explained that I had a baseball game to go to. That was why I was all suited up and waiting for my ride.

She smiled again, tilting her head the way I’d seen girls do when they’d heard some disappointing news. “Oh, ok, I understand,” she said.

It was a quiet moment. “Well,” she said, then a long pause. “It was great to see you.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It was.”

She smiled and I watched her walk across the lawn back to her car. “Get some hits,” she said as she got in and waved again. As she drove away, I walked down and stood in the road, waving.

That was the last time I ever saw her. All I thought then, was what I think now. Hey, Happy Halloween, everybody.