1970
My First Date

In November I went on my first date.  The Weaver family and my longtime friend Hank, who lived across the street in what was Grandma and Grandpa Junior’s house, had moved away and the Scruggs family bought the house.  The Scruggs had three daughters, like the three bears, one was older than me, one was my age, and one was younger.  The middle one, Cynthia, caught my eye and I begin talking to her on occasion when one day I finally asked her if she would go out with me to a movie. I was surprised when she said yes.  When she asked what movie, I said Tora! Tora! Tora! that was playing at the drive in theater.  I had decided on the drive in theater thinking we could make out during the movie while sitting in my ’68 Camaro.  Forty five minutes before the movie I walked across the street, rang the doorbell and one of the other sisters answered the door and said to come in, Cynthia was almost ready and would be out in a minute.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long before she came out and we got in my car and drove to the drive in theater that was on the other side of town.   Upon arriving I found a parking space, hung the speaker on the window and we talked a bit before the movie started.   Tora! Tora! Tora! is a movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor at the start of World War II.  Neither Cynthia nor I were all that interested in the movie but that was fine with me, for I was interested more in Cynthia than the movie, so we talked quite a bit while the movie played.  I had hoped to get to, as the popular saying at the time, “first base” with her meaning I would kiss her but as the movie progressed, I could see that wasn’t going to happen, in part because I didn’t really know how to go about it but also in part because of my ’68 Camaro.  You see a Camaro has two bucket seats in front with a console between them that had the shifter which makes it difficult to get close a girl in the passenger seat.  So we sat, watched the movie, and talked until the movie was over.  It was only about ten o’clock and Cynthia had told me she didn’t have to be home until midnight so I thought I would give it another try so I suggested we stop at Westside Park. Her response was “Why stop at Westside Park?” so I said, “Well you don’t have to be home yet so we could talk some more.”  Well, what a dumb answer, what I really wanted to say was “So we could make out.”  But I didn’t have the courage for that, so we got to the park, I pull into a parking space and we talked for a while until she finally said that she better be getting home.  Westside Park is only about five minutes from our houses, so I drive home, park in my driveway, we both get out, I say something dumb like “I’ll see you later.”, as I watch her as she walks across the street to her house I thought, “Well that didn’t go so well.”, I turn and drove home.  We did not go on a second date.