REMEMBERING TWO MAJOR BARBARAS

As a farm kid growing up in Fairmount, N. D., I had to deal with one very big personal problem: bashfulness around women. In fact, under my picture in the high school annual one of the editors had written, “Man is the only animal that blushes.”I considered it a tragic flaw, because I was at heart very interested in these amazing creatures.

Well, when I was a sophomore, I took an interest in a beautiful little freshman blonde by the name of Barbara Hickok. Her family had moved in to town in the middle of the year, so she was the new girl in her class. I found her “lovely to look at” in a Joan Fontain sort of way. She was semi-famous because her sister, Roxanne, was a dazzling Jane Mansfield type knockout that every Romeo in the school was dying to get to know. That must have left Barbara feeling a little left out.

For what ever reason, she actually introduced herself to me at the bowling alley on cold March evening where I had a job setting pins. Between the lines bowled by prosperous Fairmountonians, the pinsetters had permission to shoot pool free.. That was a real perk considering we risked getting hit by flying pins for a staggering 7 cents a line. This memorable night, I was really pretty hot, making all sorts of tricky shots, when I looked up over my cue ball to see—just beyond the 8-ball, the lovely Barbara, and she was smiling. “You're getting pretty good. Mind if I watch?” “Heck no, grab a cue.” “No I just want to watch.” Well, my pool game went into the dumper—lack of concentration---but I was staggered by one thing she said, “want to walk me home?”

Well, walk her home I did, and I was probably whistling “Walking my Baby Back Home,”Nat King Cole's big hit at the time. On the way I recall her showing me a better way to wear my cap than the Forrest Gump style I had thought was cool, and when we reached her door, she reached up and kissed me on the cheek and said, “It's been fun.” I was too bashfully stupid to carry the moment any further, but I changed the tune in my head to “It's a Grand Night For Singing.” And I whistled it the whole mile home to our farm east of town. And that's the last thing a remember about that lovely Barbara. That night was brought back to me as I was driving through Fairmount a few weeks ago and passed the very house where we shared that kiss. Talk about deja vu, but what a moment of revelation!

My junior year at Lebanon Union High, Oregon I met another Barbara, Barbara Brown. She was a beautiful brunette, somewhat similar in looks to Ida Lupino, and she had an interesting birth mark just on the corner of her mouth exactly where birthmarks are supposed to go. She was in my English class and also rode the same school bus as I did, but she was usually sitting with a lumber jack pal of mine, Roger Wold, who was also a fine football player and a beaver trapper.

At one of the sock hops after a game, I got up the guts to ask her for a dance. Somehow we hit it off very well and ended up dancing much of the night to The Platters and Elvis and Bill Haley—the good old time rock and roll that all the kids then reveled in.

Then came that deja-vu moment--
“I'm kinda tired; you wouldn't maybe drive me home, could you?”
Miracle of miracles, that night I had my mom's 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser, so I could say, “would I!”
I filled the drive to her place with Wolf Man Jack selections, which took away the need to talk much and walked her through a trellis of roses right up to her door where she took my hand, drew me gently over and planted an electric kiss smack dab in the middle of my mouth. Let's just say this time I didn't panic and I didn't run and a bliss full eternity went by before she closed the door.

I thought in my foolish heart that “this could be the start of something big.” But the next morning when she got on the bus, she acted like she didn't know me and went and sat with Roger Wold, and bummer of all bummers they started going steady from that very hour. Talk about going from the penthouse to the outhouse; from the uttermost to the gutter most. But I had a new song that fit perfectly, “I'm just a lonely boy/ Lonely and blue/ I'm all alone/ Alone without you.” Paul Anka must have known a Barbara or two himself. I wouldn't change it for the world. Every shy dude needs somebody to give him confidence, someone to give him hope. There's one more Barbara I someday want to meet—“The Barbara of Saville” A pun, my Word!!

G. Pinkney 11/12/19