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The Road Not Taken

Blogs: #5 of 26

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The time is early spring, the year 1971. Karen (my future wife) and I had been dating for nearly six months. It was increasingly obvious that we liked each other and were going to continue to see, as much as we could, a future together. I don’t think we’d imagined the future that was ahead however.

In 1971 I was a senior in high school, Karen a junior. That week there were posters up advertising a Spring Fling dance in a nearby town. Karen had agreed to go with me so we were all set for Friday night. I can recall, after all these years, that it was spring because of the light clothes we wore to the dance. Spring in Iowa can be a glorious time of year. The nominal warmth of 50 to 70 degree days, while cool, can feel positively balmy compared to the freezing temps of a long Iowa winter. The prevailing fashion for young girls at the time were eye-popping short shorts. Karen had several pair and the figure to wear them. They were so short and so tight that, as the man said, “you could count her assets.”

We made it to the dance in good time and proceeded to have a splendid time dancing wildly to the most current music. I don’t recall anyone else from our school being there, but we were so in tune with each other we didn’t notice. Now it was not unusual for trouble to start if you were a strange boy from another town “intruding” at such a function. As a matter of fact it was entirely routine for altercations to breakout amongst the teenaged Alpha males. This would generally be from a boy or boys with no dates and usually drunk. But being fearless, strong, and dumb I always felt like I could take care of myself. Truth? I had been fighting since I was a small boy. This was just the way my world was at that time. Still, since I had been dating Karen I was attempting to become more genteel. And control my temper. She let it be known that she really didn’t appreciate, and would not tolerate that type of rowdy behavior.

So as the evening progressed we were enjoying the music, the dancing, and each other. A particularly rockin’ song came on and it energized the dance floor. When Karen danced she could be very expressive. She would lock eyes and give me a devilish look. Her pretty face framed by her long hair. Throwing back her shoulders she would shake from side to side and make her breasts dance. This really electrified the dance floor. And me. Just then, there they were, the wolf pack. Four boys who were obviously drunk came cruising through the dance floor bumping couples out of the way. As they passed just behind Karen one of the boys was smitten by her butt cheeks, which were tantalizingly close and seemed to have mesmerized him. He was medium height and heavy set. Small eyes set back into a round face and the fact that he was plastered gave him tunnel vision.

Anyway, he stopped and slowly contemplated Karen’s gyrating posterior. I was instantly on alert and began a quick count of my most likely problems. I already had a scenario in mind, and it wasn’t pretty. I figured my best bet was to get in fast and do as much damage as I could before the rest jumped on me. Drunk Boy weaved back and forth for a minute and came to a conclusion. He started to reach his hand out to grab at Karen. I stepped closer to get past Karen and hit him. She was dancing in complete oblivion when she saw the expression on my face. Just as the boy reached out he dropped his hand, spun around and lurched away. I recovered, smiled at Karen and a short while later we left the dance.

The next morning we awoke to the tragic story of a boy at the dance who was so drunk he’d gone outside and passed out on the hood of a car. Later, he rolled off into the street and was hit by a passing car and killed. It was of course our Drunk Boy. The same boy. All my life I have wondered what the outcome of that night would have been if I had hit him?