Meeting JJ part 2

Meeting JJ Chapter 2

I was newly living in the south. Sometime toward the middle of my first semester at my quaint southern mountain college, I experience the pangs of full blown culture shock. I was a northern city girl and I thought I was sophisticated. I was raised to believe that stereotypes are an untrue but humorous affectation. They were only supposed to be used with poetic license to tell stories like Faulkner’s’ “Tobacco Road”.
My experiences with southern living were confusing and enlightening. The young ladies who lived in the dorm had an aristocratic heir about them and lilting southern accents. They spoke in superficial self-important prose discussing things like how many marriage proposals they had during summer break. All that was missing were their bell shaped dresses and crinolines.
It took me about 20 years to actually become acculturated. Fortunately, it only took me six months to learn to pay attention to the culture I was in. I knew that I could not just walk up to this beautiful black-hatted man and start talking to him. This was not 1979 in a northern city like Cleveland. This was not a metropolis leaping with abandon away from disco and into the cocaine mania of the 1980’s club scene. It was a small southern town that was so many years behind itself that it might as well have been 1955. I expected to see sheriff Andy Tailor and aunt Bea around every corner.
In six months, I learned enough of good southern manners to know that I needed to be introduced to a man before I could talk to him. I started asking around, “Do you know that guy with long blond hair a black hat and brief case?” I found out that he was a quiet guy who everyone thought was quite smart. He was a Music Major.
Soon I found someone who knew him well enough to make introductions. He told me when Carl, for that was his name, would likely be in the student center on campus. I made sure that I was in the student center at the auspicious time.
Carl walked down the steps of the student center to the snack bar area where most of the students took refuge. The brief case was in hand and the black hat was on head. The young man I asked to introduce us did exactly that. He invited Carl to sit at our table and he said, “This is Bonnie.”
“Howdy” was his response. How cute!
He was darling and shy and polite and lanky. He had piercing blue eyes surrounded by blond eyelashes. I began to form a plan for spending more time with this guy.
First you find the man and then you secure the date.
Having found the man I knew I wanted to get to know, and getting myself introduced to him, I began stalking him in the music building at the college we both attended. It only took a few hours for him to show up in the hallway. Fortunately, he stopped in front of a poster advertising a harpsichord program that was scheduled for that very evening.
I stood next to him in front of the poster and after simple hellos, I lied, “I just love harpsichord music.”
Never mind that the totality of my experience with harpsichord music was watching the famous and flamboyant pianist Liberachi on a Star Trek episode. I would have said anything to get that gorgeous long blond hair and those beautiful blue eyes to ask me out.
Carl looked at my innocent smiling harpsichord loving face and believing in my honest sincerity, he did as I intended, He said, “Would you like to go to the concert with me tonight?”
OK, so I did not think this all the way through. The concert was that night and I had a rehearsal for the senior spring dance program that night. I wasn’t a senior but part of their grade involved finding and working with other dancers to produce three pieces, a classical ballet, a modern piece and one that could be anything they wanted. (These often involved rock music and jazz moves.) I was one of their dancers.
“I’d love to go but I have rehearsal tonight.”
Carl had trouble thinking beyond a few hours into his future so instead of working out another date, he said his good byes and left the poster, the building and me behind.