"That's All Right Mama"

I have a crush on the science teacher. No, not you, Fred. The weird part, of course, is that I’m not in sixth grade anymore (which is good because my sixth grade teacher was a nun) but a 58 year old distinguished professor (well, I think so) who feels like a sixth grader around her. I’ve admired her for a long time. My interactions have usually been confined to “hello” and “good bye” (you couldn’t write dialogue that good). Or a surprised remark about her not accepting the fact that rocks are alive (don’t ask). I know, she’s probably been in awe of my brilliance all this time. Still, I have not taken advantage of my effect on her to have an actual conversation or perhaps to ultimately ask her out. The truth is, I am brilliant in passing, cool and in control, but if cornered, might revert to a babbling idiot or just stand there and smile. I kind of think that’s the story of my life.

When I left the seminary and spent my senior year out in the world, it seemed logical that I would begin dating since my classmates all were. Going to an all boys’ school made it a little hard to meet girls, but a friend finally set me up with a girl who was a friend of a friend. We met at another friend’s house as a group. We didn’t exactly hit it off. Anything I said sounded lame, I didn’t drink because I was “in training,” and she ignored me from the start to finish. I thought the evening went well and was surprised that she never wanted to go out with me again. I eventually got a date with another of their friends, Jeanne. I didn’t learn until much later that they set her up with me because they were mad at her. She was a terrific person, and I was myself, and we hit it off immediately. My mother and I never owned a car, and I didn’t get my first one until after I graduated from high school, so we took the bus to go on dates, or else we walked to the theater, or sometimes my friend Tom would drive if we double-dated, but we usually went alone. The movie house in South Buffalo became our (at least my) special place. We saw every movie that played there, including all of Elvis’ movies. The highlight of those occasions was that I sang along with every song, to her, since the albums always came out first, and I remembered every song as soon as I heard them. I also (and still do) sound like Elvis, so she tolerated me. We were also in love. She was my first love. She went to my senior prom with me (she was a year younger), and I went to her junior prom (the nuns kept separating the boys and girls if they danced too closely—she went to an all girls’ Catholic school). The funny thing was that the first girl I went out with (she was called Stuart after the first Beatles’ drummer who died) said she wanted me back later. The other funny thing about our dating and going to the movies was that Jeanne had to tell a friend of hers to tell her boyfriend to tell me that it was all right to kiss her in the movies. I eventually did and we progressed from there. Any thoughts of going back to study for the priesthood certainly faded away in that movie theater. Yet, even then there was that duality in me—the self-assured person who seized life’s opportunities, and the shy, unsure kid who never had enough confidence in himself. I’ve always been grateful to Jeanne and her kindness to me.

It’s somewhat amazing that that duality still exists 40 years later. Of course, being with the same person for 26 years tends to make a person who is right for and comfortable with that one individual. When I met my wife, I was in a bar in Buffalo with my friend, Dean. I was already living in Florida but had come up for a summer visit for my grandmother’s 70th birthday party. Dean and I went out one night (he was such a bad influence—ha-ha) and met Bert. I commented on a T-Shirt she was wearing that said “The Jolly Jug” on it, which was a bar she would go to that sponsored a softball team she was on. As a side note, my daughter still has that shirt and treasures it. It is how her parents met. We arranged to go out the next night (we saw Grease) and went out again to a disco. I actually got up on the dance floor, and we didn’t sit down for a couple of hours. This never happened again. I couldn’t dance but asked myself what would Elvis do? Once I channeled him, the moves just flowed. It was not the first time I had done that. The wonder is why I haven’t done it more in my life. Flashback to 1967 and the Glen Casino, outside of Buffalo. Dean and I went into the club. I was wearing my red, London Fog jacket (it’s still in my closet—I do hang onto the past, don’t I?) with the collar up, hair a little longish with sideburns. As we moved through the crowd, a girl looked at me and yelled, “Hey, Elvis!” It wasn’t because I looked like him, but because I had channeled him again. As I’ve told Lisa, who told Gary (a story for another time)—Elvis is an attitude.

That was a long way to go to get back to the science teacher, wasn’t it? We were working together on a newly-formed committee Thursday. We are going to sponsor several showings of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, have panel discussions, set up an environmental fair, and conduct a poster and writing contest. I will also put out a magazine of the writing, which will be student work. There was some discussion about whether some people would view this as being too partisan since it’s Al Gore. Our group doesn’t think so since, as Al Gore says in the introduction to the book of the same name, this is not a political issue but a moral issue. As a comic aside, I mentioned that one of our group is a registered Republican (and that’s a long story—he’s as Republican as Bill Clinton), and the science teacher mentioned that she is Republican. That was a surprise as it doesn’t fit my image of her, which, admittedly, isn’t formed from a great deal of real knowledge. I joked about that a little. Flash forward to earlier today. She was sitting in her office, and I stuck my head in the door, and said, “Are you really a Republican?” When she again said that she was, I dropped into my best Elvis and said, “Darn. I thought we were going to have a future together” and left. I was proud of myself. Of course, she may have just laughed, put me totally out of her mind, and gone about her business and would be amazed that I could get this much discussion out of it.

If I were in my teens or early 20s, I would have written a poem for her about her beauty, her slender figure with those exquisite ankles, how gracefully she moves across campus, and her dazzling blue eyes (I haven’t really thought about this much, have I?). If life were an Elvis movie (as I told my short story students the other day I wish it were), I would get out my guitar and sing, “The lady loves me, but she doesn’t know it yet,” outside her door like Elvis did for Ann-Margaret in Viva Las Vegas. Of course, she ended up pushing him into the pool at the end of the song where he lost all his money. Hmmm.

I suppose I could end this with some speculation about the Keatsian aspects of this and the avoidance of negative capability (go ahead, read “Ode On A Grecian Urn,” I’ll wait), which probably has governed my whole approach to life. It’s not that deep inside I’m this insecure little boy who needs to be prodded or lead into everything. I just don’t want to be disappointed (or, if I were really honest with myself, be a disappointment). So, I will go back to “hello” and “good bye” and probably go home and sing a few bars of “You Don’t Know Me.” Hey, inside, my life IS an Elvis movie.