Just East of Eden : 03/27/20

Friday, March 27, 2020

46 YEARS AGO TONIGHT ~ Love walked In

Today is one of the ‘Specific Grieving Days’ I have earmarked throughout the 365 days of the years. I never want to forget Bob – or the love he lavished on me from the first connection to the last and final separation.

46 years ago, tonight, I didn’t have a clue as to how my life was about to forever be changed by 10 PM, when Bob would literally walk into my life. And stay.

46 years ago, my then boyfriend, Doug Moss, called me earlier in the evening and insisted I come to a kegger he was throwing at the house he was renting a room – from a fella he was working with. He told me the name of the fella, but I didn’t pay too close attention: the name didn’t ring any bells with me. I didn’t want to go to the kegger, but Doug was insistent. We’d been dating off and on since Middle School … and were currently “on” again. He said he had something he wanted to talk to me about: I was curious, so I reluctantly went.

When I arrived, the kegger was unfolding in full force. Everyone was underage (16 to 20; Doug and I were 17 and 18), and Doug was moving through the crowd, taking his time getting to me. The air was heavy with colognes, perfumes, sloshed beer, and the stench of weed; I wasn’t interested in getting drunk or stoned … so I set myself up as door monitor and carded everyone who looked older than 20 while I waited for Doug to make his way to me to tell the important thing he insisted I be there to hear.

Doug was moving slowly in my direction … when my direction was suddenly changed.

Around 10 PM, in through the open door walked a tall figure of a man wearing a blue plaid jacket fitted to a pair of broad shoulders owned by a man who looked – and walked through the door – as if he owned the place. My “over 20!” radar kicked in: and I stepped up to him, halting him with an upraised palm and a no-nonsense, “You gotta go. You’re too old to be here, and we don’t want trouble with the cops.”

He stopped his forward momentum.

His right eyebrow went up and a slow sexy smile was aimed at me.

I was unmoved.

“You gotta go”, I repeated – motioning to the open door.

The sexy mouth spoke, “I live here; this is my house.”

“Right”, I sarcastically said in my best badass/smartass teen voice. “Bob Hargand owns this house, and you aren’t him.”

I was unmoved. And determined this fella wasn’t going any further than where he stood.

Bob stood firm too. Still amused.

“If you are who you say you are; prove it,” I said. I held my hand out, palm up – wiggling my fingers in his direction. “Show me some ID”.

He laughed and fished his wallet out of his back pocket, looking me over. He handed me his Driver’s License with a ‘here you go, little snip’ gleam in his twinkling eyes.

Me. 1974

I took the license, saw the Name, and conceded he had the right to be standing there in his own house. Regardless of his age. I stood there looking at the license, thinking of a way to get him out of there without causing a scene: when I noticed the face on the license.

IT WAS THE FACE!

Bob. 1967

My mouth fell open in startled surprise and I breathed out in stunned surprise, “Oh, my God. You’re HIM! The face; oh, my God.”

When I looked back up and handed him the license, my hand was shaking. And my face was red. I was embarrassed when I realized too … that I had spoken my private thoughts out loud.

Bob was looking at me while he slipped his wallet back into his back pocket. He was curious. He’d heard what I said, and asked me what I meant.

So, I told him. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. I spilled the beans about how I’d first seen him 7 years ago when he walked past me after lunch in the school cafeteria – and how I waited every day by the corner of the school to catch a glimpse of him; and how crushed I was when I found out the next year that he’d graduated and never walked past that corner of the school again.

Bob’s High School Pic. 1967

I was laughing by the time I finished my peek-a-boo confession. And Bob was laughing too; he was intrigued. As if we’d always known each other, we moved together towards a quiet corner in his livingroom and talked together until just before my midnight curfew hour. Door monitoring was forgotten ;-)

Doug, who had been slowly moving towards me had been waaaay to slow getting to me, and was watching everything happening between Bob and I from the sidelines – he knew that whatever we had together had ended: and I was no longer thinking of Doug – at all: my attention was captivated by The Face my heart had yearned for 7 long years. Doug and I never dated again – but we were lifelong friends until the night Doug died; and Bob came home after work 23 years ago to tell me about the accident.

That all-night chat session in Bob’s Cathlamet livingroom was not ‘a date’ – it was happenstance. Bob was still officially married though he and Gloria had been separated since November 1973: he had come home that night from visiting his 4 year old son in Portland, OR. When Bob walked me home (about 3 minutes away from his house), to make my midnight curfew, I made it clear to him that I didn’t date married men, and though I was happy to finally get to meet him face to face, I would not be a backdoor girl caught up in a messy marital situation. If the divorce he talked about ever happened, he could call me then … but I would be permanently unavailable until then.

The next time Bob talked to Gloria – who was living with another man and dragging her feet getting a divorce because she was Jehovah Witness (the excuse didn’t make any sense to me or Bob) – Bob put it to her that he had the right to move on with his life too: she quit stalling and filed for divorce on April 1^st, 1974 … and Bob gave me a jingle April 15^th, asking me out Friday the 19^th.