End of One, Beginning of Another (part 15)

(Please see part 14 of this current series, for the back-story)

That 'candlelight circle' had been so sweet! The newly engaged girl so happy. But I hadn't been on a date in two years. Don't get me wrong, the SconeLady could have had any number of dates, any number of times! She was just at a self-imposed distance from it all.

Ok, there had been possibilities. Young and honest men with high hopes for a future. But not just the Right One, so - no ring yet, and no 'candlelight circle' for me.

Walking into Coed Cottage one day in September, absently thinking about some paper that was due, I came upon a friend chatting with someone named Thomas. She introduced us. I really needed to get to that paper, but...we all talked about something he must have thought significant, because that night he called. The girl who answered the phone ran up to me, all a-flutter: "OH! It's a BOY, for you on the PHONE. Hurry!" But what on earth could he want? 

I was astonished, because what he wanted was a 'date' (do they call them that, now?).

That was sure quick, and I couldn't think what to say on such short notice. So I said 'yes.'

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thejcgerm/5478298604/

We were to go to dinner, but first he wanted to know if I had heard his favorite song, "Follow Me" by John Denver? Denver had just performed it on the Johnny Carson show, said Thomas, and he couldn't get it out of his mind.

No, I hadn't heard it yet, but that didn't matter because Thomas had it on his 8-track tape player (for the uninitiated, that is an ancient tape deck most cars had in the 60s and 70s). He pushed 'play', and sang it to me along with John Denver:

Follow Me

Follow me, where I go, what I do and who I know.

Make it part of you to be a part of me.

Follow me up and down, all the way and all around.

Take my hand, and say you'll follow me.

-copyright J. Denver 1970

Ok, so you can check it out on youtube or Wikipedia for the rest. And it was sweet, it really was. It was so complimentary to have someone sing such a thing to you. Two years after the self-imposed moratorium on dating, it felt pretty nice. But - so soon? 'Take my hand and say you'll follow me'?? So very, very soon?

         https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/11645555664/

It was confusing because I thought there was meant to be a sort of friendship first, then comradeship and of course love, and perhaps the broaching of the topic of a future. But I got it almost all in one go, first date.

This, and the fact that my own feelings had not yet 'followed' his, made me reluctant. Couldn't we just be friends? But, alas, this was not what he had in mind and it caused the most dreadful row, in the end. 

So, I scurried once again to the 'no more dates' plan. It was late fall of 1974 now, and what with classes and papers and friends, the idea of Mr. Right sort of faded.

Still, all of this had made me a bit wistful, and I remembered the girls in Fiddler On The Roof, wondering - 'Is there a canopy in store for me?...'

I hoped so. As long as John Denver didn't come into it.


See you along the way!
the SconeLady


photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejcgerm/5478298604/">thejcgerm</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/11645555664/">brizzle born and bred</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">cc</a>