The winter of 1963 really began when Lee Harvey Oswald took the
life of President Kennedy. As if
the weather felt compelled to mimic the mood of the times, winter turned long and dark
and tested everyone with persistent icy winds. Spring’s arrival felt unlikely. But spring can
come at any time and is always beautiful.
As I remember it, the time was about 7:15am on a mid-June
day. High school graduation had
been a couple of weeks before.
Paul Mason and I were back at work in our summer job – busting freight
for Hicks-Ashby earning money for college. Always trying to control costs, we carpooled from Raytown to
1610 Baltimore in Downtown KC. After
only a week or two, Paul told me that there was a girl – a friend of his
girlfriend’s sister – who would like to join the carpool. Winnie Wilson.
On that first morning, we were in her driveway at 7:15am, tapping
the horn lightly like real gentlemen, but running late, as always, for
work. Out she came. Sprinting to the car, toast in her
teeth, make-up bag in one hand and a hair-brush in the other. I was driving and Paul made the
introductions. Tom this is
Winnie. Winnie this is Tom. We met. The first time I saw her eyes, they were in my rear view
mirror. The first time I heard her
voice was when she said hi with a mouthful of toast.
Paul and I carried on the usual banter as though there was
no one else in the car. Winnie
went through the ritual of fixing her hair, doing her make-up and eating her
breakfast. The miracle was that
she didn’t stab an eye while wielding a mascara brush as we bounced over
pot-holed roads. She worked for
International Harvester in the IBM building at 14th and Baltimore,
so we made her jump out quickly and sped the two blocks to Hicks-Ashby just at
the nick of 8:00am. We had met.
There were four of us who worked in the warehouse. Paul and I plus Earl and Dean. Earl was a middle aged alcoholic who
drank lunch and ogled every female who walked down the street. Dean was another kid whose eyes were
always at half-mast befitting his plan of working at half speed. It wasn’t past 8:15 when Earl started
his tease about the “new girl.”
He’d never seen her and he only knew she was a friend of a friend of
Paul’s. Didn’t slow his winks and
nods and other less civil gestures.
He tweaked us as his only entertainment. We suspected that he spent most non-work hours on a bar
stool or passed out wherever the last drink was swallowed.
At quitting time, we clocked out and headed to the car. We smelled like goats who had been
driven ten miles through rain and five more in sweltering sunshine. With the smiles that accompany release
from the work day, we drove two blocks north where she waited to jump in for
the ride home. Almost instantly
she asked us to roll the windows down all the way.
Absent the toast and our groggy grumbling of work-a-day
mornings, the conversation turned to teenage things. We probably talked about mutual friends, family, favorite music and
all of the frustrations that accompany having to survive being a teenager. This was ordinary stuff. Nothing romantic about a sweaty
warehouse boy and a girl who just wanted a ride so she could put her make-up on
in the car to avoid having to get up twenty minutes earlier.
It only took a few days, though. On one of those mornings, I asked her if she’d like to go
for a coke (coca-cola not cocaine) later than evening. Showing good judgment, she said she’d
let me know after work. That
created enough angst in a relatively shy, self-conscious teenage boy that it
must have shown on my face all day.
Earl, with the senses of a shark smelling blood in the water, circled me
all day with every form of taunting his pickled brain could conjure.
Thankfully, she agreed.
I picked her up at seven and was greeted at the door by
Jane, her mom, who really wanted to know more about this warehouse worker and
whether he was worthy. She greeted
me with the joy she gave to every human being – but watched me closely.
We went out on that first date. Sydney’s was a popular carhop restaurant near Hyde Park and
north of the plaza. I picked it
because it was far enough that we’d have time to talk to each other without
Paul in the car. It was the sort
of place I also hoped would impress her with my worldliness and knowledge of
this city she had moved to – only a year or so before.
That’s how our first date began. If it ever ends……
--td