QUINN MINUTE: First loves

by Rix Quinn

The first romantic interest in my life was a new girl in my first-grade class. She had the best-looking tennis shoes on the planet.

Even better, she was a world-class runner. All us kids raced every day during recess and – except for the time some guy tripped her – she won every race.

Because boys and girls stayed on different sides of the playground, it took all my courage to cross the dividing sidewalk to ask where she got those shoes. Once I got those footwear details, she no longer interested me.

I did briefly admire a girl in a third-grade square dance class, because she knew the do-se-do.

But then I met Charlotte, my seventh grade English teacher.

To this 12-year-old boy, she seemed gorgeous. She was an older woman…probably 23. In class she teased me, and we kidded around a lot.

By the third six weeks I was profoundly in love, and that had never happened before. But at the height of my passion, spring came around.

A couple of friends and I got tickets to the local professional golf tournament, a big social event. While there, I saw my 20-something instructor with a man about her age.

“Rix,” she said, “I’d like for you to meet my fiancé.” What? She was engaged?

I shook the guy’s hand and talked to them a couple minutes, but I was emotionally destroyed. How could she?

I felt really bad for at least nine days. Then baseball season started.