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Cover Girl

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.,

What do you know about Saturn?

I have to do a report on it. It’s, like, my most favorite planet, but that doesn’t mean I know anything about it. It’s just, y’know. Beautiful.

Kinda like Angie, who is a volleyball star here at Wilkie and who makes me think of a giraffe, but pretty. I’m kinda sure I love her even though I don’t actually know if she’s nice or not. I’ve never had the chance (courage) to talk to her directly. Her friends say she’s really down-to-earth but they’re her friends, what do you expect? It would be worth telling a lie to stay close to Angie. Although why would they would think they had to lie to me about her being nice in order to stay friends with her? Maybe Angie does like me after all if she’s telling her peeps to lie to impress me!

If she even knows who I am, which I’m pretty sure she doesn’t.

I”m kind of all over the place with my thinking right now.

Anyway, Saturn. What is there to say about it other than, “Wow, is that a gorgeous planet, or what?” I hear it’s kind of cold and gaseous, which wouldn’t be very nice qualities in a person. But get a load of this picture!

How can you not be impressed with that? Of course, that’s how Saturn looks from 1.3 million miles away. I’ll bet if you were kissable close it wouldn’t be nearly as nice. I’d like to try, though. But there are so many moons! Lots of competition, just getting into an orbit. You’d probably feel like a chump. Do you think those rings are real? I don’t see how anything could be so perfect.

Anyway, time for bed. Let me know if you’ve got any advice for my report on Angie.

Saturn, I mean.

Your friend,
Bubby

Who was your first crush?

100 thoughts on “Cover Girl”

  1. Sally something in second or third grade, She moved away right then.When we were seniors only a couple girls and then myself could remember her and we were not sure who she was in class pictures and then decided she probably wasn’t in any class picture. And no one could remember her last name.
    Pluto. I always like the runt of the litter, but even more the rejected.

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  2. Eric W. Our parents were friends and he was the oldest of three brothers. My age. We never went to the same school, but in third grade he sent me a valentine in the mail. I kept that valentine for years. He went away to high school on the east coast and we wrote a few letters back and forth but it was never a torrid romance. There was never even a kiss between us. They eventually moved out to Denver, although our families stayed close for many years. I think he’s an attorney in San Francisco these days.

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  3. Good morning. I was attracted to Sandra who was a grade school class mate I don’t remember her from junior high school. Maybe she attended one of the other junior high schools. We were in high school together, but I didn’t do any dating while in high school. We also attended the same junior college and by that time she had a steady boy friend. I only saw her in school because she didn’t live in my neighborhood. While in grade school I was invited to a birthday party for her at her house which was the closest I came to developing any kind of a relationship with her.

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  4. I’ve blogged about this before, but it is my only possible answer. On my first day in school, Kindergarten in Beardshear in Ames, Iowa, we were required to bring blankets. At some point in the day we were told to roll out our blankets and take a nap. I rolled out my blanket right next to cute little Susie Stoever. Susie got up and flipped her blanket so I would be staring at her feet, not her head. I flipped my rug. She flipped again. I flipped again. And then I felt the long arm of the law seize me. I was sent to the dark, smelly “cloak room” to nap alone.

    As I am fond of saying, on my first day in the school system I was busted for sexual harassment.

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    2. Hee, hee. Worth a retell.
      I am bound for the waiting room in Shakopee. Maybe we can sneak in the Arb too. What a day for the Arb, huh!

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  5. vicki erickson in first grade was the cutest and all the boys thought she was the cutest she had curly black hair and a million freckles. she left at christmas and i was left with a heart dedicated to a element that was gone form my life forever.
    jeanie blatz was a redhead with an attitude. in 4th or 5th grade carving your true loes name in your arm with a razr blade was the only way to show commitment. i kinda scratched it in and jeanie went the way of the dodobird.
    cindy thompson was the most beautiful girl in 7th grade. at christmas i bought her some bottle of perfume ad she got me an album but that was the apex. she disappeared.
    kristy kirtley in 8th grade was the forbidden fruit and she knew it. we spent hours on the telephone and knew the depths of each others souls but it was never to be, her father would never allow it. a couple of years later he and i ended up to be friends when she moved to an town near winona. sue beese was the last of the heartthrobs. 10th grade through 12th grade. she was from edina and i was from blooomington. another case of the dad who was big business and the hippy boyfriend, we camped and traveled and .had a great time until she graduated got a degree in childcare and moved to california. i really liked her. i called her mom one day and found she had bult a log cain in the mountains with her husband and had a couple kids and was happy and doing well. you cant go back but you mind can. thanks bubby.

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  6. Jim S – we sometimes picked him up for pre-school and then our circles overlapped again in junior high. Easy sort of guy to re-develop a crush on, at least when your 4 and then 13. One of those smart, quiet types and by junior high was racing sailboats (in preschool we were more about the rocking teeter-totter thing in the multi-purpose room).

    First celebrity crush: Dick Van Dyke. “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “Mary Poppins” really worked for me. I recall getting a package of plastic jewelry (the sort where there is a necklace, clip earrings that pinch like everything, bracelet, giant ring and perhaps a little fake mirror) from my grandparents, I think maybe at Easter. I put that giant plastic ring on my left hand and paraded around the house announcing, quite dramatically, to all (much to the amusement of my cousins, and I’m sure the grown-ups) that, “I’m engaged to Dick Van Dyke.” It was about then, I think that I discovered “Electric Company” and Morgan Freeman…yeah, Dick – you’re funny and all, but Morgan has that voice….

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    1. Welll, if we’re going with celebrity crush as well… When I was in the 6th grade, a local theatre troupe came to my school and did a presentation for everyone in the auditorium. This was the late 60s mind you, so this troupe came with the required tie dye, beads and beards. After the performance three of us hung around to meet some of the members of the group – in particular David Shepardson, who was the best looking thing we had ever laid eyes on. I was wearing beads as well that day and he admired them; as I held them up, he help his necklace up as well and our fingers touched. I didn’t wash my hand for a week; my friends were green with envy. For years the three of us celebrated David Shepardson Day. April 16.

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  7. At the Catholic boarding school I had a crush on one of the other boarders, Bernard Arstop. I think every girl did, including my little sister! I must have been 8 or 9, and Bernard perhaps a year or so older, but definitely not into girls. He spent all of his time drawing cartoon action figures, and he was good at it. Bernard had a younger sister, Jeanine who was friends with everyone. Both Bernard and Jeanine were olive skinned and had black hair, their mother was French, so physically they stood out in this group of blond, fair-skinned Danish kids.

    In high school I had a crush on Henrik Jørgensen and Svend Jonsen, both classmates of mine; not at the same time, although it wouldn’t have made any difference since neither ever knew of my crush and I wasn’t allowed to date anyhow.

    Then at sixteen I fell madly in love with Tommy Steele. That lasted all of a month until I discovered that he had just married his high school sweetheart. I was crushed, and may not be over it yet.

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  9. Morning–
    Ah, there were so many. 🙂

    Probably the first real crush was a red haired neighbor girl. Which I find kind of neat that eventually my wife would be a different red haired girl.

    But I’ll stick to my old fallback answer: Jaclyn Smith. *sigh* 🙂

    Let me just say again how much I enjoy everyone’s comments on this blog. The stories, the memories, the experiences all of you contribute everyday is a thing of beauty! I don’t say it often enough, but thanks everyone!

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    1. I have been distracted by other activities and haven’t participated here as much as usual. I have managed to read all the entries and doing this has lifted my spirits. I agree with you , Ben. I really do very much appreciate everyones contributions and always enjoy reading them.

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  11. Clyde made a post yesterday that saddened me. In a long post, he noted that he had sent copies of his book to several people who did not reply. That was obviously a sign to Clyde that the book did not connect with them. I’m probably one of those people, so I want to say emphatically that I’ve loved the book as far as I have gone with it. I can’t afford to print it, and I really dislike sitting at my computer to read it for hours. But I’ve still got it and will some day soon look forward to returning to it. The work is wonderfully original and evocative.

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    1. No. I was referring to no one on here. I understand not wanting to print or read on computer. These were people to whom I had handed a printed copy, in three-ring binder, two at my request, the other three either by asking for it or borrowing it from someone who had it. Nope, I am surprised anyone on here has read it. Krista by the way, read it and sent me nice constructive comments. I was keeping a very low profile about it everywhere, especially on here, not wanting to guilt or pressure anyone into reading it.
      Steve, I read your book back when I still worked and printed it on the company printer, i right I was allowed in my contract.

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      1. Now that I reread my post the problem is the word “here” in that post, the kind of stupid writing error which is driving me nuts lately and is clearly a sign of aging, an error I would never have committed before. Damn. “Here” meant in Mankato, not on this blog. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

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        1. That’s confusing, Clyde. Each time you used “here” in that post, it had the word “on” in front of it. “On here”, meaning “on the blog”, makes sense. “On Mankato” does not. Maybe not all the “heres” are to be swapped out.
          Also, don’t be so hard on yourself.

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      2. Clyde, I read your book and would love to give you feedback on it. I may be rather slow in getting it done, but that’s the sort of thing I like to do. I can email you with my comments.

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    2. Clyde – count me in as one of your faithful readers. While on the pc isn’t my favorite way to read, sometimes you just have to do what you just have to do! Thanks for a great story of growing up in another time/place.

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    3. Steve – some people in the book club printed out both books; perhaps you could borrow a hard copy from one of them (sorry, I don’t remember who it was, but maybe they will speak up here). I was able to convert the document to epub format (thanks, LInda!) and so read it on my e-reader.

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      1. I printed a couple of copies on my laser printer for distribution to various Baboons in anticipation of the book club meeting. I’ve lost track of where they are at the moment, but I could easily print another copy for you, Steve, if you wish.

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  12. The more interesting story in my case is the other way around, the girl with a crush on me, and oh I wish it had been Jaclyn Smith. But her name was Lauren, a name I still think is beautiful. Also, called Annie, one of my mother’s name for those seeking a Freudian interpretation. She had a crush on me from end of 5th grade until, well I do not know when it ended. You could make a decent literary novel out of the tale. We were close friends most of that time. We would clearly have made good life partners, had so much in common. So why did I such little love interest in a very smart, funny, pretty, sexy girl? How dumb was I. I am reading Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Marriage Plot” He wrote “Middlesex” which I have not read. This book considers the question of what love is and is not and how it does and does not happen from the male and female points of view in deeply literary terms. You have to almost have a graduate degree in literary deconstruction to read it. But the story had put Lauren on my mind even before this post.

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  13. My first crush was a celebrity crush. When I was in 4th grade I thought Mark Lindsay’s ponytail was SO cool.

    I especially like this clip for the oh-so-sixties set design. It looks like they decorated the set with Baker’s Square pie tins. The go-go dancers are stunning too.

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    1. Oh dear, stunning is the right word! – you could get seasick watching the other two singers as they’re bouncing up and down. And if we did any go-go dancing on a regular basis, POUNDS could be lost…

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  14. Can’t you just hear Jim Ed’s voice when you read the Bubby posts? 😦

    First crush was Dougie Grunwald in first grade. I can’t quite remember what I liked about him but I have a vague recollection that he might have seen my underpants when I was climbing on the monkey bars.

    Second crush was David Zita from 3rd to 8th grade (after which I went to a different school system). He didn’t know I was alive (I don’t think) until 5th grade when we did the requisite valentines-for-everyone. What was I thinking when I wrote “I Love You” on the back of the one addressed to him? When I realized how dumb that was, it was too late.

    The interesting thing about tall, dark and handsome David was that somehow our mothers found that we were the only two kids whose parents wanted to send them to the Young People’s concert series of the Hartford Symphony. So, for a season at least, we took turns going to concerts with each other’s parents. I don’t remember much about it except that his mother (father?) took us out for ice cream after one of the concerts. I’m guessing that those “dates” must have pre-dated my confession of love.

    The other thing that bound David and me together was that when we “voted” in the 1960 election in our classroom, we were the only 2 Kennedy supporters.

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    1. So, one of the ways a boy can win your affection is to catch a glimpse of your underpants? No wonder I found things so confusing when I was dating just a few years ago. I sure wasted a lot of money on theater tickets and good wine. Women are way too complex for me to figure out.

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  15. First crush was Tim Pierce in grade school – in 5th grade he asked me who I “liked” and I made the mistake of telling him. Then we moved to another town, and it was Terry R., in 6th grade (but he liked Geraldine B.)… Terry and I actually went out a couple of times after we ran into each other back in Marshalltown after college.Then there was a long string of crushes and fantasies – some of these memories are a bit painful still! till Mark B and I got together end of Junior High – puppy love.

    First celebrety crush was Ricky Nelson (when everyone was going nuts over Elvis), and then John Kerr, who was Lt. Cable in South Pacific – the one who sang the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”… Ah, interesting to see what was important at the age of 12.

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    1. BiR, I too thought Ricky Nelson was way cuter than Elvis, and so were Frankie Avalon and Paul Anka. Anyone remember the actor Troy Donahue? I thought he was so good looking.

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        4. Steve’s comment about T. Donahue reminds me of a conversation I had with daughter, Lora. We were discussing the media speculation that Kevin Spacey (hot guy in my book) was gay. I said, “What a waste,” to which she retorted, “Oh Mother – as if if there were ever a chance you would have had sex with him!” Never mind…

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  16. Many of you seem to have experienced crushes when you were quite young. I don’t remember having a crush on a real boy until I was a teenager. I just had celebrity crushes on Glen Campbell and the Monkees’ Davey Jones.

    My aunt tells a story about taking me to South Dakota when I was three or four. They stopped somewhere and brought me into a drug store-soda fountain place (no, I don’t know if it was Wall Drug but it might have been) and ordered me an orange soda. They handed me my glass of orange soda and I took it and turned around as some people came in the door. There was a little cowboy about my age, all dressed up in red western shirt, jeans, boots and a hat. I stared, apparently dumbfounded, and poured my orange soda down the front of my pinafore.

    Bill L. was the first chair trumpet in our high school band when I was 13. He had dark, wavy hair, green eyes and long fingers, and he was very shy. His trumpet was silver when all the other trumpets were brass. He really was very good and could play well enough that I thought some night he’d be on Johnny Carson. I was first chair flute and I was certain our similar status would make him notice me. Of course he didn’t. That crush lasted for years.

    I fall hard for dark wavy hair, green eyes and musical ability.

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    1. Musical ability is great, isn’t it. One of my first loves played heavenly Chopin on the piano. Husband has bought a ukulele and several Hawaiian shirts this summer; I’m still waiting for results! Not getting my hopes up. Thankfully, he has a lot of other good qualities.

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        1. I was in a relationship where musical ability figured in. Things would be going nicely between us, and then I would play my guitar for her. Back to rock bottom! Things would get nice again. I’d bring out the guitar and give her fresh proof I was a turkey!

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    3. I had a crush on a bassoon player in high school…he popped back up in my dorm freshman year of college. Swoon. And he remembered me from high school band. Swoooooooon.

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  17. Greetings! My biggest crush from grade school through high school (and beyond?) was Mark Herman. Handsome, but not a pretty boy, smart, charming and maybe somewhat athletic — don’t remember. i believe he was in the high school musical and became a doctor {sigh}. I think he also won some kind of award in high school in Green Bay — outstanding student/citizen, blah, blah, blah. I think he lives in a swanky area outside of Green Bay towards Sturgeon Bay.

    I went to a different high school than Mark, so In high school there was also John N – thick, wavy hair and green eyes. Highly intelligent and captain/quarterback of football team. He went to college for engineering, but now owns a bar and grill in Florida and looks like an overweight redneck on his Facebook. Celebrity crush I remember was Davey Jones of Monkees. So many to think about …

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    1. So embarassing … I just found Mark H on Facebook — looks good. I remember after high school deliberately going to a dive bar where I heard he hung out. The disco was my usually hangout for dancing, so this bar was not my usual place to frequent. Of course, Mark and another male classmate (they’re still friends) came to bar, and I just “happened to be there” — so I could see him. He was very nice and charming, but nothing ever happened between us. Only in my lustful teenage mind …

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      1. What happens in a lustful teenage mind, stays in a lustful teenage mind. Isn’t it great to know that we’re not that different?

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  18. Off topic, a Minnesota moment: Clyde and Sandy stopped at a restaurant for supper on Clyde and Sandy’s way back from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The meal was awful, especially Sandy’s, a hot beef commercial, which tasted rancid, and the meat was mostly fat and gristle. Clyde’s was tough grilled chicken. When the waitress came by to ask how the meal was, Clyde and Sandy said it was terrible; the waitress laughed. and then looking at Clyde and Sandy said, “Oh, you’re not joking.” The waitress did not know how to deal with a negative answer, despite not appearing to be inexperienced. Clyde’ thinks that was the second or third time Clyde and Sandy have ever complained in a restaurant.
    Did Clyde allow in any pronouns?

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      1. Anne and Jane were the couple on the log that began the montage, then the last picture before Neal and Leandra at the end.

        How lovely. And a powerful political ad against the marriage amendment.

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    3. Such a sweet song by two of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet, enhanced here by the context of the slides. Very, very nice job.

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  21. Hi everyone. I’ve been in Bismarck all day doing two presentations at a Home Visitor’s Conference put on by the ND dept of Public Health. Thank goodness I had my power points finished before my dad got sick. My first crush was Michael Mills, one of the three Mills Brothers who lived in back of us. His family had two Boxer dogs. I was about 5. He was 7. It was unrequited. Michael was the only person I know who was my age and who got Scarlet Fever. He missed a lot of school because of that. The family moved about a year later and I never heard about him again.

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