It was May of 1971. The spring of Carole King — the spring of Tapestry as it climbed the charts towards #1.
I first met her at the Bismarck Hotel, a downtown landmark, and the site of that year’s Kinus, our Chicagoland youth group convention. It was Friday afternoon, free time before that night’s Sabbath celebration, and a time for wandering the hotel halls and greeting friends from as far away as Milwaukee.
I don’t remember what pack of mates I was roaming with or who her companions were. We came across each other somewhere on one of the hotel’s upper floors and began a conversation. What did we talk about? Who remembers, though I am sure it was whatever 15 and 16-year-old boys and girls talked about with each other on a first meeting in the days before social media.
She and I paired up, maybe others did too. We found ourselves in someone’s room (hers? mine?) kissing on the bed as It’s too Late tinnily played on the room’s clock radio.
She lived in Pill Hill on South Side, I was an East Rogers Park kid too young for a car or a driver’s license. Getting together was tough, so it was a special treat when she told me her family was coming to my neighborhood to visit some acquaintances and she would come along. We could have a date!
The special Saturday night came. I picked her up at the apartment her folks were visiting, and then we walked to a FunFair at a neighborhood park. We returned to her family’s friend’s place at about 11 pm, to be told that the family had driven off to visit other friends in Skokie, and would I mind driving her there? I was stunned and stumped.
We walked out of the apartment building. I still had no car, no driver’s license, and certainly not enough money for a cab. In desperation, I looked around on the street and realized a slightly older buddy, the proud owner of a gleaming golden Mercury Cougar, lived close by.
We walked down the block to my friend’s apartment building. Not wanting to ring the bell and awaken his parents, I stood below his bedroom window and tossed some gravel against the dark window. A light came on in his room, the window opened, and I explained my predicament.
He came downstairs, drove us to Skokie, and returned me to my apartment building. He refused any payment, but I remember dropping a few dollars on the front seat for gas money.
That summer at youth group camp she told me it was over. I moved on, and she already had.
A few years later she called me. I drove out to see her once, but we never saw each other again. For that romance, it truly was too late.
The above was written as a response to the Storyworth prompt “Who did you date while in high school?” Thanks to my associate Ken Beck for subscribing me to Storyworth!
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