Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Secret Love
By Lynda Jordan
I never told anyone about Bill. They’d have laughed. “He doesn’t know you’re alive!” they’d have said. But he was special to me, even though I never knew much about him. He was a senior when I was a junior in my mom’s small hometown in 1963, just before life and history drew me out of innocence.
I didn’t have a real hometown. Dad was in the Air Force and I moved much as a military dependent, a kind of gypsy. In Mom’s town we walked everywhere. Girls bought tangerine lipstick, sipped cherry Cokes, and played booth-side jukeboxes at the local diner. We went to the Dog’n’Suds on weekends, if we could borrow the family car. There was one indoor theater, open only in the winter, and one drive-in, open only during the summer. I spent most Saturdays in the public library, checking out armloads of books that I consumed like popcorn.
Bill never walked to town with me even though we lived on the same street. He and I played in the high school band; we attended Friday night basketball games, but not with each other. He lived with his mom in a small, white bungalow with no front porch, next to a tiny, clapboard grocery. Bill’s mom may have been a secretary. I never knew what had happened to his dad.
My dad was absent, too, in Greenland this time. My family lived in a house with a big front porch where I often sat, reading and dreaming of life beyond the fortress-like Illinois cornfields. I never invited Bill to sit on the porch with me. I never told him how much I missed my dad. I never talked with him about the music I heard late at night from WLS in Chicago. Bill never tossed pebbles at my bedroom window to get my attention. Only June bugs hit my screen on quiet summer nights.
The street in front of my family’s house usually filled up on weekends with shouting children and abandoned bikes. Large bushes surrounded our porch and became secret forts and hidden playhouses. Flowerbeds changed color with the season--irises and lilies-of-the-valley in spring, roses and asters in the summer and fall, snowdrifts in the winter. Old maple trees shaded the street, their roots cracking and buckling the sidewalk. A block away, at Bill’s house, the street held only an occasional tree. No bushes or flowers framed his foundation.
I never knew what drew my eyes to Bill. Perhaps it was his pleasant face, his sandy hair, his strong shoulders. Perhaps he seemed unattached. He provided mystery and excitement, rather like the characters in my books. He seemed a man grown, one who had already separated himself from the competition for schoolhouse popularity.
I think he may have worked somewhere after school. I wanted him to notice me but I didn’t know how to make that happen. I could have called his name and babbled some nonsense when he turned toward my voice. Instead, I learned his schedule at school and put myself in his line of sight. Sometimes this worked and he’d say, “Hi.” I’d blush and carry his single syllable for hours as if it were a love token.
I thought Bill must know things I didn’t, things he could tell or show me. Just seeing him made my pulse race. I’d envision what it would be like if we were ever to talk together, alone, about world events or how we felt about our futures.
Of course, we never did. He joined the Army after he graduated. I may have sent him a letter. If I did, he never replied. He just drove away one early autumn day.
I finished high school without him a year later, but I often glanced at his house when I’d pass by and wonder where he was. I went on to college and learned more effective ways to attract the male gaze. In 1965, I heard Bill had been killed in Vietnam. No details, just a passing bit of hometown gossip.
I’ve never known what to make of this; 1965 was early in that war. I have sometimes wondered if he’d had time to fall in love or even to dream.
Three decades later, on a vacation with my daughter just after she had graduated from high school, I found Bill’s name on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. I ran my finger across his name, the only caress I ever gave him.
Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post
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Oh, how sad. It is too bad that you never were able to let him know how you felt, especially since he died so young. You brought back a lot of memories about that era.
Posted by: kenju | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 05:10 AM
Isn't it rather tragic to look back on missed opportunities and wish we had acted differently? I'm sure Bill wished you had spoken to him, too. But by not speaking, the mystery of Bill lingers and keeps the memory alive; he will never be forgotten. Perhaps that is true immortality
Posted by: Darlene | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 06:08 AM
Thanks for a lovely story. I think that in our heart of hearts, most of us have a "Bill" somewhere. For me, his name was Jack. We did have one encounter - I was 15, wearing a pale yellow sweater with a gray skirt. He is a bittersweet memory that visits me every October with the first smell of woodsmoke in the air.
Posted by: arby | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 07:05 AM
What a touching story,Lynda.
I would like to think that Bill carried thoughts of you in his mind,and always regretted not being confident enough to ask you to be his friend.
Our teen years are full of regrets and missteps,but we usually live long enough to overcome our doubts and shyness and make a connection with someone we can be happy with.
I am sorry Bill did not have that chance, but isn't it wonderful that you still remember him all these years later?
Posted by: Nancy | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 07:41 AM
Thanks, Lynda, for sharing this story. I could so picture you sitting on your wide porch, wanting something from life that is even hard to name.
I had a similar story, although J.L. and I did interact during junior and senior high school--the years of my interest and devotion. He was in my Sunday school class and once even called me on the telephone about a math assignment. Over the years,J.L. also visited me in dreams in which he was always glad to see me and we always spoke intimately. Then, just last month, I talked with an old school mate and inquired about J.L. The next thing I knew I had an e-mail from Him, with an outline of his life since high school graduation. Like your friend, J.L. served in Vietnam. Only he was an air force officer who flew over 200 bombing missions and is now a retired colonel deep in the heart of Texas. All this news has caused a shake-up in my psyche as the reality and the fantasy collide.
Posted by: Sharry | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 08:00 AM
A beautiful memory well told. It brought back my memory of an Arthur "Art" from Kentucky who served as a Marine in Korea. He was a pen-pal whom I never met, but he did send a black and white picture in one of his letters. I recall he said he had red hair. Then, one of my letters was never answered. I learned later from a cousin who served with him that he was KIA. I still have the picture of that brave Marine, stashed away in an old photo album in my 1949 cedar chest.
Thanks for bringing back his memory.
Posted by: Julie | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 08:14 AM
I had a secret crush who was killed in Viet Nam as well. We weren't even friends, but his death made the war personal for me. You told this story beautifully.
Posted by: travelinoma | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 09:52 AM
What a beautiful story and told with such feeling.
I've always thought that if I had a girl I would tell her that boys need help and encourgement talking to girls, they can be just as shy as girls.
Bill might have felt the same way that you did but was to shy to make the first move.
Do you have a blog? If you have one, I'd visit.
Posted by: mildred garfield | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 01:00 PM
"Only June bugs hit my screen on quiet summer nights." That sums it up the predicament of unrequited love so well. What a moving story you have told'! I wish all the Bills of the world that they know that they mean something to us and even after all these years, we softly draw our fingers over their lives, in the form of a caress.
Posted by: lilalia | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 01:19 PM
Posted by: lynda | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 01:38 PM
Hello Lynda,
Your topic blew Reveille and assembled the many of us, male as well as female. How many times have we sat under a tree on a hillside or on a rock by a river and let our memories flow by? This album you've shared caused these before me to open theirs and share. I've enjoyed them all. I've been that lonely soldier far from home and dreamed the dreams of secret loves. At this time of life I'm thankful to have a window such as your beautifully written story to look through. Life is still grand. It's not time to blow Taps yet.
Posted by: Herm | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 01:58 PM
Beautiful and sad...and so touching Lynda...thank you.
Posted by: Joy | Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 02:49 PM
What a touching and bittersweet story, Lynda. I see, from the many comments before me, that similar stories abound. I, too, had a "Bill" whose name was Gary. Although he wasn't killed in Vietnam, he died at 35 after a decade of suffering from wounds of being too near a land mine when it exploded. Thank you for sharing your story.
Posted by: Kay | Thursday, 22 November 2007 at 05:40 AM
What a lovely story, although sad it is a reminder of life and how connected we all are. One acknowledgment of life as I get older is that we are all so alike, and so are our experiences.
Thank you, a nice story on a Thanksgiving morning.
Posted by: Claudean | Thursday, 22 November 2007 at 06:05 AM
What a poignant story and wonderful writing in sharing it with us.
You certainly brought back a lot of those 60's memories for me.
Posted by: Terri | Friday, 23 November 2007 at 07:22 AM
Your story raised my heart beat. I am so sorry you never had an opportunity to see if he had any feelings for you. Your writing made me feel I was watching a great movie with a sad ending.
Thanks for sharing such emotion. I felt it all... In fact it made me feel for a moment it happened to me. So well done...
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
Posted by: Dorothy Stahlnecker | Saturday, 24 November 2007 at 10:21 AM
Lynda, I loved your story before and I loved reading it. Keep those stories coming.
Posted by: Brenda | Saturday, 16 February 2008 at 05:27 PM