So I pulled an M.B. and spent several hours on the phone tonight with some old friends. First Jason called to firm up our party on the fifteenth – I am more and more convinced that that will be the last larger party at this address – so if that’s a selling point we’ll see you there. Then I got a call from John and Milena.

In one of my former incarnations I lived in an apartment building in Kirksville called The Alamo. It was one of two adobe buildings in the city. The other one was a pawnshop on the main strip. I think it’s still there, while my Alamo is no longer preserved for posterity. There are several large white pop and fresh houses in its place.

I had had the front left apartment that faced Ophelia Parish, which was the campus building in which all of my classes met. I could go from newly minted consciousness to class in under five minutes. Anyone on campus could see if we were having a party as I had four huge windows the faced the quad.

My friend John from high school had just gotten out of the Navy and was on his way across the country to live with a Navy buddy in Georgia. The night he was getting into town I had inadvertently scheduled a date with this wonderful girl Kellie. Kellie and I met up on campus to see Priest in the little theater. I know, not the best first date movie. John came along, but sat with some of my other friends who were at the showing.

We were only supposed to see the movie and then end the official date portion of the evening as Kellie had made plans to meet up with a friend of hers from Bulgaria. She had lived the previous semester in Bulgaria and was good friends with all the Bulgarians on campus. I think they were planning to go to an international student party. I also had plans to go drink Guinness at the Dukum with John so standing out there in the chill air on the winter quadrangle we all triangulated briefly and I made my plug, “If the party dies we’ll be at the Dukum if you want to join us.”

The party must have died because shortly Kellie and I were standing at the bar smiling at each other leaving poor John and Milena to sort things out for themselves. John, ever the gentleman, immediately stood and offered his chair in the crowded bar to Milena. Hook, line, and sinker. May I present the six year married couple and their newborn Alexander:



Kellie – for the curious – first became an M.D. and joined Doctor’s Without Borders working primarily in rural Mexico. She then joined the US Air Force to cover her school expenses and I imagine that she is still in the Military. We dated on and off for several years, one of the last being John and Milena’s wedding, but there were complications.

That’s actually a sad story and apparently I’m getting things out this week – so here you go:

She had an ex boyfriend from Bulgaria who was eligible for a visa to the US. He was denied and so we felt free to start dating. His name was Dion and I always thought of him in the context of The Solid Gold Dancers. His denial was reversed and she broke up with me on the day he arrived from a phone booth in the airport where she was picking him up, “He showed me so much of his country and I feel that I owe him the same.”

I few days earlier I’d figured out what was coming. She’d had a key at that point to my place, my Alamo, and I was supposed to be in a class, but it had been cancelled. I came home to find her crying on my floor holding my dog Sebastian. She’d come to the house say goodbye to our space knowing she could do it without crying in front of me. Nope, we got to cry together.

Oddly enough their new relationship didn’t last, but by then I was with Mary. By the time Mary moved away Kellie had moved back to her hometown to work as a dental assistant for a year. We had a few weekends together in the years after that, and that one big trip out for the wedding, but we’d lost our chance at it. If you have it and you let it go it’s very hard to get that flame going again.

The sad thing is that we certainly had it – love at first sight – she was wearing a brown Indian style dress with lots of fringe and a light gold batik when she walked into the classroom where I was helping Lloyd give an informal presentation about the meditation techniques he offers. It was seven o’clock in the evening. When we talked about it later it was the same for each of us – an instant connection. The first time she was in my apartment for a potluck party she saw a picture of my sister and she was crushed because she thought it was my girlfriend. Ah well, that was then and this is now. Should I follow Vanessa’s advice and go teach English in Japan?