I’ll never forget when I was in the 8th.grade, 1970. 99.9% lilly white, middle-class New Jersey suburb. There was one Japanese-American girl, Heidko’’(Heidi’’) Yamaguchi. She was a doll! Not that all the other girls, the blondes, brunettes and red heads weren’t but Heidi was an absolute doll. Pin-straight,jet black hair so shinny you could see yourself in it. And when she smiled, man, it was like stars twinkling. I always wanted to talk to her, to say something other than an occasional ‘’hello’’ but I was just too shy. At the end of the school year she moved away. Broke my heart.
If missed moments with girls I wanted to speak to were pennies, I’d be a millionaire.
At least when I think about them, they never get older.