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I realize that I kind of skimmed over my boyfriend history in my previous high school posts, so let's take a deep dive now into that area of my life.
As I have said before, I was a late bloomer. And that's even a bit of an understatement. I did not have the typical pre-teen, middle school experiences of spin the bottle or other experimental kissing. When Daisey moved into the Long Beach school district in ninth grade, I was a bit intimidated by her history of having maybe once kissed a boy.
Fast forward to the summer of 1982, just as my life was beginning to turn around from horribly misfit sophomore to somewhat happy junior with actual friends. This was the summer that I finally had my first ever boy experience. At the time, I was still active in the Mormon church. We're going back now to before Bucky, my first real Mormon boyfriend. That summer I went to the Mormon church Youth Conference in Troy, Ala. Youth Conference was a summertime conference for Mormon youth between the ages of 14 and 18. I think there might have been some Bible studies (?) during the day, or something? I don't really remember but I can only assume the church used Youth Conferences as an indoctrination opportunity. And then in the evenings we had lip sync contests and water balloon fights and dances. You know, good wholesome youth fun. Dances were the only real social opportunities we had as Mormon youth and we grabbed them with exuberance.
I went to two Youth Conferences before I dropped out of the Mormon church. This would've been my second one. We traveled to Troy State University with one chaperone - a female - and only one female attendee (me). So Bucky and Andy and all them were on their own and me? I roomed with Sister Brice.
[Mormon sidenote: Adults are addressed as Brother So&So and Sister So&So.)
Sister Brice was actually pretty damn cool when it came to Mormon chaperones. She was a single mom with a teenage son named Ricky. She brought Ricky to this Youth Conference, and Ricky brought his friend Kirby. It was the first time I'd met Ricky, because he did not go to church with us. But I knew from local gossip that he had both fathered a child and spent some time in juvie. So, you know...my kinda guy.
So I go to this Youth Conference without having ever had a boyfriend or even kissed a boy. I was 15. And I was rooming with the chaperone. I thought her son Ricky was crazy cute but way, way out of my league.
One boy did actually like me at Youth Conference that year. Sadly, I don't even remember his name. But that's probably because nothing became of it and he did not become my first kiss. Ricky hooked up with not one, but two girls that week and I had no hope of a connection with him.
Until the drive home from Alabama.
Sister Brice was driving and since I was the only girl in the van, I got the shotgun seat. We had some kind of minor electrical issue like with the radio or something that brought Ricky to the front of the van to work under the dashboard. Then he sat next to me on the passenger seat. I brushed off his shirt after he'd laid on the floorboard. It just was enough physical contact to create a connection.
As we dropped everyone off, I asked Ricky if he would come to church with his mom to see me. He said no. But said he would call me.
And he did.
I was shocked when I actually got that call.
I was all THIS IS FINALLY HAPPENING FOR ME. I mean seriously, I was 15. Someone maybe wanted to kiss me.
Ricky was my boyfriend for about six months from that summer until around the end of the year. He was my first kiss. And my first french kiss. He would come over to my house and make out with me in my bedroom. This was my mom's house that Dad had moved into with me. Dad had a good trick where he would open my bedroom door when Ricky was in there with me under the guise that the dog wanted to come in.
To be honest, I don't even know how to tell the rest of this story. I'm going to tackle it the most straight-forward way that I know how.
My sister finished her first year at BYU and moved back to LB with me and Dad in Mom's house. She reconnected with her friend Melinda and they became inseparable. That fall, Ricky broke up with me and hooked up with Melinda, or maybe hooked up with Melinda and then broke up with me? The order of the events is a little unclear. And when I say, "hooked up," I mean it in the millennial sense of the word. Like, you know...HOOKED UP. Knew her in the Biblical sense. Before I knew what had actually happened, Rickey was gone and he and Melinda were pregnant.
I mean, the fact that your first boyfriend has dumped you for a more sexually experienced girl is difficult enough. My only real bounce back was that I then started dating Bucky, the good Mormon boy that Ricky had always been very jealous of.
Melinda delivered a baby boy. A couple years later, I was working at a taco stand on the beach when Melinda came through. She had a toddler with her. I boldly asked her about her situation and she told me that Ricky was in jail and out of the picture. Many years later, when Facebook came to pass, I found Ricky's friend Kirby, who had graduated high school with me. I asked him about Ricky and he told me that he had committed suicide in jail.
So that story is a bummer. I dated Bucky off and on for the next year and then we know how that one turned out too. I later lost my virginity to Scotty, and then my first long-term, young adult relationship was with Casey. (More on those to come...) And Kirby ended up being my tattoo artist.
