Introductions were made, and ever the people pleaser, I did my best to smile without being forward, appear self-assured but not self-centered, demure but not coy.  Just cool, calm and collected here, so no, I’m not dying inside.  Flyboy didn’t have to be wearing a uniform for me to imagine how good he would look in one.  He had thick, coarse, coppery  auburn hair and a well-trimmed mustache,  blue-green eyes and bulging biceps.  I wondered if he was as nervous as me.

Flyboy looked at my feet and pronounced that sandals were not proper footwear for a motorcycle ride and suggested I find something more appropriate.  Being a California girl, I only owned sandals, and after finding some tennies that fit, we were ready to roll.

We walked out to get on the motorcycles and as I climbed on behind Flyboy,  I was instantly panic-stricken.   It was not the fear of riding for the first time.  It was the realization that there was no backrest and I had nothing to hold onto.  Except for Flyboy, and even though this was the 70’s, there was no way I was wrapping my arms around the waist of some guy I’d known for five minutes.  As he revved up the engine and started to pull out of the driveway, I quickly looked for options, fearing  that if I didn’t hold onto something, I just might slide right off the back. There was only one thing to do – I stuck my index fingers through his belt loops and prayed I wouldn’t die.

There in front of me, Flyboy was completely aware of my dilemma and was wondering what I would do about it.  While he knew I had nothing to hold onto, he was really hoping I did NOT grab him around the middle.  He could hear the wheels turning in my brain as I examined my options and quickly narrowed them to one.  And when he felt my fingers in his belt loops, he grinned a secret grin, was charmed by my ingenuity, and to this day says, “that’s when I was hooked.”

It was a night of firsts – first blind date, first real motorcycle ride, first time out with a REAL MAN (as opposed to a high school boy), first time to see a falling star (in southern California one can barely see the sky…never mind the stars), and first time to see a bat.   We stopped by a lake to watch the sun go down and there, right overhead, flew a bat.  While PJ and her boyfriend were off kissing somewhere, Flyboy and I talked about what was important to us and desperately hoping he wouldn’t figure it out, I tried to avoid any reference to the fact that I was only 17 and had graduated from high school just a few weeks before.

Next stop, Pizza Hut.  And then we went home. And I wondered if I would ever see him again.