Do You Remember Your First Childhood Crush?

Do you remember your first childhood crush? Mine was on a boy named Dexter, in my third grade class.

I don't remember much about him, except that he loved to draw, and drew a perfect Charlie Brown from Peanuts. Dexter sat across from me in class, so I watched him draw everyday instead of listening to our teacher. Actually, as far as I was concerned my third grade teacher's voice was reminiscent of the adult voices in the Charlie Brown television specials anyway-
a muffled bloc, bloc, bloc ... She rambled a bunch of jumbled grown-up words, that we "bright-eyed and bushy tailed" third graders, hadn't the slightest interest in, especially me since Dexter was the center of my world. My teacher's name was Mrs. Keysler, and she wore cat-eyed sixties style glasses with a chain that jangled when she walked, which served as a warning to mischief makers at recess.

My first and only encounter with Dexter was one day while I was staring at him drawing, my heart ricocheting around in my chest, and I noticed a shiny whistle on the top of his desk. Ordinarily, I couldn't take my eyes off Dexter, however on this day he brought along some stiff competition. Dexter's new whistle wasn't one of those toy whistles one would find in a Kracker Jack box... no sirree, Dexter's whistle was a genuine silver army grade whistle, and I was fascinated by it. Dexter noticed me staring at it resting on the corner of his desk by his drawing pad, so he quietly picked it up and placed it in my hand, while Mrs. Keyster continued speaking in the background, bloc, bloc, bloc, bah, bloc… I felt an array of new exciting emotions overwhelm me, beginning with feeling like a different person. I was holding the whistle Dexter put in my hand, and sitting close enough to him to touch his copper colored hair. I was in a trance as I turned the whistle over and over in my hand, put it in my mouth, and blew as hard as I could- the room went silent.

However, the hushed sound of children’s voices began to fill the empty silence, followed by the snickering sound children make before the finger pointing begins... It's such an annoying tactic among tattlers, whose goal in life is to retire as the teachers pet. I could feel the stares, and of course, see their self-serving tattler fingers rise to the occasion, which happened to be in my direction! I heard one little girl cry, “She is sooo dumb!” as I sat there horrified, my face growing hot and flushed with humiliation.

Humiliation is just one of an array of emotions I associate with the day I blew Dexter's whistle; it's also one of those funny to me now, not so funny then, experiences especially since my teacher made me stand in the back of the classroom the rest of the day.

After that, Dexter (who may have turned out to be an illustrator) looked at me with a cautious look on his face for what seemed like the rest of my life, and the girl who called me “soooo dumb” turned out to be one of my closest friends, even if it was years later. We never know what our children are going through in a day, or experiencing with their first crush, do we?

My mother thinks to this day that I just blew a whistle in the middle of class for absolutely no reason that she can phantom. Do you know who your children are thinking about today?

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