I Have A Picture Of Dexter, My First Crush

Me Mean girl in yellow Dexter
(Get a load of my hair)


This is my third grade classroom, the scenery of my first post(after "read more" below) to receive a lot of comments. The popularity of the post has remained consistent throughout my months of blogging. Maybe because it's about a first crush, even if the theme is recyclable. I guess people can relate because we never forget our first crush. I noticed when I read the comments that we seldom forget our first loves name, others things , but not their name. For example, I forgot what Dexter looked like until I went through my mothers pictures last weekend looking for him.

I decided to repost this post to celebrate and thank google for my first report card.(PR page rank) You know, third grade, report card, I know it's corny, but I also bought a new scanner and found a picture of Dexter. In addition, I wanted to publicly thank my best friend Christy, from Christy's Coffee Break for encouraging me to blog and for letting me in on the good news from Google. If you're a beginning blogger be sure and check out Christy's Blogging tips every Tuesday, it pays off. I've been lucky to have more experienced bloggers in addition to Christy, take me under their wing since I first signed in on blogger. For instance, Sandee at Comedy Plus, and Dawn at Twisted Sister's friendship has been an invaluable treasure while launching, A Nice Place In The Sun, including all of you that visit often and comment every day. Thank you for your support and friendship (I hope you know who you are) and you most certainly have mine in return.

I've been checking and rechecking the toolbar all week, and I'm grateful to google for such a nice report card. Although it isn't as valuable (sorry google) as your friendship and the support of my readers. Alright I'll stop with the mushiness, and let you go to meet my classroom or read the comments, unless you're out of time now from the length of this post. I've encircled some of the characters in the post with the exception of Mrs. Keysler, of course, you can tell who she is without a circle.

Please enjoy my memory of Dexter, my first love, the mean girl who called me dumb, my third grade teacher, and a whistle.



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, or what he looked like, except that he loved to draw, and drew a perfect Charlie Brown. Dexter sat across from me in class, so I watched him draw everyday, while I thought about other things instead of listening to our teacher. When our third grade teacher lectured, all I heard was a voice reminiscent of the adult voices in the Charlie Brown television specials. In other words, I heard, bloc, bloc, bloc, roll off her tongue most of the day. To me, she just rambled a bunch of jumbled grown-up words, that we "bright-eyed and bushy tailed" third graders, hadn't the slightest interest in. Her name was Mrs. Keysler, and she wore those cat-eyed sixties glasses with a chain that jangled when she walked, so we could here her coming at recess. Anyhow, one day while Dexter was drawing, and I was staring at him, my heart thumping around in my chest, I noticed a new shiny whistle on the top of his desk, and when I asked him if I could look at, he put it in my hand. Our teacher continued speaking in the background, bloc, bloc, bloc, bah, bloc… as I turned the whistle over and over in my hand. Then I took the whistle, put it up to my mouth, and blew it as hard as I could! The room fell silent.

After which, I heard the hushed sound of children’s voices fill the empty silence, followed by that snickering sound children make before they start pointing fingers! It's such an annoying tactic among tattlers, whose goal at this time in their 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, and point in my direction! I heard one little girl cry, “She is sooo dumb!” I just sat there, horrified, as my face grew hot and flushed with humiliation. I thought of this story when thinking of what to write as part of an “about me” profile for a writer’s social community. I was thinking of why I became a writer…, which is another post, that lends a reference to how important a role I think teachers play, in helping us shape our self image; so I guess I was thinking of my teachers, and for some reason Dexter popped into my head!

Anyway, that's what I remember about my first crush; 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! We never know what our children are going through in a day, or experiencing with their first crush, do we?

I’ll have to ask my son about his experience with his first crush. Do you remember yours?

I was so proud of the comments I received from this post. Here's the link.