I was not supposed to be allowed to "date" until I was 16, but I was only 15 when Nicky Robinson asked me out. I met Nicky because he was a member of a United Church youth group with which the G. A. used to get together for movies, dances, and hikes. Nicky was OK with movies and abysmal at dancing, but hiking was his forte. we would pack lunches and head out to one of the many areas around Chemainus and Ladysmith where there were no trails, and just 'splore. There were usually 20 or more of us, with a chaperon or two.
My parents could tell right away that Nicky was a harmless boy, and he really was. On hikes, his lunch was always a package of crackers and a can of sardines. Nobody is going to get into trouble with a boy who has just eaten a can of sardines! I remember one date with him, sans youth group, on which we were supposed to go bowling. For some reason, the bowling alley was closed, so we went fossil hunting.
Fossil hunting!
Not that I have anything against fossil hunting, per se, but when one is all dressed up for the bowling alley and one winds up trudging through the brambles, toting about seventeen pounds of rocks...well, you get the picture. My mom laughed about that for years. She said she never forgot the disgusted look on my face, as I came in the back door and dropped the box of fossils on the porch. Nicky immediately started going through them, clucking about the possibility that they might have been damaged.
One day he arrived for dinner at our house with his hand all bandaged up. We asked him what had happened. It seemed he had sheared off a light bulb thrusting his arm through his shirt sleeve.
Did I mention that he was a bad dancer? I spent several hours trying to teach him to square waltz. What, you may ask, did I get out of it?
A broken toe, that's what!
I treated him very badly, eventually dumping him at a party for a boy who could dance.
But I could only stand so many Desert Flower gift boxes!
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