Playing the game

I am pretty content with my life. I have a beautiful wife who still makes my motor go after more than 20 years together. My son is a handsome young man and is set to graduate from boot camp soon. And my daughter's beauty is only marred by the fact that she is now 14 and her hormones make her moods move one way or another faster than a ping-pong ball at a Chinese table tennis tournament.

But even with that, sometimes I look back and wonder where I'd be if I'd stayed with one girl or another. I'm sure everybody has played the "What if..." game when it comes to former loves. Prior to meeting my wife, I had two girls (women?) that I sometimes play the "What if..." game over.

Lisa Goodsen was a tall brunette with a beautiful smile. When she smiled, it reached up into her eyes, and you could tell just how happy she was by looking in her eyes.

I met Lisa when I was at my second Air Force school in Altus, Oklahoma. The saying goes that there's a girl behind every tree in Altus...only there ain't many trees! But as luck would have it, Lisa was an AF chick, and she was in the class ahead of me.

The night we hooked up was a warm Saturday night in August. All of the enlisted people in school would usually head to the only rock-n-roll bar in town, but for a change we all wound up at a party at one the house of somebody's girlfriend. Lisa and I knew each other vaguely, and we wound up hooking up over a game of Suck Face Spin the Bottle. I know, you'd think we were a bunch of sixth graders instead of adults, but that's what happened. After the kissing came talking, and at the end of the night I took her back to her room.

Lisa was quite sunburned, and a little drunk, and I put her to bed on the one bed and crashed on the other. In the morning I woke up to find her staring at me, and she asked why I hadn't slept in the bed with her. I told her she was sunburned and hot and didn't need me making her any hotter. That simple act of kindness was apparently all she needed to know that I was a good guy. After that, we were inseparable.

We spent the rest of the school together, sleeping in my bed or her's. When she left, I felt like a part of me was gone. And what's funny is we were together for about five weeks. I don't want to make it sound like "We lived a lifetime in those five weeks" or anything. But I connected with Lisa in a way that I had never connected with a girl before.

She was 25, I was 19. Like I said before, she was tall, probably 5'10" or so. I remember not having to bend down any to kiss her. After we had sex for the first time, she scolded me for not taking precautions, but assured me it was okay because she was on the pill, but from now on I needed to use common sense. I think I was the first guy who really treated her nicely, which I credit to my dad who told me years ago to treat a woman the right.

After she graduated, Lisa went to South Carolina, I went to Washington. We would talk on the phone, and I started to make plans to go to South Carolina. I had a girlfriend at home, so I guess I was a bit of a cad, but Lisa was the type of girl that made me want to see where the relationship would go. No immature games, no petty fake anger...she was what all women should be, I think.

Anyway, she sent me a birthday present, and I voiced my thanks for one thing more than another, which hurt her feelings because the thing she gave me that meant a lot to her was a gold plated money clip with an inscription that read "Remember Summer of '87, Holmes." That was what I called her, Holmes.

So she sent me some presents, and was angry at my lack of gratitude over the special one, and I told her that if she didn't like it she could go piss up a rope. Yes, that's what I said...well, wrote, actually. In hindsight, not the smartest thing in the world to write a girl, is it? But I was young, and while my dad taught me some things, he couldn't teach me common sense. I'm a child of the 80's, when guys were either cool or pissed, and my flippant reply was a stupid thing to say to a girl I had feelings for. And that was the last time I ever heard from Lisa.

I sent her another letter or two, apologizing for being so stupid, but I guess what I said to her hurt too much. She'd been married before, to a real jerk, and she didn't like to play games. Her roommate from school was in my squadron, and she told me that Lisa was really hurt. I told her I'd written her, and to please tell her I was sorry. Obviously, it didn't do any good.

And thus ended my affair with Lisa. I heard later that she got married to a guy in her squadron in South Carolina, got out, took a job at a womens correctional facility, and put on a lot of weight.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had gone to South Carolina before she sent that present. Or if I'd gotten in my car and driven the 3000 miles to Charleston and begger her forgiveness. The ultimate "What if..." game, I guess.

It's a part of my past, and I learned from it. And I have very fond memories of that time in my life. Dinners at the club, nights spent wrapped in each others arms, talking about nothing in particular.

And Lisa? I'm still sorry.