4 June 1971

I'm writing this on June 4th so for me it is 43 years ago today. Since it will be published tomorrow for you it will be 43 years ago yesterday. What was the world like 43 years ago. It was a simpler time. I was between my junior and senior year in high school. School had just been let out for the summer. It was time to start baling hay and straw with the neighbors, rouging corn for the detasselers and walking what seemed like endless rows of soybeans. It was before Roundup ready beans and those weeds weren't going to die on their own. They needed a boy with a hoe who was willing to walk miles in the summer sun for a dollar and a quarter an hour. It was pre- gas crisis and Arab oil embargo so that would buy you about 3 gallons of gas. The music on the radio was varied. On June 4th the number one single in the United States was "Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones. In the U. K. it was "Knock Three Times" by Dawn. If you wanted to go down under in Australia the number one song was "Another Day" by Paul McCartney. The famous birth on that date is Noah Strausser Speer Wyle who was born in Hollywood, California. He is most famously Dr. John Carter from the television series ER. History only means something when it is personal. June 4, 1971 has special meaning for me. It was a Friday and that meant if you had the nerve, if you were willing to brave the chance of soul crushing rejection you could ask that pretty girl from school out on a date. I took a chance and asked Carol out. It surprised me when she agreed. I asked her to go to a movie with me and the most promising show in town that night was Ryan's Daughter. I took a few minutes today to read up on the movie because the only thing I remember about it is the title. My memories of the evening are more about how nervous I was sitting in a dark theater with a pretty girl. Holding her hand and hoping mine was sweating so much that it would offender her. How much Hai Karate cologne is too much? Thinking back on that decision maybe any was too much. It was a long movie and I had a 10:00 pm deadline to be home. When you have the family's 1970 Plymouth Fury II for the evening and a father who would scare any sane teenager you wanted to be home on time. I think that if it had been necessary I would have led the police on a high speed chase just to pull into the driveway on time. Getting to use the car for the next date rested on getting home on time with an undamaged car. The good news for me is that there would be a next date, and another, and lots more. Eventually there would be a wedding, and kids and grandkids. So when it is all said and done the important history is personal. Number one songs, movies and celebrity births don't matter as much as that pretty girl from school saying yes when I asked her out on our first date. So Carol my everlasting thanks for taking a chance on an awkward socially backward farm boy. You have held my love and my heart since that day and will forever more.