It was the perfect setting for big romance. A darkened elementary school library in the middle of the West Texas desert.
Back in the 1960s a single story brick building on Poplar Street in the little town of Anthony, Texas-New Mexico was home to both elementary and junior high classes. Located in a residential neighborhood, the school was within walking distance of the homes of almost all of its students.
The building faced the west, and from the front windows you could see the huddle of modest houses where most of the students lived. From the back windows you could see a barn-like structure that served as a high school and a whole lot of sand. Not much else.
Nonetheless, everything worked together to make it the perfect setting for romance! At least for one Friday night in February, 1964. Valentine’s Day.
I was in the eighth grade when the school’s small library, a single large room at the center of the building, was transformed into a grand ballroom to host the social event of the year—a Junior High Valentine’s Day Dance. I think all we did was set up a record player and dim the lights, but that was enough to create the magical and rarified air of romance. The crowd arrived promptly at 7:00 p.m.
For me, that dance was a life changing event, an experience from which I emerged a new person with a brand new perspective on life. It was within the enchanted walls of that library and somewhere between “Hey Paula” and “Rhythm Of The Rain” that I made a discovery. To my surprise I discovered that I preferred the smell of girls to baseball glove leather. Things have never been the same since.
A wonderful alchemy, a mixture of nervous perspiration, hair spray and the inexpensive perfumes of seventh and eighth grade girls magically transformed Debbie, Jane, Dolli, Darlene and every last one of those junior high Valentines into strangely appealing creatures that smelled, well… really, really good. There was one exception—Nancy, my best friend’s sister. Somehow, to have danced with her would have been perverse.
The other thing I remember about that Valentine’s dance was a song called “If I Ever Had Three Wishes,” a rock ballad and “belly rubber” extraordinaire in the Tex-Mex genre, an early and obscure Freddy Fender recording. I don’t know who owned the record, but we must have worn it out that night. The song wasn’t a hit on the radio, but it topped the chart at that junior high dance.
I’ve searched for that record for almost forty years. Finally, as if a Christmas gift, the song appeared on iTunes last week. I’ve been reliving that eighth grade dance ever since.
If I’d really had three wishes back then… well, I guess I’d have wasted them. I’d have probably asked for a car, a driver’s license and some way to bottle the way those girls smelled. As it turns out, I didn’t need the bottle. It’s forever bottled up in my memory,
If I had three wishes today, I’d make different wishes. For every one of those great smelling girls, and for all the boys as well, I’d wish that they each got at least some of what they wanted in life. For those that are gone, I’d wish they were still here with us tonight. But, mainly, I’d wish that we all might have the power to erase our mistakes, to transform hurts into joys, and to make a fresh start.
It would be great to be back at that dance with all the important mistakes of my life still in front of me, still yet to be made. I know I could do better if I had another chance. What most of us wouldn’t give for a fresh start!
Now, here’s the good news. We already have the power to erase our mistakes, and we can have a fresh start any time we need one. As many times as we need one. God has already granted us those wishes, and he didn’t stop there. He was just getting started.
God gave us himself. He gave us love. An ever flowing and unending fountain of love. Enough love to grant every wish and to make every dream come true.
We need only to unwrap the gift and let it flow into our lives—into our love for our families, friends, children, husbands and wives. It is in our love for one another that we find and experience the love of God, and in the beauty, joy and wonder of his gifts. Gifts like the hope in the wishes we make, and the magic of those sweet smelling girls at the junior high dance.
If I ever had three wishes, I’d wish for us all the wisdom to see all the wishes that have already come true.
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This brings up fond memories for yours truly — even tho’ I cannot smell, and the jr. high dance memory for me is set in Halfway, Oregon, a village in a green valley in the shadow of the awesomely tall Wallowa Mountains in the northeast of the state.
I love that line about preferring the smell of girls to that of baseball glove leather! (Even tho’ I’ve never been able to smell.) What a picturesque (can that word be used about a smell description?) allusion to jr. high puberty & all it entails. . . .
I’m happy for you that you found that oh-so-special song again (after almost two generations), and on iTunes. This tells me that perhaps there ARE saving graces to all this hi-tech web of stuff we 21st-Century folk are getting enmeshed in.
And then. . . you draw a spiritual message out of this memory & the song! Wow! this’ll preach (as we seminarians said to one another at Brite Divinity School when I was there)!