The One That Got Away (Part 2)
“Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you … if you’re young at heart.”
I was hoping that I would run into that girl one more time at Idora Park. I worked there for another three and a half years hoping that she would come back another day. But as I said, I guess she was the one that just got away. I guess Life Goes On.
It’s funny when you want to see someone again and you see people that look like them and you go up and see if it is them but it’s not. After a while you just give up hope.
I remember her saying that she lived in McDonald. It just so happened at that time I had some cousins that moved to McDonald. So, once in a while I would ask them, “Hey, how about if we go for a walk,” hoping that maybe I’d see her.
Unfortunately my cousins were younger and they wouldn’t have known her. And the other problem is I didn’t know what her name. But I never did see her there.
So I went to Ursuline and usually after every chess game a couple of us would go up to pizza Hut on Belmont. One of the reasons was because you could get 3.2 beer. For those who are too young to remember, “3.2 beer,” or “near beer,” was a very low-alcohol adult beverage that used to be sold in restaurants and bars to younger drinkers. Think of it as a starter beer.
In my senior year I was already 18, so I could get a pitcher for everyone. While we were there I saw this girl who looked very much like the girl I had seen at Idora Park. But I wasn’t sure and I didn’t go over the check. I guess being older now, I realize that a girl who just turned 13 and a girl who now would be 16 would look a little bit different. I always wondered what happened to that girl what she look like how her life turned out. But as I said, Life Goes On.
Well, I worked at Idora Park and met a girl named Diane who worked at the basketball hoops. We started dating and eventually got married. We have three beautiful daughters and one great son. I’ve always worked one or two jobs to keep up with the bills and have a little fun in life.
One of my jobs was to pass out phone books all year round. Seems kind of funny, I think of that because everyone has cell phones and all the numbers are on their cell phones. Or they look them up on the computer.
Once I had to go to an apartment complex to pass out the phone books. There were quite a few of them, and the person in charge of maintenance at this complex said, “Just give them to me.”
He said he was going on his break and he would take care of them. He said, “There is my wife now, and my little girl.”
So I said, “Okay, I’ll see you.”
I remember one time that I was delivering phone books in Girard I was looking for this one house that I had a hard time finding it was the number 4 and finally I found it. I knocked on the door to tell him that the phone book was there, but no one answered.
Another job I had was when I started a bakery in Struthers, Ohio. While I was doing the bakery, I had one daughter sell baked goods at the Austintown flea market and the other daughter at the Four Seasons flea market in Campbell. I sold a lot of stuff but had a hard time selling cakes.
So one day I decided to make the cakes not blue or pink, I decide just to make them yellow to see if they would sell. I made one with sweet peas and two of them with yellow roses.
Now I had this lady come up to me and asked me if I can write “I love you” on one of the cakes for her mom. She wanted one of the ones with the yellow roses because her mom loved yellow roses.
I said, “That’s funny, my mother loves roses too.”
She kind of looked familiar. She had these beautiful blue eyes and this gorgeous smile that it’s hard to forget.
But her sister was there, with this flowing red hair, and asked, “Hey, can I have some clothespin cookies?” I kept them on ice because they’re the “good” recipe. I said sure and I got her some. She got them for herself and her sister and they both thought they were very good.
Unfortunately as things go, my wife and I broke up. I moved to an apartment, where I lived for ten years. The guy who moved into the apartment below me said, “You know, you really should date some. There’s plenty of websites that you can look at.” He showed me this one called Plenty of Fish.
You had to fill out the forms and you had to send a picture. Now, he knew that I had done some charity work being a Santa Claus for Christmas and he talked me into wearing my Santa hat for my profile picture.
I saw a picture of this lady and I couldn’t tell how old she was. Her profile said she was looking for someone to be friends with and talk to. At that time, that was basically what I was looking for too.
We got to be friends and talk a lot and after a while we decided to go on a date to meet each other. I told her if she went on a date with me, I would bring her clothespin cookies. Irresistible, I know.
We met at Dunkin Donuts. Unbeknownst to me, she had her brother sitting not too far from us just in case I was a bad guy. But after a few minutes, she told me that he was there and she waved at him and told him he could go home.
She told me that the reason she was looking for just a friend was that her husband had passed away almost a year before and she just want someone to talk to, and maybe go out and see a movie or just to have fun with.
We talked for about a half hour and then she looked at me and said, “Where’s my clothespin cookies?”
I said I had them in the car.
She said, “Shouldn’t they be in here?”
I said okay and I went and got them.
She really loved them.
I took her home and that’s when things got weird.
The house where she lived was the same house I had so much trouble finding that day when I was dropping off phone books.
We set up another date at my apartment and I made dinner for her. We talked about everything.
And that’s when things got really weird.
She told me that the last job her husband had was working on an apartment complex as a maintenance manager, and that she would go there every once in a while to meet him for lunch, usually with their daughter.
I told her that was kind of funny, because of that one time I dropped off phone books at that apartment complex.
She couldn’t get over how good my clothespin cookies were. I said I had a bakery in Struthers and that I used to sell things at the flea markets. She said, “Well I bought a yellow cake for my mom one time and I asked the guy there to write ‘I love you’ on it because yellow roses were her favorite flowers.”
I said that was me. That was the first day that I changed over to yellow cakes. Those were my mom’s favorite flowers, too.
I started showing her some memorabilia that I had from Idora Park. She told me that one time, she had gone there and that she met this guy who worked at the punk rack where you threw the ball at the clowns and they talked most of the morning.
She told me how her father got angry at the guy because she spent all her money while she was talking to the guy and that she didn’t win anything.
“So, the guy that worked there gave me this pink cat that I kept most of my life. It was pink and fluffy and had a gold and black necklace around its neck. I kept it until about 1990 when my backyard flooded and everything in my storage shed was ruined,” she said. “I named it Murphy, and it went around the world with me.”
I looked at her probably with a bit of disbelief. I said, “That was me who gave it to you. I never thought I’d never see you again because I never asked you what your name was.”
We both looked at each other and smiled and held each other very tight.
Since that day we have never been apart. We’ve been living together for the past seven years and plan to get married next Christmas.
The girl who got away is here to stay. “Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you ... if you’re young at heart.”
See you on the Midway!
