As I sit on my porch just as the sun is about to wake everyone else up I watch as the newly born spring hares lick the suckling dew drops from the overgrown grass and the birds as they sing to one another their songs of praise and gratitude. It reminds me of the summer where I began the journey that made my life the happiest experience anyone could have ever asked for. It all began with a beautiful morning day like today on June 17th, 1946. My father had just gotten back from a shipment out to fight the nazis in Norway and I remember because he still wore his uniform everywhere he went as if it was an obligation. But me and father were going into town to put gasoline in the coach which I had to help pay for because, well, father was at war. I had on my brand new fedora that I payed for, can you believe it cost me $3 it took me two and half weeks to get that money. But by golly was it a beautiful little treasure. The stitching around the perfectly crafted brim which was so grey it made you think about how many colors were taken from the thread to create such a masterful tone of safistication. Whilst father, my fedora, and I were walking down the street that most unexpected breeze came out of nowhere and blew my darling right off my head. But this breeze, yes this breeze wasn't like any other breeze, it had a meaning I could tell right when the warm mist it was carrying grazed my face. As I turned back to see where sweetie was going there was this man in the roughest of shape wearing only his denims and boots nothing else with his foot on MY hat. Who would do something like this, I payed for it myself, not him. But as I moved my gaze to the left of this black whole there was the most luminescent moon there was and will ever be. She was gorgeous an absolute marvel. It was if my hat the beautiful, ah what's it called? a fedora that's it, was trumped by her absolute radiance. The breeze that took my treasure guided me to the end of the rainbow. I couldn't stop watching her hazel eyes which were shyly looking down and would glance up to catch my staring gaze. As she bit her lip her brunette strands gently brushed her elegant freckled embedded cheeks when I suddenly harnessed this feeling of extreme eagerness./ Although I knew I couldn't ask her for her name or address in front of her company I did so anyways because frankly what is life worth living without taking risks once and a while. And boy you should've seen the look my father and hers gave me. It was if I had shot her to take her home in paper wrapping to barbecue her for dinner that night. To my absolute surprise she gave just a tiny little crooked smile that made her even more imperfect to an extent that made her the thing that I needed to have been presented in my life. With a voice that was softer then the most extravagant silk she gave her name and address. Charlotte Ann Waterford at 6991 Chesterland way. For some reason that name had an every bearing spot in my heart because I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina and moved when mother died 9 years after I was born. As we parted ways and they passed us I picked up the aroma of this new found love. It's like the spring showers met and made an angel of a smell with the grape vineyards of Vienna.
After the gasoline had been gathered and put in the coach I couldn't get the initials C.A.W. and the four digit welcoming with Chesterland way to guide my first step towards the unknown out of my head. That night after another silent dinner with father I asked to be excused from the table and went straight to bed. As the time went from 8:30pm to midnight I couldn't get her out of my busy mind. So just then I slowly and carefully creeped out of my bed and out my bedroom window to where I could just jump off the roof to a 7 foot drop. Chesterland, I realized, was just a thirty minute walk down he road. But I couldn't walk, I ran, I ran as hard as I could not realizing I made it to 6991 in just fourteen minutes. It must have been a record because when I got there my heart was faster then a junebug on a summer night. After I helped myself calm down a little I picked up a pebble from the soft dirt and tossed it at the awaiting glass. After the tiny chink sound I saw her once again and this time I fell deeper into the endless cavern that held our love. When I saw her smile I knew that this was going to be the night of a lifetime. She held up her index finger motioning for me to wait which was already hard enough to do when I was running but I was willing. She emerged from the front door which was peculiar to me but it was forgotten once she came so close to me I felt her warmth against my goose bump filled skin. I then grabbed her hand which was unbelievably damp and started running making sure I never let go for any reason. I didn't necessarily know where we were going, just that trees and brush kept passing us while we laughed and smiled our way to what ended up being a clearing with a placid pond with fireflies lighting the sky with their luminescent songs. The spring peepers were still active this late in the year which made music for us to dance to. The next thing that happened will be the most ingrained feeling and images that I will ever experience. While we were dancing she kissed me and as our lips touched for the first time it was as if everything I knew as true beauty; the flowers of May or the mid summer sunrise, had been compacted into the one inch area of what was now the only thing I could think about. The sweet taste reminded me of home with the freshly grown strawberries and various fruits. She pulled away and I was caught with my eyes still closed and leaning. She then left me after saying, "I...I'm sorry but I have to go." I was so confused but I guess I just didn't care because after she left I collapsed with a smile on my face to stare at the stars.
I finally woke up to the sun beating down on my face and my name being screamed from the nearby woods. I had completely forgotten to go home and had slept by that pond all night. My father had eventually found me after I walked away from the oasis to the road where he had given up looking for me. He was not in the best of moods when I found him but he wasn't too angry considering I've snuck out before.
The summer went by extremely fast considering I ended up not having to sneak out at night to go see Charlotte. My father just smiled when ever I ran out the door knowing exactly where I was going. I just assumed that everyone had to meet this way and have an amazing time with someone just like her at least once in their life. We continually went to that lonely pond but each time we went it was more of a memory that drove us instead of our love to remind us of how we met. Every time we went we danced like we did the first night and we kissed like we did the first night but it wasn't the sparks that flew that drove us to do this it was the familiarity of it. We became one couple instead of two people the night we lay among the grass with the stars and conceived our first child Henry James Waterford. I wanted the child to keep her last name because I never wanted to destroy pure beauty.
Since we were both out of high school, at the end of the summer I asked her to marry me at that very pond. I couldn't afford a ring but I gave her my every loving promise that I would put a ring on her finger and gave her my fedora that her father had stepped on that early summer afternoon.
This is why I now sit here alone with that fedora on my head, the beautiful horizon, the placid pond, the grass where we first kissed, and her ring brazen upon my left hand with the engraving "Charlotte will always be in my heart."
