Wow. I haven't though about Margaret Lakey in years.

Whenever I compose one of my lists of all the women (girls) who have ever turned me upside down, it seems easy to leave Margaret off the list, and yet I suppose she really should hold a place of some distinction: she was my transition between playground infatuations and actual interaction.

To this day I can't begin to explain what I ever saw in her. She was not especially attractive, as I recall. She had a dismal complexion, thick glasses, and pigeon toes. There was nothing about her personality that could be called "sparkling." And yet, from one end of the eighth grade to the other, I was SMITTEN.

She was the first girl I ever danced with (in that subterranean gymnasium in Central Junior High before it burned down). I think Margaret and I and you and Dan Scoville double dated, did we not? And I also seem to remember trying to fix up Paul with Carol Snyder (which was like trying to shove two angry chickens into the same small box).

It must have made an impression on me, the dance I mean, because I remember turning down a ride so that I could walk all the way home, a journey of several miles during which my feet never once touched the ground.

The way in which this relationship came crashing down is a bit fuzzy now (am I repressing something?). I think that I eventually wrote her some kind of love letter (that sounds like me) which was not well received AT ALL. And after that my fickle heart found a new object of devotion (Darla Sovereign, I believe), and Margaret quickly faded from my memory.

What ever happened to Margaret Lakey, I wonder. Do you or Paul remember anything about those days that I am forgetting?