Crocodiles and a Cowboy.... A Tale of Young Love

Love is many splendored thing, or so they say.  The truth is I've never been real good at it.   This story begins with me and one of my best friends, Travis Hill.  He had hair back then and did not look like the 5 time winner of the Charlie Brown Look-A-Like Contest that he is now.  Travis and I were doing some part-time work after school and on weekends doing yard work.  It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and we decided to grab some lunch while we were between jobs.  He happened to notice two girls that he knew from school walking down the sidewalk.  We stopped and talked and gave them a ride home.  Plans were made for a double-date the next weekend.
The weekend came around and Travis and I went to pickup our dates.  I was driving a white Ford Escort back in those days.  Dinner and a movie were the plans.  We go to pickup my girl first.  She was a very attractive girl, a little on the skinny side and very shy.  Still the kind of girl you like to be seen with.  Our first stop was the movie theater,  Crocodile Dundee II had just came out.  I'm sure the movie was kind of awkward with her being shy, and me being well, awkward.  When the movie was over, we proceeded to what was at the time one of the biggest eating establishments in Griffin.  You guessed it, we went to Shoney's.  Dinner was fun, there was a lot of laughing and acting crazy, but with me and Travis, that's pretty much the norm.  The date was over, Travis' girl had to be home by midnight, so we dropped her off first.  My date lived on the way home anyway so we had already decided to drop her off later.
I have always considered my self much more suave' than I really am.  I walked my lovely date to the door and gave her the usual "had a nice time, hope to see you again" blah blah blah.  This time I really did want to see her again, though.   The front door was on a small porch and had a wrought iron rail around it.  I decided to sit on top of the rail with her in front of me and continue to pour every line of bull crap I could give her.  It's late, I'm getting ready to leave, and I decided to lean in and try to get a kiss.  She had a different idea and reached in and goosed me on the side.  I am a very ticklish person.  I always have been.  Anyway, back to the story, she tickled me and I flinched.   Now get the visual.  I am perched on top of a wrought iron rail with my feet on the bottom rail on a porch that was about 4 steps up.  My lovely date is standing directly in front of me just between my knees.  Directly behind me is a large, rather neatly manicured holly bush.   I lean in for the kiss, she retaliates with a tickle.  I then proceed to flip backwards off of the porch into the holly bush.  It seemed like the bush just swallowed me whole.  The pain was unimaginable.  By the time I manage to fight my way out of the holly bush, I'm standing there bleeding and crying but still trying to be as cool as ever.  She is on the porch trying her best to hold back a giggle.  I look at my car and it looks like it's having coniptions.  Travis is laughing so hard the whole car was shaking.  I tell the girl that I will give her a call tomorrow.  When I dropped Travis off 15 minutes later, he hadn't said a word, he was still laughing even as I backed out of his driveway.
There were several other incidents during our brief relationship, like the time she wouldn't get out of the car to help me catch a dog.  Our last date is something I will never forget.  I go to pick her up at her house and arrive as her parents are leaving to go celebrate their wedding anniversary.  I go in and my lovely lady is sitting in the living room on an ottoman.  It was one of those over-sized ottomans that a couple people could sit on. I sit down next to her and we start talking, when i notice she has tears in her eyes.  We sit there and talk, not about too much because I never did figure out what she was crying about.  I just stared into her eyes as we talked.  Anyways, I finally after about 2 months of trying got my first kiss from her.  I still remember it well.  She still ranks up there as one of the best kissers I've ever seen.  An hour had passed and kissing led to some other things, and was about to most likely lead to some most serious things.
I was beginning to think that I was going to get lucky, but my luck was soon to change.   The front door swings open and it was her parents.  Her dad was normally a likeable fellow.  This time however he was not.  It seems he had gotten drunk and been kicked out of the local Moose Lodge.  I remind you, he had only been gone an hour and it was their wedding anniversary.  He was a gunsmith and a gun collector.  I was a goofy kid who just happened to be dating his beautiful daughter.  Details become very fuzzy at this point.  The  only real memory I have is of a lot off angry cursing aimed in my direction and the yielding of the largest, shiniest, most spectacularly intimidating cowboy gun that I have ever seen.  I figure he brought it out for his anniversary.  Dirty Harry would have been proud to have owned this thing!  I realize that it is time for me to immediately get the hell on.  She figures it best for her to stay.  I tried calling her a couple of times after that but nothing.  It was for the best though.  I can't imagine what kind of shotgun he may have had in case their needed to be a wedding.