"A Deeper Shade of Blue - My Soul Mate" (1/4)

We pulled into her driveway and I turned the engine off. 2735 Walker Avenue, Ontario, California. (You have to be impressed that I still remember that address after all these years) The early afternoon, Southern California sun was shining brightly. It was late in the year, 1979… October or maybe it was November. I’m not sure. I just knew that we hadn’t been dating very long… two or three months at the most.

I tried stalling her as best I could. I didn’t want her to go in yet. So, I searched my mind for interesting or clever things to say.

What I really wanted to communicate was how deeply I felt about her. Man, I was totally smitten with this girl. She had everything a guy could want. She was beautiful, charming, smart, charismatic, enthusiastic, energetic, extroverted, very well-liked by everyone and she was sincerely committed to her faith… our faith.

But it was too soon for the “L” word, right? I mean, common sense relationship rules forbid declarations of “love” during the first six months… I think. The last thing I wanted to do was to scare her off. But man… I was pretty sure I was in love.

I wanted us to be exclusive. I didn’t want any other suiters sniffing around. I wanted her off the market.

I knew it was going to be clumsy, but I felt like I was going to burst if I didn’t give her some indication about how I felt.

I pointed to the shaded portion of the windshield… you know, the blue part at the top?

“See that shaded portion of my windshield?” I asked.

“Um… yeah.” She had no idea where I was going with this.

“Notice how it starts out lightly shaded and then it rapidly transitions into a much deeper shade of blue?” I continued.

“Yeah. I see that.” She laughed, still confused… but seemingly enjoying the cryptic nature of the conversation.

“Well, that describes me.” I stated, matter-of-factly.

She stared at me… wide eyed… saying nothing… anticipating further detail.

“Okay… see… so, that describes me…” I repeated myself. “And how I feel about you.”

Why was this so hard? My heart was beating out of my chest and I was sweating bullets.

“I mean, I don’t feel “blue” about you but… the way that blue part rapidly gets bluer… maybe that’s not a word… how it gets more blue… really quick. That describes my feelings for you. My feelings are quickly getting deeper. Do you know what I mean?”

She giggled and nodded but gave me no indication about feeling the same way… which made me feel like I just blew it! I was trying not to scare her away and I sat there and thought… “I just scared her away!”

I walked her to her door and told her I’d call her later.

On my drive home, I thought about the unlikely path that had led us to this point.

I met Jeana Gordineer in church youth group, the fall of 1975, shortly after I had moved back to California from Iowa. I was 16 and she was only 13. I don’t remember having a second thought about her at that time. I mean, she was 13… a little girl, basically. Plus, I already had a girlfriend.

One of the only pictures I have of Jan and me

Jan Black and I had started dating within weeks of my arrival. She was a great girl who had wonderful parents. They welcomed me into their home and treated me like a son. I think I spent more time at her house than I did at my own. We were pretty much inseparable.

We were both in high school. Jan was a senior at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs and I was a junior at Gahr High School in Cerritos.

There were two incidences, during my relationship with Jan, that I vividly recall seeing Jeana, where my emotions were stirred in such a fashion that I struggled to get her off my mind.

The first one was the fall of 1976, my senior year of high school. Gahr was playing arch rival, Artesia High School in football and I decided to take Jan with me to the game. Gahr used the Cerritos College football stadium for their home games back then and the place was packed!

At halftime, the Artesia cheerleaders came over to our side to perform a couple cheers for us. I guess that was a thing that opposing cheerleaders did.

Jeana - top right.

As they were lining up in some type of formation, Jan pointed down to them and said, “There’s

Jeana… from youth group.”

Jeana - bottom right

I had remembered hearing something about her being a cheerleader at Artesia but hadn’t thought much about it… but there she was. Hmmmm… There. She. Was.

My interest piqued, I watched the routine intently and quickly came to the conclusion that Jeana clearly stood out. She was the best cheerleader out there… by far. And… she was cute too… really cute! Long blond hair, a bronze tan and a bright smile that lit up her face. Wow!

She didn’t look like the “little girl” that I had just met about a year

earlier. In fact, from that point on, I never thought of her as a “little girl” anymore. That night, Jeana Gordineer, the cheerleader, checked into my brain… never to leave it again.

The second incident took place about a week or so later. The church youth group had a miniature golf outing. There was a good group of us. Probably about 30 teens. Jan and I rode together, of course.

We all got our putters and our colored golf balls and lined up at the first hole. As luck would have it, Jeana was in the group right ahead of us and I perked up immediately. I tried not to stare but that was such a difficult task. Why was I suddenly so attracted to this girl?

I spent the evening trying to think of clever things to say to her… without garnering Jan’s attention. That was a tough tightrope to walk.

I started referring to her as “Arnold,” as in “Arnold Palmer,” the golfer.

I know. Corny. But that was the best I could come up with at the time.

I also spent the evening wondering why she was dating the guy that she was with… (I’ll refrain from mentioning his name). He was a member of our youth group and a real dweeb. “She could do so much better than that!” I thought… repeatedly.

From that point on, I played a lot of “what if” games in my mind. What if I was single? What if Jeana was single? What if Jeana was my girlfriend?

But… I had a girlfriend who was a wonderful human being and I wasn’t going to cheat on her or dump her. That wouldn’t be right. It would hurt her and it would hurt her family. I didn’t want to do that. So… I suppressed my feelings for Jeana, as best I could, and life went on.

To be continued…