His name was John . . . red hair . . . freckles . . .
. . . we were in the first grade together . . .
. . . I fell hard.
I've always been obsessed with red hair . . . maybe it's the Irish in me . . . who knows?! I started out blonde, and as I grew older my hair darkened to a mousey brown. I secretly wanted red hair though . . . even going to the extreme of dying it soooooooo many different shades of red through the years. Bottle red, however, never came in the right tone, so I finally gave up on that.
Even today I still love red hair.
John was a carrot top, and he was fun to hang around . . . he was the younger, less serious brother in his family. Kevin, dark-headed and brooding, the elder brother was too over the top for me. Kevin grew up to become an FBI agent . . . "fitting," I always thought.
I don't remember how long they were in Spain, but they were our "sponsor family" when we arrived. I never asked Mom what it meant that they sponsored us, but I assume that it simply meant they helped us settle in to life overseas. We were at their house a lot. They lived in Old Base Housing . . . cool looking, Spanish style homes with tile roofs . . . not far from the beach. I say cool looking . . . I just Googled it . . . a little different than I actually remember . . .
Doesn't matter . . . I just loved being there! We lived in New Base Housing which were just apartments with paper-thin walls . . . I hated it!
His dad's name was Patrick, and his mom's name was Patricia. I always thought that was hysterical: Pat and Pat!
As in all my Navy stories, kids come and go . . . they left Spain . . . moved on . . . eventually wound up in Florida. I know that because my parents kept in touch with them, and we even visited them on occasion since Aunt Paige and Uncle Jim lived down there too. I didn't stay in touch with John though . . . we were just kids . . . we lived separate lives.
1984 was the year I moved to Orlando. Hadn't thought about John or his family in years. Visiting with old friends of my parents was low on my list of priorities.
I was at the mall one day . . . wandering around . . . when red hair caught my eye . . . a red-headed man actually! When he turned around, his face triggered some long lost memory of knowledge about who he was . . . I just couldn't place him . . . so I followed him for a bit trying to put a name to his face. After about 20 minutes he turned around and wanted to know why I was following him (the term stalker had yet to be coined . . . and it WAS the 80's).
I told him I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but I just couldn't place him. We chatted for a bit about where we'd been in the last few years . . . college, high school, junior high . . . nothing. Then it hit me . . . "Did you live in Spain in the 70's?"
Of course, it was John! We had a really good laugh about that . . . eventually started hanging out together . . . I visited with him and his family a little . . . it was cool to catch up with his mom and dad . . . he and I even went on a couple of dates.
Didn't work out.
Life is funny Dean . . . the world can be a huge, unknown space, or it can become really small, really fast. Be ready for it to surprise you though . . . life ALWAYS surprises you! And learn to roll with it!
"Expect the unexpected." ~ Unknown
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