Mick and Carla McMahan.
Here’s an excerpt from my latest piece, “The Luckiest Boy on the Planet,” which was recently published in the Gaston Gazette:
When I joined my new classmates, they were at morning recess on the playground across from the school. I quickly found some boys with whom I had played baseball and football. As we stood talking, I noticed a very pretty girl standing on the girl’s side of the red clay field. She was tall with brown hair and wearing a navy blue dress that buttoned up the front. My heart leapt in my chest. She was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.
Since we were seated in alphabetical order, Mrs. Hoffman assigned me to a desk right behind that pretty girl. Her name was Carla McGinnis. I could barely breathe as I placed my books beneath my desk and sat behind her. It was clear, however, that the attraction wasn’t mutual. I was nearly six feet tall and weighed just 130 pounds. I had thick eyebrows and a face that hadn’t caught up to its nose and ears. My curly dark hair was well oiled with Vaseline hair tonic and swept back at the sides in the fashion of the day. Carla smiled politely, but I could see she was just being nice.
Two years and forty pounds later, a little less hair tonic and a lot of persistence convinced her to go on a double date with her cousin, his girlfriend and me. I kissed her on the lips in the back of a 1954 Ford. Holy cow! Wowee kaloosa! That was it! My world changed forever.
Read the rest at the Gaston Gazette website or view the PDF.
