NO WAY!!

My family lived in Louisiana during my first through fifth grades. The elementary school was located right across the street from our corner lot home in a middle-class neighborhood. The playground for the school was like my front yard. I played there with all my friends daily. I was a pretty friendly kid. I was always able to mingle and find fun activity with most all the kids around. I was definitely a little Mr. extrovert. Now, I'm not sure what may have triggered my childlike inner desire for the opposite sex, BUT - it was during the 2nd grade that I remember chasing girls around on the playground during recess and giving them little kisses on the cheek! There was one girl in particular in my class that I fancied. She had long dark hair with the cutest smile. I hadn't spoken to her much in class if at all that I remember. But I have a vivid memory of one day chasing her around the playground, catching her, then as I held her against the monkey bar railings I grinned, then as she smiled back, she must have seen my lips pucker, because she quickly turned her head as I leaned in and gave her a friendly peck on the cheek, then I ran away laughing. That "recess activity" all soon ended when one of the girls told the teacher what I was doing, and I got in trouble. But that specific moment of giving this cute girl a kiss on the playground would become indelibly etched into my childhood memory. Then disappointedly, when 3rd grade came around, I no longer saw her in school.

With my father being a pilot in the Air Force, we ended up moving to California in the middle of the 5th grade. While unpacking, I looked upon my prior school yearbooks just for the fun of it. While looking through my 2nd grade book, I saw her picture and simply wondered what might have happened to her. I remember wishing that I could have made more of a friend. Then, in the middle of the 9th grade, the family moved to a suburb of Omaha in Nebraska. After unpacking, I did it again. I would look back on ALL my yearbooks. Then, again, when I flipped through my 2nd grade book, her picture just stood out, as if my curious mind was drawn to it. I thought, "Such beautiful features for a 2nd grader. I wonder what kind of person she's become? I wonder what she looks like these days?" Sincerely just curious as to who this girl from my second-grade class may have turned into.

By the time I was 16, I was a hard rockin' metalhead ROCKING my life away! But I was always a good student. At least I tried. My Junior year, I was in an after-school computer programming lab class that had maybe 20 students in it. A couple of days in, "the pretty girl in the class" who was sitting next to me asked ME for help! I had never seen her before at the school, but that wasn't unusual, I certainly didn't know everyone. She introduced herself as Debbie. We started talking and helping each other figure out how to get pac-man to cross the screen. About a week later she asked where I lived. Because we basically lived in the same direction, she asked if I could give her a ride home instead of inconveniencing her mother to have to come pick her up (she didn't have a car to drive herself). I said "OF COURSE! Not a problem at all!" I was more than happy to give my new friend a ride home every day after school!

On our very first drive to her house, I started inquiring more of who she was, just for conversation. She told me that her stepdad was in the Air Force, and they had just moved here from Arizona.

(me) "OH, you’re an Air Force brat too, eh? So am I! Where else have you lived?"

(her) "Before Arizona we lived in Louisiana."

(me) "No kiddin'? So did I! Where in La.?"

(her) "Shreveport."

(me) "No kiddin'? Me too!"

(her) "Well actually it was a suburb called Bossier City."

(me) "YES, me too!!" Then it hit me like a flash of lightning!! Could it be? No way - Curious, I asked, "What's your last name?"

(her) "Riccetello"

RIGHT THEN AND THERE I KNEW IT WAS HER!!! I’m 99% SURE of the last name!

(me) "You’re not going to believe this, but I think you were in my 2nd grade class!!"

She looked at me as you might imagine, "Are you serious?"

(me) "I'm going straight home and looking in my yearbook, and if I'm right, I'll bring the book to school tomorrow to show you!"

I got home, B-lined to my basement room, reached into the storage space under my waterbed to pull out my box of old yearbooks, I found the second-grade book, flipped a few pages to find my class, and SURE ENOUGH, IT WAS HER!! "Debra Riccetello" - The very girl that I had given a kiss to on the playground and always wondered about over the years!! I was BAFFLED!! I showed her the yearbook the next day at school. She couldn't believe it either! "NO WAY!!"

Of course, at the time, I thought she was my destiny brought to me by the powers that be. To my teenage disappointment, in getting to know her while on our drives home, she revealed that she was still caring for a boyfriend in Arizona. Then soon into the year, she would end up breaking up with "Mr. long distance" and began dating a stud swimmer from the swim team. She had no interest in dating a nonathletic heavy metalheaded goofball. So, we just became the best of friends! I continued to give her rides back and forth from school until she got her own vehicle late in our Senior year. We would never actually have another class together. She would join my friends and I for a movie or a day at the lake or a night out on the town or whatever. But we only ever developed a brother/sister type relationship. She would "teach me" how to be a gentleman and what women look for in a man. Things like opening doors and giving surprise gifts or be sure to clean the sleep from your eyes and don't forget to use deodorant! I learned to be a good listener as she would share her "life as a teenage girl uprooted from Pheonix, Arizona at 16" trials and troubles, as I continued to be a friend who would provide her comfort. Not only did she respect our 2-year friendship enough to ask me to "walk with her" on graduation day, but she would eventually ask me to be an usher on her wedding day! And not only that, but because she had a rocky relationship with both her actual father and her stepdad, she gave ME the honor to dance with her during the father/daughter dance at the reception! What a TRULY AMAZING HONOR that was for me! So, one day, before leaving Nebraska to follow my own destiny into Colorado, I promised Debra that I would never lose touch with her and that she would be my sister for a lifetime! I have always felt incredibly blessed and continually amazed to be able to carry on a friendship over the years! And still, to this very day, I'm completely blown away that this beautiful soul had so magically fallen back into my existence after my curious mind started asking, "I wonder who she became?" BOY, did I find out!! This beautiful friendship that developed truly awakened my mind to recognize that there is something more to this world than meets the human eye (or mind!)! Somehow, someway, I intuitively knew, throughout my childhood, that this 2nd grade little girl in my yearbook, that I had one day given an innocent kiss to on the playground all in fun, would eventually play a heartfelt roll in my world for a lifetime! The question to be pondered is - How did I know??