Firsts

As I was driving home from class last night, the song "Land Down Under" by Men At Work came on the radio and I remembered that their album, Cargo, was the first music I bought with my own money. It was on cassette, of course, and I bought it at Ken's Food Market in American Falls, Idaho. I remember the cartoony cover with a crate with a parachute being dropped from a plane. It struck me as funny that I remembered that particular first and I started thinking of other important firsts that I could identify.

First Best Friend: Gavin Mikesell in Blackfoot, Idaho. We were in Mrs. VanEpps' kindergarten class together and would rush over to my house after school to catch episodes of Specterman. I remember he slept in an old school hospital bed because his mom was a nurse and she got it on sale.

First Comic Book: It's an issue of the Justice League of America. I still have it even though the cover is falling off. They battle the Star-Tsar and Green Arrow quits the League. He's on the cover shouting at the other members, saying "You won't have Green Arrow to kick around any more!" Needless to say, I didn't get the Nixon reference at the time.

First Crush: Comeemee Johnson also in Blackfoot, also in Mrs. VE's class. She was Shoshone-Bannock and had enormous, dark eyes. Gavin and I had a little unspoken competition going for her.



First Car: A Volkswagen Vandetta, a.k.a. The artmobile a.k.a. Satan. It was a kit car from the late 60's/early 70's that my dad bought for me from my painting teacher, Don Ricks. It was brick red and had a tinted, circular window in the back that screamed "I was groovy two decades ago." Don had stenciled "Don Ricks, Artist" on the side. Dad got me some rubbing compound and soon it just said "Artist." And thus, the artmobile was born. I loved it and thought it was completely cool but it was not without limitations. It had no backseat to speak of and, strictly speaking, wasn't street legal. The entire back half was made out of fiberglass so if I'd ever been in a wreck, I probably would have died. The thing broke down constantly and smelled like gasoline. I eventually just nicknamed it Satan.



First Job: Washing dishes at Golden Corral in Rexburg, Idaho. I was fifteen. It was awful. The place went out of business while I was there. (I'm not implying cause and effect.) The last weekend before it closed, everyone sort of went nuts. Eric, one of the cooks, discovered that the plastic serving trays would shatter if you hit them against a corner hard enough. He went through about 20 before someone told him to stop. Two of the waiters took smoke breaks every fifteen minutes. I stole a cheesecake.

First CD: The Beauty and the Beast soundtrack. My mom bought it for me when I got a boom-box style CD player for Christmas when I was 12 or 13. My kids still listen to it.

First Date: The Sweetheart's Ball with Alisa Millar at Madison High School in early 1990. She wore ruby taffeta. I wore a matching tie. After the dance we went to Darla Grover's house, watched "The Land Before Time" (?) and made smores. I still have the picture but it's in storage in Idaho. If I had it, I'd scan it to show you all just exactly how young, pimply, and tiny I looked at age 16.

First Kiss: Alisa Millar on my doorstep, two or three dates later. It was sweet and clumsy. At the time, you would have thought I'd won the lottery or something. After I went inside, it was all I could do to keep from doing a breakdance of celebration.

First Heartbreak: I could go with Sunni Sorenson on this one but instead I'll say Antonia Decker. We dated secretly before my mission and then she moved to Georgia. After being gone for a couple of months, she stopped writing me gooey love letters and then eventually just stopped writing at all. When I called to ask her what was going on, she told me that we were just a "fling" and that she was actually going to marry Richard Clifford in a couple of months. Ouch. I was such a sucker.


First "F": In American Lit 2 from Hal Helwig (pictured above) at Idaho State. After not really attending class for almost two weeks, I still tried to hand in a paper. It came back to me the next class with a note that read, "Mr. Brown, this is not a correspondence course. Please see the attendance policy on the syllabus." Not a happy time.

First Time I Saw Suzanne: In Jim Papworth's poetry class at Ricks College, on the second floor of the Smith building. She was sitting in the middle toward the back. I thought she was really pretty. I sat toward the front, against the wall. She thought I was really obnoxious.

First Child: Maryn. She came out cone-headed and screaming. I will always remember that, amid her shrieking, she recognized my voice, stopped crying for just one second, looked my direction, and then went back to screaming bloody murder.

That's all the important firsts I can think of right now. (All the ones I'm willing to publish on the Internet anyway.)