Don't worry, by the time anyone engages in anything, we're eighteen and/or over.
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Somewhere on Highway 60 in southwest Missouri, lying linearly between Joplin and Springfield but not quite halfway, you'll find Campania County -- fitting, since Campania is Italian for 'countryside,' and Missouri doesn't get much more rural than this. To give you an idea of how far southwest we are, we're two counties north of Arkansas, two counties southeast of Kansas, and two counties northeast of Oklahoma.
The county seat is Naples, population about seventeen hundred; here, in the early fall of 1956, is where everything began which led to today. On the first day of that year's first grade, two farm boys -- Jack Kelley and Gilbert Swindon -- became fast friends and would remain so throughout high school and past it. Their graduation, however, would see them on different paths. Since this was now 1968, with the Vietnam War in full swing, Gil decided not to wait to be drafted; he enlisted in the Marines, serving a two-year tour before returning to Naples and marrying his high school sweetheart, Marlee McCord.
Jack, meanwhile, had other ideas. While he admired his friend's decision, he did not share it; as valedictorian of their class, he wanted to take his hard work and grades to a different level. Figuring Uncle Sam's chain was best left unrattled, Jack waited to see if he would be drafted (spoiler: he managed never to be), and no place suited his waiting so well as the University of Missouri at Columbia. He chose mechanical engineering for a major, graduating in 1972; the previous Christmas, he met a sophomore psychology major named Rebecca Francis. She came from Heidelberg, a middle-class suburb of St Louis, and was as much a part of her environment as Jack was of his; nonetheless, they were soon inseparable. Two years after they met, he proposed and she accepted.
Rebecca graduated on a Saturday in May 1974, and married Jack the following Friday. Nine months and two days later, I came along.
My name's Jason Kelley. Pleased to meet you.
Dad quickly made himself at home in Heidelberg, but always felt himself to have a home-away-from-home in Naples, where Grandpa Jack and Grandma Fiona welcomed us every time, and so did the Swindons. In the fall of 1976, Mom and Mrs Swindon became closer friends, since both were pregnant at the same time. Mom was expecting my brother Aaron, born in June 1977, and Mrs Swindon followed a month later with a daughter she would name Emily. Emily would be an only child, while Mom and Dad would follow with Trevor by the time I was four. I always enjoyed the trips down to Naples to see Grandma and Grandpa, the time on the road, the reading of green signs along Interstate 44; once I turned about thirteen or fourteen, however, I began to live for them, because that's when I realized I had a crush on a Naples girl, and not just any girl -- you guessed it. Emily Swindon.
On a Sunday a year or so into this crush, when I was fifteen to her thirteen or thereabouts, I complimented her on the not-quite-knee-length blue floral dress she had worn to the church we both attended. She smiled and said, "Aww thanks, that's sweet!" As she said it, she took my hand, then whispered in my ear, "I do it for you, you know." She then let go of my hand, but not without a quick but gentle kiss on my lips; I leaned in, to let her know I felt the same. As she walked back to her parents' car, she smiled at me again. I could have flown back to Heidelberg.
And that, for the next few years, is where things stood -- and by 'stood,' I mean 'stood still as a stone.' There wasn't much opportunity for me to date her when I was in town, and the school year saw us five hours away. Aaron and Trevor would not come to be interested in her, and I never held much hope that she would be mine; surely she would go along with some Naples guy, and that would be the end of that. She'd smile to see me, hug me like an old friend, but I never thought anything would ever come of us. With my mind so set, I concentrated on my schoolwork and went on to Columbia upon graduation. Mom and Dad didn't have to pressure me to go there; I'd bled black and gold my whole life and (as you might guess) had come by that honestly. Moreover, Mizzou had what I wanted: an agribusiness major, as I had acquired an affinity for helping Grandma and Grandpa out with aspects of keeping the farm's records straight. I was the only one of my brothers or cousins who wanted to take on the responsibility, and that included the cousins in and near Campania County; let's face it, running a farm is a lot of work, but I learned to thrive on it. More to the point, Grandpa Jack passed away shortly after Mom and Dad's twentieth wedding anniversary in May 1994; someone needed to help Grandma Fiona run things, and so I began to learn.
A year later, I had come 'home,' if you will, to Naples for the summer, at my choice. I had kept my mind on the farm and my studies, being two years away from graduation; to this point, affairs of the heart weren't on the agenda, and wouldn't be for a while yet.
Or so I thought.
After church one Sunday morning in July of that year, Mr and Mrs Swindon approached Grandma and me, asking if we'd like to go right out to lunch with them, to a mom-and-pop family restaurant in town. Grandma said a more polite and reseved Yes, while I jumped at my Yes. I then spoke up about the reason and the occasion.
"Happy birthday!" That's right. Emily was turning eighteen today.
After her "Aww thanks!" and the adults' playful, condescending "Now now"s, we were off. Over dinner, the conversation was light, keeping mostly to how the summer was going and the farms were looking to do; that is, it kept that way until I felt a nudge at my feet, and something brushing my hand -- a piece of paper. I went to open it, but Emily shook her head, silently mouthing the word 'later.' I went about the rest of my meal, wondering what she meant; after we finished, she smiled. "When you get home." I slipped it back in my pocket until then.
Once I was alone, I read it:
"Jason,
I don't know how to tell you this, except to tell you:
I have a thing for you, and I have for a while now.
If you feel like I do, let me know this way; it's got to be this way, because Mom and Dad will see and hear us if we're farther out in the open. So just let me know, and we'll see where it goes.
Emily"
On one hand, I felt like a naughty third-grader, passing notes this way and hoping not to be caught; on the other, it confirmed what I had hoped ever since that kiss we shared those years gone by. I quickly dashed off this reply, which I would hand to her this evening at church:
"My dear Emily,
Yes, I do feel that way, and have for the same time. When can I tell you this in person and not with these notes? Please let me know.
Your Jason"
Never had I meant anything so much in my life as the "My dear Emily" and "Your Jason." I was able to accost her before services and to hand her this note, hoping for a prompt reply. I wasn't disappointed; this is what I read at home that night.
"I'm really your 'dear Emily?' I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!!' Here she had drawn two hearts.
'Are you busy tomorrow morning? Meet me by the fencerow after breakfast.
My dear Jason has made me one happy birthday girl.'
I was her Jason, and at that moment, the happiest man on earth.
As to the fencerow -- the Swindons lived a mile from us, each on eighty-acre plots measuring half a mile north and south by a quarter mile east and west. We faced one county road and they faced another, but our properties abutted each other, separated by a quarter mile of fencerow which ended in a small stand of trees near the north-south road. I immediately came up with a ruse about seeing if the fence needed shoring up; thankfully, Grandma Fiona bought it when I presented it at breakfast. I made my way out to the fence as quickly as I could, finding it in good form and in no immediate need of repairs. At that moment, a voice called out from the stand of trees.
"Over here!"
There she was and on time, as she had promised she would be. My Emily. Checkered blouse, jeans, five-three, a buck fifteen, and what I perceived to be brown hair and blue eyes; the same as mine, except I don't wear glasses. (For what it's worth, I'm five-ten, and at the time weighed one-seventy-eight, mostly solid.) I made my way to her and took her hands in mine.
"Feels good to ... see you ... you look ... great," I said. Twenty that I was, Emily had a way of tying my tongue when I was around her.
"You too, big boy." She eagerly took my hands in hers. "Remember that girl who kissed you when she was thirteen?"
"I'll never forget her," I smiled.
"She may look a little different, but deep down, she's still the same me."
