There must be some mistake. I didn't write that.

Part two of yesterday's post. My memoirs of 1964. This one is filed under the heading: Idiotic things I have done.

…there was Dana.

I was always in love with someone at that age (14 and I was already listening to Sinatra and getting blues in the night). In the 9th grade it was Dana. I was completely smitten by this little blond shiksa goddess. She was the perfect California Surfer Girl (except she never surfed, had alabaster skin, and was kind of a stuck up bitch). But that combo worked for me.

I may have been a nerd but I wasn’t one of those Cliff Clavin- afraid-to-talk- to-girls- without-peening-on-themselves types. I could say hello to girls I had a crush on. Even Dana. She was usually aloof but I didn’t know if that was personal or just her general raging bitchiness.

Two years earlier I had written the then-classmate-of-my-affection a birthday letter and kinda casually mentioned I thought she was the most beautiful creature who ever lived. She found it very endearing and even wrote me back. So I figured, why tell Dana how I felt about her in person and possibly trip on my tongue when I could just convey my feelings in a letter? I spent a good week crafting that letter, rewriting it endlessly until every sentence was a work of art, every sentiment expressed with pinpoint perfection. Very proud of myself, I slipped it in her locker.

What a colossal mistake.

The next day in class, not only did Dana snub me, she passed around my letter to all of her friends. Why didn’t she just set me on fire? That would have been so much quicker. I was the complete laughing stock of the 9th grade.

And how do you save face from something like that? Say there was someone going around forging my name… and handwriting? Claim to be on major psychotropic drugs? Say it was really meant for Dana Delaney? I was so dead. Today the letter would be posted on line and girls from Malaysia would be laughing at me.

For weeks the snickering behind my back continued. Thank God David Millstein took the pressure off by being caught with Maiden Form bra ads in his binder.

Not that that whole Dana experience left any lasting scars or anything, but I have never written another heartfelt love letter. Ever. To anyone.

Aw, school days. Good times.