This probably should have been written for Valentine’s Day, but perhaps it is not too late for us old folks. This is also not the kind of thing I usually write, but perhaps it fits the “Remember When” concept somewhat . . .

When I was writing columns for Prime Times, the newspaper formerly published in Hendersonville and distributed free throughout Western North Carolina, the editor suggested topics for us to write about. I told her that if I could write about romance, I’d be rich—and sent her an old Bulletin column about taking my cow to the bull when I was about 11 years old.

The next year Fran and I both submitted little essays, and both were published. Now I submit this one to my editor, hope she will publish it and that you will identify with me.

I am writing this from four score years of experience, for I have been falling in love regularly for about as long as I can remember. I don’t mean the deep and abiding love enjoyed by lifetime partners, not the Biblical “agape” love supposed to be shared by Christians, and certainly not the lust that arouses something entirely different. No, I mean the lift we get, the heightened awareness, that comes from being attracted to a person we meet.

I still remember the first girl I met when I was four years old. She was somehow different from me, and well, interesting. I did not understand why she was interesting, but I liked being with her. When I started to school, there was one girl in my class that I liked especially well, and told my mother about her in glowing terms: “She has long brown hair, sort of in ropes.” I think Mother understood what her puppy was experiencing.

In third grade she was a blonde with short curly hair and big blue eyes. Sixth grade she played piano; seventh, a beauty with black hair and blue eyes; 11th, a tall skinny one with long hair and brains; 12th, another really smart girl, but not a nerd like me.

This meeting of girls and women to whom I was/am attracted continues to this day. My being married for 61 years to one with whom I have shared every possible emotion and action has little to do with the theme of this writing. Yes, I am still attracted to her and don’t enjoy time away from her because I miss her. She described that feeling well when she said “falling in love” makes your heart go “potato, potato, potato” . . .

That is what I cannot really describe, but it is a heightened awareness of everything, triggered by the awesome wonder of this new person. And it matters not to me whether she is one year old or a hundred. The little ones have eyes that speak volumes, the older ones have personalities that reflect their “high mileage.”

When I made it known at work that we were thinking of adopting children, the group secretary told me something that has remained with me ever since. She said, “I want to tell you something and I want you to listen good: men are but boys grown tall, and little girls are little women.” They come here knowing everything they need to know, and they start using it right away. When our infant daughter looked me in the eye, reached up and grabbed my little finger in her little hand, she had me right where she wanted me, and has never turned me loose, though she is many miles away now.

Oh, how I love falling in love; being in love. And the wonder is, it still happens nearly every day. Yes, I go to the gym to do my assigned artificial work. A friend there asked me whether I was going to work out, or “Just talk with people.” I told him, “That’s what I DO!”