I’ve had the blues, The reds, and the pinks. One thing is for sure: Love stinks! - J. Geils Band, written by Seth Justman and Peter Wolf
I ripped off some of that J. Geils Band song from the ’80s and wrote my version.
As you’ll recall, the song starts with this couplet: “You love her, but she loves him, and he loves somebody else; you just can’t win.”
I changed it to this: “I love her, but she loves him, and he ... loves me?”
The joke landed differently than it does now, but what do I know about love? Some readers of this newspaper would tell you I couldn’t because they think I am totally heartless based on the subject matter I sometimes have to write about.
However, the existence of my heart was recently proven by an echocardiogram done at St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital.
When I heard my heart pumping, it sounded like a wet sneaker: squish, squish, squish.
“Good gracious! Instead of a heart, I have a Skecher,” I said to myself.
I’m pulling your leg, of course. I knew I had a heart because it had been broken many times. Romance has not been kind.
It occurs to me that the most critical romance to be considered on this sappy occasion is the one between my mother and father. Without them, I would not be here writing this column, and the entire universe would be a black hole full of nothing.
Once upon a time, my father was the Polar Girl ice cream parlor manager in Avondale. One day, his friend Gene brought his sister Pat for ice cream.
Later, my father asked my future Uncle Gene who the girl was.
“That was no girl,” Gene replied. “That was my sister.”
I heard that story a thousand times growing up, but I never got tired of seeing my mom or dad smile when it was told.
A few years later, I arrived and started my own search for somebody’s sister.
My memories are cloudy at this point, but I’m pretty sure I had a girlfriend in first grade. I remember walking beside her and hearing adults say things like, “Aren’t they cute?” or “Awwww.”
Alas, she must have moved away, because I don’t remember her being in second grade.
Then there was Kim, Anita, Beth, Beth Anne, and Tootie (whose real name was Dana).
Then, I was promoted to second grade.
I’m pulling your leg again.
I was in high school when Tootie came along, but her heart belonged to the Methodist preacher’s kid who lived across the street.
“Life is not fair, and you may as well learn it now, young man.”
While stationed at the Mayport Navy base, I met an “older woman” named Becky, a waitress at the Hawk’s Nest saloon in Jax Beach.
She was 30, and I was 19.
When I met her, I was making a lame joke about my last name and telling the bartender about the three types of Stones: metamorphic, sedimentary, and ... suddenly, my memory failed me, and I couldn’t remember the third type of rock.
“Igneous,” Becky said as she walked behind me with a tray loaded with Budweiser. I decided this one was smart and had to be wooed.
(I’d wager that no romance ever started with the word “igneous” before or since.)
She thought I was little more than a toddler, but I adored her.
She told me once she was related to Alexander Stephens and, knowing I was from Georgia, asked me if I knew where Crawfordville was.
“Never heard of it, sweetheart,” I told her.
I lost touch with her after leaving the service and never saw her again.
There were a few other flames here and there, but miraculously, I finally found the woman I believed to be my eternal soulmate.
It was epic, immediate, celestial, all-consuming love. Colpo di fulmine, as the Italians put it, is like being hit by a thunderbolt.
To be brief and blunt, it was mostly one-sided. And eventually, I gave up hope.
(Note to the Bee Gees: It may be that you can’t mend a broken heart.)
Having learned nothing from that failure, I decided it was time to take the plunge and get married.
It might be best to leave that story for an episode of Dr. Phil.
Selah.