Some Thoughts:

Times, oh how they change...

... I once dated a drop-dead gorgeous librarian-type back in high school... dishwater blonde hair... a marvelous creature at the tender age of 17.... I was 16 at the time... never got past first base with her, though... very, very religious, she was.. hey, that was cool with me... I was always a slow starter anyway... we'd go parking in the seclusion of a farmer's backroad and just hold hands... talk... maybe a few kisses... it was real Norman Rockwell stuff... I was pretty inexperienced, but she was truly virgin territory... through those initial fumblings, I slowly taught the lass the ropes... she was a project I didn't mind working on... taking sweet, sweet time to mold her... she turned out to be a pretty good kisser after six months of practice... but, I digress...

... she broke it off with me while I was enjoying the pleasantries of 3rd phase at Parris Island... I remember it explicitly... I was stringing up concertina wire on Elliot's Beach when I got the Dear John letter... I was crushed... she'd blitzed off to university when I headed to boot camp... there, she met some college bookworm with a 20 dollar coiffure who stole her heart... it was a real low... a sweaty Marine recruit bested by a collegeboy... probably named Todd... or Chip...

... last night, I was given a tidbit of news that still has me reeling... a friend of mine that I haven't seen in 10 years dropped by... and as you always end up doing, we began reminiscing about back in the day.. well, a few tumblers of Scotch later, and our old yearbook was dragged from the shelf.. fingers were pointed to pictures of pimply kids with mullets... stories were bandied... it's amazing to see how the memories of same events are juggled by the years.. I remember one way, and he another... anyway, conversation rolled around to Those Who Were Dated....

... my little girl?... my sweet and innocent?... the shy, trembling one who ditched me because I wasn't a virgin... pigeonholed me as not worthy as a future Husband because I'd gotten laid before meeting her?.. well, at the tender age of 24 she had evidently blossomed... according to the tale I was told, she was filmed... filmed, I say.. getting gangbanged by an entire football team... caught in the act by a college linebacker with his Momma's camcorder... Great Bloody Hell, people... at first, I was speechless...

... and then, I was stunned.... how could MY demure coquette - the girl I'd spent 6 months taking cold showers for - spark an entire TEAM?... I was hurt... I was shocked... but as my disbelief slowly slipped into an accepting astonishment, I began to imagine... never in a million years would I have dreamt of such an outcome... such a turn of life's road... impossible.. incredible... and as I sat there lost in the moment of whirling possibilities, I became aware of one thing.. salient in purity... crystalline in purpose... no matter how long it may take... no matter what mountains I have to climb... I have GOT to find that video...