he invited me to his house along with, oh, about 20 of his closest friends, for a tuesday night ritual called spaghetti night. each tuesday night bunches of kelly's very monetarily challenged friends either went to cicero's for all you could eat spaghetti or ate spaghetti at the house of one of the group members. it was kelly's turn to host, so i had my first "date" with kelly and lots of folks i had never met before. we played charades and laughed and ate and when he took me home, i wondered if i was going to get a kiss...i didn't.
the next time we went out was that friday. we saw stevie ray vaughn at the kiel opera house and ate cheesecake for dessert. i hoped i would get a kiss after that date...i didn't.
sunday i wormed my way into kelly's plans and steeled my courage up to ask him, why, oh why i hadn't gotten a kiss and at that moment he decided the time was right and then he kissed me. that evening i went home and told my grandma i was going to marry him. she asked me if i was going to date any other boys from st. louis first. i told her i didn't need to...i knew all i needed to know from that one kiss.
this saturday kelly and i drove around town to all of the places we went to in those few weeks of young love...
no one we know lives in the house on washington avenue anymore.
cicero's has been moved down the street to make room for the expanded blueberry hill.
stevie ray is gone and the kiel opera house hasn't held a concert in well over a decade.
the gyros restaurant in the loop we liked has been replaced by a florist.
the ever changing schedule at the tivoli has been updated to accommodate first run independent films.
the sandwich shop we ate at on our first valentine's day together is boarded up.
some things change...but we are still here.
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