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Between first and fourth grades, I had series of flings and meaningless relationships (you may insert a wink here) but Janice was my first real girlfriend.  Because I was so young and still unformed, Janice taught my brain to react in a certain way to girls (later women) that I am attracted to.  My heart starts beating faster, my mouth gets dry and I lose the ability to think rationally or speak clearly.  I was only 10 years old when I met Janice and fell in love.  Maybe you think that as young.  I prefer to think of it as mature for my age.

While Janice was my first true girlfriend in the romantic sense; the problem was, I’m not 100% sure she knew it.  She was wonderful to be around and exasperating at the same time.  Sometimes she seemed fond of me and other times seemed to not even notice I was there. 

She had other suitors as well.  I can still remember the day our relationship ended.  One of my rivals, Jimmy Wexler, stole her away from me for good because he bought her a present: a $5 gold locket.  I remember her holding it out and saying, “look what Jimmy bought me” expecting me to be pleased for her.  Instead, it just hurt.   I knew I was supposed to say or do something about it; I just didn’t know what.   So I just let her go.

I didn’t run into her again until I was in my thirties.  There are three boys in my family and back then, my mother did the bulk of the day-to-day parenting.  As a woman, she could only relate to our maleness to a certain degree.  One thing she learned early on is that we hated to shop.  So we established a yearly ritual of shopping for school clothes in the fall, exactly once a year.  When we were growing up in Overbrook Park that meant one trip to the Perlmans store in the fall for all our clothes for the coming year.  One time, when I was 34 and my son was six, my mom decided to take us on a trip to Perlmans.  Her claim was they had the most wonderful children’s clothes anywhere in the area. 

Returning to that store after so many years brought back a flood of memories all on its own.  The store was small and crowded.  It had tiny aisles and shelves packed to the ceiling with clothes. I was wandering down one aisle when my mother called me back to the front of the store.  As I came forward, I saw that she was speaking to a woman, the clerk who was going to help us.  I looked into her face and my heart was off to the races.  Through the cotton that was suddenly stuffed into my ears, I remember my mother saying “Lee, you remember Janice Rosen, don’t you?”  The sounds that came out of my mouth were unintelligible but seemed to indicate agreement.  Janice was more beautiful that I remembered and had grown up into an elegant creature that put me in v-tach and made my brain cease functioning instantly.  I don’t remember the rest of that shopping trip at all.  I only remember leaving the store and saying to myself, “how did I ever let her get away?” I never came up with an answer so I think this makes her a perfect candidate for your show. 

Just now I realize: why is it that my mother took me to that store that day.  Surely there were other stores that were more convenient.  My marriage was a mess and I was completely unhappy: more on that later. Maybe that was my mom’s plan all along, to reintroduce me to someone, anyone who was not my wife at the time; someone who she knew I would be attracted to.  Hmmm…