Lost Loves, Part I: Please Come to Boston

Lost Loves:  those individuals who inhabit our lives, and our hearts, for a brief moment in time.  The world shifts, somehow, and for a little, you are Meant to Be; then, suddenly, the world shifts again; and as quickly as they come into your life, they go out, never to be seen again.

My favorite Lost Love story is Allen’s:

Please Come to Boston

“Come here-I have something to play for you.” 

I dragged Allen into the living room the other night.  I had a surprise for him.  My iPhone was hooked to the stereo.  I pressed the button, then took his hand and led him to the center of the room (fear not, the story isn’t going to get any steamier).  I slipped my arms around his neck and gazed up into his eyes.  I love that I can actually look up at a man—this almost never happens to 5’9” me…..

So, in the center of the living room, I drew Allen close, and gazed up at him, and began to sing along to the music:

Please come to Boston for the springtime

I’m stayin’ here with some friends and they’ve got lots of room

You can sell you paintings on the sidewalk

By the café where I hope to be workin’ soon

Please come to Boston

She said no

Boy, won’t you come home to me

He was speechless for a moment.

“Oh…. my…. gosh…..”  he finally said, a dreamy kind of smile appearing on his face.  He looked down at me, and held me tighter, and sang with me:

Hey ramblin’ boy, why don’t you settle down

Boston ain’t your kind of town

There ain’t no gold and there ain’t nobody like me

I’m the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Libby, on the couch, watched this whole scene with teenager skepticism.  There were two middle-aged people slow dancing to lame ‘70s music in the middle of the living room.  This was somewhat odd behavior— but her mom and her step-father were somewhat odd.  It was she who coined the term “Nerd Love” to describe our romance, after all.

“She doesn’t know the story, does she?”  Allen asked.

“No, I don’t believe that she does,” I replied.

So, shuffling around the living room rug to the strains of Dave Loggins’ “Please Come to Boston,” Allen told her the story.

It was 1975, and Allen was in Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut (while I was in Elementary School over in Hamden, Connecticut, I enjoy reminding him).  He had a rare day off, and he and a fellow sailor wanted to go check out the area.  So Allen drove the fabled ’67 Firebird over to Cape Cod. 

The Cape was another world to my sun-bleached surfer boy from South Florida.  It was cold, and windy, and barren.  There were high sand dunes which obscured the view of the grey Atlantic from the road.  But, when he climbed up on one of those dunes, there were whales—whales—breaching offshore (the only whales that we have in South Florida wear Speedos on the beach).  He watched their huge forms surface for just a moment, then disappear beneath the waves.  The sight was extraordinary.  For Allen, it was like a sign:  extraordinary things were going to happen today. 

Of course, some things will always remain the same, no matter how unusual the circumstances.  Sailors must go steamin’.  They stopped in town for the night to eat lobsters, drink beer, and look for female… company.

… She was sitting at a table in the bar, laughing with her girlfriends.  She was pretty, sweet-looking – not glamorous by any means, but Allen liked looking at her.  He liked looking at her a lot.

He came over to her table and struck up a conversation.  She was with her friends on Spring Break.  She told him that she was a co-ed from Boston College.  She was smart and funny, and soon the two of them were sitting alone, talking about anything and everything.  Could it be that The One, the one that he was meant to be with forever, had suddenly entered his life? 

Allen doesn’t like to dance, but she wanted to, so she took his hand and led him to the dance floor for a slow dance. 

She drew Allen close, and she gazed up at him, and she began to sing along with the music:

Please come to Boston for the springtime….

That was it.  It was over.  My sun-bleached surfer boy sailor from South Florida was in love.  Here she was, a co-ed from Boston College, singing, asking him to come to Boston for the springtime….

This may be the best day of his life.  This was beyond extraordinary. This was a miracle.

After the dance was over, she stopped back at the table to check on her friends.  Her friends wanted to go walk around the town, see what else was going on, she told him.  She’d be back in a little while, promise, she told him.  He’d be waiting, he told her.  She squeezed his hand, and she smiled.  He watched her leave, and anticipated the moment that she’d walk back through the door again, to him.

It seemed to Allen that the night dragged on forever, shooting pool and drinking beer- and waiting for her.  And waiting for her.

She never came back. 

The next morning, he drove the Firebird sadly back down cold, gray Cape Cod and back to Groton, to finish sub school. 

He traveled around the world, then came back here to Waresboro, Georgia, and to me.   

But, all these years later, in the middle of the living room, I am the brown haired girl in the minidress on the coast of New England.  And he’s going with her, to Boston in the springtime.

Libby admits that this is, indeed, a romantic story of Lost Love.  Lost Nerd Love, maybe, but still romantic.