Telescopes and blondes

I got a new spotting scope for the deer hunt last year. I handed down the old metal beast, I used before, to my 9-year-old son. He promptly set it on his desk overlooking the back yard, and started taking in the scene before him.

I flashed back to when I was fifteen. Amy, a beautiful blonde teenage girl, about my age, moved in a few houses down the street. My buddies mentioned there was a cute new girl on the block. I was still waiting to meet her.

One day, i sat in the passenger seat of my mom's car when we pulled into the driveway. I noticed Amy was outside playing basketball with my friend in his front yard. I bolted into the house and up the stairs and pulled out my trusty spotting scope. I set it on the desk under the window. At 200 yards the 60x magnification was just about right to get a good first impression. Luckily 200 yards was far enough away that she couldn't see me and get a bad first impression.

After a few minutes of drooling over our new neighbor, I changed clothes and put on a little too much cologne. Having no sense of smell made it difficult to know how much to apply. I strutted down the street to meet Amy. I was in ninth grade, and for the first time in my life, felt comfortable with myself. I shook her hand and was tongue-tied by her smile.

I hung out with Amy a lot that summer. We played basketball and wiffle ball. We got icecream from the ice-cream truck. Neither of us could drive yet, so we were stuck close to home. The neighbor who I first saw her with started crawling on his roof with binoculars to try to catch her changing. I think that was the first time I threatened someone trying to defend a girl's honor. She got thicker shades and he stayed off the roof.

My brother, Evan, and I left for summer camp at Cabrillo Beach, California, and I wrote her name in the sand at low-tide on the edge of the Pacific ocean. The next week, my mom took me and my brother to the East Coast to visit our grandpa. I wrote her name in the sand on the edge of the Atlantic ocean at low tide.

I kissed her, my first real kiss, on the Saturday between those two trips. We went to a dance and I walked her home. We stood in the driveway where I saw her playing basketball the first time. Turns out my mom was spying on us from my bedroom window with my telescope. I should've put it away.

At the end of the summer Amy got over me, but we remained friends.

My parents still own that house. When I visit I stay in my old room and sometimes stand by the window and remember my boyhood and the adventures I had there.

I flashed back to my son. I watched him stare through the viewfinder of my old scope and wondered what adventures he would start by magnefying them 60x.