Crimson and Clover

I had a memory today while driving through the mountains. It was snowing today, a beautiful, white silent snow. I had just dropped Hannah off at boarding practice and decided not to stay because the snow was coming down steadily and I do not have 4WD. Another member on the team was going to give her a ride home. It could have been the panoramic view, the change in plans, the unexpected solitude that triggered this memory, but really it was probably the song playing on the radio: "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James & The Shondells (play music below and then play it again and enjoy the funky video).

Back when I was nineteen I went to Europe. I planned the trip two months before I left. And I say "planned" very loosely. I really had no plan except to stay with various friends I knew from high school that had joined the military and a foreign exchange student who had returned to her home in Switzerland. I had no ideal how long I was going to stay (I ended up staying for four months) or what I was going to do exactly when I got there. I had no fears and no expectations (ahhh, no expectations).

I spent most of my time in Germany and I liked how compartmentalized the landscape was. Little villages with a bakery, a butcher shop, and a vegetable vendor. Flowered window boxes and narrow cobble stone streets. Lots of open and forested space with clumps of cities and towns in between.

I remember one night sitting in a quaint pub that was cloistered in chunky dark wood with a faint glow of purple and golden lights illuminating the glass behind the bar. There was a low hum of conversation and occasional laughter. I had gone there with a friend of mine who had joined the Air Force and who I was staying with in his upstairs flat off base in a small town called Bad Winsheim. I was talking that evening to a young handsome military man who was older than me, (thinking back on it, he was probably the ripe old age of twenty five). He had the similar sad, longing look about him that most of the boys in the military had. I had made friends with a few of them and we would go around the cities on their days off. They were all nice and harmless. This particular older, handsome fellow and I talked engagingly and tirelessly for hours. He asked me about my boyfriend across the room that I had come in with and I assured him, Steve we'll call him, was not my boyfriend but a friend from high school. I remember "Crimson and Clover" playing in the background (late 80's Germany was in love with American music from the 60's) and for some reason that snapshot is etched in my memory.

When the pub was closing we stepped outside. It was cold and foggy. It was time to go and we needed to say goodbye. I remember standing against the wall of the pub and he kissed me full on the lips, I can't remember his name, but I do remember that kiss. That one simple kiss that I felt from the top of my head down to the tips of my toes. A kiss that I, at my young inexperienced age, did not know existed. A group of people tumbled noisily out of the pub and in it was Steve and friends of my handsome companion that he had come with that evening in a jeep.

Steve and I had walked to the pub from his flat and because it was cold and late we held hands on the way home (I believed we held hands because it was cold, later, when I was leaving to go to Italy, Steve confessed his love for me, had felt it all through high school even though I knew us to be just friends, and talked about getting married one day. I was not going to be an army bride, not at nineteen, not ever). I remember the handsome man and his friends driving past Steve and I as we walked. I remember connecting with his sad, longing eyes and then watching his face disappear as they drove out of sight.

For the next few weeks that I stayed in Bad Winsheim following that evening, I never ran into my handsome stranger again. I lost contact with Steve after that as well. (I did run into him years later at a gas station in our home town. He was married to a woman who was also in the military and they had two kids).

Driving in the quiet, enveloping snow today listening to "Crimson and Clover" on the radio triggered a memory I hadn't thought of in at least ten years. A memory of Europe, of the purple and golden glowing pub, and of that kiss.