The 1965 Pontiac GTO(James brown) In 1965, I got accepted at San Jose State College. Dad, more surprised than me, rewarded me with a new car. I chose a 1965 burgundy colored Pontiac, GTO over a Corvette. Either were great girl pick up cars, but the GTO had a bench back seat for the action.

In college, I still occasionally drove downtown San Jose’s First and Second Streets in my GTO for female prey since my fraternity house was just a couple blocks away.

On a 1967, April, Friday evening, I spotted an old 1956 Desoto, loaded with girls cruising on Second Street. At a stop light, I pulled abreast on its right side. A couple of the girls looked doable. When the light turned green, they turned left instead of looping back onto First Street. Unable to follow, I sped around a couple blocks and caught up. Back in sight they turned into the throng of carhop served cars of Mel’s Drive-In.

I parked in a customer walk-in space to check them out. When the carhop came to their car, strangely she was directed to the passenger side by the driver. After a tray of cokes was delivered to the passenger window tray, I ambled over. They looked like high school girls, all dressed up with makeup and hairdos. I went to the driver’s window to see why she didn’t open her window for the service tray.

Behind the closed window she was sipping a coke, unaware of my approach. She had long, black, straight hair. My first impression was Mexican or Portuguese but when she turned to see who was tapping her window, her almond shaped eyes suggested off brand Oriental. As she lowered the window, she gave off a surprised questioning look. She was beautiful. I answered with my standard come-hither smile and said, “Hi”.

I then let my smile do the, talking. She hesitated, then smiled too. Her smile revealed full lips, sensual ones, accented by perfectly applied red lipstick. I wanted to kiss them. Her full mouth of teeth made her smile bigger. Her light chocolate brown skin, without blemish, beckoned. The flash of her almond eyes was exotic. Her long black hair concealed an elegant neck. She was some kind of mixed Asian. When she replied, “Hi” her voice timbre was low, almost throaty for a girl. It added to her allure. She was hot-hot. I bantered,

“Why do you keep your window up?’

“So, I don’t have to pay.”

She had wit, then added a put down.

“Are you a hitchhiker looking for a ride?”

“I’d love to ride with you, but I got a car. I saw you on Second Street. I knew I had to meet you. I followed you here. It’s parked just over there, the burgundy colored one. I’d love to have you ride in it.”

A little white lie with understatement. I followed because of the other girls in the car. I knew not to brag about the GTO, just say the color so she could identify it. She stuck her head out the window to better see it. I wanted to lean down and kiss the nape of that long neck as the hair splayed aside and revealed it. As she leaned out to look, I looked down at her blouse. Unlike the few Japanese and Chinese girls, I’d see, she was top heavy, fully front loaded.

I let her talk, let her lessen the distance between us.

“It’s a GTO?”

“Yeah, one a couple of years old.”

She said her name was Elizabeth when I asked. I told her Gary, when she asked for my name. We were sounding each other out. The other girls openly flirted for my attention but scanning them, only Elizabeth was hot, a 10 plus. The first sexy Asian I’d seen.

After a little more info about one another she came back to the GTO.

“You drive your GTO to work?”

My car was always the best talker.

“I don’t work. I go to San Jose State, I’m just a 20-year-old student, a sophomore. Daddy got me the car when I got accepted at school, my good student award. They wanted me to go to Stanford. If accepted there I’d a got a Corvette, but I’m a poor student.”

She opened up with my personal bragging, putdowns, meant to make me sympathetic, nonthreatening. It worked. She said she was a senior at Norte Dame high School. I thought, naive but wild. We chit chatted, until the carhop intervened and told the passenger side window occupant to leave or buy something to eat. The girls, except Elizabeth, collected change among them and forked over $3, the carhop pulled the tray off the window and Elizabeth started the car and backed out. I tagged alongside, threw in I lived in Los Gatos, and asked.

“What’s your phone number?”

She hesitated, then quickly said.

“Cypress 8-2021”, while other girls proffered their numbers unasked. Out of Mel’s, she drove away.

Cypress 8 meant an east San Jose location, either the slum of Tropicana Village, a house on acreage or a farm. The 1956 Desoto suggested Tropicana Village.

In the GTO, I wrote the number down and mused about the odds of it being phony and concluded at 50/50.

The next day I called. A woman with an Asian accent answered. It was a real number.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is Elizabeth in?

“Why you need talk to her?’

“It’s about her car. Just checking it’s okay.”

A mother hen checking on daughter.

After a long silence Elizabeth came on the line with that low tenor voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Gary, the guy at Mel’s, just checking if you phone number was real.”

“Now you know, it’s real.”

“I enjoyed talking to you, want to see you again.”

I bantered into my usual spiel of female enticements, but she was vague and evasive. Soon I realized she was not going to accept a ride in my GTO. It was time for a desperate ploy, one girls didn’t know how to respond to, an unusual tact I’d developed, one they’d never experienced before and didn’t know how to respond to.

"You ever go to Alviso?"

"No, why?'

“It’s a wondrous place, an abandoned place, with lots of history, almost a ghost town, right next to San Jose. It has vast open spaces where the San Francisco Bay meets the land. There are huge salt evaporation ponds. You ever see a salt evaporation pond?”

Instead of answering she whispered a question, an Alviso question.

“Do you know of a place in Alviso called Vahl’s?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it, it’s a famous Italian restaurant, an Alviso landmark but I’d never eaten there.”

She replied,

"Meet me there Monday after school and I'll see your salt ponds."

She’d jumped ahead and asked me for a date. My dating mantra was the 4 “F’s”. I tried to skip the second, “Feed-em”, but Elizabeth was worth feeding to get to the 3rd “F”.

“How about 4 PM, we can have dinner at Vahl’s and then walk to the salt ponds. I’ve always wanted to eat there. You are my chance to enjoy it with someone.”

She asked for directions. I gave detailed ones. When I asked if she then understood how to get there, she simply whispered.

“I’ll see you Monday at 4.”

And hung up. She was not ust different because she was Oiental, she was mysterious different.

I left my fraternity to time an early arrival at Vahl’s instead of my usual 15 minutes tardy, used to let the girl’s anticipation build, if I’d show. I’d cleaned the car and brought a packet of condoms in anticipation. As I drove, I reminisced about life, well my sexual life, not philosophical. Dad said I was girl crazy, others, more bluntly said, I was a pussy hound.

It had the ring of truth. It was why my grades suffered. I was constantly going from girl to girl. They ate up my time.

It started when I was 14 going on 15. As expected at that age, I switched from “boy things” to interest in girls but unlike most I had two older girls to teach me.

Near the end of my freshman high school year a junior girl seduced me. The truth is, she was a loose girl who let me have it. When I had it, I liked it. She soon moved on to older guys leaving her puppy behind but while with me openly told me what she wanted me to do to please her. Doing this field work advanced my sex education to college graduate while other boys were still in the bathroom fantasying at a centerfold. Her big educational secrets were girls wanted it and how they wanted it.

The other older girl who educated me was my older sister. There was nothing sexual between us. It was an icky relationship, but I listened to her surreptitiously while on the phone and when she and her girlfriends talked about boys, which was all they talked about. I learned what boys did that attracted or repulsed girls. They liked bold, yet reserved, emotional, yet strong, boys who owned a cool car and most importantly listened to them. I learned to listen to what girls wanted and say it. Desired physical attributes were height, smile, long hair and good looks.

They were repulsed by short, shy, weak, poor and of course ugly boys without cars. Physical weaknesses could be overcome with a great car or being rich. There was also a bad boy thing, but I could never figure that one out.

I was of average 5’9” height, reasonable looks, wore my hair long, dressed to be noticed and learned to be the reserved strong guy who was emotional who smiled. Only my physical characteristics were natural. The rest of me was my creation of learning what girls wanted and being it.

As I drove to Alviso, I drove past Agnew and its huge mental hospital complex. It reminded me of the crazy girl from my senior high school year. Mom helped me out of the jam I got into with the crazy girl. She was crazy because she thought I would marry her when she got pregnant. Mom sent her on an expense paid trip to Mexico. Thereafter, I was supposed to never touch a girl without a condom with me. I obeyed.

Arriving at Alviso, I parked in front of Vahl's a half hour early, a first for me. Usually, I met a girl 15 minutes late. Now, it was me who in anticipation, wondered if she’d show. A half hour’s waiting in a car is a long-time to watch the minute hand make 30 laps. When she failed to show up by 4, the additional laps took longer.

About the time I felt the fool for coming, she did show. Her Desoto rumbled past me and drove into the rear parking lot. I moved the GTO over next to the secluded spot she’d selected, my interest piqued over the reason for her seclusion desire.

I exited my car and strode over to open her car door. I reminded myself not to appear over interested and lose my allure. She opened the window and explained the driver’s door was stuck, closed the window and scooted over, and out the passenger door before I could get to it.

She exited in her Notre Dame school uniform, unprepared for hiking, but had brought a nylon windbreaker and wore sneakers. Despite the chastity design attempt of the school uniform, she filled it provocatively. My thoughts flashed to,

Nice boobs, nice butt, open her blouse, lift her skirt, in the GTO back seat.

She kept her hands in the wind breaker as we walked from the rear to the restaurant front entrance without conversation. When I pulled the front entrance open for her, it led to an old fashion cocktail lounge. No one greeted us. I led her through a door with a port hole looking for the dining area while she still kept her hands in her coat pockets.

We entered a dining room with Italian style tablecloths. There, an old, little, stocky woman with fire-engine red hair came out to greet us. At Elizabeth’s request, she seated us in an inconspicuous rear booth.

She returned with large, leather-bound, menus. I Asked what was good, but the old lady replied it was all good. Most of the menu was in Italian names I didn’t recognize or able to pronounce.

To my surprise Elizabeth ordered Cioppino in an accent which sounded correct. I asked her what it was, She said it was a form of seafood stew in tomato base eaten with garlic bread. I didn’t know how to pronounce it and simply said I’d have the same.

The old lady waitress asked if we wanted a bottle of wine. Elizabeth said no, firmly enough that I too ordered a coke. I’d learned during chit chat at Mel’s she didn’t do marijuana. She’d asked if I was a hippy, but I told her no, just a student. When she asked if I smoked marijuana, I’d lied and said only a few times when young but no longer did.

It was evident she was a good Notre Dame girl, but while with me, my kisses and caresses would be stronger than alcohol or pot.

As we ate, a crowd built up in the lounge. Some old guys stood around the piano and sang Italian songs on a little stage. Elizabeth listened to them Our conversation was limited due to their singing. Finished with her Cioppino, she excused herself to the restroom but took a long time to return, too long. It was more of her mysterious actions like parking in the secluded spot. She was looking for something.

She knows more about Alviso and Vahl’s than what she’s let on. What’s her agenda?

Back at our table, she said she was ready to see salt ponds. I got up and took my bill to the front and gave the old lady a five-dollar tip plus change to let Elizabeth know I was somebody. I could tell she thought it was too much.

Outside, it was a late, warm and sunny afternoon with a salt-tinged breeze from the Bay, perfect trekking weather. Elizabeth acted indifferent, as if she wanted to skip out on me after I’d fed her.

Before she could change her mind, I led her across El Dorado Street to the elevated rail line that led to the salt ponds. Atop, I showed her the Guadalupe River Slough on the other side and where boats were stuck in the muck and some boat houses where boats were made.

As we walked the rail line, I improvised a narrative of what was around us and threw in what I knew. She struggled walking in her sneakers between the timbers and gravel. Her sneakers were cheap ones. They announced she was from Tropicana village despite her sophisticaton.

Girls like a story and a guy who knows things once they get past the car they own. I narrated an Alviso history lesson and threw in its tawdry past to set the tone for later action. I made it a personal story, as if I was the emotional and artistic type. I left out my killing ducks. In a way it was a personal story of Alviso’s beauty. I’d watched the sun rise over the Diablo Range in my dad’s duck blind in the middle of an evaporation pond. There was a mystic beauty about it all. I tried to bring her into history and make it personal for her too with story tidbits.

"Elizabeth, look there. That's the old Bay Side sardine cannery, once the largest cannery in California until the sardines disappeared. A Chinese guy owned it. Next to it was a worker's dormitory, gone now. The workers slept in bunks and lived on rice.”

I added bunk beds and rice, figured she probably ate rice.

A little later we came to Elizabeth Street. There I usually introduced the girl to Laine’s Store but, with her name being Elizabeth, I pointed out the old rusty street sign. After she examined the Elizabeth Street sign, I drew her attention Laine's grocery store next to the tracks and the adjoining mansion.

"See the old buildings across the street? There’s one they could ‘a used in the movie Psycho?

Next to it is Laine's Grocery Store. Beyond it are the salt ponds. The mansion next door is where the owner used to live. Laine's has been closed for years.”

I admitted I’d hunted ducks in the past but made it a youthful boy thing, not like I did every season with dad. Girls don’t like boys who kill animals. I told her the store owner told me all about Alviso to give my narrative substance. I added some more Oriental stuff like workers eating rice at the cannery and said Laine’s was originally a Chinese gambling den.

Laine’s is where I made my moves when bringing a girl to Alviso, a move never rejected. I always introduced them to Laine’s on the way out to Drawbridge, the end of my salt pond treks. It was close to where dad’s duck blind was. Then with the mood set, it was back to Laine’s for seduction.

“Elizabeth, Laine’s reflects the history of Alviso. Let’s walk out to a real ghost town called Drawbridge. Are you able to walk a mile or two? Are you feeling okay? I know it’s a struggle walking the rails wearing sneakers.

Like opening a door for them, girls always responded positively if you showed a little concern for them.

Once we left Laine's, I let the scenery of the estuaries, the salt ponds, the levees which formed them, the distant Bay and waterfowl in sloughs set the tone for romance.

On the horizon were the General Motors plant in Fremont, the blimp hanger of Moffett Field in Mountain View and Lockheed in Sunnyvale. Occasionally they tested the motor of a rocket at Lockheed and ducks would take flight. Those were some of the few we got shots at during the midday when ducks were normally settled down. The Diablo Range rose before us in the far distance to set the vastness of the salt ponds in perspective. In its strange way, combined, it provided a romantic background. It just needed a little romantic talk to hit a girl hard.

“Elizabeth, look, look carefully in the distance. See there is a silver white mountain. That’s where they finally get the salt. Leslie Salt Company shuttles San Francisco Bay water from pond to pond as the water evaporates until it turns pink salty. Once that last pond evaporates dry, they scoop the salt and make the mountain. It’s all a strange desolate world created by Leslie Salt Company who built levees to create evaporation ponds by dredging.

At last, we got to Drawbridge and the slough it traverses. Like most, she already had begun to walk slower and hint of when it was time to go back. I led her over to the Drawbridge railing overlooking the slough and waited for her to ask about the ghost buildings on stilts scattered around the Drawbridge. Unlike most, she just stared silently and looked out across the landscape.

I explained the drawbridge did not go up and down like a real drawbridge, just moved sideways to let bloats past, but still she remained quiet. I added some history spice and even a true rumor about a famous Chinese madam called Ah Toy and how Drawbridge in its heyday, had oyster pirates, market duck hunters, gamblers, and other misfits. Still, she remained aloof, something was on her mind, it was someplace else. I finally simply asked,

"What’d you think?"

She replied unexpectedly, "It's a beautiful, a hidden but open world. I'm happy I came. I'm having a strange mystical experience.”

I tried to lay it on thick, knowing with girls the adage, flattery has no excess is apt.

"I knew you'd like it because you, like me, are different."

She replied,

"How am I different?"

I’d backed into a conversational dead end, and tried to get out quick,

"You're like here, mysterious, different but beautiful. It's a compliment. I'm not saying it right. What I am saying is like me, you see the beauty, most don't and you're beautiful too."

She ate it up, smiled and replied,

"You're making me smile. You compare me to Alviso, say I'm beautiful like the salt ponds? A strange compliment, no? I love this place but how am I beautiful like it?"

It worked, I just added,

"What I’m trying to say is you're beautiful, not pretty, beautiful. Not that you look like this but your beauty is mysterious like this."

She did appear to see the beauty of it all, like I did, a connetion between us, but she ws still far away from me. I looked at my watch. It was getting late. We had to quick time it to get back for the best play up my sleeve.

“Elisabeth, it's time to go back; the best is still to come. Follow me and keep up."

I led a fast hike back as she lingered behind. It wasn’t good tack to leave her trailing, but I had to hurry her. The wind was also picking up. Being cold is never romantic for a girl.

Finally, I reached my goal, Laine’s grocery store with her stumbling a hundred paces behind. It was close, but we’d made it. Leaning against Laine’s wall next to the tracks, I looked at my watch, 5 minutes to spare, if she just hurries a bit. As she came abreast, I motioned her to stand next to me and said,

"It's coming, soon."

As she joined me against the wood wall she asked,

"What's coming?'

"Listen! Lean against the wall next to me. I hurried here so we wouldn't miss it."

Standing on the tracks, we soon heard it. She moved close to me out of the wind and finally leaned against the old wood wall of Laine's facing the rail line. The long, slow, freight train soon turned a bend and approached. The engineer seeing me gave a recognition horn greeting and a wink as the big diesel engines reached Laine’s.

Leaning against the wall, the embankment's rails close before us groaned under the train's weight. The wood timbers we recently strode on thumped up and down in their gravel beds as each rail car wheel passed over. The train cars' steel wheels click-clacked to the rail joints. Those needing grease screeched steel complaints.

The sounds and movements echoed against the wall and the close train cars. Our bodies absorbed the vibrations, noise, and echoes. Just before the Caboose passed and silence returned, I reached over and held her hand to steady and comfort her. As it rumbled away, I leaned over and finally kissed her beautiful full lips.

When I reached behind to hold her exquisite neck and steady her for a deep kiss, she suddenly broke free. Stunned, I released my grasp of her hand. She pulled away, walked quickly in the early evening to her car behind Vahl's, crying.

I considered it a temporary rebuke knowing when a girl is crying, she is most vulnerable. She hastened the long walk back to the car with me following a few steps behind to give her time to collect herself, while assuring her I was still there to protect her. It was fully dark by the time she got to her car behind Val’s, now accented by its neon lights glow. It was fortunate she’d parked in the far back of the lot. There were no adjacent cars to interfere with our kissing.

She opened the passenger door; I gripped it and held it open for her as she scooted to the driver’s side, then got in myself and moved next to her. I knew enough not to rush things, to let the beauty of the open bay salt ponds, the mystry of the ghost town, the grip of the echoing thunder from the train between the rail cars and the wood all of Laine’s store percolate back up and get her into the proper mood.

Her sniffling ceased, she looked back at me, it was time to move. I kissed her ever so gently on those full sweet lips. She didn’t pull back, I did again and again, each kiss a little braver. She started to lean into them. I moved forward and kissed the nape of her long neck and then nibbled at her ear and back for a deeper kiss. She started to lean back. As usual, the barriers were falling timely. I darted my tough between her parted lips and made my overt move. With my right hand I nimbly opened her blouse. Her bra exposed, my left hand reached behind and flicked apart the 3 bras hooks behind, 3 hooks suggesting the real McCoy up front.

With the bra unfastened, I nosed in and I lifted it up and exposed her luscious breasts, ones full in my hands and face, nipples at attention.

It was time to pick up speed. She was murmuring coy no’s of encouragement. I switched kisses back and forth between her lips, breasts and ears. It was time to turn on the heat and push her magic button. As I suspected when first seeing her at the drive-in, she was a hot one. I cuddled her head down to the seat with my kisses working back and forth. With her down, my left hand flitted under her school uniform skirt, pulled her panty aside and then down as I caressed her magic button. She thumped up to my caresses and groaned so loud I peeked out of the car to ensure none were close enough to hear.

She was the best seduction experienced. It was time for action. It was my move. I wiggled up, out of the way from the cursed steering wheel, sat up and pulled my pants down while retrieving a condom from my skewed pants pocket.

My getting up for action released her from her benched position. She too sat up. I was confident seeing my penis at the ready with protection in hand would be rewarded.

Instead, she pressed herself to the car door and started crying again with her head pressed against the glass. I guessed she just needed another cry, and it was best to let her calm down and start anew. I knew she wanted it, I just had to go slow. Seeing her, crying, pressed against the car door, her clothes in disarray, the school uniform skirt tucked up revealing leg, and the open blouse with bra strewn across her lovely breasts, breasts I just fondled, and kiss was erotic.

Once she’d collected herself and the tears had stopped, I simply asked,

"What's wrong?

She turned to me and whispered.

"I'm engaged."

"Wow. When's the wedding?"

"June, June 15th. Everything’s ready."

"That's only two months away!"

"I shouldn't be here. I should’ve told you. I can't. I'm sorry. "

"Maybe you're not ready. You're still in high school."

I kept my voice calm, persuasive, rational, hopeful. I knew better than to rush her. Let her think it through. Obviously, she’s not ready to get married. She’s still in high school.

“You’re in high school. You’re beautiful. You have a full life ahead of you. You don’t want to get bogged down raising kids yet.”

I was logical and supportive of being free. I actually did like her. No, it was more than that. I had a strange emotion of needing to protect her. She’d tugged on my heart, something new for me by a girl. Like Alviso, there was something mysterious about her. I thought of our talk at Drawbridge and why she wanted to go eat at Val’s.

Fully recover, no more tears, in command of her voice she turned to me and said,

"I'm a virgin. I gave my phone number because of your smile but then wished I hadn't. Then you called. I only agreed to come because you mentioned Alviso. My Dad gambles at Val's. I wanted to see it. That's why I agreed to come. Now I realize, I'm starving."

With the word starving, she returned to sniffling.

"I'll take you back to Val's. Any place you want to eat."

"No, no you don't understand. Not food, I'm starved for beauty. Seeing the beauty, you showed, knowing what I miss, that’s what I’m starved for. It overwhelms me. Then the train, your kiss, I'm sorry. I don't know what I want. I'm scared, lonely. I’m crying for myself. I need to think. I'm confused. I need to go home."

I pulled my pants back up. I wasn’t disappointed my seduction had gone awry. I wanted to know more about her. I’d never met a girl that I had interest in other than sex. My emotion of sex was replaced with care. I wanted to protect her. I was still enamored by her eyes, hair, neck, lips, breasts but it was more than that, I was enamored by who she was, not physically but all of her.

I got out and walked to her drivers’ window; stood silently as she fumbled about redressing what I had opened. I worried she would start the car and drive away. Thankfully redressed, she pulled the window down. I told her the truth,

"I want to see you again. You're beautiful.

"It won't work. I'm taken, promised to another. I'm not free to give myself."

"Even if you’re engaged, I want to talk to you. We can just be friends. We can see many beautiful things together. Let me follow you to make sure you get home safely."

"No, no, I'm okay. Please, just let me go. I need to think about my life."

She started the car, rumbled her Desoto out of the parking lot and left me behind Val’s confused.

As her taillights dimmed out of sight I got in my GTO and left for my fraternity house. On the way I turned on the radio to my favorite music station. After about 4 songs the beautiful musical, Love Is Blue came on. Its music made me think of her, the tones touching her voice deep tones.

Back at my fraternity house room, I asked my roommate to give me a little private time and once alone called her. When the phone rang the same mother hen answered. She was reluctant to bring Elizabeth to the phone, but I explained it was about her Desoto, a possible mechanical problem.

After a long pause she finally answered. I blurted out

"You, okay?"

"Yeah, I just need to sort things out."

"I'm glad you walked the tracks with me."

"I'm glad you took me but now I'm confused about a lot of things."

"Well, life's confusing, isn't it? Don't worry about it. Can I see you again?'

"I don't know if it is a good idea. I'm committed to someone. Have you ever been committed to someone?"

"I just go day by day, but I want to see you again."

"Can you make a commitment if I see you again?"

"I'm only a sophomore in college and want to go to law school so I guess I have a commitment until then. I still want to see you."

As soon as I said it, I knew how inane it was. It was the wrong answer, an honest one yesterday but totally wrong that night. Back then, before I met her, I didn’t think about commitment, not even for my future. But now I did want to see her again, not just because she escaped my seduction but because I wanted to see and know more about her. For the first time in my life, I was in love, whatever love was.

She replied,

"I’ll always remember our hike on the tracks, the train as it passed while we held hands. I cherish your kiss. You have your commitment, I mine. Please don't call again. Let me be."

I frantically tried to correct what I’d said, even going to say, I didn’t have any commitment until I met her, but it was too late. I heard the click of the phone receiver set in its cradle, soon the dial tone. She was gone.

When my roommate returned, he wanted me to drink and party with him, I’d always been willing to do so but instead, got in my GTO and drove back to Alviso. I tried to reconnect mentally with her, but like the phone dial, she was gone. Many times, I called but her mother hen simply hung up when I did.

Many a Friday night I drove up and down First and Second Streets and scouted out Mel’s Drive-in in my GTO, but I never saw a carload of girls again in a 1956 Desoto.

I still think of her now and then and wonder about life's possible alternate universes, entered by a simple choice or chance of words but of unknown consequences.

Her single encounter changed me, changed how I viewed women. I stopped, as dad said being girl crazy or a pussy hound as my fraternity brothers tagged me.

Now old, I do think of my GTO now and then. With aged perspective, I reminisce.

Elizabeth? Did she ever go back to see the salt ponds of Alviso? Did she marry when she graduated from high school? Is she still married? She was different, mysterious, beautiful, a girl who changed me, one who I hope found happiness.

I don’t regret my life. It’s been a good one with a faithful wife and family for many years. I do, however, wonder about a possible alternate fate, or different universe I might have entered if I'd seen her again. Now, occasionally when I open my driver’s door, if on rare occasion I see a Desoto, and always when I hear the words, Love Is Blue, I think of her, the beautiful girl who got away and wonder what the alternate woud I’d be in if I’d commited to see her again.

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