First Love

When I was about eight years old, I fell deeply in love. Oh, sure, I had had serious crushes before! But this was the real thing! Unfortunately, the woman I fell in love with was about fifteen years older than I was. Not only that but she lived in another country and moved around in a different circle of friends, a circle I couldn’t even visualize let alone think of joining. She was a gifted singer and she was beautiful beyond words to my eight-year-old eyes. She was the Singing Rage, Miss Patti Page, and the song that she sang on the radio, to me, was The Tennessee Waltz. Though you may laugh, I was smitten…badly smitten!

Now life serves up many ironies which can make life thus very interesting. In this case flash forward in my life eleven years. I am now nineteen years old, it is February, and my brother and I are on a holiday trip by car in the south-western United States. We are way ahead of our time in that we would today be considered snowbirds. Back then we were simply fortunate enough to be able to enjoy a winter holiday. There were so many advantages then. Motels and meals were half the cost of summer-time rates. Places of interest we wanted to visit had no lineups. Usually we were their only visitors for the day and received extra time and attention. Being Canadians meant that often we were treated to rounds of drinks in bars or restaurants. Yes, it was a good time to be traveling.

Our trip eventually led us to Las Vegas which at that time had a population of about 25,000. The Strip was just in its first stages of development. We stayed at a motel a block from the crossroads of Las Vegas for the hefty sum of $12 a night. At night we went to the Desert Inn located just south on “The Strip”. We would tip the maitre d’ and try to get good seats where we could have an excellent meal as well as be entertained by the featured entertainers.

Our first night we were fortunate enough to be seated in the main floor area where we could see Jimmy Durante and his musical partner, Eddie Jackson. They kept us all in stitches with their humor and their choice of songs. Their show that evening ended up with the destruction of the stage piano which they had been maltreating all evening.

But the following night for me was the fulfillment of a dream. We arrived early but were only able to secure a table on the level surrounding the main dining area where we had sat the night before. Still this was better than no table at all. And why was I so excited? The headliner that night was “That Singing Rage, Miss Patti Page”!

After the meals had been served and the tables cleared, Miss Page appeared on stage. She was “backed” by a stage band. She went up to the microphone and in her beautiful voice proceeded to sing. I was enraptured. My first love! One of my favorite singers! Here in front of us! In person! Could life get any better? Well, yes, it could.

She loosened the mike from the stand and proceeded to walk among the tables and singing into the mike. It was a recent invention! A portable mike! As she strolled among the tables, singing and making eye-contact with the guests, she glanced up at us in the “cheap” seats. She paused as she finished her song and strode purposefully to a set of stairs leading up to our level. As she got to the top, the stage band broke into “Let Me Go, Lover!” She started to sing it as she neared our table. She stopped at our table and looked straight at me. With an inquisitive glance as she continued singing, she gently pointed at me, and plunked herself down onto my lap and proceeded to direct the words of her song directly at me. As she sang, she stroked her free hand gently through my hair, lightly twisting my brush cut, and smiling sweetly at me.

Those of you who know me will know I was turning all sorts of red colors, and yet, there was in me a sort of fulfilling feeling. Not everyone can have a famous beautiful singer of his youthful dreams sitting on his lap in a night club and singing to him. As she was finishing her song, she arose from my lap, lightly caressed my cheek with her free hand, gave me a big smile for being such a “good sport”, and went back down to the main area! Me, I was in heaven! Nirvana! You name it! I was there. Speechless! Happy! And thinking back to when I was eight years old and this was only a dream!