Valentine’s Day is approaching and love messages are every where – stores are laden with gifts of love and valentine cards, windows are decorated with symbols of love, to love stories in books and TV. Perhaps, at 74, and happily married, my very first kiss is the one still vivid in my mind.
I was quite young, possibly 13, when I received this kiss. It was in the fifties and I lived on a farm with five siblings (five were married), me being the youngest. It was an era in which if you wanted to play with the neighbor kids, you walked miles to their homes.
One summer day, I walked the two mile country lane, over the field, and then the mile short cut to my friend, Audrey’s home. From her home, we continued to walk another mile to Irene’s farmhouse, where we met Irene and her many siblings. Irene had an older brother, Ed, who I felt was quite cute at my age.
Usually when there were so many kids, we’d play hide and seek. On this vast expanse of a farm, there were many hiding places – from barn to a corncrib.
This time, the “seeker” counted and gave the rest of us plenty of time to hide, I ran for the upper part of the barn. I noticed Ed had been running close by, and he too ran into the granary with me, plopping next to me on the hard, wooden floor.
We giggled, feeling a bit conscious of each other, and then suddenly we stopped giggling. I stared straight ahead, not knowing what to do with a cute guy right next to me in the granary. Suddenly, his right arm went around my shoulders. In my peripheral vision, I could see his hand on my shoulder. I still didn’t know what I should do. Then I thought I’d just look at him. I did just that. I looked in his face, at his dark eyebrows and lovely skin. I noticed his lips, they seemed tender and –
Somehow our lips moved towards each other. I received “the kiss.” It was short, like a soft sponge quickly dabbing my lips, and then it was gone. When his lips withdrew, I felt bursts of sparks fly through my body. I hadn’t known kisses created flying sparks. Soon, the sparks were lost to the sound of the “seeker” finding us.
Ed and I never became girlfriend and boyfriend. Over the last thirty some years, I’ve greatly enjoyed many wonderful kisses from my husband. Still, I think no one can take away the memory of a girl’s first kiss.
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to raising children to humorous stories about her and her husband to everyday stories to season stories and more.
