We must go back in time to a much earlier period in our subject's life. We must back up all of fifty-five years, if we can conceive of life that far back. We must back up to the childhood age of seven, to the years of second grade. It requires a leap of memory and insight for an older writer to attempt this, but we can try. We can get the feel for this age by observing children on a playground for we were all there at one time or another.
In our subject's case, he had a lot of girl friends. He could recite a rather long list of them. And of course, he had a single more special girl friend in particular. But this is not the focal point of this story, for the romance didn't last beyond a school year. It was a situation of geographical incompatibility or whatever. She always had to leave on the early bus whereas our hero walked home about three blocks. So it was a recess romance. Also, she was a year behind and the shared school room was broken up at the end of the year.
Our hero advanced to the third grade in the little school house next door and the recesses were no longer at the same time, nor in the same playground space.
Arachnophilia 4.0.