Only You

I believe it was the year that I was 16.... We often went to a teen night club in southwest Denver called After the Fox. Did you go there too?

Somehow I was never carded and we would stop on our way down to buy a 6 pack of White Mountain Coolers. A small buzz to begin the evening? A buzz that would be worked off half way through the night.

The agenda began and ended with dancing. The year was 1984, the music was electronic, and the dancing was all about showing off while looking bored. We hardly stopped; we just kept moving.

One night when they 'slowed it down' they played this song by Yaz. One of my favorites already, after this night it would become one of my favorite memories, too. His name was Kevin and I had been eyeing him for weeks, I think. Tall, lanky, he actually was a great dancer, and he asked me to dance.

How did you dance with a boy (or girl)? Most of us would say: girl's arms around his shoulders/neck, his arms around your waist, sway back and forth. Right? This guy really knew how to dance. He 'led', like in a 'real' slow dance.

And I was hooked.

I think we must have met there at least a half dozen times over the summer. He lived in the north east part of the city. I was in the mountains. In those days we were 'geographically undesirable' to one another. That was quite the drive. But we could meet at the club, and we did.

And we danced.

I think of Kevin every time I hear that song and wonder if he ever thinks of me when he hears it? I know that my memories are probably a lot stronger and more romantically inclined, but I still wonder. Most guys probably wouldn't have remembered that by the next summer, much less that one song, and he would probably be shocked at the impact that it still has on me after all of these years. I still wonder what ever happened to him.