Judy

 

(entry for 6/19/2024)

Her name was Judy Dikeman and she was my first girl-friend. Or at least the first one that reciprocated my interest to any degree.

The family was of so-called Dutch extraction. (The proper word is Nederlander. 'Dutch' actually means German.) Both of Judy’s parents were of pure descent, and the dad had actually been born in the Netherlands. (Holland is only one of the States of the Netherlands. Calling the country ‘Holland’ is like calling the United States ‘New York’ or ‘California.’)

 

Like many Nederlanders, they were all of that peculiar pure cocoa-butter complexion that inspires envy, and sometimes even guilt, in other so-called White People. No freckles, no acne, no blemishes of any kind. Just pure coffee with lots of cream in it. Judy had large deep-brown eyes, even darker wavy brown hair, high cheek-bones, and a moon-shaped mouth that curved down at the corners when she smiled. She had dimples, too, deep ones. In other words, she was Gorgeous. (And knew it, though not in any proud way, but rather with just the bare acknowledgment that it was so.)

 

The Dikeman family moved to Montrose from eastern Colorado in late spring of 1952. I was in the seventh grade, and had just survived a perilous social catastrophe earlier that year, so was more than ready for a positive experience. And, oh boy, did I find one!

 

My first glimpse of her occurred one Sabbath afternoon in April when my dad, as church First Elder, felt obligated to welcome the new family to our little town, and, more importantly, to our very little church. We parked in their wide and dusty farm driveway, and my dad got out to do the honors. The rest of us stayed in the car, as a way of reminding him not to take too long about it. (Which was hopeless, as he always took too long about everything, especially if it involved other people, which it usually did.)

 

She was wearing a floor-length full-skirted dress of a ripe peach color, with panel-shaped horizontal tiers separated by dark rose strips of ribbon, which made it appear like a series of overlapping skirts, though it fact it was all one large piece of fabric. I was awe-struck. Except for the color, it was identical to the hand-painted portrait of the ‘King of Spain’s Daughter’ in my favorite music-book’s version of ‘Little Nut Tree,’ though the princess’s dress in the book was pure white rather than peach. I loved the song, and instantly fell in love with the living girl in front of me, though I didn’t know her name or age yet. (Turned out she was my same age, but a year behind me in school.)

 

I didn’t get out of the car though. We still needed to be elsewhere, namely our own home, as soon as possible. (Ha!)

 

Later that next week, on a Thursday as I recall, she appeared for the first time at the school, and I was even more charmed than I had been in the dusty driveway. (I never saw the peach-colored dress again, and in fact she much favored wearing blue-jeans rather than skirts or dresses, which was a bit suspect in the 1950s. But she did live on a farm, after all, so she was never rejected for it by the other girls.)

 

What made her even more interesting to me was that she was a musician, as I was. She began taking piano lessons from my maternal grandmother, who lived with us, so not only did I get to see her at school every day, I got to see her In My House once a week as she took her lesson. Soon we were playing duets, and one of our favorite pastimes was playing ‘Parade of the Wooden Soldiers’ at full speed— and switching parts, and positions on the piano bench, twice during the song, without missing a beat. Nobody put us up to this. It was our own idea. (Actually it was her idea, but I eagerly went along with it.)

 

One day I dared to ask her out on a date. A group of five lady harpists was coming to town, as part of our Community Concert Series, and I arranged for Judy and me to be in the audience, sitting together. Alone! Just the two of us!

 

One complication: when she arrived at my house she was wearing blue-jeans, and one simply did not wear blue-jeans to a concert! At least, my mother insisted that this was the case. So Judy wore one of my mother’s dresses to the concert! It was a bit baggy on her, but no one seemed to notice. Not even Judy herself.

 

For the rest of that year, and for all of my eighth grade and her seventh, we were inseparable. In fact it reached the point where people had to rather pull us apart.

I stayed over at their house one entire weekend, a feat made possible by the fact that she had a younger brother, to whom I could act friendly to justify the occasion. (In spite of the fact that he betrayed us to their dad for holding hands when we thought no one was watching. Which was evidently a great sin! According to both the brother and the dad.)

 

We took hikes together, one of them over five miles, from their farm to the town. We rode horses together. (The only time I ever rode a horse.) We played duets. Lots of duets. Poet and Peasant. Zampa. And of course, Wooden Soldiers.

 

When my family moved to Grand Junction in 1953, after I graduated from the eighth grade, so that I could continue my Adventist education in the ten-grade SDA school there, things came to a halt. For one thing, sixty miles was too far to drive frequently. For another, Judy’s dad had gotten restless and had started thinking about moving to the town of Fairplay, which, eventually, they did. But the biggest change was in me.

 

I fell for a girl in Grand Junction. An older girl, four months older than me, though she was a grade behind me in school. Much more sophisticated than either Judy or me. Rich. Tall and slender and beautiful, with great blue eyes. Blonde. I almost forgot about Judy entirely.

 

The last time I ever saw Judy was early during my ninth grade. I had broken my hand in a car accident, and had my left tied up in a strange combination of hard cast and wrapped bandage. The Dikeman family came to see me, at my new home on Orchard Mesa. I treated Judy shamefully. I was in love with someone else, or so I thought. I was polite enough, and we even enjoyed a few moments of reminiscence. But the fire was gone, at least on my part, and she could tell. When she said good-bye, it was sadly. And it was also forever.

 

I have never forgiven myself, and never will. In retrospect, she was a much more interesting person than my new crush. (Which, by the way, never went anywhere.)

 

When I think of girls I have known, the first one I always think of is Judy.

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