The Conny Story

Well, it was requested, so I guess I'm obliged to write it - The Conny Story. Now please bear in mind that this was a couple decades ago, so my recollection of all the details might be a bit on the fuzzy side. I will, however, do my best to basically sum up the story of the one, and only, true love I've had in my pathetic little life thus far. The weird thing about this is that I know she's going to be reading this and many would think that that would have a negative impact to my candidness; but if you've read the rest of my blogs, I think that you should know me better than that... So, without further ado, here is the story about my love, Conny.

The mists over the sea were unusually heavy that morning ... any attempts to even try to visualize the boats returning from the night's trolling were futile. Sure, perhaps you would see the flash of light from one of the spotlights that all of the vessels were equipped with, but actually discerning one ship from another was impossible.

You see, that's the way stories like this are supposed to start. However reality is usually much simpler ... and far less poetic...

The year was 1986. I was beginning my junior year at Melvindale High School and pretty much expected this year to be another repeat of the, what seemed like, countless years that I had been attending school before this. I mean, my group of friends had basically been the same since forever and I actually had no indication that this was going to change. Why would it? I had figured out where I stood in the social pecking order of our suburban high school and, due to who I was and how I behaved, I really didn't think anything would ever change.

You see, I was one of those "smart" kids - not actually the nerd type that got the wedgies and swirlies from the school jocks; however, if somebody was planning on setting up a party or something, I was not their first choice for assistance. Don't get me wrong about this ... I wasn't a complete recluse or anything, I just wasn't in the 'it' crowd. My high school experience was much more akin to "Freaks and Geeks" rather than "Beverly Hills 90210". (By the way, if you've never seen the TV show "Freaks and Geeks" I highly recommend that you rent the DVDs and check it out...)

The reason that I'm explaining this in so much detail is that I need you to understand that I was most definitely not a hot item when it came to the ladies. Well, at least I didn't think I was ... once again, my low self esteem issue bares its ugly head. Now don't get me wrong, I was an adolescent male that had recently gone through puberty (well, not that recently, but you get the point...) and I will admit that I was very much attracted to the opposite sex - I just did a very good job of keeping these attractions to myself. Heck, there was this one girl, Shannon that I had the biggest crush on since I first saw her in band class in 7th grade. I'm pretty sure that she never knew...

This was, as I said, my junior year. The great thing about junior year was that you, and your friends, were now old enough to drive. This of course meant that we were finally getting our first taste of freedom and we bit into this freedom hard. At least with my group of friends, the standard thing to do on just about every weekend night was to drive around. We never had any place that we were actually going; we were just driving around, listening to what is now referred to as classic rock and basically enjoying the fact that we could go anywhere (as long as we were home by curfew, that is...).

It was around this time that I (well, Eric and I) started hanging out with Sal. Sal, strangely enough, was at first one of my brother's friends. He was actually a senior but for reasons that I don't quite remember, he seemed to be cool with hanging out with me and Eric. On these weekend nights, it was always Sal that was doing the driving - you see Sal had his own car. He would come by on the weekends and pick Eric and me up and we would just hang out, driving nowhere. As I recall, it was cool...

Now, unbeknownst to me, Sal apparently had a rather big crush on a girl that was in our junior class. The girl's name was Conny - actually Cornelia, I think – but she was always known as Conny. As I said, I was barely aware of this crush - or at least I didn't really care ... although I think Sal may have mentioned it to me once... Heck, I didn't even know who this Conny was...

I don't actually recall what class it was – I think it was social studies – but a fellow student in this class was Conny – the one that Sal was apparently 'ga ga' over. She sat either in the front row or a row very near to the right of where I was sitting near the back of the class. How I remember this, I really couldn't tell you; but I do. I never even met this girl - which seems a bit strange as we were attending the same schools in the same class since 7th grade - I think... I believe it was Eric that pointed her out to me and informed me that she was the girl that Sal liked. "Really?" I thought...

Now here's an interesting observation, I don't know where or when Sal fell for this girl - he was a senior after all... I seem to have a recollection of being told something about them meeting over summer break or something; however this could be a false memory. The main point here was that Sal was apparently crushing hard...

One weekend came up where Eric informed me that others would be joining us on our nightly drive. He said it was going to be Conny, Carol and - man, this is bad - some third girl who's name I forget. It might have been like a Nicole or a Stacy ... I don't remember. I don't know how this got arranged or even who arranged it, but there were apparently going to be three girls hanging out with us that night. Now I kind of knew Carol as she used to date my buddy Jeff back in junior high; as for the other two, they were unknowns to me. Oh well, that's cool. The car'll be a bit crowded but I figured it could be fun...

We basically go out and do what we always do – nothing – this time, with more people in the car. If I remember correctly, everyone seemed to have a good time because this basically became my new crowd. Whenever we went out driving around, these were the people that were there.

It's funny because I know that I couldn't have been that much fun to hang around. I was actually starting to fall rather heavily for Conny - but Conny was off limits. Sal had already staked his claim on her. It didn't matter though ... I couldn't control my feelings and I now saw what Sal must have seen whenever it was that he fell for her. This, of course, made me go into my standard mode of making sure nobody else knew what I felt and I'm sure I couldn't have been too much fun... I mean when the times would come up where I would be sitting next to Conny in the back seat, I'm pretty sure that I would clam up and not add much to any conversation. You have to remember that, primarily due to my self esteem issue; I'm not good around women that I am attracted to...

Over time, however - and it couldn't have been that long now that I think about it - I started to get the impression that Conny might be a bit attracted to me as well. I really can't tell you exactly how or why I got this impression - there was just something different when I was around Conny. It was more of a feeling than anything that could be explained, however it felt pretty strong. The main question was what I was going to do about this. If the past is any indication of the future, I was pretty sure that I would do nothing; however fate works in mysterious ways...

This one night came where we actually had two cars out driving around. I don't recall why, but I believe Sal was driving his car, as usual, and I was driving my parent's car. Perhaps there were more people this time, I really don't remember. I do, however, remember that Conny was in Sal's car. I don't know who, if anybody for that matter was in mine; but Conny was in Sal's car. I remember that we made a stop somewhere (seems like it was just on some side street somewhere) and I was informed that Conny wasn't feeling good. I then offered to drive Conny home while everybody else took off in Sal's car.

There we were, Conny and I, alone in my car. She had claimed to not be feeling well and I was supposed to be driving her home. The funny thing is that she seemed to be feeling pretty well as I began driving her home. Did she fake an illness to arrange it so that she would get moved to my car? I don't know ... and I doubt she even remembers this... I just knew that I was to be driving her home.

Now, the time of year that all this was occurring was just before the homecoming dance. Did I plan on attending the dance? Not really ... I never went to school dances. I never had the nerve to ask anyone to go with me... However, as I was driving Conny home this evening, I did the unthinkable (well, to me at least) and asked her if she wanted to go to the dance with me. I was nervous ... so nervous, in fact, that I missed the turn onto her street and was forced to turn around in the Melvindale Ice Arena parking lot to get back. Amazingly enough, she said yes. She said yes!

I dropped her off at her house and drove myself home. I had a smile on my face that reached ear to ear. I was going to the homecoming dance with Conny. Suddenly the fact that Sal had staked his claim on her meant nothing to me. Those intuitions that I was getting whenever I was around Conny were real - she actually did like me. She said yes!

Now here's another part that I don't really remember how it came to be; but we actually went to the homecoming dance as a foursome - me, Conny, Carol and Sal. Sal took Carol to that dance. I don't know if he might have asked Conny earlier and been turned down or what the situation exactly was, but Sal took Carol to the '86 MHS Homecoming Dance. This is strange to me as Carol actually later got together with Eric and became an item... Oh well, I guess Sal just has bad luck with women ... and I thought it was only me...

I'm sure the dance was fun and all, but I actually remember none of it. I do, however, remember afterward, at Conny's house. I walked her to her side door, well, actually to the gate that lead to her side door. It was one of those driveway gates, you know, the long gate that could be opened or closed on a driveway rather than a walkway. Anyway, I walked her up to her gate and she went though. It wasn't until she was actually standing on the other side of the gate that I finally got up the nerve to kiss her. I remember that kiss. I mean, we kissed an awful lot after that, but that kiss I will always remember. It was then that I asked her to 'go with me'. (Do kids still do that?) She said yes again and we were then official 'boyfriend and girlfriend'. That's just the way it was back then ... you weren't 'official' until you were 'going together'.

My junior year in high school was perhaps the happiest time of my life. Everything that I did, I did with Conny; and I was happy. As I mentioned earlier, Eric and Carol also became a couple and poor Sal just stayed Sal – which was sad because Sal’s a good guy.

You've got to remember that we were just kids and although our main activities were just trying to find time and places to make out, it was fun. I remember parking in an empty parking lot at the Henry Ford Museum and going to at least a few drive ins. (Drive ins, for all you young kids were movie theaters where you watched the movie sitting in your car ... although usually very little of the movie - movies, actually, they were always double features - was actually watched...) Yeah, those were fun times...

Unfortunately, nothing that good lasts forever... You see, Conny was German. (I mentioned this before in an earlier blog...) Every summer she would head back to Germany and, I'm pretty sure, live with relatives. She did this again at the end of our junior year and I was then forced to spend my entire summer vacation without her. That's actually one thing that I never quite understood about Conny. I truly believed that she did love me; however, no matter how hard I tried, she always loved Germany more. So, rather than spending the summer with me, she headed back to Germany. Oh well, what could I do? I loved her far too much to even attempt to have her skip this trip to Germany. I knew this was important to her and I figured that I could survive the time apart. True love never dies, right?

Wrong. I don't know what exactly happened while she was over in Germany; but when she returned at the end of the summer it was more than apparent that she was not the least bit happy to see me. Unfortunately, before I was able to find out what the problem was, I got myself into a little fender bender that knocked me out of commission for a decent amount of time. (Yes, this was the accident that I wrote about earlier...)

As I mentioned before, Conny stayed with me throughout the hospital and rehab ... it wasn't until I returned to school that she finally got around to dumping me. I was thinking that it was most likely due to the effects that the closed head injury had on me (and perhaps that had an impact as well); however, now that I write this story out, I see that all the signs were there even before the accident. Yeah, Conny had decided that I wasn't going to be in her future while she was in Germany that summer. Why? I don't know... Will I ever? I doubt it.

Conny breaking up with me isn't the end of this story, however. We actually got back together later in the senior year and I took her to the senior prom. Although she did take a trip to Myrtle Beach with a few of her friends and made it clearly known that she didn't want me coming along - this never sat well with me... But after graduation, that was it – it was over. I believe she moved back to Germany - perhaps that summer, I really don't know - and I headed off to college. This chapter of my life was over...

Or so I thought...

One day, while I was sitting in my room at the frat house, I decided to give Conny's mother a call. For the life of me, I have no idea why. I don't remember. I'm sure it was somehow tied to some desperate attempt to possibly re-find Conny, but that might have been subconscious. All I know is that I was calling Conny's mother but the woman that answered the phone definitely didn't sound like Conny's mom. No, in fact, it sounded like Conny - and it was Conny. You can imagine my surprise... I have no idea what was said or how I was even able to pull this off, but I somehow managed to set up a date (no, not the romantic kind ... at least I didn't think so at the time) to take her, Eric and Sarah (I think it was Sarah...) out to Greek Town for dinner. This I did and we all returned back to my room at the frat house afterwards.

The tension was so thick; you could cut it with a knife. I didn't really understand this as I was under the impression that we were just out catching up on old times. I’m pretty sure that I now know why the tension was so high as I now believe that Conny may have wanted me. I know I wanted her, but I guess I'm just too much of a toad...

The next day I actually drove to Conny's house and had a rather surreal experience. As I entered the house, Dave (her stepfather) instructed me that she was up in her room and that I could just head on up. This seemed funny to me as I remembered when I was dating her in high school how her room was completely off limits to me. I show up now and the authority figure that made sure I stayed out of that room in the past was now giving me the green flag to head on up. I climbed up the stairs and met with Conny in her room.

Now you've got to realize a couple things here. First off, Conny was heading back to Germany in a couple of days where she was now living. Secondly, I still loved this woman. We had a little talk up in her room that evening and I must have said something wrong because, after being there for a rather short period of time, Conny asked me to leave. I had already made plans with her (well, not exactly plans … but I thought that we had decided) to take her out to dinner the next day and I figured I might as well leave and we could discuss what the issue was the next day. I think I may have mentioned that I still loved her or something to that effect and it might have been a bit too much … too quickly – but she was leaving in two days!! I descended the stairs and left the house. I was going to get her back if it was the last thing I ever did. This dinner I was taking her out to had to be special...

I started the next day off early. I called the Whitney and made reservations for dinner that evening, headed out and got a dozen roses (I think they were roses) and a good box of chocolates and then began to wait for Conny to call. She told me that she would be calling me that day and I believed her, so I began my wait.

Time was slowly passing and the phone remained silent. Finally, sometime in the early afternoon, the phone rang. I quickly answered assuming that it was Conny, but it wasn't Conny. No, the name of the girl on the other end of the line was Rachel. Okay, so I need to explain this a bit... Rachel was this girl that I had met in college. We had a small fling together and, as flings go in college, had had sex on a few occasions. I hadn't actually spoken to Rachel in quite some time; however this was not the time to be tying up my line. I told Rachel that I was expecting a call and needed to be going. Of course this wasn't good enough for her as she wanted to know why. Like a fool, I told her that I was expecting a call from Conny (believe me, she knew who Conny was, never actually met her, but she knew...) and that I needed to keep the line free. Now this part amazes me - she asked me for Conny's number AND I GAVE IT TO HER!!! WHY?!?!? The next sound I heard was the click of Rachel hanging up.

I mean, I've done some stupid things in my life, but this has got to be by far the stupidest. In my defense, I have to say that I probably would have told Rachel anything to get my line free again ... hell, that's actually what I did. But I gave Rachel Conny's phone number! Oh my god, nothing good can come from this...

I quickly called back Rachel to tell her to destroy that number and NOT call Conny. Unfortunately, the line was busy. Oh no... I then called Conny and guess what ... the line was busy... Shit! Now I've done it... What would Rachel be saying to Conny? Why would Rachel even want to talk to Conny? As I was contemplating these questions I figured that I probably didn't want to know the answers...

A short time later, I called Conny's number again. Her mother answered the phone. All she said was, "Never call here again." She didn't sound happy.

I then grabbed the flowers and candy and drove over to Conny's house. Dave answered the door and told me that Conny wasn't there. I think she was, but I had just done a pretty stupid thing and figured there was no getting out of this one. I gave the flowers and candy to Dave with the instructions to make sure that Conny got them, went home and cried myself to sleep.

Yeah ... this time I really fucked up. This was the end. Conny went back to Germany and actually sent me a letter saying that that was a dumb thing to do. Of course I already knew that. She wasn't telling me anything new with that letter. I wrote back explaining that it was all a very stupid mistake but expected no reply. I got no reply.

Conny went back to Germany. I was now completely out of the picture. She ended up meeting an American soldier in Germany and is actually now living in California with a couple kids. How do I know this? She told me. You see, there are just some ghosts in a person’s closet that never seem to go away. Since this horrific episode, Conny and I have attempted to ‘touch base’ a couple of times through emails. The first couple attempts didn't go well at all ... I think they had a lifespan of about three messages back and forth before I would eventually say something that would remind her of exactly why we never ended up together and she would basically tell me to 'get bent' and that would be the end. This last attempt, however, seems to have worked much better. Although she will be reading this, so who knows...? I just hope that I didn't say anything that will upset her ... that most definitely was not my intent.

Well, I doubt this was very interesting for most of you; however Todd requested it. Therefore if you have any problems, steer your anger his way. This story is a bit personal for me, so I really don't see how it would be very interesting to an outsider. Never fret, however, as I have booked two more trips to Amsterdam with trips to Athens, Zürich and Paris in between. The next five weekends should be interesting… I'm sure my blogs will become more interesting again in the near future.

bis später,

Coriolis