My First Crush
By Marni Myers

he year was 1983.  Regan was president, the Cold War was starting to cough a little, the U.S. sent the first female astronaut into space, John McEnroe was at the top of his tennis game, and “Return of the Jedi” stormed the box office, completing the original “Star Wars” trilogy.   Of these world events, I confess I remember only “Return of the Jedi.”  What else is a nine-year-old to focus on?                  I was living in the growing suburb of our state’s capitol, with my parents, my eight-year-old brother, a little sister who would turn four in the fall, and a new baby brother.  We lived in a modest three-bedroom house with white siding and brown shutters, in a small neighborhood near farmlands, where we’d moved when I was five.  My life at that age was marked by playing with my friends Brooke, Michelle and Sheri, visits and sleepovers with my cousins, family outings on weekends, watching movies (remember, the VCR had only recently been invented), and lots of reading.  My parents were already grooming me to be a liberal by introducing me to “Masterpiece Theatre” on public television.
		1983 was also the year I started writing in a journal.  My aunt had given me the journal for my 8th birthday the summer before.  It was a big, three-ring binder filled with lined sheets of pastel-colored paper, that said “My First Journal” on the front.  My first entry is from late May 1983, a few weeks before my 9th birthday.  In the beginning, I wrote in the journal only because “a page in our journal is our ticket to dinner tonight”—a requirement strictly enforced by my mother on sporadic Sunday nights for a few months.  As the summer and then fall progressed, my entries became longer and more detailed, and I found I enjoyed writing about events and people in my life.
In September of that year, I entered the fourth-grade class of Mrs. Drysdale.  I wrote in my journal that we did a unit on the “Indins” (Indians), for which my friend Michelle and I made “a pitcher for a bulttin-bord” (picture for a bulletin board).   I also recorded that “Our whole class is making Kachina Dolls this tues. and I’m exsighted.”  (Budding writer though I may have been, I was apparently not winning any spelling bees.)             As if making Kachina Dolls wasn’t enough to scintillate the fourth-grade life, I also had my first crush that year.  His name was Stuart Christensen, and we were in road show together that was sponsored by our church.  Every year, five or six Mormon congregations in our area teamed up for a night of traveling musical productions.  Each parish wrote and produced a musical to be performed for the others, and prizes were awarded for the best one.  The catch was that they were all performed in the same night, with each group traveling to the various buildings to put on their show at every stop.  Stuart was the star of our production about the early life of a former president of the Mormon Church, Spencer W. Kimball.  He must have been 16 or 17 at the time, had a cute thatch of sandy blond hair, a warm, flirtatious smile, and an easy-going manner.  The storyline of our production focused on Spencer’s upbringing on a farm, where he helped care for the animals and learned the strong work ethic for which he was later known.  From a purely technical standpoint, having a few big farm scenes in the show was a great way to get lots of ward members on-stage.  For example, many of the women were chickens, including my mom, who spent hours stapling white paper napkins onto some sort of jump-suit thing, to mimic chicken feathers.  The Sunday School children were also recruited, doubling their Cute Factor by making them baby animals—ducks, pigs, etc.  I still remember the song the little three- and four-year-old ducks sang as the waddled across the stage, repeating what later become one of President Kimball’s well-known maxims:  “Lengthen your stride.  You can do it, if you put your mind to it.  Lengthen your stride.  You’ve got to lengthen your stride.”             I, however, was no ordinary barnyard animal.  No, I was the one and only cat, who waited patiently for Spencer to squirt some milk into my mouth while he was milking the cows.  This meant that I had a special scene with Stuart, and lots of on-stage rehearsal time with him as well.  I would sit on the floor of the stage while he perched on a stool to milk an unseen cow behind a piece of painted plywood.  I would twitch my kitty’s tale, lick my paws and swipe one over each ear to clean my face.  If memory serves, Stuart was singing a song during all this, as if to me, the cat, while he went about his chores.  He’d throw me glances, smile my way, wink as if we shared a secret.  At the strategic moment, he’d squirt me the face with a little water from a spray bottle.  Caught me off-guard every time.  Although I was too shy to say much, I developed a hopeless crush on this dashing teenager.              Of the experience, I wrote in my journal on Sunday, November 13th, 1983: “I am in a road show and I am THE cat.  In other words, their are know other cats.  My mom is a chicken and the chicken’s have a dance.  Jeremy (my brother) is an extra pig so he only comes on during the fanily [finale] of the road show.  All the extra animals have to come on at the fanlay [finale].  There is a guy named Stuart Crischunson is Spencer W. Kimbale and he likes me alot.  As a matter-of-fact I think he might even love me a little…. We had our first dress rehursul [rehearsal] yesterday (saterday).”  (Yes, yes, the spelling is atrocious.  I was nine!)             The road show had both debut and closing night the following week, playing to mass acclaim and winning the road show competition.  Although I was caught up in the excitement of the evening—racing from church to church, repeating our performance on different stages in the same night, catching glimpses of the other groups’ productions through the hallway doors—I was also feeling the first pangs of unrequited love, brought on by observing Stuart sitting on the floor in the darkened hallway of one of the church buildings where we were waiting for our turn, holding hands and laughing with a girl I’d never seen before.  She had long, dark hair, was clearly closer to Stuart’s age than I was, and was actually able to carry on a conversation with him that didn’t involve imitation cat noises (at least, not that I know of).  Oh fickle nine-year-old heart!  Why did I have to fall in-love with a man who loved another?  How had I ever believed that he might like me, when there were girls such as this in the world, girls who were funny and beautiful and his age?  I was crushed by my crush.              I poured out my heart to my journal a few days later, on November 20th, 1983:  “When I was talking to you about the road show and about the cast well, I found out something about Stuart Crischinson who played Spencer.  He has a girl friend.  I don’t know what her name is or who she is but I’m pretty sure that he loves her alot.  I don’t think now that he really ever loved me.  But if he ever (and still does) did then it proply [probably] isn’t very much.  But I’ll tell you one thing fur sure, I am starting to get a crush on him.  I don’t exaclay [exactly] know for sure how long this will last, but I’m sure it won’t last for very long….”             My flippant words at the end of the entry belie the sinking disappointment I remember feeling when I spotted my darling crush in the hallway that evening.  I apparently did recover quickly, however, as I never wrote of him again.                Stuart later went away to college and got married.  I remember awkward moments, when I was a teenager (but still too shy to talk to him) and he was home from college for the weekend, running into him in the foyer after church, feeling my face flush, noticing him not quite knowing how to act either, mumbling hello and averting my gaze.  Apparently our chemistry was only good on-stage.  Nonetheless, I’ll always have a soft spot in my memory for Stuart Christensen, my first crush.