First Kisses

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

This week's calendar features Valentine's Day, so I thought I might add a little early romantic slant on this issue. Below is a story I wrote in my first book named "When Our Hearts Were Young". Some of the names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent (as they said each week in Dragnet).  This is a longer than normal story, but I hope you will enjoy reading another personal incident of my early life.

The Kissing Games Parties -

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Most people have fond memories of a first kiss, and of the special person in their life who had the honor of bestowing upon them the everlasting memory of that symbol of affection.  I don't have such a memory.  Of course, it's not all my fault that others possess a memory that I am denied.  Most other people also had the advantage of not being blindfolded and tied up when that historical event occurred.

I don't think I was actually tied up, but I know for a fact that I was blindfolded and never saw the face of the beautiful teenager or pre-teenager that bestowed upon my lips that special, once-in-a-lifetime gift. If I was blindfolded then how did I know she was beautiful? Because it’s my story and I want to remember my first kiss coming from a beautiful girl!

If I had been good, or lucky, or both, then maybe I would have known who did it, but I was neither.  My first kiss did not come at a girl's front door following a date, or in the dark balcony of the Lyric theatre as a movie flickered on the screen, or even in the back of the building which housed Carter's Skateland.  Instead, my first kiss came from a girl during one of the games at one of the parties that we were starting to attend as we entered that phase of our lives when we began noticing members of the opposite sex.

I remember a lot about the party, and yet, at the same time, I don't remember much at all about it.  It was held in the fall of my fourteenth year, which would have made the year 1960.  I had just started running around with the crowd of girls that I had met and befriended at Carter's Skateland, and it was through their crowd that I was invited to that particular party.  This group of girls was primarily comprised of Dianne, Carolyn, Connie, and a few more.  Of the group, I had only dated one of them.  That was the historical Valentine's Day dance double-date with Connie and her cousin.  The night of that dance would have been the perfect setting for the first kiss, but my shyness kept me from making the move that would always associate that milestone with Valentine's Day and with Connie.  All the Valentine date accomplished was to make me get a mad crush on her.

I think that it was Connie's idea that I that I receive my invitation to the party.  I don't remember for certain whose house it was held, but I recall it was a large house up by Maple Hill Cemetery. I think it was Ronnie's, a friend from Boy Scouts and a Huntsville Junior High student. I knew a lot of people who lived in the area, and it seems that a lot of my early memories are connected to that section of town.  I didn't know when I first accepted the invitation that the party was going to be my first kissing-game party.

All the parties that I had attended before that night had centered on the boys and girls drinking Cokes, eating popcorn, and listening to music.  The listening-to-music parties eventually gave way to dancing-to-music parties as a few of the participants became braver or more interested in each other.  I remember that songs like Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Twilight Time, and My Prayer by the Platters were very popular in the dark rooms.  Those songs would be the ones that my generation would remember as "belt-buckle or zipper polishing" songs.

As I got ready for the party that night, I thought that we were all still in that stage of our social development.  I didn't realize that some of the others were advancing along the puberty trail faster than I had been and I was about to enter a whole new world of boy-girl relationships before the final scratchy 45rpm song of the night spun on the single-play portable record player.

I am a little foggy about what month it was, but still remember that the night was warm, and that the party was held in the large back yard of the turn-of-the-century house.  Most of the guests never even went into the house, but instead just walked down the long driveway that ran beside it leading to the backyard.  A large brick fence enclosed the backyard, and a couple of tables were set up to hold the refreshments and the record player and wire racks of 45rpm records.  A large, bare-bulb worklight, such as the type used in garages to work on car engines, was draped over the clothesline in the yard and it shined irritatingly bright in the evening's twilight.

I either walked or rode my bicycle to the party alone.  Some of the other teenagers were dropped off at the house by their parents.  I'm sure the girls who made out the invitation list must have planned the night's activities weeks in advance, but I didn't know anything about the games that were planned.  To me, it was going to be another party, just like the previous ones I had attended with the same group.

I was what people called a "late bloomer" back then.  I was sure that every other boy in the world, who had reached the ripe age of 14, had kissed a girl before, maybe even done more than kissed one.  One of my fifth grade friends at East Clinton Elementary School was the first boy I ever knew that had kissed a girl on the lips.  He must have been 10 or 11 years old at the time.  He had this thing about kissing girls.  He used candy to bribe a couple of other boys to help him catch and hold a girl while he kissed her.  He must have been a pretty good kisser, because none of the girls ever turned him in for his Don Juan episodes even though they took place during school hours and on the school yard.  I doubt if he remembers the first girl that he kissed either, come to think about it. Today he would probably be locked up for his adventures.

The party started the same way as all the other parties had done before.  Elvis and Roy Orbison songs filled the night air from the tinny speaker of the record player as we all stood in the backyard visiting and listening to the music.  It was then that someone decided we should play a game.  I think I was so nervous about the idea at first I didn't want to stay and participate.  It was like being at a party and everyone else deciding to play strip poker, and you didn't really want to play because you had holes in your underwear, but were afraid to leave.

The sun had finished its setting and the backyard had become completely dark, except for the bare bulb hanging on the line, and it was turned so that the beam of light illuminated the white walls of the house rather than the area occupied by the teenagers.  I don't know the name of the first game that we played, but I want to remember that it was the traditional game of "Spin-The-Bottle."  I squatted nervously in the circle of boys as the girls took turns sending the six-and-a-half-ounces Coke bottle on its mission.  Around and around it spun, like a wheel of fortune. When the game was finally called, the bottle had never landed pointing at me, and I felt somewhat relieved.  Even though the bottle had stopped spinning, that wasn't the end of the games.  We next started a game called "Seven Minutes in Heaven," where by some method a boy and a girl were selected to accompany each other to a secluded part of the backyard. I remember it being a blanket strung over a clothesline. The couple spend seven minutes alone, doing whatever you did with a member of the opposite sex in their early teen years.  The rest of the group simply stood around visiting and talking as the minutes ticked by, and everyone cheered and jaunted the couple when they emerged from their seclusion.  The girl always looked embarrassed and the boy took on the appearance of the mighty hunter who had killed his first wild boar.  That night, I missed out on that part of the action too.  I did not spend seven minutes in heaven or in hell, whichever the case it might have been for me and an unfortunate girl who might have been selected to accompany me on that journey.

We followed that with a game called "How Deep is the Well?", where one person was selected to sit in a chair and be blindfolded.  If the person in the chair was a boy then he held out both hands, thumbs up, and grabbed a pointed-down thumb of a mystery girl in each fist.  For some reason that sight always reminded me of someone milking a cow.  He was then asked the question, "How deep's the well?" to which he would reply "five feet," or "six feet," or something such as that.  When instructed to drop one of the buckets, he released the thumb of one of the girls, and held onto the other, thus selecting the girl he had chosen.  His reward for this simple procedure was to get to kiss the girl attached to the entrapped thumb the number of kisses equal to the depth of the well.  The only thing that kept him from having a well that went to the bowels of the earth was that he was unsure which girls would be attached to the thumbs, and there were always some girls at the party that no boy wanted to kiss 3,000 times.  I'm more than sure that the girls who were put into the hot seat felt the same way about some of the boys at the party, including me.

I don't even remember the name of the next game that we played on that faithful night, but I do remember that the guests took turns being set down into a straight backed chair and having their eyes covered with a handkerchief, much like the way heroes are treated in spy movie interrogations.  The object of the game was for someone to walk up and kiss the blindfolded person in the chair and then get back into a line-up of other guests.  The person that was kissed then had the blindfold removed and was supposed to try to guess the identity of the kisser from the line-up, based only on the feeling of the kiss.  I had failed to be picked as a participant during the previous three games and therefore had escaped the embarrassment of having to kiss a girl for the first time in public.  Choosing the person to occupy the seat of honor during the games was done a lot like the way sides were chosen at a playground ball game.  I was usually the last one selected; only this time, I would have been glad to be excluded.  However, my lack of participation in the earlier games had not gone unnoticed by some of the other guests.  All I remember is that without warning, someone called my name to be "it" and I had no way to decline the selection.

Somewhat reluctantly, I sat down in the seat and had the blindfold put over my eyes.  Maybe they did tie my hands and feet, I really don't remember.  I felt like the man facing the firing squad, only I got no last request and it would not be bullets that I would soon feel ripping through my body.  Today it seems stupid to have been so scared and concerned about being kissed by an unknown girl.

I sat with my eyes closed, and probably fists clinched like when I sat in a dentist chair, even though I was wearing the blindfold, and awaited my fate.  I don't know how long I waited, but a short while later, I felt the soft, stranger's lips pressed wetly against mine, and then it was over.  It was not a passionate kiss like in the movies. It was just a kiss. Noises came from the crowd, laughter or sighs, or people just saying "rhubarb" for all I knew.  It was just indistinguishable crowd noises.  Finally, the blindfold was removed from my head and I stared toward a line-up of teenage girls comprised of some I knew and some I did not know.  I don't remember who "it" was that I picked as the probable set of lips, but my selection was wrong.  Everyone laughed because I was wrong and told me to guess again.  I was wrong the second time, and the third.  My greatest handicap was that I had never kissed any girl before, let alone any of the girls in the line-up, and therefore had nothing with which to compare the mystery kiss.  All of their lips were mysteries to me.  The crowd had such a good time chiding me for my inability to match the lips to the kiss that the true name of the kisser somehow got lost in the confusion.

I never succeeded in guessing her identity, and before I knew it, another person was selected to sit in the chair and wear the blindfold.  With the selection of the new victim, the line-up was changed and with that exchange, I was destined to never know the name of the first girl that I kissed as a teenager.  I don't know if it was embarrassment or nerves that made me fail to pursue the issue any farther.  It may have been the relief of finally getting over the task of the first kiss.  It could have been Connie, or Dianne, or even Carolyn that was selected to play the part of the mystery girl in my life.  It could have been one of the other eight or so girls that were in the crowd.  I would never know.

Much to my delight, once the barrier of the first kiss had been crossed, neither the kissing, nor the games, ceased.  For the next six or nine months, those types of games continued at most of the parties that I attended, when we had a chance to play them without worrying about parents or chaperones.  I found myself really looking forward to them. Eventually I got pretty good at guessing the identity of the kissers, and the wells kept getting deeper.  It took me a while to really understand that the quantity of kisses was not half as important as the quality.  I remember that shortly after one of the parties, I went camping with the Scouts and was sitting around the campfire swapping stories with some of the younger boys.  Eventually, the topic changed from ropes and knots to girls.  One of the boys asked me if I had ever kissed a girl, and I proudly replied "I kissed one 30 times last weekend."  I knew that it was 30 times, because I had counted each kiss, like a gunslinger marks notches on his gun.  That's how deep the well was on that round of the games. Most of the crowd around the campfire that night thought I was violating the Scout law of being truthful.

I didn't realize that 30 counted kisses might not be half as interesting as one or two non-counted ones, if the right girl gave them in the right manner.  I still had a lot to learn, but enjoyed every minute of the education for as long as I could.

Just as we must ultimately outgrow the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, we were also destined to eventually outgrow the kissing games of our younger years.  The boys and girls who made up the members of the parties began pairing up in the grandest tradition of courtship.  Some began going steady with others in the group.  As would happen, with each new committed couple, the girls or boys lost their willingness to let their newfound loves participate in games that shared their affections or charms with others.  The thrill of spending time in heaven or counting kisses with someone who was madly in love with someone else went away.  The circles surrounding the spinning bottle decreased in circumference, and with each person who elected not to join the circle, a little bit of our youth left us.  With the loss of the games, we felt a loss of a part of our lives that we didn't really want to put behind us, but were somehow forced into the position of having to do so.  With its passing, we took another step along the pathway of growing up.

The fun and games that we once used as vehicles to get to know each other had served their purposes.  The ice was broken and was now used to fill the glasses of Cokes we shared.  The barriers that had stood between the teenage boys and teenage girls, who had spent their earlier days lost in shyness, were reduced to rubble.  I welcomed the loss about as much as I welcomed the knowledge that on Christmas Day, I would crawl out of my bed, walk into the living room, and not find the toys for which I dreamed, magically placed beneath the Christmas tree by Santa Claus.

The Wayback Machine

"Then He Kissed Me" is a song written by Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. The song, produced by Spector, was initially released as a single on Philles Records in July 1963 by The Crystals. The lyrics are a narrative of a young woman's encounter, romance, and eventual engagement with a young man. In 2004, this song was number 493 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The single is one of The Crystals' best-remembered songs. It was recorded at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles in April 1963. The lead vocal was sung by Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, the Wall of Sound arrangement was by Jack Nitzsche, featuring The Wrecking Crew, and Larry Levine was the engineer. In the United States the single peaked at number 6 and in the United Kingdom it peaked at number 2. It was The Crystals' third single to chart in the top ten in the United States, and their second to reach the top ten in the United Kingdom.

 The song was retitled "Then I Kissed Her" and released by The Beach Boys on their 1965 album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) with Al Jardine on lead vocals and production by Brian Wilson. Beyond title and gender changes, new lyrics were written retelling the story of the Crystals' song from the boyfriend's point of view.

Microsoft's AI program Copilot has this to say about the first kiss.

Ah, the first kiss—a moment steeped in anticipation, excitement, and a touch of nervousness. Whether it’s stolen under the stars, amidst the ambiance of a cozy café, or after a night of laughter and shared stories, a first kiss is often unforgettable.

It begins with a glance, a softening of distance, and the unspoken agreement that it's time to close the gap. Hearts race, breaths become shallow, and the world seems to fade away as two people lean in closer. The moment the lips touch, it's a fusion of warmth, electricity, and emotion—a sweet, delicate dance that says more than words ever could.

It’s not just about the kiss itself, but everything it represents. It's a promise of intimacy, a step into the unknown, a mixture of hope and vulnerability. It's often a defining moment, a memory etched into the heart—a time when, if only for a brief moment, everything feels just right.

I am going to plead with you this week for some of you to join in with your personal thoughts and memories about the first time you kissed a member of the opposite sex.You don't have to share your name or you can make up a name for yourself if you wish. I am not requiring real names if you don't want to share yours.

As an incentive, if I get at least 10 classmates take the time to share their own experiences, I will continue this story and confess my real first kiss story.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

Nell Rose Brackett, LHS ‘71, "I also went to Memphis to see The Monkees in 67! Great Concert!"

Jimmy Bannister, LHS ‘66, "I was at the Sam The Sham concert at Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham that Curt Lewis wrote about last week. Like Curt, I can't remember who I was with or how I got there. I may have been with him and Earl."