Member-only story
Summer Memoir Writing Contest
Our First Days
Loving a troubled man is hard but love always wins
The first year Ricardo and I were together, it was exciting but hurtful, too. Women never left him alone. I would never forget the way it made me feel — jealousy and rejection. You should say he was the most eligible bachelor around those parts.
I should have walked away and stayed strong, but like many other women I was infatuated with him. He was tall, fit and had a wonderful loving personality.
We spent every weekend together when he lived with other friends at Corncrib Community. This house belonged to another friend, Wanda, and Ricardo and his sisters who were orphans stayed there for a while. But it was party central. Everyone came there to party and have fun. I always felt I was on the outside looking in. I never felt in place back then since I was a single mom and was not used to being that wild. Back before him, me and my friends would go to bars and have fun, but it wasn’t as wild as Ricardo and his friends.
When the weekend would start, we would all meet at a bar named the Carousel. This was the place to go dance and have a great time. The top floor had tables to sit at, but you could look down at the dancefloor and see the disco ball turning with the flashing lights. This was during “Disco Years.” Everyone had disco fever including Ricardo. He loved to dance. (If I could go to a disco club now, I would.)
The disco era was a time you only had to be 17 years old to drink, then it went up to 18, and then 21. It didn’t matter because it was easy to have a fake ID back then. I always fell right at the drinking age. The music was hopping, drinks 50 cent and beer sometimes fell into the penny special.
My friends and I would dance till closing and then I would go home with Ricardo for the weekend. Bell bottoms, army jackets and short shirts is what the cool kids wore, and polyester suits is what the John Travolta crowd wore. “Saturday Night Fever” with John Travolta was a big hit back then. If you could dance the disco moves, you had it made with getting dance partners.
When we left to go back to Corncrib, Space Dog would meet you at the door with someone’s clothes off the line. This…
