When I was young, you might have called me a nerd if the  word had been in use at that time. I was a quiet person who kept to himself. In high school, I hung out with the nerdy guys, discussing the universe, our origins and the latest electronics invention. I was into ham radio and electronics. I built my own music radio station as a hobby.

I was actually afraid of girls. Though I had 3 sisters, I did not know how to act around girls, though I had a number of crushes.

In 1967, we moved to California in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is where I spent my high school and college years.

When I started college, my best friend introduced me to his girlfriend’s sister and I fell hard. I was floating on air. Everything with this young lady was a first and after a while I couldn’t imagine myself with anyone else.

We dated for 2 years. In the summer of the 2nd year, she fell deathly ill and ended up in the hospital for an entire month. I was beside myself with fear and worry. I was still a teenager

and this development was more than I could handle. I wanted to be the hero to this girl but I was just a bowl of shivering jello. I’m sure she was disappointed in me during that time.

Finally, she came home and I was happy and excited for life to get back to normal. I believe it was the month of August 1972. My family had a camping vacation trip planned to drive through the state of Oregon. The trip was lots of fun but I had not been away from my girlfriend for this long since we met. I was excited to see her again.

When we got home, I raced over to her house. As I was sitting in her house talking to her, she started telling me that she was going to make some changes in her life and the first change was going to be dating other guys. She had met a guy in summer school and had started spending time with him.

My heart sunk to the deepest place I had ever been. I went home with my head spinning, wondering what had happened. After a few days, I called and asked if we could meet so I could talk to her. She said she had some plans but we could meet at 7 that evening.

I showed up early and waited in my little Volkswagen “Herbie” for her to get home. A car pulled up in the dark and parked in front of me. As I watched, I saw a guy lean over and kiss her. That moment remains the 2nd lowest point of my entire life to this day. The lowest point was 6 months later – a result of this break up. She had found what she was looking for and I knew it wasn’t me.

A couple of years ago, I set out to make a video of these years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I went through my old negative catalogs and put together a collection of photos for a video. As I put them together, my thoughts went back to that time and to the girl and to the events I described above. When I got to the point of choosing a song to accompany my photo video, there was only one song that rose to the occasion and told my story. It is Zac Brown Band’s, “Goodbye in Her Eyes.”

This is the story of my teen years, my high school years, my years in California and the event that seems to overshadow that entire time of my life; my first love and the failure of that relationship. The failure sent me on a journey that resulted in a major change in my life 2 years later when I became a born again Christian in the hills of Auburn, California. So in a sense, it was all good. But it remains in the top 6 major events of my life.