A First Love

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the February Issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

My first true love was Daniel Green. We were 5 years old, and he was dreamy. We met my first day of school in Ms. West kindergarten class at David O. Dodd Elementary in Little Rock. He was my first boyfriend, but alas, I was not his first girlfriend. He had been the boyfriend of my two best friends before me. By the end of kindergarten, he had been the boyfriend of nearly every girl in our class. But we didn’t care, he was worth sharing.

I was lucky enough to be his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. He brought all of the kids suckers to the Valentine’s party, but I was home sick and had to miss the party. When I returned the next day, Ms. West told me that my sucker was broken and Daniel Green had insisted he take it back home and get me a new one. He brought back a huge, red heart sucker that I proudly told my mom was from my boyfriend.

Eventually he moved on to another girl, but that was okay, because I was the one who had gotten the big heart sucker for Valentine’s. When we began our first grade school year, Daniel Green, as we forever referred to him, was gone. For six years, he was a legend among the girls. We often wondered what happened to our beloved Daniel Green and would still talk about him at bunking parties.

In second grade, I had two boyfriends at the same time, Josh and Brian, who were best friends. They carried my books and passed me notes in class. For Valentines, they both got me a box of chocolates and Josh had his mom meet me after school with a balloon. In fifth grade, my boyfriend was David. He and I participated in a school orchestra program together, I played viola and he played cello. I broke up with him by slipping a note into his cello bag one afternoon.

When we reached seventh grade, our junior high pulled students from three elementary schools into one school. At a bunking party later that school year, we learned what had happened to Daniel Green. He had moved into one of the other elementary schools for a couple of years and they too had all loved Daniel Green. Each of them had been his girlfriend at one time or another and after a couple years, he had left them just as he had left us.

A couple of times at other bunking parties, we tried to find Daniel Green, once calling nearly every Green in the Little Rock phone book asking if Daniel was home. We’re pretty sure we found him one night, but he denied that he had gone to either of our schools. We were not convinced.

My oldest son is now the age I was when I had my first boyfriend. While he has friends that are girls and turns a little red when you ask him about certain ones, he has not yet had a girlfriend. But one mother recently told me that her daughter said she only liked Samuel and one other boy and all of the other boys are mean. She went on to say, “I think Samuel’s quite the lady’s man.” Is he the Daniel Green of Ms. Sarah’s room? Luckily I think not. When I asked him about the girls in his class, he replied, “YUUUCCKK, girls!” The sly smile he gave me afterwards, however, tells me it won’t be much longer until Samuel finds his first love.