Rollermaniac in Packrat

Derek Longmuir was the drummer for the Bay City Rollers in the late 1970s. He turned 59 yesterday.

I loved him as much as my teenage heart could hold.

I reflected yesterday that it's funny what can stick in our minds.

March 19th is Derek Longmuir's birthday; I always remember that. I also always remember that he's eight years, six months, and three days older than me.

I haven't been 13 in way too many years to count, and holidays, birthdays of family and friends, the dates of important events tend to sneak up on me, but I always remember his birthday.

So I had to analyze that.

I think he's still somewhere in the tapestry of my being because he was really the first man I loved with a passion. It's easy to laugh it off now. I was 12 when the BCR entered my world and 14 when they left it, but I really thought I loved him, because my existence hadn't stretched enough to include all the other experiences that would show me what love really is.

He was also safe. He came to me only in my fantasies, which were under my control. But he really existed, and he came to my state for a concert, so there he was, the dream made flesh. Still at a distance, but living, breathing, and drumming right in front of me. (May 1977.)

I was a rabid fan. I held birthday parties on his birthday. I wore a leather bracelet bought at the fair with his name stamped on it until the name could no longer be read. His name in glittery letters was on the t-shirt I wore to the concert, and the ensemble (which included short pants and striped socks) became something akin to holy relics to me.

I was so rabid that the shy wallflower I was became a screaming bundle of pure joy and excitement when the Bay City Rollers graced our town. When their limousine pulled away from a radio interview I with many others followed it, my hand outstretched so I could at least touch it. I really don't know how, but I ended up riding on the back, only a window between the BCR and me!

I knocked politely on the window, and Stuart "Woody" Wood turned around. I waved, he waved back, and then I let myself slide off.

(Interesting chain of events: my best friend was also a rabid fan. We were separated in the melee. When I landed on the back of the car, I could see their silhouettes facing my right. Woody turned around when I knocked. As it turned out, they had been looking at my friend, who, in the excitement, had had her head smacked into the side window, hard. It was on the right of the car. She could see Les McKeown ask if she was alright. She said they all looked concerned, and then Woody looked out the back. Many years later, in our adult years, I met the cousin of the girl who smacked her like that - they made only the one appearance here in their hey day - and she said her cousin always felt bad about what happened and wondered whatever happened to that girl, my friend. Being young, we kicked ourselves for missed opportunities - why didn't she tell them she was hurt? Why didn't I hang on to the car? I know now those scenarios wouldn't have worked as we thought they would, but at 14 you believe in everything. But I digress.)

In my dreams, Derek and I walked alone in the moonlight which glittered over the ocean. Where this was, when this was, how it happened or what happened next, never entered my mind. Nor did the fact that a 23-year-old man showing romantic interest in a 14-year-old girl was and is creepy, but that love existed in a world of its own. It let me grow in a safe environment, like a hothouse flower, because it let me try on those emotions without exposing myself to any harmful element.

(It would be just as creepy if I at 50 screamed and cried at my love interest's presence and jumped on the back of his moving car! Again, I digress.)

At 14 I used to pray to God to let me marry Derek when I turned 18. God, in His infinite wisdom and love, said No.

I didn't know then -and it would have killed me to know - that in no way would Derek ever be interested in me - I wasn't the right gender.

But really all this is to say that that love, being the first of its kind in my life, was intense because of that, and the intensity branded my brain, so that nearly 40 years later I still remember his birthday and that he's eight years, six months, and three days older than me.

If only I could remember other things (like turning in my timesheet on time) just as well!