My First Time (for everything)

Just because Spo and Penguin and John and Dodd are doing it...

My earliest memory – cooking with my maternal grandmother in her kitchen, 1959

First airline flight – 1970; high school trip to Europe; JFK to geneva, switzerland

First time "doing it” – 1972, age 19 with my first real boyfriend; awkward

First surgery – tonsils, age 6, 1960

First car – ford pinto; high school graduation gift, 1972; blue and white two-tone; my parents had a death wish for me

First death of someone close – my maternal uncle, 1968, due to cancer; he was only 38.  I didn’t find out until 1988 that he was gay

First drink – my maternal grandmother kept some mogen david concord grape wine (horrible shit) in the dining room sideboard; she “had a snort” when she couldn’t sleep

First regret – not marrying my first real boyfriend in 1973

First pet – Sydney, my first rescue cat, 1991

First presidential election – 1972; george mcgovern

First time you felt you were an adult – when I moved out of the parents’ house in 1977; I was 23

First job – 1970, cashier in a local (small) mom-n-pop variety store; dusting the fucking glass shelves was THE WORST

First realization of the axiom “life is not fair” – being bullied at school and at home

Losing my virginity – 1977, age 23; some unknown guy; never saw him again; I DO remember he was a ginger boy with a beard!

First house – 1985, a one bedroom condo in northern Virginia with my now ex-husband; I held that mortgage until 1999, when I sold the condo to move back to philly

First camera – polaroid swinger, late 1960s

First checkbook – age 23, to pay the rent on my apartment

Passing my driving test at age 18 (1971)

First 45 record – “get off my cloud”, rolling stones

First record album – “rubber soul”, beatles

First cigarettes - in college 1972-1976; never got hooked

First (and only) divorce - 1991; ex-husband went on to remarry and have 6 kids; he's an idiot