My first crush hit when I was ten, in the form of a young man who entered our lives as my brother George’s friend.Danny had brilliant blue eyes framed in deep sadness, with a smile that lit a room and could charm the birds out of the trees. His shaggy blond hair was always a mess, as he struggled with a rapidly growing lanky awkward fourteen year old body. Most nights he was at our dinner table. His mother had committed suicide when he was just a toddler, and his father was the town drunk.  My mother included him in everything we did, but she couldn’t save him from himself. As his teen years moved ahead, he’s life spun out of control. At sixteen he dropped out of school, had a pregnant girlfriend, and was showing the promise of following in his father’s footsteps.When he hit eighteen his life officially crashed, as he spent just as much time in jail as out. His friendship with George ended without explanation. My crush still breathed life, as we saw less of him. I had the unrealistic dreams of being the girl to save him. For me, his sudden absence from our life, was heartbreak of the purist form. Now fourteen, as much as I had experienced different crushes, Danny stood out as the one I compared all others to.Two years later Danny appeared on our doorstep. The fact he was in army, for me, perpetuated his hero status. What I didn’t know, he was given the choice of army or prison, by a local judge.He roared into our yard that Sunday on a brand new Harley-Davidson. I was home alone. We sat on the front porch and talked. He asked me to go for a ride with him into the mountains. Foolishly sixteen, and still carrying the awful crush, I accepted his invitation.We rode through the mountains on that glorious Sunday, stopping to take in the view, laughing and talking. It was a day that still makes me smile. If my parents knew what I was up to, I would have been locked up in a convent.I rode home, with my head resting on his board shoulders, taking in every moment in the aura of my crush. Leaving for Vietnam in two weeks, he gave me his address, so I could write.We wrote back and forth while he was overseas.  He made lonely promises to visit when he returned state-side and to take me for another ride into the mountains. He often mentioned it, giving me the impression that day meant as much to him as it did to me. His last letter was from Hawaii. Pressed between the pages was a pink flower. He’d be home soon, he wrote. It was the last letter I received from him.I wouldn’t see him for thirty-seven years.He stepped back into my life at my mother’s funeral as I stood in a numb haze at the enormity of my grief. Clad in the black leathers of his life style, he was with a woman who looked like she had ridden in on a hell hound.  His blue eyes looked the same, and just as sad. The brilliant smile was gone as he took my hand, thanking me for the letters when he was in Nam. He said they kept him going. He went on to say how much he appreciated my mother’s kindness. Quietly he kissed my cheek and left.That was my first kiss from him and it would be my last.All these memories sprung forth like confetti shot from a cannon to scatter around me, after a call from my brother. George thought I should know, Danny had been killed in a motorcycle accident, alone on a winding mountain road last week.I asked him what happened to end their friendship. He told me, I was the reason. When I hit my teens, Danny was interested in me. George ended the friendship, cutting Danny out of our lives. He also revealed he knew about the letters, information my mother passed on to him. He was stationed in Hawaii, when Danny returned from Nam, he looked him up, and asked him to stop writing me. Because of the war, Danny’s life had been pushed into a new personal brand of hell, and George didn’t want me to be apart of it. He felt I was too young to resist the power of my crush.I wanted to be angry at him, but knew he was right. He was only trying to protect me from a destructive relationship.  I didn’t tell my brother about the ride into the mountains. I kept the secret until now. I still smile at the feel of the wind in my hair. Whenever the scent of pine hits my senses on a hot sunny day, my memories burst to life. Danny bought me lunch at a diner in a small mountain town that day. I had a hamburger that tasted like heaven. I return to the diner on occasion, but the hamburgers just don’t taste the same.  Question of the Day: Who was your first crush, and do you know what happened to him?