Slayve Gravy and Buttered Biceps

Everyone has that first crush. The kind of crush that makes your heart flutter, your knees weak, yadda, yadda, yadda. My first knee weakening love just so happened to be a celebrity. A real man’s man, Patrick Swayze. I guess even at a young age I thought older men were the hottest fellas on the block. I skipped over the New Kids On the Blocks boys and went straight for the man.

I first fell in love with Swayze when I was a little kid. I don’t remember how old, but young enough that I was still making mud pies and burying my fish that died and digging them up a few weeks later to see if they were bones yet…THAT kind of weirdo phase young kid. My mom taped Dirty Dancing off of the T.V. (to censor it and make sure the sex scene was removed for my little sister and me) and my sister and I watched it religiously. I swear, I could watch that man dance at all hours of the day or night. I remember wanting the pink dress Jennifer Gray wore in the movie because I thought if I had something like that, I could be cute enough for The Swayze. I practiced all the dance moves too. I was determined to get the head twirl and the mambo down for him. When my sister and I would play, we’d go to this dirt hill and climb it and I would imagine that he would one day show up and stand at the top of the hill like a knight in shining armor and reach his hand down and pull me up, carry me into his black classic car and we’d cruise away into the sunset and get married.  Then we’d go dance on a log across a river together followed by him lifting me up above his head in a lake like he does to Baby in the movie.

Although I loved him as much as a dumb little girl with a first crush can, I just couldn’t get his name right. You know, when you’re little, you don’t always pronounce everything too great and you can misunderstand funny names. In my case, I thought his last name was Slayve, which mentally, I always made a connection to being his love slave, obviously in an innocent sense because I didn’t know about “the birds and the bees” at that age. I would always get a craving for biscuits and gravy as well considering that I was raised in the south and all and it was my favorite thing to get from Bojangles on the Saturdays when my grandma would take us granddaughters out for breakfast and bingo with the senior citizens at the fast food southern chain and then take us shopping.

Some things stick with you I guess. Still to this day, like twenty years or more, I still think he’s a hunk of a man although I’ve let it go over the years and I was beyond bummed when he passed away. I’m glad I had a first love like him that I’m not ashamed of. He was a perfect mix of class and trash and seemed like a pretty stand up dude. My cravings for biscuits and gravy haven’t changed either. Even as I’m writing this I keep picturing a hot biscuit sliced down the middle with hot, spicy gravy smothering it. It’s never been anything sexual, but damnit I can’t describe gravy in detail as I’m writing about a hunk of man like Patrick. It feels almost wrong, but whatever. I guess we can’t control whom we love and the foods they make us crave. 

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