Our nation had reached the respectable old age of two hundred years, and naturally celebrated the event by setting off enough fireworks to convince Heaven that the Revolution had started over because somebody misplaced the receipt. Front Street was crowded with patriots carrying hot dogs in one hand and liberty in the other, and every soul among them believed the Founding Fathers had signed the Declaration chiefly so future generations might have an excuse to overeat on the Fourth of July.
I, for my part, was occupied with a matter of considerably greater importance than the preservation of the Union. I was only sixteen days away from obtaining my driver’s license, which is the age when a boy imagines he is about to inherit the roads, the girls, and good judgment all at once.
Providence, having an established reputation for practical jokes, grants him only the license.
Beside me sat Michelle upon the rocks overlooking the celebration. She had bright red hair that shone in the afternoon sun like a warning signal ignored by every young fool, and she was taller than I by a couple of inches, which seemed unfair in the same way taxes are unfair, perfectly legal, but irritating.
She was a couple of years younger than I was, though at that age a difference of two years resembles the distance between childhood and the Supreme Court. The young lady had not yet reached the age where romance makes any sense, and I had not reached the age where romance can be survived with dignity.
Half a century has marched by since that afternoon, carrying away presidents, hairstyles, common sense, and my youthful confidence. Yet I can still picture Michelle as plainly as though the Bicentennial parade had only just wandered past us, waving flags and pretending history had been simple.
Life enjoys tying peculiar knots in its own string. A few years afterward, I found myself having business with Michelle’s father, who happened to be a probation officer, proving once again that the fathers of pretty girls eventually become officials capable of making young men’s lives considerably less comfortable.
That, however, belongs to another tale and deserves its own courtroom.
The curious thing is that I scarcely remember what either of us said that afternoon. I remember no grand declarations, no heroic speeches, and certainly no evidence that either of us possessed enough wisdom to justify opening our mouths.
What I remember instead was a doll.
Now there is no accounting for memory. A fellow may forget the words spoken by the prettiest girl he ever admired, yet preserve every miserable detail about a crippled toy as faithfully as if Congress had appointed him its official historian.
Michelle described the doll with a tenderness ordinarily reserved for saints and favorite grandmothers. It had once possessed blond hair, but years of affection had transformed it into a hopeless nest of knots and tangles that would have frightened a barber into early retirement.
Its blue eyes still looked faithfully toward the world, though the world had shown precious little kindness in return. More alarming still, the poor creature had only one leg, a condition that would have disqualified it from military service but not from being loved.
The doll had been her companion since she was two years old. By then, it was thirteen itself, which is an advanced age for any toy expected to survive tea parties, childhood illnesses, family dogs, younger siblings, and the irresistible scientific curiosity of little girls determined to discover what stuffing is made of.
Michelle said she ought to throw it away.
She said it with the same confidence a politician promises lower taxes. We both knew it was a statement intended merely to satisfy reason while giving sentimental permission to ignore it completely.
“No,” she admitted after a moment. “I can’t.”
That little confession contained more honesty than I have heard in many public speeches since. A person may throw away a worn-out shoe, an old chair, or a cracked coffee cup without much ceremony.
The doll had been fed invisible suppers that somehow left it well nourished. It had been rocked to sleep through imaginary fevers, comforted after imaginary sorrows, and promoted daily through every important office a child’s kingdom can invent.
By thirteen years old, it had become almost ridiculous to continue loving such a battered relic. At least that is what sensible people would have declared, and sensible people have always been experts at misunderstanding the heart.
For the heart keeps no inventory based upon appearance. It values scars as accountants value interest, because each one proves that something precious has endured another year.
The years have taken that summer afternoon farther away than the fireworks ever climbed into the sky. Yet whenever I hear Dr. Hook singing, “She was too young to fall in love, and I was too young to know,” I cannot help but smile.
Some things outlive their usefulness but not their purpose. They remind us who we were before the world convinced us that anything broken must surely be worthless, a lesson that a one-legged doll taught long before the rest of us grew old enough to appreciate it.
I hope she still has it.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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