Man With the Oyster Plan

Remember the story about the guy with the oyster sandwiches I eluded to a few posts back? Well Royce's Daughter touched on "the spark" after watching "Love Actually." Stace loves this movie and it's okay to me. Cute enough. Makes you smile. But let's talk about the spark.

It was summer 2002, just a few months after I crossed. I was home for the summer. It just so happened a fraternity (we'll call them the Cs) was holding their conclave in my hometown. (It's become the hot spot for national conferences lately). We knew that meant PARTIES!! I studied hard and partied hard in college. It's important to have balance. So the first night we headed downtown to the host hotel to find out where the best parties were. Well the police ended up shutting down the whole block for an impromptu block party. Charlotte, what?!?! Now you know they usually shoo black people on at the end of the night. Some high-ranking policeman must be a member of that frat! Lol.

Now I did meet some raunchy people. Me and my sorors were posing for pictures and some man LICKED MY FACE!! Vomit marries unacceptable and has a child. IT'S YOU!! Too through. But this convention taught me something. A national convention is one of the best ways to get a read on the organization. For every out of control C, there were 2 more acting like gentlemen. You cannot judge an organization based on the individual or chapter you are most familiar with. I happen to like the C's at Hampton, but the clave opened my eyes a bit more. And trust and believe I know that people are one way in some situations and normal in others. Another great story is the NPHC convention. BLAST!!

Enough with the digressions. The night of the block party, me and my crew are making our rounds. I see this guy and we lock eyes. TALK ABOUT A SPARK!! Wow. I had never felt anything like that before and haven't since. I said to myself, "If he doesn't come talk to me, I'm going to speak to him." That is not how your girl does it. If you don't have the cojones to come speak to me then it's not meant to be. You are not the man for me. You need to man up. He did.

We started talking... and couldn't stop. He was from New Orleans and I LOVED his crazy accent. Have you ever heard someone from New Orleans speak? It has a lilt to it almost with a Caribbean vibe. To my untrained Southern ear, that's what it sounded like. I couldn't stop giggling. It turns out we crossed the same day, March 23, 2002. Me and one or more of my girls went back every night for the rest of the convention. I let him read my writing and he loved it. He just liked to hear me talk which HELLO I love! He liked that I'd been to Europe and we swapped college stories. I found out he liked oyster sandwiches which I was appalled by. It just sounded so disgusting to me but it's a very New Orleans food. Like po boys. I'm not the groupie girl so there was no typical convention behavior. I figured that meant the end of his time in Charlotte would mean the end of our conversations.

He called me the night he left which I thought was nice. We talked for a few hours. (Royce will hate this) I thought that would be the end of it. Then he called the next night. And the next. And the next. And the next. We ended up talking for 3 or more hours every night for the next month until he went to visit his mom in Puerto Rico (she was in the service). He sent me a post card and some sand since that's what I'd asked for and put his picture with it. One night we talked for 8 hours. Our phone batteries kept dying so both of us had to keep letting a phone charge then switch again, but we kept talking anyway. When both of us got back to school, the conversations died down a lot because we were busy. Then they pretty much stopped.

But we would email each other on our shared frat/sorority birthday and reconnect for a minute. Then one time my sister went to a dance conference at his school. By this time he was in grad school. She recognized him and we started up again. Then it fizzled out. Regardless, that spark was FIYAH and for that I will never forget him.