break of dawn

When I was in high school, I belonged to a local chapter of Aleph Zadik Aleph. a Jewish fraternal group that..... well, actually, I have no idea what their mission was. I only joined to meet girls. Our AZA chapter arranged weekly "socials," an informal gathering held on a weekend night at someone's house, with a local BBG  (B'nai Brith Girls) chapter. The social chairman of our chapter would contact the social chair of a BBG chapter to make plans. Our socials were rarely with chapters of girls we knew from school... which was good. With strangers, we wouldn't have to worry about bumping into a girl who was witness to our over-anxious, awkward teenage boy behavior. It was at one of these socials that I met Dawn, a girl who became one of my best and dearest friends.

There was absolutely, positively never any romantic feelings between Dawn and me. Never. However, from the instant I met her, in someone's darkened basement in Northeast Philadelphia, I felt like I was meeting a long-lost sister. We clicked immediately and remained close friends for years.

With the thought of a romance between us being the furthest thing from our minds, Dawn and I regularly confided in each other about each other's relationships... or, more precisely, the lack of. Over the course of several years, Dawn dated every single one of my friends and acquaintances. She never went out with any of them more than once or twice. I never understood why. I got along great with her. She was sweet and funny and we shared many common interests. But, for some unknown reason, most guys didn't like her. While we bided our time between boyfriends (her) and girlfriends (me), Dawn and I went to concerts and movies or just hung out together. Then, I'd have a date or she'd have a date, it wouldn't work out and we'd find ourselves back in each other's company to compare notes and commiserate. Dawn and I frequently bemoaned our respective love lives — cursing those single dates and offering words of encouragement to one another.

After I graduated from high school, I lost touch with Dawn. Nothing specific happened to drive us apart. We just drifted out of each other's lives and into different ones.

I worked for a year after high school then began art school. In 1982, I met the future Mrs. Pincus. We got married in 1984 and our son was born three years later. We bought a house. I had a dozen different jobs. We went on numerous vacations and experienced a life of fun and excitement, ups and downs, happiness and sorrow. It's a life that could not have been better if I had actually plotted it out.

About thirty years ago, a guy I knew from high school called me up to ask if I was interested in hearing his pitch to purchase life insurance. I reluctantly agreed and he came to my home one evening. At the time, I had no plans to buy life insurance. He recited his little spiel and I politely declined. Instead of making a second attempt at a sale, he caught me off-guard with his next question.

He asked if I still kept in touch with Dawn. I suddenly remembered that he briefly dated Dawn in high school (but, then again, who didn't?) At the time, I had not heard her name nor thought of her in years. I told him I did not. Before I could finish my sentence, he was heading towards my front door,

I don't often think of Dawn. It's been years since I casually searched for her on Google. (And those searches yielded nothing.) It's as though she just vanished from the earth. It's a shame, because I'd like for Dawn to meet my wife and my son and show her — after all those times of wallowing in self-pity about never finding anyone for me — that I did.

I hope Dawn is happy, too. Where ever she is.

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