She was gorgeous. She had lovely hair and lovely eyes. 

She wore lovely sweaters. The only days I didn't notice her lovely hair and her lovely eyes were the days she wore her lovely sweaters. 

I wanted to speak to her, to ask her out. I wanted to take her to the Alps Road Drive-In Theatre in my 1958 red and white Chevrolet. 

"Lovely sweater you are wearing this evening, my dear," I would say, looking deeply into her lovely eyes, stroking her lovely hair. 

She would grab me as her passion soared out of control and we would spend the entire double feature kissing squarely upon one another's mouth, which is about as far as passion was allowed to soar back then. 

But I was shy. I never asked her out, not to the Alps Road Drive-In Theatre, not even to the Varsity for a double steak sandwich with extra onions and pickles. 

I tried my best to speak to her, but nothing would come out. I wanted to whisper to her in class, "Lovely sweater you're wearing today, my dear,'' but it always hung there in my throat, causing me to cough on her. 

I wrote love poems to her and sonnets and even a dirty limerick in a wild, lustful moment. But I never showed them to her. I figured if I did, she would call campus security. 

I suppose the real reason I never made any sort of move on the girl of my boyish dreams, however, was that I was realistic. 

I was no day at the beach when I was in college, if you know what I mean. The term for individuals such as me in those days was "lizard." 

I had short hair and big ears. I wore glasses. I had a large pimple on my nose that struck when I was a sophomore in high school. It didn't go away until I had been married a year and my wife made me go to the doctor and have it surgically removed. 

My pants always seemed to be too short when I was in college. That would have come in handy had there been campus floods, I suppose, but all it really managed to do was expose the fact I hadn't yet gotten the word white socks were out. 

I never asked out the pretty, blond girl who sat next to me because I was a lizard, and I knew it, and I figured she did, too. 

But the point of all this: While I was in the hospital recently I received a get-well card from this very same girl, now a grown-up woman. 

She said some very sweet things in the card. She said she enjoyed reading what I write. She even said she remembered sitting next to me in class. I never thought she even knew I was alive. 

I was happy to get the card even though it was 20 years too late. But I also felt a certain amount of remorse. Dang my hesitancy. Dang my timidity. Dang my big ears. 

I won't allow it to go any further than the card, of course. She's probably married with kids, and they tore down the Alps Road Drive-In Theatre anyway. 

But let this be a lesson to the young and foolish. Give in to the mad rushes of love! Never hold back when you are filled with the magic of romance! If nothing else works, try a tube of Clearasil! 

Lizards need love, too. Take it from one who has been there.