When I was 8 years old, the girl next door owned a pink 3-speed Schwinn bicycle. Since my family was poor and I had no bicycle at all, I fell in love. We would pedal around the neighborhood with her perched on the handlebars and me joyfully switching gears while making race car motor sounds. It was heaven.

Then came the shock of finding out she was a Republican. It was 1964. She was politically astute for an 8 year old, and decided that we should print flyers for her preferred candidate (Barry Goldwater!!) on her Ideal Printing Press. It was a toy available to rich kids ($11.44) and came with "2 sets of Type, Ink, Tweezers, Printing Plates and much more"! (Did I mention she also had an Etch-A-Sketch? Told ya I loved her!)

So we printed "Vote For Barry" flyers and took them to the local polling station and started handing them out to people coming to vote.

Alas, we were not Bill & Hillary Clinton, so it didn't take long for a poll worker to come out and chase us off, warning that there was "absolutely no campaigning within 100 feet of a poll". We slunk off, tails between our legs, too sad to shift the Schwinn above 2nd gear the whole way home.

My family, being staunch Democrats, voted for LBJ of course, and I never told her I was not a Republican. She moved away not long afterwards and I never saw her again and I never knowingly dated another Republican.

Ah, the things we do for love. And for a pink Schwinn 3-speed.