Anyone for a tuck’n'roll?

Coming to California from Europe, as I did in my sophomore year of high school, I never really had any idea what fads, local teen culture, or speech patterns would be like.  So, when several of the guys were sitting around in auto shop and the talk turned to our own cars I was unprepared for a statement made by one of them.

“I hear Bennie got his car tucked and rolled.”

I piped up before anyone else and solicitously asked if anyone had gotten hurt.

There was a dead silence for several seconds and then everyone, but me, broke out laughing.  I kind of chuckled along until it died out.  Ted took pity on me and told me what that meant.

“It means, Doofus, that he had the upholstery worked over so that it had little rolls in it.  Kinda like a quilt.  They do stuff like that down in Tijuana, Mexico.  Everyone piles into the car on Friday night and heads down south.”

“But, doesn’t it take a while to get down there?”

“Depends on how fast you go, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yeah.  I guess so.  What does it look like; the tuck’n’roll?”

“Where you been living?  Under a rock?”  Jibed Ding.

“He’s the new guy.  Came here from overseas.”  Explained Herm.

“I just got here last month.  I lived in Germany for three years so most of the time I don’t have a clue what everyone is talking about.”  Confessed me.

“Oh.  Come on out to parking and take a look at mine.”

I followed him out and into the student parking lot.  He led me to a glossy purple ’55 Chevrolet that looked like someone had cut the top off and glued it back on, but about six inches lower.  When he opened the door and I looked in I saw what he meant.

It looked like white leather and had little black threads along the seams.  I ran my hand across it.  Very smooth.  When I glanced around I saw that the door panels, side panels, seats, and even the headliner had been done the same way.  Very cool.

“Wow.  How much did this cost you?”

“The job was only a hundred and a half, but the whole trip cost me around two fifty; including bail.”

“Bail?  Like in jail?”

“Yeah.  We got a little rowdy and messed up a place a little.  We got stuck in the TJ drunk tank overnight.  My dad was pissed at me.”

“Well, the price certainly sounds reasonable to me.  When my car gets here I’d like to get this done to it.”

“Your car?  Whatcha got?”

“Volkswagen Karmann Cabriolet.  It’s a convertible.”

“A what?”

“A Volkswagen.  It’s a German car.  Very popular over there.  You probably won’t see one here because they aren’t exported.”

“What kind of engine does it have?”

“Four cylinder, stick shift, 4-speed plus reverse.  The engine is in the back.”

“In the back!  Where’s the trunk then?  In the front?”  He laughed.

“Yeah, with the gas tank”

He stopped laughing as I explained my strange little car.  When I got to the horsepower he started laughing again.

“Thirty-six horses?  That’s practically a two-door motorcycle.  Hoot, hoot, hoot!”

“Yeah, but I can get it up to around eighty-five or ninety though.”

He sobered again as I repeated my claim.  I’d had it wide open on the Autobahn and even though I’d been passed by lots of cars, I thought that was pretty good for such a small engine.  We talked a while about both his and my car and went back into the shop.

“Hey guys, he’s got a car coming over here from Germany that’s got the engine in the back and runs a whole thirty-six horses.”

One of the other guys piped up and said that he’d heard about them in one of his car magazines.  “Seems they get really good gas mileage.”  He said.

“I usually got around 640 kilometers on a tank of gas.  My tank holds around 45 liters of gas.”

“What the hell does that mean – in English?”

“Sorry.  That’s around 400 miles on, mmmm, about 11 gallons.”

He grabbed a piece of paper and did a fast calculation.  When he told the rest of them that my mileage was around 40 miles per gallon they began hooting.  I did my best to convince them it was true.  Eventually the subject drifted back to making a run to TJ to get a tuck’n’roll on Terry’s car.  All in favor say ‘Aye!’

“Aye!”  We all shouted.

…

It was several weeks later when we finally got clearance from our parents to make the road trip.  I didn’t have any trouble at all because I’d been making trips all over Germany and surrounding countries for quite a while.  Eventually, only five of us were going.  One Friday evening, after grabbing burgers to go, we piled into Terry’s car and headed south on the highway towards San Francisco.  Buzz was driving.

Navigating anywhere was never a problem for me because I seemed to have a ‘bump of direction’ that always told me which way I was heading.  When this bump began shouting at me that we were headed west and not south, I spoke up.  I was shouted down up until we crested a hill and was greeted by a magnificent view of – the Pacific Ocean.

“Uh, Buzz.  Unless Mexico has moved, we ARE headed the wrong direction.”

“Just checking to see if you guys were awake.  Heh, heh,” said Buzz as he hung a left at the next street.

Onward we went.  Down past the airport and into San Jose.  We changed drivers a few times but finally got to Ventura before we had to pull over and crash for a while.

A loud tapping on the roof of the car woke all of us.  It was a highway patrol.  He told us we’d have to move along.  No sleeping in rest stops.  Groggily, we tossed for who got to drive and drove off.  Everyone else crashed again.

I found out that it was true about seeing Los Angeles city limits signs hundreds of miles away from Los Angeles.  I saw the first one way north of Santa Barbara as we began waking up.

Luckily, it was a Saturday so travel through LA wasn’t all that bad.  The main problem was all the stop and go traffic.  Only small portions of what they called freeways were completed.

Finally, after a little over five hundred miles, we cruised through San Diego and reached the border.  A quick flash of our driver’s licenses and we entered Mexico.  Herm had the piece of paper with the address of the guy who did Ted’s car so he kept us all alert for different roads.  It seemed as if every turn we made took us into a more run down area than the last.  I expected to be rushed by a gang and killed at any moment.

We arrived at a really run down shack with a broken garage sign over the door.  When we parked, a couple of guys in ratty jeans came out and we began to dicker with them about what we wanted.  They opened all the doors, peeked into the truck, thumped, banged, and tapped every surface and named their price.  We countered with a figure around two thirds of their price.  They chattered back and forth and finally their faces lit up with smiles and we shook hands all around.

They took us inside and let us look through books with loads of pictures of cars they had done (maybe).  I tapped Ding on the shoulder and pointed silently to a couple of pictures of Ted and his car.  At least we had the right place.  Terry settled on a very nice shade of blue for everything horizontal and insisted on pure white for vertical surfaces.  I thought it would look very nice when done; so did he.

It was around ten in the morning and we hadn’t eaten as of yet.  Buzz asked the guys where we could get some food and he pointed down the street to a Cantina.

“Good food.  Good food,” he assured us, pointing emphatically at the sign.

I grabbed a couple of his business cards, and then we walked down and tried to make sense of the menu.  I knew from previous experience that ‘taco’ was a good thing and, when I saw that on the menu, I asked for it.  In fact, it turned out to be a Grande Taco; just like the one I’d had years ago.  All five of us had a beer to wash things down; then, another one to just be sociable.  We stopped before three however when I related Ted’s story of being put up in the TJ jail.

The guys had told us to come back at four.  So, what do we do now was the question.  We agreed that perhaps walking around might be not a good thing to do so we asked the buy behind the counter to call us a taxi.  Since one slid to a stop two minutes later I figured he had to be waiting around the corner for us to finish our beers.

“Hey.  You boys go see show?”  He asked through his mustache.

Now, we’d heard all about some of those ‘shows’ that we could see in Tijuana.  We’d also heard that sometimes the drivers would take you out and you’d never be heard from again.  We declined and told him to just take us downtown.

With a roar and a cloud of blue exhaust we took of for ‘downtown’; wherever that may be.  The driver had a habit of turning to talk to everyone in the back seat while he drove.  When, for the third time, he drifted over into the opposing lane we got him to pay attention to his driving.  All the while he kept trying to get us to go to a show.

“Very pretty girls.  You see.  You have fun I bet.

No thank you, kind sir, but we prefer a more genteel form of entertainment.  The humor was lost on him.

We slammed to a stop on a crowded street full of signs, mostly advertising bars.  Vehicles of all sorts were weaving in and out of double-parked traffic on both sides of the street.  Girls of all ages, and states of undress, beckoned to us with promises of virginal treasures.  Little kids either pestered us for gum, or offered to shine our shoes.  Never mind that every one of us was wearing sneakers.

I would dodge one salesman only to bump into two more selling everything from fake diamond rings, to fake treasure maps.  Loads of plastic items were piled high on tables that we passed in hopes that someone would be crazy enough to buy something.

Every bar entrance we passed had a slickly dressed guy that would try and drag us into his place.  Free this, and free that, was the cry.  I was thirsty as hell and when I mentioned this we all agreed to look for some place we could just get a soda.  We finally found what passed for a drugstore in the next block.

Even sitting at the counter sipping Cokes the kids would pester us.  There was some guy dressed as a guard that made sure that only kids that were allowed to pester us would gain entrance.  The rest he would yell and scream at until they ran away jeering at him.

Onward we walked until we reached a small park.  By the time we found a bench to sit on, we began to get very well built girls passing us and smiling with bright white teeth.  Some would simply circle the park and return with regularity.  We began a numbering system to rate each one.  One of the girls, a ten, went so far as to approach me and ask for a light to her cigarette.  When she bent over, the open neck of her scooped blouse fell away and I was able to see complete through it to the pavement beneath her feet.  Nice little puppies nestled in there also.

“Talk about jail.  There’s the bait right there,” Herm said as the girl walked away with an exaggerated sway to her hips.

We wandered aimlessly back and forth the busy streets until three thirty rolled around.  I dug out a business card and we flagged down a cruising cab.  The first one just shook his head and indicated he didn’t know where it was.  The second one nodded and opened the passenger door.  We piled in and zoomed off.

We were apparently going back by a different route than we had come.  When I saw the back of a building I was sure we had passed in front of once before I told Buzz and Ding who were sitting on either side of me.  All five of us managed to convince the cabby to get to the shop right away.

The two guys were waiting for us with smiles on their faces.  With a flourish, one of them pushed aside the garage door and waved us in.  Terry’s car was sitting in the middle of the floor with all the doors open.  Brilliant white glowed from the side panels as we approached.  We looked into the back seat and saw the blue of the seat cushion and the neat little rows of stitched white vertical ribbons running across the back.  It was a true work of art.

“Man, that is one cool set of upholstery you have there Terry,” said Ding.

“Yeah.  What the hell is it, leather?”  Chimed in Buzz.

“Is nooga hide,” said one of the garage guys.  “Nooga hide.”

“I think he means ‘naugahyde’.”

“Si, si, nooga hide,” nodded the second guy emphatically.

“Well, I like the hell out of it.  Let’s pay the guys so we can get on up the road.”  I said, reaching for my wallet.

We had split up the money just in case one or more of us got waylaid by anyone.  Now we put it all back in Terry’s hand that, in turn, got passed to the garage guys.  They smiled and chattered among themselves as we got into the car.  We backed out and went down the street towards home – a very long way away from us at the moment.

Somewhere around Paso Robles we pulled off onto a dirt track that meandered between fields of some kind of crop.  This time we hadn’t picked a rest stop so maybe the highway patrol wouldn’t bother us.  They didn’t.

We woke to a very hot and stifling sun.  Fortunately we had enough sense to stock up on sodas earlier the night before, but all the ice had melted in the cooler.  Still, even warm soda for a thirsty person seemed good.  Buzz started it with a huge belch and soon all of us were blasting each other with variations using the warm soda as an initiator.

We got back home sometime after seven that night.  We were very tired, but happy.  Terry would probably sleep in his car until the pleasant smell of fresh nooga hide faded.

T.O.M.

Roller Skating; a real trip

The little group of teenagers I was a member of would meet at the church every other Friday evening to do some form of entertainment.  Some evenings we just sat around, danced to records, or played games.  On this fateful evening we decided that we would head for Santa Rosa and go to the skating rink.

My hair rose off the back of my neck as these words sank in – the SKATING RINK!?  Oh, no, not the skating rink.  So far in my life I had managed to avoid looking like a deer on ice by staying away from anything that required me to don either wheels or blades.  Up until now, that is.

Carol, my current girlfriend, piped up and told me that basically it was easy.  Just strap roller skates on our feet, stand up on a really hard wood floor, and move your feet back and forth.  No sweat.

Yeah, sweat.  I’d never been on skates in my life – never.

“Sure,” I said with nervous bravado.  “No problem at all.  Did you know I was captain of the roller skating club in Germany?”

“Yeah, right,” Was all that she said.  “You’re going, if I have to push you around the floor myself.”

Time began to fly by on fleet little wheeled feet and suddenly we were packed into cars and out on 101, headed north.  I figured I had about twenty minutes to live so I tried my best to snuggle Carol.  This was difficult because her friend Tina was between us.

“Hey, watch it buster!”  Tina stated as my hand poked her in the side.

Oops, sorry Tina.

Finally we arrived.  There seemed to be a lot of cars in the lot so I said, hopefully, “It looks like a lot of cars.  What say we go have a soda?  Anyone?”

Silence reigned supreme until Carol’s voice piped up and told me to pipe down.  She dragged me from the car and firmly held my hand as if I might try to run away.  Hah!  Me?

‘Come on Tom.  You aren’t scared, are you?”

“Me.  No way.  Why, I’ll walk right in there and show you a thing or two.”  I said, fighting the urge to add ‘probably my ass going over my shoulders on the way to a three-point landing – nose, forehead and chin’.

“Sure looks like a long line to get skates doesn’t it?  Anyone want to get a soda?”

“Freeze, Tom,” commanded Carol, with a hand on my collar.  “You’re going to do this.”

That’s what I was afraid of – doing this.  With trepidation I faced the kid at the counter and told her my shoe size hoping that they might have run out.

“Eleven and a half left and nine right” I said with a straight face.

She broke up when Carol smacked my on the back of my head.

“Okay, Okay.  Nine and a half – both feet,” I told her.

She rummaged around behind her and slapped two boots on the counter and took my fifty cents.  I eyed them with suspicion wondering if there was any way I could make the wheels so they wouldn’t turn.  That way I could just fake it with gliding strides.

Over at the bench, Carol slipped into her skates and laced them up.  Not wanting to be a complete weenie, I followed her every move up to and almost succeeding putting a little yarn ball on the top lace.  Fortunately, I caught my mistake before anyone saw me.

“You go on ahead, I’ll be along in a minute,” I said, hoping she would do just that.

“No way, Ho Say, you’re gonna go out there right now,” she demanded, taking my hand and pulling me to my feet.

Well, almost to my feet.  One foot went out straight in front of me, the other went almost under the bench, and my ass went directly, do not pass ‘Go’, to the floor.  I smiled; maybe I’d broken a leg.  Hope spring eternal.

Nope, I hadn’t broken anything except smiles on the faces of others as I baby-stepped my way out and onto the floor.  Carol, ever helpful, pulled me along at increasing speed while telling me to ‘move my feet’.

Move my feet?  I could barely move air in and out of my chest, much less move my feet.  And, what direction to I move my feet?  I looked around to see what others were doing and saw that they moved their legs in a short stroking motion with a little flip of the toe of their skates just before they picked up that foot to bring it forward.

I tried a couple tentative strokes and immediately dropped to my hands in a push-up arrangement.

“Just checking to see what kind of wood this was.  Looks very nice.”

“Yeah, right,” Carol said, in a voice laden with sarcasm.  “Get off your hands and stand up again.”

I struggled to my feet in what would have been a hilarious sight if I’d been watching anyone else do it; frightening, in my case.  Arms jutting out, elbows bent, body struggling to stay vertical while those little wheels did their best to fly out from under me.

I had never been able to do any type of split.  I’m told that only girls can do that; boys just aren’t built right.  I proved them wrong in one move.  My right foot shot out in front of me, my left foot shot backwards and I crashed to the floor in agony.  Surely I had injured something important now that my dignity had already been lost.

Skaters simply swerved around me as I whimpered quietly without offering solace.  Carol once again lifted me to my feet, hanging tightly to my waist, and started pushing off with one foot while steering me along.  I began slight movements of my feet to assist her.  This lasted just fine until the straightaway ended and we had to make a sweeping turn.

As we entered it, Carol was hailed by another of our group.  She turned her head, loosened her grip on my waist, and I felt myself gliding rapidly straight ahead.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”  I screamed, as I headed directly towards the wall.  “Look out I’m…”

I never finished the sentence because I had smacked flat against the far wall.  My vision started swimming, mostly because of the tears in my eyes from my nose hitting first.  I did vaguely recall someone (probably me) screaming something about dying immediately before the impact.

I rebounded nicely though.  I would probably have been awarded at least a 9.5 based on agility alone.  When I fell to the floor on both knees I held out my hands like a runner embracing the finish line.  I was certainly finished.

Passers by claimed I said something like “please mommy, I don’t want to go to school’ but I’ll deny that to the end.

Carol swooped over to me and, once again, helped me up to my feet.  This time, we held each other at the waist and she skated while I coasted.  It seemed a fair division of labor.  I got nervous as we approached the other end of the track, but we navigated the turn and struck out straight yet again.

By the tenth or twelfth circuit I felt I was adding some impetus to the two of us so I slipped my hand from Carol’s waist and simply held her hand instead.  We skated slowly around and around until the music stopped and a disembodied voice announced a ‘blackout’ dance.

I wondered what that meant until almost immediately the lights went out and three spotlights switched on and lit up a rotating glass-chip ball in the middle of the rink.  If anyone thinks that roller skates are disorienting, just imagine how bad they can be when you’re already ON them and the lights go out to be replaced by colored shafts of light that fly about the room.  It was years before the term ‘acid trip’ would be coined, but that’s what comes to mind.

“Turn around.  You skate backwards and I’ll push you,” Carol told me.

“What!  You want me to turn around and go backwards?  I’ll be killed.”

“No, silly.  I’ll guide you.  Now stop being a goof and turn around.”

I complied and she snuggled up close, put her arms around me, and started off.  I must admit that this had its advantages.  She was nice to be close to; was well rounded – both of them pushing nicely into my chest; and she seemed to enjoy it also.

Around and around we went.  I began to relax a little now that my imminent death was apparently postponed for a while.  Over time, I learned how to slide my feet, push off with my toe, and move along by myself.  Carol was close to me to help, but eventually all we did was hold hands and skate along.  We had a grand time until the light flashed twice and the voice said “last dance”.

Carol and I tightened our grip on each other and we sailed around the floor.  Sometimes she was in front, and sometimes I was in front.  I’d learned a lot that night – not the least of which was how to be a good skate.

T.O.M.

Spoken in Confidence

My dad had assigned me picket fence duty on Saturday.  This meant that I had to gather up spare pickets and replace ones that had been broken by errant baseballs, various body appendages hitting them, and other methods that forcefully rearranged pickets.

I was busily engaged in this when my next door neighbor, Kathleen, walked over and rested her forearms on the fence.  She and I had been neighbors for a while and, even though we had gone to a couple of movies together, not what you would call ‘an item’.  She was fun to be with though.  But today it appeared she had something on her mind because she had a little frown on her face and took a bit of time to say anything.

“Tom, we’ve been friends for a while haven’t we?”

“Sure Kathleen.  Ever since grade school.  What’s up?”

“Well, I have this problem – er – not really a problem, but something like it.  I really could use some advice.  I need someone to talk to.”

“I’ll help if I can.”

“There’s this guy I know and even though I’ve spoken to him a lot, I just can’t get up the nerve to tell him that I really like him.”

“Do I know him?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to tell you his name right now but I’m around him almost every day.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“Go ahead – what?”

“Go ahead and tell him you like him.”

“Well, sometimes I think he might already know, and then other times he doesn’t act like it.  I’m afraid that if I tell him that I like him he won’t like me back.  I don’t know what to do!”  She wailed.

“Well, don’t think like that.  Maybe he really does like you.  You’ll never know unless you tell him will you?”

“But, what’ll I say?”

“Tell him what you’re telling me; that you like him.”

She shuffled her feet a little, dropped her eyes down, and spoke in a small voice “I think I’m in love with him.”

“Ah, that matters a lot.  I’d just go ahead and tell a girl that I loved her I think.  But I can see why you’re worried though.  If he doesn’t say anything, or walks away, that would make you feel really bad wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“On the other hand you’re really cute, nice to be around, and I’d be happy to tell anyone you were my girlfriend.  Go ahead and talk to him – tell him what you just told me,” I repeated.

“So I just go and say ‘hey, I really like you a lot and I hope you like me a lot too.’   Is that about it?

“Yep, just about right.  Now go and say it.”

In an even quieter voice, she said “I already did.”

I opened my mouth several times to speak, but each time I went mute.  I stood, turned to face her fully, and reached out with my hand to tilt her chin up.

“Kathleen, I…I didn’t know.  You’ve been right there in front of me all this time but I just didn’t know.  Maybe I love you too.  Maybe that’s the reason I choke up and get tongue tied around you.  Maybe that’s why my brain turns to jelly and I have to remind myself to breathe.”

She leaned forward over the fence and met me halfway across.  Our lips touched, gently.  We kissed.

“I’m so happy,” she said in a whisper after we came up for air.

“That’s not mending the fence!”  My dad shouted from the kitchen window.

“Yeah, but it beats the hell out of hitting your thumb with a hammer.”  I thought to myself.

T.O.M.

Frustration – Post Graduate

I awoke Sunday morning after tossing and turning all night.  I was reliving that awful scene in vivid color and stereo sound.  My inner voice kept laughing and taunting me with hindsight’s such as ‘you should have cut out when the third guy cut in’ and the like.  I guess what really burned my beans was that Molly seemed so willing to go along with the rest of them.  I had her pegged as a snooty social climber, but not willing to humiliate someone so badly.  ‘Just chalk it up to experience’ the voice mused, but I couldn’t let it go.

Throughout breakfast I plotted elaborate, highly detailed schemes for extracting revenge. As each one formed I would savor the satisfaction I would get from its implementation.  No matter how bizarre the scenario however I avoided anything that would hurt Molly.  I sensed that maybe she was being used just as much as I because I couldn’t get over the feeling that there were times last night that she actually seemed to enjoy my company.  With an exasperated grunt I pushed it all away mentally and faced the rest of the day.

My Sunday bowling league went okay, if you consider slamming three consecutive gutter balls ‘okay’.  I had a hard time concentrating but managed what would be called a good day’s score.  I kept expecting my buddies to start kidding me about my so-called ‘date’ but they never did.  Was it possible that they hadn’t heard yet?

One of the two Asshole Twins, Lloyd or Leonard, I couldn’t tell them apart, came over and slapped me on the back.  “How’s it going?” was all he said.

“As good as can be expected,” I answered warily.

Here it comes, I though.  Now it will get much, much worse for me.  However, he paused, punched me on the arm, pointed down the alley and walked away with a “keep it up” over his shoulder.  What the hell?  Maybe I should rename them to The Double-Entendre Twins – nah, too long.

After bowling broke up I was walking back home when Sheila and Big Bozo (who’s real name was Frank) approached with Simone in tow.  Simone smiled, showing a great many perfect teeth, while Frank asked if I wanted to grab a hamburger with them.  Now, I may not be the sharpest crayon in the box, but even I thought I knew when I was being conned.  Sheila just looked at me.

“Why would I do such a thing; especially with you guys?”

“Hey, come on man, it was just a joke.  Nobody thought Molly would actually do it,” said Frank.  “It was a dare.”

“She feels really bad about it now.  Come on Tom. Come with us.  She’ll be there,” added Sheila, meaning, I guess, Molly.

“Well, okay.  But if anything looks fishy, I’m outta there.”  When, my inner voice cried, ‘idiot, won’t you EVER learn?’  I mentally told it to shut up.

“Fair enough” said Sheila, and took my arm.

I fully expected to walk into the snack bar and have all the noise gradually fade away like a trite cowboy movie when the sheriff squeaks open the flappy doors, but that didn’t happen.  A couple of my friends noticed me, waved and then returned to their conversations.  We headed to the table with Molly, the other brother, and Slick (Artie).  Molly pulled out a chair next to her and motioned me to sit.

“I really hoped you would come,” she said, gazing into my eyes with all the sincerity she could muster. “That was a pretty mean thing I did and I apologize,” she added, leaning over and pecking me on the cheek.

Artie leaned towards me and further added in a low voice that he was pretty pissed off when Simone did that to him.  Aha!  Did this meant that my whole ordeal was just some prank?  A joke?  I guess now I was supposed to laugh and be big buddies with them.  I managed a rather brief smile and said, “Well, I was kinda at first.”

What a load of crap that was!  I had been plotting various ways to retaliate all morning and now I was supposed to shake it off?  Molly put her hand on my arm and I turned in her direction.  “Please, Tom, it would mean a lot to me if you weren’t mad at us.”

There was that sincerity in her eyes again so I just nodded and turned to the menu.  I considered just standing up and walking away without saying a word, but like it or not, I was still smitten with Molly.  No matter how angry I was, I just couldn’t blame her for doing something I’d done a couple of times personally when I was younger.  I could remember some of the hazing I’d done back in D.C. at Scout camp.  I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, but I suppose I did actually.  I decided to forgive, but I personally wouldn’t forget.

“Okay, I can see my way clear to forget about it, but just to be clear I will not participate in doing anything like this to anyone else.  Right?”

They all nodded their agreement and we signaled to the waitress that we were ready to order.

Molly and I started out a bit slow but went on a number of dates over the next couple of months.  I took her to dinner downtown as many times as I could afford, which she enjoyed.  She was surprised the first time I spoke German to the waiter and asked me how well I spoke it.  I told her that except for some technical terminology I’d been told I spoke it like a native.  From then on, she would ask me to go with her, and sometimes her mom, to stores downtown to help buy stuff.  I got my first real introduction to a “women’s” store that way.  I didn’t have any idea until then what ‘getting ready for a date’ actually meant; other than my own experiences, that is.  No wonder it took so long to ‘unwrap’ a girl.

On one occasion, she and I went to a movie and spent the whole time in the back row making out.  This time there were no games, giggling, or running away.  She allowed me to unbutton her blouse and put my hands on her breasts.  When I began nuzzling her shoulder, she pulled my head down and guided my lips to the soft rise above her bra.  When I kissed it, she shivered all over.

That was pretty much the fullest extent of any petting we did.  She stuck to her principles and I either had to go along with them or just walk away.  I chose to stay because, as a person and not an object, she was nice to be with.  One by one, she divested herself of the ‘hangers-on’ and became more interested in group activities that the both of us enjoyed.  She and I joined the German-American Club downtown which opened the doors to diverse experiences such as plays and skits, cycling trips, river rafting, and one visit a North Sea beach.  We became, in every sense of the word, very good friends; but not lovers; although there was one time we both ended up in the same room in a Gasthaus.  But that’s another story.

Molly and I stayed together for around six months.  We went to movies, dances, the snack bar, and occasionally downtown to dinner.  The pace of our dating began to slow, falter, and then finally stopped.  I don’t think either one of us could actually point to a time where we decided that our interests were diverging.  We mutually decided to call off whatever romance we had.

We would smile and wave to each other when we crossed paths, but never dated again.  I felt a little hollow for a while, but bounced back when other interests took over.  I noticed a new face showing up near me.  It was attached to a girl named Virginia.

T.O.M.

Frustration 201

Our walk to the Base Exchange snack bar was uneventful.  We engaged in small talk for the ten-minute walk.  Overall, I’d have to guess that she talked around ninety percent of the time.  My responses were limited mostly to a quickly interjected ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

We pushed the door open and walked in to a noisy hubbub of music, chatter, clanking glasses, and loud laughter.  She spotted some of her friends sitting at a table and grabbed at my hand to pull me towards them.  I had already met everyone at the table, and most of them, both male and female, I could well do without, but allowed myself to be guided towards them.

“Hey Molly, Tom, how’s it going?”

I opened my mouth, but it was Molly who replied, “Fine. We have just enough time for a quick shake before going to the dance.  Are you guys going?”

Everyone indicated that, yes, they all were going.  One of the male-type people (I had immediately christened ‘The Big Bozo’) in particular put out his hand which Molly took so he could pull her to a chair next to him.  I bristled a bit, as I had to take the chair opposite the table from her.  What the hell, I thought; she was MY date, not his.

I already knew what she wanted so I went to the counter and ordered.  While I waited, I glanced back and saw her smiling and laughing at something the big bozo was saying.  My thoughts were only on how much fun we would have at the dance so I ignored the small voice at the back of my mind that kept repeating ‘you’re in trouble knothead.  She’s way out of your league’.  Against this, I argued ‘yeah, but how bad can it be?’

I suffered mostly in silence as the talk swirled around the table.  I learned who was going skiing, who had a new bunch of records, who was ‘going’ with whom, and all other bits of useless information.  Finally, Molly looked at me and said to the group “We’d better get going.”  En Masse, the entire group pushed back chairs and began putting on coats.  In one big gaggle we walked out the door and flowed towards the school.

So far, the evening was a total bust.  Not only had I really had a chance to get Molly alone much, but also now I was among a group of her friends that would surely monopolize her time.  My inner voice was getting louder, and yet I still ignored it.  After our coats were dropped off in the coatroom, I was able to cut Molly out of the herd and make her amble with me towards the edge of the room.  We found two open seats next to each other and began watching the activity from the sidelines.

There didn’t seem to be much dancing yet, but the music had started and we began tapping toes on the hardwood floor.  Since the dance was in the gym, the acoustics were not too great, but volume was the key, not quality.  As other kids headed for the middle, I asked Molly if she wanted to dance.

“Sure, let’s go”

About halfway through a fast one, I got tapped on the shoulder by Bozo.

“Can I cut in?”  It was not a question as he caught Molly in mid-spin and whirled her away from me.

Well, poop, I thought.  This isn’t going nearly the way I thought it would.  My inner voice agreed and added ‘like, wow, man’.

Molly came back to me on the sidelines just at the start of a nice slow dance and pulled me to my feet.  We started dancing and this time I was determined to keep predators at bay.  She nestled her head into the hollow of my neck and began humming the tune.  “Hey!”  I thought, “This might get better after all”.

Two dances later I was again cut in on by yet another person I had named Slick.  Slick had a high pompadour haircut and was dancing entirely too close to Molly for my tastes.  This was getting monotonous.

A couple of glasses of punch, several more fast dances and another slow one began.  We moved to the dance floor and were again wrapped in each other’s arms.  As we danced, I began to get an erection.  I knew without a doubt that she could feel it when she would bump against me, so I tried very hard to minimize contact.  I think she actually enjoyed my discomfort because I caught her smiling out of the corner of my eye.

‘Is that you?” she whispered as she nuzzled my ear.

“I certainly hope so” I replied.  Probably not the best time to crack wise, but it was the only thing I could come up with on the spur of the moment.

“I’m sorry.  Does this help?”  She asked, shifting her position slightly, which only added more pressure to the object in question.

“Not really” I said, trying my best to relieve pressure without being too obvious about it.  “Can we go sit down for a while?”

“Okay, if you want.  I’m sorry,” she added again.

“It’s okay Molly; don’t worry about it” I added, taking her elbow and moving her slightly ahead of me for cover towards our chairs.

I managed to get the two of us back against the wall without anyone laughing or pointing at my tented slacks and me.  I began mentally berating myself for wearing the tightest pants I own; what was I thinking!

Once seated, I arranged her light sweater across both our laps so I could ‘tend to my pressing problem’.  I was beginning to think that she was a lot cooler person than I had originally thought.  At first, she came on as a real bubblehead, but now, under these circumstances, she had a much calmer demeanor.

She scooted her chair closer to me and held one of my hands – as my other was busy – and then kissed me on the cheek.  Warning bells should have begun clamoring by now as this was very un-Molly-like.  If I had been using my brain cell I would have picked up on her intentions, but, no, not me.  I had almost finished adjustments, when, to my astonishment she reached under the sweater and put her hand directly on the ridge in my pants.

I quickly slammed the door on my little inner voice, turned off all of my situational awareness, and switched into lust mode.  I turned to look at her directly and found her already staring at me.  I think what finally put me into terminal tumescence was when she stuck the tip of her tongue out, slowly ran it over her lips, and squeezed with her other hand.

‘I know where we can go if you want.”

Did I want?  Did I want?  Of course I want.  My pulse rate doubled, my palms began to sweat, and my mouth went totally dry.  Here was what was arguably the prettiest girl of the class asking ME if I wanted to ‘go somewhere’ with her.  What a silly question.

Carefully, we got up and, using her as a cover again, I draped her sweater over my arm and held it in front of me.  As we started walking towards the exit, I felt as if everyone’s eyes were on me but when I glanced around, I saw that not a soul was even looking in our direction.  In a way, I was kind of disappointed. Here I was going to neck with Molly, and nobody I could brag to about it later.  With a gait just a little awkward, I escorted her from the dance and down one of the halls towards wherever she wanted me to go.

“Where are we going Molly?”  I whispered.

“Secret place.  Sheila and I found it last month.  You have to swear you won’t tell anyone.”

“Okay, I won’t” I promised, knowing full well that if it was a really cool place that I might not actually keep that promise.

We worked our way down one hall and over two smaller halls heading, I thought, towards one of the band rehearsal rooms.  I didn’t know of any place near there that would be private but I followed along.  I could hear my inner voice banging on the door to be let out, but I ignored it.  It wouldn’t do to have him ruining the mood.  I was fully capable of doing it myself without his help.

We did in fact reach band rehearsal hall number one.  Molly slowly opened the door, peered in, and took my hand to pull me in.  Once we got inside, she closed the door.  The only light was from a small bulb burning on the raised platform where the director stood during practice.  She kept my hand as she crept across the room and lifted a corner of a huge banner that almost covered the far wall.

Hidden behind the banner was a small, half-sized door with a pull ring on it.  She tugged at it until with a small snap it opened.  I looked hard, but nothing was visible inside.  I mentally mapped this end of the school and thought that this might be an area between the science lab and the typing room.  What it was doing here mystified me.  Mystified or not, I was as ready as ever to investigate.

Molly lifted a leg (showing a lot of sheer silky thigh), stepped over the threshold, ducked her head, and swing into the room.  She leaned back out, and reached for my hand.  Since I had moved a bit closer what she actually grabbed startled both her and I.

“Oops, sorry” she giggled and motioned with her fingers for me to follow her.

“Anywhere” I thought to myself; “I’d follow her anywhere.”

When I stepped over the sill and entered the room fully, she was standing below a small light on the wall.  The room was not very big, but had two larger doors on each side.  One door was definitely not in use because there was a huge piano pushed against it.  The other door was much larger, but had a twist-style lock on it which could be thrown from the inside.  I turned back to the hatch we had come through and could see that it was just an access panel, not a proper door.

“Molly,” I said, “how did you ever find this place?”

“A couple of us girls were in the band room last month and one of the windows was open.  A gust of wind came in and blew the banner a bit.  Sheila told me later that she’d seen a small door behind it.  After class, we peeked and there it was.  It was screwed shut, but she found a screwdriver and we undid the catches.  Now, we can open it when we want.  Neat, huh?”

“I’ll say.  It’s a perfect place to be completely alone.”

“Yeah” she said, and clicked the switch controlling the only light in the room.

Immediately everything went totally black.  I have a good memory, and now I was mapping the room as I had last seen it.  Molly was standing about ten feet directly in front of me, the piano was on my left and two small rolls of grey matting were on my right.  The little door was behind me because I reached back and touched it.  I also had very acute hearing and heard her stepping lightly to my right.  My head tracked the sound but I couldn’t see anything at all.  She giggled.

“Come and find me” she whispered, and then moved again to the side.

I did a Boris Karloff towards her with my arms outstretched and walking slowly.  I touched her shoulder, I think, but she dodged away again.  She must have been crouching down as she moved because there was nothing at shoulder height any more.  I turned towards rustling and again reached out.  This time I found smooth skin – an arm?

“Tag, you’re it” I teased and stood still.

An arm came at me from my left this time and wrapped around my waist.  When I turned towards it, she held fast and put the other one around me.  When she leaned in towards me I began to figure out what the rustling was.  She had unbuttoned the front of her blouse and her bra-clad breasts were poking me in the ribcage.  Oh, man, I thought.  This was something I had longed to see and couldn’t make out a thing.

She moved her head close to my neck and nipped at my collarbone with her lips.  This was the spark that ignited my lust again.  I shot to attention just as she pushed her hips against mine.  My erection was trapped against her firmly.

“Ooooh, that feels wicked and warm.  What are you hiding down there?”

“You know very well what’s down there Molly” I teased.  “The question is: what are we going do about it?”

Meanwhile, I had had enough of her breasts poking me in the chest and brought my hands up.  She grabbed them and stopped me before I made contact, telling me to wait.  Wait, I thought; wait for what?

More rustling.  This time I was sure she had taken off her blouse because she allowed my hands to complete their journey around her shoulders.  As I pulled her closer, they dropped down her back and encountered her bra strap.  While I was occupied in unfastening the clasp, she started a circular movement of her hips against mine.  I didn’t know if I could take much more of this without some serious relief.

The bra hooks finally opened (after I figured out there were more than one hook – who knew?)  It fell away to the floor and she pulled herself closer to my chest.  I could feel those soft breasts pushing against me as she slid her hands downward and rested them on each of my hips.

“So, now what can we do Tom?  How about this?”  She asked, pulling on my belt.

By now, the little voice had battered down the door I had locked him behind and was screaming in my inner ear “Dammit, Tom, she’s playing with you!  Listen to me.  She’s out to break you.”  I wasn’t listening; I was terminal and nothing short of all out sex was going to help me.  She yanked again on my belt, worked the pin out, and pulled it open.  This was followed immediately by my top button and soon the sound of my fly zipping down filled the air.

Oh, damn, she was really going to set me free here I thought, but she suddenly stopped and pushed against my chest.  This moved me away from her and, when I tried to follow, my pants fell down and tripped me.  Down I went holding my hands in front of me to break the fall.  I landed on both palms fortunately and did an impromptu push-up.  She had moved again because all I found was her blouse and bra.  She giggled in the darkness to my left this time.

I managed to pull my pants back up and stuff myself, painfully, back into them.  Where the hell was she now I wondered?  Standing completely still, I sensed that she was moving further to my left – over by where the rolled up mats were.  I moved quietly in that direction and reached out, low this time.

I touched her skirt on this try which caused another giggle.  Crap!  She WAS playing with me.  I reached out again with both hands and landed on each side of her hips.  I held tightly to the bunched up skirt as she turned to one side and back to the other.  When she did this I noticed that only she turned, not her skirt.  It was lying loosely around her hips and, as I moved closer, it began to slide downward.

Over the last few minutes my erection had waned, but now it popped back strongly and threatened to make an appearance without anyone’s help.  I was hit by so many emotions at once; I simply hadn’t the processing power to figure out what to do next since all the blood had drained from my brain.  Molly solved that by standing up straight and letting her skirt fall to the floor.  In a high-stepping movement, she managed to evade me again and danced away to the other side of the room.  This wasn’t my idea of fun at all.

“I’ll come back over if you promise not to grab me,” Molly’s voice from the gloom.  “Take your shirt and pants off and I’ll come back over.”

Now we’re talking.  I quickly unsnapped, dropped my pants to the floor, and kicked them away from my feet. My shirt followed them right away.  Her hand touched me on the chest and felt across it to make sure I had taken my shirt off.  Then it dropped to the bulge in my shorts.  In my mind’s eye I pictured her in front of me, wearing nothing but panties.  Things went a little crazy right then because for no reason she shouted “Now!”

The light popped on, brilliant after such a long time in total darkness.  A single pair of hands began clapping, followed closely by several more.  When I squinted out at them I found that there was a small crawl space over one wall and lined up on that wall were at least six heads.  Their hands hung over the edge and they were all clapping.  Molly stood before me, in nothing but panties and sported a satisfied grin.  I, on the other hand, was standing there in nothing but my shorts sporting a huge hard on.

Bozo, Slick, the Asshole Brothers, Sheila, and Simone were above me clapping like mad.  Molly had her hands to her mouth and was at least trying to stifle her laugh.  I had to give her that, but obviously I wasn’t going to give her anything else.  I was mortified beyond belief.  With as much dignity as I could, and that’s pretty hard when you have an erection to contend with, I gathered up my clothes, put them on hurriedly, and stalked to the little hatch.  I smacked it open and crawled through without a glance back at them.

Next:  Frustration, Post Grad

T.O.M.

Frustration 101

As I look back on it from the distance of 50-odd years, I can see that making any headway with Molly was doomed from the start.  She was a General’s daughter, went around in girlish circles surrounded by others who doted on everything she did.  If she wore a pink sweater one morning, by noon every one of her group would rush home at noon and put on a pink sweater.

I watched from afar; and by that I meant from the county of Afar (near the town of NoWayJose).  My best friend had a sister that was best friends with one of her inner circle of girls.  By word of mouth, which I am now sure was either garbled in transmission or purposely twisted to thwart me, I was informed that she ‘liked me’.

The term ‘liked me’, in the teenage glossary of the day meant that the person you were telling this had to be at least four people removed.  Apparently the term went from her lips to the girl in her group that was friends with my best friend’s sister thence to my best friend who delivered the line with a Cheshire Cat-like grin.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” He asked with glee.  “Ask her to the dance next week?”

“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.  She has enough guys hanging on to her she looks like a tackling dummy.  I haven’t got a chance.”

“Well, you never know.  Stranger things have happened.  Give it a try.”

I did think about it for a while.  A couple of days later the same remark was made to me directly from a different source.  In a gross violation of the ‘code of the group’ I was informed by one of her immediate circle that she ‘was waiting for me to call’.

I suspected some sort of trick because normally she wouldn’t bother at all with someone as insignificant as me.  Taking in to account that I was the son of only a light Colonel I was hardly worth of her.  Still, being told by two different people that she ‘liked me’ was something I couldn’t ignore.

I spent the next two school days doing what now would be called stalking.  I lurked around corners, watched her closely from the back of the room in two of our common classes, and spent a ditched study hall sitting at the top of the grandstand taking in the girl’s soccer class.  I had to admit, in short-shorts she was definitely a looker.  Brilliant blond hair, blue eyes, almost as tall as me, good looking, and extremely well-built.  I grew drowsy as I watched and fantasized her and I together in a warm ski lodge, trapped by a huge blizzard, warming ourselves with brandy on a bearskin rug in front of a crackling fire.  Damn, why does that have to pop up now?

All the ‘he saids’ and ‘she saids’ came to a head on Friday afternoon.  I was hurrying to math class and turned my head to answer a question from a buddy as I rounded a corner.  BAM!  I ran headlong into Molly.  We crashed to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.  We got sorted out quickly and, after my stammered apology, she looked me right in the eye and said that she didn’t really have this in mind when she said she wanted to meet me.

I blushed pink and again stammered a reply.  I don’t remember what I said, but I followed it up with something inane I’m sure.  She gathered up her books and swiveled down the hall.  I could only stare after her.

My brain kicked in with a mental thud, my feet turned back towards her disappearing hips and I rushed up behind her.

“Wait, Molly, wait” I called plaintively.

“Yes” she answered, turning to see who it was and seemed to flinch. “Oh, hi.  You’re not going to run me down again are you?”

“No.  I’m really sorry about that Molly.  I’m such a klutz.”

“Well, there may be hope for you though.  What did you want?”

There it was.  Right out in the open now.  I would have to either put up or shut up.  My throat closed, but I managed to croak out “do you want to go to the dance with me Saturday night?”

This was said with a very sincere look and little more.  I doubted greatly that she even knew what planet I was on much less really wanted to go to a dance with me.  My palms got sweaty, my heart rate tripled, and I started hyperventilating all in the short time it took her to form an answer.

I was so sure she would turn me down that I almost turned away prepared to mumble a “thanks anyway” but she surprised me totally by saying “Sure”.

The word ‘sure’ echoed in my empty head for milliseconds before firing my ‘holy cow’ synapse.  My eyes opened a little more, I mentally danced a little jig but physically answered “great, what time do you want me to pick you up?”

“How about seven?  That’s a little before the dance starts and we can go get a soda before it.”

I managed to get a “thank you” out without sounding like a complete idiot (nobody can be a complete anything, but I sure tried sometimes).  “I’ll see you then Molly.”

She went one way and I turned and floated back down the hall the other way to my locker.  Somehow I got through the next class and headed home.  My buddy came over and we chatted for a while.  I was dying for him to ask me if I had done anything about Molly.  Finally he did and I casually said that she was going with me to the dance tomorrow.  If I had smoked I would have leaned back in the chair and lit a Marlboro before I answered.  I was oozing calm.  Inside, I was a mass of insecurity.

“No shit?” He asked.  “That’s great” he said as he walked to the phone; presumably to alert the press.

“Yeah, well, it’s just a dance date Jerry, not an engagement” I called after him.  “We’re not going to Paris here.”

He came back a moment later and said that he and his girlfriend would come along with us.  Now, he was a great guy, and I liked his girlfriend Beth a lot, but, I kind of resented him intruding on what I had hopes of being a stellar night and it must have showed.  “Just kidding” he said.

Saturday I awoke early and tended to every one of my chores without being hounded by my parents.  I dodged taunts and hassle from my brother and helped my sister with some of her dish washing duties after breakfast.  My mom looked askance at me but didn’t say anything.  I am sure she thought I was up to something.  I must have stepped over the believability line when I asked her if there was anything else I could do.

“Are you feeling okay?” She asked, leaning close to playfully slap a hand on my forehead. “What’s the matter — got a hot date?”

Ahhhhhhhhh!  She’d guessed it right off the bat!

“Not a really big one, but I’m taking Molly to the dance tonight.”

“Molly?  General Confusion’s Molly?  I thought she didn’t know you existed.  Isn’t that what you said just a few days ago?”

She had me there.  I did, in fact, tell her that on Wednesday but I hemmed and hawed a bit and answered obliquely – “sorta, but I asked her yesterday and she said ‘yes’.”

“Well, good for you.  What are you going to wear?”

Damn, zapped again.  I hadn’t a clue what I was going to wear and told her so.  She answered that I had better make up my mind because most of my clothes were still in the laundry room.

I flew down the hall and dumped a load of my best shirts and pants into the washer.  Then I headed to my room to plan my assault on Fortress Molly.  I might prove to be a long, and embarrassing, campaign but maybe I could overcome her defenses and emerge victorious.  As Jerry said ‘you never know’.

There is a Burt Reynolds movie called ‘Hooper’ (1978) where, as the opening credits roll, he is dressing to the sounds of a trumpet doing a Toreador theme solo.  In retrospect, I can see where this applied to me that very evening as I slowly readied myself for my date one article of clothing at a time; after first gassing everyone with deodorant and aftershave.  Well, all seven hairs on my chin needed to be clipped.

Finally, with a flourish of a Mariachi band’s finale I emerged from my room.  I was slick from head to ankle because, as my brother pointed out, I had forgotten to change out of my sneakers into my Bombers (see: http://tom1950.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/trains-fads-and-picture-taking/).  So much for being classy.  I was back on the ground again and NOT ‘Bond, James Bond’.

It was a cool evening but I don’t think it registered on me as I walked over to Molly’s house.  She lived up on what was called Officer’s Country up on the hill.  I got more and more insecure the closer I got to her house.  What if this was just an elaborate joke?  What if she was just going to giggle at me all slicked up?  What if her dad answered the door?  What if my head fell off and I got it back on wrong?  All of this went through my mind on the twelve mile walk up her driveway.  I paused for the final time ready to push the doorbell, pushed the hair out of my eyes and rang it.

“Hi Tom, I’ll be ready in a second” said Molly, pulling me into the hall and pointing into the living room.  “Go sit down and I’ll be right back.”

“Okay” was all I could work out of my parched throat.

I looked around the room and discovered that not only was her dad there, but her mom also.  This was going to be very painful.

“Hello Tom” said The General.  “You’re taking Molly to the dance tonight?”

For a General he sure had his finger on the obvious I thought.  However, I managed to speak briefly in some sort of coherence that “yes, I was”.

“Hi, I’m Molly’s mom, June.  Your mother is Betty isn’t she?”

“Um, yeah – er, yes, she is.”  How did she know this? I thought, and then remembered that both of them probably saw each other at the various officers’ wives functions they gave at the club every month.

“We don’t see very much of her, is she ill?”

“No, not that I know of.  She is kind of a quiet person and not likely to go out very much.”

This was a total fabrication because I can remember many times she told us that she would rather be nibbled to death by baby ducks than attend one more ‘tea and crumpet’ session with other officer wives.  Nothing put her off more than the pretentious airs of “Missus General” and “Miss Colonel”.  She was more a beer and pretzels person than fine wine and cakes.

“Well, tell her I said hello will you?”

“Sure thing. Ma’am.  I’ll do that.”

I was saved from further conversation my Molly appearing at the door and motioning me she was ready to go.  I said my goodbyes, helped Molly into her coat, and we hustled out the door.

Next:  Frustration 201

TOM

Drive In Movies

My first exposure to a drive-in movie was after I returned to the States from Germany in 1958.  I landed in California a newly-minted, but savvy, driver; having gotten my International Driver’s License in Germany at age sixteen.  Unfortunately, the state of California had decreed that I must go through a driver’s education course before I could get my California license.  Even my dad thought it was outrageous, particularly because he had to undergo a road test himself to regain his US license.

Nevertheless, I pushed onward and endured several weeks of novice drivers that ground gears, screeched tires, slammed brakes, and generally turned my perspiration into a river.  I was ever so glad to have it come to an end and take the driver’s test – which I passed with ease.

Once my little VW convertible arrived from Germany (via the Panama Canal to Oakland) I was free to go cruising all over the area.  Since my car was totally unique (there wasn’t another like it in Northern California I think) I had what is now called a “chick magnet”.  Hardly a day passed when I didn’t have at least one pretty girl sitting in the car as we headed out for lunch, went to the library after school, or just cruised up and down Petaluma Boulevard all night on Friday.

My dad also shipped a car home from Germany.  It was called a Volkswagen Deluxe Bus.  It was black trim over red and had three bench seats.  The top slid back and let one stand up with the wind blowing your hair.  I had almost as much fun with his car as mine, but he rarely let me drive it.  Most of the time, he would tell me he needed it because he was “on call”.  This, I assumed, meant that he could be called to go down the base at any minute to resolve some difficult weather prognostication.

It was this very same bus that made me a hero to the general population of school as it would fit up to eighteen kids in it.  When, on Friday or Saturday night, the drive-in theatres would declare “carload” night an entire carload could get in for two dollars.  Most cars of the day would rarely fit more than six or, if they were really friendly, eight, but mine would take an entire football and a basketball team.

Drive-ins of the day would feature as many as four films a night depending on length of movie and weather.  Since California boasted good weather, we almost always got to see at least three movies every time we went.  The breaks between movies wasn’t very long, but gave a person time enough to grab yet another hot dog, box of popcorn, and a drink before the next feature.  If you were still in line, you could watch the beginning of the movie through the huge plate-glass window at the front of the refreshment stand.

Since my car was pretty tall, I learned right off that people wanted me to stay near the back of the parking lot.  This turned out to be a real boon as I could park perpendicularly between two speaker posts and put one in the front and one in the back and be assured at least one of them would work.  If both of them worked, so much the better.

Most movies shown at our local theatre were sci-fi and horror movies like “The Blob”, “The Fly”, “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” (which is a pretty good movie by the way), “Earth vs. the Spider” and “Attack of the Puppet People”.  I was a great deal more partial to some of the more romantic movies of the time like “Houseboat” (with my hero Cary Grant), “Bell, Book, and Candle” (with the delectable Kim Novak – but don’t tell my girl). As far as the more raucous movies went, a full busload of kids was fine, but for romantic movies my little convertible was just fine.  Just I and my girl snuggled up with a gearshift between us.

For the first movie we would leave the top down and chatter with our neighbors as well as watch the movie, but when the second movie started (which was usually the feature) the top went up for some serious necking.  Never believe anyone who says that serious necking cannot be carried out in a Volkswagen.  It can, and has, been done.  Many a warm California summer night has steamed up the windows of that little car.  And, yes, it is definitely possible to go from the front seat to the back seat without opening a door.

What better life could there be but to be a teenager, have a movie in front of you, a girl beside you, and a popcorn tub sitting on the seat between you.  If there is one, I couldn’t imagine what.

There existed a state of war between the theatre owners and the patrons.  They would try and make sure that everyone who got in paid their fee, and we would try to get as many of us in free as possible.  This led to a veritable host of methods for sneaking kids in without paying.  Each one attempting to get more kids in than the one before.  The old standards of stuffing a trunk worked a few times, but if the wait to enter got too long there was a distinct danger of suffocation.  The old ‘blanket in the back seat’ would hide maybe a couple of kids with others actually sitting on the back seat.  Since there was usually a very bright light shining on each car at the toll booth this one could be risky.

My favorite was a car that had a trick back seat.  It was a panel van.  Not one of the huge things you see now, but a really nice Ford delivery van built along the lines of a woody but with no back windows.  An enterprising teen had created a moveable back seat that dropped downward and let one move freely between the back bed and the rear set.  When this one got to the toll booth, the taker would first look into the back, count heads, and then move to the rear window.  As this was being done, the seat was dropped and kids poured from the back to rear seat – quietly, of course.  I don’t think this method was ever found out.

Usually, before the movie started and while it was still light, a local radio station was be broadcast over the speaker system.  In our case it was ever faithful KEWB from San Francisco.  Good old “Channel 91” would entertain us with songs that started impromptu dance parties down in front of the screen.  KEWB was the sister station of KFWB from Los Angeles and, if you were ever to drive between the two one would slowly fade out and the other would take over as you traveled.

Parenthetically, I might add that a description of a trip down to Tijuana to get one of my friends car tucked and rolled might be a good story also.

Finally, it was dark enough to start the movie and we would all head for our cars.  Great knots of girls would break up and stream back to their date’s cars too and the lot would get calm as we all watched. Once in a while, you would hear a car door slam and maybe a parting shot by an outraged girl, but mostly we behaved ourselves.  There was also a car patrol wandering around with flashlights to illuminate cars that showed any sign of nefarious behavior.

Periodically the film would break or the operator would blow a change-over and car lights would come on, horns would honk, and jeers erupt from everyone.  This was mostly endured stoically (if you noticed at all) and activities continued as they left off before being interrupted.

Teen etiquette dictated that one never approached a car whose windows were totally fogged up, nor did one get near a car that did not have at least one person in the front seat.  Lights of any kind were frowned upon except in an emergency – like trying to find a wayward bra.

All in all, a trip to the local drive-in movie was a real adventure.  I took full advantage of the times and weather of Northern California to see as many of those movies as I could.  I usually went with male friends to adventure, science fiction, or other non-chick movies but when a good romance was playing I hardly ever failed to take my girl.  It was an uplifting trip on gossamer wings.  A true American experience.

T.O.M.

A trip to the beach

One summer, while we lived in Washington D.C., my dad had to go to some sort of Meteorologists conference out on the west coast which left the rest of us at loose ends on what to do.  My mom came up with the idea of loading all of us into the old station wagon and heading for the beaches down in Delaware; Bethany Beach to be specific.  We had been there several times before and liked it so much that my mom made reservations for us at one of the motels.  Our usual one was full up, so we had to take what turned out to be our fifth choice.

We went around the house and stuffed small bags with clothes and stuff we would need at the beach.  Actually, there isn’t a lot you really need for the beach so the bags were pretty small.  This would have been around 1954 or thereabouts so I would have been 12, my brother 8, and my sister 5.  The station wagon, a 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, had two large seats and a huge ‘back end’ that we loaded up with soft things to lie on.

With a flurry, we were off – well, not quite.  We got 10 miles down the road and found that we had forgotten a couple of bags.  Back we went.  I don’t want to hint that this set the tone of the trip but it did.  We were arranged in the car thusly:  I was in the front seat with my brother hanging over the seat back whining that he wasn’t in the front seat.  My sister was happily lying back on the bags in the back until she said that she smelled something.

Quickly ducking to the side of the road, my mom discovered that a perfume bottle had leaked inside her bag.  This prompted her to crack the back window a little as we took off again.  Bad idea, as the back end of a station wagon causes a huge vortex of air to be pulled from under the car and directly into the open window.  This, of course, caused yet another complaint from my sister – that of being gassed.  Carbon monoxide is not a viable replacement for cooling breezes on a hot day.  Closed went the window.

Now, my brother decides it is time to get into the act and begins kicking the back of my seat.  I endure it for as long as I can (around 12 seconds) and then rise up to smite him.  The moment I do, my mom whips to the side of the road again and threatens to decapitate all of us and leave our heads at the side of the road as a warning to other kids.  She thrusts the map at me and tells me to direct her through Baltimore.

Baltimore?  I hear you asking – Baltimore?  Well, of course.  The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel hasn’t been invented yet so you have to go all the way up to the north end of Chesapeake Bay and then down the DelMarVa peninsula (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) to get to Bethany Beach.  We may have been able to shorten our trip at Annapolis, but the bridge there wasn’t in service due to repairs (we found out after driving into Annapolis).  So, with a heavy sigh, my mom heads back north towards Baltimore.

At this point in development of the Interstates there were none to speak of.  Some very small portions of them were under construction around DC, but nothing in the wilds of Maryland.  We ended up on several US highways passing through many tiny municipalities that appeared to consist of nothing but used car lots, fast food joints, bars, hock shops, bowling alleys and the like.  Every fast food place we passed my brother whined about being hungry.  My mom, after planning carefully ahead, decided that making a lunch we could eat in the car would be much faster than trying to herd us through some beanery along the way.

When instructed to look on the floor of the middle seat for the basket, my brother again whined that he couldn’t find it.  This prompted another crash dive to the side of the road and an exasperated search by my mom – no basket; we must have left it home also.  My mom told us that she’d stop at the next ‘greasy spoon’ she found.

We pulled into a roadside café and, true to his calling as a wise-ass, my brother then asked the greeter if this was a greasy spoon.  She smiled frostily and directed us to seats near the restrooms and behind a large column holding the ceiling up.  Eventually a waiter came to take our order.  The funny thing was, the spoons were actually greasy to the touch.  Was this truth in advertising?

Even my brother ate only about half of his food.  Usually he snarfs it up and starts looking around for more.  It was truly bad food.  My mom’s hamburger looked as if it had once been a nice fat one, but cooking it for twelve hours at four-thousand degrees had turned it into a lump of coal.  On the other hand, my sister’s hamburger was almost raw; mine, well let’s just say it was passable.

Barely suppressing a gag reflex, we all walked back to the car to take up our forward charge towards the beach.  Once loaded, off we went and two hours later found us cruising south along a narrow stretch of tar-topped gravel deep into the wilds of Delaware.  The first sign of Bethany Beach was, of course, a sign that read ‘Welcome to Bethany beach’.  For all the size of the town it should have said the same thing on both sides.  We didn’t count actually, but I bet there couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or thirty buildings in the entire town; and half of them were either bars or tourist traps.  All the motels were cleverly placed so that you had to run down the center of town to get to them.  We finally located ours and, it could be said charitably, that the place was a real ‘fixer-upper’.

There was some confusion at the registration desk but none of us kids knew what it was because all we could hear was muted muttering by our mom when she got back into the car.  Something about having to pay – in advance – for the entire weekend, or we wouldn’t get the room.

After being warned that “there might be some sand in the room” we unlocked the door and waded through the stuff to each take our turn at the bathroom.  The sink was stained with rust and the bathtub held a nice set of rings around it etched in yellowing stages from top to bottom.  One bed, when we sat on it, sank nearly to the floor while the other could have been a cement slab with a sheet over it.  The radio howled like a banshee but gave up some static-filled twangy music when whacked on the side.  Virtually every tube in it was microphonic.

The good part was that we were right on the beach.  By that I mean we could walk out our back door and be just above what appeared to be the high tide line.  This was easy to tell because we first had to go out the front door and clear away the driftwood from the back door.  Apparently, there had been a storm a while back and nobody bothered to clear it out.

Dinner that evening turned out to be pretty good.  Every one of us dug into the huge pile of crabs plopped in the middle of the table and started whacking them with the wooden hammers provided.  This was really great!  We could eat with our fingers!

Smeared in butter from mouth to fingertips we walked back to the cabin (yes, each unit of the motel was a separate cabin) and started our cleanup.  While waiting for the water to get hot, my mom read War and Peace to us.  Finally, we eased carefully into the tub (one at a time), washed the grease off, and hopped into bed.

I’ve never liked sleeping with my brother.  He’s one of those kids that, when he rolls over, he actually catapults upward, flips in midair, and crashes back to bed.  This has the effect of an artillery shell near-miss and never fails to wake me.  Since we had the soft bed, his movements would be transmitted to me and I would echo what he just did. Only a half-second later.

The next morning dawned rather bright with the sun hitting our eyes through the torn window shade.  Taking turns, we all washed up, dressed, and went to breakfast.  On the way, we noticed that there was a fairly stiff wind coming up and had to hold up our hands to keep stinging sand from blowing in our eyes.  Our waitress told us that sometimes this happened and would last for days.  I could tell my mom was not happy with this news.

Finally, we donned bathing suits and headed for our little stretch of beach.  We walked towards it until we could feel wet sand but never opened our eyes.  On the beach itself, there was nothing to break up the wind from its charge across the Atlantic to dash against Bethany Beach.  If anything, it had grown stronger while we were at breakfast.

We struggled about two hours trying to find or build some shelter from the stinging sand.  A fort was made using driftwood but all that did was allow the wind to drop whatever sand it held directly on top of us as it passed over.  Finally my mom hopped up and yelled for us to go back to the cabin – we were leaving.

Even I was kind of happy we were going because having my skin sandblasted really wasn’t one of my favorite activities.  It really stung and grit got into some of the most interesting places – and created raw spots that really hurt.  We packed rapidly and put all the bags in the car while my mom went over to the registration cabin.

When she came back lightning was flashing around her head, steam was coming out of her ears, and a huge cloud of angry black clouds hovered over her.  She said not a word. But marched directly into the cabin and began stripping beds of covers and sheets and piling them on the floor.  Once they were bare she balled the linen up, took it to the car, and pushed it into the back seat.

A woman came running out of the registration cabin yelling things like ‘you can’t do that’ and ‘give those back to me’.  My mom only replied that “if you don’t give refunds, then these are certainly worth what you owe us” and hopped into the driver’s seat.  With a slam of a door, off we went, throwing sand into the woman’s eyes as we left (against the wind, actually).

We were all strangely quiet on the trip home.  Probably fearful of lightning striking in the same place.  Our mom was awesome when she got mad.

T.O.M.

My secret love

When I was around twelve or thirteen I fell madly in love with a girl in one of my classes at school.  Since this was grade school we stayed in the same room all day long with just occasional visits to other rooms, like gym and science.  This put me ever so close to her pretty much all day because her last name began with the same letter as mine.  The teacher loved to have us sit in order because she always passed out test results and marked up homework from an alphabetically organized pile.

My seat was one person behind and to the right of hers.  This meant I got a right-quarter view that drove me to distraction most of the time.  She was always in my field of view and, when she got up, sat down, moved, or twitched my eyes would flick to her instead of where they should have been.  I missed many a homework assignment because of this.

I was shameless in my efforts to attract her attention.  I would try to help her with her coat for recess only to be told she didn’t have one; or push other guys out of the way in order to get paired with her for ballroom dancing in the gym.  This particular activity would cause my feet to grow about seven extra toes and become as big around as a tennis racquet.  Thus, I was armed (or footed actually) to cause real pain when I stepped on her feet.

She would allow me to barely touch her waist while keeping her arm straight out from her side.  I don’t remember ever being allowed to move much closer than two or three feet.  We weren’t going to win any tango championships.

I would daydream through class coming up with elaborate scenarios where I would heroically rush in and snatch her from the jaws of an alligator, or carry her from a burning building.  The inherent problems with my fantasies were that there actually had to BE an alligator about to chomp her or how to arrange a burning building.  Each bizarre thought would smolder, burst into flame, and then be extinguished immediately by a dose of cold water.  What’s that Ma’am?  The country to the south of France?  Denmark, maybe?

As the school year dragged on decade by decade, her defenses began to crumble.  Occasionally she would glance in my direction and almost smile.  At Christmastime I helped rig the name drawing with a little deception (and a big hand from my friend who was picked to draw the names).  I ‘drew’ her name.  Now, if only I had a clue as to what to give her.

I agonized over the present for days; rapidly thinking of objects and just as rapidly rejecting them as not suitable.  What could I possibly get her that she might appreciate?  My little bank jar had exactly seven dollars and assorted coins.  I had no idea how much diamonds cost, probably a lot, so that was out.  Besides, her parents wouldn’t let he wear them anyway.  Clothes?  No, not hardly.  I tried to remember if I had ever seen her with a hair ribbon.  No, that’s not right either – too simple.

I began to ask her friends if she had given them any hints.  One of them told me she needed a new bicycle.  I could barely afford the new inner tube I bought for mine much less buying a whole bike; that was out.  Our ‘mall’ was actually a collection of five and dime, hardware, and grocery stores at the edge of our development but I spent a huge amount of time over the weekend there prowling the stores for an idea.  Finally, I found it.  It was the perfect gift – practical, yet with a certain whimsy she was sure to like.  She would surely throw her arms around me and we would share a kiss.

Finally, the big day arrived.  We put away our books, circled the desks, and loaded down a table in the middle with our gifts to each other.  Slowly, piece by piece, each gift was handed out to the proper person and everyone watched as it was opened.  I could hardly contain myself as the presents on the table were handed out.  At last, the ‘elf’ lifted my gift and called out her name.

She stepped up and accepted it from him, then sat back down to open it.  All eyes turned to her as she ripped the paper off … an ant farm.  A stunned silence fell over the classroom as the kids stared at her.  Oh, how could I have been so stupid!  What the hell was I doing buying her an ant farm?  As I prepared to slink into the coat room, she snickered and began to chuckle.  Through a rising tide of laughter my face began turning a deep shade of red.  She looked around and, once she met my eyes, she gave a big smile and mouthed the words “Thank you”.

Later, when all the gifts had been given, cake cut and eaten, and ice cream slurped she came over to me and asked:  “How did you know that I have wanted an ant farm for so long?”

“I dunno, Deanna, just lucky I guess” I mumbled.

Then she did lean over and brushed her lips along my cheek.  I was invincible and ready to fight off any alligators that tried to chomp her.

T.O.M.

The driving exam, European style

In order to be able to drive off the base it was necessary for one to obtain an International Drivers License.  This is actually a small book roughly the size of a passport and contains pages of information about you printed in many different languages.  Since I was able to drive on base I thought that adding the ability to drive off base would be pretty easy.  Not so.

First off, driving anywhere in Germany at sixteen just isn’t done.  A German kid has to be at least eighteen and take a three week course in driving just to be able to take the written test for his license.  It was offered to Americans as courtesy since we had differing laws.

I ended up downtown in the city hall facing the stern visage of a bespectacled matron of indeterminate age who gave me a tight-lipped smile meant, I can only guess, to make me feel welcome – about as much as much as a crowd of foosball rowdies.  I explained my purpose in disturbing her morning coffee to which she responded by slapping a couple dozen forms on the counter and pointing to a small table fixed to the wall.  I suppressed a grunt as I lifted the paperwork and carried it over to the table.

As you might not know, Germans are very fond of paperwork.  You must have all your papers in order to do anything so I began sweating through the answers to all the boxes on the forms.  For all I knew, I could be enlisting in the German army as I painfully translated German officialese into English.  Finally, I was finished and returned to the counter only to be told that now I had to go to another counter with my completed paperwork.

I loaded the wheelbarrow with the forms and trundled them over to the other counter and dumped them in front of a pleasant-faced guy bordering on the “Onkel Otto” persona.  He took his time scanning all my papers and finally pronounced “Ve vill calling you when made the decision” is all he said to me then turned to his desk.  Decision?  What decision was that pray tell?  Somewhat deflated, I left the building and headed home to await The Decision.

…

Several days passed until I received a phone call from, I think, Onkel Otto who informed me that I was to be at city hall in two days for the written test.  This is a test that is more visual that any other test I have ever taken.  Most traffic signs in Germany, or, for that matter anywhere else in Europe, are visual.  For example, a train engine with a gate in front of it, followed below by three red stripes means a railroad crossing in three hundred meters.  The striped diminish one at time until you are facing either a clear track or a gate.

Hundreds of other signs, mostly round with red borders, depicting almost anything from numbers (speed limits) to ducks (ducks) can be found.  If there is a red slash through it that means the opposite.  Parking, for instance, can be very confusing.  Parking areas are marked with a square blue sign with a “P” in it but No Parking is depicted by a round blue sign with a red border and a slash through it.  One sign one gets used to is the square yellow “Umleitung” (Detour), the end of the detour is marked by the very same sign, but with a red slash through it.  Simple, no?

As a sidebar, you might be interested (or not) in this web site: http://www.gettingaroundgermany.info/zeichen.htm

In any case, I was ready for the test when I arrived at the appointed place and time.  I was not ready for the huge booklet with hundreds of questions in it.  When told to start, I plowed manfully through the tome checking boxes and scratching my head.  By the time I was finished, only slightly before getting the fisheye from Onkel Otto, I was bathed in sweat.

Without a word, he pointed to a chair, fittingly in a corner, where I was to await the verdict.  He sat at his desk and scanned my answers a page at a time and, when done, I swear, he pulled out a stamp pad and a big stamp and clonked each page in rapid succession – Bam, Bam, Bam.  That the ink was red didn’t help my apprehension at all.  With great care Onkel Otto put away his stamping materials and smiled.  I hoped this was a good thing.

“Zweiundneunzig” he announced – ninety-two – and I exhaled slowly. “Now must come the driving test.  Ve vill calling you when made the decision”.  He and Stern-faced matron must have studied the same English text.  I once more left to await the calling.

…

This time, it only took a week to get the call.  Since I had to bring a car for the test (naturally) my dad drove me down to city hall in my Volkswagen.  There were several people ahead of me this time so I had to wait until an examiner was free for me.  While I waited, I chatted with some of the other perspirees ready to meet the examiner.  The one right next to me explained that he needed his license so he could go on the road to sell his wares – he was a salesman of work clothing.  That sounded very interesting to me.

Finally, my turn came and I was marched out into the courtyard for my exam.  First I had to demonstrate that I knew where all the safety equipment was – horn, emergency brake, ‘mox nix’.  The last item was, at that time, almost universally known to everyone in Germany.  It was actually two little lighted ‘flippers’ that appeared from each side of the car that indicated which way you were planning on turning.  The ‘mox nix’ moniker appeared from the corruption of the German ‘machts nichts’ which means ‘never mind’ or ‘makes no difference’ (take your pick) since whichever side the flipper popped out of was not necessarily the direction the car would eventually turn.  The flippers had a strong tendency to stick in the ‘out’ position.  But I digress.

In keeping with the flavor of this entertaining story, I will keep the comments made by the examiner in their German context and provide translations parenthetically.  Some things don’t translate well – like screams of terror – so I will keep these to a minimum.

We pulled out of the parking lot into the main stream of traffic in the middle of a town in the middle of the noon hour.  The first louder-than-normal words out of his mouth were “Bremson!  Bremson!” (Brakes! Brakes!) as we approached a rather primitive stop mechanism.  I say this because the stop “light” consisted of a clock-like dial with an arrow that rotated around the “face” which was marked with alternating quarters of red and green.  As the arrow approached the red portion drivers would speed up to try and get through before the arrow hit red.  When I attempted the same this prompted the response.  There was no yellow portion.

Cars around me began revving their engines as the arrow approached green and, slightly before it actually arrived, they were off like a shot – except me, I wasn’t ready until at least twelve microseconds later.  Off down the street we went, with the examiner pointing the way for me.  I missed one point and as I approached a “Y” intersection he began murmuring “Links!” (Left!) with increasing fervor and finally hit me with “Nein, dein Anderen Links!” (No, you OTHER left).  I eased into the adjacent lane with a minimum of horn-blatting and took the left as indicated; accompanied with my indignant mox nix pointing the way.

One of the more colorful comments was given after we had launched ourselves over a railroad crossing: “Gleise müssen viel langsamer warden” (tracks must be taken much slower).  Thanks, and I’ll be happy to have your hat re-blocked after mashing it into the roof.

Finally, came the parallel parking part.  We searched for some place we could do this, but noontime traffic had taken up most of the really good places.  I headed towards a narrow street and, as I prepared to enter it, I glanced at the sign: totally red, with a white bar horizontally across it.  I was about to enter a “no entry” road.  As I dodged nimbly to one side, the examiner hit me with “Dass eine Einbahnstrasse ist!” (That is a one-way street).  Yeah, I know, I just dodged it; weren’t you with me?

At long last, we ended our trip in and about town and headed back to city hall.  I committed no more noticeable infractions, but spent a bit of time watching out my peripheral vision at him as he started ticking boxes on his paperwork.  Uh oh, this could spell disaster.  As we parked and got out, he pumped my hand once, announced (are you ready for this?) “Ve vill calling you when made the decision”.

A week later I received my brand new International Drivers License in the mail.  I was the first among my peers to receive one and that made me very happy.  My first off-base drive found my girlfriend Virginia and I tooling along the river we used to ride our bikes along.  It was much better this way instead of puffing up hills.  Whole new vistas of travel opened to us.  And, at forty-two miles to the gallon, pretty inexpensive also.

T.O.M.