August 1954

Another boring summer was ending, and I would be just another obnoxious, 14 year old adolescent when school started in September. Between my seventh and eighth grades in school, some terrible things had happened to me, both to my body and my mind. I woke up one morning during the summer, and I thought that I had lost my voice – the same way that I did on Friday nights after yelling for two hours at a football game. I couldn’t sing or even carry a tune for three or four weeks. For several Sundays I only moved my lips and grinned, as I pantomimed my lines in the church choir. After my voice came back I noticed that I was a baritone instead of tenor. I was just getting used to my voice, when another unexpected thing happened: I noticed that girls weren’t really ugly. I was getting strong impulses to attract their attention, but I didn’t really know why or how. I was too small to play football: I wasn’t even big enough to be a tackling dummy. I played in the band, but I never saw a girl that was impressed by a boy that was blowing a slide trombone in her ear. I realized that it was most important to be accepted by everyone. I had been blessed with musical talent, so I would use this talent to be a part of a group, rather than be an awkward show-off. This fall I would be a freshman in high school, and I didn’t have my driver’s license, but I was going out on my first real date – even if it was a double date.

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She had been in my school class forever; she was sitting directly behind me in general science class; and I was terrified at the thought of asking her for a date. The pudgy little girl that I had always ignored had suddenly become a popular, pretty girl. I had such a crush on her that when I tried to talk to her, I became a drooling vegetable: I would drop my school books, stumble over furniture, and make strange noises with my mouth that were supposed to be words. The bell rang that ended the class period. It was now or never. I turned and looked at the familiar, smiling face behind me – I was sure that the sweat that was running down my palms was dripping on the floor. “Would you like to go on a picnic with me this Friday night? “ She smiled again at me and said,”yes”. Before I fainted, I told her I would pick her up at 7:00. At least I thought that I did. Whew! The toughest part is over. What I need now is a gimmick to break the ice. I was a naturally sly and cunning boy; I would have to find out what impressed the girls most. My first idea was the macho approach; this was good in theory, but in reality it was not the thing to do.

The use of tobacco was a smelly, but a reasonably inexpensive habit. All the real men that I knew smoked either cigarettes or cigars. John Wayne and James Dean both smoked cigarettes, and all the real women idolized them. I might as well give it a try. I had a bad experience smoking grape vine when I was 5 years old, but that was a long time ago and another story. I was just a kid then. Not too long ago I had gone behind the garage of our house and lit one of my dad’s Camel cigarettes, but I never inhaled the smoke from it. It was time for me to buy my own brand and learn to smoke like a man. After all I was almost an adult.

The door was standing wide open at the Mobil service station that was located on the highway behind our house. The station attendant was cleaning the windshield on a car, as he was pumping the gas. He hardly noticed as I walked inside the station. I nervously looked around, as if I were going to steal something. I felt like a petty criminal: it was illegal for minors to buy cigarettes from a machine, but I never saw that law enforced. I made my way over to the cigarette machine and quickly surveyed the brands – Lucky Strike, Camels, Chesterfield. There was a new brand, Viceroy, in the machine that caught my eye. It was a king–size, filtered cigarette. I’ll start my new vice with a proper name. I quickly dropped the quarter in the coin slot, put the cigarettes in my pocket, and made my exit back out the same door that I had come in. The service station attendant never looked at me.

There was a dense, mesquite pasture behind the station, and I decided that this would be a good place to light up in privacy. I had some kitchen matches in my pocket to use at this historical event. I put the cigarette in my mouth; struck the match on a rock; and lit the filtered end of the cigarette. As I sucked on the cigarette, very little smoke came through as the filter melted and partially collapsed on the burning end. The smell was awful! My efforts were not to be denied: I looked over my shoulder (I hope nobody saw me do that), and immediately lit the tobacco-end of another cigarette. I inhaled the smoke into my lungs, until it seemed that it was billowing out of my ears. I fell flat of my back on the ground as I tried to re-focus my eyes. I threw away the whole package and staggered home.

It reminded me of the time that I tried smoking gourd vine, but this time my eyes didn’t swell shut. My ears were ringing, and my head was spinning when I opened the back door of the house and made my way to the bathroom. My mother asked me if I was all right, and I mumbled something to her that must have been amusing. She knew exactly what I had been doing. At least I had another day before my date to recover from the tobacco trauma. I’ll try impressing someone by smoking cigarettes some other time.

The macho approach would have to wait: a more subtle approach would have to do. Was it possible to be accepted as “just one of the boys”? Earlier in the summer my cousin showed me how to play the ukulele. It was shaped like a miniature guitar; it had four strings instead of six; and the strings were plastic instead of steel. I ordered one from an advertisement in a magazine, and it cost less than 10 dollars. I learned to play 4 chords from an instruction book that came with the uke, and I found that these chords could be applied to many popular songs. I applied these fundamentals to many of the current popular songs. I soon was know as the “guy with the uke”, and it went everywhere with me except to school. Picnics were popular during the warm summer months, and it was great fun to sit around a camp fire at night and sing to the strumming of the ukulele. This picnic would be no exception.

It took me longer than usual to get ready tonight: my hair was plastered down with Brylcream, with an extra dab on the cow-lick on the back of my head. My shirt collar was turned up in the back like James Dean’s, and my short sleeves were rolled up a couple of extra folds to expose the bony arms, where my arm muscles were supposed to be. I admired myself one last time in the mirror. What a hunk! I grabbed my uke and got in the back seat of my buddy’s car. It was only three blocks down the street to my date’s house. This was going to be doubly tough: it was my first real date, and her dad was my family doctor. I hope he isn’t wearing his stethoscope when I pick her up. My palms were sweating profusely, and they slipped on the back seat door handle. I got out of the car for the long walk up the sidewalk to her front door. The little boy in me wanted to turn around and go back to the safety of the car, but a little voice in my ear screamed, Go, Cat, Go!

Ringing the doorbell was the easiest part. When a voice from the inside told me to come in, I found that opening the screen door and going inside was the hardest part. My pulse quickened, and I wiped the palms on my Levi’s legs…There she was: she was a pretty young woman; her long hair was tied back in a pony tail; and she was melting me with that warm smile. She said that her dad was still working at the hospital, as she said goodbye to her mother who was in the other room. I had already glanced around to see if her dad was home, and if he was going to examine me. We ran down the winding sidewalk, got in the car, and headed for the picnic grounds. We all made small talk, and I strummed a few tunes on my uke on our way to the park.

There were four couples that met at the creek; we built a fire in an old fireplace; and we sat around the fire and talked and sang songs until the sun set and a million stars replaced the day. I loved this place. There were no lights from town to obscure the view of the bright stars and all the constellations; there was a quiet trickle of water running over the gravel shoals of the creek; and the sounds of the crickets could be heard above the popping embers in the fire. We had all grown up together, and there was nothing better than having good friends and good conversation around a campfire. This was what fun was all about. I kept telling myself, ”All that a person needs to be accepted is to be himself”.

Most teenagers of our group had to be home by 11:00 o’clock on weekend nights, so we started folding our blankets and loading them in the cars for our trip back home. The boys put out the campfire, and I found a rusty tin can that I filled with creek water and put on the coals. We were the last car to leave, and as I heard the door shut on the car, I heard my date say, “Oh, no!” She was practically in tears when she told me that she sat on my ukulele. In the dark I had not put it back in the car above the seat. It was my fault, and I told her so. The sound box was cracked in three places, but the little uke would still play. It was not made by Stradivarius, and I told her that I could replace it; it was not important.

We stopped in front of her house; I got out of the car; and I went around to her side and opened her door. Good manners are a way of life in our society. We held hands and talked, as we walked up to her front porch. We stood on the front porch for a few minutes, exchanging social amenities; it got very quiet; and she kissed me good night and went inside. Wow! I was so excited that I must have looked like Cheetah in a Tarzan movie.

I carried my broken ukulele with me when my buddy let me out at my house. I was not sure that me feet were making contact with the pavement. They were still under the control of my raging hormones. As the car drove away, I sat down on one of the small, brick colonnades that were on the front porch. The sky was still full of stars, but their splendor was slightly muted by the glare of the corner street light. Mother heard the car pull up (as always), and she asked through the screen door if I was all right. “Yes, I’m all right,” I replied. She retreated to her bedroom.

I had a terrific time tonight, but most important I learned several valuable lessons. I don’t need gimmicks or material possessions to be accepted by my peers. I only need to be proud of who I am and be that same person at all times. I have also heard that a person sometimes reserve a special place in his heart for the first love of his life…I’m starting to think like the people that are on Grandma’s soap operas…I’m too young to worry about things like that right now. Maybe one day when I am an old man, I will give that one some thought. The only important thing is how much fun we all had tonight. It was too bad about the uke. I can order another one and have it here in 10 days…no problem. I never thought that I would look forward to going to general science class on Monday…….

Thank you, Martha, for being who you are.

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