Dreams to Remember

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhpMMIOccSo

This picture was taken when I was fourteen years old; the young man on my left is my oldest and best friend, Earl Vaughn. Earl and I first met in the second grade and have remained fast friends for the rest of our lives. Like most boys our age, our entire beings were consumed with thoughts of teenage girls and how to act around them. This was eons before HBO, R-rated movies, heck even Playboy magazine was still in its infancy. The only sources of information about girls were "older" boys. Years later I realized not one thing they told us was true.

After every football game there was a sock hop at a place called "The Shanty." (For you youngsters a sock hop is so named because people shed their shoes and dance in their socks) The Shanty was a World War II era Quonset hut and as I remember was located on part of the school grounds. Boys lined one side of the building and girls were grouped on the other side of the room. After finally getting your nerve up to ask a girl to dance, the walk across that floor seemed to take forever. But it was nothing compared to the trek back if she turned you down, Ahh, the pain and humiliation. I am sure walking to your execution is tougher but not by much. At least not to a teenager.

If by the grace of our Lord a girl did agree to dance then I prayed for an Otis Redding or Percy Sledge song. I do not think I will ever again know the absolute passion of holding a girl and feeling so absolutely alive with both anticipation and fear. I am not sure what being bi-polar feels like, but I think that experience came damned close. I mean the thoughts racing through your mind and the hormones rushing through young veins are enough to short circuit a nuclear power plant.

A favorite place to take a date was the drive in picture show. Now in the crowd we ran with you were not taking any young lady out without a pre-date interview with her dad. Water boarding? I would take it anytime if it would have avoided southern fathers of teenage girls. The era of the fifties was not just different from today's morals and customs; it was a completely different universe. If you were going to be truthful about going to a drive in movie, it was required that it be a double date. That left us with a problem namely do you double date or do you lie? Keep in mind being caught in a lie by a father of that era did not merely mean the loss of dating his daughter; it may well portend the end of your stay on the planet. Sometimes we double dated and sometime I risked life and limb and misled the parents. Lie is such an ugly word, misled just flows better. Alright, sometimes I lied.

I think the first girl I ever kissed on an actual date was named Shirley. She was a year older and tried to instruct me in the fine art of osculation. She said to pull your lips back over your teeth and press on the girl’s lips as hard as you could. It would be a few months, or maybe years, before I realized she had a convoluted understanding of what was supposed to be a tender act. Not only did you look like someone with no teeth, you were likely to maim your date. Some where along the line some young lady said "Larry, let me show you a different technique." Yes indeed it was way better and my world took a turn for the better.

I am not satisfied that I caught the essence of what I am trying to convey. I wish I could remind everyone of the absolute magic of first starting to interact with the opposite sex. There was the feeling of being totally lost, confused and yet knowing the best was yet to come. It was such a glorious and yet painful time. but were you ever as alive?

What started me down this thought process was a song I heard this morning. I am putting a link to it at the end of this posting. I am still in awe of how a song can immediately transfer me back in time and bring back long lost memories and emotions. Music has always done that for me. I hope it always does. Dreams to remember, I have them

Note: If you want to get a feel for what it was all about, copy the link below and go to the site, turn up the sound and just listen and remember.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhpMMIOccSo