In A Nutshell XXXVI

In a Nutshell

A place set aside to answer 201 autobiographical questions from a mother for her daughter. This may take awhile...join us if you like.

36. A memorable adolescent sweetheart was.

Did I have a sweetheart as an adolescent, memorable or otherwise? I didn't date until I got to college, so that would seem to rule that out.

In high school, my relationship with boys was more pals. I was the only girl to spend senior skip day (a class trip to Yosemite) with three guys, the same three who escorted me to the senior dinner*. Other girls either had one guy they did things with, usually dating, or they hung out in girls' groups. My group included two students from the class behind mine, Michael and Jane, and three guys from my class-- Robert and Bob and Jack. (Robert dated Jane, Jack belonged to a small religious sect that didn't allow dating, and I don't know why Bob didn't date.) The six of us were The Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns, and Little Men's Chowder and Marching Society. We ate lunch together and wrote poetry which we published in a mimeographed sheet that, sadly, I have no copies of at all. We were all in what would have been called gifted classes when Julie and Richard were in high school, so that Robert, Bob, Jack and I had at least three classes a year together and as seniors attended the local community college in the mornings. Which meant that although we didn't take the same courses, the four of us rode the bus to and from together five days a week. Michael and Jane had the same situation, just one year behind.

Remember that girl who gave me the clue that I might attract more boys if I used smaller words? Well, she was also in the program, lived across the street from me, and gave a graduation party the same night I did. And, a couple of years later, when we were both attending UC Berkeley, she told me that she had been greatly smitten with Jack and had been green with envy for two years as we sat in that group together in classes and walked to class together and ate and passed books and poems and records to each other. Getting on the bus and not sitting with us had been bad, she confessed, but the worst part of all had been seeing Jack go to my graduation party. And when she told me this, I couldn't resist saying something about how I hadn't had to reduce my vocabulary at all. And she had the grace to blush.

* & because I was the only one with three escorts, I was the only one with both an orchid lei and wristlet.