From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Not Your Father’s Automobile, Circa 1955

 

 

No question kids today, what with a new technological innovation every minute and so much social networking opportunity that it would keep even a civilized adult busy 24/7/365, grow up faster (read: learn the facts of life, that’s the facts jack) than we did back in the 1950s be-bop minute, the minute when the generation of ’68 began to twist and turn with the hard facts of life. The hard facts of life for boys then (oh yah, and now too but with less useful help back then) being what to do about girls (and girls, or other combinations today, can chime in with their own sagas on the just teen personal relationship heartache road). The thing consumed many an abandoned night, a sweaty toss and turn night up in some lonely bedroom, hopefully not brother-shared, trying to sleep after listening to the Midnight Special Rock And Roll Hour on the local radio station, WJDA, on your very private iPod (oops) transistor radio, the granddaddy (or grandmamma if you prefer) of that former invention, trying figure out if Sherry this liked your best friend Willie that. Or, more seriously, your own plight-if that glance from Jenny meant what the Be-Bop Kid (my moniker for a while in junior high school) though it meant when she passed him and looked back in the hallway between classes. And he looking back, detecting, microscopic detecting, just a pale and wan smile emanating from the corner of her ruby red- lipped mouth in response, enough material though to keep those bedclothes sweaty more than one night. Stuff like that. Purely kid’s stuff but the glue that held us together.  

See a lot of stuff was from ignorance, willful ignorance brought to us by our parents (our frightened parents who also didn’t learn anything from their parents going back eons and so we learned it on the streets or from some “wise” boyfriend of girlfriend just like, well, just like they did), our churches (who were frightened , frightened worse than our parents, because they actually knew more, more about what they would call human depravity, and didn’t want us within  a hundred yards, make that one thousand yards, or call your number,  of sinful sex) and our schools (acting as substitute parents, I won’t use the common Latin term because this is no dead language screed but about rock and roll, oh  yah, and sex) to keep us in the dark about, well, sex, for openers. Nowadays every ten year old kid knows more real stuff about the subject (and probably as much unreal stuff as back in the day too) than you could shake a stick at. And I hope that knowledge helps them through teen angst and teen alienation time in those sweaty toss and turn bedroom hours after they shut the iPod down.   

But I wonder about a certain period, that period when for boys, some boys anyway, when girls turn from sticks to shapes. About whether that aspect of the rules of the game have changed. You know what I am talking about. When Jenny, who last year was nothing but a nuisance, a giggling nuisance chattering away with her six girlfriend armada seen everywhere and acting as one, acting as one or else, and making odd-ball remarks about you being this or that kind of goof, donk, nerd, dweed, etc. pick your generational term of art, or maybe taking a hard punch at you just for looking at her the wrong way, or saying some wrong thing, or even maybe thinking about saying the wrong thing, now looked kind of, well, interesting. And maybe she is taking her first blushed kind of interesting, not punch-provoking, peeps at you too.   

Here is where it all got really confusing though, that time when Jenny (and her girlfriend armada naturally-the hours they must of spent on who did, or did not, make the cut, jesus, just be thankful you made it and now could  finish junior high school without having to live in the catacombs, or some desert island which would be a more friendly environment if you had not made that precious A-list) invited you, you of all people, based on that very scant blushed peep she took a couple of weeks back, to her house for a party and you went, you trembling went (taking two showers, applying enough deodorant to make the whole world smell pretty, and gulping down enough mouth wash to float a battleship, trembling went).

As the evening wore on (maybe eight o’clock kid’s time late, junior high Friday night late), after half-dancing (praise be, rock and roll- induced dancing apart and plenty of room for faking dance moves studied assiduously from teen movies) the inevitable lights went out and the “petting” began and she, without an armada by the way, came over and sat right next to you, interesting blushed peep you.  You fumble kissed, not exactly sure who made the first move (clueless about such protocols from clueless parents who would not discuss even that innocent question for fear, yah, for fear of the next question), and exactly sure (she too, she trembling too) that you did not know the next move.  And then you would think about what old rock and rock king Chuck Berry meant when his latest single, Almost Grown, hit the airwaves (and was played a couple of times at said party). Jesus, kid’s today have it a hundred times easier. Right.