"Love at Fourteen" (1961)(a light teenage romance)
Love at Fourteen (1961)
(A Light Teenage Romance)
(Christopher Hunter) I was fourteen years old when I met her, it was the summer of 1961, in October I’d be fifteen, and her, she I think was all of 16-years old when we met. I never blamed her for not meeting me at the tree, or calling me thereafter, I didn’t search for her either, she did ask now and then though about me, throughout the years, she ask how I was, if I was alright. I never talked about her to anyone, what for, it was just a summer romance, perhaps a lost summer, and the only one she and I, Nancy Pit and I that is, would enjoy together—the fancy-free exuberance of youth would embezzle us.
Perhaps I was dim, but a handsome young man I was when I met her, Jill set me up, wanted me to meet her; Jill lived across the empty lot from me, I hung around with her brother somewhat—Donald (or Donny), I suppose we were all friends in the neighborhood back then, Jill, Donny, and the other twenty or so young kids, and me, and here comes Nancy, a stranger but Jill wanted us to meet and I was curious. And I liked her fresh long wavy red hair, some freckles. She was peaceful to be with. We both seemed to be on fire, free as birds, but of course, no one is free when they fall in love, or think they are falling in love. Kind of a Catch-22; your emotions imprison you somewhat.
My body, I remember was hard, muscle hard, I was weightlifting at the time, and my mind had a stone wall around it, it seemed. I was weightlifting as I said, and sso my body was toned, and this one day I was bringing dirt back and forth from the empty lot to Jill’s father’s house, in a wheelbarrow. And she looked, I mean really looked with staring and blazing and desirable eyes at my sweaty body, my muscles glowing as afternoon turned into dusk—wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow. She followed me, told me she like what she saw. She looked at me as if I was so much, enough, perhaps too much, perhaps much more than what I really was. She had thought I was her age, as we had met and talked for the first month of the summer, then she found out she was two years older than I and left well enough alone, said little to nothing on the subject.
She was the first girl I suppose I ever dreamed of, one I could become comfortable with anyways.
The summer of 1961, was a hot one in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a growing one for me—we, Nancy and I, went to the drive-in-movies together, her and I and Jill and her boyfriend that is. We even went to Indians Mound (which was a distance from the neighborhood, having to crossover to a nearby hill, across a wobbling wooden bridge, perhaps from the Civil War days, and up some other hills and into a patch of trees, hidden from the Mississippi Avenue, where the police often monitored; we met the neighborhood gang there and drink (Roger and Doug, Big Ace and Lorimar, Donny and Jill and Mike, Ronny and another Nancy was there, Sam would marry her in a few years, and there was Larry the tough guy of the neighborhood, and so forth). It was during the second month of this summer I and she laid down under the gazing stars, foliage all around us, leaves piled high against thick old trees with thick bark on them, and she lay on top of me, and we rolled about, and I felt myself become excited, thus, I stopped—it scared me, I wanted to obey my impulse, my desire, but my mind said no, and Nancy was not fighting hers. I never regretted it, I think she did though, but I never exactly understood it, why I did stop. The best conclusion I can come up with was pregnancy; and I suppose I was a tinge bashful, and unsure of the situation.
She could have had any guy in the neighborhood, but her heart was alive for me, so it seemed, she even seemed to need me, and was never ungrateful; she made me feel as if I had some magical power over her, that she was breathless over me—perhaps my imagination, but it was as I felt, and if it was a way woman captivate men, she was working me quite well.
She often rubbed my back, I liked the touch of her doing so, and those were the last nights, and the last month of the summer, we’d see each other—hence, she seemed to pick up that habit more frequent, and with less doubt.
After we left that last night, the night she and I carved our names into a tree by my grandfather’s house, where I lived—near what the neighborhood called the turnaround—we told each other we’d meet in six years, I knew it was the last night—the very last night we’d ever see each other but I did for once what my heart and desires commanded, not what my head rationalized out (for I knew she’d soon return to Jill’s house and in the morning be gone). Anyhow, we stood by the tree and carved our names in three, hugged each other, tight, so very tight I think I could have broken her bones, had I not let go when I did.
We parted, she had some tears on her cheeks, but with smiles, the farther she walked in the twilight, the moon guiding her with the arch lights, down across the empty lot where we played baseball, and to Jill’s house, I watched as I walked up my steps to our screened in back door, until she simply became a shadow in the night, a it seemed so unreal, as if the magic that we thought was present, had just busted like a balloon, popped. Is this how love was, I asked myself. Is this was facing me in the future, I asked myself. What was I in store for? I looked a last time, and even her silhouette was gone.
As the years passed, she’d ask about me now and then, Jill would mention it, and then Jill got married. I had dreams, many of them of her, and perhaps she knew that I would—for she had planted them perhaps, only to blossom years later, but she got married, I heard unhappily, but it must have worked out later on for at the age of nineteen-years old, I never heard of her again. And I left it alone. Not sure why, perhaps not wanting to intrude, perhaps she felt I might someday come on a big white horse and rescue her. But I liked how it ended; it was like a romance in a book, happily. And I suppose what more can you ask for. It was a time when neither of us had any baggage you could say, a time when we grabbed the moment, and although it could have been more in-depth, we left that part out, and became good if not great friends. Should I ever meet her again, I can surely say, “Wasn’t a great back then?” And I think she’d really, with a smile and hug, and kiss on the cheek, “Oh yes, yes indeed, it was magical!”
(10-30-2007)(Revised and reedited 4-28-2998)
(A Light Teenage Romance)
(Christopher Hunter) I was fourteen years old when I met her, it was the summer of 1961, in October I’d be fifteen, and her, she I think was all of 16-years old when we met. I never blamed her for not meeting me at the tree, or calling me thereafter, I didn’t search for her either, she did ask now and then though about me, throughout the years, she ask how I was, if I was alright. I never talked about her to anyone, what for, it was just a summer romance, perhaps a lost summer, and the only one she and I, Nancy Pit and I that is, would enjoy together—the fancy-free exuberance of youth would embezzle us.
Perhaps I was dim, but a handsome young man I was when I met her, Jill set me up, wanted me to meet her; Jill lived across the empty lot from me, I hung around with her brother somewhat—Donald (or Donny), I suppose we were all friends in the neighborhood back then, Jill, Donny, and the other twenty or so young kids, and me, and here comes Nancy, a stranger but Jill wanted us to meet and I was curious. And I liked her fresh long wavy red hair, some freckles. She was peaceful to be with. We both seemed to be on fire, free as birds, but of course, no one is free when they fall in love, or think they are falling in love. Kind of a Catch-22; your emotions imprison you somewhat.
My body, I remember was hard, muscle hard, I was weightlifting at the time, and my mind had a stone wall around it, it seemed. I was weightlifting as I said, and sso my body was toned, and this one day I was bringing dirt back and forth from the empty lot to Jill’s father’s house, in a wheelbarrow. And she looked, I mean really looked with staring and blazing and desirable eyes at my sweaty body, my muscles glowing as afternoon turned into dusk—wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow. She followed me, told me she like what she saw. She looked at me as if I was so much, enough, perhaps too much, perhaps much more than what I really was. She had thought I was her age, as we had met and talked for the first month of the summer, then she found out she was two years older than I and left well enough alone, said little to nothing on the subject.
She was the first girl I suppose I ever dreamed of, one I could become comfortable with anyways.
The summer of 1961, was a hot one in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a growing one for me—we, Nancy and I, went to the drive-in-movies together, her and I and Jill and her boyfriend that is. We even went to Indians Mound (which was a distance from the neighborhood, having to crossover to a nearby hill, across a wobbling wooden bridge, perhaps from the Civil War days, and up some other hills and into a patch of trees, hidden from the Mississippi Avenue, where the police often monitored; we met the neighborhood gang there and drink (Roger and Doug, Big Ace and Lorimar, Donny and Jill and Mike, Ronny and another Nancy was there, Sam would marry her in a few years, and there was Larry the tough guy of the neighborhood, and so forth). It was during the second month of this summer I and she laid down under the gazing stars, foliage all around us, leaves piled high against thick old trees with thick bark on them, and she lay on top of me, and we rolled about, and I felt myself become excited, thus, I stopped—it scared me, I wanted to obey my impulse, my desire, but my mind said no, and Nancy was not fighting hers. I never regretted it, I think she did though, but I never exactly understood it, why I did stop. The best conclusion I can come up with was pregnancy; and I suppose I was a tinge bashful, and unsure of the situation.
She could have had any guy in the neighborhood, but her heart was alive for me, so it seemed, she even seemed to need me, and was never ungrateful; she made me feel as if I had some magical power over her, that she was breathless over me—perhaps my imagination, but it was as I felt, and if it was a way woman captivate men, she was working me quite well.
She often rubbed my back, I liked the touch of her doing so, and those were the last nights, and the last month of the summer, we’d see each other—hence, she seemed to pick up that habit more frequent, and with less doubt.
After we left that last night, the night she and I carved our names into a tree by my grandfather’s house, where I lived—near what the neighborhood called the turnaround—we told each other we’d meet in six years, I knew it was the last night—the very last night we’d ever see each other but I did for once what my heart and desires commanded, not what my head rationalized out (for I knew she’d soon return to Jill’s house and in the morning be gone). Anyhow, we stood by the tree and carved our names in three, hugged each other, tight, so very tight I think I could have broken her bones, had I not let go when I did.
We parted, she had some tears on her cheeks, but with smiles, the farther she walked in the twilight, the moon guiding her with the arch lights, down across the empty lot where we played baseball, and to Jill’s house, I watched as I walked up my steps to our screened in back door, until she simply became a shadow in the night, a it seemed so unreal, as if the magic that we thought was present, had just busted like a balloon, popped. Is this how love was, I asked myself. Is this was facing me in the future, I asked myself. What was I in store for? I looked a last time, and even her silhouette was gone.
As the years passed, she’d ask about me now and then, Jill would mention it, and then Jill got married. I had dreams, many of them of her, and perhaps she knew that I would—for she had planted them perhaps, only to blossom years later, but she got married, I heard unhappily, but it must have worked out later on for at the age of nineteen-years old, I never heard of her again. And I left it alone. Not sure why, perhaps not wanting to intrude, perhaps she felt I might someday come on a big white horse and rescue her. But I liked how it ended; it was like a romance in a book, happily. And I suppose what more can you ask for. It was a time when neither of us had any baggage you could say, a time when we grabbed the moment, and although it could have been more in-depth, we left that part out, and became good if not great friends. Should I ever meet her again, I can surely say, “Wasn’t a great back then?” And I think she’d really, with a smile and hug, and kiss on the cheek, “Oh yes, yes indeed, it was magical!”
(10-30-2007)(Revised and reedited 4-28-2998)
posted by Dennis and Rosa Siluk at 10:52 AM
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