Red, White and Blue and Jiminy Crickett, too!

The carefree summer of 1976 was a magical time, America was turning 200 years old and we were spending the week of July 4th at a rented cabin by the lake. My cousins were renting the cabin in back of us and as luck would have it, the cabin next to us was being rented by a family with a ton of kids. When I say ton, I mean alot, not a bunch of fat kids! Anyways,my usually strict parents must have needed a vaction from us because they let us run wild. They basically paid no attention to us, my mom was busy playing cards with my Aunt and I have no idea what my Dad and Uncle were doing, but truthfully, I could have cared less! I had freedom! We went to the beach and met the ton of kids next door and we all hung out for the rest of the trip. Among the ton there happened to be 2 boys that were the same age as my cousin and I. Of couse she got first pick, but I didn't really care because I was free and hanging out with boys!

We did the typical stuff kids do with new found freedom when they are going from 7th into 8th grade, we smoked cigarettes, snuck beer and kissed boys! My mom is going to be so shocked when she reads this! I'll probally be grounded and sent to my room, which is ok because my husband is pretty cute! Ok, back to the story. One night we were all sitting around a campfire (oh, I forgot to mention we played with matches, too!), when the girl my cousin Johnny or Teddy liked started telling us these horrible stories about the devil. "He's everywhere man, he's even here!" I was starting to get freaked out when some bizarre drifter type guy sat down with his guitar and played us some songs and told us more horror stories about the devil, man. Still buzzed from that sip of beer and totally afraid to hear more stories about the devil, I didn't hesitate for a moment when Marty, the boy that I was kind of hanging out with asked to go for a walk. We walked about 5 steps and sat down behind some old row boats. I thought we were going to talk, but Marty had other things on his mind! Like kissing. My first kiss, how romantic, I looked up at the sky and saw fireworks! Not from the kiss, it was 4th of July! How sweet, nothing could ruin this moment, a moment that I would treasure forever and ever...........a few minutes went by and Marty said to me do you know what a french kiss is? I was like, what the...I'm not French how would I know what that is? Before I could say anything, Marty shoved his disgusting tounge down my throat and proudly proclaimed that's what French kissing is! I was absolutly horrified, my first kiss ruined by my second kiss. In less than seconds my awesome night was ruined. That was the final straw! I drank a sip of beer, smoked a quarter of a cigerette, listened to stories about the devil and now this. All I could do was get up and run back to the safty of my parents. I thought they'ed be glad to see me. All they said is why don't you go back outside and hang out with those ton of nice kids next store?

The story doesn't end yet, as most of you wish it would. There is an even better more disgusting end to the Marty/Lynn romance. The next day while we were hanging out with the ton of kids next door one of the ton informed us that Marty only brought 2 pairs of underware with him for a two week vacation! This small detail amused my brother Joey to no end. He knew that I smooched with Marty and was trying to find a way to inconspicusly work that into some type of torture to be used in front of my parents. So he came up with this little song - 2 pair of underward, 2pair of underware which he sang at every chance he could get. As if that wasn't bad enough, anytme he thought I was going to tell on him for something, he would hum the tune. Thanks to my brother Joey and his constant singing of the 2 pair of underware song, I will never forget the fact that the boy who gave me my 1st and 2nd kiss was likly wearing dirty underware!


Thinking back to that faithful day when I had my first kiss, reminds me of how I found out about the birds and the bees! Or as I like to refer to it as the birds, the bees and the crickets! One day during the fifth grade all the girls were whisked away to an empty class room. With in moments of being seated, the lights went off and a film strip began. Jiminy Cricket jumped across the screen and started singing one of his happy Disney tunes. I was thrilled, a Disney film strip with no stupid boys present. What a treat this is! As I began to relax, Jiminy was joined on the screen by what I can only describe as a egg dressed as a hooker. The egg looked like a regular egg before cooking, but it had legs and arms, was wearing high heel shoes, and carrying a purse. The egg walked around the screen like she was going somewhere, but couldn't figure out where. At this point my mind gets blurry over the details of the filmstrip. All I knew was that once a month the egg was going to drop down somewhere in my stomach and I would bleed. They were calling this horror story "menstruation" or getting your period. Let me get this straight, I thought, I have an army of hooker eggs living in my stomach and once a month one of them is going to walk down to my private area and be released, causing me to bleed? Why, oh why? This has to be some sort of joke. When the filmstrip ended the room was silent, all of us contemplating the fact that soon we were going to become women and the worse part is we had no choice. The teacher gave us a few minutes before heading into the question and answer portion of the class. When she asked, does anyone have any questions, no one raised their hand. OF COURSE WE HAD QUESTIONS-but who in their right mind was going to ask these questions. Not me thats for sure! We walked back to our classroom like zombies. As we entered the room a few of the boys looked at us and laughed! Oh my God, I thought, the boys know about this. Well all I could hope is that something at least this bad would happen to them!