It was 1960 and John Kennedy was on the stump. My mother was for Kennedy. My father was for Nixon. I dressed up in a Nixon sign for Halloween and my friend Marita Slobovitch wore a polling booth, a big cardboard box. We had a friend, Harold, who dressed as Uncle Sam and we three posed for pictures. I still have one. Boy were we dorky!
Then Kennedy won, and my mother was happy and my father didn’t really care. And I decided I was for Kennedy after all.
Then it was January, 1961 and I stayed home with my friend Debbie, with cerebral palsy who lived with her grandmother on the other side of the golf course, we stayed home and watched the inauguration on tv at my house with my mother. We ate snacks on metal tv trays.
Debbie lived near this golf course where we went out and hit golf balls around that we found with clubs her grandfather had. She lived in the same part of town as my little crush Jimmy Bodkins, whose big brother Dwight was my real crush, but he was older and unattainable and also a bad boy, so I walked to school with Jimmy who had red hair and was two years younger than me. That was when I was 11. when I was twelve, I think that was the year they moved away to live with their mother and slept on the floor on blankets, they didn’t have beds. That’s what someone said, probably Debbie, since she lived on the same street and lived with her grandmother too. Did they all live with their grandmothers on that side of town?
It was around that time I met my first famous person. Actually, I don't remember if I actually met this person, or just saw him from afar; let's say I was in the proximity; his name was George Romney and he was just elected Republican Governor of the State of Michigan. My father, who was a mostly unemployed cook/car salesman/private eye/process server, somehow wangled tickets to the Governor's Ball. It was in a hotel in Lansing and I wore a white dress. My mom did not attend. My dad and I sat in this room with a bunch of guys my dad's age, and older. (This was 1960 remember, my dad was 35 years old!) We watched TV, I'm guessing the victory speeches? then went down to this ballroom where everyone was taller than me and I danced with my Dad.
Later, of course, that man's son, a Mormon, no less, would run for President in the Republican primary, after serving as Governor of Massachusetts. That was my closest brush with Republican politics.
1962 I do not remember so well, except yes I do that was the year Sara Schellenberger and I read about lesbians and taunted our friend Janie Samuelson, we called her Puppy, that she was one, "Puppy is a lezzie" we would say; we thought it was a hysterical, then we worried that might be lezzies ourselves and the counselor at the junior high called us in to talk about it without ever using those words. Years Later, I caught up with Sara on the web and she mailed me she was happily living in another state with her lover. "It wasn't a phase with me," she said. I still worry about Puppy, whether she ever recoverd from our merciless taunts, (whether she was or wasn't; kids are cruel, and I wasn't even one of the Mean Girls).
I also had a big crush on Greg Malomar, who was kind of a jock (basketball) and kind of in with the in crowd (the fringier elements of it), but looked sad and in need of my friendship, so I read teenage advice columns that said if you liked a boy you would sort of turn up where he is and say hi with a big smile on your face. I did that a lot, I would be at the door when he came out of class, with my big smile and say "Hi Greg;" he would scowl and walk away and once he said, “scag”
Once one of the fringy Mean Girls said Greg really likes you but he is shy, but I knew she was making fun of me, because she didn’t like me one bit and she would never tell the truth.
If she said it, it was a lie, but I still kept my hopes and said “Hi Greg” once again and he said "Scag!" in a louder voice,
I had thick glasses and home perms my Mom did called Tonettes, and wore clothes from the Lerner Ships, so was not likely to get a rise out of Greg or anyone else for that matter.
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