John Tinseth looks back on how his mother thwarted his first clandestine affair with the most voluptuous girl in his 9th grade class.
Originally appeared at The Trad
I got a Nehru jacket in 1970.
Smoking cigarettes with Friday Shinnaberry in the junior high parking lot, Mary Willersdorf comes over and asks for a Hampton Police Cadet Corps t shirt. The one with the short sleeves. Mary has the biggest breasts of any girl in 9th grade, but her face is a little smushed in. You know? Like one of those little dogs, her nose almost meets her chin. Not that it matters. At home I find an extra t shirt. Size small. I laugh to myself. Mary calls and I take the kitchen wall phone receiver into the bathroom and close the door. She asks if I’ll bring the t shirt to her house now since her parents are gone and won’t be back for a couple hours. She’ll try it on for me. I tell her it’s a small. She tells me that’s okay. It should fit. I tell her I’m on my way. I walk outta the bathroom. I’m dizzy. I’m scared. I’m so happy. I’m putting the receiver back and there’s my mother.
“Yeah, well… I’m just heading over to Scott’s house. He wanted a police cadet t shirt…” “You’re not going anywhere. I heard you and you are not going to that girl’s house.” “You were…eavesdropping ?!” I turn it around and am pretty proud of myself and my vocabulary. After all, there’s a lot at stake here. I add, “Can’t I have any privacy in my own house?” That’s good. I actually sound like a grown up. She snaps back, “No, you can’t have any privacy and this is my house.”
It’s slipping away. What was there in the palm of my hand is turning into another fantasy for the palm. I can see Mary Willersdorf in that small t shirt running towards me while screaming her parents are gone. A lawn sprinkler comes on and ‘Police Cadet’ lettering folds into wet cleavage and dark areola while an early Fall chill marks the exclamation points. I wish my parents were gone, but there’s always at least one of ’em hanging around. Minding my business.
My inspiration. Soul Train.
Mary calls and I take the kitchen wall phone receiver into the bathroom and close the door. that jarred me a bit lolol, i had forgotten we used to do that (im 37). seems as archaic now, as going to the river to collect drinking water. so used to everyone having their own phone now. soulll train, some coolassed dancing and young men – look at those clothes on the men. I always wondered why boomer-generation men adopted the formalwear of their fathers, when they of all the Western young men in the last 100yrs, had the moment in history… Read more »
Because at some point, back in the 70’s, it became apparent that there was no alternative to “our fathers’ formalwear that could be taken seriously. Remember the leisure suit? I had a pair of tan suede and navy blue fake patent leather shoes with wide round toes and one-and-a-half inch heels that make me nauseous every time I recall them.
tan suede and navy blue fake patent leather
damn, that is busy
(i dont know if ‘busy’ in this context is brit english only. so i meant a violent colour and fabric clash)
Great story and if you can pull off some of those fly dance moves you’d be catapulted to genius, atleast in my eyes!