One Summer Night in 1969

Summer. Looking back on it, I can never understand why it would make perfectly normal people do the most intensely bizarre things. Like the times we'd all go out in the street and dance till dawn to songs on the local AM station, while we drank cokes and smoked cigarettes and did the sort of thing teens seemed to think was very exciting. And, there were times we could see the heat waves rolling off the street when we'd get a wild water balloon fight going just to cool off. That was the time the girls always looked the best, in their bathing suits, with freshly acquired tans and sun bleaching their hair. That was also the time the popular guys could lure the cutest girls off for smooching sessions in the growing darkness of those summer nights, while guys like me wished we were popular and spent another night watching summer reruns.1

That was what I was planning for that night. The biggest thrill for me was watching reruns of a sci fi series called Time Tunnel where two American Scientists were trapped hurtling through the endless corridors of time, as the announcer would solemnly announce at the beginning of each program. I was just about to head in to enjoy another action packed episode after an afternoon of bike riding, sandlot baseball, koolaid and hours of listening to KISN radio, to such greats as Sonny and Cher, The Association, The Fifth Dimension and The Strawberry Alarm clock, when Lynn walked over. Lynn and her sister Kathy were Filipino on their dads side and German on their mothers. Their dad Antallio was a long shore-man who'd bought the house next door to ours for himself and his two sons and two daughters. The family lived a lot like you'd have thought people did in some tropical island, with little furniture, scantily clad in the warm months, in a way that defied any restriction. The kids ate when they pleased, slept when they chose and did pretty much anything that amused them while their dad was working on ships or getting drunk at the local tavern across the street. Kathy was the sister all the boys were crazy over in the neighborhood, with her blossoming body, dark skin, and long feathered hair. But, Lynn caught her share of eyes too, though she never seemed to notice. At the time I was a fifteen year old, chubby, curly haired kid with buck teeth, trying to fight off acne so I never attracted to much attention, and usually that was the sort you didn't want. 2

I was killing time that evening bouncing up and down on a truck tire inner tube, on the front lawn, enjoying the make shift trampoline, my brother and I had manufactured from cast offs we'd drug home from the truck barns by the railroad. We'd spent the afternoon, the day before, patching them up and getting them ready for a rafting trip on the Lewis River which I was anxious for. But, truck tires were made for bouncing on and I could never resist the impulse to see just how high I could fly. When Lynn arrived she immediately, without so much as a by your leave, hopped on across from me and we held each other by the shoulders, leaping and bouncing, laughing good naturedly in more of a companion like way than anything else. We kept it up for about fifteen minutes till both of us were tired and decided to stop and rest on the porch swing. 3

That porch swing was one of a kind made by my dad from the front seat of an old Chevy wagon he'd torn apart, hanging it from two chains run through lengths of garden hose, from giant grommet rings on the porch ceiling. Though he hadn't known it, dad had unintentionally created everyone's favorite low end carnival ride. All the kids in the neighborhood seemed drawn to it to swing back and forth until it crashed into the wall and my mom would run out mad a hornet and scream for them to get the Hell off the porch. That night we had no intentions of that sort of wild action when we flopped down, or the sort that ensued shortly after. 4

I pulled a couple bottles of grape drink from an old ice chest we kept on the porch to keep cold drinks cold and handed one to Lynn. We sipped our soda in quiet for a time and she suddenly stuck hers against my back. The shock of the cold bottle made me bolt upright and yelp. Lynn laughed and I got mad and reached into the chest and grabbed an ice cube and dropped it down her blouse. Now, at the time, this wouldn't have been possible with the average flat chested thirteen year old girl that made up most of the population of females in my neighborhood, but with Lynn, who was amply endowed even at her age, it went down easy and she wiggled about giggling trying to get it out. When she did, she stuck it in my ear and I grabbed her. Before either knew what happened we were on the porch stuffing ice down any open place our hands could reach.5

We were rolling back and forth there on the porch, tickling each other and laughing, when I rolled over onto my back and she was suddenly on top of me, breathing hard and smiling, still squirming about like one of the grapplers on Portland Saturday Night Wrestling. I don't know even to this day what suddenly happened. But, suddenly she was looking down at me with those huge chestnut brown eyes and I slipped one hand behind her head and drew her lips to mine. 6

It wasn't the first time we'd kissed. All the boys and girls in the neighborhood had played our games of post office, experimenting with what we called "teenage kisses", which meant French kissing before it was commonly called that. It was like a practice session for when we'd be involved in some serious necking and smooching in the drive in or the back seats of Kaiser Theater downtown. Tonight if felt so good I suppose neither of us wanted to stop and I rolled onto my side and continued to kiss her as she relaxed and locked her arms around me. We didn't stop for a long time, as though both of us had started something and were afraid to quit, knowing we'd have to offer an explanation for why we'd done it all. But, when we did finally, she just whispered, "That was nice."7

I couldn't answer her as I'd never experienced anything like that before. I just let my heart beat slow down and breathed in deep. Finally, I stammered, "Yes." She smiled and brushed that long raven black hair of hers back kissing me again, this time slipping her tongue into my mouth and cuddling up close, her body seeming to take a course all it's own as she rubbed her breasts against me. I don't know what I thought I was doing, slipping my hand between her legs because I didn't have the slightest idea what guys were supposed to do when they did that. I had seen my older brother do it a couple of times and it seemed like something guys did, so I did it too. She pulled away from me and looked at me and I was about to pull my hand back, when she put hers on mine and guided it to where she wanted me to touch her. She breathed in sharply as I did, cooing as our lips crushed back together, this time with force and purpose. I experimented for a few seconds until I could feel her breathing growing steadily more intense and ragged, then settled in to stroke and rub. She stopped me only once to say, "easy, do it gentle, OK?" and I nodded then we started anew.8

It seemed to go on for hours. She was the teacher and I was her awkward though willing student. She slipped my other hand inside her tank top blouse and over her left breast and held it there with hers. I could feel her nipple growing hard and my fingers seemed to know just what to do. I toyed with her, letting my fingers circle her nipple to her cooing approval. She rolled over onto her back pulling me on top of her and I slipped my legs off to one side so I could continue caressing between hers. A moan crept out of her and she pulled me down, biting my ear, the shock causing me to gasp and go rigid. I'd never felt anything like that before and I liked it. Her body was suddenly under mine and I felt my hips begin a dance of their own, which hers responded to. For a minute and that was all it took we were locked together lips, loins and everything else, in a passionate embrace that seemed like some sort of fantasy sprung to life to me. I felt myself explode and, at the same time, she gasped and gripped my back so intensely I thought I must have hurt her. But, when I pulled back she gave a soft cry and laughed in a way I'd never heard any girl laugh before. It was as though she had totally abandoned whatever sanity remained between us and lay there exhausted. 9

We lay there beside each other and she kissed me again, then smiled as I stared at her in what must have been a longing expression. But, finally, she pulled herself up to one elbow and sighed. "I think I'd better get home before Kathryn wonders where I am." Reluctantly we slipped apart and she got up and bounced down the steps in her usual playful manner, tossing a goodnight over her shoulder as she did. I lay there for a while longer, wondering but not trying to make sense of what had just happened, experiencing it over and over in my mind, loving every second of it as it passed again and again. 10

The next day everything seemed forgotten. Lynn came over but never mentioned what had gone on. I had been entertaining fantasies all the night before but realized whatever had happened wasn't going to be repeated. Instead, we got our bikes and went for a bike ride down to the rail yards and out to the river and walked along the gravel for a good while, neither of us making that first move till we ended up just coming back and losing ourselves in the usual summer free for all that went with kids and summer time. And, though I certainly spent hours remembering and wishing something more would happen, it never did. Until the day Lynn and Kathy moved back to Hawaii to live with their mom we were never anything more than friends. We exchanged a lot of letters as we got older then came the letter where she told me t she was engaged. After that things just drifted apart and I was left with only a memory, wondering what made that night happen. 11

Since that time I've had many of lovers and wonderful romances, but deep inside me there is still a place that only a very special memory of a summer night with a beautiful neighbor girl can fill and it still keeps me sleepless when that lost memory is revived.