FIRST LOVE - EPILOGUE

After the winter holidays Kurn was back at Dartmouth.  Danny was at Duke with me. That gave Kurn only two chances to keep our relationship afloat – slim and none.  I honestly don’t remember how I broke it off.  It must have been in a letter, since we didn’t talk on the phone. Imagine that today. The only long distance calls I made were collect on Sundays to my family. He didn’t ever call me that I remember.

What I do remember is the letter he sent back to me asking me not to end it. It was beautiful and heartfelt, with only one problem.  He described a beloved dog he had raised from a puppy to adulthood.  How much he loved that pet and how many wonderful times they had together.  He compared his relationship with me to how much he loved that dog.

Using a dog as a metaphor for watching me grow up and becoming what – his pet? – did not sit well. On the other hand, was he calling me a bitch?  My nascent feminism reared its feisty young head.  I knew his heart was breaking; I could see the tear stains on the letter. However, by now I had worked myself into such a cynical frenzy over the llama that I wouldn’t put it past him to drip water on the ink to create the effect of tears. Despite all that, he was clearly trying to hang on to me like someone drowning. 

Once again I could have put it to him straight – told him why my own heart had grown cold.  And I didn’t.

Finally Kurn stopped fighting for me.  Danny and I also fizzled out.  All the drama had ended.  And so had a very important part of my life.

When my freshman year ended and I got home, I learned something from two of my girlfriends that assuaged any guilt I might have had over breaking up with Kurn. 

The summer before I began college, when Kurn and I were dating every day, I went out of town for a week or so.  He asked if he could take out my girlfriends while I was gone.  I said, sure, thinking nothing of it.  It turns out that he slept with one and tried to kiss the other. They both told me a year later.  Very carefully.

Was I stunned?  Was Martha Stewart surprised she was going to jail? You bet. How could he love me and do something like that?  Times were changing,but there were men who still lived by another standard.

Two years after I graduated from college he wrote a long letter in a Christmas card to my parents.  He was now a naval officer. Unfortunately, my mother had died three months before and to this day, I don’t know whether my father wrote to tell him.  I know I didn’t want to.  She loved him almost as much as I did. And the feeling was reciprocated, I'm sure.

More years passed.  Marriage. Children. Divorce. I began working with a young woman who was a Dartmouth graduate.  Out of curiosity, I asked her to look up an old boyfriend of mine in her alumni directory.  She did and said she couldn’t find his name.

Odd, I thought, and let it go.  A few years later I called the Dartmouth alumni office and asked them to tell me why Kurn wasn't in their directory. They were reluctant to check because I wasn’t an alum, until I just badgered them into it. 

I was told that usually when alumni are no longer listed in the directory they are dead.  But she said she would check the records.

He was dead.  She didn’t know how or where or why. But he passed away in the early 80’s.

The air sucked out of the room. More years passed.

One day I googled Kurn.  He showed up in an obituary for his father who was a professor emeritus and the former head of one of the science departments at Stanford.  The obit mentioned Kurn’s sister, her husband and children, along with where they lived.  I was able to find her address on the internet.  But I didn't call.

Two more years have passed.  I finally talked to her last week.   

We talked for a very long time.  It was a difficult conversation for her. She is the only member of her family still living. The first thing she said to me was “Oh, I wish he had married you.”  She told me how sad he was when we broke up.  She had never seen him cry like that before. 

After getting out of the Navy he returned to the States. But he didn’t like the changes that were taking place. Especially Dartmouth going coed. So he lived in Europe and worked for the US Army as a liaison with foreign governments.

I smell CIA. 

He ended up married to some not very nice or very attractive woman [according to his sister] and settled in Paris.  When he left on a trip back to the US, she took everything they had and left him with an empty apartment on his return.

His last years were spent in Africa. Until he contracted malaria. His sister is real hazy about what he was doing there. I told her what he told me about being recruited by the CIA.  I noticed she didn't confirm or deny that information.

Gotta be.

Very sick, he went home to his parents house in California to recuperate, but suffered a massive seizure and died.

I asked where he was buried. At sea. So I can't visit his grave.

His parents watched as his ashes were scattered from a naval destroyer, while it passed under the Golden Gate Bridge.

First love.  Lost love.

Good bye, Kurn.

Want to read it again? Start here: http://mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2004/09/first-love-part-un.html#uds-search-results

Read about running into Danny from Duke after decades: http://mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2013/03/old-boyfriend-sighting.html

Read about my mystical Valentine's Day Dream about Kurn:
http://mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2005/02/valentine-day.html

FIRST LOVE -- PART QUATRO

I flew to college by myself. When I got to my dorm I noticed that everyone else had family with them. At the time, that seemed strange to me. I had even gone to visit some prospective colleges alone. Heading to Duke, my mother brought me to the airport, just the two of us, and we said goodbye without any tears. No fanfare. No weeping. I had said farewell earlier to everyone else at home. 

I was excited and looking forward to college. Thinking back, I don’t know how my mother felt watching her firstborn leave the proverbial nest for the first time. She stayed very calm. She was just like she always was, loving, kind and encouraging. But who knows what happened on her ride home alone. I wish now that I could ask her. 

When my own children left for college I only felt enormous relief.  As a single parent I could finally relax and not worry so much about them anymore. I had worked so hard to ensure their health, safety and well being every day -- a huge responsibility. So when I listen to the emotional agony of some of my friends, I’m puzzled.  Maybe it was just easier for me to let go because I had a career that sucked the life out of me on top of raising kids alone.

With no phone cards, cell phones or the internet, Kurn and I began an active snail mail correspondence.  The kind that feels like two people running toward each other in very slow motion.  His letters were always imaginative and entertaining. Once he sent me a large envelope full of colorful leaves so I could see how beautiful fall was in New Hampshire.

We soon made plans for Thanksgiving.  I would spend the actual turkey day with my roommate and her family in New Jersey. Then I would take the bus to New York.  Kurn would pick me up at Penn Station.  We would meet his uncle’s family for dinner, after which we would pretend I was staying at the Biltmore for the rest of the weekend.  Actually we spent our remaining time together at a Columbia University frat house. In the fireplace-appointed room of Kurn’s friend, Jaime, whose father was an assassinated Latin American dictator. Fireplace or not, the place was a slum.

Kurn picked me up at Penn Station and immediately checked my neck to see if I was wearing the llama.  I wasn’t.  I made up a reason why because I didn’t have the courage to confront him about my encounter with his sister.  Our whole relationship might have been turned around if I had.

He showed me all the places he loved to frequent during the year he lived in New York.  Little Italian restaurants with peaches at the bottom of the wine bottles.  The Staten Island ferry at midnight with a full moon shining down on the only two passengers.  Museums, museums, museums.  Parties with friends from Dartmouth.  His roommate’s first comment to me was “I thought you would be shorter.” There is a song that the Dartmouth Glee Club may still sing that starts out, “She is my slender, small one.”  I guess Kurn played that tune a lot in their room.  It should have been, “She is my slender, TALL one.”

As usual, I was a little apprehensive – okay, terrified – at the prospect of some new sexual event which no doubt loomed large in my legend. Somehow despite my summer of discovery, I was still a virgin [my mother’s voice in my ear had seen to that]. But now without any protest, I was going to have sex with my boyfriend. I felt like I was walking off a plank into something very dark and foreboding.

Ultimately, even though I was still completely under his spell and lacked the courage to say "no" to him, my virgin status did not change. I guess Kurn decided that making me kiss him was one thing, but deflowering me was, perhaps, rape?  Do you think?  There was also that residual resentment I harbored from my run-in with his sister.  Some of it must have surfaced as a defiant aura to make him keep his distance.

After our first night we had breakfast in a little below ground café near the Guggenheim and he gave me a napkin afterward.  On it he had written, “I love you.”

For years I had longed to hear him say he loved me. Now when it finally happened, I no longer felt the same. I smiled at him and tucked the napkin in my pocket. The llama had become a dead elephant stinking up the room.

After the weekend he sent a long rapturous letter to my parents about what a good time we had in New York.  He might as well have announced to the world we were having monkey sex.  What was he thinking?  Okay, he was in love.  My parents were totally cool. They wouldn’t let me go to Dartmouth’s Winter Carnival over Christmas, however.  So he decided to come home, too, so we could be together.

Back at school after Thanksgiving, I had taken Kurn’s instructions to date other people seriously.  I think he still wanted his freedom, so he gave me mine.  And I took it. A very Amish thing to do -- sew your oats and then get married. I was new to serial dating. Hey, this was fun.  I finally found guys tall enough to date.  One of them was Don’s fraternity brother, Danny. 

Remember Don from the beach? He was my big brother again, only now at Duke. He introduced me to Danny my first day on campus. They were fraternity brothers. Danny was a football player who no longer played because of injury. So he had buried his nose in the books and was quite the philosopher jock. Tall and  good looking, too.

After Thanksgiving we started to date.  His hometown was near mine, so when it was time for Christmas break, I ended up spending time with Kurn in the afternoon and Danny at night. The next day, Danny in the afternoon, Kurn at night.  I set up a schedule because they both pressured me hard for all my time. Kurn asked me out for New Year’s early, because he realized I was getting away from him. Danny ended up at a party alone. At one point Kurn even went to visit Danny to see how he was taking care of “MY girlfriend at Duke.”  Danny didn’t take that very well.  Two stallions in the corral.

You know what, I was too young. They were both seniors in college. I was in way over my head and STILL didn’t know it.

For Christmas Danny took me out for a nice dinner. Kurn gave me a Dartmouth mug and an album called Songs of Dartmouth. Yes, I still have them. The first time he played his favorite Dartmouth song for me, “She is my slender small one,” I felt a rush of melancholy and sadness when I heard it. I knew it would only be a matter of time before our relationship was over. Again he had written “I love you.” This time on the album cover.  I didn't love him any more and didn't have the heart to tell him.  Of course, if I had finally been honest with him about how my feelings had changed and why, who knows?

On our one and only New Year’s Eve together, Kurn told me a secret.  The CIA had recruited him at school.  I have never forgotten that.  At midnight, he made a long speech about us and how much I meant to him and made a toast to our future lives together. The holiday ended. We went back to school. 

I never saw him again.

NEXT INSTALLMENT – EPILOGUE – How it ended and where Kurn is now: http://mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2004/09/first-love-epilogue.html

FIRST LOVE -- PART TRES

Right after Kurn left for college I had some unfinished business to tend to. That weekend I had a sleepover with a bunch of my girlfriends. The next morning we all got up at the crack of dawn and took a big saw from my Dad’s workbench down to the beach.

These days, the sight of a clutch of girls walking down the street carrying a huge saw at dawn might draw the attention of the local constables. Not then.

The tree-sized piece of driftwood was still there where Kurn had carved his name and the date. Part of me was really worried that it might have been carted away -- always a possibility in a village that had rules for how to wrap your garbage. A piece of driftwood that size could besmirch the quality of someone’s sand experience, so you couldn’t be sure.

With my friends encouraging me, I sawed out the 18" piece of tree, where my One and Only had left his mark. I carried it home like a Yule log, so I could have it forever. Too big for a scrapbook, the driftwood sat in my room like an icon in a shrine. And I worshiped it accordingly.

He was gone. I had a trophy. Now what was I going to do?

At some point I had managed to get Kurn’s address at college. Was it on the ride to the Dairy Queen? When he dropped me off at home?  I don’t remember. I do remember he didn’t write it down, he told it to me. I could send him mail c/o Baker Library at Dartmouth. He had a job there. 

It was weeks before I got up the courage to write him a letter. I don’t remember what I had to say, but the penmanship probably looked like any high school sophomore girl’s best effort, although I wasn’t into big circles over the “i” or making smiley faces and hearts. Who knows what I wrote about. School? The family pets. My friends? What I had for dinner? Did I make spelling mistakes? Did I write “your” instead of “you’re”?  

I must have done something right. A few weeks later a letter arrived addressed to me, postmarked Nov 2, Hanover, N.H. My mother handed it to me with one of those smiles that only mothers can give you when they know you’re going to be really happy to get this mail. 

The first thing I noticed was the nice stationery. A cream colored paper with little flecks in it, like it was handmade. I noticed how masculine and legible his handwriting was, free of flamboyant curly cues or extraneous motion.

More fascinating to me was the ink he chose  – a bright green.  He may have done that because green was a Dartmouth school color. Hanover, where the school is located, is in the Green Mountains of New Hampshire. 

Kurn was pretty rah-rah about where he went to college. Dartmouth was the bastion of the extreme scholar athlete who could drink you under the table. And the model for that John Belushi classic, "Animal

House." An alum tells me the school is almost 51% female now. But I’m sure the women are doing their best to continue Dartmouth’s proud traditions.

We corresponded all through my high school years. But that first letter is the one I remember best.

The next three years, Kurn would make surprise visits to our house during his Christmas vacations, the first time when he showed up unannounced to deliver a package. Imagine my shock. He worked for the village post office during the holidays and continued to ring our doorbell unexpectedly for weeks in December, leaving me speechless and starry-eyed every time. I think my mother was even a little star struck herself. I never saw her with such a big smile.

He couldn't stay long, always sitting on the piano bench with his mailbag next to him, ready to leave. He was probably just checking me out to see if I was getting older and better, because we never made plans. He never called me. I never saw him at the beach during the summers anymore, either. He was doing other things now. The same old story. I was too young.

Sophomore year. Junior year. Senior year. They all came and went.

My impending high school graduation changed everything. Finally we were going to have our first date -- to the graduation night party. My girlfriends couldn’t believe he was actually going out with me. After the ceremony, everybody went home to change. When he came to pick me up, I looked slim, sophisticated, and much older than seventeen. At 6’0", 126 pounds, that wasn’t too hard in a knee length dark blue spaghetti strap dress. 

We went to an after party at a huge house that had a live band. During the evening Kurn tried to kiss me several times. In the living room after a dance. Upstairs on the landing. By the kitchen. Near the bathroom. I kept saying things like “But this is our first date” and ducking when I saw him coming. As the poet, e.e. cummings, so aptly put it, “she was brand new.” I had never kissed a boy before. Well, except for that time I trapped Ralphie Regabuto by the fence in first grade.

Not that I hadn’t practiced kissing my hand hundreds of times. With lots of help from my girlfriends who all had boyfriends and were doing WAY more than I ever thought possible by that time.

Kurn asked me out a few more times after the graduation party, but I still wouldn’t kiss him. Couldn’t, actually. Didn’t have a clue, frankly. Finally, he stopped asking me out. We had been seeing each other almost every night since graduation and he just stopped calling.

I welcomed the break from the anxiety I was experiencing, even though I missed him a lot. He missed me too, apparently. After a few days, he called.

I have no idea what we did or where we went that night. But, sitting in front of my house in his Volkswagon, he finally put an end to my agony. Okay, it was agony for him, too. Trapped in that tiny space, he leaned over and planted his lips on mine. And discovered the problem. 

Fortunately, he realized that this was just a simple repair job. So he showed me what to do. You mean, like this?  That’s good. Try it again. Like this? Hm-m, very good. So we spent the next couple of hours doing what it takes to make my kissing perfect.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

Later, he also told me if I hadn’t kissed him he was going to end it because he was really starting to think I was gay. Lesbians everywhere are rolling their eyes.

That summer we were together every night. Practicing. We used to sneak down to one of the private beaches, lie on a blanket and count the shooting stars, along with a lot of other things that college men can teach a new graduate. My 14-year-old schoolgirl fantasies and dreams were coming true. The person I had a childhood crush on really was waiting for me when I grew up. Just like the boys on the beach had said.

Kurn got to know all my friends. I was invited to meet his parents. We went canoeing. He became friendly with one of the current Tower Road lifeguards who played the guitar. At night he would bring his banjo down and we resumed our evening bonfires and folk singing. All together now, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Allelujah.

At the end of the summer, as I got ready to fly down to Duke for my freshman year, he was preparing to go back to Dartmouth for his senior year. He had taken a year off to work in New York, so he still had one more to finish. 

Before he left, he gave me a silver llama that he had bought on a trip to Peru. He even put it on a chain that he found on the beach during the summer we met, when he worked as a lifeguard. He wanted the llama and chain to be a special memento of that time. And then he was gone. As soon as he walked out the door, I started crying. I cried and cried and cried. 

Until I ran into his sister the day before I left for college. She was two years younger and a junior in high school. Like a lot of graduates, I went back to my high school to say good bye to some friends before leaving. I ran into her in the lunchroom and proudly showed her the silver llama and chain that her brother had presented to ME, his GIRLFRIEND, because I was SO special and we meant so MUCH to each other. 

But she said something that stopped me cold:

“Oh – he’s got a ton of those things.”

“What, these silver llamas?”

“Yeah, he brought back a whole bunch of them when he came back from Peru.” 

She sucked the air out of the room with that news.  How many other llamas was he handing out? And to whom? And what was with this stupid silver chain that he found on the beach? The one he made such a big deal about. A momento of how we met? Hello. It’s tarnished and black. Was he just too cheap to buy me something nice. 

I took it off. And never put it back on.

NEXT INSTALLMENT:   THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S: http://mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2004/09/first-love-part-quatro.html#uds-search-results

FIRST LOVE -- PART DEUX

 If I timed things right going home from the beach, I could get a ride home from Don or Kurn. 

Never mind that at fourteen, I wasn’t allowed to ride alone in cars with boys.

They both drove home along the same road I walked.  So it was easy to stop and pick me up. Just a friendly gesture. A neighborly thing to do. It would be RUDE turn them down.  Wouldn’t it?  

And pretty stupid, too, as far as I was concerned. Anyone knows that walking is the lowest form of transportation for a teenager. Avoid it at all costs.

Don had an ancient Pontiac, which he had bought himself. It had a Duke sticker on the back window. 

Kurn drove one of his family’s cars, a brand new red Chevy, one of the ones you see preserved in all their glory at auto shows these days.

I wasn’t about to turn down a ride no matter what my mother said.  So I just had them drop me off in the driveway next door and I would sneak into my house through the back door.

Don waited around once and noticed that I was going into a different house, so he asked why?   I made up some stupid story about babysitting at the other house, and when he gave me a strange look, I caved and fessed up.  He thought it was funny that my mother didn’t trust boys.  He never said anything about my breaking the rules.

Three years later when I went to Duke as a freshman, where Don was now a senior, he continued to give me rides in his car.  This time, he took me from one campus to another. The Pontiac was gone. He was driving an old Ford Fairlane and he even gave me the keys occasionally so I could take it to town. 

Kurn only gave me a ride home from the beach a couple of times. He had started dating the daughter of a retail magnate and he would head down a different road to her house after his shift.

That was the bad news. The good news was that she never came to the beach. My crush on Kurn started to take on unfettered proportions. The kind that can get embarrassing.  My heart would start beating like a hummingbird’s wings whenever I saw him. I was afraid he could hear it. Sitting next to him in the car getting a ride home, I was a nervous wreck.  He even commented on how antsy I seemed.

I know, I was too young.

I finally started to give some of the boys my age the time of day. We began spending more time together on the beach, but I continued to pine for one lifeguard.  Kurn escalated his relentless teasing, mostly about how young I was and how little I knew.  I didn’t care how much he teased me.  At least he paid attention.

July turned into August.  August became September. The summer was winding down. Don left for college. I don’t remember that we even said goodbye.  I wasn't on his radar so much. I think he knew I had a thing for Kurn.  And, I was too young.  Too young.  Too young. It became a mantra.

By some kind of dumb luck, Kurn spent his last day on the beach with me. All the summer girls had gone home.  The co-eds were in college, including his hoity-toity girlfriend.

So I got his undivided attention by default. But, frankly, I didn’t care how I got it. We sat on a bench and watched the few people in the water while we talked and talked. 

At the end of the day he moved the guard tower and the boat up for the last time. Then he took a penknife and carved his name and the year into a huge piece of driftwood.  By this time no one was left on the beach but us. It wasn’t cold, but it was September and you could smell the difference in the air.

After the sun went down and his last day was over, he offered me a ride home. Then, all of a sudden, as we were walking to the top of the bluff, he said, let’s get some ice cream. 

Be still my beating heart.  I had visions of being grounded for life. But hell, yes, I wanted some ice cream.  So we drove to No Man’s Land – where there was a movie theater and a Dairy Queen – and I got a vanilla cone.  Can you believe I remembered it was a vanilla cone? 

On the way to the Dairy Queen we passed at least ten cars – maybe eleven – with only one headlight.  One-eyed cars were called pididdles.  If you saw a pididdle you were entitled to a kiss from the person you were with. 

Kurn was laughing his ass off at how many there were. I’m sure we must have set some kind of record.  I have never seen that many since. And we’re talking decades.

I was laughing too, hysterically. I was terrified that he might try to collect.  And I didn’t know how to deliver. One of those push me pull me moments.

He could tell I was nervous about the prospect of him collecting, so he said, I’ll come back for them. You owe me.

Then after the ice cream, he dropped me off at home and he was gone.  I walked around in a daze for days.  I was ecstatic and sad all at the same time.  I was in love.  And I wasn't even sure I would ever see him again.  My sophomore year in high school started. His began his sophomore year in college.

A week or so later the Miss America pageant was on. I was watching it with some of my girlfriends and a bunch of the boys from the beach.  Kurn’s name came up and one of the boys started to tease me.  

Kurn had told them something and the little jerkwad wasn’t going tell me what it was. After the pageant ended, I chased him around outside while his friends watched it all from the porch, laughing. I finally pinned him down by some bushes and he decided I could know. 

I never listened harder to anyone in my life.

Sometime, toward the end of summer – hurry up, I don’t care when it was – get to the point already.  Okay okay.

Sometime toward the end of the summer, Kurn had told them that when I grew up he was going to marry me.

He was going to MARRY me?!!!  I couldn’t breathe.  I didn’t believe it.  It was true, they said – all the boys had heard him say it.

He’s going to marry me when I grow up.  How old is that?  How soon can I get there?

I could hardly wait. But first I had to breathe.  

INSTALLMENT THREE:  First Kiss: http://mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2004/09/first-love-part-tres.html#uds-search-results

FIRST LOVE -- PART UN

They always say you never forget your first love.

That’s probably because you’re so young your brain still has a full roster of fresh memory cells.

Or maybe it’s more like imprinting. Birds will bond and follow the first moving object they see after they’re born.  Perhaps something similar happens with people. They imprint on the first person they fall in love with so the memory stays with them the rest of their lives.

Hm-m-m. The fresh cell theory makes more sense.

A few years ago I set out to find out what happened to my first love.
Last week I finally found out.

The Backstory:
First loves usually happen when we’re young.  Unfortunately, when you’re under 18 they call it puppy love and expect you to grow out of it.  I remember thinking at the time that my feelings were the real thing, no matter what anybody said.  In hindsight I was right.

I was a tall skinny girl of fourteen -- about to be a sophomore in high school. The summer had just kicked in. I put on my new bathing suit and walked from my house about a mile to Tower Road Beach, named for the tower at the end of the road.  There, for the first time in my life, I noticed the lifeguards.  What opened my eyes? My age? Teenage hormones? The fact that these guys were really cute for once? Who knows.

That summer was also the first time I stuffed a pair of Hanes sheer nylons into the top of my bathing suit. After much trial and error I determined that stockings create a more natural look than washcloths. Thankfully, Victoria’s Secret has come up with more sophisticated solutions since.

Since we're on a trip down memory lane, if that summer was the very first time I stuffed the top of my bathing suit, the very last time was at a pool party in college.

I was wearing a red two-piece.  The snap was broken so I had to hold the top of the suit together with a pin.  When I dived into the pool the pin broke, leaving me standing in water up to my neck, holding my suit together. A moment later somebody pointed out that there was a pair of stockings floating under my chin.  Apparently those bitchy nylons had decided to betray me when the top came loose. I got out of the pool so fast there were tread marks left on the deck.  My boyfriend, who had been inside changing, kept asking why I didn’t want to go swimming anymore.

But, as usual, I digress.

After all these years, Tower Road Beach looks pretty much the same. Except for a new guardhouse, new swings, and a deck the park district built for barbecues. And now there are female lifeguards. 

It’s a boutique beach – small, intimate, and like so many sandy spots along Lake Michigan, located at the bottom of a bluff, accessible only by navigating a winding path on foot or driving down a narrow steep road.
Because it has never been very large as beaches go, there are only four or five lifeguards that rotate on and off in shifts of three. 
By the end of the first few days of that defining summer, my fourteen-year-old self had crushes on two of the college boys sitting high in the chairs.

Don had just graduated from the same high school I went to. He had lettered in swimming and was about to enter Duke as a freshman. Boy was he cute.

Kurn had just moved with his family from Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a sophomore at Dartmouth.  Boy was he cute.

I was a coltish high school kid who hadn't taken geometry or kissed anyone except my parents. Oh, boy, was I in over my head.

When summer started, Don and Kurn came over to check me out, spinning their whistles around their forefingers while casually inquiring whether I was a summer girl or lived there.

Summer girls were nannies from farm country Wisconsin who came down to live-in and help out with the kids of the families in our fairly affluent community.  I, however, lived there, which meant I had parents around to supervise my behavior. 

Strike one.

I realized later they thought I was older at first because I was so tall -- almost 5'10" at the time. [I would hit six feet my senior year.] However, as soon as I told them I was fourteen -- and a half -- hey, I’m almost fifteen, their eyes glazed over and they had to go fix something in the guard house.

Strike two. And while we’re at it, strike three.

I was considered jail bait -- eliminated before the competition began as a contender for their charms.  This was before Joey Buttafuocco.
Over the summer I still managed to get to know Don and Kurn pretty well.  When the summer girls and college co-eds were busy working on their tans or supervising their charges, I was hanging around the guard chair like a Saint Bernard puppy, ignoring a flock of boys my age who were doing cartwheels to get my attention.

Luckily, instead of ignoring me, Don and Kurn decided to give me the little sister treatment.  They would send me on missions to find out the names of any new, datable girls on the beach.  When I completed my appointed tasks they would have me run up to the guardhouse for something they forgot. Then they began making pointed hints about bringing them homemade cookies. So that summer, along with the Hanes hose experiment, I learned how to bake chocolate chips.

I spent every day at the beach from dawn to dusk, much of it slathering on baby oil and baking at 350. [Have I mentioned my dermatologist’s new home in Aspen?]

In those days, we could stay on the beach all night if we wanted. Ah, such innocent times. No get off the beach or get arrested rules. No village curfew either, although I would be grounded if I wasn’t home by a certain time.

The guards were off duty at 9:00 PM. Everybody who was left on the beach – usually girls -- would help them build huge bonfires as soon as the sun went down. A couple of the guys would bring out their guitars and banjos and yes, we would gather around and sing folk songs. 
That’s right -- Kum-Ba-Yah.

Kurn was an extraordinary five-string banjo player. His fingers were lightning fast. Think Steve Martin [yes, THAT Steve Martin] on the soundtrack for Deliverance. [Go rent it.]  He was also fluent in Spanish because his family had lived in Peru for years. As if to punctuate that experience, the tops of two of his fingers had been blown off in a mining accident, working for his father’s company. [To this day, I am fascinated by men with scars. Women, not so much.] He had canoed all over Canada. He was on the ski patrol in college.  He could swim, obviously. He could sail. I was awestruck. None of his many accomplishments was lost on me. Nor was his constant reminder that I was too young.

I don't know exactly when the transition occurred, but after not too long, I was hanging around Kurn more than Don.  Despite keeping me at arm’s length, Kurn teased me constantly and paid me a lot of attention.  Don really became more of a big brother, giving me advice about dating – don’t be one of those silly girls -- and offering suggestions for where to go to college. [I went to Duke because of him]. 

NEXT INSTALLMENT – What Kurn told one of the boys my age at the end of the summer: http://mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2004/09/first-love-part-deux.html

OUR SOULS DON'T WRINKLE

This is a music-free birthday tune I wrote for pkbeachbum of Red Bank Blues. [Click on his link over at Other Journals until I get these up].  His buddy Dave was coming down to celebrate with him this weekend, but he had to cancel. So everybody -- all together now: 

 

[MUSIC FREE country music throughout]

Our souls don't wrinkle

They don't shrink or fade away

You don't have to wash with Downy

And iron 'em every day

Your birthday just reminds you

Old age is setting in

Your body's getting fat

Your hair is getting thin

But your soul will keep its luster

It'll never lose its shine

Like that guy Dick Clark whose hair stays dark

Untouched by passing time.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

 

 

 

 

Patrick's Sizzling Saturday Six

Episode 24

It that time again and here are this week's questions.  To play you can either answer the questions in a comment at Patrick's Place [See Other Journals], or put the answers in an entry on your own journal Either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit!  Enjoy!

1. Who is the last person you took a photograph of?

Me. I always take a picture of myself when I think I'm looking especially babe-a-licous. So I took one last Monday before dinner with an old buddy. Since the advent of the smaller digital cameras I can photograph myself at arm's length and be in focus.  And I'm so goodlooking, why not? If you tell anyone I wrote this, I'll hunt you down.

2. What decade do you hold the most dear and why?

The sixties were good and bad.  Bad because my mother died. And most of the guys I'm attracted to weren't born yet. Good, because times were a-changin'. I realized I didn't have to get married to feed and clothe myself.  Phew. The seventies were fun because I wanted children and loved being pregnant.  Too bad marriage sucked.  But at least I could enjoy doing all the fun things I did as a kid with my own children. The eighties were exhausting being a single mom with a demanding career. [That marriage thing was a real bust.] The nineties were fun because I got out of the rat race, started my own business and widened my personal horizons.  The new century?  Exciting, because I get to watch my children spread their wings doing things I've always wanted to do -- skydive, run marathons, mountain bike in the mountains, live in Hawaii, Jackson Hole and Europe.  It's also a little scary because living life to the fullest has taken its toll on my body. 

3. Take the quiz:  What mystical creature are you?

The quiz says I am an angel. Probably because I want to fly. I would rather be a unicorn. The alabaster kind that you can only see in soft focus, with glitter in my mane and a beautiful horn that looks like it came from Martha Stewart's private collection of bone china. [The J-Land elves and faerie folks are just shaking their heads.]

4. What is your favorite alcoholic beverage?

I don't like to drink.  But twist my arm and I could manage to finish a Kahlua and cream straight up or a Bailey's on the rocks.  Or a Brandy Alexander made with ice cream.
 
5. What do you normally wear to bed?

A Johns Hopkins XXL football tee-shirt in the summer.  Or a short shiny nighty with spaghetti straps from some girly girl store.  When it gets cold, I'm all about fleece, flannel, and sweats.  Even, ahem, tennis socks.  What a goddess.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #24 from Cherie:  What movie character do you most identify with?

Thelma.  Or Louise.  There is a part of me that would take off across country with a girlfriend to escape a stifling marriage. But I wouldn't kill the would-be rapist.  Maim him for life, yes.  Death, no. If Brad Pitt showed up in my motel room, I'd just hand him all my money.  He wouldn't have to steal it. And I'd blow up that smartass trucker's big tanker in a heartbeat. I'd also love to know how it feels to drive a convertible off the edge of a plateau into a canyon.  The sudden rush of going airborn has to feel incredible.  Of course, the landing I could do without.    

I'M MAD AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

Mrs. Linklater has had a bad day.  In fact, this whole week sucked.

Where to start. 

How about that whole Keyword: GRAPEVINE episode.  My face and journal were featured with an out of context quote that pretty much took care of whatever soccer mom reputation I might have had.  Except for a couple of notable exceptions, the IM's and emails that flooded in left me wanting to get checked for STD's. 

I finally wrote and asked to be removed from GRAPEVINE.  When people ask whether you want fame or money, always take the money. In this case, AOL offered nothing.  I wish I'd taken them up on it.

I even told the two new people I enjoyed chatting with to stop further contact, because, as you will read shortly, I have been hacked. After all the creeps and pervs, someone was also sending out inappropriate stuff from my computer. How could these new people not be suspects?  Guilty until proven innocent.

Now to this morning and all the annoying, stupid things that followed. Logging on to AOL began with a TOS notification. Oh, yes, I'm now unclean. A member of the unwashed.  I've been warned.  The good news is I can have my record expunged in six months for good behavior.  The chances of that?  Slim and none.

The first hint of trouble came when I couldn't log on to AOL at all.  I had to answer a security question that required intelligence I couldn't muster up at first. Then, as soon as I got through security, I was told I also had to change my passwords.

Oh, crap.  What is going on?

To make a long story short, according to the TOS police, there was a file in my FTP space [where I keep pictures to upload to my journal] which had been used to send something inappropriate somewhere.  I noticed that file weeks ago.  I just thought it was there by mistake. It had my name on it so how dangerous could it be?  However, I would delete it whenever I was in the FTP space uploading something for my journal.  But I noticed it always came back.

I also noted that at the time the alleged TOS event took place, according to the report, I was in bed.

Did someone have my password?  Did I have a virus?  A Trojan Horse?

Anything is possible.

Not that I haven't paid good money to try to prevent these things. I have Norton Personal Firewall, which sends me an alert when other computers have been waylaid in their attempts to leave garbage on my hard drive.

By the way, since I started writing in this journal, the alerts have tripled, if not quadrupled. Writing an entry in J-Land is the cyber equivalent of walking through a bad neighborhood at midnight stark naked.

Sometimes -- today for instance -- I wish there were a way to reach out and give each person [computer, whatever] the finger every time they tried to break in. Luckily the firewall stops them. Or makes me think it's stopping them.

I also have Norton Anti-virus, which is updated constantly.  Just for the heck of it I ran it this morning.  Nothing. I also ran my spyware.  Nothing but a few cookies to dump.

I'm grateful for Norton, but don't get the idea I'm a fan.  I hate that I have to use their products. I consider any of the protection software [that includes McAfee] a necessary evil.  They don't configure well. Even with a clean boot. The 2004 version of Norton is not one of their best efforts. The instructions on the Symantec site might as well be written in Chinese. And they charge for tech support.  Come on, the others aren't any better.

Where was I?

After all the password changes and a review of the TOS notification, I logged on to AOL. Oddly, the evil file in question was still in my FTP space. It contains only 8 bytes.  Pretty much emtpy. I assumed TOS had taken it.  So I deleted it. And logged off AOL.  I logged back on later and noticed the file was back in my FTP space again.  I deleted it.  Logged off AOL.  I logged back on and there it was in the FTP space.  Yet again. Was I going to have to do this every time I logged onto AOL?

I talked to all kinds of people abou it.  Tech people.  TOS people. Even CompuServe -- one of the Tech people sent me there incorrectly for some reason.  I even got routed to Billing once. The Norton people? I was saving them for last. I wasn't ready to put a stick in my eye yet.

At the suggestion of the second TOS spokesperson, I sent a note to Keyword: TELL US. I carefully wrote out what was going on with the file that could not be deleted. 

Apparently TELL US gets your message to the actual programmers.  After hours of dealing with all kinds of people who could not help, I really didn't expect anything from the programmers.

Personally, I think something is messed up in the code for J-Land.  And since AOL already had one person who gave up hundreds of thousands of our screennames to spammers, who knows what evil lurks in the journals community.

Well, guess what happened.  I logged on to AOL, went to the FTP space to delete the file that wouldn't leave. And it was gone. There was nothing to delete.  Wowser.

Maybe the programmers did know something.  I am sure this isn't over, however.

My only suggestion to anyone who has a journal is to go to their FTP space and check for any files you know you didn't put there.  Call TOS at 888-265-3733 to complain that someone might be using your screenname.

Also change your passwords a lot. And send your complaints to Keyword: TELL US.  Or send an email to TOS REPORTS.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Speaking of which -- my counter started over for a third time. And now a fourth. And a fifth.  Apparently it starts over every time I log on to my journal now. Great. To quote one of our English journalers:  Damn Blast and Bollox!

Guess what, just for fun, I checked to see if the never say die file was still deleted. 

It's back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HELP SAVE TWINKIES!

www.members.aol.com/ivionla  

R.I.P.  

Twinkies -- the snack icon of our youth -- may soon be history. Say it ain't so!!   

The after school treat of grade school years, the meal replacement of high school days, the late night sustenance of finals week may soon become a victim of the no-carb generation.   

Well, not quite yet.  They've got to do all the bankruptcy stuff first.  So think of this as more of a cry for help.  

Mrs. Linklater hears their pain and she has a plan. Something we all can do to prevent the untimely extinction of this beloved spongy yellow cake with the very gooey white stuff on the inside.     

Buy some.    

Yep.  Go out and buy some Twinkies. Think of it as a public service. If the millions of people with an AOL account went out and bought just one package apiece, we could save the entire company. Or at least delay its death.  Can't you feel the power?  

Life won't be the same with out those darling little cakes with the surprise inside.  

So get down to 7-11 and do your part.  

Some day you'll thank me.                                                                                                                                                                    

And the Winner Is --

Mrs. Linklater just copied this entry from Judithheartsong's journal so you can all enjoy the essays that competed in her recent contest -- Subject: How Art Has Influenced My Life.  

Watch for the next contest in the middle of October.

Ancidkb47  was declared the winner by the judges. She gets one of Judi's beautiful paintings of the AOL torch she created for the First Anniversary.

Belfastcowboy75  won honorable, and well deserved, mention.  

Slomotionlife created the wonderful logo for the award.  

 

Well, the illustrious panel of judges have read all the entries, and the results are in. I must say that every entry in the Artsy Essay contest was well-written and spoke from the heart. Each entry provided a glimpse into the psyche of the writer, and I stand in awe of the talent of expression in this land. You all have my profound thanks for your candor and the beauty of your writings.

A brief overview of the entries:

Luckyismle ~ shares the release she has found in capturing her thoughts and feelings in the written word and drawings.

Stacy1tbkl ~ talks about the art that captures her and makes an imprint on her mind and heart forever.

Anmyatt ~ from her minimalist period at the age of three, to her passion for art as an adult.

Dymphna103 ~ sharesa museum date, a proposal, and two beautiful daughters that resulted.

Ancidkb47 ~ posed for an artist and shares the insight gained from seeing herself for the first time as the artist saw her.

Beethatway ~ learned about tools and techniques, but more importantly she learned about expression, perception, and appreciation.

Barbaramck ~ was constantly singing, coloring, and exploring as a child..... and creativity is still a big part of her life today.

Kristeenaelise ~ comes from a family of artists, is herself an artist, and inspires her children creatively.

Sistercdr ~ art gives her a sense of hope, and her "most personally resonant image of God/dess is that of an artist, the Great Creator."

Rhondashkfree ~ started out making snakes out of her s'es as a child, and says that the appreciation for art will always stay in her heart.

Deveil ~ created images that told a story and discovered that "art is the illumination of life in collaboration with the creative spirit."

Jadzia ~ ran with scissors and explores the profound effect that many types of art has had on her life.

Sanforized6 ~reminisces about the art of everyday life.

Jevanslink ~ art knocked and knocked, and finally got a foot in the door.... and forever changed the way she sees the world.

Belfastcowboy75 ~ met a fabulous artist over a game of basketball, and this encounter led him on a journey that continues still.

Merelyp ~ didn't color inside the lines, and shares a wonderful perspective.