Sweet Memories. I grew up on a sugar high. I know this because my birthday present from my friend-since-kindergarten arrived fedex yesterday. A giant basket overflowing with magnificent nothing-natural-about-it candy, the stuff we ate as kids. A flood of memories poured out of me. All those things that happened around the 12th year of my life. The pack of 12 year old girls all a twitter over candy, first bras, boys, and Elvis. Let’s start with the candy, then we’ll get to the sex (such as it was). How many of these do you remember?
How about sugar water in mini wax Coke bottles – in a variety of totally artificial colors? (Did you eat the wax? My friends did. Yuk). Ruby red wax lips (we chewed the wax after the lips got all melted and distorted from body heat)? Those little dots on adding machine paper? Candy cigarettes (Remember the Marlboro Man [who later succumbed to lung cancer]?) Chuckles, Sugar Daddy, Bit-O-Honey. Sen Sen breath freshener that tasted like soap. Remember NECCO WAFERS? I hated them, but they were omnipresent, and I never figured out why. Teaberry and Black Jack gum. Can’t you just taste them? Salted Pumpkin seeds. A minor miracle that we all didn’t have hardening of the arteries on the spot.
That’s what Patti sent me. Yesterday, (really yesterday – April 23, 2009), I ate the pumpkin seeds on my way to a business meeting in downtown San Francisco on a shuttle. I just laughed out loud (a daring act in a mini-bus filled with oh-so-serious-Ipod-wired thirty somethings). There I was, 12 years old. It was 1961. I’m with Patti at the counter of that dingy little Mom and Pop grocery store at the corner of Nine Mile and Livernois in Detroit, stocking up on sugar and salt. The Vietnam war still belonged to France. Kennedy was president. Life was innocent and very, very sweet.
I remember my first kiss and my first date, too. Bobby Parks kissed me at my locker in Lincoln Junior High in 7th grade. Bobby was about a foot shorter than I, but oh well. It counted. Then there was the “date” with Ben Franklin (yep). We went for a walk in the fall of 1962. 8th grade. At one point, we stopped behind a wall. He kissed me, and pressed up against me with what felt like a thick metal pipe right on my pubic bone. Oh, ouch, I remember how much it hurt. Perhaps not as much as he was hurting to empty that pipe! I asked him to take me home.
Funny how those memories seem so simple, and harmless, now. The first bra, the “grow bra”, and the stuffing of Kleenex into the cup. Learning about the “fast” girls, and how they kissed (open mouths, can you imagine)? First periods and the pamphlet from Modess, You’re a young lady, now! – picturing a perfectly groomed little lady in frills and a circle skirt staring in a hand mirror, amazed at how beautiful she was. Remember, ladies? The booklet told us to let our mothers tell our fathers about “our wonderful new event”.
Boys were going through their own metamorphosis. I wouldn’t dare to touch that one! C’mon men, tell us about it!
By 1971, we (some of us) were liberated by The Joy of Sex. Read more about that here. In the meantime, it was a sweet, naïve time.
What was your favorite candy?
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Yes, all of the candies and goodies brought back memories. I would add the soda fountain with cherry and lime cokes to that list. Sugar filled or not, they are great memories.
The memories of early semi-sexual encounters could perhaps be ranked in a less comfortable category. As a man,, between the ages of 12 and 16, I was one big walking hormone with not a clue as to how to express or even relate to the feelings I was having or the physical responses that were suddenly showing up at the most inapproprate times in my body.
Should I try to put my arm around her? Maybe if I just drop it behind her seat in the movie theater and then bring it up slowly she won’t know, until she’s already okay with it, that it’s there.
Should I try to touch her hand? But my hand is so sweaty. Is it time to try to kiss her? But what if she rejects my kiss? That would be worse than trying to kiss her at all.
No matter what, I’d better lean way forward as I am getting up off the sofa in her living room and turn away quickly so she does not spot what is going on down there.
Yes those were more awkward times. But the memories are great whether they were loaded with sugar or discomfort.
Thanks for bringing them back!
Thanks, J! Fabulous to get a man’s perspective. We girls had NO idea that you were feeling so awkward. We were just trying hard to be soooo cool. And we, too, worried: what if he tries to kiss me? Will I do it right? What do I do if he puts his arm around me? It’s so refreshing to hear the guy’s side of it all. -Kat
Those were the days, simple and sweet. We were all exploring but seemed like we were the only one not sure what to do about the opposite sex.
We started the 60s with Donna Reed and ended the 60s with flower children in San Francisco.
Talk about the sexual revolution.
Thanks, Jan! We sure did live through a sexual revolution that difficult to understand today. I loved your “Donna Reed” (with that gawd awful high hair) and “flower children” comparison. wow. How true! – Kat
That was quite a walk down memory lane. Another one triggered by recollections from that era: PARKING. Where I grew up — waaaay out in the country, teenage couples would find a very dark and distant road — usually unpaved — to park ‘n neck. More than once a boyfriend and I came close to having the car stuck in the mud. With the fear of breaking curfew looming large, he’d spin the wheels trying to get out and dig us into an even deeper hole. When he’d finally extricate the car and us from the mud hole, I’d be relieved. Another narrow escape. Amongst teens, this phrase was also accompanied by a huge sigh of relief when menstruation showed up on time. Those were the days, oh yes those were the days.
Boy do I remember THAT, Gail Only we city girls did it at the drive-in movie. Woo Hoo! Only got caught once by the rent-a-cop. Was scared to death my parents would find out. they never did. or, did they??? – Kat
Loved those cherry phosphates, pixie stix, wax cokes and lips, and candy cigarettes, smokey joes, waxing (pun intended) nostalgic. I was too young and too ignorant to know what to do with myself with a boy! Never had that “talk” with my mother, she was too embarrassed, and left that to the school. I had to invite my crush to a rainbow girls ball. I was so scared that i ran from the car into the house forcing a G’nite with a terrified smile to my poor friend. Good grief! Then came college, and i still didn’t have a clue, and wound up on a few date rapes before I learned to say buzz off. Then came cigarettes, pot, mescaline, magic mushrooms, peyote, cocaine. Zilches. Do you remember zilches? Winto-green life savers crunched open mouthed in the dark? It is a wonder we survived it all. I can smile still, now quite straight, having survived it all. I don’t think i would if I had been young today!
I remember Tootsie Rolls. They are still my favorite guilty pleasure candy today.
And, I remember my first kiss – that other guilty pleasure. Oh, the innocence, sitting on a bench under the windmill at the North Eastham Town Square at the annual July 4th Celebration. I was so tentative, he was a little less so, but then “I was 16, he was 17″.
Both are memories that I treasure, thanks for the opportunity to call them up!
I remember cherry cokes and slow-boy (candy that was as hard as a rock and you sucked for hours!) Wow!
I was twelve and needed/wanted/had to have a bra (training bra). I still do not know what I had to train except my raging hormones. Boys were central in my life. Spin the bottle and train. Oh what fun. Giggles, tears and fears that my parents would really know what I was thinking. By the end of the 60’s I was married. What a difference a decade made.
Thanks for taking me back to those times. I would do it again if I had the knowledge and sophistication I have now.