CHAPTER 91 1960 - 1961
Even working in the Big City I only saw Black people as passersby on the street and then barely. There was not many working at Atlantic, at least not in the Headquarters building. There was a Black elevator starter at the Florence Utt School.. There were Black maintenance people who cleaned the floors and emptied the wastebaskets, but I only saw them on nights I worked overtime. There were some Black men working in the print shop. Where was I supposed to meet this mythical Black bride? I was to develop a very close friendship with a Black woman in the near future, but I hadn’t even met her this early in my career.
There were some rumblings here and there that would grow into the Civil Rights movement, but in 1960-61 Black people were still very much a nearly invisible subculture. Now it was true I was making friends with equalitarian-minded people, but even my friends were all white at this point. Our views on racial integration were more theory than practice.
My parents were greatly relieved that Lois (pictured right) was
white.
And then they became nervous when they found out she was Irish. (I wonder what their reaction would have been if they had known she was one-fourth Native American?)
They had not been at all overly pleased with my more recent girlfriends, none of whom were Black, of course. Their flaw was one of religious belief. None were Protestant. Sonja Kebbe and her family were Atheists or strong Agnostics. Pat Gormley was Roman Catholic, whose parents stepped in and did what mine probably wished to, but wouldn’t. Arleen Guida was also Roman Catholic, and as a double whammy, an Italian. The other young women I was then showing interest in were all Roman Catholic.
Lois was, hallelujah, a Lutheran. My family was greatly relieved once more. Probably my being Methodist was taken with an equal amount of satisfaction by her family as well. Both her side and my side, unfortunately, put more stock in one showing up in church properly attired each Sunday than on one’s underlying faith. Everyone may have looked upon me, President of the MYF, as something of an Apostle, whereas in reality I was a paragon of an apostate.
My dad had always been the thorn in my side when it came to introducing girlfriends at home. He could be rude, say little or do something that embarrassed me. (Remember that nude photo of me as a toddler?) I always feared he would frighten my girls away. According to my mother he seldom approved of my dates, although he never said anything to me directly about them. In truth, mother often put her views in my father’s mouth, leaving her looking sympathetic and him the troglodyte.
went home after meeting my parents and her grandmother asked her how it was. “That father of his is terrible,” was her answer. The only thing that topped my dad for her was encountering Ronald’s father. She told her grandmother, “I thought Larry’s dad was awful, but Ronald’s dad was something else. He scared me. All he did was glare at me.”
Lois did not simply ignore my father’s indiscretions, as did my other girlfriends. She did not like his behavior, especially toward me, and she showed it. One day on a visit he belittled me in some way, even called me Gertrude at some point. Lois lit into him. She told him he had a great son and he should be ashamed of the way he was treating me.
My father really liked Lois thereafter because she stood up to him. He did everything except stand there and say, “You got spunk, kid.”
For a guy who once complained he would never get a girl I did okay. Between the summer of 1957 and the summer of 1960 when I met Lois, I had dated thirteen different girls, some steadily. I had been quite serious about two of these, Sonja and Pat. Despite this, I was still a virgin, not that the opportunity to alter that had never occurred. I can’t say if my keeping myself “pure” was an act of virtue, just blind luck or plain naiveté. I was 18 years old and not a hint of sex with anybody. Although I had seen what a naked woman looked like by now, it was just pictures in magazines (had I ever), I still had never seen one nude female in the flesh. I had kissed and held a number of these girls, but I still had not touched a female breast, let alone anything below the waist.
I was not religious, but I did believe sex was only for after marriage. I expected to wait, but as our engagement progressed so did our passion. We were beginning to push the envelope a bit and we were always looking for more and more opportunities to be alone where we could embrace and kiss.
There were always the Drive-in Theaters.
Drive-ins could be tricky. One time we went to the Family Drive-in in Clifton Heights when it was showing a double feature of Biker Films. We had sat and smooched our way through the violence of the first film, barely seeing the action or hearing the roaring motors. During intermission there was the roar of real motorcycles that didn’t come from our speakers. A whole gang of Warlocks arrived. They completely surrounded my car and most of the front rows. They didn’t restrain themselves to the designated parking spots either. They parked where they pleased. I had bikes to the north, east, west and south of me. I felt like an interloper at a Harley convention.
We watched the second feature. I mean we really did watch it, intently, no kissing, and no fondling. I can tell you from experience, extreme nervousness trumps extreme passion. My only thought as that movie concluded was how was I going to get out of the place. These Harleys literally imprisoned us and the dudes slouching upon them were a lot tougher looking than the Quay Gang back in high school. They looked even scruffier and tougher than the Hell’s Angels portrayed in the movies we just watched.
I fully rolled down my window and slowly replaced the speaker on the pole. Maybe I thought I had to move in slow motion or something might bite me. I leaned out toward the nearest Warlock, who was half leaning on my front fender. “Excuse me,” I called. “We’d like to leave now.”
He looked over at me. “Yeah, sure,” he said. Then he yelled to the bikers in front of me. “Guys. People want out.”
Amazingly the Bikers moved their cycles aside and guided me out of the parking space and we left. I breathed a sigh of relief, but once again my perceptions of the world had been tweaked.
When looking for more intimacy there was always my house. More and more often I would bring Lois home to visit. My bedroom was my space and my friends always spend time there with me. It was no different with Lois. No one thought a thing about my having this girl in my bedroom all the time. There was nothing going on.
And there wasn’t as long as someone else was home. But several times everyone else was gone. We grabbed those times to grab each other. Our grabbing was little more than light petting at first, but it grew hotter each time. Soon we were fondling each other through our clothes. I wasn’t trying to pull away and hide my erections anymore. We were reaching that point of inflamed hormones that Mr. Buckwalter warned us about in Eleventh Grade health. I was approaching that moment to “go behind the barn and take care of it myself”.
Except there weren’t any barns handy.
It reached a stage where we began to remove our clothes to grope.
We more easily accomplished this when alone at my place. One Saturday she was visiting and my dad was gone for the day. Lois was wearing a blouse and her favorite pedal pushers, which had a leopard skin pattern. My mother told me she and Grandmother were going to some church function. We could hardly wait for them to leave. Finally, they did.
We waited until we heard the car leave the drive and go down the highway and within seconds we were both naked upon my bed. Suddenly, we heard the unlocking of the side door. We jumped from bed and scrambled to tug on our clothes as we heard footsteps coming through the house toward my room. Next came my mother’s voice calling me. My mother was at my bedroom door.
“Can I come in?”
“Just a moment,” I said, checking if I was altogether dressed. I knew I couldn’t stall for long and my door didn’t lock. “Come in,” I finally said, probably a bit too loud.
She opened my door. I was standing on one side of my bed and Lois stood on the other side. My mother told me they had forgotten something they were supposed to take to the church affair. She then told me something she wanted me to do, which I no longer remember. With that she left. She shut my door and her footsteps receded.
I turned around and looked at Lois. There was no Leopard pattern. In her rush she had put her pants on inside out.
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