1
If Maxine Was There It Was Special 3/ Special Request/And now for something completely different;
This is, I think, a very funny story and it took place almost 50 years ago. Maybe some of us even told it to our children? I refrained, though. Michael did not like hearing stories like this about me. He told me plainly that he is my son and sons don’t like hearing tales like this about their mothers.
It reminds me of an interview I heard with the author of Fifty Shades of Grey–I forget her name. The interviewer asked the author if her two sons had read the trilogy and she was shocked.
“I’m their mother! They don’t want to perceive me as an author who writes stuff like this!”
Also, it brings to mind another, related incident. When I was in sixth grade at Minadeo all the “popular” boys and girls were “going hearts” together. This meant that each boy and his favorite girl wore necklaces with halves of hearts dangling. Of course, all the girls wanted, more than anything, to “go hearts” with a nice boy.
One time, Michael and I took a trip to Pittsburgh and we were staying at the Best Western–or whatever it’s called now–on Blvd. of the Allies. That was our favorite place to stay because it was in Oakland and Michael was deciding on which college to attend. He decided to be just like his mother, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-uncles and go to University of Pittsburgh.
One morning we were having breakfast in the restaurant there and Steven Kaye was sitting nearby. My heart nearly stopped; he was my boyfriend in sixth grade at Minadeo and yes, we went hearts together. I had forgotten that. I went up to him, very excited, and he didn’t remember me. He thought I was someone else. However, on the drive home I told Michael that Steven used to write me notes addressed to “Pestlie.”
Michael, usually so laid back and blessed with a good sense of humor, turned a sour face towards me, then looked away. He was clearly embarrassed. So I never told him anything closely related to this subject.
2
I had a boyfriend named Sam in 11th grade. Quickly a set of three couples began to hang out together; I’m hesitating to name the third couple we knew. People don’t always like seeing their names on a blog. So it was the anonymous pair + Maxine and Harold + Sam and me. Harold was exiled to Peabody (I think) and we missed him during the week.
We would go out together every weekend–at least it seemed like that. The important part was the amount of hilarity and craziness that went on. We were always laughing and had private jokes and when we went to a movie, people were always telling us to shut up because of our noise. We also adored eating together–there is a Big Boy right outside of the Fort Pitt Tunnel–I think–and people can feel free to correct me on this. The point is that we ate there a lot, laughed a lot, messed around a lot, had an overwhelming amount of fun in each other’s company. It was like a movie from the 40s or 50s, where every girl had a guy and it was fun-fun-fun.
We also made out together in Schenley Park. NO I do NOT mean all six of us in a big, kinky group. We had Mr. and Mrs. Behrend to thank because they were the best parents and let Sam have their station wagon on the weekend nights. So there was Sam and me in front, Harold and Maxine behind us, and the anonymous pair in the back space. Once there–and lots of times cars were parked “nose to tail” on weekend nights–the six of us would make out, lots of hugging and kissing, giggling always.
I have to say that I find it, along with wanting to laugh hysterically at this late date, a little strange. Wasn’t it weird? Like the kind of stuff Margaret Mead wrote in Coming of Age in Samoa. Anyway, it was fun, a lot of fun, probably the best kind of fun I’d had since my childhood days on Shady Ave. Ext. But oh, when it was time to go home, I was fried. All this stimulation up to a point with no release…who wouldn’t feel completely whacked??
Now we approach the point of this probably too-long memoir. The police were often to be found cruising around Schenley Park on these weekend nights. They would look into cars at random, shining their flashlights into the cars, looking for what I’m not sure. They probably just liked to frighten us.
Well, here we were, all three couples, all in clinches–I’ve heard it called “submarine races.” The two policemen picked us to spy on; they shone their flashlights into Sam’s parent’s station wagon and asked the immortal, never, ever to be forgotten question:
“Room for two more in there?”
lgmwriting 