Damn, Mrs. Van Dresser was right.

I was a child of the 50′s, but I was a teenager of the 60′s.

I wish I could tell you I had a great social awakening during that turbulent time, but although I dressed the part of a flower child from time to time and saw Woodstock at the drive in no less than 8 or 9 times, the closest I came to protesting anything was arguing with my cousin Joan’s husband when he made such pronouncements as the “tragedy of Woodstock”. 

Don was a Chicago cop.

If asked (and I never was), I would have emphatically declared my support for civil rights.  The truth is I never met an African American until I went away to college in the fall of 1969 and even when the few black girls in my dorm moved out to band together with other black students in the Student Union, I remained oblivious.

I was occupied in concocting a believable excuse to cover having spent my living allowance on albums and Pall Mall menthols.

I would have told you I was against the Vietnam War, but I remained uninvolved. The guys I knew that went to ‘Nam all eventually came home; whole to the naked eye at least.  The only ones who didn’t were the ones I didn’t know all that well.

I was sorry of course and saddened of course, but it did not introduce me to grief.  I was a pretender. 

My father unreasonably decided that my D average did not justify out of state tuition or any outlay of tuition for that matter and so I came home.

It was not a matter of intelligence. It was a result of sleeping through such uninteresting events like midterms and finals.

Motorola was my first full time, could-have-been-permanent position.

I was, in very short order, crushing on one of the salesmen.  I always had a crush on someone.  I had had a boyfriend or a boyfriend in the making since Jim Haldeman and Chris Johnson first fought for my affection in circle in Miss Fairchild’s kindergarten class at Hammerschmidt School.

Jim won the title, but only because Christopher spit on my dress.

Josephine Van Dresser, my sixth grade teacher and one of my mother’s bridge buddies once noted in the comment section of my report card that I seemed more interested in socializing with the boys than in social studies.

I did not like Mrs. Van Dresser.

My first puppy love was John Conrad in the sixth grade. My first kiss was from Rich Keough at the DuPage Theater during one of the Beatles movies; either Hard Day’s Night or Help. Actually, I don’t remember the movie.

My first real boyfriend was Doug McGowan in Junior High.

My first date in a car was with Paul Rauskin when I was a freshman and he was an older man.  He drove a yellow VW bug and wore English Leather.

My first really Dylan kind of cool date was a smoky coffeehouse in the city with Joe Martinez.  He drove a beat up Volvo, had a lead role in Diary of Anne Frank and told me my hair smelled of strawberry Jell-O.

My first painful break up was Billy Gallagher.  We went steady for 3 months during the great Chicago blizzard of 1967.  I was a sophmore.  He had already graduated.  I broke up with him to test him.  He failed because he moved on and I spent a good deal of time plotting to get him back.

First marriage was to a Motorola accountant; 26 years old to my just barely 20.  Married him because he asked, because it meant I would be the first one in my immediate circle of friends to have a wedding, because he had two sons and made me an instant mom, because it was my ticket out of my parents house and into my own apartment, because he gave me 1/5 of a carat diamond ring and because he was the first one I ever went “all the way” with and you were suppose to marry the one you went all the way with.

Didn’t work because weddings only last one day and then all your best friends who are not stuck in a tiny apartment in Elgin next to a funeral home go to Hawaii on vacation, meet sailors, decide to stay, get jobs so they can stay and you miss that adventure and have to deal with first ex-wives who cause trouble and you end up working two jobs to pay rent and child support because your husband decides this is the right time for him to quit his one job and sit on the couch until he finds himself.

And then after a year or so, you come home after a late shift at Pizza Hut which followed an early shift at the Frito Lay warehouse and find him putting together a model airplane because he was “bored” and you walk into the kitchen and make him some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and you ask him if it was good and he says “yeah” and you say, “Good, cuz it’s the last meal you’re getting out of me.” You pack your clothes, your frying pan, your vacuum cleaner into that little green Chevy, piece of shit, car that he traded your beloved 1971 Firebird for when you got married cause it was a better “family car” and you drive to Laurel’s house because she is the other half of the 2 girl warehouse office and she already knows enough so you won’t have to overexplain the frying pan or the vacuum cleaner.

Mrs. Van Dresser might have had a point.