Summer of 62

The day I came home from camp, my mother picked me up in her new Austin Healey Sprite. It was the summer of 1962, I was thirteen, and I couldn’t wait to brag about losing my virginity at camp. If I  recall It came out more like a near confession than an expression of bravado.


She switched gears and looked at my face for proof (she could see a lie on my face in the dark). She nodded once hard—it appeared the nod was to herself—and said, “Great, that’s not a conversation I was looking forward to” (another gear).


“Okay, Romeo, listen up: Use your elbows and share the wet spot, and you’ll do all right.”


My turn to nod, and then I tested: “This means I can smoke now, right?” Another gear in silence, which meant “no.”



The only other advice I remember my mom giving me was not to trust anyone who doesn’t like bacon.