Stories
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Third grade - they were a just married couple next door. From my upstairs window in the channel house, I could see into the master bedroom. And they left the curtains open one night and they prepared for bed and who knows. But I didn't have the nerve to watch.
Leaving Song Lake my new neighborhood Venetian Village, and she lived across the street and fell in love with me, two or three years younger ? Her family moved and away she went before I hardly knew her. Was I the cause of the sudden evacuation ? Her father had a Dodge 427 hemi-head. I had a Chevy 409. Maybe he was afraid to race me.
I was a virgin. Couldn't admit it. What's the matter she says, when finally a girlfriend early in my third decade. I didn't know how - but couldn't admit it.
Eighth grade-school graduation trip in May, just before the end of the school year, the graduating class got a trip to Springfield, the capital of the state of Illinois and home town of Abraham Lincoln. It was a long yellow school bus full of kids not only from Song Lake, but from Big Hollow, Ingleside, Fox Lake and Lake Villa.
Half the state away and I suppose we were down there in less than a day. Lincoln's log cabin I vaguely remember that. Wood floors and oil lamps and quilts. Goose feather quills for writing. Rooms reverberating with foot steps. Spinning wheels and wool. And we visited the big stone capital building and related stone work.
And I remember - we were down there don't know, could have been five days - couples began to form. The boys and girls were pairing off. Even hand holding was spotted. But no one held my hand.
(5 of 7)
Next Page
