Let's talk about stamp collecting. I was 13, I think, when I got my first stamp collecting kit for Christmas ... when 1955? Anyhow, a long, long time ago. You could still buy large cents at the toy store on the corner for a dime (your choice!). When I went into the navy at 19 (how could I have been 19 in 1959? ) I had what I thought was a substancial collection of Austrian stamps. ( I was precocious, I suppose.)
Actually when I got out of the navy about four years later; I put some time and a lot of money into that collection and then I got interested in girls. Not that I wasn't interested in girls before.
OK my Chinese friends are always asking me about my children. When I got out of the Navy in 1965 or so I had a one night stand with a girl who I had known before I joined the Navy. It was terrible! I was exhausted and I could not preform well. I think that that ended our relationship right there. But, evidently I did preform well enough I found out about 9 months later. Oh! actually looking back it was only a short time later that she came by to show me a note from her doctor.
Why a note? Because she was a big liar. I think she knew that I knew half the time she was lying. Anyway, I said that I needed time to think about it. I was in no position to get married. I told her that I wanted to ask my parents. Well, anyway, I don't know what I was thinking. Next time I called her her mother answered the phone and was all upset like who would be calling Sharon? I told her and she told me that Sharon was married now.
But, later for some reason her mother called my grandmother and wanted to know about some painting that I had done of Sharon. Actaully, I think she just wanted to show me a photo of Sharon's baby. Later she and the Marine she married seperated and her mother called my grandmother again and tried to set us up. But, Sharon had moved on and wasn't interested in a wimp like me. She had beautiful hair. I think that she could have easily been one of those girls on TV who just shampooed with brand X. I used to go to the roller skating rink every friday and saturday night. It was my place to go. I met Sharon there and I was kind to her because usually I wanted to skate with girls who could skate. Of course, my kindness was to skate with a really pretty girl who couldn't skate.
It is like in remembering just how things came about whole worlds that have lain forgotten come to life again. I bought a pair of skates about four months ago and I thought that it would be good exercise for me. But, I can hardly stand on them. I haven't skated for 40 years or so. I used to steal my mother's Pontiac to go to the roller rink. I had a friend who had taught me how to hot wire a car. Strangely he became a cop not too long after he and I hung out together. I could steal a car then with a coat hanger and the foil wrapper from a stick of gum.
There were two girls who were really good skaters: Susan and Marie. Oh, and also Jeanette... hmm... But, I remember wanting to skate with some of the girls who could really skate well. These girls both had boy friends and so when you skated with them you had to pretend not to be interested. It was a teenage thing that you had to accquire -- I don't know how else to explain it. I for sure didn't have it. But, I managed to pull it off and I got to skate with both Susan and Marie.
When I went to ask Marie it was for sure I thought that she was going to turn me down. But, she didn't and that is when I knew that she had been watching me. It was the style back then with pairs to both skate backwards the girl spooned into the boy and holding one hand and using the other for balance. The songs were oldies but goodies. Only then they were newer oldies. They turned the lights down and had one of those reflecting lights that cast tiny patters of colored light that you skated through during couples only. It was great.
I didn't go skating much after I got out of the Navy. I think I went a few times. I had learned drinking in the Navy. So, I went to a lot of bars and a that time topless bars were the craze. I also went to Little Tokyo and tried to drink there. But, I wasn't really welcome there. Anyway, that is another story.
Also it is another story of how I happened to get caught with a girl in a very compromising position by my grandmother whoes guest house I was renting at the going rate of nothing per month. I had to move out. I had no money and so I thought: well, that I would sell my stamp collection. And, I did over a period except that I had this beautiful Austrian collection. Well, I took it to the best dealer I knew. I got offered $100.00 for it. I had to have well over a thousand in it in sets that I had bought of Austrian semi postals and air mails. I decided to "grow up." And, I sold my stamp collection.
OK So that is sort of the story of my first son. Who isn't my son. Who maybe could have been my son. I have counted him as mine since I saw his photo sitting there with Sharon's mother.
More: http://www.hsengine.com/s_1955+pontiac.html
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