That Sunday, That Summer 

Most of us remember when a special moment in time comes and goes in our life. It could involve a certain experience, a certain place or a certain someone. For me, it involved all three... 

It was the summer of 1963, the last time we had innocence in this country. My life mirrored the imminent end of an era. For in a few short months as November of that historic year approached, we all had no idea our lives, as we lived them, were about to change forever. 

I was fifteen years old and as virginal as they come. I had been raised in strict Catholic schools all my life and to be honest, had never even "French kissed" a girl, much less even kissed one! Part of the reason was I had not met anyone I wanted to kiss and the other part was I had no idea how to do so if I had the opportunity. That was about to change....in the magical summer of 1963. 

Our family flew to Wisconsin for a vacation with my grandparents and for two weeks we saw all my cousins and met new friends and had more fun than any vacation I had before or since. I can remember visiting one of my dad's friends and hanging out with their teenage children, playing old 45 records after midnight at their summer cabin on a lake and then swimming in the dark and feeling so free that I wished the summer could go on forever. We went to the State Fair in Milwaukee and ate my grandma's cake doughnuts and went to see the semi-pro baseball games down at the ballpark and saw the NEW Elvis Presley movie, "It Happened at the World's Fair!" And every night we went for a walk in that little town of Clintonville eating our ice cream cones and greeting everyone who passed by us as our new best friends. Life in America was simple back then, and deeply pure in the sense that we thought it would always be predictable and safe. The number one song that summer was, "It's Judy's Turn to Cry!" and the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and The Duke of Earl were spinning gold. 


But, nothing would prepare me for the most unforgettable girl I ever met....that last Sunday, that summer... 

It happened so unexpectedly that I was not prepared for it. I had just finished lunch when my mom told me to go get my younger brother, Jimmy, who was playing with a friend a couple of blocks away. "He needs to come home for lunch!" She ordered, and I took off to find him. I located the house, rang the back doorbell and waited for someone to come and greet me. What happened next is forever sealed in my heart and mind.... 

The door opened and I looked up at a tan, brown-eyed girl wearing a white dress from church. She smiled at me and asked me who I was. I couldn't even speak. I just stood there staring at her. Several seconds went by before I finally stammered, "I am Jimmy's brother, he needs to come back to his grandma's house for lunch. Is he....here?" She replied, "Yes, he is here. Just a moment!" She went and found my brother and brought him to the door. I didn't even bother to look at him, I was too busy looking at her. She was the prettiest girl I had ever met in my life. She was 13 years old, two years younger than me, and destined to change my memories of love forever. My brother started arguing that he wanted to stay, but I cut him off with a, "Jimmy, NOW!" so quickly without taking my eyes off her....that he scurried off immediately. I just kept staring at her in that white dress...Her name was Linda. 

She laughed and asked me, "Would you like to come in for a few minutes?" I don't even remember saying anything. I found myself suddenly in her living room with her parents. I must have spent several minutes there until she said, "I was going to find someone to go play tennis with...." I blurted out, "I PLAY tennis!" I lied. I had never played tennis in my life. 

I beat her 6-2. 

We got back to her house to find something to drink and we just sat on the couch talking like we had been together for years. The next three days we were inseparable. We went to a baseball game, we played more tennis, I took her to see the Elvis movie, we got ice cream, we spent hours just talking on my grandparent's lawn...and the last night before I was to fly home, we were walking by the school near her house and we stopped and she said, "You can kiss me before you leave. But, just one..." 

It was the first kiss of my life. It was one that will be etched forever in my mind. It was not the greatest kiss I have ever had, nor the most passionate, but it was the last act of innocence I was to ever experience. For it came at a time when my life and the world in which I lived was about to be turned upside down. It was a moment frozen in my earthly experience that I can never go back to literally, but one I can visit mentally forever. It was the confident caring smile on her face, the glistening look of adoration in her eyes and the touch of her lips that made me feel more like a man than I had ever felt before. It was the sensation of what a woman was supposed to be like at a time when life felt good and an experience that was refreshingly sweet and personal. 

It was maybe the greatest thing I had ever done, up to that point in time. It was more than a kiss, it was the essence of what it meant to have someone really want me. When we broke apart, she was crying. I wanted to hold her forever. Little did I know that I wished I could have held on to that place and time forever, too.... 

We flew out the next day and as the plane took off I looked down at little Clintonville. I saw the suspension bridge over the river to the park where we walked and the main street of a town that held us captive to each other. I shook my head sadly as I saw my grandparents front lawn. I saw the school and smiled as I remembered holding her in my arms. I knew I would never hold her a second time in my life. I sensed I would never be able to relive that moment no matter how much I tried to duplicate it. 

Thomas Wolfe once wrote, "You can never go home again." I think most people align that statement with your actual house and the place where you grew up.....but, I never thought of that quote in that context. For in a few short months, as I sat in my sophomore religion class, the announcement came over the room speaker stating that, "President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas...." A few minutes later we would find out what everyone found out that day...that Camelot was over. Our President was dead. Our way of life as we knew it was on its way to a similar fate. It took a couple of years for us to realize it, but eventually the 60's took hold of us and gripped us in a vice of cynicism and relative immorality that drained our innocence and everything good we had been taught and made us into the jaded citizens we are today. 

Thomas Wolfe was right. But, in my case, I never went back and knew the love I felt that week with that young lady. I heard much later that she had gotten married to the local baseball hero and that they had three children together. I didn't really want to know her in that way, just as I didn't want to go back to the life I knew that Sunday, that summer.... 

I was home then. I was home for four days. I will never be home like that again. But, at least I had the experience of knowing what it was like to look into the eyes of love, to be loved and even more importantly, to belong to someone who really thought I was special. 

I am older now and not as attractive. I have lost most of my hair, added weight; I feel the stiffness that comes with age and I often see young people holding hands and looking wistfully at each other. Sometimes I sit in my chair at night, in the dark and just imagine what it was like back then and if I really was there and really did experience all that. 

You are only young once. And in my case, it was the day a door opened and I saw a tan goddess in a white dress who cared about...me. Nothing can ever change that. No political upheaval, no Presidential scandal, no philosophy of doom or financial depression or sickness or death or any created thing can make me forget that for a few short moments compared to my time on earth I was a prince who found a princess....and she smiled at me. 

That Sunday, that summer... 

Copyright©PJ Hurley May 30, 1999