Once Upon A Memory

Linda over at "Are We There Yet?" asked me to expand on this mention in a tweet about Jerry Northrup and my all too innocent years,  and it was too much fun not to comply

I may be the only straight woman in the world who watched the shower scene in Australia with her hand over her mouth so that no one would hear her shrieking with laughter because a great big memory had just jumped up and bit her in the heart and it is all Jerry Northrup's fault.

Just to refresh your memory (as if you needed it):  Hugh Jackman being unbelievably gorgeous and desirable in Australia with Nicole Kidman's eyes registering the fact:





Now let's step back  (STOP REPLAYING AND COOPERATE NOW!!!) in time to a much more innocent age:  1957 to be exact when I spent the summer with my girlfriend Cookie in Fresno.  What you should know about Fresno in the summer of 1957 is that it is one of the arm pits of the western world -  HOT, DUSTY, and UNBEARABLE and the only relief is under the trees because no one has air conditioning other than swamp coolers which means HUMID and HOT.  Cookie has an older brother Kenny and Kenny has an older friend Jerry.  It is Cookie's birthday and Jerry has been dragooned into being a chaperon for the party because Cookie's mom has to work.  Scenario is now set:

Is there a class somewhere that teaches tall, slender, confident boys how to walk to make an impression so that they look like cats stalking?  Just wondering about that.  Jerry stalks into the yard in said cat like fashion  and after a day of working construction with his dad he is dirty, hot and sweaty and he immediately strips off his T-Shirt, turns on the water faucet and lifts the hose above his body while shaking his hair as the water streams over his face and body that has now formed that perfect line from wrist to hip of muscles only seen on tall slender men who regularly lift heavy objects.  Yum, Drool and Oh My God I'm melting !!!!  See above for object lesson.

Back to 13 year old girl on back stoop of house watching the above as every hormone known to the female species kicks in violent enough to almost knock her off the porch and then above magnificent male sits on the step below her as she watches the teardrop of water run down his back  ... (In case you men don't think this happens at this age, the squelched idea was to lick that water drop ... help help whimper oh yes it did but I didn't but I really, really wanted to yes I did!)

Fast forward to that evening where the "children" are dancing in the garage and then it all quiets down to playing spin the bottle as the newly aware woman-child is bored with the other 13/14 year old babies and comes out into the yard where Jerry is under a tree.  She says, "What are you doing here?"  He says, "Waiting for you." How did he know with that much confidence or was he just trying out the line?   She simply slid into his arms and the kiss that followed was very very special simply because it was the first between a female newly arrived to oh let's call it what it was "lust" and a very young male who was just finding out about his power.  See Princess Bride for the description of said kiss.



What happened next?  - I  leave you to your own scenarios and overheated imaginations if you want to stop here you can.

It truly was an innocent age.  13, 14, 15 summers.  to his 17, 18, 19 summers.   I came to town every year and he broke up with whomever because I was there to make his life a  (only from the waist up for me) living hell from the waist down for him. The rules were simple.  "Good girls"  didn't do that "sort of thing" until their senior year of high school or first year of college.  I had plans for the summer of 16 and then everyone who surrounded me went crazy and I didn't get back to Fresno for ten years when I brought my children to town to meet up with the aunts, uncles, and stepfather but I couldn't find Jerry who I heard had married as well.

It's more than a half century later and I still wonder what happened to that beautiful boy.  Even more important, I remember that first image of a beautiful male body and that first kiss under the tree and the desire to experience innocence lost that didn't happen so I content myself with a remarkably similar shower scene and watch Australia often.

If wishes could come true before the end of my life, this would happen just to feel one more time: