I bought a new used car, a 1951 Chevy, through my cousin Walter, who worked at a dealership in Nutley and kept an eye out for clean trade-ins. I wanted to give it a more thorough workout than my original test drive, in particular to see how far it could make it up a hill before it had to be shifted down to second. I called up my friend Bobby and we drove to West Orange, which is on a low mountain and has steep roads and even steeper side streets. We drove up a few hills and third gear was pretty strong, we tried a few other things and I was happy. Then we turned around to head home and there were these two girls.
We slowed down and drove along next to them, close to them. Bobby leaned out and asked where they were going, and if they’d like a ride. They answered “home!”, and “no!”, but in a not-unfriendly way. We stayed alongside them as they walked, asking where they went to school (one of the East Orange high schools, I forget which) and lots of other questions, as traffic swung out to pass us and our little group made its way down the mountain.
This probably sounds creepy to anyone who didn’t grow up in the 1950s, but that was one of the ways people met then, just boys cruising around, talking to and picking up unattached girls. By the time we got to the bottom of the mountain, everyone knew everyone else’s name, and the girls, let’s call them Carol and Becky, lowered their resistance and got in the back seat. Before we dropped them off at Becky’s house, we set up a double date to get better acquainted.
Carol and I hit it off on the double date, and we ended up dating for real. She was sweet and smart and nice to look at, but you probably guessed that already. Meanwhile, Bobby dated Becky, but not for long – he played in a band, and he had lots of other female friends.
The first time Carol and I had a real date, she told me in advance to expect to meet her mother, and made it clear that I should come to the side door of the house, not the front. By the time the day arrived I had forgotten, and I went to the front, where there was an enclosed porch with a “Nursery School” sign. I rang the bell, and in a minute an annoyed Carol opened the door, revealing two rows of child-sized porcelain toilets installed behind her. In a weary voice she said “My mom runs a nursery school,” and led me past the toilets into the house. I found out later they were a regular source of embarrassment for her, and this time it was worse because the inevitable reveal happened on a first date. I think I just said “Oh” in an understanding voice. I thought it was pretty funny, but I didn’t let on.
We developed a dating pattern, and didn’t go “out” on our dates every time. Sometimes we would go to the movies or such, but mostly we just parked and did deep kissing and what the French call frottage, that is, grinding ourselves against each other with our clothes on. It was good fun and nobody got pregnant.
We went to a house party, two paneled rooms in someone’s basement. One room was mostly high school kids like us; the other was college types. Everyone was behaving, just drinking beer and slow dancing to doo-wop music — Earth Angel and such. After a while, this big jock walked in from the other room. He wasn’t quite shouting, but his voice was angry as he asked, “FUUUCKKKK?? Did somebody say FUUUCKKKK?? In front of my GIRRRRL??” Back then nobody ever used that word in mixed company, certainly nobody had used it that night, and it was a shock to hear it loud and clear. We all froze as he glared at us, as though expecting a confession. After a moment he left. I think now that he was probably just doing a fraternity “bit”, a prank – funny in retrospect but scary for those on the receiving end. Maybe we’ll see it reenacted in a high school movie some day.
After a few months, things slowed down and we gradually stopped seeing each other. I don’t remember a reason, we didn’t have a fight or anything like that. Maybe it was just time.
The following year I joined the army, and I was feeling down. I wrote her a letter, just a kind of friendly “Hello, what’s up?” letter. I didn’t know her house number, so the envelope looked like:
Her name
Nursery school across from the Amoco station
South Harrison Street
East Orange, N.J.
I know the post office motto is “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night blah blah blah”, but they don’t seem to put much effort into the non-weather aspects of getting a piece of mail delivered – what was so hard about that address? How many nursery schools across from Amoco stations were there on South Harrison Street?
Yes, I do realize I was asking a lot. The letter came back marked “Insufficient Address”, and that was the end for Carol and me.