Over Here: 7 – Spinning The Bottle
...But, Barbara would’ve never involved herself in an exercise such as rolling dizzily down a hill. Or rolling any other way! Down anything! She and Peggy were the kind of girls who wore sparkling clean, neatly-pressed dresses (under which we guys imagined sparkling clean, only slightly moistened panties)...
Ron Pataky continues his autobiography.
I, meanwhile, faced the same dilemma for several years. Would it always be freshly-ironed Peggy Mattox up on the Heineman and Garfield corner, who awakened and inspired both my love and my loins? Or would it eventually also be the dainty and fabulous Barbara Brown, Scottie and Mrs. Brown's daughter, who lived a mere two doors to the north, and who, to my pre-virgin eyes (a proper state of virginity, I think even today, probably requires an awareness that a boy is one), absolutely epitomized newly-pubescent perfection?
Both were spectacular in my hungry young eyes, but it was in the end, after all, only Barbara the Prim, with whom I had on one occasion actually played Spin-The-Bottle! In my own backyard yet!
When that was considered, Barbara had the edge. When not taken into consideration, Peggy the Unattainable was just as clearly my revel-du-jour. Neither, of course, knew of or cared a whit about my visceral yearnings, but each of them unknowingly provided me with several years of conjured inspiration for the joyful, youthful experiences only a young boy can know. For their inadvertent contributions I shall always be grateful. (Although still puzzled, given the oblique nature of inadvertency, as to whom!)
The Spin-The-Bottle episode was an event from which I took away a single peck on the cheek from Barbara before she became disgusted with the whole affair and stomped home (something about a lip-kiss versus a cheek-kiss, as I recall... my push was for lips).
The entire affair, as I've said, occurred in our backyard, a fairly deep lot with a hill leading down from a tiny grassy plateau to the larger flat section. This is notable only in that it provided us with a grassy upper ledge on which to stand and spin around like mad for a few seconds before exiting the spin, dizzier than a noggin-whacked drunk, as we began the four-foot roll to the bottom. No astronaut ever had more perfect sensations, real or imagined, of other worlds and whirling spheres.
But, Barbara would’ve never involved herself in an exercise such as rolling dizzily down a hill. Or rolling any other way! Down anything! She and Peggy were the kind of girls who wore sparkling clean, neatly-pressed dresses (under which we guys imagined sparkling clean, only slightly moistened panties), and never, ever were known to stoop to anything as uncouth and immature as loathsome male frolic! If they'd been boys, they would have been sissies.
Making matters worse, they threw like girls, merely reminding the guys that they were girls, which in turn drove us all crazy. When we took a break in those days, it was behind a garage or something, and it wasn't for coffee!
Before moving on to John Simpson Jr. High and the seventh grade, we had all attended Western Avenue elementary school. Quite soon thereafter, it would be re-named the Rebecca Grubaugh School, after (you guessed?) Miss Rebecca Grubaugh, a teacher who, though even then older than most Richland County peat, was still teaching when we went there.
