My Second Date

A couple of months ago I jotted down a list of topics that I wanted to cover from the last half of 1971. and apparently it's time to talk about my second date - undoubtedly one of the strangest evenings of my life. :-)

It was sometime in the fall of 1971 and Steve had a Saturday night date planned with a girl named Donna. But there was a problem... Steve (to use a baseball analogy) was the kind of guy who would "swing for the fences" - meaning he either struck out or made a serious effort to score. But Donna played a different game. After many months of on and off dating Steve was still stuck on 1st base. And by then Donna had gotten so tired of Steve trying to "steal 2nd" that she would only go out with him if it was a double date... Steve couldn't talk any of his other friends into doubling with him so he begged and pleaded with me until I agreed.

Of course, that meant I needed to find a date, and that led to one of the most humiliating experiences of my life... I started by asking all the girls in Argyle that I wanted to go out with - followed by the girls that I wouldn't mind going out with - and finally the girls I didn't want to go out with... We're talking roughly 20 young ladies - and they all turned me down... Steve even took me to the Denton High cafeteria during lunch so I could ask some non-Argyle girls but there were still no takers... It was beyond demoralizing...

At that point I just wanted to throw in the towel but Steve would not give up that easy. (Being "stuck on 1st" was driving him up a wall and I'm sure Donna knew it.) So Steve told me to be ready at 5PM Saturday because no matter what he was going to find me a date.
I have to admit that I was rather apprehensive, and it wasn't just because it was a blind date... It was more because of the "Steve factor". There was just no telling who (or what) he might show up with. The range of possibilities was staggering :-)
But as he pulled up in front of the house on Mohican in his VW beetle I have to admit I was somewhat relieved. The girl was a bit on the heavy side but not at all unattractive. Here's a yearbook picture I found online:


I thought it was a bit strange that Steve didn't introduce us - apparently he thought I knew who she was. (I had no clue.) And as we were about to get into the car he whispered an apology to me and (again) I had no idea why... Of course, I did find out later :-)

Our destination for the evening was the drive-in theater at the south end of Denton. We took my Fairlane because it was much more "double date" friendly than the Beetle... I was so nervous (it was only my second date) that I didn't say a word during the entire drive to the theater... I knew I had to "break the ice" eventually or it was going to be a really long evening, so after I parked the car (and got the speaker situated in the window) I gathered my courage and turned to my date to introduce myself - only her tongue was already halfway down my throat... (Apparently she wasn't as shy as I was.)
Yeah - that was my first kiss :-) Eventually, she let me up for air and I soon discovered 2 things about her : First - her name was Georgette... And second - she had a condom in her purse...

Quick aside: No - Steve hadn't paid her... She wasn't that kind of "date".

Eventually I got comfortable with the whole tongue thing and was actually starting to enjoy it when it became clear that she was expecting me to go for extra bases - but I just couldn't... Lord knows I wanted to, but I barely knew her - and it just didn't feel right... The next thing I knew she was almost crying. Yes - her feelings were hurt because I wouldn't ... well - you know...

Needless to say, the next hour or so was "uncomfortable"... She'd get a bit too physical and I'd pull away, then she'd be all hurt and I'd feel bad and say something nice and we'd start kissing again - and the cycle would repeat... At one point I actually told her I had a headache :-) As in "Not tonight, dear!" (OMG - that was lame!)

Meanwhile, a similar game was being played in the backseat. Every once in a while Donna would yell "Stop it!" and punch Steve on the shoulder and he'd yell "Ow!" and act all offended... Is dating weird or what???

Eventually the movie ended and we (as couples) traded places for the drive home. (Apparently that was the usual "double date protocol".) So I was in the back seat with my right arm behind Georgette when she starting looking for my hand. It took her a while to locate it (she was like "Where the heck is it?") and she actually laughed when she discovered I was holding onto the armrest for dear life. ("Seriously??") I figured she just wanted to hold my hand but instead she planted it firmly on her blouse... Now - I know this is going to be incredibly hard to believe, but I decided to just "go with it" primarily because I was afraid if I pulled my hand away it would hurt her feelings ... Of course, I'm not claiming that the experience was entirely unpleasant either :-)

When we got back to the house I started wondering if I was being a complete idiot and briefly considered inviting her in (mom and Karina were out of town) but in retrospect I'm glad I didn't - and (long story short) I never saw her again...

Over the next few days I began to appreciate why Steve had been so apologetic. It didn't take long before everyone knew I'd been out with Georgette... I was apparently the only person within 15 miles who was unaware of her notoriety. (That's how far she lived from Argyle.)
Yeah - I don't think I've ever heard so many people say "Ewww!" in such a short period of time... One of the guys even gagged when I admitted that I had kissed her...
I was actually pretty amused by all the "horror and revulsion" and I decided it would be even more fun if I didn't confirm or deny anything... It's not like I had a reputation to look out for - none of the local girls would go out with me anyway :-)

It wasn't until later that I found out Georgette was actually Steve's cousin. (So that was the connection.) And it was only very recently (when I checked online records) that I discovered she was barely 16 at the time. (That was a complete shock...)
Sigh... I hate to think about how a girl ends up with that kind of reputation at that age... (How young was she when it started? And even more disturbing - who started it??) ... Like I said - I'm glad I didn't go there. Regardless of whether she was willing or not I would have been taking advantage of what was more than likely an unfortunate circumstance...

The last time I was in Argyle I inquired about Georgette and was told that she'd had a pretty rough life... Probably true - but a bit of poking around online reveals that (as of 2012) she's still living in the small town she grew up in and is married with children (who seem to adore her)...
She does looks much older than her age (I'm sticking with my policy of not posting current pictures) but she appears to be content... And that's actually a bit of a relief...

I have to say that it was quite the experience... I went from trying to work up the courage to say "Hi" to being in way over my head in a matter of seconds... My instincts were telling me to run away, my hormones were telling me to go for broke, and I was stuck in the middle dealing with a young lady who seemed to have more "issues" than I did...
So I muddled through as best I could, and (most importantly) didn't do anything that I ended up regretting...
Except I wish I had gotten to watch more of the movie :-)

Scotty

A while back I told the story of trying (and failing) to replace the muffler on my '63 Fairlane. So I ended up taking it to the closest place that had a mechanic. That was Joe Snow's Conoco station on 377 just south of Denton. (It was on the right just past the train underpass - been gone for a long time now.) And that's where I met Scotty, the redneck Italian-American mechanic from the Bronx...

Scotty (that was his nickname) was a what you'd call a "piece of work". He was on the short side (about 5'6") and was exactly what you'd expect of an Italian-American from New York. He had the hair, the accent, and the attitude - with a little bit of "short man complex" thrown in :-)

Yes - Scotty had one heck of a mouth on him... His remarks were usually pretty funny - but not always. Like when he talked about wishing that the south had won the civil war so he could own a slave... I think it was supposed to be funny because he was a "Yankee", but it was still not cool...
And he used to make rude comments about his wife's figure too... Granted - she was built like Olive Oyl - and he always made it clear that he loved her - but still... (She worked at the nearby brick plant and stopped by frequently.)

Eventually I started hanging out at the station to watch Scotty work. Now - I suspect that lot of mechanics would have been annoyed by my incessant questions but Scotty actually seemed to enjoy having someone to "mentor".
And when my '63 Fairlane needed a valve job Joe (the station owner) was nice enough to let me do the work myself in the lot next to the station (he sold used cars there) so I could bother Scotty when I needed advice... Of course, I did help out by pumping gas when Scotty was busy, but it was still a really nice thing for Joe to do...

Aside: I think Scotty had some idea how sharp I was, but Joe always treated me like I was as dumb as a bag of hammers... I can't say I blame him. I hadn't really gotten a handle on that whole "common sense" thing yet... But back to the Fairlane:

I was able to get the carb, intake, exhaust manifolds and valve covers off without too much trouble, but then I tried to get the head bolts off using my 3/8" drive ratchet... Now, anyone who does mechanical work is laughing right now because you know it's all but impossible to apply enough force to a short ratchet to break a head bolt loose. And when Scotty saw what I was up to he kind of chuckled and brought me a 2 ft long breaker bar and a 1/2" drive socket... I had not known such tools existed. It was quite the revelation - made things so much easier :-)
Scotty also showed me how to get all the gasket surfaces clean, and how to torque the head bolts and adjust the lifters. And, most important of all, he taught me about Permatex #2 Sealant.

Another aside: Permatex currently makes about 30 different types of gasket sealer and I have no idea why. Most of the newer ones are silicone based and they tend to deteriorate and peel and generally muck things up... Permatex #2, on the other hand, is impervious to gas and oil, never hardens, never leaks, and it's cheaper than most of the "modern" sealers. I've used it on almost everything (there are exceptions) for the past 40 years and it has never let me down... Yeah - sometimes "old school" is just plain better :-)

When Scotty decided to rebuild the high performance 389 engine in his 1960 Pontiac Catalina convertible I was over there every day - picked up all kinds of little tips and tricks... Most have served me well over the years but a few haven't, like Scotty's special mixture of STP and 10W40 that he used as an assembly lube. It works great on most things but if you use it on modern moly-coated rings they won't seat properly. (Found that out the hard way.) But I still learned an awful lot from him.

OK - this was kind of funny: Whenever Joe left the station Scotty would grab the keys to the pop machine and get us each a free bottle of Coke. Then we'd drink a toast to Joe for being such a generous guy when he wasn't around... Well, I thought it was funny...

I'm not sure what became of Scotty. He and Joe had a falling out in late 1971 and he ended up working at the station at the southeast corner of 377 and I35E. I wasn't really welcome there (probably because of my long hair) - then life got a lot more complicated and I hardly ever saw Scotty after that...

Yeah - he's another one on that long list of people I never really said "Thanks" to... I owe him big time...

Cookies and Stuff

By the fall of 1971 I had been out of high school for well over a year and during that time I only had one job (for a few weeks) at a gas station... The point is that I had a lot of time on my hands - and that's the topic of the next few posts.

But first, the cookie story:
Fair warning - there are no actual cookies involved, and this may be one of those "you had to be there" things. But (as usual) I'll tell it anyway...
One day a few of us guys were sitting around (at Steve's house?) in Argyle trying to think of something to do when one of them (might have been Robert) got all excited and suggested that we go over to this house he'd heard about near the North Texas campus where some college girls were turning tricks to make extra money... Needless to say, we were a bit skeptical (not whether such a house existed, just that anyone would tell him.) So he elaborated: "When they answer the door you say 'I want my cookies.' - that's the password!"... Yeah - we all cracked up. We figured whoever told him that was yanking his chain - hoping he'd actually try it. (And no - we didn't.)
After that "I want my cookies" became an inside joke. We'd randomly say it in around people (usually girls) who, of course, had no clue that it was a suggestive remark. This went on for months. You would not believe how mad some of them got after the 5th or 6th request for cookies without an explanation of why it was so funny... Yeah - maybe you did have to be there :-)
Epilogue - it was around 2007 the first time I saw the animated movie "Over the Hedge". At one point "Hammy" (voice of Steve Carell) screams "I want my cookies!!!"... It caught me totally off guard... I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

Next: Denton had a community chorus headed by a guy named Stephen Farish (I'm not sure why I remember that) and at some point during the summer of 1971 they were looking for backup musicians for a (contemporary music) concert series. It was a non-paying gig and since I was the only guitarist who auditioned I "made the cut".
There's really not much to say about it other than it was a lot of fun... For some reason I don't remember the practices (we must have practiced, right?) but I do remember playing "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat and Tears... Also - one of the other musicians played a saw (with a bow) during one of the songs. Yeah - the thing looked like ordinary saw but it totally wasn't - I saw it up close and there's no way you could cut wood with it :-)
The chorus' next project was "The Mikado" and Dr. Farish tried to talk me into singing (even though I told him I couldn't sing). I did show up for the first practice. It was fun and all - but Gilbert and Sullivan is pretty silly stuff and I was just too hip for that - so I didn't go back :-)

Next - there were a few places I would hang out when I was bored. One of them was a car parts store north of downtown on Locust (not there anymore)...
It got kind of slow around mid-morning and some "regulars" would show up and shoot the breeze... One of them had a '56 Ford station wagon powered by a dual quad 390. The car was jacked up about 3 feet off the ground (not 4wd) and would do wheelies. I didn't see the point...
OK - nobody ever thinks this is funny but I'll mention it anyway: One day a teenager came in for parts and after he left one of the younger regulars said "I can't stand him"... When asked why, he said (and I quote) "He thinks he's hot sh*t just because his dad's the Roto-Rooter man." ... What struck me as funny is that he was being totally serious - it was so random :-)

The next place I used to hang out was the "not a 7/11" store...
I don't remember the actual name but it was part of Dallas based convenience chain... I became good friends with the guy who managed the one on Glenwood Lane, just off of East University Drive. (I seem to recall his name was Kerry.) Everyone kept telling me he was gay - that was a really big deal to a lot of folks back then but it was a non-issue to me. I never asked and he never told.
BTW: I do remember that his big brother offered to sell me a 1962 XKE roadster for $1200 (about $6,500 in 2012 currency). I would have loved to have it but just couldn't afford it...
Of course, the convenience store had regulars too. There were these 2 guys in their mid-20s who had dropped out of 8th grade together and became house painters. They lived on a farm and kept dozens of old beat-up cars around because they liked to get drunk and drive through the fields playing "demolition derby"... I remember that one of them had pierced the palm of his hand so when he went to bars he could make money by betting people he could drive a nail through it. It seemed like having a pre-made hole was cheating but anyone crazy enough to do that deserves to make a few bucks off of it... Yeah - you can't make this stuff up :-)

Kerry's brother and a cousin of theirs also managed convenience stores (the same chain) in the Denton area. Whenever the corporate office sent someone out to inventory they'd have to shuffle stuff around in the middle of the night to cover the shortages...
They were perpetually "short" because they were way too kindhearted... There were times I wouldn't have had anything to eat if Kerry hadn't taken pity on me - but that part of the story is yet to come.

And the last part of the story (for today):
One day after I moved back to Argyle (again - story to come) I got a call from Kerry asking if I'd take him down to Dallas because he had to take a lie detector test and was too nervous to drive himself. I didn't mind because I didn't have anything else to do and I'd get to drive his brand new '72 Skylark. And as we headed down I-35E he explained that the company was too cheap to put safes in the stores so the managers had to keep their excess cash hidden somewhere, and he kept his in a paper bag in the freezer. The previous day when he went to make the bank deposit he discovered that he was around $600 short... He figured it was some of the young teenagers who hung out at his store but he really couldn't be sure...
As we drove Kerry sort of slipped into "stream of consciousness" mode. He talked about his anxieties and whether he was too trusting in general... He was replaying the day over and over again in his head, wondering if he was partially at fault for not keeping a closer eye on the regulars. And he wondered how much he should say about the teenagers given that he wasn't even sure when the money was taken... I reassured him that he hadn't done anything wrong and if he answered honestly he'd be fine...

Kerry passed the test (of course). But the point is that when he needed someone to talk to (someone he could really trust) I'm the one he reached out to... Not his lifelong friends ... Not his closest relatives ... Me... I have that affect on some people. But there are many others who seem to look for a place to hide when they see me coming :-) ... Yeah - in all my years on this earth I've never been able to figure out how people perceive me - or why... At this point I figure I'm probably better off not knowing :-)