My eighth-grade year I noticed a pair of twin girls that caught my eye, though I thought they were extremely short. They were both five feet tall and startlingly attractive. I was struck by how pretty they were and how innocent they looked. They had dark brown, nearly black hair, dark brown eyes, and pale skin.
They did not seem to be caught up in all the frivolity around me, especially those people who are constantly battling to impress each other with the latest in fashionable clothing, etc. Beyond that, I am not exactly sure why they caught my eye, but they really stood out, though I just watched them from afar, without really getting emotionally attached. Their names, as I was to learn, were Eva1 and Evon.2 I did not think too much more about them until the next year as a freshman in high school.
At Bolivar High School, if we did not have another ride, we had to catch one of three buses after school to the elementary school where our regular bus would pick us up. The school system ran somewhere in excess of twenty-four buses, and it saved on transportation costs to use only three as shuttle buses for the high school kids. Many of the kids drove anyway. The twins, like myself, rarely had a ride, so we rode the buses.
As immature schoolboys are prone to say hurtful things at times all in good fun, one day an antagonistic debate arose on the bus as to which was uglier, Eva or Evon. I did not know them apart from Eve, and I just had to join in. Naturally, as fate would have it, I picked Evon. It was just random selection when I laughingly pointed at her. They looked so much alike I couldn’t tell them apart, so I saw no harm in my humor. I had no idea how badly I’d cut her, until the next day in math class.
I was sitting at my desk in front of them, and suddenly I heard a “Psst!” a sharp finger jabbing me in the back. I turned to see Eva leaning out of her chair, thrusting a note toward me. I took it and read, “You really hurt Evon’s feelings yesterday on the bus when you called her ugly.”
I thought she was joking. I don’t remember now what I wrote, but it was some good-natured put down. Before the class hour ended I knew Eva from Evon and had them both giggling as we exchanged notes the rest of the hour. She’d cut me down, and I’d cut her down. She told me, “At first I was pissed off that you disrespected my sister, but you are so funny! I couldn’t help but like you. You’re such a smartass!”
It was not an unusual sight thereafter for Eva to poke me in the back and another note would land in my lap, her customary little giggle giving her away as she anticipated my reaction and comeback. Occasionally, Evon would join in, but I think she was a little more gun-shy, and it was a little awkward at first. It goes without saying that we got very little math work done that year.
At first the twins had been a little intimidated of me, though they had always been curious to talk to me. Later when they were telling me about it, they told me that I always looked mellow, but seemed like I could snap at any moment. It took my unwitting insult to bring Eva out of her shell.
They were also unsettled by my tee shirts. I had bought some tubes of liquid embroidery, Rit dye, and ordinary white tee shirts. I then made my own heavy metal shirts, some tie-dyed, complete with morbid names, skulls, and exotic electric guitars. It saved me money, gave me a chance to demonstrate my artistic ability, and expressed my preoccupation with metal music. Some of the shirts were a little on the extreme side.
Both girls were very pretty in their own way. Eva, the “daintier” of the two, was bubbly and had a more glamorous look, and Evon, the “tougher” tomboy, was darker in personality and more withdrawn, having a more rugged beauty. Either one would have made a grown man cry. However, Evon lived in her sister’s shadow, though she had no good reason to. She had an unwarranted inferiority complex.
I felt a growing infatuation for Eva and pretty much just tolerated Evon. She was just sort of there. I would often agonize over trying to get on the same bus she rode, and she and her sister were inseparable. They would often come scurrying out the school doors after I was already on the bus, and I never could quite predict what bus they would get on, though I continued to try and find a pattern. Sometimes they did not come out at all.
When we did actually end up on the same bus, I usually was up front and they were in back, or vice versa. On the rare occasion I was next to them I was usually at a loss for words. They were frequently busy talking to their good friend Kathy anyway.
The spring semester passed quickly, and I really hadn’t made much progress with Eva. I had plans to spend three months with my older brother, Jeff and his wife, Susie, in Harris, Minnesota during summer vacation. She would just have to wait until I got back.
I did not know him that well, as he’d moved out when I was very small. I felt a little intimidated around him when I arrived. He carried himself with an air of intelligence and authority and held a prestigious job in the Twin Cities. He worked at Honeywell (and is still presently working there) as the head of a team of aerospace engineers.
That summer wasn’t all bad, but I felt like such a lazy fool around him. He was highly motivated, and I was just a dumb kid who had big dreams and little ambition. He expected me to help out, and I had never worked anywhere before and was a little spoiled.
I think he sort of envied me a little too, as he perceived in me a natural athlete that got along well with the ladies, something he’d always wanted to be. It did not help matters any that I often spoke of how close I was with my friends and reiterated time and again how “real” they were.
The countryside was beautiful, and that summer Jeff and Susie held a family reunion. They went all out, buying things a little at a time long in advance. They had some fun games and erected a volleyball net in the yard. There was a good turnout, and everyone from young to old really had an enjoyable time. They had planned well and pulled it off beautifully.
I did not know too many of the people, but I met a guy named Greg I thought was really cool. He was a few years older than me, was also into metal and played guitar. He and I hit it off, though Jeff wasn’t real fond of him.
I really took a liking to him and drooled all over his electric guitar, which he was kind enough to let me play. We spent quite a bit of time talking and floating down the river on inner tubes. He stayed for two weeks before going back to his home in Florida.
Sometimes I would borrow Jeff’s bicycle and go riding down the path mown through a wooded section of his property. It was like bicycling along a nature trail. I’d ride down it and then peddle around the garden and barn, back and forth in an endless loop for hours until it began to grow too dark to see under the cover of the trees. I dreaded the pesky mosquitoes though, and they would often come out around dusk.
I spent most of my summer listening to speed metal, goofing around with their piano, playing guitar and going on long moonlight walks until the early morning hours. I got to know the area around the little town of Harris quite well.
Jeff and Susie soon got used to my nocturnal romps and left the house open for me after they had gone to bed. I always tried to be quiet coming back in, and he never once reproached me. Still, I always felt a little foolish, because I’d get back in the early morning hours, and I am sure they were a little concerned about me.
That summer we learned a lot about each other. He had a number of little assignments he wanted me to do to earn some money, especially since I had no money and wanted an electric guitar. I did not get too many of them done, partly because I’d stay out so late and then sleep half my day away. When I did actually do some work, I usually managed to mess it up.
I still remember tearing up the deck on his lawnmower. I rode it too close to a tree on the small farm he owns. He had to pound it back into place and weld it back together. I felt so stupid I could have died.
When I’d venture off, I’d usually visit nearby bridges or riverside playgrounds, as there were many such spots. Minnesota is famed for being a fisherman’s dream: the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” I spent a lot of lonely time daydreaming under the golden moon. A typical evening found me riding his bicycle on the country roads, or swinging alone on a swingset late into the summer night. I enjoyed myself and yet longed for home, and of course spent a lot of time fantasizing about Eva.
Looking back I can laugh, but then I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, and I think he realized it for he can come across as being a little callous, but that is just to protect the soft heart he actually has. He felt really bad for me and disappointed as he had held the summer in high regard. High expectations are only human, but they often breed dashed hopes when things don’t turn out the way they were planned.
He was looking forward to the summer to bond with the brother he barely knew and to get some odd jobs done, and I was a dreamer more interested in my thoughts and roaming the countryside. People change and our folks had really mellowed out a lot in those fifteen years between our births. In many ways they were completely different people.
He and I were different people too, raised around different circumstances, in a different decade. He was the firstborn, and I was the youngest of the three. I now realize we are quite a bit alike, but then we seemed virtual strangers.
One thing I did like, however, was that he wasn’t too concerned with how long my hair was and let me grow it out, warning me that I would have to cut it before Mom and Dad came back to pick me up. He wasn’t going to go against them, and it was one of their rules. I was falling in love with my hair and was sick when he took me to his barber. I told the man I just wanted it trimmed, and my folks did not think I’d had it cut at all when they saw it.
I had admired long hair on guys for years, long before I got into rock music. In fact, I’ve liked long hair for as long as I can remember. I can recall walking with my mom through a department store as a young boy and seeing a toy guitar that had a picture of the band KISS on it. I did not know who they were, but I was mesmerized and awed by their long hair and defiance in the black leather they wore and their ludicrous facial paint. They seemed so untamed and free, somehow. The call of the wild side was already pumping through my veins, and I couldn’t have been any older than five.
My sophomore year my dad finally officially gave me permission to grow my hair, though I had been growing it longer anyway for quite some time, all but screaming and kicking every time I was forced to cut it. Finally he told me, a little angrily, “It’s not worth it anymore! I’m tired of fighting with you. There are more important things to me than your hair. If you want to look like a girl, then so be it.”
I have looked like a girl ever since, beard and all. (Well, the beard did not grow until my junior year.) I have always kept my hair clean and well groomed, and my parents grew used to it rather quickly. To this day I still like the long hair. I guess that’s a pretty good reason why I still have it, huh? As for Mom and Dad, now it’s just “our son,” an expression that can imply a number of different things, but I think most of them are good.
Anyway, the summer finally came to a close. I was glad to see my folks, and I think Jeff was too. I got home a few weeks before the start of my sophomore year. I continued to fantasize about Eva, even worse now that I was back in town, and as I recall that was the year I really pushed my luck . . . I bought some folders for school that featured nearly full size butt photographs of women wearing skintight jeans. My mom really did not say much. I don’t think she knew quite what to say.
Shortly before school started, I got a telephone call one day. I picked up the phone to hear a female voice say, “Hi. Um . . . Is Eric there?”
“This is.”
“Eric! Do you know who this is?”
I said, “I think so,” scarcely daring to breathe.
Yes, you guessed it. On the other end was a pair of giggling twin girls. They had gotten bored and saw my last name in the phone book one day. I guess Knickerbocker does stand out a bit, huh?
We had a long conversation, and they took turns ganging up on me. We talked for nearly three hours. This was to mark the first of many, many long conversations that would continue throughout the year. In fact, for the next three years, we rarely missed a call, and sometimes we would talk several times in the same day.
That year we became extremely close and had came up with many coded names we’d write all over our folders and everywhere else. Among them were The Big Three and C.L.W.C.M.—since they were so short, my friends and I called them The Munchkins—and C.L.W.C.M. stood for Cute Little Warm Cuddly Munchkins. These graffitied monikers were usually followed by B/F/F (Best Friends Forever).
It did not take me long before I stopped going to Bill Grant’s Ford Garage after school. I was no longer afraid of the bus ride. Besides, I did not ride that often.
The twins and I started visiting each other, and I would often ride their bus over to their house. Mom and Dad would pick me up there. It wasn’t that inconvenient since they lived in the country on the same side of town. It was about a two or three mile drive on the backroads to get to their place.
The twins lived with their mom and their younger sister Kate.3 Their mom wasn’t home too often, as she worked in Springfield and would often go to the clubs with one of the girls’ aunts. She’d come from a large, close-knit family, and the siblings spent quite a bit of time hanging out, as most lived within the surrounding area.
I saw a fair amount of a few of their aunts and uncles. It did not take their mom long to take a strong disliking to me, and I was always a little uncomfortable when she was home. I don’t think she trusted me too far and resented the amount of influence I held over her girls.
Kate was a couple of years younger and quite a looker, enjoying the attention of a number of guys. She would often go out of her way to try to get us to notice her, because she wanted to fit in with our group, and for that matter she succeeded, whether we acknowledged her or not. She was always there with the rest of us, though she and Eva tended to be more with the preps, and the rest us leaned more into the stoner side. All the girls followed their wilder side, but she was the first to top them all.
My mom worked at a floral factory right down the street from the high school, and I would sometimes stop by. One day, Kathy, Kate, Eva, Evon, another friend of theirs named Mindy, and I all piled in Kathy’s car after school. They wanted to meet “Mom,” and I was afraid we’d miss her. I came scurrying in, all of them hurrying along behind me. She was still on break when we popped in, all smiles. With practically one voice they chirped “Hi, Mom!”
After getting over their surprise, my mom’s coworkers laughed or smiled slyly and teased my mom about her son being quite the charmer. They finished by saying things like, “. . . and did you see that? They were all girls!” Marge’s Pied Piper son and his female entourage were the talk of the afternoon.
The twins would have other people over to visit from time to time, and it is ironic that many of these people were in the same math class in which Eva had first passed me the note. There were about ten of us that soon grew into an inseparable group of friends, and we dubbed ourselves The Family. Naturally, some of us were a little closer knit than others, although we all got along really well. We formed one big group of several little subgroups that had merged and spent hours and hours in each other’s company
None of us had come out of rich homes, and we were all middle to lower class kids that had been picked on a lot and hadn’t developed too many close friends prior to The Family. All of us were very open-minded, above average in intelligence, and did well in school when we were of a mind to. We could talk about anything: nothing was taboo.
It can be incredibly enlightening and potentially dangerous when you have a “nothing taboo” coed group of incredibly close friends that feel extremely comfortable around one another and don’t have too much of a social life outside the peer group. That forms a vast information pool, and soon you have a group of kids influencing each other in their folly, their negative sides snowballing in the pursuit of escape from the boredom, emptiness, and pain of life. So it was with The Family. We did not think it possible then, but we were to eventually self-destruct.
We did all kinds of things together. We talked, we fought, we cried, we hugged, we hurt, we laughed, and we loved. The girls were not afraid of their masculine side, and the guys were not afraid of their feminine side. We were carefree and could express ourselves without fear.
We spent hours talking about anything and everything, from science and philosophy to physical (masculine and feminine) problems we were having: from psychology and mind control, to religion and the darker side of the occult. Our entire universe revolved around each other, and hours multiplied upon hours that seemed only minutes. Those minutes were only a few precious moments that took up only a small part of a lifetime.
Looking back, I still feel a strange affection, a nostalgia of sorts and can remember the wisdom and the folly, the good times and the bad. All I can do is smile. There are so many memories!
One passion we all shared was a love of nature, and of course I was especially fond of bright moonlit summer nights. Most of us lived out of town anyway, and when we weren’t hanging out at each other’s houses, we were kicking it at a number of cool hangouts around the countryside. That no doubt kept us out of a lot trouble.
One of our preferred haunts was Francka (pronounced France key) Bridge, an old iron and wood suspension bridge that stretched across Pomme de Terre River. It was located on a dirt road between the twins’ house and mine on the north side of town. We spent quite a bit of time there.
One of our all-time favorites was playing Truth or Dare. This game is played by a group of people. The person who starts the game picks someone and asks “Truth or dare?” If the other person says “truth,” he or she is obligated to answer honestly whatever question the initiator asks. For instance, “Is it true that you really like so and so and want to go out with her?” The other person is then bound to answer the question honestly. If the other person says, “dare,” he or she is obligated to take whatever challenge the initiator demands. For instance, “I dare you to pull down your pants and bend over.” After answering the truth or doing the dare, that person then picks someone in turn, and so on.
The game can get rather intense rather quickly. We almost always kept our word with truths or dares, but occasionally someone would refuse to comply, usually because of modesty or embarrassment. We were good-natured about it and let them off with a good teasing.
We generally played it around a bonfire lit along the river at night. In fact, I hardly ever remember playing it anywhere else but Francka Bridge. I can remember French kissing (our term for open-mouthed, deep throated kissing—or perhaps you are more familiar with the term “soul kissing”) nearly all the girls in the group. I wasn’t initially a smoker, and I can remember the taste of June and Sheila’s mouths. They tasted somewhat stale and smoky, but, though it was undoubtedly noticeable, I really did not mind too much.
At the time, Eva was my best friend, and I got dared to kiss her once. When I stuck my tongue in her mouth she grossed out. You would have thought I was trying to feed her an earthworm or something. Little did I know that according to her, “You could have just pretended to stick your tongue in my mouth. You did not have to really do it.” She apparently was not expecting me to literally French kiss her and was rather taken aback. Everyone got a pretty good laugh out of that one. She was perhaps the most innocent of all the girls.
You know, that must be what it is like for movie actors and actresses when the filmmakers shoot those passionate love scenes. I have heard that very little, if any, actual passion happens between the couple when they are acting those types of parts out. While I can’t say that I did not enjoy kissing whichever girl it happened to be at the time, I can’t say that I was inflamed with romantic passion either. Both of us were a little nervous, and we were careful with each other out of mutual respect. The fact that we all got to do it in front of the group lessened the bashfulness of the mutual consent.
Nonetheless, here you are in front of a group of people, Frenching for all you’re worth, your tongue buried in your friend’s mouth. Everyone is watching, and you are painfully aware of your tongue and your partner’s as well. You are a little too self-conscious to truly let loose. You’re an actor on center stage, and your friends are all evaluating your performance. Then too, you have no idea whether the other person thinks you are good kisser—or worse, a bad kisser—so there is that added vulnerability.
I mean, imagine picking a friend of the opposite sex—perhaps you are physically attracted to them, perhaps you are not—and then imagine yourself not only getting dared to deep kiss them, but actually following through with it. I would guess a pretty clear mental picture emerges of how the slight (or perhaps a bit less slight) awkwardness prohibits the feeling of true romantic abandonment. (I am, of course, operating under the assumption that your friend is desirable enough to you that the thought of kissing him or her doesn’t send you running to the toilet to vomit.)
I imagine we nearly all ended up deep tongue kissing everyone of the opposite sex. We nearly all got to drop our pants, underwear and all, in front of the group, and most of the time the opposite sex would look away out of embarrassment or respect. We admitted secrets we would deny if anyone else questioned us, but we trusted each other. It was a riot, and it helped us overcome our inhibitions because everyone in the group was really cool about it.
I still vividly remember one rather wild occasion. All the girls had to run around the twins’ house with their underwear to their knees, and all the guys had to do it right after that. Fortunately for all of us, it was dark outside.
Another game we would sometimes play was Spin the Bottle. The game is always played with a coed group, unless you’re homosexual. We’d spin a bottle, and whomever the mouth of the bottle pointed to got to kiss the person spinning it. If you got the same sex, you got lucky and got to shake their hand and spare your lips and tongue the aerobic exercises. It was a lot of fun, but I personally enjoyed Truth or Dare a little more, and I imagine most of The Family would agree with me.
Of course, I wasn’t with my friends all the time. When I was alone, I loved walking at night, and that summer I spent a lot of my free time under the big, bright moon. I’d spend hours walking in the field, down the road, or along the riverbed that ran about a quarter of mile on the property opposite Mom and Dad’s land. Sometimes it seemed a little uncanny, especially when the coyotes were running in packs, their primal cries stabbing the stillness of the night air. But I always thoroughly enjoyed it.
I’d watch the moon rise as a big golden orb, slowly turning into a silver ball that rose higher and higher into the evening, the hours growing later and later as the intensity of the night wore on. The landscape of the day was so mysteriously transformed now into an ethereal world that was absolutely beautiful. It seemed so tranquil and yet so wild. It gave me a wonderful chance to fantasize, catching at the coattails of my imagination.
I would imagine sharing these moments with Eva, or on more imaginative occasions alone along the river I’d visualize her coming out of the water as a fairy spirit, or some other creature of mystical feminine beauty. I usually set the mood with my headphones, and one of my favorites was the Testament album The New Order, as it starts out and ends with eerie music. It helped further set the stage for my fantasies, as the moonlight shone through the steam rising from the river, building the atmosphere to a breath-taking climax that I loved.
Ah well. (Sigh.) Since the time of my Family days, I have grown in many ways. I have lost a lot more innocence and grown colder and harder. I have become much more proficient at wearing masks to hide my vulnerability, and even though all good things don’t necessarily last forever, I could learn a lot from those days.
In fact, I am finding that as I write this autobiography, it is doing something strange to my heart. I have often heard psychologists say that it is therapeutic to write down your feelings and memories, especially when you are totally candid and honest. I am beginning to realize some of those implications.
All I can say is: Dear reader, you will have to forgive my musings. I seem to have gotten really softhearted and mushy inside all of a sudden, and quite frankly it seems a shame to spoil this moment, so I will leave you now for a time. Perhaps if you are wishing to discover yourself, you should try writing, even if no one else should ever happen to read it except for you. You don’t have to be an expert.
Table of Contents | Home | About | Newsletter | Forum | Misc. | Contact | Search | Links | Random Page
.:| get up to date: newsletter :. 1&1 .: discussion forum: participate |:.
