Why is it?
Took forever for Summer Vacation – hours took days – days took weeks. You never thought it would get there.
Summer comes – it breaks speed records – June punches a hole in the Sound Barrier, racing to September.
Elementary school is over – Junior High and scared shitless.
Time busy being funny – you don’t know about the joke.
Friends going to different schools. Friends moving away.
Who lives in the Valley? And why?
Can’t ride your bike there. Bus would take days. You would get lost anyway,
Make new friends. You’re bad at that.
Haven’t figured out the opposite sex thing yet.
Heard about it – read about it – imagined it.
French kissing sounds great, but you don’t know how that works and you can’t just ask anybody. The girls you know laugh and make faces.
Not getting the taste of beer – can’t figure how to inhale.
Your armpits stink and hair is happening in places that weren’t there only a day earlier.
You woke up and your face was full of red dots and white heads.
You stand in front of the bathroom mirror a lot. You don’t smile.
You want to take the bus to the beach and stay there – forever.
You want to know what it feels like to stay up past 10 on a school night.
You want to see Johnny Carson, just once.
You want to stop shaking when you see a girl you want to talk to.
You want to start shaving.
You want to use Aqua Velva.
You want a driver’s license.
You want to be picked.
You want to know answers.
You want to stop feeling like your fly is always open.
You want to stop time running through your fingers.
You want the good times to last forever, or at least longer than five minutes.
You want to stop worrying you’ll wake up as radioactive dust.
You want a Transistor radio you can listen to at night.
You want somebody to actually like you.
First things first – 1962 could last forever.
And while you’re in the middle of growing up and asking all the important questions, here’s a half hour worth of Bill Balance from KFWB on August 18, 1962.
