It hit you, just like that.
You have turned into a box of live wires. It’s raining buckets. You’re trapped at home. If you took your bike anywhere you’d be drenched. You don’t like your bike anymore – that was grade school – that was playing cards with clothespins attached to spokes on your Stingray. It’s not cool anymore. Wheelies are silly now.
You need a car – you’re fourteen – you need a girlfriend; you’ve never had one. Make-out parties and spin-the-bottle and discovering what French Kissing felt like don’t count. You’re in the market for love. The real heart-to-heart letter writing kind. The five-hour phone call kind.
There’s one – she’s in your Homeroom. You see her every day. Never really paid any attention – it’s when you got back from Christmas Vacation that your pulse picked up when she walked in the room. She’s different – no, you’re different. You started shaving. You get hard-ons at all the wrong times – you did at Christmas dinner – couldn’t get out of your chair. Suddenly your Aunt reminds you of Miss November – you’re insane. Why are you staring at her boobs? She’s your mother’s sister – she changed your diapers.
You’ve lost your mind and you’re not getting it back. The girl in your Homeroom dresses up every day – her mom works at May Company – she’s polite – everybody likes her, just not the way you do. She wouldn’t give you the right time of day. She glances at you in class – she’s not looking at you though, she’s looking at the guy sitting next to you – he’s a jerk – he smells – he’s a mouth-breather.
You’re doing badly in school – your teachers tell you you’re going to be pushed back a grade if you don’t start paying attention. How? Your brain is on strike and it wants this month’s Playboy.
There’s no hope for you. All you think about is sex. Furthest thing from your mind before Christmas – now it’s a three-ring circus and all the clowns are on a rampage.
You want to talk to her but you swear you’re going to blow it – your luck you’ll go vacant and forget her name – every ounce of saliva will drain from your head – you’ll shake like a Plymouth in need of a tune-up. Or worse; you’ll get a hard-on before you say a word and she’ll scream.
Just throw a blanket over you and stuff you in a corner until your brain comes back.
Just stay in your room and glue yourself to the radio. You can’t get in any trouble listening to KFWB – for a while, anyway. And it’s Valentine’s Day in a week.
God, it’s miserable being you.
Here’s an hour’s worth of B. Mitchel Reed’s last day at KFWB on February 7, 1963.
