Puppy Love

(continuation from June 5, 2013)

...It was the summer of 1975 and I needed a summer job to raise money for school clothing of my choice with my own funds.  Joyce found out about a summer program at St. Rose College and somehow I was enrolled.  I was more than happy to spend the day on a college campus as opposed to other summer jobs where I worked for Parks and Recreation clearing vacant lots, cutting down tree stumps from a golf course, and being outside in the blistering heat.  Not my cup of tea.  I often subjected myself to things that I wasn't particularly fond for the sake of my mother.  For example I was in Little League for two seasons before Joyce realized (admitted) that baseball wasn't for her little Eddie.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the hot dogs and pizza after the games but despised the practice.  Throwing the ball in from the outfield was pointless, hitting the ball with a bat that was as tall as me was ridiculous, and the last straw was the fly ball in the face while trying to catch it in center field.  I sucked and to top it off the uniform was way too big and I didn't like to get it dirty.  During the games I preferred to sit the bench where I could go into the world in my head where I wasn't in a dugout hoping that the coach would not put me in.  Can't a cute little boy in the bright white uniform get a break.  Somehow the coach would manage to get me in the game to bat and to play the left field (I think), I don't know -- it's the outfield where most batters do not hit to unless of course I was there.

The summer at St. Rose was wonderful.  The program provided me with a weekly stipend for basically attending a day camp on campus.  We did arts and crafts, wrote and performed
a cabaret of sorts where I sang "If I Ruled The World", and I spent a lot of time with Mildred; my sweetheart from fourth grade.  We talked, well she talked more since I was very shy with girls.  My heart still raced in her presence and I was just as inept at fourteen as I was in the fourth grade.  I had no rap or game.  I was just a pretty boy with a Michael Jackson afro who was sweet and kind to the ladies.  So ends the summer of '75 and my unrequited love for Mildred Jackson.  The summer did introduce me to Phillip, the younger brother of my mother's co-worker Max, who shared his nude magazine collection with me when I spent a week with him and his family in Queens.  Yes!

Phillip attended the cabaret along with his brother Max and sister-in-law Margretta.  We were introduced after the show while I was receiving congratulatory pats on the back and well wishes for sleighing the song.  Since Phillip and I were the same age, Max thought it would be a good idea to take us camping during Phillip's visit.  Of course, Joyce thought it was a good idea.  I swear she and Max cooked this up at work.  Before Christian reparative therapy, there was my mother and her sending me out to do boy things like camping in the wild and playing baseball.  The only sport I enjoyed was bowling.  That is a sport right?  Since I no longer participated on the bowling league since our move to suburbia, Joyce would try to balance my dance lessons -- couldn't give that up just yet, with some sort of boyish, butchy activity.  God bless her, she new her son was a poof and never let on.  I'm just realizing it now as I recall the time period I'm flooded with other examples throughout my childhood.




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