His family spent eighteen months in Kansas City before returning back home to Seattle. Dad hated the new job and the God-awful heat. Their first day there it was 102°. It was early July with the hottest days of summer still to come. Mitch and his siblings spent every available minute at the pool. On the days when it wasn’t so hot, say under ninety, he would play tennis or a pickup game of football with his older brothers and friends. Again, his catching abilities got him picked early on when choosing sides. Sometimes even before his older brothers, which irked them a little. He was still popular with the girls, especially around the pool. As it turned out this would be the only time in his life he felt comfortable around the opposite sex.

One hot August day about a year after they moved to Kansas City, the most popular and beautiful girl in the sixth grade, Joyce Allen, showed up at the pool. It was weird because Mitch never saw her there before or after that day. She wore a vanilla colored two-piece bikini that looked better than ice cream next to her long, wavy black hair and dark-tanned skin. Just twelve-years-old, but she had the figure of a girl much older. Even Mitch’s oldest brother Paul wanted to know who she was. Every boy around Mitch’s age and older lusted for her. Just to look at her on that hot August day made you feel alive.