Exciting and humorous recounting of fun and some dangerous times in the lives of a small groiup of adolescence in 1950s Arkansas.
The story is about a time of life, the finest stage of life for the male Homo sapiens, and every one of them knows it, usually after it passes. Adult males pine for their lost adolescence. This is the stage of life they would choose to live in forever, to the perpetual dismay of practically all of the female partners they ever meet. It is a fact of life and we might as well face it. The boys in the story sought to be heroes, to have adventures like those of their brothers that came before them. They wanted intrigue, danger, recognition and sexual experiences. The story later concerns greed, something that can occur everywhere but it was not common in the lands of the bauxite. And it is about murder and that was truly a rare thing among the folks in the ore capital. The book is like life: composed of many humorous episodes, real and imagined sex, danger, heroism and even race relations. All of these things occurred in a Southern environment not so long ago.
Excerpt
Paul worked at a lake called Windy Springs during some summers and he made other great friends through this job. These friends would become, along with Paul, the ultimate models for me. Harry Tate also worked there and together they came to know a crazy guy named Gomer T. Before these guys went off to war, all they thought about was the female body. They had some limited experience and knowledge and they were curious beyond belief. I guess you could say that they had a thirst for knowledge and that drove them to seek out every opportunity to learn more about female anatomy and female behavior. Even though they worked at a swimming pool, there was little opportunity to gain detailed information past that learned in the first week or so of work.
Paul studied the situation and worked out a plan: the female dressing room had a floor made of boards four inches wide with cracks of about a quarter inch so that water and sand would fall through. There was a very small space under the dressing room so that it was just possible that the boys could inch their way on their backs, using their heels to drive them, all the way under the dressing room so they could look through the cracks and thereby expand their knowledge. They waited until a group of teenage girls began to pack up their towels and head for the dressing room to change. The three boys ran to the back of the building and began to rapidly move under the floor, heels forcing them forward. They had to be quiet and invisible. This movement required concentration of a military exercise but they made it and they lay still, hardly daring to breathe, while heaven opened up above them.
A beautiful girl was the first to strip off her suit. Perhaps because she had the best figure and was proud of it. Her tan legs and arms contrasted with the white of her breasts and belly and the sight caused blood to flow in the organs of the heroes. They could barely see and had to constantly move their eyes slightly in order to keep things in view. The girls were chatting about parties and boys and teachers and parents and about who was getting married and why. Several more started to undress while the first girl entered the shower to wash off the lake water. They were of different sizes and shapes but all those naked so far were amazing and wonderful and the learning experience seemed to be the best thing that had happened that summer. However, a very large girl, a hairy physical education type, was also there. She was naked but the boys paid no attention to her since there were better views elsewhere. She was trouble.
Gomer had gone to his car to drink some whisky to steel himself for this lesson beforehand and his heavy breathing had caused alcohol fumes to rise into the dressing room.
The PE girl said, “Somebody spilled some whisky in this room. I smell it!”
All of the girls laughed this off saying, “Not me! I do not touch the stuff!”
PE girl looked around the benches and started moving clothes and towels. She hated alcohol. Then she began to look for signs of alcohol on the floor and that was the end.
PE girl shouted, “Girls, cover up! I see somebody under the floor!”
The girls began to scream, to jump onto the benches, to cover their breasts with their hands. The boys under the floor prayed for rapid death but it would not come.
Retreat was difficult, almost impossible. They learned that it is easier to crawl into a closed space on your back using your heels to force you forward but crawling out depends upon using your heels to pull you out and this is not easy. Despite their desire to go fast, this was simply impossible. To make things worse, PE girl was after them. She moved along, naked, peering through the cracks and cursing at them. Then she did a truly terrible thing: she began to pee. And pee she did, spreading her bounty to all three boys and shouting for others to do the same. Two other ugly girls joined her in this activity to vent their outrage over disturbance of their privacy. In no time the boys were covered with urine without the benefit of seeing precisely from where it was coming.
In this whimsical, thought-provoking novel, author Armineh Helen Ohanian presents a fantastic vision of how life might look after death. Martha, after attending her own funeral, travels to Planet Heaven
My Colorado Journal continues with the Pambling Roads collection of US state journals, helping readers spark their interest with historical trivia and tidbits about Colorado. It's an interactive journal designed to nurture creativity and self-motivat
