Magnificent! Coming of age in the American puberty rites. You captured it, Shep. Ralphie should have married Wanda Hickey, and then? Settling down on Cleveland Street, two kids enrolled in Warren G. Harding School, the Bumpus hounds next door, the official Range Model Red Ryder lever action, 200-shot air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. All is right with the world, and to all a good night, thanks to you, Shep, you defined America as it was, and as it will be, God willing.
The freshly double-Simonized Ford with the top down compared saccharinely with Cleopatra's barge! What a superbly fashioned piece of adolescent hyperbole. Shep, wherever you are, and I believe it to be in the Valhalla of venerated American humorists, hear our praise! You were the king of triple dog dare you! I imagine you seated across an ornately hand carved Victorian table from your peer, Mark Twain, sipping mint juleps as you churn downstream towards New Orleans aboard the stern wheeler, the Dixie Queen, regaling each other with your sardonic quips. There's a special place in Heaven for humor geniuses like you and Twain. Merry Christmas to you both!
I never attended a prom or any other school event. I was too busy smoking pot and it didn't seem important at the time. In fact I was in baja california with my parents that week end. It never occurred to me that I would regret it 50 years later. EDIT: The irony of this hard to ignore. My first exposure to Jean was reading was reading this very story, some years earlier, while we were in Mexico.
I remember my first date and "ordering a drink from a menu" ! Ha ha I looked for the most impressive name I even remember it ...it was a Rob Roy ..all of 19 years old got a little crooked mouth after a few ...ha ha ha.
