Bea V. Larsen . . . .Commentaries |
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Bea V. Larsen is a Senior Mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in |
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The Beautiful Hudson (Not The River) This entry was posted on 5/3/2008 11:08 AM and is filed under Personally Speaking. The year Len returned to campus for his sophomore year of college, he was driving a car, a faded green 1941 Hudson that had already seen six years of far better days. His buddies, all returning World War II vets, living the promise of the original G.I.Bill, had challenged each other not to come back without wheels. Our small campus was in a rural Ohio town. There was nowhere to go that wheels were needed. So, why? I soon found out. For it was in the fall of 1947 that we met. The horrors of the long deadly war were in the past. It seemed everyone was eager to reclaim normalcy and ready to play by the rules. Only the rare bohemian student tossed cultural norms to the wind. The pill and the freedom it would offer were not yet dreamed of. What later would be designated the silent generation was emerging. We studied together, ate together, walked in the woods and sat as close as we could in dark movie theaters. After winter break, whenever his weekend time was free, Len hitchhiked to Indianapolis where I held a co-op job (the Hudson not sufficiently roadworthy). Hitching was the way he had often traveled cross-country when in Navy uniform and it was still an inexpensive, even welcome adventure. The only place we could be together out of the winter cold, was the lounge of my residence YWCA. There the overstuffed horsehair couch was strategically angled so that a large mantle mirror bore our reflection to the matron at the desk just inside the main entrance. Her occasional cough a reminder of her vigilance. Affectionate moments were stolen or circumspect. Holding hands at the chili parlor and the waffle house had to suffice. Ah, but in the spring we were back together on campus and the common room of my college dorm was far more welcoming. A radio offered a very young Andy Williams softly crooning Moon River. Lights were turned low or completely off and we could touch, but other couples sought the same remove. We were never alone. So evenings often ended in the Hudson, though never in the back seat. I was a 19-year-old raised to be apprehensive of where that might lead. But this sweet car was one of the first models to have the gearshift moved to a pedestal in front of the seat making it possible to easily slide across and nestle in each other’s arms. So the Hudson became our evening hideaway, windows open to warm breezes and the nighttime serenade of crickets. Until it broke down, was beyond repair at a manageable cost, and had to be sold. Another year of study passed, career paths being decided and the Hudson became but a fond memory. So, of course, we got married. The 1950s found Len consumed by graduate study, and our two sons were born and became my career. Then came his first teaching job, the purchase of a home and the birth of our daughter. This was how life was supposed to be. We didn’t expect or achieve perfection, but we knew the rules and thought we could predict the future. Were we prepared for the 1960s and 1970s when our kids reached adolescence and all rules were suspended? No. “To Forbid is Forbidden,” read the placards of students protesting in Paris in 1968. It seemed to have become the rule in mid-America as well. It took us years to really come to terms with this new world in which the sex we thought was the prize of marriage was sometimes no more than a welcoming handshake. It was impossible for us not to separately wonder how different our lives might have been had we been part of this new sexually liberated generation. Together, we never gave voice to these thoughts, but there were times we both knew the question hung in the air. CommentsDisplay comments as (Linear | Threaded)
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