The trip was nearing its end, and I looked forward to sleeping in my own bed and investigating my mail. Even restaurant food lacked its excitement as the days progressed, which was a definite sign that I had turned my thoughts toward home. There was one notable exception, however.
July 11, 1977… Stayed at a real neat motel… and ate at its restaurant. Swam for an hour and half. After awhile, I started talking to a guy in the pool with me. After awhile we saw a drunk guy! It was funny. Then he asked if I wanted something cold to drink (an RC COLA). We talked awhile after and Mom made me come up finally. (a sad face) He was from Dallas, TX.
The evening was memorable for my mom also, who, for a short time observed our conversation at a pleasant distance. Since I had removed my contacts for fear of losing them in the swimming pool, my vision was rendered useless with regard to recognizing faces and perceiving detail at distances greater than one foot. Therefore, when my "friend" excused himself from the area, I sought my mom's visual acuteness and asked cautiously, "Mom. . . what's he look like?" I was relieved to discover that she found the guy attractive, and settled into a pool-side chair as Mom retired to the room, noticeably humored by my inquiry.
Such brief encounters augment confidence, for therein one is able to discover his attractiveness to the opposite sex. Ours was the type of interaction which was fleetingly romantic, yet bereft of expectations; each of us knew the conversation would last no more than several hours and end with a smile and a reluctant farewell. I believe the intrinsic briefness created the comfortable atmosphere, for when one knows he shall never see someone again, he leaves behind the fear of peer groups and personality changes which often accompany a better knowledge of the other.
The next morning when I recalled the previous evening, I realized with horror that if I saw the boy, I would not recognize him and hoped for a clean escape from the motel. To my relief, I saw no one who remotely resembled a male teenager, and dismissed myself having only faceless memories of a pool-side conversation and a cool RC Cola.
The family vacation was over after four weeks, and we were all glad to be home. The trip was fun, yet it served to strengthen the heart strings attached to our oak trees and modest house, and though familiarity of itself was not love, it certainly did not subtract from love's essence.
The remainder of the summer was spent in an easy, enjoyable manner. I whiled away the hours on my bicycle or indulged in one of my crafts; I met with friends from school, and stayed at my sister's house for one week. Junior High School was a memory, pasted between the pages of a scrapbook. Even my unfinished cedar chest had, by summer's end, found its way into the garage attic.
The last days of freedom melted under the hot August sun, and I began to wonder how three months could have escaped so soon. I once again traveled to Mayo Clinic and returned with good spirits. The latter part of the same week Todd moved to a distant Illinois town to accept a position as a woodworking teacher for ninth grade students. The wheel of change had begun to turn, and "home" meant three people instead of four.