I grew up in a household of all girls, and as a result, I have come to a much deeper and broader misunderstanding of them.   The guys in my life were gone quick. My dad and his car burst into flames when I was five, and my grandfather ran off before I was born. I lived with my mother, grandmother and an older and younger sister. My mother did have two boys long before us, in a previous marriage in a previous state, but they ran off with their daddy.
My little sister told the first lie I’d ever heard, that I kept gum that belonged to her, and my older sister punched me in the face repeatedly with a pair of boxing gloves to show me how to fight. They were different creatures from me. We lived together, but they existed in their own universe with their own special wardrobes of dresses and fluffy sweaters; hair styles that required clips, clamps, bands, and sprays; and ceremonial grooming.
My little sister liked to sing to her dolls and make up the lyrics as she went. My older sister liked to play the latest Beatle song over and over and over until a new Beatle song came out.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get them interested in shooting cans with a B-B gun, playing with army men, or catching catfish from the nearby river.
My mother dated jerks so they were no fun. They either yelled at us or said nothing. She was putty in their hands, but a fine mother, funny and kind, who loved to write letters to all her Oklahoma relatives. She got a kick out of watching us be silly. I used to cool my soup with a bicycle pump at the dinner table. She thought it was genius. She fed me what she could cook, sent me off to school with clean clothes, took me on road trips, and worked for a living.
Her hobbies were not too family-oriented, but she did like to collect records. I’m a fan of Glen Miller, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Burl Ives thanks to her. She was in her 30s when my dad crashed drunk. She still liked to socialize, play the jukebox, dance and date. I imagine hanging around the house with noisy kids and her dead husband’s elderly mother wore on her patience and exacerbated on her FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). It would me. If only she hadn’t always dated jerks.
When I was around 11 or 12, too young for dating and mating, my little sister and I took a road trip with mom to Oklahoma to meet all our cousins. My mother is tall and came from a tall family, with four brothers all over six foot and a sister who meets her eye to eye.
I was introduced to six tall cousins, two boys and four girls. The time I spent with my male cousins, one older and one younger, mostly involved going down to the river to throw rocks and smoke Kools. With my girl cousins, I had a whole different experience.
They showed me the entrance to a huge round concrete sewer tunnel in the riverbank. The season was dry and we could climb inside and sit against the slope in the shade. A steady cool breeze blew out from the pipe.
Once we settled in, my eldest cousin asked me a favor. She said they wanted to practice kissing and needed a volunteer. To date they claimed they had only kissed their dolls, pets, and parents. They wanted to know what it was like. Was I interested?
Well, of course, but I was not sure what it all meant. I had kissed a girl before, the girl next door, between our houses. I don’t know why, and I didn’t know then.
I agreed to volunteer for their experiment, but confessed to my lack of experience. “We’ll teach you,” said the eldest. The plan was that they would each take turns, with the little one sitting out in the corner.
The eldest went first and put her hand behind my head. She gave it to me good. Merci! I thought a kiss would make me want to close my eyes, but instead they popped wide open. She sat back grinning like she’d won a watermelon-eating contest. The other two cousins kissed nicely and timidly, and we pushed harder toward the end. We had one more go around, took a breather, swore to secrecy, and popped out of the tunnel.
No one told. We never revisited that tunnel. However, for the next few days at the homes of my aunts and uncles, my kissing cousins would make excuses for bumping into me in the hall or on the back porch for a refresher. I was thrilled to have the attention. I returned to Pennsylvania a seasoned veteran of the feminine mystique, eager to tell my bow-and-arrow, tree-climbing, camping and fishing buddies about my experience.
Just like that my kissing days were behind me. What I was led to believe from experience was that kissing was frequent and abundant kissing would come my way forever more. Nope. Just fishing and swimming and jumping ramps for three long years before my next kiss. I didn’t understand.

Steve Gibbs is a retired Benicia High School teacher who has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

Sharing is caring!