{"id":1969,"date":"2011-02-22T22:29:58","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T03:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=1969"},"modified":"2015-09-25T20:33:28","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T00:33:28","slug":"california-girls-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=1969","title":{"rendered":"Rounding Second Base"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theme Songs Page<\/a>\u00a0| Previous Theme Song<\/a>\u00a0| Next Theme Song<\/a><\/p>\n

Rounding Second Base<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

California Girls, by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, sung by the Beach Boys (1965), encountered 1965<\/h3>\n

Buy it here<\/a> | See it here<\/a> | Lyrics here<\/a> | Buy sheet music here<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The parts of the summer of 1966 when I wasn\u2019t writing loyal canons of contemned love<\/a> for the absent Kate were largely devoted to my filling in holes in my education and curriculum.\u00a0 I count the Driver\u2019s Ed I took at Ann Arbor High in June as education, the Golf I took at Eastern Michigan University in July as curriculum.[1]\u00a0 The proof: I use get behind the wheel almost every day; the last time I picked up a golf club was the last day of the class.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after the class ended, I spent a week visiting my father in New York.\u00a0 And the day after I got back from that<\/em>, my mother, my stepdad and I were on the road, out to circumnavigate Lake Michigan.\u00a0 It stands out in my memory as the only strictly touristic trip the three of us ever took as a family.\u00a0 Every other voyage with them as a family centered on some kind of family visit and\/or meetings of my stepdad\u2019s professional organization, the Modern Language Association; there might well be side trips or treats, but the main object on those occasions had been more utilitarian.\u00a0 This one time was about seeing interesting places and a few friends along the way.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bearded and Curious\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Before I can describe what happened on the trip, though, I need to mention two things.\u00a0 One, I was sporting my first beard.\u00a0 I liked the way it made me look older than my 17 years.\u00a0 And in 1966 a beard was also a political statement.\u00a0 Plus it made my mom nervous.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She\u2019d have been even more nervous if she\u2019d known that my father had taken me to see Dear John<\/em> up in the mountains, I think at the art movie house in Woodstock.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s a movie no one has heard of these days.\u00a0 It was quite a statement in its time, though.\u00a0 I quote myself in my journal — a nascent film critic:<\/p>\n

\u2026a Swedish movie drenched in sex.\u00a0 In fact it was the most sexually explicit movie I\u2019ve ever seen\u2026. It was the story of two people lonely beyond belief who desperately try to find refuge in making love to each other.\u00a0 And then they discover that they really made love<\/span>\u2026. It stirred me deeply.\u00a0 It was truly a religious experience \u2026<\/address>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That last phrase in particular might have alarmed my mom about what was going on in my head.\u00a0 I was beginning to reevaluate this whole line on sex I\u2019d been fed by my church.\u00a0 Why couldn\u2019t I come to my own conclusions about what was right and wrong \u2013 even if that meant concluding that what had been forbidden was actually sacred?\u00a0 And I have no doubt that my Quaker (and born Jewish) dad knew exactly what he was doing when he took me.\u00a0 After all, he read movie reviews in the New York Times<\/em>.\u00a0 And I know he had something of a taste for the offerings of the Olympia Press, purveyor of high-class erotica in that era.\u00a0 There was no mistake there. \u00a0I\u2019m sure he wanted to get a few licks for a more bacchanalian point of view than I was being taught courtesy of my ultramontane mom.\u00a0 My journal also contains some positive comments about Playboy<\/em> at this point.\u00a0 So what was going on in my head wasn\u2019t hard to figure out.<\/p>\n

So there I am: bearded and curious.\u00a0 And on the road.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sex On The Beach<\/h3>\n

Our second stop was on a Saturday night in Whitehall, north of Muskegon, at a place called Murray\u2019s Inn.[2]\u00a0 It sat at the end of a peninsula separating a coastal lagoon from Lake Michigan proper.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a vintage postcard photog\"\"<\/a>raph of the place.[3]<\/p>\n

To my parents, it was a kind of disappointing evening, I think.\u00a0 There was no liquor license, and I guess they must have gone to bed early.\u00a0 At any rate, I wasn\u2019t with them.\u00a0 I\u2019d been tipped off by a bellboy that the kids, many on staff, all gathered together in the snackbar downstairs at the end of the shift.\u00a0 And sure enough the party started up.\u00a0 We played cards, Crazy Eights.<\/p>\n

Sitting across from me was a Betsy, my age, blonde, from a Chicago suburb.\u00a0 \u201cI like Johns,\u201d she said when I introduced myself.[4]\u00a0 Shortly thereafter she said, \u201cI like your beard.\u201d\u00a0 Not too long after that, she was suggesting we go for a walk on the beach, which I said I\u2019d love to do.\u00a0 Even then, I recognized that this was a girl with an agenda, but I was unable to rush into making a first move.\u00a0 Of course she\u2019d already made the first move, conversationally.\u00a0 But the ball, I knew, was in my court, and I was not bold about advancing it.<\/p>\n

So we just walked and talked, with the light from a lighthouse brushing over us every twenty seconds.\u00a0 And the conversation was, as I recorded in my journal, \u201crather dull.\u201d\u00a0 Meanwhile the wind was blowing colder, and she was wearing shorts.\u00a0 We decided to go for a longer walk, but she had to check in with her parents (and I\u2019m guessing she wanted to change into something warmer).\u00a0 We held hands on the way back to the hotel, but that was the end.\u00a0 The parents were upset that she\u2019d gone out without checking in with them in the first place, and she was grounded for the evening.<\/p>\n

We arranged to meet the next day, Sunday, and as I recorded, this was \u201cthe most unendurable and long night.\u201d\u00a0 I knew what was going to happen the next day \u2013 and I also knew there was a tight schedule.\u00a0 Mass was at 10:00, checkout at 2:00.\u00a0 Not very romantic to be thinking this way, you might comment, and I couldn\u2019t disagree.\u00a0 Kate was about romance; this was about something else.<\/p>\n

Come the morning, my folks and I breakfasted at 8;30, and, leaving the dining room, met Betsy.\u00a0 (My parents were \u201cnot impressed,\u201d per my journal.)\u00a0 I told her I\u2019d call as soon after 11:00 as possible, and with that, I followed Mother to Church.<\/p>\n

The service was at someone\u2019s private estate, high above the Michigan waters.\u00a0 I can\u2019t bear to quote directly what I was thinking while at Mass; it\u2019s just too jejune.\u00a0 Let\u2019s just say I was wrestling with the right and wrong of what I was about to do.\u00a0 I decided, let us further say, that I could go pretty far into the sacred mysteries, if not \u201call the way.\u201d\u00a0 My conclusion: \u201cI received Communion with a prayer for guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then back to the hotel, where I was told we\u2019d be checking out at 1:45.\u00a0 I went by Betsy\u2019s room, picked her up, met her dad, who told Betsy I seemed like “a good boy.\u201d\u00a0 Her dad, she told me, always thought the boys she went out with were good boys.\u00a0 A remark full of implications.<\/p>\n

The sequel was surprisingly long-drawn-out, considering our tight schedule.\u00a0 We went down to the end of the boardwalk and out onto the beach.\u00a0 I took a dip in the freezing water.\u00a0 My parents walked by, and either were or pretended to be oblivious.[4]\u00a0 We returned to the sand near the boardwalk.\u00a0 My folks came back, exchanged pleasantries, left.\u00a0 We were all alone.<\/p>\n

And then, finally, we got around to it.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going into the particulars, though I went into them in lip-smacking clinical detail in my journal.\u00a0 Call it a solid mutually satisfying second-base experience.\u00a0 We exchanged a ritual remark about not making out just to make out, that we felt something.\u00a0 But of course it was not true on either side.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even More Sex On The Beach<\/h3>\n

And two days later, it happened again, with a Kristine, in Traverse City.\u00a0 This time with the added fillips of being mean to another boy who had a real crush on her, and trying to charm the girl\u2019s father right after having my way with her \u2013 or at least as much of a way as either of us was ready for.\u00a0 Call that<\/em> one a solid third<\/em>-base experience.\u00a0 And of course no sooner had I tagged third than it was time to pile into the car and make another getaway.<\/p>\n

So I was getting further around the base-path than ever before.\u00a0 But, as I confided to the journal, I really wasn\u2019t comfortable.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t have much to do with the apotheosis of sex, the sex-blending-into-love stuff I\u2019d seen depicted in Dear John<\/em> and which I\u2019d used at that Mass above the waters to justify what I was about to do.\u00a0 And I tried to talk myself into feeling good about weaseling Kristine\u2019s old man and humiliating that other boy, but when I got down to it, it humiliated me<\/em> to behave that way.<\/p>\n

This Casanova stuff was terribly exciting, but in the psychotherapeutic language we all use today, I needed to process it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Processing<\/h3>\n

We pulled into Charlevoix on Tuesday, with me sitting in the back seat, processing like mad.\u00a0 We got out and walked along the waterfront.\u00a0 I remember looking into a boathouse where three young guys were working on a boat.\u00a0 And I could plainly hear the LP of Goldfinger<\/em> playing.\u00a0 (It had come out the preceding year, and I had that LP myself.\u00a0 I knew every note, and recognized it instantly.)\u00a0\u00a0 James Bond, hero of that movie, was a master of the love-\u2018em-and-leave-\u2018em, the very stunt I\u2019d just pulled twice.\u00a0 If I couldn\u2019t feel a little good about that, what was anything worth?, I asked myself.<\/p>\n

We drove on to Petoskey, lunched, and then drove north of the town where the road climbed upward to where we could see far out over Lake Michigan.\u00a0 We pulled over the car so we could enjoy the scene.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 California Girls Moment<\/h3>\n

And that\u2019s when I had my California Girls<\/em> moment.<\/p>\n

I whipped out my camera, the DeJur reflex my father had given me, with the huge-field 120 film, and just tried to encompass the scene in front of me.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I managed to ensnare, with the afternoon sun glinting off ten thousand billows:\u00a0\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And then I turned the camera on my parents, and got them at a happy moment when they were still relatively young and relatively healthy (their decline being only a few years off).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After that, my parents let me walk down to the beach by myself.\u00a0 There was some kind of wooden stairway.\u00a0 And the wind was gently blowing in my face, and for a moment I felt utterly at peace.\u00a0 And as I did so, California Girls<\/em> came powerfully into my head.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t happen because I was asking myself what was the perfect song to come into my head right then; it came unbidden.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t take much reflection to see why that particular song came into my head.\u00a0 Let me count the ways.<\/p>\n

First, there was something evocative of spacious horizons in that music that exactly fitted the scene before me at that moment.<\/p>\n

Then too the melodic tension through all the key changes in the \u201cWish they all could be California,\/ Wish they all could be California\u201d is resolved in a way that sounds as if it\u2019s coming down in a strange and beautiful place, in a new key.\u00a0 (Actually it\u2019s not; it\u2019s the same Bb chord we started with, but Brian Wilson and Mike Love have spun us around so we don\u2019t hear it the same way.)\u00a0 You feel as if you\u2019ve just arrived somewhere new, musically.\u00a0 Which I had just done in a different way.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the carnival feel in the organ chords, evocative of a locale devoted to pleasure \u2013 a locale on a left coast, looking westward toward sunsets.\u00a0 Exactly the kind of place I\u2019d been visiting for the last three days.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the lyric, limning the charms of the girls of all sorts of places, topped off, however, by a somewhat ambiguous wish that they could be something else.\u00a0 No question that I had a someone else in mind too.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not Very Creepy<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve already commented<\/a> that there\u2019s something slightly creepy in the lyrical trope found here and in the English lyrics to Calcutta<\/em> and other songs like I\u2019m a Wanderer<\/a><\/em> (Dion, 1961), the notion of a guy wandering around the world sampling everyone\u2019s charms but committing to none.\u00a0 If you\u2019re going to go down that road, however, the Beach Boys\u2019 approach is the way to go; the singer admires women the world over, but for aught the lyrics disclose, he may never have laid a finger on any of them.\u00a0 Call him an admirer, a connoisseur, not<\/em> a promiscuous letch.<\/p>\n

As for me at that moment, I didn\u2019t know \u2013 and don\u2019t know now \u2013 what I was, or what I should have been called.\u00a0 Partly I was intoxicated by the vistas opening up before me; certainly I was thrilled that if I wanted, I had some of the basic skills and equipment to be a ladies\u2019 man.\u00a0 But was I really going to wander out into those vistas just yet?\u00a0 Would I wander into the water, like that swimmer who\u2019s a speck at the bottom of my seascape photo?<\/p>\n

Or would I, instead, clamber down to the bottom of those stairs, stand for a moment on the beach, and then clamber back up again, to continue riding around with my parents?\u00a0 And would I, in less than two weeks, surrender the beard upon demand of the principal and headmaster?\u00a0 Even before I reached the bottom of those stairs, I knew the answer to those questions.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t my time yet.<\/p>\n

But it certainly was time for that glorious song.\u00a0 I\u2019ve indicated before that Walk On By<\/em> remains my all-time favorite song; this is my all-time runner-up.<\/p>\n

\n

[1]\u00a0\u00a0 I needed another Phys Ed credit, and there would be no room in my senior year curriculum for three languages if I had to spend part of my school days getting sweaty.\u00a0 But through my stepfather\u2019s affiliation with Eastern, I wangled the opportunity to audit the college golf course for high school credit.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0\u00a0 I believe it is probably the establishment now known as Hollister\u2019s The Water\u2019s Edge Lodge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0 Source: http:\/\/www.waterwinterwonderland.com\/beaches.aspx<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0\u00a0 I went by Jon then, rather than Jack, which I switched to the following year.<\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0\u00a0 My mom\u2019s diary suggests she knew something of my movements \u2013 but obliterates Betsy entirely.\u00a0 That entire passage reads: \u201cIt\u2019s rather cold on the beach + no one is in the water.\u00a0 Jon takes a dip and we just wade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn except for commercial images<\/p>\n

Theme Songs Page<\/a>\u00a0| Previous Theme Song<\/a>\u00a0| Next Theme Song<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Casanova stuff was terribly exciting, but in the psychotherapeutic language we all use today, I needed to process it. And that’s when I had my California Girls moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,968],"tags":[2342,2070,2275,2314,2039,2320,2336,1172,1178,2332,2333,2327,2321,2341,2339,2316,2315,2334,2317,2340,2338,2287,2322,2318,2337,2319,2326,2323,2335,2324,2329,2328,2313,2034,2330,2331,1941,2325,2198],"class_list":["post-1969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-closeup","category-theme-songs","tag-120-film","tag-2070","tag-2275","tag-ann-arbor-high-school","tag-beach-boys","tag-beard","tag-brian-wilson","tag-calcutta","tag-california-girls","tag-casanova","tag-charlevoix","tag-crazy-eights","tag-dear-john","tag-dejur-reflex-camera","tag-dion","tag-drivers-education","tag-eastern-michigan-university","tag-goldfinger","tag-golf","tag-hollisters-the-waters-edge-lodge","tag-im-a-wanderer","tag-james-bond","tag-kare-john","tag-lake-michigan","tag-mike-love","tag-modern-language-association","tag-murrays-inn","tag-olympia-press","tag-petoskey","tag-playboy","tag-scruples","tag-second-base","tag-summer-days-and-summer-nights","tag-the-beach-boys","tag-third-base","tag-traverse-city","tag-walk-on-by","tag-whitehall-michigan","tag-woodstock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5478,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions\/5478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}