Parking

Parking. That's what we used to call it. Parking.

We went to a movie, got something to eat, and then we parked for a while. Maybe, maybe, maybe not.

Depends.

I hope I'm telling this right, because it's been a long time now and I'm suddenly an old man, and so there's a lot of it that's a little blurred. But not all of it. Some of it is still very clear, and I hope it stays clear as long as I live.

Not all of us even did it, parking. You needed a car, and you needed a willing girlfriend or date, and none of those things was always that easy to come by.

And by the way, it wasn't always as big of a deal as it might sound now, looking back through the hazed lens of all those years. It wasn't necessarily a big deal at all. Sometimes it just was a place to be alone to sit and talk. So there's no reason in the world for anyone to be uncomfortable reading this. (Smiley face)

But think about it. Most of what we wanted back then we wanted desperately. Desperately wanted to start in right field. Desperately wanted my mom to let me use her 56 Chevy on Friday AND Saturday night to cruise through Zips and pretend it was my car, not hers. Desperately wanted a summer job at the same time that everyone else desperately wanted one. Desperately wanted somebody to talk to at lunch time. Desperately wanted a date with someone in desperate particular. And I just remember after the movie, and after getting something to eat, desperately wanting some place, any place, to be alone for awhile.

Just for awhile. Cm'on. Please.

So that's where parking came into our lives. Maybe you had your own car, maybe you had your parents' car. It didn't really matter. Just so you had something, some safe capsule, separating you and your date from the rest of the world. For a little while. To park.

And you needed a spot. A place. I remember those places along the river down that one gravel road that now is paved and runs alongside the golf course. Sometimes there would be three or four cars parked along there. Everybody knew one another, but we would pretend not to while we were parking. I realize this doesn't make much sense at all, except to some few of you who know exactly what I'm talking about, you know what I'm saying. You didn't talk to the people in the car next to you when you were parking, even though you sat next to them in chemistry class on Monday. Just kind of the way it was.

So okay, I'll shut up here now. Except to tell you that my favorite parking spot was the parking lot of the Episcopalian Church just up above the old cemetery. I forget the name of the street. But if you parked in that parking lot, no one would bother you, no police coming around with their flashlights checking on what the kids were up to, and I could sit there in the front seat of my car and see my mother's bedroom window in the apartment complex where we lived on Goethals. So I knew whether or not she'd gone on to bed and wasn't waiting up for me to give me hell for sneaking the car out of the car port without her permission.

And also, there was a kind of comfort in it, knowing it was safe and quiet there alongside the cemetery, and there was my mom's window glowing in the dark about 50 yards away. Not sure I can explain that. And I sure never tried to explain it to my date, my poor date, who probably wondered what the hell I kept staring at out the window.

TDK '65'

• Parking
  
• Last Time Around
  
• Charlie Nevins
  
• Young Men And Fire
  
• Austin Healy
  
• Cathy
  
• David River's Birthday
  
• Han's Pavilion
  
• Muscles, Our Neighbor
  
• John Browne, Learning to Dance
  
• Your Brother Mark Browne
  
• Buster
  
• Celluloid Lies
  
• Nuked
  
• Learning to Box
  
• Dog and Goose
  
• Buses and Such
  
• Stealing
  
• Hookybobbing
  
• Stiles Old Upstairs Apartment
  
• Sign Of The Time
  
• Learning to Drive