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Growing Up On Jefferson Street, set 5

“Kicking The Can” and “Sex In The Junior High”

Dear Jack,

I’ve got several memories of learning what junior high school cliques were all about and that coming from a Catholic school had many advantages, especially in regard to academic accomplishments. That’s where I met my life-time friend, Molly, of whom I’ll write in another letter, and found out that not only did boys hate girls who wore glasses, but girls should never, never be first in their class.

While you were busily discovering that world beyond elementary school, I was slowly growing toward puberty.

Chasing The Moon
The front door faced east, greeting the sun
each morning as light glazed the pane,
Upstairs the windows looked out on the world
like eyes unblinking and wise.
Hot afternoons baked the hackyard
as shadows grew fingers of shade.
Beckoning stars on clear summer nights
sprinkled the path of the moon.
Children at play in a time ringed with war,
abandoned the sorrow of age,
Leapt on the porch and hid in the dark
laughing and running care free.
Chasing the moon and following stars,
tasting the world that we knew,
Unaware that the present was slipping away
as we frolicked in all that we were.

************************

KICKING THE CAN
by
Marilyn Loughary Kok

After the age of twelve, Charlotte and I had put away our dolls and moved our energy to the outdoors. We had both had summer camp experiences (she at church camp and I at Girl Scout Camp), and had learned new games and crafty activities. We imagined ourselves traveling to Oregon via the wagon train trails, becoming WAACs or WAVEs in the then current war on terror, or serving our country as super spies rooting out enemy aliens. We were beginning to search for women heroes to replace Jack Armstrong and Superman.

In the summer months there usually were eight to ten kids in our front yard participating in the chasing game of the moment. We played Hide & Seek, Statue, Hopscotch and, our favorite, Kick The Can. Immediately after a hastily gulped dinner, the games would begin. (Well, actually, Charlotte and her younger brother, Leslie, were seldom part of the evening group. Her family all had to be in bed by seven because her dad arose early in the morning to leave for work at the Palace Meat Market. Their family was all expected to retire when he did. As I recall, you and thought that was the weirdest thing ever.)

By the time that we were ready to enter junior high school, a couple of boys our age had moved onto our block. After an initial shyness where they eyed us and we pretended to ignore them, we finally introduced ourselves and invited them to join in our games.

Earle was a blonde-haired kid of Scandinavian descent who moved in next to us. He had a younger sister who never did make a dent in my consciousness. Howard and his older sister, Barbara, lived on the other side of Earle. They were both rather quiet boys who seemed to be under the strict control of their mothers. Both boys had moved onto Jefferson Street many years after Charlotte and I had claimed all rights of ownership.

To get back to the games story, after gulping dinner with lightening speed, I would race outside to find the yard filled with kids waiting to start another evening of mass hysteria. In the summer months we’d be playing outside until after ten, yelling, shrieking and trying to make it “Home” before whoever was “It” caught sight of you.

I can only imagine the thoughts and words that were exchanged by the Martin family as the rest of the kid population raced around the neighborhood, searching for places to hide and trying to avoid capture. I don’t think our parents ever did a hear a complaint about the noise factor.

Charlotte and I remained good friends during our school years. In high school we began to develop different interests as we discovered that world that existed outside our neighborhood. We did walk through graduation exercises together, pledged the same college sorority, and I was her maid of honor on her wedding day. She later became a Physical Education teacher, counselor and vice-principal. We have now moved onto the annual Christmas letter stage of friendship, but the memories of our past is still fresh.

Still looking for answers after all these years

Love, Marilyn

<><><><><><><><><>  

Dear Marilyn,

Ah, those were the warm evenings and late sunsets and of course, Kicking the Can. I wonder, if one wandered into an older neighborhood in Eugene today, would you stumble upon bunches of young kids making their own amusement with the aid of an empty Campbell’s soup can. It has been a long time since I have lived in such a neighborhood, but I’ll give you good odds that the can has been replaced with some neurotic electronic device or it is populated with retirees. Well, I’m attempting to go with a more “contemp” theme with my next story of the Jefferson Street series. Now don’t be shocked.

Sex in the Junior High
by
Jack Loughary

Woodrow Wilson Junior High School was located five blocks north of 1832 Jefferson Street and was fed by Lincoln Elementary School to the north and a bunch of country kids as well as the Francis Willard gang. Rural schools in those days covered 8 grades, as compared to city school where grades 7,8 and 9 were organized into junior highs. Consequently, ninth graders from rural school districts migrated to the nearest junior high. The reason that bit of information may be pertinent to this story is that by and large rural kids were much more knowledgeable about reproductive principles and practices. Some had even been able to apply that knowledge to the adolescent species. That is to say, they improvised do it yourself sex education. I’m not saying that they were promiscuous, just a lot better informed about the physiology than many of their town brethern.

The other underlying variable, is that rural kids were eligible to apply for school driving permits at age 14, age 16 being the required age for an actual license. The permits specified the specific route from farm to school that was legal, but what the hey; give a 14 year old a car and what would one expect. Thus, suddenly in grade 9, cars became an operational part of the culture. I can’t point to a specific causal connection, but recreationally speaking, new options became obvious.

Elementary schools allowed for folks dances such as square dancing, and while hand holding was okay, it was the junior high that introduced and legitimatized close up, frontal, arms around one another dancing between boys and girls. The dances were well chaperoned by teachers and parents, but with the gymnasium lights turned down and a crowded floor a lot of serious exploration and even experimentation went on. Things could get steamy in a hurry. Perhaps the most effective deterrent to inappropriate sexual behavior while dancing was that popular music of the day, both live and recorded, used a standard three chorus format. Whistle a 1930s or 1940s tune three times in a row, and you’ll understand what I mean. Can’t work up much of a sweat in 3 choruses.

Demonstrating sexual knowledge (real or presumed) was one means for boys to acquire social status among their peers. One topic had to do with aphrodisiacs. Some farms kids seemed well versed on specific products and compounds but were unable to go beyond the talk stage.

One dating adventure was a single-trial learning experience regarding allowing the heart not to rule the head. It involved a date with a very well endowed classmate to a ninth grade dance. She lived several miles out of town near a bus stop in the River Road district, Eugene’s first more or less suburb. Following the dance we took the bus back to her house. We probably sat close and held hands all the way home. Her mother greeted us with pop and cake and I lingered on longer than I should have. Finally, I took my leave and walked to the bus stop. No one else was waiting, and it was then that it occurred to me to read the schedule board. Whoops! Last bus at 9:00 p.m. It was a very long walk home.

I recall two embarrassing situations in junior high school. I suppose it was in the eighth grade that I was attracted to a girl and decided to ask her to the movies. My mistake was that somehow I felt that I had to ask Dad for his permission. Well, of course that was all in my head, but I asked him anyway which was very embarrassing. There resulted an inhibition about talking with him about personal matters that took several years to overcome.

Among the most memorable memories was friends coming over on Saturday to listen to college ball games on the radio in my room and just at half time Mom would bring in a freshly baked pie or cake. On Sunday afternoons three or four of us from the neighborhood often walked down to the Heilig or McDonald theater to take in a movie. I would walk up the street to Walsh’s grocery store where Don Walsh, Tom Nugent and Bob Dragoo would gather there for the walk to town. Don worked regularly in the store but was not on wages. The store was closed on Sunday, but Don would go from the living room into the store, open the cash register, take out a few bucks and replace them with a slip of paper noting the withdrawal. This was a degree of freedom and trust that never failed to amaze me!

Later, Don joined the navy and then was in the food business for awhile. Tom and I both had enough asthma to be unattractive to the military. Bob stepped on a mine in Korea. His body was shipped home with a military guard and many of his Jefferson Street friends attended the memorial service. We all stood around, not knowing what to say or do. I can still dredge up a picture with the honor guard standing at attention and the American flag draped over the coffin.

In the 1940's there were only two junior high schools in Eugene, Wilson and Roosevelt. It occurs to me that the experiences many of us had growing up on Jefferson Street were playing in neighborhoods throughout the town. I can’t figure why educators had to fiddle with the junior high concept and replace it with the really uninspired term “middle school”. I’ve heard rationales for the change, but Gee Whiz: moving on to junior high was really an important rite of passage!

Love, your Wilson Knight brother,

jack

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