Her parents are crazy about you.
Her parents are crazy.
She invited you to dinner. Dad works for Hughes – Mom smiles a lot. Living Room sofa is covered in plastic.
They want you to marry their daughter – yesterday.
You just met.
She has ideas – they aren’t your ideas.
She’s nice and everything – but you only met her at the beginning of the semester. It’s 12th grade – you’re juniors. You turned 17 a month ago.
What’s wrong with this picture? You can’t get married – her parents are already booking the Sportsman’s Lodge in Encino. Maybe you should just live together, once you graduate. You don’t even know her – okay, you share a Bunsen Burner in Chemistry, but you haven’t said more than ten words since January. You only went out once; Peanut Butter Conspiracy at The Hullbaloo and Canter’s on Fairfax. She kisses great. Is this how it starts?
Your parents are speechless – your dad is on Blast.
Your mom calls her mom – conversation gets more animated than a Bugs Bunny cartoon. She hangs up and starts screaming at you.
Pregnant? Pregnant from a hand-job?
Where’s Rod Serling?
100% impossible – absolutely no how – no way. Can’t get pregnant from a hand job – no possibility – not even in your imagination.
Yep – it had to be you – weirder things have happened – you read about them.
You see your life flashing in front of you and it’s a movie with bad subtitles.
How pregnant is she? You heard four months.
You didn’t know her four months ago.
The other boyfriend – the boyfriend before you – the boyfriend her parents hated.
The boyfriend who dropped out of UCLA and joined the Army.
The boyfriend who had “one last fling” before heading off to Fort Ord.
Just after Christmas. That boyfriend.
Makes sense – just not to you.
Her parents are perplexed – your parents spend the weekend in Las Vegas.
She actually asks if you wouldn’t mind being dad.
You punch yourself in the head. She takes that for no.
You don’t see her after that. No phone calls – no letters – no Chemistry class.
Parents ship her off to San Diego to stay with an Aunt who knows “a very nice orphanage”.
You feel relieved, but . . .
You ponder the what if’s and start reading Yogananda.
It’s just you and your radio and Dave Hull and staring off into space.
You’ll settle for that.
And speaking of Dave Hull – here’s 45 minutes worth of The Hullabalooer from KRLA on May 29, 1965.
