An Old Photo with a Lot of Stories This was a birthday party on my block when I was a kid. Around this time a drama played out that had a big effect on me→[More:] This is Hermosa Beach, in the late 50's. My "ancestral manse" is the house in the near background, center. It is on one of those "walkstreets" that beach towns have. The beach is one more house away to the left at the end of the block.

Around this time, the kid on the far left saw me in this outside shower, with two of the girls in the picture. We had taken our shorts down, and pulled our shirts up, and were showing each other what was under our clothes. This was 1. the first time I remember doing that, and 2. the first time that I noted the changes that a certain male organ goes through when in certain situations.

The kid on the left was spying, and ran to tell all the parents, who were gathered for martinis at one of the houses.

Well, for months (it felt like) I was the block's main reprobate. I was yelled at, shamed, etc. Since I was the boy, of course it was my doing (and I think the two girls got their story straight and said that I threatened them with a squirt gun -don't go there- if they did not comply with my wishes. Other kids (probably at their parents' orders) pretty much kept away from me for awhile. It did pass, but for a few weeks, it was excrutiating.

This was all very traumatic and it really set me back in my explorations with the opposite sex, dating, etc. I never really did any of that until after high school.

So that is the story associated with this picture, at least the one I remember.

From the left, C., who is now a minister in Pasadena, was the kid who turned me in. then J., one of the girls in the shower. She ran away as a teenager, got into all sorts of drugs and sex, then cleaned up, and is now one of the top admins at the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs. Then C., the big sister of the boy who ratted on me. She is in Kona and just happens to live 5 mi. away from where I will be staying this summer. I'll look her up. Then with the groovy glasses, my big sister, who is a retired teacher in Orange County living in a Boston marriage, and who has NEVER come out officially. In the crib is A. who can be seen in Portland in any Dykes on Bikes event and who is also heavy into Scientology there. Then J. a kid who went onto lose his leg to cancer but still surfed, on one leg, and rather well. He got pretty locally known/admired for that. Then K. and I have no idea where she is now or what happened to her. Then moi, shirtless. Even then I guess I showed inappropriate behavior. Then I., whose dad was an underground resistance fighter in Czeckoslavakia, and once after she hit me and I hit her back, *I* got in trouble. Then, lastly, S. the other girl in the shower and sister of the kid who lost a leg.

(Bunnies, the quiz on this will be next week.)