Summer Fun Times (Mid-June 1964)

“Sound of Silence” (pan flute)

Listen to Chapter 6

“Kurt! Bill! Hey, you guys, quit fooling around!” Sandra directed this to the pile of rocks on the little knoll where her two young friends were mischievously trying to sneak around the other side.

Bob, just out of breath from jumping across the rocks, landed beside Sandra and gave her a quick squeeze. Then he added, “Okay, you two, we can see your heads bobbing around back there!”

Meanwhile, Bob’s pretend little “sisters” Julie and Darlene had walked across the field from the farmhouse. Now Julie joined in with, “Come on, you guys!” Darlene just giggled.

In a moment, Kurt, the younger one, walked nonchalantly from around the north end of the biggest rock. “Have you people seen Bill?” he asked in fake innocence.

Just then a tall lanky figure sprang from his precarious position on a higher rock, crashed through the dry leaves, and bounded down the hill. He laughed. “I almost slipped!”

This was the summer home for 16-year-old Darlene, the youngest of the group. Although Darlene had spent the day in town with the rest of the gang, her big “sister” Julie had brought her back to Harvey Hills Ranch for another week’s work. Now the six of them gathered on the flat rock at the base of the live oak tree whose dark green branches created silhouettes in the pale hazy sky. Far across the parched field, the jagged purple mountains rose, hiding the softly fading gold and crimson that streaked the June sky. Not even a breeze was astir as the most welcome coolness settled over the warm earth. Julie, especially, gazed into the sunset. And there was silence.

After their quiet evening worship prayer of thankfulness, it was a long moment before anyone could speak. Then magically their voices united in a simple hymn as the stars appeared like little lights in the window of heaven. The cowbells rang in the distance. Soon, with their “moo’s” piercing the stillness, the cows ambled their dark bodies along the dirt road and broke through the twilighted grayness where the sunset had been only minutes before.

The kids climbed into Julie’s car, Darlene got off at the farmhouse farther up the road, and the rest went back to Riverdale to Julie’s place. They all involved themselves in playful teasing and lively chatter.

*****

It was well past midnight when Bill and Kurt, who Julie had been entertaining, finally decided it was time to go home. Bob would take Sandra home later. For a long time, Julie curled up in Grandpa Philip’s big chair and watched her “big brother” and her best friend who sat on the sofa. It made her think of herself and Allen. Allen! She thought of Allen mostly, unless she spent her time with Bill and Kurt—or Darlene or Bob and Sandra—or maybe school.

“Just think, Julie, this time next week!” It was Sandra who spoke.

“Allen will be here?” Bob was thinking about Allen, too. This was the chance Julie had waited for.

“How should I know?” she growled. “You read the letter.”

“Little sis,” Bob sighed, “we’ve gone through all this so many times.” Turning to Sandra, he said, “Weren’t you two making plans for next weekend?”

Sandra was enthusiastic. “Oh, yes! We thought Allen could stay with you in the trailer either Friday or Saturday night, depending on when he has to go back. Then on the Fourth of July, we can all four visit with his parents in Oak Grove and come back about five for Julie’s mother’s surprise birthday dinner. Then we’ll go to the swimming party at Donaldsons’ on Saturday night.” Sandra went on until Julie, too, had caught the spirit.

“Fine, fine!” Bob agreed when the girls had given all the details. “It sounds great—a real ball!”

Sandra grinned. “Isn’t it neat to be in love?”

“I guess so,” Julie shrugged, looking just a little puzzled.

“What’s the matter, sis?” asked Bob, noticing a slight cloud that only he would notice. “Aren’t you really in love with Allen?”

“Why, sure,” Julie said lightly, her cynical arrogance turned on. “But, man, that has nothing to do with it! Remember last summer—”

Sandra shut her eyes. “I’d really rather not.” They both remembered it well. “Oh, Julie,” she continued, “my entire world has changed so completely since then. Sure, I’ll admit we never had a dull Saturday night from April to September, and Bob being 600 miles away at Pacific Christian College wasn’t much more than a dream to rely on when no one else was around. But something happened to us, Julie. Bob and I fell in love—genuine love…” Bob fastened his eyes on Sandra.

“Aw, but now you’re ‘tied down’—no offense, brother dear—and I’ve got a brilliant career ahead—executive secretary, seeing the world, traveling—”

Sandra’s voice was tender. “Oh, Julie, being a wife, a mother—especially when you’ve got a great guy like Bob—it’s the greatest career any girl could have! That’s the way God meant it to be. Sure, you can work after marriage if you want to. But you’ve got something much better than an empty apartment to come home to. You’ve got a wonderful husband, and all the love in the entire universe is yours.”

Julie was silent for a long moment. Then, in a more settled voice, she said, “Okay, I know you’re sold on the marriage and family idea. I guess I can’t help but agree; I really do plan to get married someday. But this summer”—she winked at Sandra—“it won’t be too hard for Darlene and me to get with Kurt and Bill!”

Bob lowered his eyebrows. “And you plan to settle down to Allen when your little fling’s all over with?”

“Why not?” Julie was strangely flippant.

“Are you sure Allen really loves you?” Bob asked pointedly.

Now Julie’s artificial carelessness changed to genuine concern. “I don’t know, Bob. I want to believe we’re in love, really I do. Just because he dated a few girls when he was away at school at San Margo Academy—”

“A few!” retorted Sandra. “Eleven girls just since Christmas?”

“Well, I dated, too.” Julie was quick to reply.

“Three or four guys,” Bob reminded. “And each one of those relationships came from a deep Christian sense of caring for them as people who needed what you, as a Christian sister, could give.”

Julie’s eyes dropped, though she pretended to ignore the observation. “I don’t want to believe all those stories Cynthia Donaldson has been telling me. Yet goes to school with him at San Margo Academy. She knows what he does, what the ‘good kids’ think of him. Oh, Bob! How could I believe we would grow away from each other! After almost four years—” Julie buried her face.

“That’s what I’m afraid is happening, little sis.” Bob’s voice was characteristically kind. “Unless some grand miracle comes.”

“The miracle of love?” Julie looked up.

Bob almost smiled through his unusual seriousness. “If you’re patient—if you really love him—if you wait until he grows up, if you understand him, think with him, feel with him—if it’s really God’s will—you will.”

“I think I want to.” Julie dropped onto the bearskin rug at the end of the Victorian sofa. “But I don’t know what to say, what to talk about when I’m with him. All he ever talks about—if it isn’t love-talk to me—is all the petty pranks he and his roommate pull. And the serious talks seem so superficial. I’ve got a new vision of life. When his dad was the pastor here in Riverdale, he had quite a lot to do with it. And I wantto share this happiness with Allen. I want us to understand each other and communicate—besides being able to have such fabulous times together. I’d like to help him if I could and should, but I don’t want to sound like his father!”

“By all means, don’t!” Bob echoed. His understanding smile faded slowly as he said, “Only Love itself can tell you what to do.”

“But if we don’t love each other, we must break up eventually, won’t we?” Julie seemed almost helpless.

“Well, if you do break up, make it final,” Bob advised, thinking back over the rocky past Julie had had with Allen. “Leave absolutely no glimmer of hope—it’ll only make it more painful for both of you.”

“But what if there is hope, later—much later? Say in about five years!” Julie almost chuckled at her self-made cliché.

“That’s the future and it’ll take care of itself. For now, if you break up—if you should—you must forget everything.”

“Oh, but the very thought of breaking up! It’s been so long, and after all we’ve done and gone through—together. And when we’re together, I feel sure we love each other. How could I, after we’ve had a neat time next Saturday night, just say, ‘Well, Allen, I guess this is it—goodbye’? It can’t be that simple!”

“It’s hard, I know,” Bob said, “but that’s the way life is. I don’t know; maybe you do love him—even if he doesn’t become a minister like you’ve always dreamed.”

“Oh, Bob”—and he knew by her tone that he had pushed a button—“just so long as we both love God. I’m all for whatever he wants to do, whatever will make him happiest. But I just want him to be something. He has to wake up one of these days soon—he’ll be a college man in a few months!—and realize it’s time to grow up and start thinking and living in the adult world. I’m sure it’s only adolescent confusion. Despite his grades, I know he’s very intelligent! He’ll find himself—and his God. He will grow up, Bob; after all, we’re only seventeen!”

“Then,” breathed Bob, studying the pattern on the Indian vase that sat on the antique end table, “be patient—wait. But never let him know you’re waiting—that’s for his mother to do. He must feel you’re growing with him—and you must.”

“Bob?” Her expression reminded Sandra of the time they were lost in Los Angeles when they were only nine. “What if—what if we don’t…grow…together?”

“Are you really afraid, sis?”

Julie could not reply.

Bob stroked the long dark hair that fell softly on her crumpled shoulder. “I—we—love you, sis, very much. God has someone for you to love and to love you—like Sandra and me.” He kissed her forehead lightly. “Maybe it’s Allen—maybe not. But it isn’t right for you to live in fear, plagued with doubts, frustrated by what’s supposed to be love. Sis, it’s up to you—and Allen.”

Julie tore at her fingernails for a moment. “Bob—” But as she looked up, her words faded to the kiss that Bob and Sandra were sharing. She watched them—this time, not in reminiscence, but in pain. It was not because it was a mere kiss, but because of all the things it symbolized—love, genuine love, marriage, a home blessed by God. She rose slowly and tiptoed to her room.

“Goodnight, sis,” Bob called quietly as she shut the door behind her.

*****

The morning dawned just a little misty. When Julie finally got up, Bob was not in his trailer. Oh, yes, she remembered, Bob and Sandra had left early to go to the beach. Mechanically, she straightened her room and packed the suitcase to go back to summer school at La Paloma College for another week.

After a home-cooked breakfast with the family—except for Bob and Darlene—Julie had a few hours of world history to go through. With heart and soul, Julie plunged into the revolutions of the 1820s and 1830s until the sun was high in the sky. Then she put her books and suitcase into the Rambler.

“Bye, now; be careful, hon!” Those were always Momma’s last words as she kissed her before she started back. Julie backed the car down the long unpaved driveway, then stopped to shut the gate.

But she stood at the gate longer than usual this time, her hand resting on the iron latch, and stared toward the house. There it stood, in their modernized neighborhood, in all of its two-story colonial splendor. It wasn’t really such a big or fancy house, and its wooden exterior was obviously in need of a little paint. The lazy elms that shaded almost the whole sparsely grass-covered yard seemed to sigh in memory with her. There, in the place where her cardboard playhouse used to stand, was the recent addition of Bob’s trailer for the summer. His “home” would soon mean him and Sandra.

Momma and Grandpa had just come out of the house to sit under the trees and share cool lemonade. Julie, unnoticed by them, wondered what life had been like a generation ago. Momma had grown up in this same house. I wonder if she had close friends like I have Sandra and Darlene—friends who seem like sisters to me? Did she have a “big brother” like Bob to give her endless advice on love and stuff? But soon the hour-long drive back to La Paloma College that afternoon took Julie back into the new world of academia she had so recently discovered.

For five more days there was the familiar routine—working as secretary at the Institute of Health every morning, history class with the beloved Dr. Mackey, afternoons and evenings devoted to untiring study as she bravely struggled with the Greeks for independence, triumphed with the founders of the Second French Republic, and amused herself with Communist Manifesto excerpts. Then, twice a week, there were the worships in the lovely little chapel across the campus. Only at night came the slightly heartsick pangs as she read from the lovely white Bible that Allen had given her on the very first Christmas they had shared, and as she looked at his lifelike picture that stood prominently on the end of her desk by the lamp….

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