Water Country USA - 1987
Jean and Jenny
On my 18th birthday, I loaded up the Escort and me and Danny and made the one hour trip down to Water Country USA in Williamsburg.
It's been twenty years, so I don't know what it's like now, but back then it was really just a collection of various water slides and other get-wet-quick rides. Not sure if they even had a log flume ride, but anyway...
We met a couple of young ladies there and hung out with them for the day. Jean was from nearby Newport News and her cousin, Jenny, was visiting from Huntington, West Virginia.
Danny was fixated on Jean, while I was trying to get some kinda spark out of her cousin. Of course, that was about as likely as lighting a cigarette during a hurricane. Just was not going to happen. Jean and Danny seemed to hit it off fairly well.
At the end of the day we exchanged addresses and phone numbers. Snail mail and landlines.
Well, we sent our respective letters to our respective ladies and I never got a response back from Jenny. Danny did get a letter back from Jean, who informed us that Jenny had no intention of writing either of us back.
Which is understandable. Some people are not born letter-writers, others view any sort of correspondence between opposite gender as some sort of unspoken romantic commitment. I admit I had some fantasies of driving out to visit her, but hey, I was eighteen.
Jean also introduced us to another girl whose name I can't recall except maybe that it started with S and we all exchanged letters for a year or so. This was actually around the same time I started to keep a journal notebook of thoughts and events. Referring to that during English class made for many a lengthy letters.
I remember one day, we drove down to meet S. She gave us directions and everything, so this wasn't one of those Mark and Mike surprise visits.
Well, we got there probably around eleven or so in the morning and rang the door. A very tired, very grumpy lady in an old bathrobe answered the door. We asked if S was there and she said, "I don't want your kind on my doorstep this early in the morning. Get the h*ll off my property." Maybe we should have come back later when our "kind" was acceptable to her?
Granted, our "kind" at the time was the kind most people gave a wide berth to; long hair, ripped jeans, t-shirts advertising the heavy metal flavor of the month and sunglasses. I think I was also wearing my "Rebel hat", which was a grinning skull wearing a Confederate infantry hat and a Rebel flag behind it. Yeah, I probably would have thrown me out too.
But when you're young and stupid, we felt that she may as well have run us off with a shotgun. So we kinda laughed about it on the way back. When S found out, she was furious and apologized profusely. We never did meet her in person.
At some point, a letter went unanswered and thus ends many a pen-pal relationships. (Remember pen-pals, before e-mail?) Danny claimed to have gone down to Newport News once to hook up with Jean, but back then, he was a man given to tall tales. Whether he did or not, I don't know. I do know that Jean at some point began flirting with me via mail, which may have led to a letter gone unanswered. Cute as she may have been (I don't really remember much except that in 1987, she was a chubby brunette and two years later, she was a skinny blonde), a man taking a friend's girl, even if she has no interest in said friend; it's just not done.
On my 18th birthday, I loaded up the Escort and me and Danny and made the one hour trip down to Water Country USA in Williamsburg.
It's been twenty years, so I don't know what it's like now, but back then it was really just a collection of various water slides and other get-wet-quick rides. Not sure if they even had a log flume ride, but anyway...
We met a couple of young ladies there and hung out with them for the day. Jean was from nearby Newport News and her cousin, Jenny, was visiting from Huntington, West Virginia.
Danny was fixated on Jean, while I was trying to get some kinda spark out of her cousin. Of course, that was about as likely as lighting a cigarette during a hurricane. Just was not going to happen. Jean and Danny seemed to hit it off fairly well.
At the end of the day we exchanged addresses and phone numbers. Snail mail and landlines.
Well, we sent our respective letters to our respective ladies and I never got a response back from Jenny. Danny did get a letter back from Jean, who informed us that Jenny had no intention of writing either of us back.
Which is understandable. Some people are not born letter-writers, others view any sort of correspondence between opposite gender as some sort of unspoken romantic commitment. I admit I had some fantasies of driving out to visit her, but hey, I was eighteen.
Jean also introduced us to another girl whose name I can't recall except maybe that it started with S and we all exchanged letters for a year or so. This was actually around the same time I started to keep a journal notebook of thoughts and events. Referring to that during English class made for many a lengthy letters.
I remember one day, we drove down to meet S. She gave us directions and everything, so this wasn't one of those Mark and Mike surprise visits.
Well, we got there probably around eleven or so in the morning and rang the door. A very tired, very grumpy lady in an old bathrobe answered the door. We asked if S was there and she said, "I don't want your kind on my doorstep this early in the morning. Get the h*ll off my property." Maybe we should have come back later when our "kind" was acceptable to her?
Granted, our "kind" at the time was the kind most people gave a wide berth to; long hair, ripped jeans, t-shirts advertising the heavy metal flavor of the month and sunglasses. I think I was also wearing my "Rebel hat", which was a grinning skull wearing a Confederate infantry hat and a Rebel flag behind it. Yeah, I probably would have thrown me out too.
But when you're young and stupid, we felt that she may as well have run us off with a shotgun. So we kinda laughed about it on the way back. When S found out, she was furious and apologized profusely. We never did meet her in person.
At some point, a letter went unanswered and thus ends many a pen-pal relationships. (Remember pen-pals, before e-mail?) Danny claimed to have gone down to Newport News once to hook up with Jean, but back then, he was a man given to tall tales. Whether he did or not, I don't know. I do know that Jean at some point began flirting with me via mail, which may have led to a letter gone unanswered. Cute as she may have been (I don't really remember much except that in 1987, she was a chubby brunette and two years later, she was a skinny blonde), a man taking a friend's girl, even if she has no interest in said friend; it's just not done.