Chapter 1

This story starts 1960/1961 or thereabouts. Mom and I had moved. I guess Dad was not moving with us. If we had to move, this was as good a time to do so as any would be. I was starting high school in the Fall anyhow, there were no real good friends where we lived before but ... this new house was just not the same as my old one. It was on a main street, there was a lot more traffic and although the yard was bigger, it was all open and had many homes around it.

The movers seemed to take a long time with our stuff. We had only lived on the other side of town but the move took almost all day, or so it seemed to me. It was a bungalow type house. There were no great features I remember but there were some apple and pear trees, and some grape vines growing in the yard.

My bedroom was upstairs. It was a place I later found out was called a dormer. It was high enough on one end to stand up in but sloped so low on the other, that even at age fourteen, I had to stoop down to get my clothes or a book from the chests on that side. It was low.

I was hot and there were windows on both sides. On one side was a huge old farmhouse. It seemed far away. There were two windows there so I opened both and raised them up. One window stuck about 5 inches up, the other raised way up but kept falling down. I put a book upright and it held the window up. I went to the other side of the room.

It was a lot lower there, and I had to crawl some to get to the window. Then I struggled to get it open. It finally went up. About the same time as my face was plastered to that glass a light went on in the other house across the drive. It was the same type of house, just a different colour and if I had to guess was only eighteen to twenty or so feet away. The glare it made really was startling to me. More so was the young girl readying for bed. She was beautiful. She slipped a pink nightdress over her head then went out of sight. A green ball of fluff then leaped onto the bed.

My mind did not comprehend how her Pink gown now became Green. To confuse me even more then another ball of fluff, Pink this time, also scampered onto the bed. ‘My God’, I thought, twins, they looked like identical little angels. I really could not take my eyes off them until, after watching them bounce a few times up a down on the bed they turned towards me and smiled. Not angels, maybe little devils though. I fell back, turned about a dozen shades of red and pulled down my shade. I had been caught looking at them.

I did not see any more interesting parts that night but for four years of high school, we had a nightly ritual, our own form of ‘Show and Tell’. They were nine going on twenty-one when we met the next day, it seemed. Nothing about getting know them was sexual. From the very first, it was just the way they talked, acted, and what we would do with each other, that was very mature. Most summer days we would hold hands, one twin on each side of me, we would go for a long walk, read a book (Ivanhoe was our first book, we tried to read Lord Of The Rings too), have a picnic and on certain days, when the weather was just right, you could find all three of us asleep, curled up in a ball, holding each other tightly under one or the other apple tree. Sometimes we spread a blanket under the sun and watched the clouds move by overhead, calling out what each of us saw in one or another shape.

Charlie and Sam became the sisters I never had, and I became their big brother. I never felt comfortable around most of the girls my age. With Charlie and Sam, though, I don’t think there was ever a time we did not enjoy each other’s company. What did our parents think of a guy and two girls five years younger hanging out? They thought it was ‘cute’ especially since they both had a lot of other things to do. We sort of grew up together. When they turned eleven, several things happened. One, I turned sixteen, and got my license to drive. Two, my, up until then, short, flat ‘sisters’ started growing up, getting curves and legs that would make a colt jealous. Imagine micro-mini skirts or short-shorts topped off with matching halters or crop tops; you’ll get the idea of where the term ‘Blond Bombshell’ comes from.

I became the ‘designated driver’ and big brother protector. These two were becoming more models than model teens by the time they turned thirteen. Between driving to the beach, to now closed amusement parks (two of them) and our summer outings to play tennis or a mall, heads were turning whenever they pranced and danced about. We still curled up together though (outside, and maybe inside, too) for reading a book, or to watch the shows on TV. They no longer wanted to kiss much; still, a hug or two was okay. They were growing up it seemed. I was, too.

I remember my junior/senior high school prom. I think my date was 23, near a 40-D, blond, blue-eyed and near 5’11” tall. I spent most of that time keeping the teachers away trying to get her to dance with them. (Slow dances of course). It was not that I was some great lover or cool jock; it was that I was taller than her and she was only here, visiting from Europe. I offered to teach her more English, and she ended up teaching me a whole lot more about life.

That next year Prom, did I even think to ask my ‘sisters’ to go? Nope. Instead, the idea of an ‘older’ woman seemed just fine to me. She was 40, almost divorced, maybe not, and drove a White Jaguar Convertible. Tall, blond and although not big on top wore things that left no question in anyone’s mind who looked that she was all woman. How we met, I don’t really remember I think it was through friends who said she needed some help around the house. Her husband was not around any more. One look and I think anyone would ‘help’ her no matter what she wanted. I did notice a distinct ‘cold wave’ whenever Charlie and Sam found any time for me now. Their Blue eyes might have been turning a might Green.

High School was over, it was Viet Nam in 1965 and my luck was not that of the Irish, I got drafted. Back then if Uncle Sam wanted you, Army, Navy or Marines were the common choices. The 2-year Army venue became my choice. When I received my orders, and told everyone, we now had our own mini version of a war. Charlie and Sam were yelling, screaming at me, Mom was crying, and even Mrs. Miller, Charlie and Sam’s Mom Marge, was tearing up; their Dad, Pete was on some Oil rig somewhere, as always.

For the next week or so, Charlie and Sam became living ‘growths’ attached to me. Hugs, kisses and anything that was a part of our bodies never became separated. Man, those girls could kiss and their hugs would have made a wrestler envious of how strong they were.

The good old Army. They took a tall, fat, loner that was I, and did exactly nothing to change me to anything better. I do remember the timed run, the one time I actually made it through. A Capt. Meyers ran up beside me, yelling, screaming and kept saying not to think of anything but his voice. To don’t quit, just pick up one foot and put it in front of the other. I don’t remember much but I do remember to this day that all of a sudden I could not feel anything. No pain, no gasping for breath and I just was floating along following him. Later I heard the phrase of a runner ‘hitting the wall’. At the end, he slapped me on the shoulder, gave me a grin and I fell to the ground and wanted to lie there and die only the run was just one part, more was to follow. A big ‘fail’ on those next tests folks.

About the only other thing of note was during the Viet Nam training course, was down South in a Virginia swamp; one of the few places I think that the humidity could be more than 100%. Can you say Black Widow Spiders and Copperhead snakes. Somebody threw a fake grenade near my squad. I grew up on the streets, up North. They call it ‘The Getto, ‘ now; but the only reaction I had was to jump into a nearby ditch, put my face into the mud and water holding my rifle and helmet close like a lover. When the cap detonated, I got up to a bunch of laughs and not so friendly remarks. I must have looked pretty funny, dripping mud, water and green things. A Major came out in sight and we all came to attention at some Sgt.’s call.