In the summer of 1981, in the piney/woodsy stands of Massachusetts, the trees grew tall in the sun, stately occupying the fields that unremarked farmers had carved out of the climax forest with backbreaking labor 150 years before. Next to a reservoir built in the rolling foothills of the Berkshires fifty years earlier, a house had reclaimed one such field.

Set far back from the road, down a long, winding driveway, the house was an eclectic mix of block foundation, split-level-ranch, and various additions and porches. It backed onto the reservoir, with a boat ramp to the East about 150 yds from the house.

The house was in fair state of repair, the owner was a conscientious mason, and kept the house in brown paint and had roofed it the year prior. The screen doors all shut of their own accord, and the screened-in porch worked well on many a lazy summer evening, and helped keep snow away from the walls.

Zoom in on this day, when the many and various insects are droning, and the high July sun is raining down in streams, heating the pine needle carpet on the woods' floor and filling the air with that warm scent. There are many Detroit-made cars scattered haphazardly about the cul-de-sac at the end of the driveway, most, having no air-conditioning, with the windows left rolled down.

There are three picnic tables, and a large split 55-gallon drum barbeque trough on cinderblocks, and a few dozen adults were circulating between the kegs, the table with the wine, and the food table.

There were four kids.

I'm pretty sure that Chuck, the only son of our host, was off getting high in the woods someplace, and I was kind of pissed. He knew I'd get a buzz on, and that there was no way the adult crowd would share their stash with either him or I. But Chuck had been a junior in High School and was going to be a senior, and I was a freshman and going to be a sophomore, and even at his house, he wouldn't talk to me.

Nor would either of his sisters. One was a real bitch, wouldn't even look at me... she was large, not fat, not pudgy, just really large, but with smooth, unwrinkled skin, and no sags. She had the breasts of a large girl — they might have been pretty had she been smaller, but they kind of lay weirdly, and were pushed out by the layer of fat under them. Cherie had a high opinion of herself indeed.

Her older sister was in college, and engaged. She was spending the day off by herself, wrapped in her own amusements, ignoring the party.

Our host, Chuck Senior, and his wife were partiers. I wouldn't have been surprised, even then, to have learned they were swingers. My Mom was here because she liked to drink in a social setting, but she wasn't really in the same league as Chuck Senior and his wife Rose. Oh, and we shot Trap together on Sundays.

I knew all the other adults at the party, mostly, since we were all in the same club. One or two folks I didn't know, but I ignored them — they were pretty well hammered, and it was only two o'clock.

Bored beyond tears, and as un-high as you can be at fourteen, I needed to do something. The adults were watching the beer and wine, and I had no cigarettes. In short, I had nothing to do, nothing to say to anyone who'd talk to me, and no way out.

So, I went into the garage. Chuck (Senior) had a motorcycle, under a catamaran sail, and a few other pieces of whatever you stuff in a five-car garage when you only use two bays. I wanted to dig it out and see if I could start it. And if I could, I was going to go for a ride... it was an old Honda CL-350, and Chuck had stored it years ago with the gas in the carburetors, and the petcock left on... gummed carb city. After I'd cleared the stuff off of it, uninvited, I was poking around the garage looking for tools and gasoline to clean the carbs. Yes indeed, I was THAT bored. And covered in dust and sweat.

But Cherie caught me.

I have to say I had some uncharitable thoughts toward Cherie when she started in on me. I thought about how I'd like to choke the squealing sow... and she didn't shut up when I offered her a ride on the bike if she'd help me. Instead she ran and told her Mom, and I gave up on the bike idea.

Now I was being watched under adult supervision. Stoned and drunk adults, but watched nonetheless.