As My World Turn

  In May of 1958 Bobby Darin’s single “Splish Splash “was released.  I was 17 years old and had just finished my sophomore year in high school.  I played basketball and football for our school and had done well and was sitting on top of the world. My younger brother and I lived with Mom & Dad in an apartment above a restaurant that my mother managed and I had a job that summer working at the Chrysler dealership about 15 miles away. 

Dad was a boss at a coal mines not too far away and, with some additional jingle in my pockets from my job, things were looking up.  I was allowed to use the family car, a 1955 Ford Fairlane, on the weekends for dating, but I had a curfew and had to be home by 1 am.  Invariably, I would not get home before 3am and therefore had to devise a plan to fool my mother. 

I didn’t have to worry too much about Dad because he slept like a log but Mom was not a heavy sleeper and I had to come up with something.  So, I would quietly park the car behind the restaurant, get out after removing my shoes and lightly tread the squeaky stairs that took me to our upstairs apartment. 

Slipping down the hallway to my parents’ room, I went over to their clock on their night table, set it back to 12:45am, sneak back down the stairs, put my shoes on and made plenty of noise as I entered our home.  Mom would wake up, glance at the clock, and roll over and go back to sleep.  I would patiently wait in my bedroom until I could hear her snoring lightly, then I would enter their bedroom, reset the clock and go to bed.  My mother never knew of my deception and for some unknown reason I never felt guilty.  I do know that I should have.  My mother trusted me explicitly and was an easy target. I discovered at an early age how easy it was to take advantage of those that loved you.

Flash forward twenty years and I have two teenagers of my own attempting to do the same thing to their parents.  When I discovered their violations of the curfew I would fuss and fume, secretly knowing that I had done far worse when I was their age.  All parents sooner, or later, understand that trying to control their teenage children is a losing game.  The best they can hope for is that their children don’t get hurt, nor hurt anyone else.

An old proverb goes, “If you go only once round the room, you are wiser than he who sits still”.  I have never been guilty of sitting still but I still feel guilty for deceiving my mother.  I never told her of my deceit for I knew she would have been devastated.  Sometimes, adult kids enjoy telling their parents how they deceived them as children.  That is never a good thing to do.  I have met many that would deceive; none that want to be.