I have always loved Army surplus stores; they have that musty smell of old canvas, black-painted metal and old wool. I suspect that the pup tent my sister, father and I set up in the back yard at Angus Street was from one of those stores; probably the one on Sunset Boulevard.
It was a fairly big deal to set up the tent and my sister and I (well, I can’t speak for her) were looking forward to “camping out” in the back yard. Our tent was genuine war surplus and had nothing like the quick folding aluminum poles and nylon of today’s tents. This was also way before Charles Manson’s crowd would murder a couple within two miles walking distance. The biggest thing I had to fear was a grasshopper. But that was before our mother crawled into the tent.
There we were, anticipating a magical night in a musty pup tent in our flannel sleeping bags when our mother decided it was time for “the talk.” I will never forget what she said and how little impact it really made on me. Basically, I just thought it was a little weird. My sister and I were informed that our bodies were “a temple that shouldn’t be desecrated.” If she had just said, “you girls shouldn’t be skanks” it would have made more sense. I was 11 or 12, and my sister was two years younger. Having a “temple” for a body didn’t make much sense. All I could think of was white marble and I knew I was far from white marble.
I suppose my mother never had “the talk” with her mother, because my grandmother died when my mother was 12. I have no idea who informed my mother of the facts of life. But my mom sure tried hard to make certain that we knew. We were given books to read (Now You are a Woman) and taken to teen sexuality classes. Celibacy never sounded better.
But the tables turned rather abruptly when we were in our late teens. Our gay uncle gave us a copy of The Sensuous Woman. I found it in the trash a few days later.
