RSS

Daily Archives: September 22, 2010

A father and daughter story . . .

A special introduction to this posting:

I have multiple reasons for making this posting. As with almost every posting that I make, my intention is to record significant moments in my life for the benefit of my daughters. Many of those moments occurred before my girls were born, and I consider this the ideal vehicle in which to store those moments to make them available at the touch of a computer key. In this instance it is also an effort to educate others. The human female’s reproductive system with its various apparatuses is literally the source of life—it is mankind’s future, and its various components are probably some of the most complex and most misunderstood areas that exist in our society. I can state unequivocally and unashamedly that I learned from researching the remarkable subject of this posting, and I trust that what I have learned will benefit others that are as uneducated in this area as I was—in many respects I remain uneducated—but I’m learning!

I introduced Betty, a fellow teenager friend from long ago, on my blog in my last posting. Click here to read about that introduction, our first and only date to see a movie, and about me being slapped off her porch and into the yard—it’s worth the visit.

Betty’s father was a commander in the United States Navy, stationed in Washington, D.C. He was almost bald, of short stature and in retrospect he reminds me of Lt. Commander Queeg, the part played by Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny. The commander’s wife and my sister-in-law spent a lot of time in my sister-in-law’s kitchen drinking coffee, smoking and talking about the various things women talk about while drinking coffee and smoking.

Our duplex was small, with no closed dividers between the living room and the kitchen, and people in one area could clearly hear conversations in the other area if normal volumes were used. Low whispers would not be detected, however. Betty’s mother was not whispering when she told my sister-in-law about the monthly physical exam her husband made of their daughter, then twelve years old. She either had forgotten that I was in the living room reading, or else did not care that I might be listening to the two women conversing over coffee and cigarettes. There is a slight possibility that she may have wanted me to hear her, feeling that I would thus refrain from any thoughts I might have in mind that, if converted into action, would affect the findings of the next monthly exam—you’ll understand that comment in a moment.

What I heard the mother tell is this: She told my sister-in-law that her husband gave their daughter a tub bath at least once a month, and as part of that action determined whether she was still a virgin. I know, I know—the only proof of virginity is an intact hymen, but the hymen can be breached and destroyed without intercourse having taken place. An intact hymen may indicate that vaginal intercourse has not taken place, but its absence does not prove that such intercourse has in fact taken place.

Now for the sensitive part of this discussion of a father playing doctor with his twelve year old daughter—how does one determine the presence of, or the absence of, a girl’s hymen? If not through questioning, it would have to be through one or more of the five physical senses, and through a process of elimination we should be able to determine the manner in which this remarkable father followed his daughter’s progress towards adulthood.

If one were inclined to do so, as was Betty’s father, the intact hymen can be easily examined through a combination of our physical senses. Betty was probably treated to a warm bath shortly after we returned home from the movies, and I hasten to add that had the examination produced unsatisfactory results I might have been suspect, but I was in no way involved in the above mentioned area, nowhere even close. It could well be, of course, that I lusted in my heart, just as former president Jimmy Carter, in his interview with Playboy magazine, said that he was inclined to do. Incidentally, Jimmy and Rosalyn have been married for 64 years—I congratulate and salute them!

In our search for the hymen we can eliminate the auditory sense, that of hearing—contrary to The Vagina Monologues, history holds no record of a talking vagina. We can also eliminate the gustatory and olfactory senses—neither would in any way confirm the presence, absence or condition of the hymen.

Through our scientific elimination of three of our five physical senses, we are left with the visual and tactile sense, our senses of sight and touch. The only sensible way to confirm the presence or the absence of the hymen is by combining the human senses of seeing and touching. If the hymen is there it can be seen and touched, and that combination will detect and confirm its existence and its condition, or its absence.

The story told in this posting is true. If Betty’s mother and father are still alive, both are well past the century mark in age and if still living, Betty would be in her seventh decade of life, far beyond any fear of her father failing to find an intact hymen. I wish them all well, whatever their condition or location.

Postscript: I posted this story in an effort to educate and perhaps, with a smattering of humor to entertain, and I make no apology to anyone that may be troubled by this posting in regards to their standards of decency. If you are offended by the subject matter, I offer the world of WordPress for your consideration. Use the search feature—Search WordPress.com—you’ll find every sexual act known to mankind, discussed in street language, not once, not twice but thousands of times. Wade through that compendium of filth, then compare my work to those entries—in comparison my efforts should earn, at the very least, honorable mention in the annual quest for a Nobel prize.

That’s my story, and in the words of Steve McQueen in his masterful performance in the movie Tom Horn, I’ll have nothing further to say about that.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 
 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I never owned a snowsled . . .

As a teenager I spent two winters in Suitland, Maryland and there were heavy snowfalls in both years, heavier than any snowfall I remember in my hometown of Columbus, Mississippi or in any other location in which I spent time in my teenage years. The lack of snow in our winters was just one of the three reasons that I never owned a snow sled. The other two reasons were that we had no hills in Columbus worthy of sledding, and even had there been mountains, my family could not have afforded a sled—after housing, food, clothing, transportation and even a slight attention to health, there was nothing left for winter pleasures such as sleds or skis or mukluks or hot toddies. The only sleds I was familiar with were the wooden-skidded sleds drawn by mules on the farm, sleds used to move heavy items such as bagged fertilizer, wood for fireplaces and kitchen stoves, and to move corn and watermelons and pumpkins from the field to storage. No, we never tried sliding downhill on those sleds—never even considered it!

I arrived at Union Station in Washington, D.C. in December to live with my brother and his family in Suitland, Maryland and a heavy snow fell early in the spring. I had no sled, but some of my new friends in Carry Homes where my brother lived had sleds, and all were generous in sharing them with me. My brother’s duplex sat at the top of a long and fairly steep hill, and most of the sledders in the neighborhood favored that hill for sledding. I quickly became adept at sledding—it seemed to come natural to me—not that sledding is difficult to learn, because gravity does most of the work. The sled operator needs only learn to steer the sled by the sled’s handle grips and body movements and learn how to avoid anything that might impede the sled’s race to the bottom of the hill.

Yep, sledding came easy for me and I reveled in it, but I learned, late one evening on a cold and still night after the other sledders had gone home, that I still had a lot to learn about sledding. One of my playmates abandoned his sled at the top of the hill near my house, and I appropriated it for some late night sledding. There were several cars parked on the hill, but only one on the right side—keep that one in mind—but the center was open and I made several speed runs to the bottom, exalting in the bitter cold, red cheeked and nose running faster than I could keep it licked off, and I felt really happy and alive—too happy for the feeling to last.

During the day I had seen some of the kids sledding backwards down the hill, and I decided to try it. Got the picture? Can you guess what happened on my first try? If you guessed that I slid under the only car parked on the right side of the street, you win the stuffed gorilla. At the beginning of my slide I kept an eye turned over my shoulder, but as the ride progressed I became careless, feeling that I had already mastered backwards sledding.

The sled had no trouble clearing the underside of the sedan that it went under, the only auto parked on the right side of the street. It continued its journey under the rear bumper, the muffler, the transmission, the engine and the front bumper without slowing and thence to the bottom of the hill, but its successful trip did not include me. I stopped abruptly when my head hit the rear bumper.

I don’t know how long I lay on my stomach under the car, but I know that when I awoke I had a huge goose egg on the back of my head and a headache—no blood, but the mother of all headaches. I remained there for awhile, speculating on whether I should turn myself in for needed medical attention—for a concussion, perhaps, or loss of memory, or the possibility of broken speech and uncontrollable movements indicating severe brain damage. The more I considered it the longer the list of adverse possibilities became. At one point I felt that I was the victim of all those problems, but after awhile the headache began to subside and the goose egg, although still very large, was a bit less sensitive.

I crawled out from under the car, wandered around in the cold night air for awhile to get my bearings and finally trudged home, entered the house and announced to all that sledding was very tiring and that I was going to retire early. I never told anyone about the time I stupidly slid downhill backwards on a sled and had my ride interrupted by a car bumper. You, the reader, are learning about it at the same time my children are.

Eventually the goose egg disappeared, and in that winter and the following winter I had ample opportunities to go sledding—for some unaccountable reason I never sledded again. Once was enough for me—in that slide downhill with me facing uphill, I learned everything that one should do and not do while in that position on a snow sled speeding downhill. And as for skiing? Forget about it!

Oh, concerning the sled I left at the bottom of the hill that night—I’m guessing the owner found it, but I have no way of knowing that he did—at least none of the kids came around asking if I had seen a lost sled.

That’s my story about sledding and I’m sticking to it!

 
 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,