Talking about my girls

In 1969, at the University of Miami, I had two girlfriends.

Two solid, groovy, choice, bitching, far out girlfriends.

Yes, at the same time.

I know you find this hard to believe but you don’t remember the Sixties.

When experimenting with life was the norm.

The wild times.

The “anything goes” times.

And one of the first things to go were brasseries.

In these crazy-hippie times bras were not only optional but disfavored.

Men’s eyes feasted on a steady diet of bouncing nipples.

Both of my girls would not be caught dead wearing a bra.

Both of my girls wore tattered bell bottom blue jeans which accentuated their perfectly-shaped derrières.

One of my girls wore a red, white and blue bandana which accentuated her smile.

While the other wore a blue and white bandana which accentuated her pride.

Both of my girls bathed in a purple haze of sweet pot and hashish smoke.

Didn’t we all.

But only one of my girls attempted self actualization, while the other scrounged to meet her physiological needs.

But only one of my girls represented freedom.

While other wanted to enslave me and showered me in gifts and hyperbolic promises.

Tangible touch-them-now gifts as pretty as the mountains of the Golan and as strong as Jerusalem stone.

She offered “free love” but I knew, even then, that love was never free.

But the company she kept included crude, bigoted, liars and bullies.

Men who showered her in lust and me in fear of being contaminated with the germs of moral bankruptcy.

Reptilian-brained creatures rising from primordial swamps and dilapidated sewers.

Reptilian-brained creatures carrying odors that pushed my belly deep into my throat, forcing gastric acids to coat and burn my constitutional tract.

While the other, with the calmness of the Dead Sea, doled out large portions of love and security.

And her friends sang Beatle songs, danced as is they were tripping and played soft guitars around smooth river-stone camp fires.

One of these girls played easy, while the other played hard to get.

And I knew one day I would have to decide between them.

And that decision would make all the difference.