Chapter 1 -- Homecoming Dance
[JMR202003081754 Chapter split, start here instead: Chapter 1.0 -- Homecoming Dance -- Midland Airfield.
Text below is a previous version.
]My flight to Japan from the Missionary Training Center had gone through Seattle to the old Tokyo Haneda airport. The flight back home went through Dallas and ended at Midland Air Field. MAF was (and is) an international airport because of the oil industry, but I had already gone through customs at San Francisco, where I had said goodbye to my three companions.
Mom waved when she saw me coming out of the passenger cabin door. Boarding tunnels were a new thing and weren't in use at MAF yet. I waved back. She waited away from the crowd at the bottom of the stairs, but when my feet hit the tarmac, she held up keys.
I grinned and made my through the small crowd to where she waited.
"Dad's teaching. He has the Colt, so you get to drive the truck. You do want to drive, don't you?"
"Yep."
"Oh, give me a hug. You aren't too big to kiss your Ma now, are you?"
In spite of all the uncertainties, it was good to be back home in west Texas after all.
At the luggage carousel, I pulled off my suitcase.
"Just one?"
"The smaller one is inside the big one. Now we're waiting for my tea box." Those big wooden tea boxes lined with sheet metal are not nearly as cheap and available now as they were then. They made sense for transfers then. They don't now. Things have changed.
"Tea box?"
The tea box came up the chute.
"That?" she asked as it came into sight.
"Yep. Sherise felt inspired to send me just enough money to ship the souvenirs home in it, packed in the rest of my clothes."
"It's big. The truck is in the parking lot. I could watch your luggage while you try to find it, or we could splurge and borrow a cart."
"What section did you park in?"
"Get a cart."
There was plenty of room for my luggage in the bed of the F-100 under the camper shell, even with the tea Box. With the luggage loaded and the cart returned, I walked around the truck, checking the vehicle and the parking lot, then got behind the wheel. It had been two years, but it felt just as natural as if it had been only a day.
"You fixed most of the dents," I observed.
We considered ourselves conscientious about others' property. Family property, maybe not so much. Both the truck and the Colt station wagon had dents from getting them in and out of the spacious parking in front of our house. Too much space, and I guess we forgot to be careful when we were running late. We really were careful about other cars, though.
"Dad's students." Many of the students in Dad's Spanish classes were taking vocational education courses, and, like most of the professors there, Dad would sometimes let them work on our cars for projects in their coursework.
I took extra care getting out of the parking lot, running through the H shift pattern with the shifter on the steering column twice before I put it into reverse, checked the mirrors, and eased off the clutch pedal, watching over my shoulder through the back window and in the mirrors as I backed the truck out of the parking space into the access lane.
It is one of the ironies of interface, that standard automobile driver jargon speaks of the clutch in opposition to the clutch's actual function.
You know, pushing the pedal down actually releases the clutch mechanism so you can shift, and letting the pedal up engages it so you can move the car. So clutching in a car means to engage the clutch release mechanism, releasing the actual clutch. And easing off the clutch pedal engages the clutch by releasing the clutch release mechanism.
When you clutch your wallet, you hold it tight.
But when you clutch in the car, the clutch mechanism lets go, so you can start the engine, shift gears, etc. In the idiom for manual transmissions, the meaning of the word is inverted.
I often think about things like that, and I may have been thinking about it then.
"There's a new highway. Do you want to take it?"
"Sure." I clutched and braked, shifted to first when the truck stopped, and headed forward for the airport exit.
"Turn right as you leave the airport instead of left."
I followed the signs from the airport and put the truck on the new local highway to Odessa. Of course I didn't recognize the road, but I recognized the general features of west Texas and I knew which direction I was headed by the reds on the twilit horizon where the sun had set. No getting lost on this new highway.
"Thanksgiving dance tonight at church. Are you up to it?"
"Oh? Mission president said it would be okay, so, yeah. Wouldn't miss it."
In the past, missionaries would wait to be interviewed by their stake presidents at home before they would consider themselves released from the more strict rules of social conduct that full-time missionaries obliged themselves to follow.
My mission president, in my final interview, gave me to understand that I would never be released from being a missionary, in other words, from my obligation to continue preaching the gospel. But he also told me that my new assignment required social interaction of various sorts, and most of the special restrictions for full-time missionaries no longer applied once the big transfer was over and I was in the care of my family.
He was specific about it. Taking a detour for a date on the flight home would be discouraged, but once my family picked me up at the airport, anything I would normally do as a member of the Church would be okay.
Of course I would meet with the stake president, President Price, within a week or two, and after that with the stake high council to give my final official report of my full-time mission, but I would not need to feel restricted until the meetings about things like dances, and even dates, if the leaders could not fit me into their schedules soon enough.
****
[JMR202003081630 split: Chapter 1.1: Homecoming Dance -- Dancing at Church.]
So I went to the dance. Strangely, what felt odd was not what other returned missionaries talk about, not the being without a companion, not the freedom to dance, but letting someone else be the one providing the sound system, letting someone else work the turntable.
Neil, one of the young men of the ward who was now preparing for his own mission, had taken over the dance music duties while I was gone. That meant I got to focus on dancing.
Very few of the young women in the group I had grown up with were there. Most were off to school. Some were already married. Many of the young men I had hung around with were at school or still on their missions.
My best church friend's little sister was there -- his really cute little sister, now grown up, now a really good-looking woman. Would I be emphasizing too much if I admitted she had a special beauty?
She had a facial scar from a childhood operation. Restorative surgery was not as advanced back then, insurance not as comprehensive, and money tighter in general, so the operation restored her health, but did not clear the nominal blemish.
Her family was supportive. The people at church were also, relatively speaking, supportive. When they moved, I think the members in their new ward were supportive, too. School, not so much. She had had to develop a certain toughness about the scar in most social settings.
But somehow she had learned to let herself shine through. And she really was beautiful, scar included.
"Lizzie Ann! How's things? Lute here too?"
"Great. No, he's still in Guatemala. He'll be another couple of months."
"Oh, that's right. What're you up to? In Lubbock?"
"Nursing school in Roswell. We heard about the dance here, so we came to crash it."
She indicated two young women that were with her, and I introduced myself.
"So you're back from Japan," she prompted.
"Yeah, just came in today. Mom told me about the dance."
"Guess you haven't talked with the stake president yet."
"Nope. But the mission president told me I can dance now I'm home. Wanna dance?"
"Yeah!" She turned to her friends and excused herself, and we went back into the gym. We closed to ballroom position and began two-stepping to a country ballad.
"You'll ask my roommates to dance, too, right?"
"Of course."
While we danced and talked, I considered asking her out. But the thought of driving 200 miles to Roswell to see her got in the way. And something just wasn't clicking for me. Might have been Beryl. Might have been Satomi. Might have been the friendship with Lute. Might have been the fact that I was still trying to figure out what goals to set for a career. Might have been many things.
I have sometimes regretted not asking her out while she was there that night. She'd known me for a long time, and, of all the women I have known, she may have been the most ready to understand me as I was, as I am.
I danced well more than half the dances. Lizzie Ann and her roommates got their share, and I danced with most of the other young women, as well. I had not really interacted much with the group two years younger than me before my mission, so I didn't feel like I knew them that well. But they remembered me and they knew I liked to dance. And they all knew I wasn't into kissing, so no one worried me about that. Well, none of the young women, anyway.
"So, Joe, if your mission president said it's all right to dance, you gonna get a kiss tonight?" Ken was one of the 14 year old group.
"Don't be juvenile," June, his sister, chided him.
"Ken, ya gotta be kidding," I shook my head. "From whom?"
"Anybody! If it's not off limits, ..."
"Definitely not planning on working that fast."
Why it always felt to me like the young women my own age were scared I was going to try to kiss them, I'm not sure. Maybe it was all in my own head. I sure never tried to kiss any of them. Never had kissed anyone besides my mom and my sisters. I would be 26 before my first kiss.
Some people doubt me when I say that. What can I say? It was not my goal to refrain from kissing. It just didn't happen. I never liked to force things. What was not was not.
Many people asked me about my plans, and I talked about taking general education classes at Odessa College, where my dad taught, while looking for a full four-year college to go to. It would save me a lot of money to get two years out of the way at home.
Lizzie Ann asked if I were looking at medicine, but I told her I was looking more at physics and electrical engineering. Before my mission, I had thought working as a TV repair tech would be fine, and give me time to tinker. But during my mission, I had decided I should set my sights higher, in the academic sense.
I still was not really considering Brigham Young University, although, for extending my Japanese language skills, BYU would be the logical choice.
"Well isn't it Mary?"
My first name is Marion. People usually call me Joe, for my middle name. Sister Patton and another of the women at church had teased me when I was younger, calling me Mary or Josephine. It had initially upset me. But Mom said they just wanted to see me react. So I quit reacting, and they quit teasing. Mostly.
"Hi, Sister Patton." It really no longer bothered me.
"So how long have you been back?"
"Just got back."
"I'm surprised that you were able to speak with President Price so quickly."
"My interview with the stake president will be in two weeks." I decided to bait her in return, and ignore the question she was implying.
"But you're here at this dance alone? Of course you haven't been dancing?"
"And waste the opportunity? Of course I've been dancing."
"But what about the rules?"
"Rules?"
"Mission rules."
"I'm just doing what my mission president told me to do in his final interview."
"Oh, really?"
"He said that once my mom picked me up at the airport, the rules that apply are the rules for any good member of the Church."
"Does President Price know about this?"
"He mentioned it to my parents, so I guess so."
"Well, if that were true, what would keep you from just kissing a girl?"
"I never was one to kiss a woman without permission, and I'm not planning on working that fast tonight."
I saw Lizzie Ann come out into the hall. "Hey, Lizzie Ann, you want to dance this song, don't you?"
"Sure!"
And I made my escape.
I really should have asked Lizzie Ann out. Next I heard, she was engaged to a guy from New Mexico.
I stayed after the closing prayer was said and the last song played to help clean up, then went home to bed.
*****
[JMR202003081704 split: Chapter 1.2: Homecoming Dance -- Work.]
Mom suggested I take the newspaper route back over for school books and dating money. While I was in Japan, one of my old managers at the Odessa American circulation department had asked if I was available, and she had taken on one of my old routes in my stead while I was on my mission -- mostly for exercise and for talking to the neighbors. She said she was now ready to start just walking without the newspapers for exercise.
Dad was not enthusiastic. "You're not going to save up enough money for school with a paper route."
"It's enough to go to OC. With an associate's degree, I should have better leverage for part-time work while I go to a four-year school."
"I don't think that's the way it works. Why don't you go see if Texas Instruments will hire you back on?"
I had worked for TI as an assembly line test and repair technician, at the plant near the airport, for about six months before my mission.
"Dad, I never really came up to speed when I was working for them."
"Then why did they put you on the startup Speak-n-Spell line?"
"'Cause I wasn't productive anywhere else."
I now realize that probably was not true.
"What was it you designed for them? You said you did something the engineers were too busy to do."
"Power supply regulator circuit for the test station power supplies. But it was just a hack, a stop-gap until they could get an engineer to do the real job."
"Did they say anything about talking with them again after your mission was done?"
"No. I got the impression they were disappointed that I was dropping out, but not that unhappy."
There, too, I now think I may have misinterpreted their efforts to understand my need to go serve my God.
"You won't know for sure unless you go back and apply again."
I didn't have a good answer for that, but I never went back to TI to find out.
Chika once said, when I mentioned I had worked for TI before my mission, that I should have gone back to TI. I could have taken classes at OC and UTBP in the evenings. With my broken Japanese being better than the nothing that was the option then, TI would have sent me to TI Japan after I was up to speed, and then Chika and I would have met when I went down to the Kansai area for some single's activity with the Church. And I would have had a stable job and money when we got married.
You can hypothesize anything when you start with a known false premise, and no one can prove you wrong. Can't prove you right, either, but that's apparently beside the point.
On the other hand, if it was right to marry Chika, if the Lord had led us in spite of the mistakes we made on the way, perhaps He would have led us to each other even if I had followed the better road. Hypothesis contrary to fact, but God does love his children.
So Mom and I went to the Odessa American offices and made the necessary arrangements, and I started delivering newspapers in the afternoons and weekend mornings in December. That gave me a small, consistent framework to start reaching back out to the world in, and time to think.
And time to try to read that Japanese novel, practically one character at a time.
During the weeks that followed, I applied for readmission to Odessa College, went to talk with the stake leaders, and generally tried to figure my life out.
****
I opened the door to my dad's office at the college. "Dad, Mom said you needed ..."
Dad was not in his office. A very striking women my age was, however, seated at his desk, working on something that looked like Dad's tests.
"Uh, hi."
"Hello." She turned to greet me, and stood up. "You must be Professor Reeves's son, Joe."
She was even more striking when she stood up. Slender, and about as tall as me, she was dressed in a sheer but demur two-layer dress of blues and deep reds which revealed the facts of her curves while keeping the details hidden. Beauty pageant good-looks. Just as attractive as Lizzie Ann.
Some of the women at church dressed similarly for Sunday meetings.
When I was twelve, I'd find myself distracted, trying to discreetly observe the curves. And then I'd have to correct both my thoughts and behavior. Or not correct, depending on my mood, but I was self-aware enough to understand that looking made it even harder to talk with them, and inability to talk with them was not what I wanted.
I didn't know the phrase "objectifying women", but I understood parts of the problem from a practical side.
Somewhere along that time, Elder Packer gave his talk, "To Young Men Only", and I took the counsel about controlling thoughts to heart. It took a few years, and I was never perfectly able to exercise self-control, but the efforts at self-control made it much less awkward to be try to be sociable.
When I was sixteen, I tried to refrain from judging ill of the women who dressed that way, for their willingness to cater to fashion more than to sense. Judging them was another thing that made it hard to talk with them.
Objectification does seem to be a double trap. I sort of understood the concept, even if I hadn't yet heard the term, but I still wasn't quite getting beyond the boundaries of the juvenile interpretation of René Descartes's tautology, "I think, therefore I Am."
It takes practice to communicate with a person, instead of with your internal concept of the person, and I had spent most of my practice time through high school immersed in science fiction and fantasy novels. Good novels, but my mom was probably right. Averaging a hundred a year was probably too much, and, while I was exposed to good ideas through such greats as Bradbury, there was way too much Heinlein and Clarke.
During my mission, I was able to come to somewhat of an ability to ignore the clothes and the makeup and see through the socially enforced elements of presentation to focus on the person. Somewhat, if I were not taken too much be surprise.
Anyway, for ten seconds or so I was struggling to keep my eyes from straying. I think I succeeded, but I'm not sure. Only she would know whether where my eyes first went made her uncomfortable, and she never mentioned it.
"Uhm, yeah. That's me."
I thought about asking who she was and what she was doing there. Dad hadn't mentioned hiring anyone, and the students he hired never dressed like this to work for him, that I knew of. Jeans and a tee were the usual.
She didn't make me ask. "I'm Julia. I'm doing some work for your father. He just stepped out."
Right. Sure. No. Something doesn't add up.
"Oh. Well, my mom asked me to drop this off for him." I put whatever it was on his desk, in a place where it wouldn't be in her way.
"I hear you've just returned from serving a mission in Japan."
"Maa, sore wa sō desu ga."
"That's Japanese?"
"Oh, sorry. Yeah. It means something like 'Well, that's right.'"
"Sounds cool."
Somehow I stumbled through introducing myself and learning a little about her. She was from a good Baptist family, considered herself to have a witness of Christ. And she was getting ready to transfer to a four year school, I forget now which.
****
"So what do you think of Julia?"
"You could have warned me. Really, Dad, next time you want to set me up, warn me. I'm not offended, but is she?"
"She saw your picture and I told her a little about you and she seemed interested."
"If I'd known even that much, I'd have been better prepared to make intelligent conversation."
"You won't hold it against her?"
"No. But we sure struggled to find something to talk about. She's a Baptist, Dad."
"You're not prejudiced." This was both an assertion and a command.
"We can share about Jesus. We can share scriptures from the Bible. How am I going to talk with her about Abinidi or Mosiah in the Book of Mormon? Or about the temple? I'm not as shy as I used to be, but I need more common ground."
"How are you going to know if you don't give it a try? Give her a chance, man."
"When? It's not like we're going to have reasons to spend time together."
We did end up bumping into each other in Dad's office and talking several times after that. Talked about religion and plans for the future, talked about some of my mission experiences, talked about her interest in serving as a missionary for the Baptists. I even went to visit her congregation once during the winter semester, and I met her folks.
But she wasn't interested in talking about certain things that were important to me, and we just mutually didn't decide to pursue things as she prepared to transfer schools.
That is to say, I never really knew what she made of me, and I already had other women that I was struggling with my feelings for.
*****
Beryl, the girl I had nursed a terrible crush on since middle school, whom I had written to during the first year of my mission, and who had replied maybe twice, was in Lubbock attending Texas Technical University. My best friend outside of church, Rodrick, was there, too. And Texas Tech was a pretty decent technical school, even had a good school of medicine, the one Lute would be attending when he got back from his mission.
I called Beryl and she said she could talk with me before lunch, on, I think it was, the next Thursday.
So I called Rodrick up and he said I could roll out a sleeping bag on his floor so I could check the school out and talk to Beryl in the morning. He indicated he questioned my motivations, my rationality, and my sanity, but other than that did not offer advice. He knew most of my history with Beryl.
After delivering papers Wednesday afternoon, I drove the three hours to Lubbock. Rodrick was studying, so we didn't spend more than a half hour talking about the last two years and our plans for the future. He didn't seem much interested in microprocessors, either, preferring analog circuits. 8080 vs. 6800 was a non-question to him.
In the morning, I went to the school offices and got a course catalog and other information. Then I went to meet Beryl in the school cafeteria.
For what it might mean, she was nicely dressed, in something of the same sort of fashion as Julia had been wearing when we first met. Maybe it was the "in" fashion that fall.
I really don't remember our conversation, except that it was strained. I was realizing that I had spent eight years of my life idealizing a young woman when I did not even know enough about her to ask intelligent questions about her life and her plans. Even though I did not yet know the word "objectify" in this context, I realized I had given my heart to an idea, a dream, not a real person.
As beautiful as she was, her physical beauty no longer gave me the kind of motivation that had once pushed me out of my comfort zone to talk to her in middle school, that had in times past sent me out now and then just to ride my bike past her house and wonder what she was doing.
I vaguely recall that I mentioned I might be returning to Japan in the future, and that I was studying electronics and planning to study physics, and she didn't seem especially impressed. Japan, especially, didn't seem to interest her. She was proceeding in her study of childhood education, and, ironic as it now seems, that held no interest for me at the time.
Church never came up, but while we talked I became sure our differences in religion and culture were as much a barrier to her then as they had been in high school, and as they were beginning to feel to me there in the cafeteria.
I'm not sure what I expected, but there was no chemistry, and no voices of angels telling me to fly in the face of logic and continue my pursuit of her. All I could see was evidence that we had never had much in common and were apparently headed in different directions.
We didn't even talk about having lunch together, just said our goodbyes.
I went back to get my stuff and talk a bit more with Rodrick between his classes.
"How'd it go?"
"We talked."
"And?"
"I guess we really don't have much in common, and we seem to be heading different directions."
He grinned. "I figured you'd figure it out pretty soon."
"Had to try."
"Braver than me."
"Still not dating?"
"Marriage scares me."
We talked a bit more and I headed home. Arrived in time to get the afternoon's load of newspapers delivered.
I still, every now and then, wonder whether I made a mistake in letting the differences be too much of a barrier. There must have been some reason for the terrible crush, for the torch I had born for eight years, other than her physical beauty and the fact that she had taken the trouble to ask me in 7th grade algebra class why I didn't do homework when it was clear I could make better grades.
On the other hand, making my choices clear concerning Beryl allowed me to pursue a different path.
Crushes.
My sister Louise had explained her philosophy about crushes to me when I was about twelve. Crushes were one kind of love, an appreciation of the good qualities in people. She had crushes on many people, both male and female. None of them were people she was interested in marrying. It was one kind of love, but not the kind of love you give to your marriage partner.
Being in love was different. There were things you only did in marriage, and having crushes, being willing to appreciate the good in others, was not engaging in infidelity to Howard, the guy she was dating and considering marrying at the time.
She was seventeen or eighteen at the time, and I figured she knew what she was talking about.
It made sense. Not just to my mind, but in my heart, it felt right to be able to love people that I wasn't planning on marrying -- not to want to make love to them, but to appreciate them and their good qualities, to have tender feelings towards them, and to want them to be happy. And even to reach out to help them be happy when I had legitimate opportunity.
And that helped me recognize that I wasn't falling in love with about every girl I ever met. I just developed crushes easily. And I should not be worried about it.
It was a great burden off my shoulders. If fidelity to the feelings of my heart did not require me to learn to be a Don Juan, neither did fidelity to the people I loved require me to become a King David. (Or a Brigham Young.)
There are things you only do for love in marriage, and if you keep those separate from the other things you do for love, love can be shared with everyone.
So my sister Louise helped me untangle the wisdom of God which I was learning by means of the Spirit of God in my heart, through prayer and studying the scriptures, and separate it from the human wisdom which I was learning from the world around me, from the radio and newspapers, in stores, at school, and even through the outward church -- and also even from ideas I had brought with me from before birth. She helped me see that there would be a way for me to learn the laws of man but follow the laws of God.
I had a crush on Louise, too, of course, but I had crushes on all four of my big sisters.
*****
Crushes. Satomi Mihara.
Sister Mihara was a fireball of a missionary. In my first area, Tokorozawa, she had lead out in ways that both helped the Elders and threatened their sense of authority. I think I was not the only one who developed a crush on her. Some resented their feelings toward her, but she seemed able to catch them off their guard and put them at ease.
About half-way through my mission, I had been assigned to Nakano Ward in Tokyo when Sister Mihara was there, and she had encouraged me not to give up trying to learn the lessons we were supposed to teach from. Having her encouragement, I asked the mission president to allow me to study the lesson plans using the Kanji (the Japanese/Chinese logograms commonly used in Japan) instead of the Rōmaji (Japanese written using the letters of the Latin script which we use in English and many other European languages).
("Rōmaji" and "Kanji" are examples of the use of the Rōmaji script.「ローマ字」 is "Rōmaji" written in Japanese script (katakana and Kanji), and 「漢字」 is "Kanji" written in Kanji. I'm sure you really wanted to know.)
I couldn't see the meaning in the Romaji version of the lesson plans that most foreign missionaries studied from. To many homonyms and near-homonyms with no familiar roots. The Kanji are the roots. Without the Kanji, I couldn't see the meaning, and without the meaning, the words and the ideas would not stick in my mind. But Kanji study had sometimes become a temptation that some of the missionaries in the past had needed to overcome, and most of the Church mission organizations in Japan strongly recommended against it, to the point of making it a mission rule.
So I promised the mission president not to study the Kanji themselves too much, and he gave me special permission to study the lessons from the Kanji version, and I finished learning them in a month.
Somehow, I developed a crush on Sister Mihara's companion, Sister Hummer, too. As I say, it was too easy for me to develop crushes.
While I was in Nakano, I had a dream in which I went in to the mission home for my monthly interview with the mission president, and Sister Mihara and Sister Hummer were waiting outside the mission president's office. At least, I thought it was them when I woke up. I talked with them in my dream, then went in to talk with the mission president, and he told me that I would next be assigned to a female companion. I asked who, and he asked me whether I had considered the two sisters I had met coming in. And I acknowledged that I had.
In the light of my experiences since then, I can see that this dream was at least partly influenced by the Holy Spirit, to help me foresee and work out essential parts of my path ahead, and that the particulars of the dream were not important. It was something of a dramatic demonstration of what my mission president would tell me at the end of my two years, that I would still be on a mission, so to speak, receiving my new mission assignments more directly from God, and that I would be required to choose for myself, to a certain extent, both my assignments and my companions in those assignments.
At the time, I found myself wondering whether I might find myself being called to get married before my two year assignment as a missionary in Japan was finished. The adversary of our souls has various ways to confuse us, including trying to get us to pervert our revelations of truth.
I talked with the mission president about that dream, and he acknowledged that the might be some meaning in it, maybe literal meaning, maybe not. On the next transfer, I was assigned to Edogawa Ward.
One transfer later, Sister Mihara was assigned to Edogawa, as well. There, during our branch study sessions, she coached me about my shyness, and, in the process, told me she loved me. I understood her to mean it as a fellow missionary, and responded by trying to get out of my shell a bit more. Not that she wasn't cute enough, just that both of us were following the rules and focusing on the work.
And I was transferred to Kumagaya, the next transfer.
Sister missionaries were called for a year and a half at the time, and Sister Mihara finished her mission a few months later, while I was in Kumagaya. Missionaries were not allowed to write each other during their missions, but after the missions were done, there were no such restrictions. Satomi wrote me a postcard while I was in Kumagaya, and I wrote back. Both of us kept focused on the work in our letters.
Now I was home. And, after that conversation on the Texas Tech campus, my mind was clear of concerns about Beryl. I wrote Satomi Mihara a letter asking whether she would consider dating me, if I visited Osaka. That was my awkward way of asking permission to court her. It felt awkward asking, anyway. I don't think there is a way to ask that question that isn't awkward.
The lack of Japanese courses at Texas Tech pretty much decided me against applying to attend there after Odessa College. That, and the clarification about where things would not head with Beryl.
When the late pre-registration system became available for classes at OC, I chose my classes and bought books -- general education and electronics classes.
At the college bookstore, I found a book on non-verbal communication. It was written from the assumption that all relationships are founded in a sex-driven power competition dynamic, and it gave me a headache to read, but I learned some useful things that I had not known about what people are saying with their bodies.
I was aiming, in the courses I chose, for an Associate's degree in electronics to help get work to support my college studies, and on being able to transfer some of the course credits to the four-year school. I didn't want to repeat things I'd learned in high school, and I didn't want to repeat things in the four-year school, either.
OC let me skip the classes I thought I was good on, if the teachers agreed. Jackson Brown, the electronics technology teacher, was a friend of my dad's. With his permission, I skipped the introduction to electricity and the basic Direct Current (DC) circuits classes.
I wanted to skip the Alternating Current (AC) circuits class and go straight to the class in amplifiers and the microprocessors class, but when I was talking with my brother Denny on the phone, he suggested I take some easy classes to give myself a little time for doing other things.
Even though I wanted to finish in a year, if I could, I allowed him to persuade me. So I signed up for the AC circuits class instead of skipping it.
(FWIW, the real me skipped as many classes as he could, and that caused me trouble in the real world. The version of me in this story may be a little smarter.
The counselors did warn me I might run out of classes for the Associate's degree in electronics if I skipped too many, but we discussed substitutions, and I thought I could work it out.
The introduction to microprocessors class would use Intel's 8080, which was disappointing. But Doctor Brown was a friend of my dad's, and he agreed that he would let me use Motorola's 6800, if I could get the necessary hardware by the time I took the class.
My parents listened while I talked about what I wanted to do, but refrained (mostly) from giving advice.
Well, Dad was insistent that I would earn the money for school myself. They would be willing to give me free room and board if I studied at Odessa College or at the University of Texas at the Permian Basin, but I would pay for my classes and materials myself.
*****
By the Christmas dance, Neil, the young man who had been doing the music while I was gone, had left on his mission. So I got to provide the sound system and some of the music one more time.
"Well, Mary, I must say your taste in music is good. We brought you something from the refreshment table, since you're so busy." Sister Patton and Sister Bell stood by the turntable with cookies on a paper napkin and a cup of punch.
"Thank you, Sister Patton. Of course, this is not nearly all mine. Brother Orange brought all of the recent stuff." I accepted the refreshments and found a place to set them down.
Brother Orange, who was the young men's advisor, worked for one of the local radio stations. He was the one who helped the young men plan the dance, including dance contests and other ice-breaker activities. When I had pointed out that all my music was at least two years old, he had volunteered to bring more recent music.
I helped with the turntable and with the activities during the dance.
"Well, Josephine, can I ask a question?"
"What's that, Sister Bell?"
"You dance with all the girls, why don't you ever ask them out?"
"Good question." I looked around. Only Brother Orange was close enough to hear over the music, and he wasn't listening. "I guess figuring out why all the girls ran away when I tried to ask them out is something I'll be working on now."
I'm not sure why they asked. Both of them had daughters my age, daughters who were now safely married.
When the dance was over, as a reward for my work, Brother Orange let me choose one of the albums he had brought for prizes, and I took home John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy.
I set the sound system back up in my room when I got home, and then listened to the album on my headphones while checking details of my schedule for the coming semester. Suddenly, I was hearing the Japanese in the background of "Kiss Kiss Kiss":
Daitero Anata ... (Hug me, my love ...)
Daite ... (Hold me ...)
Motto daite ... (Hold me more ...)
Daite! (Keep holding me!)
"Daitero" is a familiar command form of the verb "daku/idaku" (「抱く」、 approximately, "embrace"). In this context, either "hug me" or "hold me" works as a translation, although, in the first three instances, a bit of a scrubbed translation. The use of "Anata" here, by a woman for her lover, is an intimate form of "You", and makes the context rather clear -- even if the sound effects don't.
I understood her to be saying that climax was not her goal. Maybe it was important, but the pillow talk, the deep and intimate conversation concurrent with the act, and the prolonged physical comfort of embrace after, were at least as important, and maybe more.
The album reads to me, not as a glorification of objectified sex, but as saying that sex is supposed to be one small part of the processes of negotiating the wilderness of a marriage/love relationship, and Yoko is on record as saying that is what both she and John intended.
I generally skipped that song when I played the album after that. I didn't think I really needed to be encouraged to repeat that part of the lessons they were trying to teach. Not by myself.
[Backed up at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2020/01/bk-33209-homecoming-dance.html.]
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