When You Live In A Small Isolated Village

Living in Lordship was great. It was very small, it was quite isolated and it had just about what you needed and not more.

There were four paperboys, of which I was one. Three soda jerks in the drugstore, of which I was also one. Maybe six altar boys at most in the Catholic church and, no surprise, I was also one of them.

There a downside to all that: everybody out there knew me. I couldn’t get away with anything and couldn’t get away with even thinking of getting away with anything. Somehow, they knew what was in my mind.

I might deliver papers to someone who also came to the drugstore. Maybe even a trifecta: newspaper, drugstore *and* they went to my church. You can bet I kept my hands off their daughter.

Normally, having a long, unlit beach a block down the street (we only had two major roads and a whole bunch of minor cross streets) is an invitation to make out like crazy. But we also had a very picturesque lighthouse which rotated a double beam every twenty seconds. You can hardly get to second base in twenty seconds without getting caught every time the light swept the beach. A homerun was out of the question.

The Catholic Church head usher chaired the Protestant Church steeple repair fundraiser.